by Donovan Neal
Lucifer paused in shock as he watched Charon fall back to the Earth, only to turn his eye to the battle to see his brother now upon him. Michael smashed into his chest and they careened into the upper skies of the planet. Charon and Eladrin plummeted to the Earth, and Lucifer and Michael fell alongside the giants, for as falling stars each of the four struggled with one another, as the air shed streams of incandescent light in their wakes, and men beheld as it were four great stars fall from the sky.
Lucifer illuminated his skin in a vain attempt to blind Michael. But Michael was now the Chief Prince and he too glowed, and Lucifer, unaccustomed to seeing light as luminous as his own, shielded his eyes, unexpectedly blinded, and when he did so, Michael escaped his grip and raced to descend to the position of the Holy Spirit. Charon twisted to escape Eladrin's growling bear face and he knocked into Lucifer, making him careen into several of his lieutenants.
Eladrin's disc's sliced into the dangling chains of Charon. His spinning wheels shaved the tentacle-like chains, cutting through veins and tendril. The great celestial giants plummeted past swarms of combating angels. Charon, tumbling with his enemy, reached for an inner gear in Eladrin's chest, and with his chains ripped a moving mechanism from Eladrin's abdomen. Tail spinning into the Earth's atmosphere, Charon's chains lashed against the turning faces of Eladrin, and the King of the Ophanim and the Angel of Death wrestled with one another as they crashed into the ocean and descended into the depths of the deep.
Waves rose in tsunamic response to their presence, and as leviathans in combat, they tore at the fabric of the bonds that held hydrogen and oxygen in each other's nucleic embrace. Water turned into steam around them, and sea life raced away to escape the battling archons of power. They crashed to the ocean floor the decks of tectonic plates gave way, and fissures erupted within the seas and vomited magma onto the ocean floor. Charon, with a lash of his great chains, smote the eagles face of Eladrin, drawing blood, and then knocked the mammoth Ophanim backward, creating undersea waves. Eladrin’s wheels glowed and immediately he began to disassemble, and one of his spiraling discs flew towards Charon. The Angel of Death grappled the giant discus in his hands. The force of his catch causing the angel to slide across the ocean floor.
A second disc disassembled from Eladrin's body and shot through the undersea currents, and its gyration created eddies that trailed behind it, smashing into the skeletal face of the Warden of Hell. Charon was shoved back the more, and the turbulence of their battle caused giant waves to lurch from the seas and submerge islands whole. The legends of which would be told in men's tales. Eladrin then grappled Charon, and with a thought formed into a Ladder and lifted Charon ascending through and shooting from the ocean depths. Charon was now captive as the two rocketed through the atmosphere, smashing through angelic battle lines that still raged in combat. The moon came into view then disappeared behind him, and when Charon saw that he was being pulled away from the planet, he slid his chains into the inner gears of Eladrin and pulled against the living machinery, rending the king open. The Ladder collapsed and the four faces of Eladrin screamed. Reds, blues, and greens exploded in pyrotechnic displays, and time burst as a bubble and pieces of Eladrin shot across the sky. Eladrin shimmered, then dissipated from view. Wise men of the Earth and magi observed the explosions, making note and followed their trajectory across the skies of Earth.
Charon lifted his eyes to see that his nemesis had disappeared and when he looked back to the battled that ensued behind him. He turned to see the fourth planet from this systems sun ahead of him and moved to rejoin the conflict and Lucifer below.
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Argoth spun in a circle, and as he did so, he spoke the word "Elune" which in angel speak means, 'Sanctuary'. Immediately his pen moved over Nazareth, and the pen scrawled in blazing light, and a field of power flowed down over the city, and when Assyrix saw what the Grigori had done he screamed to his henchmen.
"Forget the Sephiroth, hurry and acquire the maid!"
Lahatiel raced towards the barrier and when he was about to enter the threshold of the city he was knocked back; repelled by an invisible force. He looked back at Assyrix perplexed and shrugged his shoulders. Assyrix grumbled an obscenity and yelled to his two comrades in arms.
"Forget the girl for now!” yelled Assyrix. "Kill Argoth, and the barrier will fall."
Argoth smiled and black smoke ushered from his person and shrouded him and Azaziel in darkness. Lahatiel and Volac hurtled into the angelic smog, thinking to grapple the duo, but they grasped nothing but ether and wrestled naught but plumes of smoke to the ground.
Zathael shook his head in disgust, chuckled and laid down on a rock. "When I am needed you know where to find me." He yawned and closed his eyes.
Assyrix waved his hand annoyingly and when he did, scales dropped from both Volac's and Lahatiel's eyes, and they could see that Azaziel and Argoth flew away from the city. "Hunt them, for if we do not destroy Argoth, the maiden is lost to us."
Azaziel and Argoth flew quickly over the rocky terrain and towards the mountains to Mt. Tabor, which stood isolated amidst the prairie of flat lands around it.
"This will be a good place to make our stand," said Argoth.
Azaziel smiled. "Finally, I am getting tired of running. I would let my spear speak for me."
Argoth looked up as Lahatiel, Assyrix, and Zathiel made their way towards them. "Then speak with thy spear, brother, and let your words ring true."
Azaziel smiled. "Then let first blood me mine." Immediately, Azaziel lifted his spear to the sky, and slammed the hilt into the ground, when he did a cylinder of prismatic fire and lightning fell from the sky. It targeted Volac, and the angel was blasted with fire from Heaven. Currents of electricity poured through his body and he fell to the ground, writhing in pain. He attempted to move, and the funnel cloud followed him across the plains. Azaziel then twirled his javelin forward as a lance and raced to Lathaniel to meet the angel head on.
Closer they raced towards one another. Lahatiel leaped to the side, grabbing the lance and with his momentum, he pulled upon it, throwing Azaziel and sending him careening through the air. His enemy's weapon now in his hands, Lahatiel lifted himself into the air and catapulted to spear Azaziel. But Azaziel rolled to his side and escaped impalement. Quickly he rose to his feet and stood hovering above the ground.
"I will run you through with thine own spear!" screamed Lahatiel. He raised the javelin and hurled it at Azaziel. It flew trough the air, hovering as it approached Azaziel, and settled into his waiting palm. "Thank you," said Azaziel. "I find that I hate to part with it."
Lahatiel roared with anger and charged him.
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Iblis caught his breath, weak from his scourging and bondage under the torture of Quetzalcoatl. He stumbled as he fell into the waiting arms of Netzach.
"You are Iblis of House Grigori. We have orders to see to your safety. But tell me, how fares those that were sent in to deliver you?"
Iblis looked at the angel, closed his eyes and faded out of consciousness. Netzach then shook him, and Iblis opened his eyes.
"The Lumazi and Chronos!" ordered Netzach. "Quickly, what do you know of their welfare?"
Iblis spoke softly. "Chronos sent me to you, and last seen he was within the mount in battle with Zeus."
"And what of the Lumazi?" asked Netzach.
"Talus is yet inside, but Jerahmeel was ported I know not where." Iblis then fainted and went unconscious.
An angel next to Iblis spoke to his commander. "What are your orders?"
Netzach lowered his gaze. "We have orders to stay here one day and create distraction."
"And if Talus does not come out?" the angel asked.
The lieutenant looked at his man and said, "Then heaven and earth shall pass away, and we shall be found here when it does."
The group settled into the jungle to wait out the outcome of their Lord’s return.
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"Disassemble."
With but one word the pen of Argoth went into action. Lahatiel was hunched over, wracked in pain and screaming like a howling animal. For the celestial endorphins that pumped through his body were now removed—endorphins needed to mask the pain from a quadrillion dying cells. Cells now exposed to the plague of sin. Cells changed as the result of the fall. And the angel screamed as for the first time Lahatiel felt decay in his body, and in that moment, he experienced what it was like for a man to die.
Lahatiel's body radiated heat that blasted the mountain and the plains round about. Grass fires erupted and heated eddies floated back and forth across the rising black flames. Dark smoke and blistering heat masked the person of Lahatiel so that he could not be seen. His cries ascended to the skies and animals raced to flee what sounded like the roar of a wounded lion. Azaziel moved closer to the gritty blanket of dark smoke. The burning smell of grass entered the angel's nostrils and he searched the darkness to see his adversary. Argoth was the first to spot him, but it was too late, for Azaziel had moved too close and Lahatiel roared from the blackness as trails of soot followed him.
He grabbed the javelin of Azaziel and with a quick stroke. He snapped the weapon in his arms, then collapsed in a huddled mass quivering in pain. He looked up at Azaziel who stood over him, and smugly spoke. "Death comes to you and your kind. For the maiden shall be ours." Lahatiel then spasmed and shook on the ground.
Argoth moved towards Azaziel and frowned. "Assyrix—where is he?"
Each angel looked about them, and when Azaziel turned to interrogate Lahatiel, an iron mace met him in the chest and the force of the blow propelled him backwards into the sky and he smashed into the mountainside. Argoth, surprised, attempted to mist but could not as the air around him suddenly became cold, his lungs slowed, and his breathing stalled and he panted to catch clumps of air. His hands went to his throat and he choked and began to cough up blood.
"Yes, Grigori," said Volac. "You reside in this sin-stained realm and even you are susceptible to the plague of sin. Feel the cold wrap and blister your lungs as they struggle to extract what little air now oxygenates your blood. Let me watch you crawl before me. Crawl, Lumazi, and despair as we rip the hope of Heaven from you!"
Argoth crawled on the grass, looking in the distance, unable to speak, unable to stop as Assyrix spoke incantations to dismiss the protective shell he had placed to protect Nazareth.
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Assyrix studied the shell that prevented him from passing. Invisible to the humans, it stood as a cover over all of Nazareth. Assyrix smiled, This will not keep me from my charge, and the master will be pleased.
Assyrix reached into his chest and scraped a sliver from his Kilnstone. He then ripped out a page from his tome and folded the parchment over the sliver. Taking his own pen, he slashed the palm of his hand. Tightening his fist, he let the blood mingle with the parchment-covered sliver. Watching as it slowly turned blue. He dipped his pen in his floating inkhorn and wrote the words "DESECRATE" over the parchment. Immediately the parchment caught fire and he placed it on the shell. The casing sizzled and a red symbol formed at Assyrix's feet, climbing up the wall and encircling the invisible shell. Blood-colored tendrils crawled up from the ground and hissed. And Assyrix watched as the covering given by Argoth corroded before the onslaught and the sin of another.
Assyrix grinned, knowing that soon he would kill the host to Shiloh.
Chapter Nine
Ramah Weeps
Zeus withstood his former mentor, Chronos, the angel of absolute time. Zeus was the master of time and seasons, and the student sought to usurp the master.
"You will not see the rising of another day," said Zeus. "For it is now the season to end the existence of the father, to bring about the rise of the son. You and the Host are Titans indeed. But we—WE SHALL BE GODS!"
Chronos looked upon him and spoke, "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord: but everyone that is perfect shall be as his master. Lo, you have been my greatest pupil in the study of chronology. Yet now you force my hand to put an end to the season that is your time. Come then, student of the Usurper, and show what lessons betrayal hath taught thee."
Zeus roared in rage and he flew forward to engage Chronos in battle. Chronos lifted his hands and a portal of temporal power appeared in front of his nemesis. Zeus's forward momentum carried him into the expanse and he disappeared. The Lord of Time smiled, but his smile was short-lived as the sound of a portal could be heard above him. He looked overhead in time to see Zeus plummet from above him, sword in hand to carve the angel in two. Chronos lifted his blade, parrying the strike downward. Flecks of light and sparks from angel-forged steel scrapped against one another. Their swords touched the ground and Zeus flipped over his blade and slammed his elbow hard into the back of Chronos, knocking him into the earthen floor. Zeus then opened a portal and Chronos fell within and disappeared into the earth. In the selfsame instant, Chronos materialized from a portal from Zeus's side and backhanded the angel, sending him careening into a wall with a thud.
"Well played," Zeus said, his chest heaving from exertion. "Well played indeed." Zeus lifted himself from the floor while Chronos stood aloft, catching his breath. Zeus smiled. "Yet there is weakness within you." Zeus stood up and walked towards his former master. "And weakness will not serve thee since only the strong survive!" Sword held high, Zeus lunged for Chronos and created a portal beneath his adversary, then tackled him and they both plummeted into the void between space and time.
They exited to the searing heat of the tropical lush jungles of the planet’s equator, fighting sword to sword, weaving, and ducking, and the clashing of steel created portal after portal, and they battled across desert sands, and arctic snows. Flashing in and out of the spiritual plane, their constant appearance and disappearance alerted both friend and foe. Men watched as two great "gods" grappled with one another in combat. In the skies, they crossed blades, and in the seas, they shed blood, and they portaled and circled the globe of the earth and settled atop a dormant volcano.
Waves of temporal energy seeped from the combatants as Elomic commands caused the ground beneath them to age and decay. Surges of power escaped their person and the presence of two combating Lords of Time disturbed the order of things. The caldera chaffed and heaved. The mountain’s life cycle was now accelerated by their presence, held captive and turned in the wheel of time. Lava jettisoned in the air, as black ash belched from its mouth and ascended hundreds of furlongs into the sky. The mount convulsed and a shock wave of blistering heat melted life at the foot of the mountain, and trees splintered and bowed down in broken obeisance to the concussive wave that now raced across the land. Men looked in wonderment at the mountain, and lo two angels fought within the black sky and rock and pyroclastic plumes descended upon village and city. And Chronos so engaged in defense and combat saw not the destruction that their presence rained down upon the children of men. And lo, when he glanced to see men scamper as ants in a nest disturbed, his heart sank and his attention turned from his foe, and when he did so—Zeus struck.
Zeus, doing the unthinkable, opened up a portal within Chronos himself, and when he did, he inserted himself therein, occupying the space that was the body of his master, and the two became one. Chronos cried out in agony, that the mountain exploded once more in objection and the blast raced away in all directions, obliterating all life in its destructive path. Zeus held to his master as the void of the portal ate at his former Lord, and as Zeus watched his mentor turn to ash in his arms, he smiled and spoke. "Goodbye, my Lord. Know that you have taught me well."
Chronos smiled and replied, "Worry not for myself, for I will see thee at the last day." And Zeus called for lightning from the sky and it obeyed and fell upon the duo and coiled them in an embrace of electrocution. The portal completed its work and Chronos gave up the ghost. Zeus then released him, his body severed from the great hole the portal had made, and the
corpse plummeted into the erupting volcano beneath them. Zeus smiled at the falling husk that was once his master. He surveyed the land and reveled that men trembled before his might, and in the moments of his gloating he heard the clarion call of the Horde to battle, the horn of assembly, and turned his eyes skyward and frowned.
What looked like all of Heaven descended from above, and with widening eyes, fear and terror seized him as he beheld a great form of a raptor fill the sky.
The Holy Spirit had come.
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Jerahmeel battered his assailant into the ground.
An angel jumped on his back and bit into his flesh and Jerahmeel bellowed in pain.
He reached over his shoulder, grabbing his attacker, and lunged forward sending him careening into another. He pulled his axes from his sides and flung them swinging, wildly at foe after foe. The chains strapped to his forearms and the hilt of the weapons served as a bladed whip as they hatcheted through the air and cut down enemy after enemy. Ice coated the blades, ice coated his armor, and his chilled breath sent puffs of air as he hurled and weaved to keep the throng at bay. For Zeus had thought it amusing to portal the head of his house to the land where those who had once followed their prince had made their home...Grecia.