Uriel stepped closer to Azarias. “What I don’t understand is the meaning of the colors. Do they signify some hierarchical status?”
“I don’t think so. I believe they signify the districts,” Azarias answered. “Each one is different. If they were a rank, we should see the same borders on several angels who share the same rank.”
“Then these colors represent the districts these angels command,” Uriel concluded.
“Correct. How else could the enemy coordinate, distinguish, and execute an invasion without identifying all of the allies?”
Uriel turned. “But we have been told of only seven districts that are in the enemy’s invasion plan: Smyrna, Ephesus, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Sardis, Laodicea, and Pergamum. And these colored robes are all different and number about a hundred.”
“Yes, Uriel, but those districts revealed to us only encompass the major districts in the battle plan. They don’t include all the minor districts represented by the seven larger districts. Just like Thyatira is the overseer district for thirteen others, the other six major districts oversee districts for other sub-districts.”
Thankfully, the frescos seemed to distract Uriel from his panic. Still, where was everyone? The eerie silence crept close behind as they walked.
Laughter erupted in the hallway.
Not an ordinary laughter, a sinister laughter.
Azarias stiffened.
Uriel whirled around. “Where did that come from?” His voice vaulted past the high octave strain and entered a higher level of stress: a choked-up whisper.
“I don’t know. It echoed so violently, I couldn’t tell.” Azarias, turning to Uriel, said in a voice low and tight, “Don’t show concern.”
Hysteria invaded Uriel’s voice all the same. “Concern? We fly into a deserted district that normally is populated with countless angels; journey into what seems to be an abandoned palace; and then we hear terrifying laughter from an unknown spirit.” He caught his breath. “And I should not be concerned?”
“You misunderstand me, Uriel. I said, don’t show concern.”
The angels resumed their walk until they reached the end of the hallway. It was a blank wall with no openings in front or to the side.
“Welcome, my friends.” The voice echoed far behind them.
The angels rounded.
Abaddon.
Chapter 15
Purple peaks sheltered the reflective streams that carved their way into the Philadelphian valley. Raffaela welcomed the serenity. So much had happened in so little time. The ambush, the traitor, and the continuous mysteries of their missions had worn on her.
She hoped the others felt the same serenity on their missions. The staggering possibility of only seven angels (really six, discounting the traitor) confronting over a million angels, weighed down the wings. Every mission carried a risk of capture, even here. She pressed herself to not give in to the relaxed atmosphere. As Azarias said, We are the hunted and the hunters.
She floated downward to view the reddish-blue vinifera carpeting the upper slopes. The stalks that held the circular fruit numbered in the millions. The multitude rippled as they rose and fell among the mosaic ridges that disappeared into the horizon.
As Raffaela banked to the right, something caught her eye among the stalks. A seraph? He seemed engaged in some service. She felt the Lord’s Spirit and moved toward him.
She landed softly only several feet away.
“Mai Deus Exsisto vobis.”
The industrious one didn’t break his concentration, appearing to study the vine as he spoke. “Mai Deus Exsisto vobis.”
Raffaela, keeping her distance, watched. The vinifera hung on a horizontal branch no higher than her waist. The dozens of two-inch spheres appeared to melt. A glossy purple substance, like a shellac, glistened on each orb, congealing on the bottom in a hanging drop. This liquid dripped gracefully from the three-foot shaft, collecting into a puddle. The same quiet degeneration occurred all over the hillsides, producing a collage of purple pools as far as Raffaela could see. These little pools would collect into the glorious springs that eventually combined into large flowing rivers down to the valley.
Raffaela remained quiet, intrigued by the studious angel.
“You see the color?” He pointed to one of the spheres on the stalk. “It is changing.”
Raffaela walked closer to examine the bunch. The fruit were small reddish spheres hanging collectively like an upside-down triangular cluster.
“I’m sorry,” Raffaela answered, “I don’t know what you are referring to.”
The angel pulled harder and broke off a fruit. He handed it to Raffaela.
“You see?” He pointed to the fruit as it nestled in her hand. “You see the dark designs crisscrossing the surface of this fruit?”
Raffaela took the fruit and examined it closely. The angel was right, a number of intersecting lines clearly branded the fruit. It was like a small net encasing the entire sphere.
“It looks alright to me,” she said. “Of course, I have nothing to compare it to since I have never seen one this close before.”
She rotated the sphere. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open slightly. The mark of the enemy. The lines had intersected into a five-pointed star. Each star point met at the back of the sphere, distorting the star figure when observed from only one viewpoint.
“What is it, my friend?” The angel’s eyes stared with concern.
Raffaela bit her lip. “I…I can’t say.”
Who was this angel? She didn’t want to tell him anything that may compromise her mission. The rebellious ones were very shrewd and masqueraded as friends to betray others.
Raffaela handed the fruit back to the angel. “I am here to see your district administrator. Do you know who that is?”
The angel stared at her, rotating the fruit in his hands.
Raffaela fidgetted. “I would understand if you didn’t know the administrator, since your hierarchy may be so large as to not allow you to interact with those in higher ranking.”
The angel, placing the fruit in his pocket, turned to examine the remaining fruit on the stalk. “Perhaps I do.”
Perhaps? Raffaela had to tread lightly with this angel.
He sat down. “Why do you need to see the district administrator?”
Raffaela swallowed back a rising dread. “That is confidential. Please don’t be offended, though. I respect your service cultivating the vinifera; it is just that my mission’s purpose is not to be publicized.”
The angel sat back for a moment, wrapping his arms around his knees. He stared again at Raffaela for a while and then stood and bowed slightly. “Very well, I will lead you to the administration structure.”
Both angels walked down the slope. The cultivator pointed to the rolling, violet hills. “You know, I have examined every stem in these mountains. They have always exhibited the same organized pattern regulated by our Lord’s Spirit.” He pulled the fruit from his pocket and rotated it, as if expecting its appearance to change from the last time he examined it.
“But this is unusual. The net-like impressions seem to be accelerating the melting process. Down in the underworld, angels absorb a steady supply of this infinite liquid spirit. My inspections never included the pruning or altering of the crop, just its examination. In turn, I teach the other angels about the vinifera, showing them the Lord’s unlimited ability to design and provide for His angels.”
“But this time you are dumbfounded, aren’t you?”
The angel stopped and looked at Raffaela with worried eyes. “Yes, my friend, I don’t know what to say. You see, all my teachings have shown an orchestrated symphony of development. This latest event seems to alter that planned development…it is like a Heavenly anomaly, which…which is impossible.”
He then stepped closer and cocked his head.
“And you seem to know the answer, don’t you?”
Raffaela pressed her lips and looked down.
The angels continued down from the higher altitudes at a slightly faster clip, now the vinifera blended into a supernatural mosaic.
“Have you drunk of the vinifera before?” the angel asked.
“No,” Raffaela answered, stepping over a braided stream.
The cultivator relaxed his shoulders. “Angels come from all over Heaven during their missions to drink of this spiritual elixir. The drinking of it brings the angel into an immediate prex précis with the Lord’s Spirit, accentuating a feeling of exuberance more than their normal spiritual-emotional state.” He stopped and dipped his hand into the stream, letting the liquid run through his fingers like a purple liquid light. “You see, the vinifera is an intensely liquefied Lord’s Spirit, far more than the common profundo that circulates throughout Heaven.”
The slope leveled at the valley floor.
Raffaela stopped. She turned and raked her gaze across the foothills, guarded by their larger siblings behind them. Countless arteries of vinifera flowed towards them from all directions. The valley echoed with the tenor of millions of babbling brooks harmonizing with the baritone of rushing rivers.
“What beauty.”
Then she saw the district center. It glowed like an encrusted jewel nestled in the valley bosom of the many peaks.
The district extended in four directions, joining four multi-arched walls, together creating a square. A double-sided cornice capped each hundred-foot high wall. Each wall supported offsetting block turrets in the corners, creating a pinwheel illusion when viewed from above. The stairways completed this illusion by arching right, in semi-parabolic fashion, from the turrets into the center of the courtyard.
Raffaela followed the angel as they flew through one of the fifty-foot arches in the mile-long wall. Rushing underneath, was one of the many vinifera rivers falling into the square-mile courtyard.
The host looked at her. “I usually walk down the stairway into the courtyard, but I want to accommodate your request and lead you to your destination sooner.”
The angels soared into the courtyard lined with violet waterfalls. The two-hundred-foot high waterfalls cascaded with multiple harmonic liquid sounds, vanishing under the surface through a twenty-foot wide crevice that butted the interior of the entire four walls. A large tholos, a small hooded shelter, accepted the arching steps reaching from the four corners of the suspended courtyard.
The two angels then passed through the large tholos into a portal that led into an underworld.
An angel exited the portal as the two approached. “Mai Deus Exsisto vobis.”
“Mai Deus Exsisto vobis,” the two responded.
“Raffaela, we will fly to the administration structure. There, I believe you will find who you are looking for.”
“Fly?” Raffaela answered with bewilderment. “But it seems as if we are slipping below the surface into a hole.”
The angel smiled. “Are we?”
Malachy stood and scanned the cheering Ephesus crowd as Squatinidale bid farewell. How she wished she could sing like him. Sure, she can sing, but there are angels who are really gifted singers. Squatinidale wasn’t created as the tallest and most beautiful angel, but he certainly could sing better than most. But now she must use her gifts with Ephesus’s mysterious frescos on the large slabs.
She smacked her map with her palm and threw a quick glance to Pollyon. “Yes, I am sure I have it.”
“What? What did you find?” Pollyon tried to yank her back down into her seat.
“Oh, sorry.” She jabbed her finger to a point on the map. “The concave dish on top of the cone in the first relief is the Paestra.”
Pollyon looked up to the relief and then tilted his head in a look of bewilderment. “The Paestra, in Smyrna?”
She quickly pointed to the second relief and then to the map. “That relief represents Ephesus. The triangular-shaped bowl is the amphitheater where we are sitting.”
Pollyon raised his eyebrows. “Are all these reliefs graphic representations of the seven districts?”
Malachy’s face filled with excitement. “Now I understand why the Lord gifted me with knowledge of Heaven. I wondered what was so important about being a historian.”
She exhaled and leaned back and closed her eyes. “Now I know.”
Pollyon gave her a small smile. “That is great, my friend, but I’m getting nervous here. I don’t know why, but I feel an uneasy presence.”
“You’re right.” Malachy sat up and cleared her throat. “The third relief, which has a mosaic, must represent Thyatira—a center of administration with smaller districts; the fourth, Philadelphia with the vinifera spheres; the fifth….” Malachy slowed, trying to imagine the districts, “…is Sardis…”
Pollyon continued Malachy’s thought. “The sixth is Laodicea, and seventh Pergamum, right?”
Both angels looked at each other.
Pollyon opened his hands. “So, these are the seven districts in the enemy’s battle plan on our map, aren’t they?”
Malachy pressed her lips together. “But there must be something more. The Lord would not just repeat information. There must be a meaning in this, an additional clue—look around.”
Both angels, now standing, scanned the filled amphitheater.
Pollyon shook his head. “All I see are seated angels and the pillars behind us. Everything looks normal.”
“There must be something…”
A new angel walked onto the stage to the applause of the audience. She didn’t have the musical accompaniment that Squatinidale did. Her red hair glistened with twinkling stars that continued on her robe. She took a deep breath, then released a hypnotic chord:
The plan of the Lord is etched in stone
He does not waver, the course He owns
As four sevens are twenty-eight
His plan is solid
There’s no escape
Go in faith, and find your path
You will be spared of His wrath
Hearts afire without mend
Falling star at the end
The cryptic sonnet had no discernible effect on the audience—as if a trance state had begun. No applause or accolades lifted to the presenter. No stirring.
“Something’s wrong.” Malachy looked around.
“I wonder if the audience just didn’t understand. I found the stanza pointless and confusing,” Pollyon said.
“Maybe it wasn’t meant for them.” Malachy looked at Pollyon. No reaction came. “Let’s walk up to the pillars.”
The two angels climbed the steps to the top level behind the last row of the amphitheater’s seats. The stanza kept gnawing at Malachy. What did it mean? She felt the tug of the Lord’s Spirit in her soul.
“Pollyon, maybe the Lord was trying to send a message to us through that last presenter.”
“But nobody knows we are here,” Pollyon whispered forcefully.
She grabbed his arm. “Well, let’s try to test it and see if it is from the Lord.”
Pollyon closed his eyes as if envisioning the entire poem etched in his mind. This photographic memory of objects, pictures, and writings was one of his gifts. Malachy knew that Pollyon could recite every face, reading, and conversation he had ever encountered. He had displayed this gift to her on the flight over to Ephesus, reciting conversations between the members of the Septemviri.
Pollyon closed his eyes. “‘The plan of the Lord is etched in stone.’”
He opened his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, we already deciphered the reliefs. If that stanza was meant for us, then we have already deciphered the message.”
Malachy furrowed her brow. “No. I don’t think so. We analyzed the macro plan of which districts are involved. There is no specific information in
those reliefs. There must be something else revealed through them.”
She bit her lips. “What are the next lines, Pollyon?”
“He does not waiver, the course He owns. As four sevens are twenty-eight. His…”
“Wait, what was that last line?”
Pollyon spoke slower. “As four sevens are twenty-eight.”
“Four sevens; four times seven is twenty-eight,” Malachy scratched her head. “But what is…twenty-eight?”
Standing at the top of the seats between the columns, Pollyon looked around. The audience awaited the next performer. An almost imperceptible murmur replaced the accolades heard only minutes ago.
Pollyon turned and stepped back. He counted the columns. “Twenty-six…twenty-seven…twenty-eight. That’s it. Twenty-eight columns.”
Malachy beamed. “Very good.” The two angels walked up to the base of the first pillar. Inscriptions wound around the center of the column, from its base to mid-way up to the top.
Malachy gazed upward, squinting her eyes. “Now what does the four times seven mean? Maybe every group of four columns relates to each of the seven reliefs? Maybe it means that every fourth column relates to a relief? Or…maybe it could mean something else?”
Malachy patted the first column as she collected her thoughts.
The two then walked over to the fourth column on the left. Pollyon stretched his arm upward. He ran his hand over the etchings.
Malachy gasped.
Pollyon turned his head.
“Pollyon. Walk with me to the other columns.” The angels examined columns five, six, seven, and eight. “Point to this spot on the eighth column just above your head with your right hand.”
Pollyon did as told, throwing a quizzical look toward Malachy.
Malachy smiled. She redirected Pollyon’s gaze to his extended hand.
Pollyon looked. His sleeve had slid to his elbow, revealing the Septemviri mark—the multicolored triangle within a circle. The mark shimmered in fire as he touched the column. At the end of his fingertip, etched into the column, was the same symbol glowing in fire.
Angelic Wars- First Rebellion Page 15