by Donovan Neal
The trio advanced further in battle until none stood before them but the four silhouetted shadows on raised pedestal.
"Enough!" cried Jerahmeel. Lucifer, you know me. I am Lumazi. I will not be denied."
Lucifer looked on, the contour of his body barely visible from his perch, and replied. "So be it, Lumazi. Zeus, Ares, bring these unbelievers to heel."
When Jerahmeel heard the name Zeus, his rage kindled and a crackle of ball lightning erupted above his head. Spherical lightning flashed to the ground in front of him and knocked the trio back. While eddies of visible current wormed its way across the floor, Zeus rose from the midst of voltage. Sparks crackled around his person and he held a glowing sword the tip he dragged across the ground.
"We meet for the last time, Jerahmeel," he said.
Jerahmeel stood to his feet. His white armor sparkling and puffs of chilled air radiating from his body. He raised his axes and crossed their blades with swipes to sharpen them. He nodded and replied. "Shut up and fight."
Zeus smiled, disappeared in a spark of light, and then reappeared next to Jerahmeel, his sword bearing down to strike.
Jerahmeel side-stepped and his adversary's sword barely missed. Again, Zeus jabbed his sword forward and Jerahmeel parried the blow, blocking the blade's bite with his axes. Heaven-forged steel rang out, and flashes of voltage sparked as each weapon kissed the other's edge.
Weaving and ducking, Jerahmeel and Zeus dodged and zig-zagged one another, neither able to gain an advantage over the other and each entwined in a fatal dance where one misplaced step could lead to death.
Meanwhile, Turiel misted and hovered upward to where Lucifer and a cowering figure stood in the shadows. And Lucifer spoke to the oncoming Turiel through the darkness.
"You have not been summoned to approach my presence, Turiel. Iblis, my son, do me the honor of ridding me of this annoyance."
Iblis emerged from the darkness and spoke. "I am sorry, Turiel."
Turiel continued his floating approach towards the two adversaries and replied. "The day for sorrow hath passed."
Iblis then also misted, and the two merged as separate cloud formations melding into one. As a warm weather front meets a cold, lightning and thunder ensued and resonated through the room for in the vapor that filled the chamber, two ghostly figures wrestled with one another. Each grappling with the other in a gaseous skirmish to seize the advantage, their battle a foggish slugfest above the heads of Jerahmeel and Eskalion.
Another muscular figure emerged from the darkness...the silhouette of a heavily armored Arelim bearing a sword. It was Lucifer's God of War, Ares.
"It will give me great pleasure to disembowel you, Eskalion," he said.
Eskalion raised his staff horizontally in front of him. "I have swum in the bowels of our brethren as they died in the abomination called Tartarus. You will find me a most difficult adversary to kill."
Ares charged and the Arelim raised his staff to deflect the blow and sidestepped. Ares' momentum threw him forward and Eskalion's staff smashed into the back of his skull, sending him careening into the dank floor. Eskalion backed away, twirling his staff like a fan, circling in a defensive stance.
Ares wiped the gravel from his face and grinned in satisfaction. "I will most assuredly enjoy killing you."
With a roar, he rose from the floor and flew headlong into Eskalion's twirling staff, oblivious to the pummeling of Chittim wood that smacked his face. Forward he came, enduring rapid-firing smites to his cheeks. But Ares would not be stopped or denied as he pressed onward as the concrete blows hammered his face, neck, and chest. Eskalion, seeing that Ares would not be stopped by his actions, bellowed and stomped his foot into the scorched floor of Hell. A wave of concussive force traveled across the ground like a concentric groundswell that flowed over Ares, raising him into the air, tumbling in a suspended form of stasis.
Jerahmeel saw Ares floating in the air, and with a wave of his hand, the bubble that surrounded Ares froze over, totally encasing the angel in ice. The bubble solidified and crashed to the ground, shattering into a thousand shards. Ares rose groggily from his frozen enclosure and Zeus turned around to examine that which was behind him, and as he did so, shards of ice sprayed him. He covered his eyes. Jerahmeel attacked, kicking the Harrada square in the chest, sending him reeling through the air and crashing into Ares knocking both to the floor.
Eskalion raised his eyes to Turiel and Iblis who yet battled in the form of vapor. Eskalion threw his staff to Turiel, and Jerahmeel froze the air around Iblis, solidifying him. Turiel caught the staff and batted Iblis' head, sending him reeling into Ares and Zeus as they struggled to rise, causing them to be pummeled into the ground as Iblis fell atop them. Turiel tossed Eskalion's staff back to him and floated to where the trio huddled in pain, as both Eskalion and Jerahmeel floated toward Lucifer's henchmen. The three then formed up around them, each raising their weapons to bring them down on their dazed adversaries when a voice sounded.
"Enough!" Lucifer said.
Jerahmeel turned to see that Lucifer was now aglow in light that raced in mesmerizing patterns over his body.
"You have come here to destroy my Kiln, have you not? See now what you have combed the Realm of the Dead to see, and know the futility of your cause."
Lucifer waved his hand and when he did so, the chamber flooded with brilliance as a circle of light raced around the center of the floor. A circular opening revealed itself on the floor and the floor rock retracted into the walls. The hiss of steam and heat eddies escaped with a sizzle and screams and howls roared into the air. A horrific choir of moans raced up the walls of a gaping mouth lined with circular rows of teeth, and the familiar veins of Hell's tendrils flailed in the air as though released from a cage, and Jerahmeel watched as a pedestal with a figure sprouted from the center of a yawning mouth now roused from its sleep. Molten lava scurried to reveal the physique of the angel jutting from the depths of a mouth lined with the living, screaming remains of angels and spirits of evil men. Higher and higher the pedestal rose, like a mountain within a mountain. The fiery hollow burned white hot, and the more it rose in the cavern, the easier Jerahmeel could see who lay atop what could be nothing but a Kiln. A kiln that Talus was absorbed into, fused together as one entity. A kiln that suckled on the revealed beating heart of his friend. And Talus, head of all Arelim, one of the seven spirits that once stood before the presence of God, screamed. His cries blasted the air in waves of anguish insomuch that even the hearers felt pain. His figure was skeletal and his flesh had so fallen from him that his innards could be seen. Muscle, nerves, and worms crept over him, entering and exiting his body at will, feeding Hell as carrion drifted over the remains of a living carcass.
Jerahmeel gaped upon the living nightmare that raised itself as a tower before him, facing an unthinkable realization he had never considered. Talus, the brother he loved and had come to rescue, was now one with the Hellforge.
The Prince of House Harrada dropped his weapons to the ground, his mouth agape and eyes bulging at what he saw. A suffocating despondency slowly rose in his chest as he collapsed to his knees and moaned in despair.
* * *
Eskalion slumped on the ground, gawking, his mind in shock, for Lucifer had fused Talus' body into the living rock that was Hell herself. His arms were coiled with Hells tendrils as worms scurried across his exposed torso. The granite-like rock of Hell absorbed his abdomen. His legs, once visible, could no longer be seen. Leathery wings, once awesome with beauty, were shredded, and tattered strips now were strewn across each span.
Turiel and Eskalion beheld Jerahmeel's reaction and realized their mission to destroy the forge would also kill Talus, paused in their advance. And Lucifer---Lucifer watched with smug satisfaction that their awe gave them hesitation. And whilst the three were lost in grief and distraction, Lucifer lifted his hands and a great light appeared above them, blinding them to everything they surveyed, and they covered their eyes as the brilliance was like
a searing heat and they stumbled as men blind.
"Simpletons, you have yet to grasp the degree of both the Father's failure and your own." Lucifer flicked his wrist and tendrils descended upon them and restrained them that they could not move. Each was raised off the ground and suspended just above the floor of the cavern.
Zeus and Ares and Iblis walked back toward their master. Lucifer then floated toward Jerahmeel and whispered in his ear. "Thy ability to see my devices hath always been a burden to me. Forgive me as I partially relieve myself of it."
Then Lucifer grabbed Jerahmeel by the face and with his own hands, felt the contour of Jerahmeel's closed eye, lifted Jerahmeel's right eyelid and gouged the eye from its socket.
Jerahmeel shrieked in pain, shaking his head left and right. "Arrgh! Curse you Lucifer! God curse you to eternity!"
Lucifer smiled and held the bloody eyeball of Jerahmeel in his hand, staring at it longingly. "Thou seest with old eyes. Now, behold the vision I wish to cast upon you. See the world, Jerahmeel. See the cosmos as I see it." And when Lucifer spoke, Hell's ceiling became opaque, and Lucifer allowed the sounds above to be heard by them all. Behind the scene of Talus lifted and infused in the new furnace were pictures of Yeshua splayed across the walls and ceiling of Hell. Jerahmeel and the party watched as the Son of God fell under the weight of a crossbeam of wood. A crown of thorns pierced His brow, and both flesh and garments were bruised and tattered. Through throngs of humans who encouraged His death, and others too afraid to interfere, Roman guards marched Him to His execution. Jerahmeel watched with one eye as his Lord collapsed beneath the beam outstretched upon His shoulders. Lucifer smiled as he observed the procession.
"I will leave thee in the hands of my guards, for I must see Adam complete the work I have long desired to see. Despair, Jerahmeel. Despair, and see the world thou and the Host have fought to save, and mankind pass judgment on the Creator's kingship over them. See with the one eye that remains, for when the life of Yeshua goes out, I will return and take thy remaining eye and leave you in eternal darkness with the image of Yeshua spread upon a cross, a lasting image sealed for all time. Goodbye, brother."
Lucifer then floated away, laughing as he departed, ascending into the plane of the physical realm.
"Lucifer!!" Jerahmeel screamed.
Anguish and rage filled Jerahmeel, and he continued to cry aloud after his ascending brother. His screams echoed throughout the corridors and carried aloft upon the winds of Hades. Anguished cries of despair, cries that merged into the wails of her denizens. One more lone cry of woe added to the millions of screams that rang throughout her walls.
* * *
The sky was overcast in Jerusalem, as was Azaziel's spirit. No prayer covering protected the region for it seemed all of Jerusalem sought the death of the Lord. Azaziel wept at a distance as Yeshua entered alone into the spiritual wilderness comprised of evil men, daemons, and fallen angels...a multitude elated to see the Lord of Creation struggle in human flesh to carry a cross.
For six hundred and fifty yards, Yeshua walked past men and women hecklers while a small cadre of Roman soldiers went before Him. One, in particular, carried a titulus; a sign that announced Yeshua's crime as being "King of the Jews." Alone, the Son of God strode upwards toward the place of the Skull, force marched to the cackling cadence of humiliating barbs and the gawking eyes of men and women who mocked and spit upon Him. As He advanced amidst the throng, His bruised and battered body a walking effigy that represented the disappointment of evil men who, like the ancient Israelites of old, wanted a king like the other nations of the world. A king other than God, and once more, the King of the Universe submitted to the will of His own creation's rejection.
As God in the flesh acquiesced to the evil of men, each step testified to the love within the breast of the Almighty, nevertheless, a breast scorned by the unseen spirits who had rebelled against God. Therefore, for one thousand, nine hundred and fifty feet, Yeshua followed Simon the Cyrene to Golgotha, the hill – the place where He would embrace Death.
And when the entourage of death reached their final destination, Simon the Cyrene laid the wooden crossbar on the ground. The patibulum beam that would extend the outstretched arms of the Lord. The one hundred and twenty-five-pound plank of splintered wood hit the rocky ground with a thud, and the Roman soldiers, satisfied with Simon's work, shooed him away. And the Cyrene did as he was bidden lest he further provoke the soldier's ire.
Azaziel and his soldiers watched from afar while Grigoric scouts of both the Heavenly Host and the Fallen penned in their tomes.
Argoth and Michael also watched from the Hall of Annals as more and more of the Horde poured in from regions round about to see man accomplish what rebellious Elohim themselves could not achieve...the death of God. Satan attended in person, celebrating his evil scheme of orchestration that was finally coming to fulfillment. After years of planning and waiting, patiently biding his time, and moving against every counter of El, to help bring about the outcome that he lusted after for so many years. The death of his maker.
Thus, Yeshua, clear in mind and purpose, allowed His creation to handle Him as they stretched Him out on a patibulum of splintered wood. Seven-inch iron nails were given to a soldier, while the Lord's feet and arms were held in place in preparation for His body's impalement on the cross. A soldier forcibly grabbed His wrist and placed a nail near His median nerve.
The eyes of both Heaven and Earth watched in tense anticipation.
Argoth turned his head as the hammer raised.
Azaziel wept, wondering where he had failed the Lord.
Lucifer watched with gleeful anticipation, his eyes wide and a smile spread across his face as stretched leather, but it was Michael – the appointed Chief Prince of Heaven, who stoically watched the vision given to him so many ages ago by the Lord come to pass.
A human hand raised the hammer into the air, reached its apogee, then in a downward stroke pummeled an iron spike into the soft skin of the Word made Flesh, the clanging of which filled the air.
The Lord howled in agonizing pain as His flesh, reacting as designed, set His nerves on fire. The shock of His pain radiated through His arms and unlocked corridors of dormant pain receptors.
In Heaven, the Virtues spoke aloud. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him."
Blood splatter misted into the air as the Son of God's cries of agony cracked the ears of those listening.
Mary, the mother of Yeshua, sobbed from a distance, wailing with outstretched arms toward her oldest son whilst her companion, a woman Grigoric records would name Mary Magdalene, consoled as best as she was able the woman whom El had made privy to carry His son.
An exuberant mirth manifested in the evil smiles of daemon inspired men as the audience chanted...men who acquired more satisfaction from the unjust execution than the wrongful release of a convicted murderer through the manipulation of Governor Pilate's clemency.
Again, the clanging strike of iron against iron punctured the cool air...a sound that marked the methodical killing of the Son of God, and the perfection of torture on effective display by the Roman Empire.
In Heaven, the Virtues once again spoke aloud as they wafted around the throne. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him."
Pain, agony, and love cried out from the cross.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Yeshua cried.
The Romans who nailed Him, mocked Him over who took His robe and gambled amongst themselves to see who might have it.
The people stood beholding, and the rulers also with them derided Him, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if He be Christ, the chosen of God."
And the Lord heard the hecklers who beheld Him in contempt, yet did not return evil for evil. The Genesis of all Creation fighting against suffocation, enduring unknowingly to all who watched, the rod of God on the world's sin, that one day He might once more be in communion with His beloved mankind.
Fear kept those who migh
t otherwise speak against the travesty before them, in silence. The need for self-preservation a more palpable immediate concern than the altruistic value to defend the innocent. And aside from the cries of a few women and those of a tearful mother whose Son's life was fleeing before her eyes, none dared to interfere; for the Romans were staunch in their duty to the Empire and prevented any from drawing near. Efficient, and as merciless as well-oiled machines of death, they were swift in the execution of their duty.
Amidst the cries of wailing women and the jeers of taunting men were two thieves who also were executed. One hung on each side of the Lord, and one of the malefactors that hung next to Him, railed on Him, saying, "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us."
But the other answered and rebuked him, saying, "Dost, not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss." And he turned from the other and said unto Yeshua, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."
And Yeshua said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
And while the God in flesh allowed Himself to be fastened with nails of iron to a cross, God the Father looked down upon the actions of both men and His Son. The Virtues floated in their cloud-like fashion and words emanated from their invisible and fragrant mouths. "He hath put Him to grief."
And the Realm of the Dead was also privy to the happening in the land of the living, and Jerahmeel, shackled whilst in the realm of the unrighteous dead, could no longer view the scene projected upon the walls of Hades.
Zeus stood guard over his captive, noted Jerahmeel's repugnance, and grabbed Jerahmeel by the scruff of his neck.