by James Somers
“Ishbe!” Sadie shouted.
Cole’s reserve ended there. The boy flew into action. Ishbe came at him, striking with the Bo. Cole blocked each attack with hands and feet like steel. Anger burned in his eyes.
“Your mother was attacked,” Ishbe continued. “Your father was murdered. What will you do to the one who did this?”
Cole cried out, going on the attack suddenly. He brought down his right forearm upon the Bo staff as Ishbe attempted to block him. His attack snapped the hardened wood cleanly in half. The pieces clattered to the polished floor.
The boy was breathing hard, but Ishbe knew that fatigue had nothing to do with it. Cole’s fury had just been unleashed. It came with a somewhat overwhelming sensation of power. He halted before his master.
“Do you feel that, Cole?” Ishbe asked.
Sadie stood by, watching. She said nothing.
“You told me never to strike out in anger,” Cole said. He was trying to think through what he had just experienced.
“That’s because you were not ready,” Ishbe said. “Anger gives you power, focuses your energies in a way that nothing else can.”
“I don’t understand,” Cole answered.
“Of course, you don’t,” Ishbe admitted. “Until now, you’ve had no source of anger. Only through tragedy can a warrior come to this place in his training. Only through suffering can you become perfect. Have you not read this in the Word of the Almighty, Cole?”
“I’ve read that the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God,” he answered back.
“Is it the righteousness of God for your father to be murdered by a beast?” Ishbe asked. “Is it the righteousness of God for that same murdering creature to go free when you have the ability to destroy it where it hides in the Underworld?”
“I don’t understand,” Cole said. “What beast are you referring to?”
Ishbe straightened. “The dragon that killed your father and his elf warriors,” he reported. “The dragon comes from the Underworld, beyond the Realm of Abomination. Your father and mother went there with warriors to destroy the beast before it could destroy you and all of the other Descendants. If ever the goblins were a threat to the safety of your people, Cole, this is much more.”
Sadie glared at Ishbe, but she did not contradict him or interrupt.
He continued unabated. “You and Sadie have the ability to stop this creature.”
“Me?” she asked.
“You possess the weapon,” Ishbe said. “Malak-esh. It alone can vanquish the creature. You know of its power?”
Sadie glanced at Cole and then nodded to Ishbe. “I do.”
“Cole possesses the training and the fury to slay this wicked beast,” he continued. “Only a child can open the gateway into the Underworld. Not even an angel could do it, but you can. It is your calling, your destiny to rid the world of this threat. Your father’s murder was the catalyst. Now, the reaction is within you. The fire within can vanquish this abomination and save us all.”
“But we cannot—” Sadie began to protest.
“Go to the Underworld?” Ishbe asked, cutting her off. “Of course, you can. Your parents would not allow it, but doing this would save their lives. Your parents do not wish you to be burdened with their safety. They do not understand that you are the only ones who can do this thing.”
He looked at Cole again. “Your mother is even now enslaved spiritually to this dragon. She will not awaken until the beast is dead.”
Bewilderment overcame Cole. He did not know what to do. “Master, why now? Why have you only now told me of these things?”
Ishbe’s fierce countenance fell as he knelt before his young apprentice. “My dear boy,” he said, seeming suddenly exhausted, “I had hoped with all of my heart that it would never come to this calamity. Now, I know of no other recourse. I was certain that your grandfather, knowledgeable as he is, would never tell you these things for fear that you would take this journey upon yourself. He would not want you to face—”
“—Reality,” Cole said, finishing his thought.
Friendship
We remained with Donatus in the infirmary with Charlotte. I had asked the elf king to explain what had happened and what was going on. The explanation he gave was far more complicated than I could have ever imagined.
“You remember that Oliver told you about my brother and me, that we are Sons of Anarchy.”
I nodded. Sons of Anarchy was a term meaning those who were first generation Descendants of the Fallen. “I remember.”
Donatus sighed. He looked much older because of this sickness that had overtaken him. Fatigue was only the half. He seemed to be wasting away from whatever plagued him.
“What you probably weren’t aware of was the timing of our births,” Donatus continued. “Laish and I were born of the angel, Samiel, approximately four thousand years ago. He had fallen in love with a woman called Marcia. She was a king’s daughter and very lovely to behold.”
“I’ve read of this in God’s Word,” I interjected. “Genesis chapter six.”
“Yes,” he said. “That is the reference. What you wouldn’t know from the scriptures is that Samiel was the first to happen upon this. Being cast out of the heavenly realm to the earth, he truly loved Marcia, our mother. However, it was the others who sought to use the unprecedented results of that union in an attempt to overthrow God’s plans for humanity. When they realized what could be done, they took wives of the daughters of men. The Descendant races were born.”
“My father told me somewhat of these things,” Sophia said. “What I don’t understand is why Tom and Charlotte were in Siberia.”
“I sent them,” Donatus said. “You see, among those who rebelled against the Almighty were certain cherubim, living creatures. Four of them are mentioned in Revelation. Three others followed Lucifer. Their power was used to create the various realms we now inhabit on the spiritual plane, like Greystone and Tidus and Xandrea.”
“All of the spiritual realms?” I asked.
“Basically, yes,” Donatus confirmed. “When the Almighty began to punish this rebellion, these cherubim were confined to the Underworld beyond the Realm of Abominations.”
“What is this Realm of Abominations?” Sophia asked.
“Not every thing born of angels and man was a moral being. Some things were more beast than man, curious creatures that were too dangerous to be allowed to roam the world, too powerful to be contained by man’s machinations. These were placed beyond the lock. A keystone was placed on its path through the heavens arriving every one thousand years. At this time, and this time only, the keystone could be called down to the lock.”
“And you believe this has happened?” I asked.
“Tom and the warriors I sent with him were killed trying to prevent this,” Donatus said. “Nevertheless, it has happened anyway. I witnessed it in my vision.”
“He must have only had time to save Charlotte,” Sophia surmised.
Donatus nodded. “He loved her very much. I only hope she survives this. The power unleashed when the keystone and lock were brought together may have more to do with her condition than a mere fall through a wardrobe.”
I paced around the room, considering what Donatus had told us. “One question still remains: why would someone want to open this prison and free the cherubim?”
“What they created they can also un-create,” Donatus said.
“Someone wants to destroy all Descendants.”
Cole glared at Sadie.
“We cannot,” she said for the third time.
Ishbe had gone, leaving them in the gymnasium alone. When he had left, nearly a half hour before, he had left them with this one plea. “I’ve trained you the best I know how,” he said. “I hope, for all our sakes that you two can do what must be done.”
“Stop looking at me like that,” Sadie said. “Our parents would kill us.”
Cole’s expression hardened. “Better to have angry parents than dead
ones,” he said. “Already, this creature has killed my father, Sadie. And it almost killed my mother. I cannot stand by while it destroys everyone else. What happens when this beast comes for your parents, and we’ve done nothing to stop it?”
“Stop it, Cole,” she pleaded. “You don’t know that what Ishbe said is true.”
“My father was killed,” he reasoned. “He was trying to stop it.”
“I know and I’m sorry.”
“Do you really believe that Donatus doesn’t know what he’s talking about either?” Cole asked. “He was trying to explain the same thing. They just didn’t want us to hear. We’re only children in their eyes, but Ishbe has been training me to do this.”
“He only told you that now,” Sadie said.
“I wasn’t ready before,” Cole argued. “And he mentioned a weapon that you had. When did you receive Malak-esh?”
Sadie pulled the weapon from nothingness. It had arrived from the cache of items she kept with her in a spiritual closet of sorts—a pocket of space invisible to others where items could be stored and retrieved when needed. Her father had taught her the trick years ago.
“Oliver was killed just prior to our coming here,” Sadie said. “He had willed the weapon to come to me upon his passing.”
“The beast killed him?”
“Southresh, the angel,” Sadie said, correcting him.
“Still, you only just received the weapon. Isn’t that a bit coincidental?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Now is when we need it to vanquish this dragon in the Underworld,” Cole said.
Sadie considered his logic. It was hard to refute what they had been told by Ishbe and what had happened to Tom and Charlotte in Siberia.
“If you’re afraid—” Cole began.
“I’m not afraid,” Sadie said, rallying her courage. Then, reluctantly, she said, “I’ll go with you.”
“Then we had better go now, while everyone is distracted with Mother in the infirmary.
Sadie nodded. Their course of action had been decided. The next hour would find them gathering necessary supplies, making their way secretly. Cole and Sadie both had the ability to teleport.
They met back in the empty gymnasium when they were ready. No one had followed them. They worked to construct the necessary portal together. Working from the blood bond shared with his father, Cole knew the place where he had fallen. He could get them there.
With the portal construct complete, they held hands. Wearing heavy clothing, plentiful among the stores found in Greystone, they opened the gateway. Together they stepped through. The portal closed behind them, depositing the two children far from home.
Cole bristled at the cold temperatures here near the Tunguska River in Siberia. The sun was high in the sky, but it provided no comfort. As cold as Greystone was, it was nothing like this. They wrapped their furs more tightly.
For miles and miles around them, the trees had been knocked flat. There was no vegetation left. Everything had been burned by fire.
“What happened here?” Sadie asked.
“It must have been the dragon Ishbe spoke of—the same that killed my father,” Cole replied. “I can feel that he was here, but I don’t know exactly where he died.”
“That must be where we’re headed,” Sadie said, indicating the bare patch of ground on the low lying hill ahead. Here there were no trees and no snow. Only a cylindrical object that neither of them could identify.
“We had better get going then,” Cole said, starting out carefully toward the place.
The going was precarious, since they were treading over downed trees partially covered by fresh snow. There was nowhere else to walk but across them. The mysterious object loomed ahead.
Galidel
Grayson Stone stood in the throne room of the Lycan city of Tidus. The entire chamber had been brought into subjection to him. Filled with the power of his father, Lucifer, Grayson had bested both Donatus and Laish, the elf twins. Even these Sons of Anarchy had not been able to match him.
Luxana had also played her part. The smaller fish she had subdued. And the new young queen, Sophia, was already awaiting Lux’s suggestion to end her life. Like all others found under the gaze of a sprite, she would joyfully obey.
Oliver James had also appeared with Brody inside the throne room. The elder brother among Southresh’s more recent progeny had been quickly subdued by Grayson. Luxana held sway over Brody as she had in Stone’s manor home previously.
She had him—could have killed him at any moment. There was no way that he could possibly escape. No one had been near to help him. All had been defeated. The order by Grayson, to have the young man end his life with his own sword, had been given.
But Luxana could not obey. The young man had shown mercy upon her. When the tables were turned inside the manor house in Highgate, Brody had held her life in his hands. He had chosen to spare her. She had a nearly fatal wound to show for it, but he had allowed her to live—even knowing that she might return to kill him.
She had given him a command he could not resist. Not to end his own life, but to end the life of Grayson Stone. To kill him with the Angel Fire sword and send Lucifer out of his host.
Grayson had fallen. Lucifer had been cast out. Luxana’s dream of that day should have ended there. This had not been the first time she had walked through this memory during times of restless sleep. However, the vision moved back to things she had not seen at the time—to events that had delivered Brody West to that fateful moment in the throne room at Tidus.
She saw an aged man in bad condition with an angel inside. Southresh had nearly consumed the man by the time he found Brody in Highgate. He overcame him and took him while Oliver pursued.
Bringing him to Whitehall in London, Southresh met with Anubis in the body of Kron. Luxana saw matters revealed not simply as they had been, but with eyes that saw the truth of the situation. She had not been in the presence of either of these Fallen in their mortal hosts, yet she saw them now for what they were in her vision.
They sought to bring another spirit from Tartarus, a rival to Lucifer. However, when they attempted to send that spirit into Brody, the Spirit of the Almighty already held control there, and the angel was cast out into the mortal world. He claimed the first available host he could find.
A Lycan soldier was there by happenstance. He became the vessel, and Black was suddenly in the world again. The same angel that had held sway over the Breed for so long, stealing humans and replacing them with his horrible dolls, was back in the world with a terrible purpose.
Luxana woke with a start from sleep. Redwyn lay beside her in their bedchamber. He stirred awake, finding her sitting up in their bed.
“Awake, my queen?”
She smiled at him. “Something has happened, my husband.”
He sat up with her, puzzled. Looking around the room, he found everything in order. No sounds of alarm could be heard in all of Galidel.
“What has happened?”
“A vision,” she said. “I must go.”
Redwyn asked, “Where?”
Luxana paused for a moment, considering.
“Greystone.”
Cole and Sadie stood before the large cylinder planted in the frozen earth. A circular swathe of destruction radiated away from this focal point. Like giant spokes on a massive wheel, the trees had been felled by an event which had reduced Tom and his army of elves from Xandrea to ash.
They walked around the lock, now fitted together with the plain looking, cylindrical keystone. Its color was completely black like an onyx. However, there was no reflection of light from the stone.
Three times they circled the lock, touching it, feeling the texture, searching its surface, before Sadie finally asked the obvious question. “How do we open it?”
Cole stood before one particular spot. Sadie walked around to stand behind him. Five small depressions were laid out in a horizontal pattern. Each was slightly higher or lower v
ertically than the previous.
“What is that?” Sadie asked.
Cole touched a finger to the impressions. “Some sort of code perhaps?” He touched them in consecutive order from right to left and then left to right. “Nothing.”
“Wait,” Sadie said. She reached over his shoulder, placing all five fingertips of her right hand into the depressions at the same time.
A deep thrum resounded, coming from the cylinder, radiating out through the ground. The entire lock and keystone combination descended slowly into the ground. Cole and Sadie backed away cautiously, waiting to see what would happen.
As the lock sank below ground level, a wider corkscrew stair began to unravel around it like an unfolding apple peel to its core. The lock and keystone came to a stop almost out of sight, resting in a place where amber light from an unknown source illuminated a chamber. Presumably, this must be the entrance to the Underworld.
Cole and Sadie stood at the top of the winding stair looking down into the pit which had opened up before them. “Are you sure about this?” Sadie asked. “Maybe we should get my father and mother to come with us.”
Considering their options for a moment, Cole finally said, “No, Ishbe said this was our task. We can do this. We have to do this, if we’re going to save everyone.”
“Let’s go then, before I change my mind,” Sadie replied.
“Do you have the sword ready?”
“It’s with me,” she said. “We might not want to go inside looking threatening.”
“We’re children,” Cole replied. “We’re about as far from threatening as you can get. Still, I see your point.”
He began to descend the winding stone stair. Sadie followed, watching behind them at intervals. As they came farther down, the sunlight diminished. In its place, they found amber light seeping through carved lines in the stone below, as though molten lava was flowing behind the wall.
The carvings formed complex symbols and pictograms. Neither of them understood the language which had been employed in their creation. Even the images of beasts were strange and unknown, otherworldly creatures they hoped would not be waiting for them further into their journey.