Empyreal

by Helsel, Spencer

  He didn’t look at Dani, but watched as another casket proceeded

  past.

  “This is a funeral?” she asked. “For who?”

  “For those who gave their lives.”

  Dani remembered that a Guardian died. Titus, wasn’t it? But now

  two caskets passed and more were coming. “All of these people…?” “Some within the past week.” He said. “Others more recently. We

  lose soldiers frequently. Sometimes it’s only a few. This time, it was three

  Powers, a Natural, and,” he paused, biting back a change in his voice, “a

  Guardian.”

  She felt terrible for him. The look on his face…

  “Were you close?”

  He frowned, nodding. “Titus was a Guardian when I arrived. He’s

  one of the few left I knew when I first came here.”

  “Ethan, I’m so sorry.”

  He shook his head. “We lose people, Dani. It’s the nature of who we

  are.”

  “Asaph told me they rarely get bodies back.” She realized how

  callous it was to say that. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve—.”

  “It’s okay.” He told her. “You’re right: we don’t always get their

  bodies back. We didn’t get Titus. Instead, we retrieve their weapons or we

  bury all their personal belongings. The funerals aren’t for them. They’re for

  us. It’s our way to let go.”

  “Where are they taking them?”

  Waving for her to follow, he whispered, “Let me show you. You

  should see it for yourself.”

  Together, they followed the procession as the crowd dispersed.

  Those involved in the burial bore their dead through the streets until they

  passed into the Fane, looping around the statue of Gabriel and through a

  vault in the back. Ethan led her after them down the stairs.

  The stairwell was wide; sloped downward dozens of flights. Ethan

  removed a torch from the wall, using it to light the way. They continued

  down into the mountain and the air became cool and damp against her

  skin. A light below grew as they neared the bottom, which opened into the

  mouth of a much larger chamber. Dani gasped.

  A cavern large enough to fit a stadium was hollowed out underneath

  the city. Dani stared up at the stalactites the size of eighteen-wheelers

  hanging from the ceiling. Staircases cut cleanly into the floor wove down in

  between largely formed stalagmites and rock faces, some hollowed for

  lights. Lanterns glowed sapphire blue here, filling the space bright enough

  that she could see the funeral processions. It was almost beautiful. But dotted throughout the subterranean catacombs were dozens

  upon dozens of tombs. Vaults of the dead lined the walls. Even as she

  watched, six bearers lifted from the ground and hovered up to place a casket

  into its resting place a hundred feet above the floor.

  “We call it the Hypogeum.” He said. “It’s the resting place of our

  dead.”

  The Guardians who brought Titus’ casket took it to the far side of the

  necropolis, laying him to rest within one of the vaults. As they enclosed him,

  the bearers removed their hoods and masks. She recognized one of them as

  Mastema. He spoke in soft, low tones with another. Kleos. His face was

  worn with grief.

  Mastema comforted him, placing a hand on his shoulder

  sympathetically. Suddenly, Dani didn’t dislike her Guardian half as much.

  Maybe he wasn’t all bad, though she was sure that opinion would change. “The caves over there lead to the adamant mines,” he pointed, “but

  there’s something else I want to show you.”

  The two of them took a staircase to the right, descending a separate

  set of steps away from the crypts. The stairs arched towards a wall, bringing them down to the floor in front of a section of the cave that had no tombs. Instead, it was flat, as if sanded down perfectly smooth. Dani faced what at first she thought were cave drawings. The wall section was covered in them. The blue lanterns illuminated the etched symbols she recognized as the angelic language magically tattooed on her skin. Except now, each symbol was the size of her hand and the script flowed across the surface in a neverending stream. It went several stories up. She couldn’t even see the top in

  the dark.

  “What is this?”

  “Something you should know.” Ethan told her. “You asked Elder

  Castus about the angels and the War in Heaven. I brought you here to give

  you answers. Some, at least.”

  She stared at the wall. “This is, what, some kind of prehistoric

  history textbook? Is it about the angels?”

  He smirked, shrugging. “In a way, yes. It tells their story.” “Who wrote it?”

  “They did.”

  She pressed her hand against the symbols. Someone etched them

  into the stone and the sheer edges felt like they weren’t just cut but stamped

  into it. Man-made tools couldn’t do that. As her hands brushed across them,

  she realized that despite being inside the cool cavern, they were warm to the

  touch; as if someone just put them there.

  “I can’t read it.” She said.

  “Not many can. Even the Elders have a hard time. They periodically

  come down here to try to decipher it.” He gestured upward. “But from what

  we can tell, they’ve been here since the first Numen set foot in Empyrean.” “This has been here for centuries?”

  “More like millennia, maybe longer.” Ethan commented. “We don’t

  know.”

  “What does it say?”

  He stared up at the hieroglyphs, a serious tone in his voice. “It tells

  us that before humanity came into existence, God created the Heavens and

  the Earth. He formed the universe out of the void of chaos. It was peaceful;

  that the angels would sing and the whole universe heard it.”

  “Sing?”

  “They called it the eternal song; the symphony of the world.

  Whatever angels were, they would sing in a way that created things—bring

  them into existence—and then bring them to God to show their love. Every

  time the text talks about angels, it describes them singing everything into

  creation. Songs even created emotions: love, peace, happiness, friendship.” “Sounds nice.” Dani murmured.

  “But the story says that something went wrong.” He pointed to

  another part. “There was a War. It was the very first war; the first act of

  violence in Creation. It pitted brother and sister against one another; angel

  against angel. It says the War waged between two sides. One side followed

  Heaven. The other side refers to the adversary.”

  “The adversary?”

  “The Devil. Satan. When he was an angel, he was referred to as

  Lucifer, the Bringer of the First Dawn.”

  “The Devil is an angel?”

  “Was an angel.” He corrected. “He was God’s greatest warrior; one

  of His very first creations. This tells us that Lucifer became angry with God.

  We don’t know why. We can’t understand that part. What we do know is

  Lucifer rebelled and with him, a third of the angels. The defiance was so

  great it shocked Heaven. The angels in response rallied around another:

  Lucifer’s younger brother, Michael.”

  “The Archangel Michael from the Bible?”

  “Yes. The Elders don’t know at this point what the inscription says,

  but from what they told us, the two
sides fought. It describes a different

  song sung by the angels, one that had never been before: a battle hymn. We

  think it refers here to Lucifer. From what we can tell, he called Heaven into

  war. And from there, the two sides clashed.”

  He kept going. “They fought across C reation. They destroyed one

  another. But, in the end, Lucifer was defeated. Michael and the other

  archangels, including Gabriel, cast him and his army down. They

  slaughtered most of them, but lost so many of their own angels became

  nearly extinct.”

  “And then Lucifer was punished. This part,” he pointed high, “says

  that Michael created a place of torment and fire. He called it Hell and threw

  Lucifer into it. It’s there that Lucifer dwells, trapped within a realm of fire

  and brimstone for eternity.”

  Dani marveled at the wall. She shook her head. “So all of that

  Sunday school stuff—the Devil and demons and angels—all of it’s true?” He shrugged, nodding. “Mostly. Think of religions like the coloring

  books of the actual story. How accurate your particular coloring book is

  leaves a wide margin of error.”

  “And demons? They come from Hell? Are they Lucifer’s?” “I’ve heard people say yes. They say Lucifer created them to torment

  humanity because we’re God’s chosen. Others think that the angels’ war was so terrible that it sprung demonkind into existence from all the bloodshed

  and death.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Me? I think they’re monsters. It doesn’t matter where they come

  from, but,” he shrugged, glancing up at the wall, “if I had to guess I would

  say they come from us.”

  “Us?”

  “Before I joined the Numen, people used the word ‘demon’ as a

  metaphor for the worst parts of ourselves; our personal demons. I think

  that’s closer to the truth than anything else. Demons are manifestations

  created to be our worst fears and desires.” He shrugged. “But I could be

  wrong.”

  Our worst fears and desires manifested into reality. Dani thought

  about the wraiths. It didn’t seem far off.

  “So what does the rest of it tell us?” she asked, indicating the wall.

  “What happened to the angels?”

  “That’s the part of the text that’s most unclear. The angels wrote in a

  language that’s never been fully spoken. We only know parts from what

  we’ve been able to gather.”

  “So you know some of it?”

  “We know this: it speaks of God’s anger. We’re unsure of who He

  was angry with, but we do know He brought down some kind of

  punishment. And then,” he stepped over, pointing, “they left.” “Left?”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, this doesn’t have all the answers. It says

  the angels left Earth, or left our reality, or something like that. Whatever it

  means, they disappeared. And before they left, they sang one last song.” “Song?”

  “I told you: the angels sang. It was like their…I don’t know…way of

  interacting with the world. Before they departed, they gathered together

  and sang. And that,” he pointed, “is supposedly what made this. This entire

  story is identical to walls in the other six celestial cities. It appears in every

  single one. They called this record of the war the Song of Sacrifice. The

  angels sang a song of mourning over those they killed in their war. All of

  Creation wept. The inscription says this is how the emotion of grief was

  created. And inscribed here,” he pointed to rows of list-like glyphs, “are the

  names of every angel who died. It counts the dead and stands as a

  monument of remembrance. It’s why we built the Hypogeum around it. It is

  our place of remembrance.”

  “Then what happened?” she asked, trying to take it all in. “The

  angels just disappeared?”

  “We haven’t heard from them since. Not directly, anyway. Some

  have reported sightings of them over the centuries. They make appearances

  in people’s lives and stories, but there’s no proof they’re real. I’ve never seen

  one and neither has anyone I know.”

  “And they allowed humanity to cope with the fallout from their war?

  Demons. Numen. We’re inheriting their crap?”

  “They couldn’t deal with what they did. So that leaves it up to us.” Dani looked up at it one last time. She pointed to one section of wall,

  a part that stood on its own, “And that?”

  “Prophecies, myths, legends; stuff the Elder Council hasn’t shared

  much about. I wouldn’t worry about that part much.” But that was all he

  said about it. “So what do you think?”

  She leaned against a large stone protruding at the edge of the

  landing. She couldn’t understand it. When she looked up at the text, this

  massive record they could barely understand, she shook her head. “This…this tells me almost nothing.”

  “Welcome to our world. Not exactly what you were expecting?”

  Ethan asked, leaning against the wall across from her. “You were expecting

  a holy mission? Guidance? Purpose? Destiny?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  “I felt the same way when I found out. The gifted and others think

  our ancestors were some kind of angelic superheroes out to save the world;

  dying to protect us by going down in flames of glory. In the end,” he look up

  over his shoulder at the Song, “they were nothing more than cowards who

  ran away.”

  They were silent for a long time. Dani stared at the wall, as if

  expecting to see something—anything—that might make Ethan’s story add

  up. One angel became angry, fought his brothers and sisters, and effed up

  Creation. And then those that survived were so shell-shocked they left

  reality broken and infested with demons.

  “It’s not exactly the story you tell all the little Numen boys before

  bedtime.” She grumbled.

  “Still want to be a Numen? Because this,” he thumbed over his

  shoulder, “is what we call our great forefathers.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  He shrugged once, noncommittally. “Who’s to say? You break all

  kinds of rules we used to think were unbreakable.”

  “Would you offer that to anyone else?”

  “Would you be insulted if I said no?”

  “A little.” But looking at it again, she asked herself: do I really want

  this? So far she’d been accused of being a distraction to the entire male

  population of Empyrean, a weak link and a threat. And that was just the

  first day!

  She sighed. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

  “It’s going to be difficult for you here.”

  “It’s going to be difficult anywhere. At least here, people aren’t

  trying to eat me alive.”

  The smallest of smiles tugged at the corners of Ethan’s mouth.

  “Well, that’s debatable. You’ve met the Elders.”

  “Do you think I should stay?”

  “Do you care what I think?”

  The question surprised her. Of course, ‘no’ was the obvious answer,

  but as she looked at him she sensed something much different about him;

  more so than the others. Jeduthun was kind, but pragmatic. Kleos stood up

  for her but who knew why? Most of her fellow Novices ei
ther hated her,

  didn’t want to be associated with her, or at best wanted to help her with no

  way how. And then there was Mastema: a jerk.

  But Ethan was different. He saved her life and brought her to

  Empyrean. Now he confided in her. Could she rely on him? She didn’t know

  yet.

  She blushed. “I think I should head back. I imagine being out after

  curfew is bad. Is there a curfew?”

  “Not necessarily, but no Numen dared to question authority here

  before.”

  “Not one?”

  “That surprises you?”

  No, it didn’t.

  Chapter Fifteen The night was warm as Ethan walked her back. It was nice to have company. He had a very serious expression almost all the time; like resting brooding face. But he didn’t talk much about himself like most boys. In fact, most of his questions were about Dani.

  “You never met your dad?” he asked. “No.” she shook her head. “He left before I was born. It’s just been me and my mom all my life.”

  “Left? He just left?”

  “Yeah. My mom raised me. We moved around a lot. When I was younger, I didn’t notice that every time we moved to a new place, it was smaller than the one before. We were in an apartment when I was thirteen and lost that place last year when we couldn’t pay. Then we moved in with Ricky. And after that…well, I’m here.” She sighed and shook her head. “I never really thought much about my dad. Mom never talked about him. To tell the truth, I assumed I was mistake.”

  “A mistake?”

  “She always acted as if I wasn’t planned. If I did have another parent, I’m not sure he planned on being a father. But I’m just guessing.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  She shrugged, hugging herself. “It wasn’t all bad. I have this necklace—well, used to have this necklace—that mom gave me. Real simple. Nothing special. She gave it to me when I was young. It sort of represented who she was before everything went downhill. I used to wear it all the time like I hoped she’d get better.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. She didn’t. I had to leave it. It’s gone.”

  Like her mom. Like her old life. Gone.

  He nodded solemnly and then, for the first time, shared something. “I never knew my parents. They both died when I was young. I lived with my uncle for a while. As soon as I was seventeen, I moved out.”

  “Where?”

  “Alaska, if you can believe it.”

  “Por el amor de Dios, why?”

  He shrugged. “It was the Eighties. Seemed like the thing to do.”