Garden of Salt and Stone

by A. L. Burgess Jr.

  Eve smiled in response. “I had never known fear before that day,” she said, penitently looking at the ground. “He came right through there,” she said, sweeping her hand through the air and motioning to the bank on other side of the wellspring.

  A chill ran down Peter’s spine. “Who did?”

  “The Creator,” Eve replied, wiping a tear from her eye and managing to produce a quiet, despairing chuckle. “I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t realize the consequences would be this,” she said, gesturing to the battle raging in the circular chamber. “It’s been so horrible for everyone.”

  Peter took stock of the fight. It was a delaying action, nothing more. Time was growing short and although he had a great number of questions for Eve, only one was pressing. Peter knelt down by the tree roots and held up the Book of Souls. “We have to right this,” he said, gesturing to the multitude of withered fruits littered about the floor of the plateau. “Do you remember which one it was?”

  “It was so long ago.”

  “Please, try to remember.”

  Eve pointed across the water to a place now bereft of vegetation. “When the Almighty came, I was scared,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Adam wanted to leave, but—” Eve stopped, her face rife with anguish.

  “But what?”

  “I couldn’t go because I still had the fruit in my hands,” Eve said, holding her empty palm up as an admission of guilt.

  Peter scanned the ground around the exposed tree root. The withered fruit were roughly the same and none showed any of the telltale signs of bite marks. “I don’t see anything.”

  Eve put a hand on Peter’s arm to calm him. “No,” she said. “I wanted to hide it so it wouldn’t be found—so we could escape our punishment.”

  “Okay,” Peter replied in a soft, reassuring voice. “Where did you put it?”

  Eve cupped her fingers together to make her hand as small as possible and snaked her arm into the gaps between adjacent tree roots to one side of where she was sitting. After several moments of blind groping, Eve pulled out a partially eaten, withered fruit. “There, you see?”

  Peter held the book up and studied the images. The diminished fruit had the same hallmarks as the one displayed in the manuscript. “That’s it,” he said and scanned the branches overhead. “Where does it go?”

  Eve studied both of the trees. They bark of each was twisted and fused so tightly together that it was almost impossible to tell which trunk belonged to which tree. After several long moments, Eve recognized the crook of two main branches on the Tree of Knowledge as the place where the snake had perched. “I took it from there,” she said, handing the half-eaten fruit to Peter.

  Peter held the fig up to the first empty stem along the trunk of the tree.

  “Not there,” Eve corrected. “The one next to it.”

  Peter moved the fruit to the next stem and watched as the connection between the fig and the tree healed itself.

  A strong wind blew through the chamber. The smell of flowers permeated the Garden remnant and the long-forgotten scent caused the fighting to momentarily abate as the combatants reveled in the surprising aroma.

  A noticeable sense of easing swept across the Two Trees. Their trunks released their hold upon each other, slackening to the point of separation. The bark lightened in color from a charcoal black to a deep-amber brown. Grass seedlings sprang to life beneath the trees and spread out through the dead zone that made up the clearing. Leaf buds appeared along the Two Trees’ branches and grew toward adulthood at an incredible rate. The withered fruit, scattered around the plateau, greened and lifted into the air. The figs rose into the trees’ ever-greening canopy and reattached themselves to the branches where they once belonged.

  The relative calm that befell the last vestige of the Garden of Eden was fleeting as Lilith powered her way in from below. She twisted through the chasm, brushing her wingtips on its rocky sides and bathing the immediate area in a shower of earthen debris. She felt the rush of energy course through her veins and screeched with joy as she entered the chamber.

  Lilith surveyed the situation. The first act of repentance for The Book of Souls was completed. The Two Trees were alive and thriving. The battle had taken a toll on her brethren and they appeared battered and spent. The queen recognized the tenuous position and the need for urgency. She needed to act quickly to recover the book.

  Lilith made a pass above the battle and barked orders to Asmodeus and Sitri. They would be in charge of capturing the mercenaries while she would handle the Book of Souls. The queen’s anger exploded at the sight of her former rival standing on the plateau. “Eve!” she shrieked through the chamber.

  Lilith landed on the floating island and spat, “Insubordinate creatures!” She pointed a dire finger at Eve. “You’re the whole reason we’re in this mess!” A lavender flash pierced the subdued glow of the chamber as the queen sent tendrils of energy toward the young woman.

  Eve summoned an opalescent shield and blocked the attack. She sensed that Lilith’s power was not yet back to full strength and countered with a blast that sent the queen crashing to the ground. “Do not blame your petty jealousy on me! The Fallen’s plight is one of its own making!”

  Lilith rose to her feet and brushed herself off. She glared at the attractive young woman and began a transformation process of her own. Her scarred and grotesque physique gave way to the slender, burgundy-haired Kea from San Cielo.

  An aura of intense energy gathered about Kea and polarized the air around her. “Enough!” she screamed. “You stole him from me and for that I will own your soul!” She threw a concentrated blast of energy that engulfed the young woman, squeezing her from all sides.

  Eve used all of her might to push back against the onslaught and render it harmless. “Your pleas for affirmation are pathetic—what I would expect from a being bereft of humanity!”

  Kea’s rage exploded. A lavender halo grew from her body. It expanded outward, seeking to encompass the entire plateau.

  Eve whispered to Peter, “We need to finish this—I can’t give you much time.”

  “Okay,” Peter said, squinting through the growing haze to pinpoint Eve. “How?”

  “Uriel,” Eve replied, speaking like a specter from the cloud of charged atmosphere. “He is the rightful guardian here—you must free him.”

  Kea’s discharge of power was massive, sending arcs of electricity through the trees and across the water. Eve pushed Peter to safety behind the collective roots of the trees and deflected the brunt of the assault into the open air of the chamber.

  “Quickly!” Eve screamed, countering another volley from the queen. “I cannot hold her.”

  Peter opened the Book of Souls and found that its pages had come alive. It was a confusing mass of incoherent images. Each scene depicted an instance from someone’s life. The snippets fused together to form a never-ending roll of sequences that made him nauseous. He theorized that he was witnessing the lives of all of the souls entombed within the demon-made stone of the chamber’s architecture. Each soul was trying to tell their unique story through the ancient tome. It was so overwhelming that Peter closed the book to clear his mind. He surmised that the best place to start would be with Uriel, but given the circumstances, that would not be possible. Without the physical presence of the angel, Peter would need to locate Uriel’s story somewhere within the Book of Souls’ multitude of unrestrained personal accounts.

  Peter gauged the direction of Uriel’s Vale and opened the book once again. The montage continued, but he forced himself to tune it out, trying to see the ramble of images as nothing more than background noise. The Book of Souls was a window into the past and understanding that fact gave him new insight. Peter wanted to look through the current stream of forgotten lives to see what lay behind them—beyond the souls physically entombed around him. He scanned the smallest areas of the ancient manuscript and tried to visualize the handwritten text underneath.

  Peter focused on the
gutter near the book’s inner binding. He concentrated on one of the few Latin letters visible underneath the barrage of images. The character was inert as if nothing out of the ordinary was occurring, but after a few moments, it moved. Ever so slightly at first, it grew in thickness and began to pulsate. The text sprang to the forefront of the pages and turned ice blue in color. The scenes running rampant through the Book of Souls faded away. A new series of images depicting three demons using their collective might to subdue Uriel arose. The events scrolled through the manuscript so fast that Peter could not understand the sequence, but they replayed continuously until he grasped their meaning.

  Millennia passed as Uriel fought fiercely against the attacking demons. The lush vegetation of the Garden was set aflame and burned to a cinder by the constant use of divine might. Humanity arose and entered Eden, taking sides in the ongoing skirmish. Weapons were forged and armies built. Entire forces took to the hills to do battle for the future of the nephesh. Throngs of souls clashed mercilessly. Lilith and her henchmen took the advantage and decimated Uriel’s ranks. The angel tried to intervene but was caught off-guard by the demons and turned to stone.

  Vertigo beset Peter as he witnessed the spectacle. The scenes became real to him. It was more than watching a film—it was as if he were living the moment. He felt each attack by the three demons as if he were the one standing against them. Power surged around Peter and he tried to move away—to regroup—but he could not. Trapped in a morass of energy, he was unable to do anything except watch the inevitable unfold. The tension in the situation rose to a crescendo, and Peter felt guilt flood through his being. His emotions were one with Uriel’s as the stone encased him. The pain and anguish grew in intensity and then subsided as the angel fell. Peter’s mind relived the angel’s poignant agony until the cries from the battle in the chamber leaked into his consciousness. He could tell the fight was not going well for the mercenaries, but he intensified his effort on the manuscript and cleared away the distraction.

  Eve fought Kea at every step. She changed into a giant the size of Butch and hurled herself to the floor of the chamber. She led the queen away from Peter and put up a fierce defense near the clearing’s edge. Although she was able to keep the queen at bay early on, her power was no match for Kea’s. The queen eventually caught Eve in the heavy underbrush and immobilized the animas, converting her back into a frail woman. Kea inflicted as much pain as possible through the transformation process and left the woman entombed in stone upon the earthen ground of the Garden remnant.

  Sitri maintained his pursuit of Nicholas through the chamber’s expansive interior airspace. The monk used every bit of cunning and guile he could, undergoing several variations and donning manifestations of every bird of prey known to him. Each time, the smaller and more agile Nicholas circled back to the demon and attacked, forcing the demon to protect himself. Ultimately, Sitri constructed a latticework of emerald energy and trapped the troublesome clergyman. The demon flew to the edge of the precipice, and with a gleeful smile, tossed the squirming nephesh through the chasm.

  Freed from their assailants, Kea and Sitri joined Asmodeus to subdue the mercenaries. The demons split up and systematically attacked each group as a separate unit. They used the guards and Butch the Giant to herd the company into indefensible positions to make quick work of the mercenaries. They ravaged each member accordingly and left a trail of statuary in their wake until Hannibal remained as the lone-standing fighter.

  The demons hurled pure malice at the old warrior. They toyed with the general like a group of schoolyard bullies harassing a weaker student.

  Hannibal endured pain beyond measure but kept his guard high, fighting back with all the strength he was able to muster. Fatigue eventually caught up to him and he swung his sword ever more wildly through the air, trying desperately to connect with the out-of-reach demons. He grew weaker and weaker until he had no option but to lower his weapon in defeat.

  The three demons pushed the old general to the chasm’s edge. They spoke to Hannibal tersely, trying to goad the mercenary into jumping to save them the trouble of torturing him.

  Hannibal sheathed his sword and turned away from the demons. Time had not been on the company’s side. They put up a good fight, but once the queen rejoined the fray, it was too late. The old warrior stumbled to the precipice’s edge and kneeled. He looked serenely on the waters below and lamented the loss of his friends, especially Thomas.

  “What are you waiting for, my old friend?” Asmodeus asked. “Will you cower before us and plead for mercy?”

  Hannibal’s anger resurfaced, but he quickly put the emotion in check. He glanced at Peter, being careful not to arouse the demons’ suspicions. The true point of his humility was to buy the professor as much time as he was able.

  Asmodeus would not accept the old warrior’s silence. The demon bent down and whispered into the general’s ear, “I will flay your cowardly friends daily if you do not comply.”

  Hannibal spun to face the demon and drew his sword. He thrust it forward, hoping to lodge the blade in Asmodeus’s chest, but his attack was for naught as Kea flashed a bolt of energy that encased him in stone.

  Asmodeus nodded at the diminutive Kea, standing between the tall demons. “My Lady.”

  “Save it,” Kea scoffed. “We must focus our energy on the book-bearer.”

  Peter sat against the tree roots, oblivious to all else around him. The rolling images of Uriel’s failure repeated in his mind until Peter thought he could recount each sequence from memory. There seemed to be no correlation between Uriel’s fate and a possible solution to revive the angel. Peter pressed deeper, viewing not just the scenes but feeling the remorse and anguish that overcame Uriel at his moment of failure. He concentrated on the angel’s loss and there, amid a myriad of emotions, he found the root cause of Uriel’s utter despondency. The angel had broken his vow to the Creator. He was to protect the Garden of Eden at all costs, but Uriel was unworthy of the challenge.

  Text from beyond the rolling sequences rose to the forefront of the pages. The letters transformed into a series of phrases that cycled past the pages and stood out amongst the images. Peter translated the Latin as it solidified into a final phrase, “Languish no more in the sorrows of failure and come forth to redeem your honor to defend those who would fight for your charge, O' Uriel the Guardian of Eden.”

  A thunderous report shook the Garden remnant, and the Book of Souls’ once lively pages went black as night.

  The burnt ash of the vale rippled outward as shockwaves radiated from Uriel’s statue. Evenly-spaced and slowly building in power, each wave carried through the landscape like a small earthquake. The steles of stone and salt surrounding Uriel’s statue rocked with each upsurge. The frequency and vigor of the disturbance was too much for some, sending the most ancient and unstable steles crumbling to the ground.

  A cold blue light crept through the crevices of Uriel’s statue. The intensity multiplied in lockstep with the seismic pulse shaking the small valley. The glow grew to envelop the marble statue, obscuring its features and rendering it nothing more than a beacon of light. It continued until the vale was awash in a dazzling, cyan brilliance.

  After a moment of stability, the center of the light changed. It became denser and took on a deeper, glacial hue than that of its surrounding aura. The core expanded outward, permeating the large statue and revealing the true form of the angel hidden within.

  Uriel stretched his wings and sheathed his sword. As the outer edges of the angel’s disturbance encountered the stones of his long-encased comrades, the hard rock melted away and released the souls trapped inside. Each of the freed humans fell to the ground in agony. They clutched at their limbs and chest, unable to give their suffering proper vocalization. He took special note of Adam lying behind him. The human was slowly reverting to his original form on the ash of the valley floor. The angel smiled warmly to his friend. Adam could not respond but nodded his acknowledgement. Uriel stepped
forward through the sea of steles and with an eerie, almost gravity-defying gait, the angel glided through the desolate landscape, his radiance releasing those entombed within the monoliths of stone.

  Uriel stood for a moment at the end of the vale and studied the huge city on the horizon. The angel’s facial expressions broadcast his disgust at the malignant sight. The pure evil and malevolence of the city made Uriel bristle with anger. He searched the high parapets of the wall and gauged the center point of the circular metropolis. Once his bearing was established, Uriel’s eyes locked in the direction of the Two Trees, and with a fierce determination, the angel pressed forward and hit the ramparts of the city head on.

  Verbal alarms rose across the frontier of battlements. Guards raced to buttress the fortification, but it was no use. Every stone that was touched by Uriel’s aura reverted into its corresponding trapped soul. All around the angel, humans in every state of transformation fell from the barricade to the ashen ground. The loss of structural integrity caused the upper sections of the wall to collapse into a heap near the angel’s influence, further quickening the reversal of the queen’s spell on the human souls.

  Buildings fell and structures gave way as Uriel bored into the city at ground level. Guards formed haphazard cohorts to attack the angel, but each that came into contact with Uriel’s power was instantaneously turned to salt. The angel left a wake of recovering humans and salt monoliths as he unwaveringly made his way deeper into the city and nearer the Two Trees.

  Sounds of the city’s collapse filled the remnant’s chamber. The demons knew immediately what the reverberations represented. Any disruption or deviation in the city’s mean energy flow instantaneously broadcasted an alert to the demons.

  “Uriel’s free!” Kea shouted and gestured to Asmodeus and Sitri. “Gather those men and prepare a defense.”

  The demons heeded the queen’s orders and positioned the humans in front of the large doors as an initial distraction to the angel. Butch the Giant was off to one side and instructed to follow up any entry with a full-on attack.