by Donovan Neal
Jerahmeel eyed the cliff in the distance, and beneath it, smoke and ash billowed into the sky. Nothing lived at its entrance, and if one listened closely, distant wails sounded on the air. Jerahmeel placed his hand on Iblis' shoulder and leaned forward to whisper into his ear. "If thou lead us astray, know of a surety that I shall personally take thee with me to oblivion."
Iblis shrugged his shoulder away from Jerahmeel. "Quickly now! Follow me." Iblis dashed toward the vent and the others followed in kind. Plumes of smoke wafted into their eyes when they entered into the aperture, and the heat immediately assailed them all. Angelic bodies, immune to the searing effects that would kill a human, nevertheless felt the blast of intense heat.
Eskalion yelped. "Why do I feel pain?"
Turiel replied. "We are not just entering a terrestrial chamber of fire. Hell is a living creature, and we stand on her edge. She is not terrestrial, and her fires can harm us. The renegade leads us true thus far. This path is known to my people. We have yet to go outside the scope of the Grigori's gaze."
Iblis paused. "How long will I be despised in thy eyes? Am I not here by thy side with my own life at risk? What more dost thou want from me?"
Eskalion replied. "It will require much effort before Heaven's host will ever find compassion toward those who took up arms against them. El Himself would have to announce thee righteous before absolution could be gained. Yet help us in this cause, and mayhap healing can begin."
Iblis turned and murmured under his breath as he walked toward a chamber flowing with magma. "Through there," he said, pointing.
Jerahmeel had never seen the inside of Hell. None of them had. Only Michael, Lucifer, and Abaddon, who was now trapped within the Abyss, had walked the colon of Hell. They all gasped when their eyes beheld what lay before them.
Iblis turned with a pleased face. "Be careful when thou seekest to enter the mouth of a creature designed to consume thee alive. Behold, the desire of thine heart."
Ahead of them lay a chamber that glowed white hot, and within it, streams of Hell's blood flowed like magma. Strewn across the floor was thousands upon thousands of flesh-eating parasitic maggots. Each feasted upon the undying remains of angels and men alike, each moaning and screaming, their cries masked by the hissing of steam that vented into the sky. An opening inaccessible to men.
"Dear God," Jerahmeel said.
Iblis smiled, "Behold, the digestive tract of Hell."
Chapter Seven
A Gulf to Cross
"How are the teams?" Michael asked.
Argoth pointed to an image that arrested his sight. "Jerahmeel and his team have entered what I surmise is the digestive tract of Hell itself." Argoth's eyes widened at the horror of the image and finally ushered a return of voice. "It...it is naught but the wrath of the Lord."
Michael pointed to images of the citizens of Heaven huddled in fear, enduring the effects of the Withering during the absence of God's presence.
"No...," said Michael. "Wrath is yet to come."
"Look," Argoth said. "Enoch and Gabriel have entered Limbus. We can but hope they will all succeed."
Michael nodded. "Hope has been ever before us since the dawn of war. El is our hope, and our trust must lie in Him. Show me the city."
Argoth waved his hand and the floor itself became opaque. Within seconds, the colors of Jerusalem splashed on the walls. Angel upon angel coughed up blood from the sickness that infected the land. Some shivered uncontrollably while others picked at themselves and scratched imaginary boils until they bled. Others curled into balls, screaming at apparitions that did not exist. Dozens tore the hair from their heads and plucked tendrils from their wings, but the hallucinations of living mists brought the most agony. Mists that took form and harassed the population of Heaven of choices past. Mists invisible to all but he who saw them.
Michael frowned and winced at their suffering, for each stared with empty eyes, and he wrapped his arms around himself, held hard to his own shoulders and wept.
Argoth watched and said, "I am the Chief of Eyes and am not moved by what I see. But you, my Prince, are not so. Your leadership hath brought this on the people. How fares the Chief Prince, and has El given any indication of abeyance yet to come?"
Michael fingered his robes for comfort, and his voice tightened as he spoke.
"I...I...the Lord hath said we must endure for three days. The Withering is similar to the sin that plagues the humans – though we will not die. Nevertheless, we will experience the void of El and endure the haunting of choices made. We will see the sun, but be denied its warmth. Be close to the Father, yet far away from Him. I have forced my people to once again feel the absence of God's presence. I am stained to have exposed us so."
Michael looked upon the whole of Heaven, as each grew famished, not from the loss of foodstuffs that sustained them, but from the Shekinah of God. His lip quivered slightly and his eyes turned red from choking back tears.
Argoth touched his shoulder in comfort. "El is the life and light of all. If He is dark, then we are all dark," Argoth said.
Michael nodded in agreement. "Then today is a dark day, indeed."
A screen changed and Argoth received a message from a member of his people.
The Grigori bowed. "My Prince."
"Report," said Argoth.
"My Prince, I have chronicled the collapse of the Kortai, Osiras. He ceases to move."
"Hath he succumbed to dissolution?" replied Argoth.
"Nay, my Prince. He just collapsed in the street."
Michael looked at the image projected on the wall, as other angels suddenly circled around the collapsed angel. Some attempted to roust him while others covered their mouths and backed away in fear.
"I have seen this among the humans. He looks...dead," Michael said.
"Impossible," said Argoth. "There is no disease or predator that can strike an Elohim. He is immortal. No disease can overtake us. We are the Host."
Michael strained to look upon the still angel through the projection on the wall. "Perhaps, yet our eyes do not deceive." Bring his body for examination."
Argoth nodded, and Michael quietly prayed, hoping against hope that what he saw was not the precursor of things to come.
* * *
Talus contorted in agony as contractions rippled through each muscle. His flesh burned, and the stinging pain rolled across him in waves. Each muscle cramped, pulsating in Lucifer's orchestrated spasms. A wave of searing convulsions followed one after the other. Hell wrapped his mouth with her corrosive mucus, leaving him oxygen deprived as she suffocated him in her acidic bile. Smothering her captive until the mighty angel reached the brink of unconsciousness, then withdrawing the movement of her larval centipedes from his esophagus. Air rushed into his lungs; each expanded in clawing attempts to suction oxygen from the ashy smog and fire that surrounded him.
This was Talus's torment for defiance to his brother, for refusing to bow the knee. The pure temptation to yield to the relief of pain.
And Lucifer was skilled in its use.
"How many lights dost thou see?" Satan roared. "Is your pride so strong, little brother that you will not concede to me the reality that exists before your very eyes?"
Talus tightened his lips and gritted his teeth.
Lucifer paced before the suspended captive. "Thou art strong, but thy strength will not avail thee here in Hades, for thou art my centerpiece, the heart of my new Kiln. Thou art the hub from which I will raise this monster to Heaven, and with it, I will destroy all who dare oppose me. For who can defy that which El hath made? Yet here I stand, strong, and able to release thee. I hold two of El's creations. Behold the Controller of Death and Trainer of Hell. Yet you dare squirm in defiance before me?"
Lucifer lowered Talus to the ground and he slumped within the flaming tentacles that cuffed him. Lucifer grabbed Talus's cheeks and squeezed, forcing his lips to purse, and as a puppeteer moves his marionette, he made his lips move. "Save me, El...please...save me
from the Devil," Lucifer said. He released Talus's face and lifted his hands in disgust, "Tell me, Talus, where is thy God now?"
Talus struggled to lift his head and whispered, "I..."
Lucifer stilled himself and turned to face his brother. His attention locked on Talus's lips, and the Prince of Darkness tilted his head and edged closer to hear the whisper.
"What did you say? SPEAK, I command you!"
"I...see...lights," he said, beholding the shimmering orbs that Lucifer made dance before his eyes.
"HOW MANY LIGHTS DO YOU SEE?" the Prince of Darkness roared. Lucifer's voice cracked the floor of Hell and the creature roared its displeasure; the denizens that lived within moved as the floors buckled beneath them.
Talus' cracked lips turned up at the corners as he spoke in smugness, looking his brother square in the eye. "What lights?"
Lucifer gritted his teeth in anger and his power to manipulate light became evident as the colors of the rainbow skipped about him. With fury, he backhanded Talus across the face, and blood and spittle flew into the air.
He touched his locket and Hell dropped Talus to the floor with a thud. Lucifer kicked him in the gut and Talus flew across the chamber, slamming against the moist wall of Hell's belly. Talus struggled to rise to his feet, but before he could do so Lucifer was upon him and unsheathed the Sword of Malice from his side. The blade glowed green and the souls of victims trapped within screamed for release. Lucifer then lifted his brother with one hand, and with the other took the blade and slid its edge across his brother's face.
"I grow weary of your contempt. Do you not know that I have bled God?"
As Lucifer pulled the sword back to strike his brother, Ashtaroth came from behind him and pulled his master's arm.
"My Lord, do it not! For if thou do so, what then will be the stone that powers thy forge, for behold, the chamber glows and thy creation nears the end."
Lucifer paused and Ashtaroth, backed away in timidity, wondering if he had exchanged Talus's fate for his own. Ashtaroth bowed and motioned his lord to behold the chamber that hissed with steam.
Lucifer dropped Talus to the floor, and when he did so, he motioned dismissively to Talus. Hell's tendrils reached for her prize and lifted the limp and bruised body of her captive overhead. Talus peeked through swollen eyes to watch Lucifer stand in the hollow of a burning chamber. Fire upon fire roared from within the large oven, and blinding starlight flared from the chamber. Lucifer then walked in the midst of the furnace and Ashtaroth shielded his eyes as the luminance that erupted from within was blocked only by the shadow of his master, Lucifer. He scooted back to distance himself from the great flashes of light that ejected from the oven.
Evil, gleeful mirth and hilarity erupted from the chamber of fire a laughter that Ashtaroth had never heard in the midst of the screams that traveled the halls of Hell. Lucifer swaggered out of the furnace and smoldered as he held above him a glowing black stone as dark as onyx. It glistened as though moistened, and twinkling stars could be seen from within. Lucifer gazed at the stone and roared defiantly to El.
"Behold, Father! Behold the designs of thy wayward son, for now, I too possess the power of life. Behold, Ashtaroth...behold... A STONE OF FIRE!"
Ashtaroth feigned the makings of a smile and nodded in fearful acknowledgment to his Lord, for with the creation of a Kilnstone, he knew Lucifer could with it make a new creation. A new Heaven and a new Earth. And the thought made him shudder.
Talus also looked down upon his brother who exulted in his inventive triumph, and he closed his eyes in prayer that hope in El would one day come as promised, and save him and creation from the madness of the Devil.
* * *
"Report!" said Michael.
Argoth bowed to the Chief Prince as he entered his study. "I have examined the body of Osiras..."
"And?" replied Michael, tapping his foot. His eyes narrowed in focus on Argoth.
"Osiras hath died. Not just succumbed to dissolution."
Michael's eyes grew wide and his mouth opened as he shook his head in disbelief. "What do you mean, 'died'? He is immortal. He is not susceptible to death. Only the sons of Adam are subject to it."
"Please come with me."
Michael followed him to a room off the rear of Argoth's study and on a slab of stone was the stiff body of Osiras. A linen sheet covered his form and the wings of the Issi hung limp, draped to the floor.
Argoth stood next to the body and spoke. "I have examined the remains, and this is not dissolution. This, my prince, is death. His Kilnstone has stopped glowing. The spark of life no longer burns within, yet the body does not fade as is the manner of our kind upon dissolution. It is corrupted, my prince. It decays."
Michael looked at the body and examined it without touching. "How is such a thing possible, for it has not been even a day and his face is as leather and brittle?" Michael could smell the odor that slowly began to emanate from the corpse, and he continued. "Decay hath only been observed within man, and only since his abdication. How can an immortal be subject to the thing?"
Argoth looked at the body and shook his head. "The workings of the Withering is a first for our kind to observe in Heaven. But my people have learned that when a plague has run its course strips us of immortality. It corrodes the spark of life within our stones, leaving us mortal, and because the atmosphere of Heaven is toxic to anything that doth not possess El's touch of holiness..."
Michael's face displayed shock, and he finished the sentence. "...Heaven itself hath become toxic to our kind."
"Aye," Argoth said. "If we are not shielded by God's' holiness, the very presence of God will bring about our demise. Silently we will be consumed to age, and even as the humans, we too will be subject to death."
Michael staggered and reached out to brace himself against a wall. He hung his head low then sighed. He looked at the body of his deceased brother and choked back tears. "Jerahmeel was right...I have, through my actions, brought ruin to my people." His eyes zeroed in on his brother, "You said 'when it has run its course.' How much of the population do you project will succumb to the plague?"
Argoth floated to his brother and placed his hands on his shoulders. "Perhaps thou hast reached the limits to where thine own wisdom can take thee. Thy extremity must now seek He who can do beyond all that ye ask or think, for what remedy is available to thee other than by El's own hand?"
Michael drew his shoulder away from Argoth's touch, "You have failed to answer me, Chief of Eyes. I knew Raphael and I know that as Sephiroth you have knowledge beyond the sight of most, so I ask thee again. How much of the population do you project will succumb to the plague?"
Argoth frowned. "In three days, the plague will take its course, and if not abated, at least a third to a half of our kind will fall to death. In one week's time, I have beheld through Grigoric trance the extinction of our race."
Michael stumbled backward and reached to grab the wall as he lowered himself to the floor. He wrapped his arms around his waist and bent over and moaned.
"I have accomplished through stubbornness what Lucifer could not attain through war."
He groaned in the spirit with mutterings that could not be uttered and wept sore.
Argoth looked upon his leader and backed away from his prince leaving Michael alone as he sobbed, blanketing the corpse of Osiras.
* * *
Enoch and his group walked through mists obscured within mists, each member barely able to see the next step before them. Enoch paused and lifted a closed fisted hand. The troop came to a halt. God's man strained his eyes to peer through the gloomy veil.
"Something moves within the dimness," he said.
"Are sure?" Gabriel said in a low voice. "I see nothing."
"It is not about sight, High Prince. It is about instinct. Something is out there."
Gabriel then turned to Hadriel. "Go to and scout before us and see that the way is clear, for what harm can come to a Grigori while misted?"
Hadr
iel nodded and allowed his body to change to a gaseous, transparent form that floated quickly past the trio and disappeared into the shrouded gloom.
Seconds passed as they waited for word from their friend if they could proceed further.
"Hadriel?" shouted Enoch.
But there was no reply.
The eyes of all strained to peer past the cloudy veil, and Metatron was the first to notice movement and he drew his sword. "We are being watched," he said.
"Yes...yes you are." Came a voice from the darkness.
Enoch slid his sword out from its sheath and assumed a defensive battle stance. The heaven forged blade glittered between the twilight mists, and sounds of swords drawn emerged from the murk.
"With what gall dost the living seek to dwell amongst the dead?" said a voice.
"Show thyself, coward!" shouted Gabriel.
A figure stirred among the mists and all stepped back, ready for an attack. They breathed a collective sigh of relief as Hadriel appeared, came into view. His cowled face and shimmering eyes a familiar and welcome sight. He flew above the trio and landed behind them. "Quickly form up for we are under assault!"
The four placed their backs to each other, swords raised, and watched for any sign of attack from the gloom. Hadriel's pen then transformed into a dagger.
Hadriel floated closer to Enoch while all eyed the shadows that now moved menacingly around them. Hadriel settled next to Enoch, and when Enoch turned his eyes away, Hadriel raised his dagger to strike him down.
Enoch caught the motion from the corner of his eye and quickly leaned away, yet unable to escape the downward stroke that would plunge Hadriel's dagger deep into his neck.
Suddenly, another dagger whizzed across Enoch's face, knocking Hadriel's dagger from his hand; both weapons ricocheted off one another twirling into the darkness.
Gabriel shoved Enoch behind him as another floating apparition materialized. It was Hadriel.