Book of Secrets

by Chris Roberson

  And the world opened up, and the spiral swallowed me whole.

  And the world opened up…

  And the spiral swallowed me whole…

  And the world opened…

  And the spiral swallowed…

  And the world…

  And the spiral…

  And…

  I was standing on a featureless white plain, unable to distinguish any features, unable to see horizon or sky, walls or ceiling. San Antonio, the Alamo, the coffee and the pastries, the whole world… all of it was gone. Silence roared in my ears, and to my surprise the fear in my gut was gone, my hands firm and still. I looked down at myself, the only thing visible on which I could focus, and saw that my clothes were neat and clean, my boots shiny and new. I was polished and immaculate, free of sickness or fear.

  I tried to take a step forward, but even though I could see my feet move below me, I didn't experience any sensation of motion. No feeling of kinesis. Without any landmarks, only featureless white in every direction, I had no point of reference. I crouched down and tried to touch the ground, but felt nothing. Patting my legs and chest and slapping my hands together, I could still feel the fabric of my pants and jacket, could feel the stinging of the slap, but the ground of whatever it was couldn't be felt any more than it could be seen. It was a blank to all of my senses.

  "Well," I said aloud, my voice sounding small and distant in my ears, "this is either the afterlife, an experiment in sensory deprivation, or the last stages of madness. I'm not sure which I'd prefer."

  I tried to take a few more steps forward, jumped to the side, and hopped up and down in place; anything to feel some sort of difference. Nothing.

  "Okay," I said as loud as I could, "I'll bite. What the hell is going on here?"

  A voice answered, loud enough to rattle my teeth, coming from everywhere and nowhere.

  "A QUESTION," it said.

  This was the voice that scared the crap out of Chuck Heston in The Ten Commandments, this was the voice that every super alien in Star Trek shared. This was loud, deep, and resonant, and sounded like the bells of final judgment. This was the voice of thunder.

  "Right," I said, more than a little uneasy, looking up as though it would do any good. I wondered if this was how all the other lunatics felt, when the voices in their heads finally started answering back. "So where's my answer?"

  The voice didn't speak, but suddenly directly in front of me hovered an enormous disk, liquid silver and churning in a rotating spiral. Without any frame of reference, it was impossible to tell how big; it could either have been ten feet tall and ten feet away, or a hundred yards tall a hundred yards away. Either way, it looked big. Stretching my arms tentatively forward, I couldn't reach it. Like a giant pool of mercury running down a drain, though I couldn't remember which way it went in which hemisphere. This one ran counterclockwise, whichever hemisphere that meant. And it was familiar.

  "I get it," I said. "It's the same as the thing on the book, the one in the Sears bag. Is that what this is about? Did the disk do something to me when I touched it?" I ran through the possibilities in my head: coated with fast-acting hallucinogens, maybe, or possibly some weirdo superscientific virtual reality trigger. Nothing made sense, but then nothing about where I was standing was making much sense, so that was par for the course.

  "A QUESTION," the voice said again, my teeth on edge.

  "Two, actually," I started, and then got quiet as the spirally disk in front of me changed again. It seemed to shrink, or recede, one of the two, and then the image of the book's cover appeared, the disk set right on the cover. It looked so close I could reach out and take it, but when I tried I caught only air. I took a few quick steps forward, and the perspective on the book didn't change, coming no nearer, growing no larger. The things I was seeing must just be images, then, or else real objects hovering always just out of reach.

  "Right," I said again, "I got that. The disk on the book. Sure. But what is it? And who are you? What the hell is this all about?"

  I felt strangely calm. My emotional state was a like the environment, really. Flat and featureless. Maybe it was part of the process, part of whatever drug or technology or mumbo-jumbo was making me see and experience all of this in the first place. I realized, for the first time, that I really should be a lot more freaked out that I was.

  "A QUESTION," the voice boomed again, and I was beginning to wonder if he knew any other words. Then he proved me wrong, adding, "BEHOLD, AND LET YOUR EYES BE OPENED."

  I shrugged. This was having the same emotional impact as a late night TV infomercial, so I was sure somebody was monkeying with my reactions somewhere.

  I didn't have time to worry about it much longer. The image of the disk on the book grew bigger again, or closer, or closer and bigger at the same time, the book dropping away and disappearing and the mercury spiral coming so near and so large that it blocked out my view of everything else. I got a horrible feeling of déjà vu, and then the spiral opened up, and swallowed me whole.

  And the spiral opened up…

  And swallowed me whole…

  And the spiral…

  And…

  I was elsewhere, now, somewhere on another order of magnitude, and I seemed to have left my body behind. I was in a new environment, but though I could see and hear and feel and taste, if I tried to find my hands, or legs, or touch or see any part of my body, I came up empty. I was a disembodied set of sensations, floating in mid air, like the POV of a movie camera in some Hollywood blockbuster. That was weird enough; what came next put it to shame.

  I was looking at a mammoth city of crystal towers and spires, floating on a glittering sea of stars, with an arching sky of blinding light overhead shaded from one end of the spectrum to another, a rolling, vivid rainbow of burning color. I knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that I was looking at the Crystal City. I knew the names of the towers and spires, knew who lived in each room, knew the names of each of the vivid points of light in the sea of stars, knew the patterns and movements of all the colors overhead.

  I was working on dream logic. I had only to look at a thing, and I knew everything there was to know about it. Impossible knowledge appeared in my thoughts as though just remembered, like I'd always known it but had forgotten until just that moment.

  Was this what the disk did? It was like moving into a vivid, three-dimensional hypertext, where I selected object by sight and was privy immediately to everything there was to know about it. Where had the disk come from? I thought again. Who had made it?

  As though in response to my voiceless question, my perspective changed. My point of view rushed towards the city, in over the sea of stars, through the glistening towers, to a spire that stood taller than almost all others in the city. I looked at it and knew it to be home to the Messenger of Mysteries. It was home to Raziel.

  Blink, and I was inside the spire, in a room made of crystal, walls and floor glowing with living flames, and the ceiling open to the burning sky of colors above. The room was empty of furniture or decoration, without doors or windows. Only the open sky above, the walls of burning crystal, and the figure standing at the center of the room, head bowed.

  I looked at it. Even though I could only see the figure's back, I immediately recognized Raziel. The messengers, I knew at that moment, did not have names, not as we think of them at any rate. The messengers had functions. Raphael, the Messenger of Healing. Uriel, the Messenger of Fire. Gabriel, the Messenger of Strength.

  Raziel, the figure in the crystal room, back to me, was the Messenger given dominion over Mysteries, over Secrets. Only Raziel, of all the Host in the Crystal City, was privy to the secret plans of the Name, only Raziel the Almighty's one true confidant. Raziel knew what the Name had in store for each of its subjects, great and small, and it was at times almost too great a burden to carry.

  I wondered what this messenger looked like, who I now knew as closely as myself. I blinked, and my point of view shifted again. Looking at Raziel befo
re me, I saw the most perfect creature I had ever seen. Flawless and pristine, the face I saw was the untouched ideal for every sculptor and every painter who had ever tried to capture beauty, and I knew now that they all had failed. This was a vision of utter untouched perfection, and I ached to see it.

  I knew, though, that had I looked upon the face of Uriel, or Raphael, or Sidquel, or Hasdiel or any other of the countless legions of messengers in the Crystal City, I would have been looking at the same face. The faces of messengers were mirrors, I suddenly knew, that reflected the light of the Name. One was the same as another, so long as they all stood in the Presence. Only by turning from the Name would they lose their pristine beauty.

  But wasn't Raziel turned from the Name now? Face turned towards the floor?

  No, I realized. The Name was not in one place in the Crystal City, sitting on a throne in some tower or other. The city was the Name, and all who dwelt in it bathed in its presence, breathed it in with every breath. You could not look anywhere in the Crystal City and look anywhere but on the face of the Name.

  But Raziel was trying to look away, or thinking of doing so. The latest of the Mysteries to be revealed, the latest plans the Name had made, troubled Raziel.

  The Name had turned its attention to the World.

  The World, with beginning and end, was completely unlike the eternal perfection of the Crystal City. In the World, creatures were born, grew and died, without ever knowing firsthand the radiant splendor of the Presence. They had only hints and glimpses, if they were lucky, of the glory of the Name. Impossible to conceive for a messenger like Raziel, who had never once felt the absence of the Name's love. Worse yet, though, it was the Name's intention the inhabitants of the World would be forced to choose whether to accept the love of the Name or not. They would be able to turn forever away from the Presence and never feel it again.

  What would the alternative be? What would someone choose over the warming radiance and the eternal grace of the Name?

  That was the Mystery revealed to Raziel, the Secret that burned deep in the messenger's thoughts.

  There was to be a revolt, a war in the Crystal City.

  The Name had already decided.

  Blink.

  Blink again, and Raziel was leaving the spire, floating up over the city. I followed.

  Though it had no wings, Raziel flew over the whole of the Crystal City, and I followed. Passing the messengers in their places, passing messengers flying on their way, I knew as Raziel knew which were destined by the Name to turn against It in the coming revolt, which where destined to lose their way and fall. Azazel, Sariel, Barakel, and all the others.

  Finally, Raziel came to the tower of Sammael, the Messenger of Death. Sammael, who loved the Name as much as any messenger in the hosts, and was more loved by the Name than most. Sammael, who would lead the revolt and take the role of Adversary in the World. Sammael, who would become the tempter.

  "Welcome, O Messenger of the Mysteries," said Sammael, as Raziel alighted on the tower.

  "Greetings, Beloved Messenger of Death," replied Raziel, head inclined in respect.

  "What brings the great keeper of the secrets to my humble tower?"

  "It is of a secret I would speak to you," answered Raziel, "though my heart trembles at the thought."

  Sammael, I could see, was taken aback by this. The two messengers looked enough alike to be twins, but there seemed something more open and loving in the face of Sammael. Raziel's face showed only worry, and the strain of secrets he couldn't bear to keep.

  "Why?" Sammael was confused. "My dominion is over life and its end. I've nothing to do with secrets."

  "This secret, though, has something to do with you."

  Blink.

  Blink again, and I knew that Raziel had told Sammael of the secret, that the divine plan had been revealed, and the role of the Messenger of Death in the coming war made known.

  I looked at Sammael and saw a great change.

  "I would not revolt!" cried the Messenger of Death. "What have I done to displease our Lord, that It would choose me for such a role? To spend an eternity turned from the Presence, tempting these pathetic creatures away from Its grace?"

  "It is the Name's plan," answered the Messenger of Mysteries, "and it is ineffable."

  Sammael paced the crystal floor of the tower room, hands clenched.

  "I won't do it," Sammael announced firmly, head shaking from side to side. "I won't revolt. I will refuse to take part, and stay here in the Presence, never to turn away."

  Raziel nodded. It was as hoped. Without Sammael to lead the revolt, there would be no war in heaven, and the creatures of the World would exist without temptation, each able to follow their own path unhindered. Without the interference of the legion of the fallen, as Raziel had seen in the divine plan, the creatures of the World would have true freedom of choice and would be able to come to the grace of the Name unencumbered by the treacheries of the Adversary. The divine plan would be disrupted, but in the end the divine purpose would be served, generations of the World's creatures choosing to worship the Name of their own free will.

  The expression on Sammael's face soured as Raziel and I watched, and the Messenger of Death continued.

  "But will It not punish me," Sammael went on, "for refusing my place in the divine plan? Will It not then cast me down, merely for choosing to worship It instead of rebelling against It? And am I not now rebelling, in my own way, for rejecting Its will?"

  The Messenger of Death, one hand striking the other, prowled the room, reminding me of a caged panther testing the borders of his prison.

  "This is not fair!" shouted Sammael. "To have spent an eternity in loyal service and be cast aside for the sake of some lunatic scheme."

  "Have a care," Raziel replied. "It is still our Lord, and we dwell in Its mercy."

  "Its mercy can go hang," Sammael answered. "It is lunatic, which you must see to have revealed these plans to me. You must agree, O Messenger of Mysteries, to have broken your covenant with the Name!"

  Raziel fell back a step, expression confused.

  "But…" the Messenger of Mysteries began, "I had no wish to offend our Lord. I had only wished better to serve It. There was a flaw in Its divine plan, it seemed to me, which I could resolve to Its better uses."

  "A flaw?" sneered Sammael. "Then you admit that the Name is capable of error, to have produced something imperfect. Perhaps it has always been imperfect and flawed itself, only we have been blinded too much by Its power and our overmuch devotion to see it for ourselves. Perhaps It has bred that blindness into us! What proof have we that the Name created the World in the first place? The Name created the Crystal City and those who dwell within it, and we are Its creatures, but who is to say that It did not simply come upon the World already hanging like a jewel in the void? We messengers were created to turn our faces always towards the Name, and all that we know about what lies without the Crystal City is what It wills that we know."

  "Sammael, please…" Raziel tried to interrupt.

  "The Name is the Almighty Lord of the Crystal City," Sammael continued, undeterred, but perhaps the time has come for a new Almighty. Perhaps the time has come for a change."

  Raziel opened its mouth to speak, but the Messenger of Death did not notice.

  "I will speak to the others of this," Sammael answered. "There are some who will see what we have seen, and join with me to correct these errors. We shall finds the flaws and imperfections all, and root them out."

  Sammael extended a hand towards Raziel.

  "Will you join me?" the Messenger of Death answered.

  "No!" shouted Raziel, confused. "I cannot. You cannot. This is not right. This is what I sought to avoid…"

  Sammael cut Raziel off, angrily.

  "Fine," Sammael barked, "it is always your choice. But remember this, O Messenger of Mysteries. Any who do not stand with me in my purpose stand against me. Sibling or not, I will not abide any who stand against me."


  Sammael turned from Raziel and sped from the tower, off to seek others to join in the revolt.

  Blink.

  I blinked again, and Raziel was back in the crystal spire with the burning walls, eyes turned again to the floor.

  I knew in that instant that Raziel had discovered the role the Messenger of Mysteries was to play in the coming revolt, the one divine secret previously unrevealed. It was Raziel who was to incite the Messenger of Death to rebel, Raziel who was to set in motion the first volley in the war that would rage through the Crystal City. In going to Sammael, and trying to prevent the war from beginning, Raziel had only been playing the role set down in the divine plan, working the Name's will. The war would come, and soon, and in some small way it would be Raziel's fault.

  "No more," Raziel said, eyes turning towards the roil of color overhead. "This is unfair, even if it is the Name's own will. I will have no part in it."