The Third Heaven: The Rise of Fallen Stars

by Donovan Neal

  Abaddon slapped Raphael across the cheek, and the blow made blood splatter across Michael’s face.

  Michael jostled to Raphael’s defense, but his manacles tightened fast around his ankles and wrists.

  “You will pay for this Abaddon. You debt shall be hung as a sign about thy neck!”

  “Not today great prince,” said Abaddon. “Not today. Yet take comfort that both Raphael and you shall live to see the fruition of our cause. His tome will be kept safely in the hands of Lilith so that we might monitor the happenings of all things.”

  Just as Michael moved closer to see to Raphael’s wound, the door opened. Lilith walked in, and Abaddon gave him the Tome of Raphael.

  Lilith thumbed through its pages, and his eyes were aglow with the excitement that a child might display upon the opening of a Christmas present. He leafed through its pages and turned to look back at his captors. “You do realize Raphael, that we will never serve the clay-borne. We will frustrate El’s plans and bring to naught all those that would side with the God king and his plans to enslave us.”

  Raphael looked upon Lilith with a scowl. “You serve what is now a lap dog, one who would betray his own father. Would the creature say to the creator why hast thou made me thus? Yet you rebel against the glorious plan that El hast made thee partaker of. El knows of your plans. Would thou hope to battle with God?”

  Lilith and Abaddon looked at each other and laughed.

  Lilith spoke on the duo’s behalf. “You have yet to grasp the extent to which we will not submit to his will on this matter. El will not battle us, but will abdicate the throne voluntarily. You see my prince; we know that El cannot be defeated by strength of arms. Although by force shall not the God king be overthrow, but His own love and compassion shall be his undoing. For God so loves the world that he would lay down his own life. This Sephiroth, you know, and this weakness we shall exploit.

  "We are meant to rule––not serve. El has lost His way and in doing brings ruin to us all. No my prince, El will not be swayed through reason or force of our hand, but by His own free will, shall our bondage to his will come to an end.”

  At that moment an explosion rocked the building, and screams could be heard coming from outside. Abaddon moved to the side of Raphael and Michael, to prevent any means of their escape, and to see to their security. Lilith raced towards a window to look outside.

  “What is it?” cried Abaddon.

  Lilith looked outside and saw the destruction to a section of the city’s wall. Guards with newly minted swords valiantly attempted to do battle with a figure cloaked in dust, fire, and smoke. Manacled chains dripped from its sides, and its roar and the thunder of its hammer like arms rang throughout the city courtyard. It raised its arms and fire and brimstone enveloped and engulfed all those that stood in its way. The guards were immediately consumed in fire, and small pyres of bodies lined the ground. As each Elohim fell, a huge vacuum of flame, magma, and smoke engulfed and swallowed up those who dared to interfere with the creature’s progress and a wall of flame followed it and anything caught therein smelted in its wake.

  With one chain like tentacle, the Elohim held a guard by the throat and tossed him effortlessly into the fires with others. The dark cowled creature lashed and beat Elohim senseless, and they were dragged alive screaming into blackness and flame.

  “Lilith?” said Abaddon.

  Lilith tuned from the window and quickly looked at Abaddon in panic.

  “We must leave for Heaven now!”

  “What is it?” Abaddon roared back in frustration.

  Michael chuckled and looked Abaddon dead in the eye. “Your sin has found you out.”

  Abaddon quickly left Raphael’s side, raced to the window, peered down to look in the distance at the spectacle below. His eyes grew large, and his flesh turned pale. Panic gripped him.

  Charon had come to claim him and Hell had followed.

  ********************

  Sariel looked upon Talus in disbelief and disgust, and spoke angrily to his brother. “Would you bring dissolution to even more of my kind?”

  And with a swiftness that belied his frame, Sariel flew to the aid of Ashtaroth, and Talus smote the Prince of Issi and knocked him to the floor. Sariel’s flesh was torn, and his face was bearishly marred from the raw and beastial swipe of Talus’ blow.

  Talus paused as the realization that he had struck Sariel settled upon him, and he moved to see to his brother.

  One of the attendants of the manor looked on the duo with eyes wide in disbelief and spoke. “In El’s name — he struck the High Prince!”

  “What manner of conduct is this?” another yelled.

  Ashtaroth lay next to his prince, lifted his head unto his own lap, and berated Talus. “Once again your kind's buffoonery so legendary and pronounced has caused hurt. Who else must suffer at thy hand both foolishness and injury?”

  Sariel shook his head as if to prevent himself from sleep from the blow dealt by Talus. He slowly pushed his torso up from off the floor. Ashtaroth loosened his hold, and Sariel rose to his feet and looked upon his brother to speak.

  “Restraint is not in thy kind. Destruction swells in thy loins and ruin follows thee.”

  Sariel then hurled himself into the bosom of Talus and the two great princes slammed through the front door of the manor and rolled into the courtyard. Each attendant scattered to flee from the chaos as shrubbery and indentations in the lush soil of Heaven ripped apart. Boulders were thrown high into the air from the commotion, and a cloud of dust smothered the grounds as the mighty angels wrestled in Heaven’s lush dark earth. Arelim attendants ran to assist their prince, swarmed over Sariel, and struggled in vain to have him loose Talus.

  Sariel’s sigil stone suddenly glowed bright within his chest. The innate power of El visibly pulsed from him, and three of his attackers were repelled back and hurled through windows, shrubbery, and the manor walls.

  Ashtaroth rushed to block an Arelim attendant from accosting Sariel, when his attacker was launched into the air by the force of Sariel’s blow. Ashelon was his name, an attendant of Talus’ house who now found himself uncontrollably thrown into the air. Like a cat, he twisted and contorted his body in vain to avoid the pearl spires that protruded from the court grounds. But speed was not his ally and the force of his plummet only hastened his impalement on one of the spires that raced to pierce his angelic flesh. With a thud, his body was run through, and his blue blood soiled the white pinnacle that flew the banner of house Arelim.

  His body twitched and hung like a standard in the wind as the life force that animated from his stone slowly drained from him. Cobalt blood that flowed through Elomic veins pooled on the manicured grounds and stained the ivory pearl of the heavenly spire. He cried in aguish as the sound of gurgled blood choked his last breath. Ashelon pierced all ears with his death cry. “What have we to do with the house of Issi, and who shall take up mine cause?”

  Ashelon released a final gasp for air, and the embers which fired his stone heart faded, and his heartstone became black as night.

  On looking Arelim and Issi attendants stopped and looked on Ashelon’s form; some revealed smug satisfaction, while others boiled over in a potpourri of grief and rage, yet each was equally distraught and looked on in bewilderment and confusion as Ashelon’s elements slowly dissolved and returned to fires of the Kiln. The great spire outside of Talus’ home now stood stained and pooled with the blood from Ashelon. A monument to blood spilled on his soil, a testament to a house known as the house of Apollyon –– not Talus.

  Talus and Sariel continued in heated battle, blind to the dissolution which stood about them and oblivious to the corruption and gathering storm of angels that stood in their midst.

  Ashtaroth smiled at Murmur from across the grassy knoll. Murmur nodded in acknowledgement, and smirked in approval as hundreds of Elohim flocked to gather to view, aid, and or stop the escalation of hostilities between the two princes and their kind.

  Murm
ur looked on in quiet satisfaction. Lucifer would be pleased, he thought.

  Civil war had begun.

  Chapter Eight

  And there was war in Heaven…

  Charon’s roar deafened the ears of his combatants and like fleas that irritate skin. He flicked away all who stood between him and his quarry. His face bent to capture his renegade charge. Charon was the personification of the vengeance of God, and only God could help anyone who crossed his path.

  Abaddon had escaped and sought refuge within the quartz walls of Athor. The scent of Abaddon littered the whole city, but the odor was most concentrated in the crystalline structure that stood in Charon’s path: the house of Lucifer. Citizens came from across Athor to protect the home of their King; alerted that Lucifer’s stronghold might come under assault.

  Athor’s protectorate hovered and stood ready as one man. Each equipped with new swords to stop Charon. A line of Elohim one thousand strong resolved to face the Warden of Hell and keep him from setting foot on the palace grounds.

  Each angel of the line watched the black wall of acrid smoke and rubble. Winds rife with sulfur irritated their ears and skin. Yet bravely they waited and wondered who this day among them would experience dissolution. Could they stand against the living manifestation of the vengeance of God?

  Anxiety filled them all as they watched the oncoming cloud of noxious gas and smoke draw closer.

  Screams and cries of anguish emanated from the dark soot that billowed before them. The agony filled wails from those first fallen to encounter the myrmidon of Hell. Wisps of orange and red flickered from the black smolder and flames leapt into the sky.

  The ground shook with each step of Charon’s advance.

  Each one could sense that Charon was closer now. His every footstep felt in the vibrations in the ground. Angels grew tense and braced themselves. Several tightened their hold around the grip of their swords and anxiety leaped from angel to angel like an airborne virus, infecting all with fear.

  Again, the ground shook.

  Cacian an angel of the line looked at the tall dark wall of smolder that loomed before them. Ash littered the air and made it difficult to breathe. Each angel coughed and sought to wave the air clean and in vain straining to peer into the distance.

  Slowly marching from the midst of the tender and smoke, Charon appeared as one might step from behind a curtain. The ferryman of doom approached, cowled in a black leather like robe of Elomic flesh and with a mare’s skeleton for a frame. He dragged from rusted iron chains the screaming bodies of Elohim who had dared to defy him. As fish caught in hooks squirming for release, their wails of torment filled the air. Each was engulfed in flames and charred, yet somehow alive. The fires burned to the sky, but did not extinguish. Each captive thrashed and screamed for release as they writhed in pain: eaten alive by the digestive flames of Hell.

  Hell was alive. She had minions that fed her from afar. Each blistering maggot leeched the life force of the Elohim dragged in Charon’s wake. Closer Charon marched trailing bodies behind him: an army of one poised against a legion of angels.

  Cacian saw the bodies dragged by Charon and digested by Hell's flames. He reached up to feel the ash that fluttered in the wind and his eyes grew wide in terror, for the ash was the consumed flesh of his fallen comrades. In that moment, he beheld in revelation the entirety of who Charon was and screamed.

  “Flee!” said one.

  “Stand thy ground!” yelled another.

  “Bring him down!” Taurus commanded.

  Commander Taurus of the newly formed Athan army looked to his air chief Xercon. “You know what to do.” He said.

  Xercon nodded and rose into the air.

  Xercon oversaw the command of the south wind and the storm. He raised his hands and spoke to the listening jet stream, who obediently hearkened to his command and quickened her pace. Large cauliflower clouds quickly converged over the assembled army and the sky darkened and grew greenish in color. A cumulous pillar of white clouds rose into the heavens; carried aloft by columns of rotating air until the very top of the cloud canopy sheared itself against the upper atmosphere and became as an anvil. Lightning streaked across the belly of the pillowed mountain and illuminated the now darkened sky. Thunder crashed off eardrums and shook the ground. Water droplets swelled in the folds of the infant storm, grew obese, and threw themselves from the heights to pummel and drench the ground below Charon’s feet.

  Charon continued his snail’s pace forward as the soil beneath him saturated with water and the ground engorged itself on the pounding rain. The earth beneath him became soft and muddy. Charon’s movement slowed, hindered by Xercon’s command of the wind and rain.

  Lightning brightened the sky and the denizens of Athor covered their eyes as the storm suddenly unleashed crackling white arms of voltage and pummeled the ground where Charon stood. Shockwaves echoed off the sky in a drumbeat of outrage, bass, and destruction.

  In a dance of terawatted ferocity, strokes of lightning discharged from the sky and embraced Charon in their fury. The power of the mile long bolts heated the air around him to twice that of the sun and vaporized all things. The muddy ground beneath his feet instantly turned to glass and sealed the Warden of Hell fast. The vacuum created from the superheated air clapped its hands, and great booms of thunder raced as a sprinter out of his blocks and dashed across the city and into the regions round about. The sound shook the foundations of buildings and knocked individuals off their feet.

  Xercon spoke the Elomic command to the south wind, and ever attentive to her master’s cry. The great beast upon which the clouds rode hearkened to his call. The vast jet stream invisibly wrote into the ground with her finger, and a cyclone lifted itself from the dust of the earth and yawned as a man awakens from slumber. Again, bolt after bolt rained down upon Charon. Electric current flowed through his body and traveled through him to find release in the ground. A target Charon became: a conduit for all the wrath of the living sky. Pleased to see the myrmidon stagger, Xercon continued to assault him from the heavens.

  Black finger like clouds reached down to grapple Charon and appendage after swirling appendage dropped as tentacles from the sky and touched the ground. They howled and wailed dissolution to all that would dare cross their path.

  Xercon motioned with his hands and with a thought commanded the funnels to collide with anything that walked the trail of Charon.

  And so they did.

  Screaming wrath and destruction, they squalled as they hammered Charon. Winds ripped trees from the ground, and loose shards of quartz rose and darted towards the Warden of Hell. The twin sisters of wind waltzed around each other; launching shrapnel of wood, metal, and flesh as missiles. Their impact was ferocious and Charon stood as a nail hammered into the embracing arms of the earth. The cracking of great oaks and the roar of winds gone mad filled the air. Blackness from the immense clouds masked the eyes, as fine grains of sand ground flesh. Rain and gale torrentially beat structure after toppling structure to powder.

  Charon’s tentacles of rusted metal flayed in the tempest winds and with his great legs, he stood trapped, snared deep in the ground now turned to glass blasted by wind and quartz.

  Xercon satisfied that his minions of air and water had pummeled the warden into submission, raised his sword and dove to fall upon Charon from the sky, and like lightning from heaven, he plummeted into the morass of rain, smoke, and the rage of cyclones gone amok, and fought to battle Charon in hand to hand combat.

  Thus, the angels of the line watched in hopeful anticipation that a prince of the power of the air might slay the Warden of Hell; looking on as the very forces of the troposphere were unleashed on their behalf.

  Deep at the base of the supercell of vortices, they fought as streaks of lightning bulleted across the city and smashed Athor and the land roundabout. Thunder burst the eardrums of angels who watched the shimmering outline of the two titans gripped in mortal combat.

  Like a hurricane feeds of
f the waters of the mighty sea, the south wind churned and lifted buildings, trees, and boulders and threw them against Charon. Smoke billowed from the center of the struggle, and suddenly without warning fire exploded, and like a pebble tossed in a basin of tranquil water. The ripples of the shock wave rocketed through the land. Buildings flung outward in all directions, flung aside as trash. Smoke and debris filled the city and covered the angels of the line as each one looked to see who would survive the havoc of wind and storm gone mad.

  Slowly the gusts subsided, and the roaring columns of cyclonic air slowed, dissipated, and lifted themselves into the sky. The rain stilled its torrential pour to a wimpish drizzle, and buildings, trees and debris fell from the cleared sky and crashed to the ground.

  Angels at the line strained to peer through the smoke and fire: to see a lone figure that stood at the center where cyclones and lightning once played.

  Cacian peered through the hazy veneer of black smoke and trembled as he saw the shadow of he who marched towards them; his tendrils flailed with the familiar sound of rusted chains. Chains that now dredged against ground now turned to glass. Charon dragged the charred body of Xercon. And his captor’s muffled screams filled the air. Cacian watched in fascinated horror as the maggots of Hell burrowed through Xercon’s mouth and ears; watched as Xercon struggled to breathe as the worms filled his lungs. His body aglow now torched with the fire of Hell’s flames.

  Like the morning dew that settles across a valley, fear fell over the soldiers of the line.

  Cacian looked to make out the boneless features of the myrmidon of Hell. Charon’s fleshless skull expressed no emotion. Yet the pace of his quickened gait made clear that one sentiment governed his march ever closer toward his foes that remained.