Angels to Ashes
Page 36
Even if Samael did not destroy all life on Earth, the battle between Apollyon and Gabriele might.
Mountains toppled and cities slid into the sea as the two Titans battled, neither able to gain the upper hand. Each time Gabriele fell upon Apollyon, the abyssal length of Terminus dashed her to the side. The immutable power of the Hammer of God thwarted every strike from the Destroyer. Their hearts were serene as they tore the world down around themselves.
The surviving Angels and Demons held their hands over their ears, waiting for the world to explode. It could not continue, but continue it did, as the setting sun cast the world into deepening shadow.
“You cannot vanquish me, Apollyon.” Gabriele decreed, her voice strident over the quaking ground. “I am the Strength of God.”
She dived toward the Destroyer’s face, hammer whistling through air.
Apollyon sneered, and shifted to the side as the Archangel plummeted past his towering form. “Perhaps once,” he snarled. “But are you still? Do you serve Him in this nihilistic endeavor?”
The Destroyer aimed a vicious strike at her as she sped by, but Gabriele twisted in the sky like a peregrine falcon, wheeling to evade Terminus’ edge. She pulled up and whirled to face him, her gaze imperious.
“Does not my strength remain to me?” she boomed. “Does not my hammer ring true? If He continues to bless me, then does He not support my cause?”
The Destroyer grinned, black smoke weeping between his teeth. Waves of horrible mirth crashed in the depths of his stygian eyes.
“Your logic is flawed, my sweet sister. You interpret His inaction as approval.”
Apollyon grinned wider and wider, his mouth the smile of a colossal monster. “It merely means God knows you will fail. He does not need to intervene … because your cause is doomed.”
“Lies!” Gabriele shrieked, her composure lost.
She fell upon the Destroyer with furious abandon. Their weapons clashed with thunderous percussion and screaming intensity. She battered the Destroyer ferociously, but he continued to deflect her assault, and his infernal laughter continued in the face of her onslaught.
Apollyon’s mirth grew, rolling across the world in waves of bleak amusement. It was a heaving song of insanity.
Whether or not Apollyon’s words were true, they had the intended effect. Crystalline cracks of doubt began to fissure in the depths of Gabriele’s frozen heart, leaving a shattered lattice of frailty in her soul. Apprehension peeled back her icy calm and revealed a reckless fire suppressed for millennia.
The Destroyer’s laughing assertion unraveled Gabriele’s armor of logic. Now there was nothing left to her but rage and ravenous fury. Flame billowed from her thawing wings.
Had she been wrong? Was her failure assured?
Gabriele screamed with terror as her blows rang against Terminus’ impassive edge … but the damage was done. Mirroring the cracks spreading through her glacial core, a spider web of fractures began to form upon the surface of Malleus Dei. With each strike, with each revolution of her anguished soul, they spread wider and wider.
“Embrace my mercy!” she roared with the crack of lightning.
The Archangel aimed a brutal blow at the laughing Destroyer’s horned head. She poured her burning heart into the hammer. It was infused with every ounce of her strength, but it was also infused, now, with her doubt.
The Hammer of God sped toward the Reaper.
Apollyon whirled Terminus vertically, its length piercing the sky like an infernal obelisk. It shielded his grinning face, his mountainous horns rising to each side in the dying light. The Destroyer’s ebony wings erupted, eclipsing the plains below in a penumbra of ancient evil. He was a vision of damnation.
Malleus Dei, the Hammer of God, struck the black brink of Terminus, the Edge that Ends. The impact was perfectly positioned, and the blade’s edge connected with the head of the hammer. Once more, an unstoppable force met an immovable object.
Malleus Dei shattered.
The hammer fragmented in an explosion of unbearable intensity, the shockwave roiling through the cosmos. Force ripped through the battlefield. Time stopped as frozen pieces of the Hammer of God struck the ground like an icy rain.
All was ashes.
The cold Archangel hovered before the Destroyer, her eyes wide and disbelieving. She looked down at her empty hands, once so mighty and fierce, now rendered impotent.
So it was that hope died.
Gabriele’s heart sank in a spiral of despair, the chilling embrace of her logic unraveled into the hungry ether.
Had she been so wrong, or was she undone by nothing more than her own doubt? Who had caused this downfall, she or her God?
Some answers would never be known, even to God’s firstborn, but she would face her end with the dignity befitting an Archangel. Gabriele did not know what doom she would meet, however. What punishment would God deliver to an Archangel who betrayed existence, itself?
Could He forgive her? Could He forgive any of them?
Gabriele raised radiant eyes to witness her fate. She was a beautiful sunrise over a snow-covered field. Six wings dipped in acknowledgment.
“So be it.”
Apollyon’s laughter ceased abruptly. He was somber as he regarded the vanquished Archangel, fragile and defenseless. His horned head nodded with respect to his sister.
Such was the fate of warriors.
Terminus descended upon her.
~
Apollyon stormed toward the hill of Tel Megiddo where Samael awaited. The battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell raged on, but it had turned into a rout. Without the divine leadership of Gabriele, the war was decided.
Phalanxes of stalwart Powers sought to turn back the howling Demonic tide, but they were overwhelmed. The Demons roared with imminent victory as berserk Ravagers battered against the shield wall, punching holes into the Angelic line. Doombringers pulverized Word-Bearers that now stumbled aimlessly without the guiding will of an Archangel. The Beast rampaged through the battlefield, completely unchecked, and the hills rang with Babylonia’s terrible laughter as her burning whip tore through the faltering Angels. The Heavenly Host threatened to collapse with every chaotic moment. The celestial Sun dipped low onto the horizon.
Another sun descended upon the battlefield.
The heavens cracked. A monster fell from the sky with a radiant corona of unbearable intensity. It struck the ground like a comet, its monumental impact breaking the bedrock of the Earth. Both armies fell to their knees in forced supplication.
Even Apollyon turned to regard the new arrival, curious.
An incarnation of alabaster flame, a goddess of justice, lifted from the crater. She rose on ivory pinions of purest wildfire as platinum hair danced like a torch in the updraft of superheated armor. Her halo rotated above her exquisite beauty with the heartbeat of the universe.
Archangel Kalyndriel rose into the sky like the blessed light of dawn, and the forces of Heaven erupted with a ragged cheer.
The newly christened Fire of God, the matron of cleansing flame, bathed the battlefield with the sublime authority of an Archangel. Uriel’s stewardship of the heavenly furnace had passed to her, and her ferocious soul blazed with undeniable might. She did not yet know if Uriel’s spiteful gift would be a blessing or a curse, but she did know that she had work to do. She regarded the field below with calm authority, and she raised her burning lance above her head.
“This is ended. This battle is done,” she decreed, and the force of her voice shook the ground.
Kalyndriel’s burning glare met Apollyon’s.
Apollyon slowly shook his horned head. “No. Not yet.”
He looked to the summit of Tel Megiddo, where a lone Angelic form could be seen in the day’s deepening darkness. Samael’s sad song continued, traveling across the length of the world. Humanity still slid toward extinction.
Kalyndriel’s gaze traveled to Samael, and then they returned to Apollyon. She nodded slightly.
The Destroyer returned her nod, and raised a monstrous hand. With growls of disappointment, the forces of Hell disappeared, returned to the inferno. Even the Beast slinked away, Paimon clasped gently in one of its mouths. Babylonia would not forget such a dismissal.
Relieved Angels stared at each other in disbelief, and then ascended gratefully to the spires of Heaven. The battlefield was now deserted save millions of corpses, Kalyndriel, and Apollyon. The demigods looked upon one another with exhaustion.
Together, they made their way up the slope of Tel Megiddo.
~
The last rays of the day’s setting sun cast the ruined summit of Tel Megiddo in a sorrowful orange light. How much had been lost to the world, and what had been gained? Little remained of the divinities, and even less of humanity, but all was not yet lost.
Walter still fought, and humanity was not yet extinct. Creation still existed, in all of its hideous beauty.
Kalyndriel and Apollyon crested the shattered ridge of the Tel. Apollyon was diminished in size to allow him to walk side-by-side with the Archangel. There was no need for words between them: an unspoken agreement. They both knew what must transpire.
They approached the shining form the Angel of Death, who turned slowly to regard his brother and his former pupil. Samael’s mighty wings lowered in defeat … and he was silent.
The requiem of Samael’s song ceased, and all was perfectly still. The sleeping sickness of death halted, the flow of souls into Limbo slowed to a trickle, and the world breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. Life yet survived.
Glistening tears poured from the ruins of Samael’s face, a beautiful sculpture marred by blackest sorrow. Sorrow for his betrayal, sorrow for what he had done to the world, but most of all … sorrow that he had failed. He drowned in anguish from the realization that creation might persist, that it might continue the cycle of damnation and torment. The world spun with endless pain, tormented souls filled the coffers of Hell, and there was no prospect of salvation.
Samael was so very tired, his soul worn thin.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Kalyndriel silenced him with an upraised palm. She desired no words from him. She gazed at the treacherous Angel of Death, looking deep within his heart. Compassion burned within her, and perhaps the slightest hint of forgiveness and understanding …
But there was no mercy in her heart, not on that day. The Creator might ultimately decide Samael’s fate but, in that world, and in that life, there was only one fate for Samael. She shook her head sadly.
The wheel of time turned. Archangel Kalyndriel extended a delicate hand in benediction. Her wings roared with power, her soul burned furiously, and her heart ached with her terrible judgment.
The Archangel’s ivory gauntlet clenched forcefully.
Samael’s halo shattered. He fell to his knees with an anguished cry, the glowing remnants of his halo raining down around his sandaled feet. Sobbing, Samael desperately tried to pick up the pieces, but they slipped from his grasp and disappeared into the ether.
Apollyon watched his twin’s suffering impassively, his gaze detached.
Kaly turned from Samael then, blazing tears tracing radiant tracks down her cheeks. She knew his pain, and she had never thought she would deliver such a sentence to one of Heaven’s own. Times change, however, and not always for the better. She could feel the blistering weight of Uriel’s last words hanging about her shoulders like a burning cloak.
Her previous life felt terribly far away.
She swore to herself that she would never become like Uriel, a twisted specter of despair, but no one could predict what trials eternity held. The span of infinity stretched before her, cackling with cruel laughter. The darkness would come, but it was only the beginning.
Archangel Kalyndriel bowed her head in sorrow as she spread vast wings. She was done with the world, for the time being, at least. The rest was in Walter’s hands, and she knew they were capable instruments. He would decide the fate of creation, and he was welcome to it.
Let it be done.
For once, Kaly was at peace with things being out of her control. She was unimaginably weary. The initial exultation of her searing ascension to Archangel had subsided, and she was ready to return to Heaven. If creation survived, she would eventually seek out Barnabas, Arcturus and Walt … but at that moment, she needed to hear the song of the Choirs once more. Kalyndriel needed a reminder that everything had been worthwhile.
Kalyndriel’s work was finished.
Silently, and without looking back, Archangel Kalyndriel ascended mournfully to Heaven. She left the two brothers alone on the shattered hilltop. The gore and carnage of the terrible battle, the price of war, surrounded Tel Megiddo like a desolate island. It was a necropolis of biblical proportions.
Millions of Angels and Demons dead, billions of humans killed by Samael’s song, and the Angel of Death knew that there would be one, final sacrifice. Samael looked up at his brother.
Apollyon walked slowly toward Samael, his wings folded and Terminus in hand. The Destroyer may have assumed a smaller size for their conversation, but there was no mistaking the lethal power radiating from him: it was merely a courtesy for his kin.
“Stand, brother,” Apollyon growled softly.
Samael rose and stared his brother in the eyes for the first time in eons. He had not forgotten how cold they were, like subterranean caverns with forsaken depths. His face was chiseled onyx, a Demonic mask that was unshaken by doubt. Samael had always envied Apollyon’s simplistic soul. The Destroyer was a larger zealot than any in Heaven, and Samael hated him for it.
“End it, then,” Samael whispered forlornly.
Apollyon bowed his head, and the two glowing spheres hanging from his neck clattered against his broad chest. Samael’s face fell to them, noticing them for the first time, and the Angel recoiled in horror.
“My eyes,” Samael breathed, and dawning realization swept over him. “Oh, no …”
The Destroyer nodded in confirmation.
“Yes, brother,” Apollyon replied, his words crushing Samael’s heart as surely as Kalyndriel had crushed his halo. “I have seen your life through them, that I might still witness the beauty of Heaven.”
Apollyon paused. “As of late, however, I have seen much more: your plans, your betrayal. Your weakness is shameful.”
Samael was silent, staring at the shining eyes that had once belonged to him. He did not refute Apollyon’s claim; there was nothing to refute. Shame was ever his constant companion, and he knew that would not likely change.
“Might I have them back?” Samael finally asked.
Apollyon unfastened the chain from his neck. He handed Samael’s eyes gently back to him, and Samael held them close to his heart. They would not fill the void in his chest, but they were better than nothing.
“Perhaps, Samael, in the next life … things will be different.”
“Perhaps.”
Samael not believe the words. They were a lie. He wept as he clutched the instruments of his vision, lost so long ago. His eyes had betrayed his dreams and machinations to his brother, they were the artifacts of his downfall … but they were still his. He would take them with him into the darkness.
“Now, do it!”
With a heavy heart, Apollyon obliged, and the tired sun finally set above the graveyard of Megiddo.
Chapter 40
Into the Void
A monstrous form towered in the gloom before Walter like an apocalyptic vision. It looked down on the fallen human, its ravenous mouth clattering hungrily. The mist of lost souls fled before its horrible approach, cowed before the ancient spirit.
With no small measure of relief, Walter prepared to die, once more.
“Yesyesyes! Hello, Mr. President!” a high-pitched voice chittered with boundless exuberance.
Or
obas, the Eyes of Madness, padded joyously from the darkness. His enormous arachnid shape loomed over Walter’s collapsed body. The spider looked down at the human with concern, his gargantuan head cocked in surprise.
“Madame President, then, I suppose. Very nice! It is of no matter to friends such as us!” the spider hooted.
Orobas leaned down over Walter. With great care and delicacy, he gently picked Walter up in his segmented arms. Walter rose into the air as the formless ground disappeared beneath him, and the great arachnid placed the tiny human softly onto his colossal back.
Walter’s head swam as the pressure on his mind eased, the weight of lost souls diminished. “Guh?” he managed weakly.
“And then, when all seems lost, the young girl’s faithful spider returns!” Orobas cheered with glee, raising his forelegs enthusiastically. “Together, they will save their farm from the clutches of the greedy bank! Best friends forever!”
“Deus ex Arachnid!”
Walter held tightly onto Orobas’ soft, gray fur as the enormous spider moved deeper into the yawning abyss. The spider’s delicate feet were perfectly silent, but he burbled happily to himself as they set off to find their destiny.
~
Orobas moved swiftly through the murk of Limbo. The churning miasma of lost souls swirled malevolently around them, but they did not trouble the spider or his passenger. Their words were nothing but foul whispers; they could not hinder a soul as grand as Orobas.
The spider had been present for the first trickling moments of time, lurching unsteadily forward like a newborn colt. Orobas was the most ancient, and least understood, of all God’s creations.
Orobas was the eternal witness, the caretaker of the eons’ passage, and he had always dreamt of the day when he might find a comrade. That day had finally come. The spider’s mind was bizarre, a kaleidoscope that saw infinite realities simultaneously, but he understood one thing — he would help Walter; that was what friends were for.