by T. M. Lakomy
The king kissed the shepherd’s feet in supplication, his pain and brokenness suddenly lifted, and the calm that radiated from his master eased the fractures of his mind. A sudden fear entered him, and he detached his gaze briefly, searching for Samael, Alina, and the fiends, hoping against hope that they were gone. But they weren’t, yet neither were they clad in their strength and sorcery.
“Am I saved? O Shepherd of God, am I saved?” the king babbled trembling, and he kissed the hem of his shepherd’s gown reverently. The laughter behind him taunted him, and for a moment the frenzy of fear gripped him again.
Then the shepherd lifted his crook, and with its tip he prodded the king’s heart. “Salvation is a path we choose. It must be found, though arduous is its finding for those that cast away the path of righteousness.” His words did not hold judgment, and he lifted his crook again towards the ignoble company.
The voice now shifted from its mildness to an iron starkness, condemning and final. “Samael, blind accursed one whose end shall be bondage behind the gates of existence. Your games shall never avail you. Devoid of sight, you are an aborted abomination. Be gone!”
“There is no god but me,” came the glacial answer.
Suddenly the chamber shifted and the walls receded and fell back, and the king found himself surrounded by nothingness, still grasping the feet of the radiant light. He stared across a stretch of the void to the enthroned Blind God, now seated opposite him. Then a floor of carven black basalt and white shimmering marble appeared beneath them. The king saw that it was a vast chessboard, stretching out into the endless horizons, the glint of the white marble rolling away beyond his sight. The vision held briefly, then it dissolved and the chamber returned with its malodorous halls. But Samael had vanished, leaving only a faint trace of his presence behind.
The children had awoken from their spell, and they cried out to the king. He called back to them, but feared to let go of the feet of the shepherd, torn between his duty and his refuge. He began to weep again.
“Go and greet them before your reaper comes for you. Remember that beyond all darkness there is light. When the curtain is ripped back, there is nothing but the greater music of our creator, and he knows all ends.”
Then he was gone, and the blinding brilliance departed with him. A violent gust of wind rose up like a tempest and, sweeping like a scythe among the hay, it culled and rent asunder the shadows that had lingered. The high windows were blasted open and the curtains torn away, and the natural sunlight, golden and bright, poured in like honey.
The fresh air was cold, and the king shivered as the children came running to him, relief and unadulterated joy painted on their faces. As he held them tight, he looked past them and beyond the windows into the gardens. The first birdsong he had heard in months floated to his ears. Shame filled him, and he gently pushed the children away, sending them back to their chambers. Mustering what little strength remained to him, he forced himself up and leaned against the doorframe. Slowly regaining his old composure, he made the slow and arduous walk to the windows. He could feel his life ebbing away from him, the tenuous fibers that held his life to his body disintegrating rapidly. And he waited patiently as he looked through the windows to the gardens and the guards below.
“My brother, the shepherd, seems to dislike how my little games turn out.” The unctuous, honeyed tone was like a poisoned dart as it insidiously crept into him. The king shivered in disgust, refusing to turn his face to him.
“I have been blinded by my vices, and I have sinned a million sins,” said the king. “Only God himself knows what will purge them. Get thee gone, I have no time for your words, Lucifer, cursed one! Isn’t your ilk afraid of the light? Why are you standing here in the pure, God-given light of day?” The king spat out the words reluctantly, but his knuckles were bone white. He could feel the amused smile from behind his back, and the powerful, overwhelming charm beguiling his senses.
“I see you are no longer eager to enlist my help,” Lucifer said. “How sad, I was beginning to believe you could be wielded without breaking in my hands. But then I am Lucifer, I am the morning star, and you are a broken vessel fit only for the dunghill. As for the light, I am the prince of this world you are so dearly clinging to, and soon I shall remove you from it, finger by finger, and drop you into the private hell I have prepared for you.”
The treason, cheated purpose, and shame that the king felt roared within him. Still, he feared to turn and look upon the face of his beguiler, lest he stumble and weaken again, losing his final grace. He fixed his gaze on the guards below and waved towards them with forced geniality. The guards jolted from their positions as if struck by a blow. They looked up in awe and wonder at the worn and haggard face of the king, who was not so long ago their belligerent tyrant. Too uneasy to return the greeting, they offered him instead a salute. The king’s attention was soon drawn to a familiar figure marching towards his gates.
“Mikhail,” the king muttered abashedly.
“Ah yes, the Templar that shall see your throne taken from you. I even hear he has rejected your queen. Quite the stallion, fierce and noble. It’s a shame that he will dash your dynasty against the rocks. Maybe he’ll even prop up that harlot witch to rule by his side.”
The king felt his weakness creep up on him, and he fell to the floor, crumpling over and hugging his knees. All decorum and serenity were drained from him, and he gazed despondently at the archangel’s indifferent, glittering eyes. The king bowed his head and counted each heartbeat, waiting for the last beat of the drum. Shouts resounded in the back halls, and the archangel smiled one last terrible, beatific smile and departed as the king’s breathing became laborious and strained.
Mikhail stood in the doorway flanked by the two children. His severe expression softened slightly as he approached the fallen king. Sighing, he knelt before him and gripped his hand. The fiery disdain that churned in the eyes of the Templar was replaced by understanding, for here crumpled and broken before him lay a penitent man.
“You have withstood the chaos of my rule,” the king croaked, “you, who shall be the savior of my kingdom.”
Mikhail nodded, offering him a wan smile. “I had come here prepared for the worst, and yet I see in you both the reek of hell and the breath of the divine. You are lucky to be given the chance to pass through the darkness into grace.”
The king nodded. Looking at Mikhail he wept, seeing in him the image of the man he had dreamed of being, before he had erred into debauchery and cruelty. The plain silver circlet Mikhail wore was more becoming to him than the crown of emperors.
“Into every fracture of my people’s minds I have unleashed the demons that Solomon bound. Go and fix my folly, for therein lies the downfall of mankind. And find my queen, for she is the royal descendant of the holy lines that I defiled!”
A cloud passed across Mikhail’s sharp features, but he quickly dismissed it. “Have no more concerns. Tell me first what you did that I may confess you before you pass.”
The king grasped Mikhail’s hand tightly, humming distantly, his eyes starting to glaze over.
Mikhail gently put his arm around the king. “You must speak to me, tell me what must be said,” he urged him softly.
The king’s humming turned into discordant muttering. “I fancied myself an immortal ruler that could bargain with the devil and buy power from the god of darkness. I felt the threat of the coming messiah would weaken my rule, so I offered my daughter up to him, thinking it would protect my power. Instead I ripped my soul to shreds. I am the desecration of this age that shall see no redeeming light, murderer of the gifted ones that see the veil. I shall pass through fire. I renounce the world!” The king smiled one last smile as a dreamy vagueness clouded his eyes and he stilled forevermore.
Mikhail did not stir as he watched the man who had orchestrated the many disasters that had befallen his people. Suddenly he coughed, his breath rasping, showering his hands with blood. He let go of the king and grimly wipe
d his hand on a kerchief he carried, already stained with numerous dark blotches. Lifting himself up, he called the guards to their dead king.
The flags of the royal house were replaced with black velvet banners, and mourning was declared throughout the kingdom. Mikhail, meanwhile, was given leave to peruse the king’s chambers and private studies in the name of the queen and his order. The king had ardently been searching for ways to prolong his reign, long before he had ascended to the throne. Throughout his private journals, going all the way back to his boyhood, he recounted vague dreams of glorious light bearers promising him wealth and abundance and a day when he would be a sun king on earth. He had married the queen through guidance in his dreams, too. Then he had cast her aside soon after their wedding, seeking to fulfill the next step in the grand design he dreamed lay before him.
The journals became more and more egocentric as the writing became increasingly crabbed and hasty. He wrote of his search for relics of old civilizations that would cement his rule and prevent the coming of the messiah. He was obsessed by the fear that the messiah would challenge his divine right.
The king had cunningly seduced the mind of the cardinal, causing him to turn from God and peer into the void. Of course the king understood nothing of the game between Lucifer and Christ and the pivotal role Samael played, Samael who served no one and was merely a tool for the cunning machinations of Lucifer. He also wrote of his hatred of seers, of their ability to hold themselves apart from his sway and to see through his contrivances. And he feared the prophecy that one of them would be the storm rider of a new age, reconciling the chalice and the sword.
King Wulfric had fallen for Lucifer’s oldest trick, for Lucifer often propped up those who were easily molded, enticing them through their vanity. And since vanity was humanity’s greatest blind spot, it was easy for Lucifer to find those who sought to distinguish themselves through divine signs and cement their self-importance. And it was easy for him to lead these people, who thought they were truly special, destined for something great, and to deceive them for his own gains.
25
FALSE EDEN
I wept on broken knees shielding my face from the rain
And my private hellish torments were the borrowed spikes of flame
But I have lost the gift of speech to call forth a deity’s name
For I knew I was but a wretched mistake in a petty creator’s game
“WHERE IS THIS GOING?” ESTELLA ASKED HALFHEARTEDLY, curious enough to initiate what promised to be a long-winded conversation.
“Going nowhere, for everything is endless and spherical,” Lucifer replied insouciantly.
“I see. Well why haven’t you killed me yet?” she rebutted in clipped tones, walking on firmly.
“Because you believe in me, and therefore I am your god. Those that achieve their dreams and accumulate wealth often find themselves empty. That is because they don’t have my light, and haven’t been initiated into my sacred core wherein all life is renewed. The followers of the False God can find nothing in their deprivations and asceticism, and their emptiness stems from being bereft of my light, the joy of life. Like sunflowers, everything grows towards me, and nothing that rejects me can grow in abundance. Rejecting the gift of life is spitting on creation.” The disembodied, magnanimous tones stirred the mists restlessly.
“Powerful words,” Estella replied. “Tell me, does every principality of hell fancy themselves a tin god and try to bribe everyone else to follow him? What is this obsession of all divine creatures to be God?”
“They do indeed,” said Lucifer. “But you know me, and since I cannot harm you in these strange regions forsaken by our dear Father, it would be interesting for you to learn the truth.”
“Ah, your truth I suppose,” Estella remarked. “For you shape the world according to what you see and how you see it, and it becomes reality, since you are a creator infused with the divine creative flame. That must create endless conflict in heaven, all these dimensions superimposed on one another, shutting themselves off while a big game of chess is being played. I’m sure they savor the spectacle.”
“And don’t you?” he asked. “Doesn’t it please you to find that you can dance and flit away into your Twilit world, to stay there with your pathetic little gods that don’t have the gall to step outside their shiny houses?”
“It doesn’t please me,” she replied, annoyed. “It is a necessity, as one needs to breathe. Our souls are wrought of stranger things than what the Father in his wisdom wrought with the others. We are alone in the gale, in the whirlpool of thoughts and matter, and the collision of wills that seek mastery over one another. And there is no end to it, as there is no end to light and no boundary to darkness, one being born of the other. The dance is eternal, and we who understand that there is no beginning and no end must seek a way out into the freer dimensions, where life and death are lovers that meet.”
“And so the endless quest for the grandeur of meaning is no more than the trials and puerile imaginings of your own importance,” Lucifer said. “The need to subjugate is no more than the advanced instincts of thinking animals. You were nothing more than beasts of burden sinking in the darkness of ignorance till I came and set you free. I gave you fire and you mastered its force, I gave you the treasures of the earth and you wrought wonders of gems and jewels, I gave you weaponry and you became powerful, and I gave you the secret of numbers and you attained immortality!”
“And every gift held a poison,” Estella countered, “and every blessing brought a curse, and every dawn you shone upon us brought an even darker night from which we could never escape. We believed in you, so you became our god. But those whose open eyes pierced the great veil, their souls are forever stolen by the Norns, the dancing dream weavers of our eternal gods.” Estella cracked a triumphant smile, keeping her steady pace.
“Let me remind you of something, little one,” Lucifer replied, “in order to enforce your will upon the world, you must first have firm control over your own thoughts and convictions. You must have iron foundations in your mind, and not a crevice nor a crack wherein doubt might breed and fester. I am doubt, I am thought incarnate, I am the other side of the face of God, I am the darkness behind the throne, and I am the all that surrounds the nothing. Eventually all fall to my feet.” The mellifluous voice wafted over her with a tinge of finality, then faded back into the nothingness.
Estella smiled albeit her weariness. The winding path before her was hazy, and Nana’s guidance did little to assuage her doubts. The disembodied voice that echoed around her emanated from both sides of the path, and she knew that straying would be wandering into insanity and eternity lost in unchartered regions of thought.
Far ahead she could descry little globes of light flitting around. She quickened her steps, enticed by the little lights dancing like moths. Nana mewled loudly, casting back her shining eyes to Estella, encouragement pouring from those radiant eyes, which shimmered like lamps through the mist. The path before her shifted into smooth, pale slabs, and the air became a tranquil, balmy haze. The little lights approached, and Estella saw that they were birds. Their plumage shone with refracted light, and as they chirped, their music resounding in the silence. She quickened her steps as they circled over her head, and Nana broke into a predatory pursuit, following them down the path. Estella held her breath one moment, then sprinted after them, doused in the spell of their ethereal song.
A humble, modest house came into sight in the distance. Wrought of wood and thatch, it was covered with ivy, roses, and a variety of strange little flowers that clung to it. Estella stopped before the house, her initial enthusiasm evaporating as she saw that the flowers were animated. They turned their heads towards her, emanating disapproval, nodding amongst themselves. Some turned completely away from her insolently, their faint whispers arising in a cacophony of muffled sound. A violet fanned her head with a long, delicate leaf, giggling at Estella’s bewildered expression.
“Well knock at
least, where do you think you are?” The voice was small but cutting, and Estella strained her ears to find its source.
“Hush, don’t speak like that. That’s Tsura, the vagabond queen, off to upset the gentle repose of our master!”
Estella snorted loudly in amusement and approached the flowers. As she stooped to inspect them, they fruitlessly moved away from her, irritably closing their petals, some growing sharp thorns.
“Be careful, she might try to pluck us! I always knew humans to be foolish, but look at how she stares at us.”
“Hush now, you silly things,” came an annoyed voice from within the house.
Estella approached the door, stitching onto her face her most charming smile, and knocked hard. The sound of shuffling feet was heard behind it and the mewling of a cat. Then the door creaked briefly and opened. An old man stood in the doorway clad in blue and grey robes with a twinkle in his single blue eye. But there was no need for two of them, and neither did the fact that he lacked an eye do anything to diminish him, for that eye burned with a merry blue flame. Albeit his seemingly advanced age, he was jocular and lively with a timeless wisdom, as if the weights and burdens of time did naught to dim the flame that burned within him. Nana was upon his shoulders, and the old man caressed the cat indulgently while he fixed Estella with his intense, benevolent gaze.
“So this is what the cat dragged in?” he smiled. “I see.” He tugged at his braided beard thoughtfully, amusement in his eye. “Come in and let us see what we can do for you,” he beckoned to Estella theatrically with an exaggerated bow.