by T. M. Lakomy
Antariel approached, serene and dangerous and burning with his treacherous schemes. She did not meet his face until he was a foot apart from her, then she stared defiantly into his wholesome eye, ignoring the milky white dead one that seemed to be even more fixated on her than the other. He smiled hungrily.
“God did not create ugliness, Tsura. Am I ugly? Am I made in his image, or am I a regurgitated deformity that he cast away from his sight? Am I a fallen angel, or a cursed demon?”
She forced herself to look into both his eyes, and she could not discern the lies from the truths. There was nothing holy staring back from the deep chasms of his mind. Was he truly a demon after all, seeking an entry into her heart to seed his poison? Or was he truly fallen and given to the crookedness of his evil ways?
“May Ariel frustrate you and bind you, you castaway, treacherous son,” she whispered into his face. Antariel froze, then with a mask of wrath seized her by the throat, lifting her up like a ragdoll and pinning her against a tree violently.
“I could so easily break your neck, you feeble human. Do not dare let that name escape your lips! There is no Ariel here to protect you, there is but me and the darkness you fled. Now with your light that I will consume, I will be able to break through the gates of heaven again. And if not, at least I will elevate my spark to a better place.”
The fingers around her neck tightened, and an ache began to emanate from the back of her skull. It amplified as he tightened the pressure on her neck, quenching her of her life force slowly and deliberately. She began to suffocate while the pain in her head throbbed madly, her body shaking violently and lights bursting before her eyes.
“The house of your soul is crumbling, and your death spark I shall devour. Watch it break free and die into my embrace. I own you!” Antariel hissed.
The malice and wretchedness she had seen in him all these years, which he had artfully covered up when she was at her most desperate, emerged in its truest and ugliest form, fiercer and more distorted than ever before. The searing pain was blinding her sight, and she felt her soul being ripped from her body, battling to cling to its failing abode.
The pain was excruciating and she screamed in agony, her fingernails digging into his hands. The echoing scream reverberated in the murmuring woods, and it was caught and refracted away into the valleys, rising feebly beneath the impassive, cold moon. In a desperate attempt not to lose to such a lowly creature, she cried forth her soul, wrenching open the Twilit door. Like one who has cut her veins and bleeds out her life force shudders and contorts, likewise she bled her soul’s dying pangs into the Twilit world.
Beseeching help, she ripped apart the veils protecting the Twilit world from prying, patrolling eyes. And like a shark tasting blood, it responded. Colors erupted in her eyes like fireworks, and she knew she was nearing the dreaded door of death, though she would be denied its passage, instead engulfed into a worse abyss. And then the response came back—a sharp spear, thin and bitter, cutting through the shrouds of the worlds and the firmaments to reach her. A malevolent hand whose nails could rip the skies out of the earth like a lid and hurl it into oblivion.
Antariel was suddenly filled with uncertainty as he watched Estella’s dying moments. The night had suddenly stilled, as though holding its breath. The trees grew silent, their heartbeats instantly stifled, and birds fled in screeching flocks. Antariel shuddered, his one eye widening in shock as night turned to day behind them and time itself froze and rolled away. Slowly he released Estella’s throat.
As she slumped to the foot of the tree, she looked up just in time to see a sharp spear skewering Antariel, fixing him against the tree as he let out a choked, bewildered cry. Feeling her life return to her slowly, like wakening from a drugged, hallucinatory dream, she rolled over, gasping for air and clutching at the dirt and leaves beneath her.
Despite her daze, Estella watched in horror as the forest shone, ablaze with the iridescent lights of many opal wings. They glimmered with the fragmented brilliance of light refracted on diamonds, and the shimmering hues and lights blindingly seared the gloom, the feathers, sharp as talons, radiating heat. The beautiful, proud, austere face, fashioned with the expert hands of perfection, shone with the reflected holiness of one who was once closest to God, wreathed in his boundless glory. He gazed upon Antariel with ethereal azure eyes that mockingly opened on the expanse of the cosmos.
“Delivered to my very feet, how remarkably thoughtful of you Antariel. But then I am not so amazed, as intelligence was never one of your greatest gifts, was it? You merely followed obediently along, my faithful hound.” His compelling, pleasant voice dripped cruelty. Though the radiant face did not so much as look in Estella’s direction, she felt transfixed and the weight of his thoughts sliced into her with a searing ease. As he spoke within her mind, it was as though his voice was contained in everything around her.
Escaping me is escaping your own self, the voiced boomed. It is quite futile. Where would you run to now? But watch me avenge you. I am at your service after all, my chosen child.
Antariel writhed, his hands covering the entry wound futilely as blood oozed out of his mouth and he heaved and groaned, roaring in impotent fury beneath the cruel laughter of Lucifer.
“I followed you, indeed. Followed you for the promises you never kept and the deceit you ensnared me with!” Antariel hissed, and his hale eye was weeping profusely and he shook. “I want the home where I belong. You robbed me of everything; my voice, my beauty, my sight. And you got to keep everything,” he spat out plaintively, each word punctuated with a trickle of blood. Lucifer looked up to the skies feigning sorrow, his lucent eyes like nebulae glittering with starlight.
“How are you, fair Father?” Lucifer called out. “Do you hear his appeal? Is he desecrating your holy name with his accursed tongue? Let your favorite son quench his desire to profane you.” And with that he grabbed Antariel’s face, and the blaze of a million suns smoldered within his gaze.
Antariel choked, utterly diminished in Lucifer’s proximity, and opened his mouth to scream voicelessly. Estella felt her knees weaken and her resilience falter as Antariel’s tongue shriveled and blackened, the smell of charred flesh nauseatingly filling the air.
Lucifer smiled, and Estella found it was impossible to detach her eyes from his beauty. For even as he tortured Antariel, Lucifer’s face betrayed no evil intent or evil thoughts. He smiled benignly with a wholesome warmth that held her enthralled in wonder. His hair glistened like spun gold, and the curves of his face were holy and pure—incongruous with the evil deadliness within. He was the closest anyone could come to seeing the countenance of God, and he inspired instinctive veneration. He could twist a dagger into the chest of his victim while they continued to smile blissfully, unable to detach themselves from the beauty he emanated. He wielded that power over Antariel now.
Antariel trembled in agony, cradling his mouth and weeping like a chastised child; even his very mind was robbed of speech. It wandered blind in its abode, groping in the dark, unable to shape words or form ideas, grappling feebly. The horror of his plight washed over Estella, and she wept for him uncontrollably, wondering what would be her own end after he had dealt with her.
“Why aren’t you fighting back, little worm? Your ugliness is disappointing, but then you could never hope to serve me any better,” Lucifer purred in mellow tones while the hale eye of Antariel oozed sadness and shame. Lucifer’s fingers glided over his face, pretending to study his features. But in a flickering moment the mask he wore cracked, and mockery, cold and cruel, was revealed on his visage. He prodded Antariel’s blind eye delicately at first, then wantonly drove his finger into the socket, puncturing it. Antariel struggled fruitlessly as Lucifer towered over him, holding his face fast with scorn.
“Look at me, there is no god but me here on earth. I am the illuminated angel, the one who brings the vicious justice you all merit. All these sons of God that I could have given principalities in my worlds—what a waste! To
be cast out of heaven and then find no other home, to be broken and to have no fulfillment. I am the closest to the face of God. Why do you reproach me for using you? Were you not created for my pleasure?” Lucifer inquired almost indifferently.
Still, nothing was betrayed in Antariel’s gaze as he turned his head slowly to face Estella. The longing was still there, but also infinite sadness, deep as the waters of the endless abyss expanding into nothingness, forever devouring him and gnawing at him. With one last breath, he mustered the final vestiges of his crumbling mind and offered his spark back to God. In a silent yet piercing appeal, he begged forgiveness and sought his own destruction at his divine hand. He renounced himself and Lucifer. Repenting in one flashing moment, his spirit broke free and Antariel slumped against the tree lifelessly. Lucifer howled, wrenching out his spear with the velocity of a tempest striking, and impaled him again, this time skewering him higher up as a pale, shining shadow fled past him, fragile and quivering.
“At your evil works again, Lucifer? Must you always disfigure your prey before you send them to me?” came a dry, toneless voice with an underscore of sympathy. Behind Lucifer stood a hooded and cloaked figure, both tall and forbidding. The sheer contrast between the two was stark, for where one wore his grandeur with pride, the other swathed his majesty in humility. His robes were silvery and threaded in intricate patterns, and his countenance was grave yet stalwart, with the calm confidence of his impregnable power.
“Ah, my old friend. Don’t you ever grow tired of escorting these wretched misbegotten ones back to him?” Lucifer did not even deign to turn his head, but addressed the tree instead with mild interest, his head held high in unbreakable pride. Estella could see the swirling cosmos burning ferociously in his eyes, and as he closed his numerous wings she could smell the odor of incense.
“This one is not for Nesargiel or Dumah,” the cloaked angel replied. “This one is going home to his maker, and he will cradle his spark in his holy lap and wash it clean from taint. A lost sheep finding his way back to his rejoicing shepherd, in the inevitable end.” The angel’s voice was tranquil, like the surface of an unyielding lake. Behind the angel there was a gaping hole of space, and little wheels of light flitted out gently and danced around the still air.
“Take him back anyway. He was not what I came for, such a futile, petty creature as him, living an existence of perpetual insignificance. And send my deepest loving regards to my Father,” he added, wrenching the spear from the body of Antariel and sheathing it, barely sparing a glance at the dark blood that sullied it.
“Dawn is upon you, do you wish to greet him yourself? Then we can measure how significantly your fall has impacted your importance to him. They say many things about you in the Seventh Sky, for instance how fast you are at fleeing from his wrath.”
The patient voice rolled over him thunderously, and Lucifer growled, deploying his opal wings. The trees flailed and moaned with the sudden surge of singing wind. Then the forest, illuminated by Lucifer’s light, dimmed as the true dawn came, pale from the east like a gentle splash of white against the lightening blueness of the dark night. Lucifer cast a final glance towards Estella. Try as she might, she could not detach herself from the clear, limpid pool of lights that washed over her, dulling her senses into obedience, and she wept.
“From now on it is just me and you,” Lucifer said. “And I shall find you, believe me, helpless and frail, a blade of grass beneath my feet, ready for the crushing. And I will crush you until you submit to me and follow the destiny I have set before you. Do not forget who owns you.” His radiant face was denuded of its light now, and hatred was etched into his features. With a flourish of defiance he thrust his spear at the budding dawn light and vanished.
The cloaked angel stood serenely by, and the golden pale shadow that shivered in the light sailed towards him. The angel beckoned it, and led it to the open hole of space.
“Be kind and don’t cast your life away foolishly,” he spoke, turning to Estella. “If it bore no worth, then you would be no pawn for us. Until the great end when both Samael and Lucifer are vanquished and God regains the stolen sparks they devoured, we are all pawns and the soldiers of our Father. When you left his presence and descended here, you were not hurled down in disgrace, but you joined your brothers and sisters of the world, choosing to stand at the forefront of God’s lashes. Remember that when you are alone and the darkness promises you the glories beyond the skies.” The angel observed her calmly with an almost fatherly care and pity, then turned back toward the hole accompanied by the golden shadow.
Estella gaped momentarily, at first unsure whether the words were addressed to her. Then reorganizing her scrambled wits, she struggled to her feet. “Will he be judged harshly? Will he ever be alright? And me, will I ever be alright?” she managed to fumble after him bleakly, her own words ringing hollow in her ears. Her anguished soul weighed heavier on her than when Antariel, in his covetousness, had sought to break it.
The angel stopped before the hole as he was entering it, and without turning, answered in the same equivocal, toneless voice, “Everything is always alright in the end, yes. Even the greatest of evils cannot comprehend it, but everything in the great end of all things is alright. The final symphony is led by the Father.”
Estella acquiesced, too numb to dispute his nebulous reply, and bowed her head while the angel passed through the wormhole.
“Many thanks for Antariel,” he added. “He is redeemed, and maybe if the balance weighs in his favor, he will be judged with compassion and his spark reprieved from obliteration.” Then without preamble or farewells, he was gone. In one intake of breath the doorway closed soundlessly behind him, and she was left alone, shaking from the overwhelming emotions in the breaking light of dawn as the sudden mundane chirping of birds surrounded her.
Estella roused herself clumsily, stumbling as she walked. Stunned, she cradled her own arms and hugged herself, vaguely wondering where she was and whether her reprieve was going to last long. She was still anaesthetized from the past events, and dimly glad to be back among familiar sights. Lost in the unusually deserted forest, she slowly followed her own clumsy path back to the campfire where her nightmare had begun. Finding it had died out, she repacked her possessions numbly and untied the horse, which had been thoughtfully tied to the closest tree. Then mounting the horse, she guided it towards the path she remembered from Antariel’s descriptions, following its course, too weary to think or contemplate what lay ahead.
14
A REPRIEVE BEFORE THE STORM
I have drunk of that gilded cup passed down by ancient hands
In complete silence and knowledge of the asperity it bequeaths
The cauldron of the ages stirs upon the confines of mortal lands
Drawing the leaping swords of conquest from their sheaths
ESTELLA TRIED TO REARRANGE HER SWEATY HAIR BENEATH THE heavy black cloth that wrapped around her head. It had been a rough few months since she had erred into the forest aimlessly, stranded and without hope of finding a way out. Her provisions had failed quickly, and then her horse had been lamed. She had left him then out of pity, relieving him of his burden and leaving him to seek his fortune elsewhere. At least he had a better chance of survival than she had—he could eat the grass and knew instinctively where to find water.
The weight of spiritual warfare was burdening her too, for she had sealed the Twilit world behind her and kept herself blind to the forces raging against each other. She wandered alone in the endless forest, bleeding her strength, until she finally came upon a dusty road. There she collapsed gratefully, her thoughts going to Antariel and the doorway into realms unknown through which he had departed for his eternal home and final judgment. He truly was resting in peace now, she thought, unlike her.
She was filthy, starved, and haggard from concentrating on the incantations perpetually bubbling from her weary lips. Each day the sun seemed a little stronger as it beat tenaciously down on her, driving
her wild with thirst. And the night brought no respite, for the nocturnal insects would come out of the bowels of the woods, biting and tormenting her in her fitful sleep. Luckily for her, as she dragged herself along the dusty road, she discovered that it joined with other beaten paths, and eventually converged into one road, wide enough for several carriages to drive abreast. Deciding to finally give herself up to fate, she curled up into the fetal position in the middle of the road, hoping to be soon seen, and not run over.
As luck would have it, a caravan of traveling Magdalene Sisters passed by. The driver alerted the sisters to the woman on the road, and they stopped immediately to lend her succor. Out of good faith and heart, they took her in unquestioningly, perceiving her as a test of their generosity and goodness from God. And so they cared for her and brought her to their priory. And because she had the coloring and the features of Middle Eastern women, they saw Mary Magdalene in her.
Estella was very thankful to be rescued, but fully realized the irony of her saviors being nuns. They were of the rigid, religious type that scrupulously objected to the world she belonged to. And though her apathy and thankfulness transformed into resentment, she nonetheless took their vows and deceived them into believing she had received the calling.
The vows and rituals of the church provided some sanctuary against the evil forces, with the hallowed grounds and mystic gnostic teachings. There she was safe for now, shrouded in the garments of a nun and hiding behind a mask of meek piety, where none might find her. She lived quietly for a time in the shadow of the veil of religious dogma. But not for long, for she brooded and waited for time to take its course, and for the search for her to die out.
She had knowingly immured herself in an elaborate jail, but safety was paramount and she craved respite to redeem her mind. But she found her heart and thoughts vacant. There was no demon to spur her into impulsive, restless plotting, no creature comforts to inspire her, and she lacked all methods of communicating with the world outside the nunnery walls. Soon she devised another way to obtain a small measure of freedom. She informed the prioress of her skills as a healer. Combined with shows of prayers and fervent piety, she was given permission to venture into the town to care for the sick and needy.