“Zeracheil called you David.”
I turned to Ali. “He did.” I could think of no reason to lie. “It’s my real name,” I said, then added, “I’d nearly forgotten.”
“David,” she said, trying it out on her tongue. “Zeracheil knew your real name. I’d have expected you to be surprised.”
“It’s an Angel,” I said. “A messenger of God. And God has perfect knowledge.”
“Then why didn’t it know you lied about having faith?”
I felt my face flush. “I didn’t lie.”
By her expression, I knew Ali saw through me. And she was right; I was no longer certain of my faith. All that happened to me, everything I’d seen and heard, had planted the seeds of doubt. It’s true I had not wanted to enter Heaven for fear of being judged; but, even more so, for fear of not being judged. I worried that here I would see the promise of judgement and reward for what they were: lies used to console and control the faithful. If you’d asked me right then, I’d have said this seemed to be the way of things, for here I was. Perhaps it was the lingering strands of my own faith asserting themselves—or, more likely, a desire to hear my own arguments from another’s lips—but I leapt to the defence of my tattered beliefs. “The Angels have greater knowledge than men, but are not omniscient. Matthew says so.”
“They cannot read the minds of men. And we would fight for them, though they wouldn’t fight for themselves.” Ali spat. “You and Matthew credit them too much.”
I ignored her sacrilege. My sacrilege. “We should be going.” I scanned the horizon for Zeracheil, and in the far distance saw half a dozen winged creatures, which might have been Angels—but they banked sharply, and I knew them for mere birds. “Zeracheil did not say how long it would take, and I would not wish to be in the wood after sun-off.” I thought about the wolves in the Sphere below and wondered aloud how much bigger the ones here might be.
“The house of Zeracheil’s is over the next rise,” Ali said, “and there are no wolves in these woods, though there are bears and other such animals that might do us harm.” With a grunt, she rolled herself off the platform onto unsteady feet, and drew her sword from it scabbard. “The animals are bigger than those in the lower Spheres, but their muscles and frames are weak by comparison. Like the Angels, they are fragile. Our swords should be sufficient protection.” She took a first tentative hop, moving in the same manner I had decided worked best. “You are right, David. I believe a walk in Heaven would do us both good.”
With that, she set off down the path, and I stared after her, open-mouthed, wondering if the Angels had told her these things—or if perhaps this wasn’t her first time in Lower Heaven.
A Choir of Angels
Loping—which is what I’d come to think of our strange way of moving—through the wood, I was taken by the size of the flora and fauna. Flowers, plants, and trees were half again the size I would have called normal. So, too, with the few animals we saw. A mouse as big as a squirrel, a squirrel as big as a rabbit, and a hare the size of a dog, each disproportionately large compared to its diminutive relatives in the lesser Spheres. Without man to thin their ranks, I expected the woods to be teeming. Yet, there were far fewer creatures than we’d seen in the Sphere below. And, for all their size, the animals also seemed less hale. The hare’s fur had looked patchy in places, and in the instant the mouse darted across the trail, I am quite sure I saw red lesions similar to Zeracheil’s. I thought then of the four paltry birds I’d seen earlier, and wondered what might have happened to the multitudinous flocks that ofttimes darkened the sky in the Spheres below.
We topped the rise and descended into the valley beyond. As the ground levelled, the tangle of woods ended unexpectedly, and we found ourselves stepping onto a path of gravel leading into a garden. All manner of plants were on display—shade trees and fruit trees with leaves both broad and thin; shrubs, creepers, vines, and ferns of all description; and flowers, bed after bed of flowers, with blooms in all shapes and hues. I recognized only a few, which I knew by the stunted cousins on our estate. Most, however, were novel to me; I’d never dreamt there could be such variety and abundance in all the Spheres.
As we moved through the garden, I wondered who maintained it. The paths were too narrow and, in many places, the plants too close set for an Angel of Zeracheil’s size not to snag its wings. Nor could I imagine the messengers of God devoting the time it would take, kneeling in front of the flower beds, instead of at prayer. Yet the gardens were meticulously cultivated—twice, ripe fruit fell when I brushed against a low-hanging branch, but there was not one stray apple to be seen. I had my answer sooner than I thought: I caught sight of a spider-like thing, a black bowl for a body, turning over soil in a flower bed, using its unnaturally straight legs like a set of small spades. I don’t believe it was an insect or animal, at least not the kind of thing we think of when we use those words, for its carapace had the sheen of polished metal. Once I knew what to look for, I realized the garden was fairly overrun with the creatures, all busily digging, climbing, tilling, planting, and pruning.
About a kilometre from the wood, we came upon Zeracheil’s house.
Each Angel, the Church had told us, lived in its own palace, and I suppose this was true after a fashion. But this structure was not palatial—it was perhaps twenty-five metres square, smaller, but cubic like an Assumption, and appeared to be made of the same white stone. There were five floors, each about five metres in height. Curiously, a wall on each of the stories seemed to be missing, exposing the interior, and I realized this was done so that the Angels could fly directly to that floor. There were no architectural flourishes or exterior decorations of any kind. The building itself, from the outside at least, looked not like a palace, but more like a warehouse, a perfection of function over form.
We circled until we found a side where there was no wall.
I had been concerned that, given the shelter the house provided, wild beasts might have taken up residence. But there were none—at least on the ground floor (nor were there staircases that would have permitted us to explore the upper floors). I guessed that the same thing that kept the wolves at bay was at work here, too. The rooms through which we walked were bare, save one in which we found a few furnishings: stools rising high as my chin, arranged around a square table under which I could walk with only a slight bend. There was no carpeting, but between rooms there were curtains that could be drawn for privacy. I saw nothing that resembled a kitchen, a bathroom, or a bedroom, and assumed these might be found in the upper stories—though, for all I knew, it might be that Angels had no need of sustenance or of rest. Curiously, there were no Crosses or any other religious adornments on the walls. This put me in mind of the description of Heaven in Revelations: I could not see any temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple, and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God, and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it. I suppose this close to God such tokens were unnecessary.
In the centre of the house was an atrium open to the sky, and here three Angels waited for us beside a pool that must have been fed by a subterranean stream.
All were remarkably similar in appearance—almost exactly the same height, weight, and girth. The same held with age, none young and none old. If they’d been men, I’d have guessed they were just shy of mid-age. Even so, there was something ageless about them, and if you told me they were as old as the world, I’d not have been surprised. As for their faces, they looked the same, much as brothers or sisters do, distinguishable not so much by the slight variations in their sculpted features as by the unique constellation of diseased pigmentation and ulcerations that seemed to infest them all. Like Zeracheil, the other two had visible tumours—one on its shoulder, like a hump; the other beneath its right eye, swelling it shut. Had they not had these deformities, they would have been uniformly striking. The two new Angels leaned back upon their wings, and I realized this,
and the backless stools, were perhaps the only way Angels could rest. All three regarded us impassively through milky eyes.
I should have been anxious or relieved, but I was too exhausted to feel much of anything. However, beside me, I sensed the tension rise in Ali and coil like a snake. I had thought that anger reserved for me; but it seemed directed as much at the Angels now. Zeracheil stepped forward, and the other two Angels rolled forward off their wings.
“That one is the Archangel Uriel.” Zeracheil indicated the Angel with the hump. Then, nodding at the one with the closed eye, said, “That one is the Archangel Raphael.”
All three had watched me through those empty eyes since we’d stepped into the atrium; none had given Ali so much as a glance.
“You wish to know why we brought you here.”
I conceded I did.
The Angel named Uriel said, “We have an indulgence to ask of you, David. Two, perhaps, depending on the outcome of the first.” Its voice had the same lilting quality as Zeracheil’s, but was of a slightly different timbre. Both, though, could have sung contralto or countertenor with ease. “You may accept or decline. And you will be given time to think before you do so.”
I nodded. What else was I to do?
The Angel Raphael stepped towards me; Ali went rigid. “We wish you to perform a task that is impossible for us and likely dangerous for you.” Raising a long, palsied finger, the Angel pointed straight up, to the firmament, squinting at me with its one good eye. “Between New Jerusalem and Lower Heaven are God’s gift of the Waters Above. When the suns go off, we wish you to swim them.”
God made the vault, and it divided the waters under the vault from the waters above the vault. I’d once asked Father Finn, who took great pleasure in reading us Genesis, how this could be, an ocean above Heaven, and he’d given me a reproachful look and his stock response, that faith made anything possible. I wondered how exultant he’d feel if he could have heard this confirmation from an Angel’s lips. Yet hearing it brought me no joy. I tried to imagine an ocean of water above us, and felt its immense weight pressing down on my soul. “And what am I to do there?”
“Look, so that you might tell us what you find.”
“You said it would be dangerous.”
“We cannot be certain, David,” Zeracheil said.
“You must breach the top surface of the Waters Above,” Raphael said. “We are God’s messengers, and must dwell in Lower Heaven, nearer men. We have not seen the Glory that is the City of God.” Though I came to learn that Angels rarely evince emotion—leastwise emotion of the sort we’d recognize—there was something in its inflection that suggested longing. “You were sickened coming here. Above the Waters the transition may be greater. If you faint, you will drown. Nor are things in the Waters Above like those in the material world, for souls have no need of air. God might have provided none, or in its place made something completely different, something unfit for man or beast or Angel.”
“If you speak to God, can you not ask Him what lies there?”
“We do not speak to God, he speaks to us,” Raphael said, in a manner that made it clear it would not brook further discussion.
“If I decline?”
Though I was looking at Raphael, Zeracheil answered. “You may return to a lower Sphere as soon as it is feasible.”
There is little point in relating the balance of the conversation. I asked a few more questions, which the Angels answered—or did their best to, though I am not sure they fully comprehended all that I was asking, just as I didn’t fully comprehend some of their answers. By and by, I said, “I’m tired, and would like time to think on it more, as you said I might.” This was only partly true; though I was, indeed, fatigued, I had more questions I wanted to ask. But not in Ali’s presence.
The three Angels regarded one another with their cloudy, unfathomable eyes, something passing between them, though they never uttered a word. Zeracheil turned to me. “Rest, then,” it said. “You may draw water from this pool. Take as much fruit as you wish. You will be safe as long as you stay in the garden. Behind is a room where you may sleep. We have made bedding such as we could. When your mind and body are more accustomed to Lower Heaven, we will hear your answer.”
Thus saying, Zeracheil unfurled its wings and beat down, breaking the stillness of the morning sky. Raphael and Uriel followed, and in only a few seconds all three had flown from the atrium, and so were lost to sight.
Ali had already made her way over to the pool; there was a bucket there, and she picked it up and dipped it into the water.
I was certain this wasn’t the first time she’d met Raphael. I considered asking her about this, and if she knew of the first boon they’d ask me, and what the second might be. But I decided against it. We’d managed little sleep in the last two days, and I was dead tired and still feeling more than a little sick. If anything, Heaven had been harder on her. I took my lead from Zeracheil and decided that I, too, would wait patiently until Ali’s state improved enough that I might have a better chance of a reasonable answer.
I watched her tilt the bucket up; she drank deeply, then, closing her eyes, leaned back and emptied the rest over her head. Saturated, her usually shapeless clothes clung to every curve and hollow, and my imprudent heart thumped furiously in my chest; in that moment, Ali possessed me, infected me, burning brightly in my blood like a fever.
Dropping the bucket, she walked into the house, in the direction of the room where Zeracheil had said we might sleep, leaving dark, wet footsteps in her wake.
God Weeps
From a sleep haunted by visions of damnation, I woke on a bed of moss the Angels had arranged, feeling bleary and unsteady, as if I hadn’t rested at all. Rising, I discovered that the corner Ali had staked out for herself was empty, though the outline of her shape was still pressed into the weave of plants. I looked out a small window, into the garden, thinking I might see her there, only to discover the suns were already beginning to dim. I had slept the night through and then much of the next day.
In the atrium, I found Zeracheil waiting for me, sitting on the end of the palanquin, a wing draped over either side. In one hand it held a slender stick, as long as I was tall. Fruit lined the rim of the pool, and a full bucket of water had been drawn. In silence, I ate and drank the small amount I could stomach, the Angel regarding me patiently the whole time.
When I finished, I said, “Where is Ali?”
“In the wood. She wishes meat.”
I felt relief; I had worried that the Angels had returned her to the Sphere below—or worse. “I am rested,” I said, though there wasn’t much truth in it, “and ready to answer your question. If first you would answer some of mine.”
“Free will requires you understand the consequences of your choices, and so you may ask whatever you deem important to this understanding.”
“Why me? Are there not other men who would do this for you?”
“Men do not abide in Lower Heaven.”
“Yet Ali and I are here.”
“You are the first to have been beyond the gates of Lower Heaven’s Assumption.”
“You said I might leave. Is this true whether or not I agree to do your bidding?”
“Yes.”
“Ali, too?”
“If you do our bidding, perhaps. If not, then no.”
I had been afraid of something like this—it was why I had wanted a clearer head before I made any decisions. “You say perhaps. What do you mean?”
“What you find in the Waters Above will determine where Ali is sent.”
“I will do as you ask,” I said, “on one condition. That after I perform the first indulgence, and regardless of whether or not I choose to perform the second, Ali and I will be returned together to the Sphere below.”
Zeracheil shut its eyes, and I held my breath. Whether it was communing with other Angels, or merely reflecting within the corridors of its own mind, I couldn’t guess. After a moment, the Angel nodded, as if to so
meone not present, then opened its unsettling eyes. “Would you make an oath to God that you will consider the second indulgence after completing the first?”
“I would,” I said, truthfully, though I couldn’t imagine any circumstance that might make me accept the second—and I had good reason to want to leave Heaven as quickly as possible.
“We will not compel Ali to accompany you. But if she is willing, we agree to your condition.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The Angel Zeracheil pushed itself off the palanquin and essayed a slight bow.
“I have more questions.”
“You may ask.”
“When Ali told me an Angel speaks to her, she said an Angel. One.”
“This is the way,” said Zeracheil. “Each Angel may speak to one soul.”
“When an Angel speaks to a person, is it the same way it speaks to other Angels?”
“The same, and different, as our minds are.”
“Could you speak to me in the same way?”
“No.”
“Is it because you already speak to someone else?”
“An Angel does not Possess you, and so your mind cannot hear.”
“Yet an Angel may Possess a man? Any man?”
“Yes, if the man assents.”
“If a man is Possessed, he hears his Angel, no matter where in the world he might be?”
“Yes,” Zeracheil said, then added, “but not all listen.”
“Then why not Possess me?”
“Some minds, strong minds, resist Possession. Such a struggle may end in madness. We would not chance that with you.”
“Ali is Possessed, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how you knew to open the door.” And why I knew, with Ali unconscious, I’d have to shut it myself.
The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven Page 24