by A Y Beltran
“I won’t tell you unless you answer my riddle.” Archibard grinned, amused at Damien’s frustration.
“Alright,” Damien answered, dejectedly.
“Good!” Archibard then started.
“Who is he that courts everything
Gods, angels, demons, or fellow being,
Except for one that scares him at night,
Who is bound to get him with a scythe?”
Damien glanced to Bard’s direction and answered, “It’s easy. It’s a man.”
“How did you know?” he asked, striding on the grass-covered pathway surrounded by flower beds. This was the area in Ether where the flowers were taller than angels.
“Well, you mention all the possible beings except man.”
“Right, right.” Bard paused and bent down to pick up a glowing rock. He examined it closely before putting it inside his pocket. “So do you want to know about my latest findings?”
“That would be helpful.”
“My initial analysis was that they were all demon-possessed. But I revised my analysis after I examined a few cases with a similar appearance.” Archibard’s cheerful tone turned gloomy. He stared at Damien with a distant gaze. “When my last report came, I was first shaken with fear and then it hit me. No one should know this.”
“What is it? Give it to me.”
“No one is ready to know this.”
Archibard gave him a strange look and then clasped Damien’s hand.
“Home sweet home.” He smiled at him. He strode inside his house of the sphere and closed the door without much of a thank you or an offer of water. Damien stared at his hand that Archibard a minute ago held. He opened it and found a ruby stone.
The brilliance is stronger in the morn
But shrouded in eternal fantasy
Of descending not from its amber thrown
And burst in deep ruby.
Damien repeatedly read the verse until it rooted in his memory. But what good did it serve him when its message remained elusive? It was not unusual for Archibard to write his findings in verses and he would usually understand as his verses were simple. But this one, he found himself utterly confounded.
At home in his sphere, Damien was playing a board game called Master Mind while floating in the air with his legs crossed. The game was played with a silver checkered board with a piece in the shape of an angel projecting in the middle squared box. The player needed to direct the angel’s path as he moved to increase his navi represented by an orb hovering about its head. Each time an angel stepped on a square box, an enemy or a foe would spring out of it. It’s a game of mind as the player needed to figure out a pattern to find which tiles to skip, avoid or proceed. With the way the game was progressing, Damien could almost smell his impending victory. He was deep in concentration when the small crystal orb sitting on the table below him started glowing red. He lowered himself to reach the orb and touched it with his palm. Its inside cleared out and Ali’s image appeared:
“Damien, you’re needed at the Communication Garden.”
The Communication Garden was built around a crystal clear water that served as the watershed of all the water tributaries in Ether. The water would absorb everything—all the angels who passed by the stream and the conversations they had during that time, so on and so forth. All of this would be sent to the crystal pool and would be recorded by the ruby stones placed in the water. Then it was the responsibility of the angel analyst to interpret the data.
“There is something we’d like you to see,” Ali said, leading him into the communication room. The officers stationed there were surprised at his presence.
Damien’s gaze fell on the ruby stones on the table.
“Is there something wrong with them?”
“You tell me,” Ali said. “These stones are considered corrupted according to our analysts. We’ve exhausted all the available resources to interpret them, but the information remained unintelligible. We started to think the stones are malfunctioning.”
Damien knitted his eyebrows. “Malfunctioning?”
“Whether naturally or deliberately, we don’t know yet.”
Damien’s frown deepened. “Let me see the stones then.”
“Help yourself.”
Damien picked up one ruby stone and examined it.
“It looks like there are linguistic patterns inside.”
Ali came to his side. “You think so? That’s new. None of the analysts said anything about patterns. They just assumed it’s all a bunch of gibberish.”
“How many stones are affected?”
“A hundred, and there must be others that are yet to be discovered,” Ali replied.
“That many?” Damien peered at the stone in his hand, “What are you hiding, little stone?” He could see the strokes but he could not decipher its meaning. His forehead puckered. “I don’t see anything wrong with the stone. It did its job, record raw information directly from the source. It doesn’t interpret data. It doesn’t translate the information.” His gaze shifted back to Ali and then moved to the other angels standing in front of him, patiently waiting. “Are the archangels informed about it?”
“Do we have to?” Ali said, clearly surprised at the implication of Damien’s question. Involving the archangels would elevate this case to Archangel Level. Agents who handled this type of cases were required a maximum high-security clearance—that is, a kind of clearance only given to an archangel.
“I think we have to. This is not a garbled message. The stone recorded a very ancient language, much older than the oldest angel.”
He did not have to look at their faces to know what their reactions were. Mouth-gaping, eye-bulging, mind-baffled—these were all expected. After all, what he implied was something everyone believed to be inconceivable.
“Are you saying…” Ali paused to gulp. “That what was brought by our channel and was recorded by the stone was information about a god?” Ali looked dumbfounded.
As far as angels’ memories were concerned, the gods had long been gone before the angels got the chance to meet them.
“Aren’t they all dead?” One angel voiced everyone’s question.
CHAPTER 19
The Communication Garden was teeming with angels scurrying back and forth, freaking out with excitement at the incoming archangel, a major one at that. Who else, but no other than the archangel Gabriel himself? Although archangels were the chief angels that ruled Ether, it was a rare occurrence to glimpse one of the elder archangels, and Damien just like the rest of the angels was basking in the rarity of such a sight.
Major archangels such as Gabriel had a long and wide energy glow that it brightened the entire garden. Although his presence may signify ill-tiding, they couldn’t help but be enraptured, for the archangel was the closest they had to glimpse the face of a god.
Gabriel walked along rows of angels standing at attention and stopped at Damien.
“Come with me,” he said.
Flabbergasted by the sudden turn of events, Damien followed him, leaving confusion among his comrades. He had never attended a High Meeting before, for a simple and obvious reason: he was not an archangel. It was absurd that what others may feel exciting was to him a slow walk to his execution. He recalled whatever things he had done to get him in this situation. They already submitted a report regarding the messages trapped in the ruby stone of whence he thought his expertise ended. Was it insufficient? Ineptitude? Amateurish? The archangels possessed more understanding of the ancient language than Damien could only dream to have. They did not need him. So what had he done that warranted his presence in the High Council?
Gabriel stopped his strides and with his sword drew a figure of a portal in the air. When the portal was created, it glowed and threatened to suck Damien in. But he resisted, rather clumsily that he stumbled a little.
Gabriel stared at him in amusement. “It's just a door, Damien. Now, get in there.”
And because he trusted the archangel w
ith all his life force, Damien heeded the order and walked into the threshold. He found himself in a chamber with walls of glittering diamonds.
“The last time we were like this, we were heading to war,” Gabriel said to the already seated archangels.
Damien’s heart was heavy, beating loudly in his ears as he hid behind Gabriel. But when the archangel took the seat next to the still empty head of the table, Damien was nonplussed. Where would he sit? The only thing working on his favor was that they didn’t seem to notice his presence. Not yet, anyway.
“I could use some action myself,” Uriel said, his eyes gleaming with amusement.
“How’s Earth Gabriel? Is it bad?” Raphael asked in a somber tone.
“There is nothing unusual. However, the mortality rate of the mortals tripled in the last decade.”
“And you don’t find it unusual?” Jophiel asked.
Damien knew all the archangels as it was part of the lessons in the academy. He knew who they were and what they all looked like, but he had not seen all of them in person especially Michael. He felt a flutter in his stomach at the idea of meeting the chief archangel. They said that, if one wanted to see what God looked like, he simply needed to behold the visage of Michael.
“I should, but I can’t find evidence other than it being part of a natural selection.”
“It sounds like a disaster to me,” Jophiel commented nonchalantly, yet his face was defiant as though he was daring Gabriel to prove him wrong. Damien assumed Gabriel would take it with levity or otherwise completely dismiss it with practiced charm. So it caught Damien off-guard when Gabriel instead did something completely undignified--he scowled at Jophiel. This was a different kind of Gabriel from the one Damien pictured him to be.
“So it’s my job to watch over them?”
Gabriel’s repartee was met with silence when suddenly in synchrony they all rose. Damien stiffened and rooted to the spot. Although he couldn’t see him yet, he knew who was about to join them. Michael.
To Damien's right, a portal appeared. The Chief of the Archangels strode into the room, his radiance blinded Damien momentarily. When Damien's vision cleared, Michael had already claimed the head of the table. The archangels sat back as soon as Michael was seated.
“It is not Gabriel’s responsibility to protect mortals, but mine,” Michael started to say. “Can someone provide our guest a seat?”
Gabriel swiveled his head to Damien's direction and grinned.
“There you are.” And then to Jopiel, he said, “Mind if you give up your seat for him?”
Jopiel’s eyes narrowed. Damien stopped breathing. But when the archangel vacated his seat, he released a loud sigh that gave the archangels a good chuckle. With his legs stiff as wood, he made his way to the offered seat.
“Is this meeting about Earth?” Raphael asked.
“No, it’s about Ether,” Michael answered. “These…” he raised the pouch and poured its content on the marble table.
“Ruby stones?” Raphael asked, confused.
“Take one of those stone, and tell me what you notice,” Michael urged.
Each archangel except for Michael picked up a stone for examination. It did not take long for Gabriel to put his back.
“Damien here,” Michael pointed at him, “is the one who discovered that the messages inside the stones are not garbled, but instead written in an ancient language, which you are all familiar with.”
“It’s the Gods’ language.” Gabriel’s reply was soft, more like a whisper.
A shadow darkened Jopiel's eyes. He gazed at Michael and asked, “What does it mean?”
“This means that our water channel picked up a presence of something godlike.”
“Are you sure it was not picking our signatures?” Uriel asked. Among the archangels, Uriel was the one who was quick to doubt upon almost everything.
Michael’s gaze shifted to him. “You recognize our signatures, and they are certainly not archangels’.”
Gabriel's nose wrinkled as he gazed at Michael. “Are we missing something here because we know all the gods are dead, right?” Then Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "Is it still true? I've been on Earth for long, so who knows what other important talks I have missed."
When Michael’s blue eyes were fixed on him, Damien thought his heart stopped.
“Damien, what did Archibard tell you?”
Damien stared at Michael with his mouth hanging open.
“Damien?” the chief called him again.
The archangels gave him an amused look. Someone patted his back that evened out his breathing. He took another gulp, and then another. This time his wit returned.
“He told me about his latest findings." He internally applauded himself for keeping his voice from shaking.
“Do you remember it?”
“Yes, I do.” Then he said:
“The brilliance is stronger in the morn, but shrouded in the eternal fantasy of descending not from its amber throne and burst in deep ruby.”
“Do you know what it means?” Michael asked him.
“I’m still in the middle of interpreting it.”
“Good. Ariel, could you see him out? Thank you, Damien.”
Damien’s eyes widened at this dismissal. Ariel rose from his seat and came to his side.
“Let’s go.”
Damien was left to follow him out of the chamber, the chamber that could have given him the answer to crack his case about the missing angels and the mist.
"I have to know whether he understood Archibard's riddle," Michael asked. "I found this riddle in one of the books in the academy. And before anyone could read it, I took it from the shelves. I am not ready for the angels to learn the truth about themselves. And earlier, before coming here, I found out that Archibard was taken by the mist."
“The truth being the mortality of all angels,” Jopiel said. “So Archibard must have discovered his own impending death and had wanted to write one last book. This time, it was about his death.”
Although the message in his words may have sound blunt and harsh, Jopiel's face revealed that somehow the death of an angel still distressed him.
“I believe we should focus on discussing this godlike entity that sneaked into Ether without our knowledge,” Uriel said.
“Is there anyone here capable of reading an ancient language? It might give us the location of this creature,” Raphael said.
“I can,” Michael answered. His archangels gave a sigh of relief.
“So what did it say?” Uriel asked with excitement.
Michael shifted in his chair. “All the ruby stones recorded the impressions that were happening in the academy.”
A varying degree of shock and confusion was reflected on each archangel’s face.
“I don’t understand,” Gabriel said. A pink hand suddenly hovered in front of Gabriel's face and put its forefinger inside Gabriel’s open mouth. "Hey,” Gabriel said, surprised. The hand disappeared. He glanced toward Jopiel who merely smirked at him.
“This is not making any sense,” Raphael said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Uriel answered. “At least it tells us where to look.”
“This brings me to believe that it must be responsible for what is happening in the academy,” Sapphire said. “Many fledglings who were taken by the Great Riddle are yet to be returned.”
“The Great Riddle is designed to take five angels for each upper house every time it appears,” Michael answered. “Sapphire and Emerald, you went there to count them. So what’s wrong?”
“The Great Riddle took angels from the lower houses,” Sapphire said. “And those who were taken by the Great Riddle were not in the tenth house. We searched for them. They were not there.”
“Why does it matter when none of them is real? The academy is designed to create illusions deemed necessary for the fledglings’ maturity,” Raphael explained. “This includes creating angels who would become their companions only for the Great Riddle to take them to the f
inal house for the Great Ordeals.”
“We all know that. But do we have a way to determine which angel is real or illusioned?” Gabriel asked.
“Even us archangels can be deceived by its appearance. But if we look into its mind, we will see the illusion,” Michael answered.
“But what mind is left to examine if it was already gone?” Ariel said. “If the Great Riddle is taking fledglings from the lower houses against its design, then that in itself indicates it is malfunctioning. So how would we know that it is not abducting real angels?”
“If the Great Riddle is malfunctioning, then I can say the same thing with the mist,” Emerald said.