by Vox Day
“Great Prince of Light, please protect me now!” he prayed silently, and the thought of the Dawn Prince was a comfort to him, the certainty that he bore the sign of his godly favor burned away the doubt and fear inside him. He only hoped that favor would be enough to protect him against Leviathan as well. He strongly suspected that the beast was not going to be in a very good mood.
About thirty yards into the cave, Jehuel stopped, bringing Christopher’s nervous reverie to an abrupt end. The angel-prince pointed down, and Christopher saw that they were standing on the lip of a huge precipice descending as far as the eye could see. Towards the bottom, there was an orange glow that might indicate volcanic activity of some sort.
“You don’t mean to tell me that we’re going down there, do you?” Christopher asked, knowing what the answer was.
“Peace, Phaoton, you still think like a mortal.” Prince Jehuel shook his head, and his lack of concern was comforting. “You are in the material plane here, nothing can hurt you, not even the molten fire at Rahab’s core. Just don’t slip back into the material, or you will burn up in an instant.”
“Did you have to tell me that?” Christopher protested, but the angel’s words did make him feel better. “Now I’m going to be thinking about it the whole time we’re down there!”
Jehuel laughed. Having left Matraya’s body to Kaym, he now looked like the mighty angel-prince that he truly was. As he spoke, his form blurred for a moment as he shifted completely into the immaterial.
“No, you won’t,” he said. “You’ll forget all else once you see Leviathan. Truly, you are most fortunate, for never before have mortal eyes feasted on such a being.”
Christopher smiled wanly. He felt a little steadier now, but his nerves reached a fever pitch as Jehuel furled his large wings and leaped into the abyss. Fearing the fall, but even more afraid of being left behind, Christopher shifted into the spiritual realm himself, closed his eyes, and jumped.
His fall was rapid, but in his immaterial form, there was none of the discomfort he expected. Christopher opened his eyes cautiously at first, then, as nothing disastrous happened and he grew accustomed to the downward motion, he began to look around. The walls of the huge chasm were not jagged like he’d expected, but smooth and unnaturally flat. He shuddered. Someone had obviously made the huge pit, someone with unthinkable power at their disposal. He hoped it wasn’t Leviathan.
He imagined falling faster, and immediately his speed increased. Soon he caught up to the Seraph, who was calmly plunging downward. The orange glow was growing closer, and he started to feel heat pressing against his skin. It’s just your imagination, he told himself, but the burning sensation became harder to deny as he hurtled ever closer to the bubbling magma.
As he fought to ignore the heat, a voice whispered into his ear, urging him to shift back into the material. It was deep and pleasant, the subterranean rumbling of an earth elemental.
“Release thyself,” it urged. “Open thy heart and all that troubles thee shall be gone, the hellfire quenched by the cool darkness of the void.”
Christopher started at the sound of the voice, and looked frantically around, but all he saw were the glowing walls of the chasm as he shot past them, plunging ever deeper. The heat was more intense now, more painful, and when he looked at himself, he saw that his arms were now afire.
“Highness, help me!” he screamed in panic, but the angel-prince did not hear him as they fell ever closer to the burning lake of fire.
“Open thyself to me and I will take away thy pain,” the deep voice promised. “Thou dost not want to enter the lake, the lake, the lake of hell!”
As the fiery pain wholly engulfed him, he was about to give in when another voice called to him, a soft, seductive voice that was hauntingly familiar. It sounded like a woman, and she calmed him with her caressing tones.
“The pain isn’t real. The fire cannot touch you, golden Phaoton. You are stronger than the fire!”
The bubbling orange-red lava was only a hundred yards below him, and he was falling fast. It felt like a white-hot furnace reaching out to devour him, eating away at his face and peeling his black, scorched skin away from his bones. He felt his will weakening against the whispers of the first voice, and began to relax, starting to slip back into the material. It would be the end of him, but that seemed like the lesser of two evils now.
“No, think only on the Light, the Great Light of the Shining One!”
The soft whisper was urgent, as the speaker refused to let Christopher give up. He tried to picture the pure light that surrounded the Dawn Prince, but it was impossible. The white light turned hot and red in his mind, and he was filled with the incandescent heat and pain.
“The lake, the lake!” the first voice sobbed. “Thou shalt not enter the lake!”
“Trust in yourself!” the second voice whispered in reply. “Trust in your strength. You are stronger than the fire!”
“Give in! Submit! Obey!”
The suffering was terrible, worse than any he had ever known. The first voice hammered deeply in his skull, urging him to submit, but buoyed by the cool whispers and his faith in the Dawn Prince, Christopher’s will remained strong enough to resist.
“No!” he screamed in agony as his immaterial form plunged into the magma with a gigantic, thickly-liquid splash.
Chapter 12
Jaws Of the Wicked
And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
—Job 29:17
Jami was just recovering her senses when she noticed the good-looking young man standing next to Holli. She shook her head ruefully. Holli acquired boyfriends nearly as fast as Chris could scare a girl away.
“Jami!” Holli screamed happily as she threw her arms around her sister. “I’m so glad to see you! Khasar didn’t know where you were and I was worried that something bad happened to you.”
Jami gave her twin a quick squeeze before disentangling herself from Holli’s embrace. As she stepped back, she noticed the sky was yellow, of all things. Either the pollution was really bad, or, she suspected, they weren’t on Earth at all.
“Khasar?” she asked.
“Yes, he’s kind of weird, but he’s really nice.” Uh oh. Whenever Holli stressed ‘really’ like that, she had a crush on somebody. “Here, I’ll introduce you.”
“Wait a minute, where are we?”
“I don’t know. It’s not our world. It’s called, like, Ahurra Ozda or something.”
Her twin stepped back and indicated the handsome Archon.
“This is Khasar. He’s a lion, but he’s really an angel.”
Jami didn’t understand just what her sister meant by that, but she blushed as the Archon bowed to her and kissed her hand. He did it smoothly, in a flattering way that made her feel very grown up. Okay, so maybe having a crush on the guy was understandable.
“I am the Archon Khasaratjofee, at your service. Your sister has informed me that my name is somewhat difficult for your kind, so please, call me Khasar. I understand that you are the Lady Jami?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m Jami.” Augh! That sounded so stupid! She couldn’t come up with something better than that?
“Excellent,” Khasar smiled. It was a ridiculously charming smile. “Well, now that you are both here, perhaps we could get underway. I have been commanded to bring you to the Tower of Qawah.”
“Qawah?” Holli asked. “That’s a funny name.”
“Is it? You’ll have to tell the Lady of the Tower that.”
“Who told you to bring us there?” Jami asked.
Was it the Lady? Was the Lady human, and could she just order angels around? Jami wondered about that. Since she’d never gone to church or believed in angels, she had no idea what the rules were. She didn’t think angels were just there to take orders, but then, the sky wasn't supposed to be yellow either.
“The Lady of the Tower, of course. I can’t tell you why, because I’m just the transportation service. The
Lady does not tell me her secrets.”
“The transportation service?” Jami said, puzzled.
“I told you he was a lion,” Holli replied, as Jami jumped, startled. Khasar was transforming back into his leonine aspect.
“Wow, that’s pretty cool,” she said.
“I like him better the other way, though,” Holli whispered in her ear.
“He is pretty cute,” Jami agreed. But he made a handsome lion too.
Khasar stretched out his forelegs and lowered his chest to the ground, extending his wings to their full span as he yawned loudly.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized. “For some reason, I always feel like I need a nap when I switch into this form. Well, we’d best be going. Hop on, and don’t forget to hang on tight. There’s more than a few nasties lurking about, and I’m afraid that some of them aren’t too happy about your presence here.”
Jami didn’t like the sound of that, but she obediently climbed on top of Khasar’s broad, muscular back. Holli clambered on behind her. She took a firm grip on Khasar’s thick blue mane and felt Holli wrap both arms around her waist.
“Everybody okay back there? Don’t pull, child! That mane is attached, you know.”
“Sorry,” Jami apologized, then she stifled a scream as the big Archon leaped into the sky, his blue wings beating strongly against the air. In a matter of moments, they were high over the stony hills, looking down across the striking landscape of Ahura Azdha.
It was a breathtaking sight. Although the hills were stony and bleak, the snow-capped mountains were beautiful, a tall and majestic range that erupted against the yellow sky like a dark, haughty challenge. It was as if earth and sky were fighting, and the earth was winning. The sky seemed subdued and quiet, for little wind ruffled her ponytail despite the speed of their passage.
It was not long before they approached the mountain tops, and the temperature grew colder as Khasar’s shoulders worked powerfully, carrying them steadily ever higher. A thin mist surrounded them as they passed through wispy, reddish clouds, and their damp moisture chilled her to the bone.
She could feel Holli shivering against her as she snuggled closer, trying to stay warm. Jami curled over herself and pressed her chest against Khasar’s shoulders, warming herself with the heat that was steaming away from the Archon’s laboring body.
“Not long now until we’re past the mountains, ladies,” the angel told them. “Not long now.”
“Good, c-cause we’re freezing back here,” Jami said, her teeth chattering.
“Well, I’m not exactly enjoying this either, you know. Why didn’t you tell me that you’re heavier than you look?”
“Are you c-calling me fat?”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to dispute it just at the moment, my dear. Next time, you can take turns carrying me on your back and we’ll see just how you feel.”
“I didn’t know angels were so whiny,” Holli whispered as Khasar continued to complain. For some reason, that cracked Jami up.
“Me neither,” she finally managed to get out as she looked down at the mountains passing below them. It was a little scary, but they were not too high above the icy peaks, and she could see quite a bit as they passed by. The mountaintops seemed to be totally lifeless. Above the treeline, there didn’t seem to be any signs of life, either plant or animal, only jagged piles of ice, rock, and snow.
Khasar was true to his word, because it was not long before they were finally past the last mountaintop, and Jami felt her stomach drop as the ground suddenly seemed to fall away beneath her. Even as her vision whirled, though, she caught a glimpse of movement behind her. She glanced back quickly over her shoulder, and saw a large white thing that blended into the whiteness of the snowy slope. For a second, she thought her mind was playing tricks on her, until it moved again.
“Khasar, what’s that?” she shouted into the Archon’s furry ear. Whatever it was didn’t look too friendly.
“What’s—oh!”
A forceful blast of freezing air hit Khasar’s right side, forcing one wing up and sending him lurching into an awkward, downward path. The wing passed just over Jami, crouched behind Khasar’s mane, but it smashed into Holli’s shoulder. Jami heard her cry out in pain. She herself was hurting as Khasar’s head, jerking abruptly upward, had smacked her right in the face.
“Holli, are you all right?” Jami tried to turn around. “Khasar, what happened? Did that thing just attack us?”
“I’m okay, kind of,” Holli insisted, but Jami could tell from the looseness of her grip that she was hurting. She wished desperately for a piece of rope, or something she could tie them together with.
“It attacked us,” Khasar told her. “I couldn’t tell if it was an ice wyrm or a mountain dreki. They’re both very dangerous, but I hope it was just a wyrm.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because drekis can fly.”
Jami looked over her shoulder. Below them, the barren mountains were being replaced by steep, tree-covered hills, but there were still no signs of life or movement. She scanned the misty skies on all sides, but saw no winged white monsters.
“I don’t see anything,” she started to say, but Khasar interrupted her.
“Hold tight,” he said. “It was a dreki.”
Khasar suddenly banked his wings and angled sharply to the left. Jami felt a chill as a subzero blast just missed her head and she ducked down, burying her bleeding face into Khasar’s mane. They circled around in a tight turn, then the Archon was beating his wings backward as he pulled up into a vertical position.
Jami squeezed her legs tightly, holding her position against gravity’s frightening pull as the dreki came into view in front of them. It was big and ugly, with wings nearly twice Khasar’s wingspan and a fat, grey-and white mottled snake’s body. Jutting out from the body were four stumpy legs, on either side of the wide, triangular head were set pitiless, emerald-green eyes. But Jami could see they were not the eyes of an animal, though, for they gleamed with alien, evil intelligence.
“Back off, snake!” roared Khasar in a voice like thunder. “Back off before I burn you with the fire you fear!”
The dreki didn’t react, it simply stared back at them, and the horned ridges over its eyes made its hooded gaze seem even more malevolent. It flapped its giant, leathery wings lazily, keeping pace with Khasar as he rose ever higher through the red mists.
“I know you, little lionheart,” its sibilant voice whispered harshly. “Khasarotjofee. Do you not know me? You were of my Host, once.”
Jami felt Khasar’s wings miss a beat, then the mighty strokes resumed.
“Bilethel? Is that you?”
“Bile, now,” the snake pronounced. “Lord Bile. The Son of the Morning knows how to reward those who are loyal to him. You should have stayed with me. I would have made you my lieutenant, and we could have ruled the Mountains of the North together.”
“You are mistaken, Lord Bile.”
The Archon’s voice was level, but Jami could feel Khasar’s suppressed anger and hear his sarcasm.
“You have chosen your way, and I have chosen mine. Now for the sake of the friendship that was once ours, get out of my way.”
The heavy rattlesnake’s head moved slowly from side to side.
“It is only for the sake of that friendship that I do not destroy you now. I was always stronger than you, Khasar, and now I am stronger than you would believe possible. I am warning you, you cannot stand before me; do not put me to the test. Give me the children, and I will let you go.”
“Khasar!” Jami breathed urgently into the Archon’s ear. “Don’t listen to him.”
“Silence, child!” Khasar commanded roughly.
“Is this what you have come down to?” he chastised the fallen angel. “Is this how far you have fallen? To prey on the innocent? Did your heart rot? Is it as ugly as your face is now, Bilethel? If there is a glimmer of conscience left in you, if a single shard of the pure and holy being
you once were remains intact, it will bury itself in your heart like a poisoned blade! I am warning you, do not do this thing!”
For a moment, the demon seemed to seriously regard Khasar’s plea. Jami held her breath, hoping against hope that the Archon’s words would soften Bilethel’s heart, hoping he would let them go. She watched anxiously as the snake’s green eyes stared at them, his forked tongue flicking in and out of his broad mouth.
Then Lord Bile laughed, dashing her hopes amidst a short burst of cruel laughter.
“You seem troubled by my appearance, Khasar. Is that the problem? That you see me as ugly? I tell you, there is nothing ugly or beautiful, nothing good or evil, but for our minds that make it so. If my appearance troubles you, then I shall give you another!”
The air about him blurred momentarily, and in the place that the snake-demon had been was a stunningly beautiful angel, with silver iridescent wings and the body of a Venus model. Her long red hair spilled across a tight, white dress like a sacrificial offering, and she wore a golden torque emblazoned with a sunburst around her neck. A bright aura surrounded her, a shining ruby glow. Only the eyes were the same, green orbs that were colder and harder than any jewel.
“Is this better, Khasar? Now do you find me easier to look on?”
“You blaspheme against your nature, Bilethel! It is forbidden!”
“Nothing is forbidden to me anymore, Khasar.” Lord Bile’s voice was still the same, and it was particularly creepy coming out of the gorgeous angel’s mouth. “What is forbidden is your passage here! You may not take the children, Khasar, not if you would leave here. My patience is at an end, so make your choice. Are you with me or against me?”
“I gave you your answer a thousand years ago!” the angry Archon roared.
Jami gripped Khasar’s mane tightly as he opened his jaws again and belched forth a burst of blazing fire. The blast engulfed the beautiful demoness, and her silver wings crumbled away to ash before the heat of the inferno. As Bile howled in pain, Khasar dived below her, flying eastward as fast as he could.