Heaven's Night
Page 38
Lucifer toppled sideways, smoky tendrils swirled from his mouth and nose. He wasn’t quite dead, not yet. I raised my sword and struck. His head rolled from his body.
I turned towards Michael. His eyes held disappointment and sadness. I could understand why. I, alone of all the Archangels, killed one of our own.
But I didn’t care. I could live with it.
Michael nodded. “It is done.”
PART VII
EPILOGUE
The spheres never recovered even after Lucifer’s fall.
Of the eight spheres conquered by Lucifer, they were tainted beyond repair. Even the ninth sphere held a taint, although much less, and became the twilight realm, a place of limbo and purgatory, between heaven and hell.
The tainted spheres took the name as Lucifer labeled them, the Nine Circles of Hell, and were reserved for those whose karmic debt, accrued by individual free will, cast them there. It was a place of horror and despair. It was no less than those who dwelled there deserved until their rebirth took them back into the physical plane for yet another chance at redemption.
The untouched higher spheres became known as the Seven Heavens. They remained pure and wholesome and filled with bliss. It was the home of the angels and those whose good karmic deeds led them there to dwell with the divine ones until their next rebirth in the physical plane.
Now, at last, my duty comes to fulfillment. This telling of my story is the last act I shall perform for Michael, for posterity, for the order of the Archangels. I have given a full accounting to the best of my recollection, my wisdom, and my understanding. Those that hath an ear, let them hear.
I sit here comfortably in the newly built Akashic Halls on the tenth sphere, or the First Heaven. I can hear Raphael’s scholars scurry outside this office organizing, cataloguing, and recording. Raphael was kind enough to allow me the use of his office to tell my tale. Only a golden bowl has been my companion as I spoke these many hours. The bowl was filled with water from the pools in the lower Akashic chambers. The water rippled and recorded as I uttered each word. I am glad the water will soon be stilled.
Requel awaits me in our cottage in the woods we had built on the ninth sphere. I wish I could have taken her to a higher sphere, but alas, she is wingless still and must remain where she is incarnated. Our cottage sits near a stream and behind it there is a lush garden with cobbled pathways, overhanging arches, and ponds filled with colorful fish. It has become our favorite place to sit and watch the sun set behind the mountains.
Our little cottage has received many visitors, far more that I would have expected. Dirael, elevated to a captain in Gabriel’s Thrones, made it a special point to visit us when he could. He alone of my war council survived. Haniel, Iobel, Shoel, Furmiel, Avenel, and the others I expect to see eventually, at some point in time, in this world or the next. Many others also paid us a call, mostly out of respect and gratitude, neither of which I deserved. Some visited us out of curiosity, and some for closure to grieve the loved ones they lost. I turned no one away.
At some point, I’m not quite certain when, the visits took on a spiritual turn, as if a journey to my simple home was a pilgrimage. Their numbers increased daily and I could not accommodate so many in my simple cottage. A large temple was eventually built a few miles from our home, and there I went daily to receive them. They travelled far and wide and would listen to me speak. I spoke of my sins, my discoveries, the truths I uncovered. The visitors became my flock and brought me contentment. I felt as if I was teaching again, as I had done so long ago in the Causal, and it suited me.
Michael, Gabriel, and the rest of my brothers and sisters came by my cottage when they could, which wasn’t often. They’re quite busy these days. I don’t envy them their task. They’re rebuilding the greatest monuments and wonders in the lower spheres before the fall and recreating them in the Seven Heavens. It is a tremendous undertaking. I hope to sit and meditate in the newly built Temple of the Eternal Springs once again as I had done on the sixth sphere many years ago before Mephistopheles turned it into a stronghold. That day will be a joyous one. I don’t know if I’ll ever visit the new Great Coliseum being constructed. Regrets are still fresh in my mind from the thousands I buried in the last one.
Michael also regretted the lives lost in the final battle and proclaimed that the hosts would not assemble again to fight brother angels, fallen or otherwise, until the end of days.
He and the other Archangels also have a new responsibility – watching carefully the development of the primordial plane. The influx of souls there from the final battle changed it much, as did the creation of Eden in the Garden of Paradise where God created the first Man and Woman.
That day was bittersweet. My son, Admael, grew up in our cottage until he was eighteen. Those were happy years, some of the happiest in all my existence. We were a family, Requel, Admael, and myself. I played with him often as he grew up, and taught him all I knew.
He grew up quickly, much too quickly. I still carry a drawing he made of us playing and splashing in a pool beneath the waterfall near our home. The drawing is crude, scribbled on parchment, with sticks and lines for arms and legs. Our heads are drawn impossibly large with big fixed grins showing how happy we were. He drew it by hand, just for me, when he was six. It sits folded and tucked away in a pocket in my tunic next to my heart. I treasure nothing more.
The baby girl, Efniel, was found in Lucifer’s palace unharmed. We searched for her parents to see if they still lived but both had been slain by Mephistopheles. Ramiel, my sister, raised Efniel in the Holy City on the fifteenth sphere and built a home there. Admael and Efniel became good friends but I knew they were far more, they were soul mates.
When God created the first Man and Woman out of the clay of the earth in the Garden of Eden, we were all there to witness it, even Requel by God’s grace. These new physical bodies He created looked exactly like angelic astral bodies, save they had no wings. But they were angels in every other way.
Requel and I both shed tears, both of happiness and sorrow, as Admael’s soul incarnated into the Man called Adam. Efniel became Eve, the first Woman. The power of their angelic souls shone within their physical flesh and they fully manifested Spirit. There they dwelled happily.
Now, I must return to the ninth, to my cottage in the woods, where Requel waits for me. We will spend the rest of our days together in peace and joy until that moment when she must return to the physical world.
I pray it will be a long time coming.
Soon after, I will fade, as I know I eventually must. I cannot escape the spiritual debt I carry and I shoulder it willingly. I have many regrets but would change nothing if I had to do it all over again. Every action, every decision, would be carried out in the exact same way.
No, that wasn’t quite true.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have slain Lucifer. If I hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have incarnated into a serpent and taken refuge in the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden to tempt my son and his wife.
But that is another story.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harry Aderton grew up with a military family, starting in South Korea and spanning the globe. Today he calls the coast of central New Jersey his home with his lovely wife Gloria and three active boys. After writing for twenty years, Heaven’s Night marks the celebratory culmination of his passion. Based on the success of Heaven’s Night, he has plans for multiple sequels to the franchise.
For more in depth information on Heaven’s Night and its sequels, visit him at www.harryaderton.com.
Table of Contents
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PART II
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PART III
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PART IV
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
PART V
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
PART VI
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PART VII
EPILOGUE