Fall From Grace Page 6

  “Good evening, Time,” Michael said.

  “Evening? It is neither day nor night, not here. Heaven is what we choose it to be. There is light or darkness only when we wish it so,” Time responded in his slow, monotone voice.

  “Forgive my ignorance. I am not well-versed in the philosophies of temporal passage.”

  “Nor should you be. Our measure of time has no meaning. Creation has rules, constants, cycles that cannot be altered. We do not,” Time continued without looking up from the chalices. Many took offense at his lack of social etiquette, but angels so consumed by their talents often developed quirks. Conversations with Time required one to entertain his eccentricities.

  “Do you wish it were different?” Michael asked to indulge Time’s riddles.

  “I wish nothing. All things can only be what they are. Not even the Creator changes what is. The pieces of reality have all been laid out and will only connect as they are meant to.”

  “You speak of fate?”

  “There is no fate, Logos. There is no past, no future, only the now. We flow with the tides of certainty from one moment to the next.”

  “Then flow alongside me. This is a moment that requires your assistance,” Michael replied, drawing a smirk from Time’s statuesque face.

  Time released the chalices and met Michael’s eyes. “None humor the ramblings of my wearied mind as you do, Michael. Our resources are yours to command.”

  “I seek a young planet teeming with liquid water and rich masses of land, capable of supporting life beyond measure. A single sun is seen during the day and a lone moon at night.”

  “The Virtues have spent the entirety of our existence mapping Creation, and we have never come upon a planet with those rare qualities. Granted, we have discovered no more than a single drop in an ocean, but what you ask is—”

  “A challenge suited only to your wisdom. Do you accept, or have I misspoken?”

  “Never,” Time replied, stirred by Michael’s praise. “I shall prove the truth of such generous laurels and find this surreal planet of water and earth.”

  What ensued was an unbelievable display of teamwork and skill as Time conducted the Virtues, calling out calculations the likes of which Michael could not begin to decipher. The lenses shifted to scour the recesses of Creation. Would the Creator guide them to success?

  “The scant instances of life that we have recorded were in the earliest microbic stages. None survived to evolve even the most basic intelligence.” Time was far from optimistic.

  “Then this planet will be the first. Continue the search.”

  “But the planet, the entire system, could perish before we ever locate it—”

  “Find it!” Michael shouted, frustration getting the better of him. It left a foul taste in his mouth like spoiled manna. “Excuse my tone, but I have had my fill of questions today.”

  Time ushered Michael away from the Virtues. Most angels had never heard a harsh word from the Logos.

  “Your passion suggests having seen the planet with your own eyes. I will not ask how or why, but if so, what of the constellations? Do you recall the pattern of stars?”

  Michael closed his eyes and accessed the images stored in his memory. Yes, he did catch a brief moment of the planet’s night cycle. “Bring me a scroll.”

  Time fetched a fresh scroll and ink. Eyes still closed, Michael dipped his fingers in the ink and dotted a pattern of stars onto the parchment. As the pattern developed, Time’s eyes lit up with recognition.

  “I know these stars…”

  The textured pattern of the Observatory walls was actually tens of thousands of scrolls documenting all of the Virtues’ research. Time flew up to the highest reaches of the dome and found an aged scroll covered in dust. He unfurled the parchment, releasing a haze of stagnant particles that dated back to the Observatory’s construction.

  “Yes, yes, this is it. One of the first systems we mapped, but there was no planet there. Not as you describe,” Time said.

  “And how many planets have come into fruition since you last set eyes upon it?”

  “Perhaps a fresh look is in order.” His interest piqued, Time turned to the Virtues and said, “Redirect to grid 617527.629, position 1267.3.76.”

  The wait was unbearable as the lenses shifted. The result of the search would prove Michael’s sanity or lack thereof, and he did not know which was preferable. Wonders blasted across the telescopes, providing an extrapolation of the Creator’s great model repeated endlessly in the Cosmos. Moons orbited planets. Planets revolved around suns. Suns were gravitationally bound in interstellar clouds of gas and dust called galaxies. Galaxies were scattered across the immensity of open space amidst the matter and energy that comprised all of Creation.

  The telescopes locked into place, and a collective gasp of wonder came from the Virtues.

  “By the Creator,” Time said. “It is beautiful.”

  There it was—the blue planet.

  But instead of relief, a staggering rush of worry overcame Michael. Never had he been given a task like this, and he had not the first thought on what would come next. There was no hiding his bewilderment.

  “We have just located a single planet in a single galaxy out of billions upon billions. Numbers so great they are but concepts. What does this mean?” Time asked.

  Michael left the Observatory without a word. Nothing was certain anymore save for one truth that would shatter everything the Host believed: they were not the Creator’s sole children.

  They were not alone.

  Satanail led Azazel through tempestuous skies towards the region of Shamayim. Araboth was the nucleus of Heaven with six equidistant regions around it like electrons. In the Northern directions were the prosperous lands of Shehaqim, Raqia, and Machonon, all flush with nature. The Southern regions of Zebul, Mathey, and Shamayim were more turbulent and elemental. This tapestry of landscapes followed a specific design, and Satanail’s destination was its architects.

  A boundless ocean separated the lands of Shamayim from the coasts of Machonon. Waves came up beneath Satanail and Azazel, intensified to furious heights like rising teeth.

  “Why maintain this perilous ocean when it’s kingdom to no angels?” Azazel asked.

  “Because it confines a primitive force that must remain lost and dormant…the Leviathan.”

  Satanail and Michael’s battle against Heaven’s two primordial beasts had been relegated to myth, but he clearly remembered the wanton havoc of the creatures. The ocean, with its tremendous depths and crushing pressure, was the Leviathan’s territory and prison. Azazel’s eyes scanned the water for its master instead of focusing on the storm.

  “Mind your surroundings,” Satanail cautioned but was muted by thunder.

  The sky lit up, and the forked fingers of a lightning bolt reached out for Azazel. He swerved away but lost control of his flight. The wind currents sent him into a tailspin towards a rising wave. The swell devoured Azazel whole and slammed back down, reclaimed by the ocean.

  “AZAZEL!”

  Satanail dove across the frothy caps to search for Azazel, but the ocean surface concealed all. He plunged into the water to depths that were no place for an angel, Seraph or otherwise. Though Satanail could hold his breath for as long as needed, he had no dominion over the creatures there and could expect no kindness in return.

  Make no mistake: Satanail was trespassing.

  Under different circumstances, swimming the ocean waters would’ve been an educational thrill. The mass of sea creatures operated in a harmonious ecosystem that begged to be studied, but Azazel’s safety was his priority. If he were unconscious, his body would continue to breathe and flood his lungs. Treatments for severe accidents in Heaven had only been theorized, and Satanail had no desire to test their practical application.

  Satanail saw something float through the water—a feather. He swam after a trail of loose plumes until he found Azazel’s body sinking, circled by a school of carnivorous fish as big as hi
s wings with teeth that could strip flesh from bone. They rammed into Azazel and, receiving no response, were prepared to dine on him. Satanail spread his wings and flapped, shooting a current forward that scattered the fish. They’d soon return in greater numbers, so he secured Azazel and launched up for the surface.

  A colossal wave reached up from the ocean and was cleaved into a deluge of water as Satanail burst free. Holding Azazel, he propelled towards the distant shores, weaving between flashes of lightning so near that he smelled the hairs of his beard singeing. He landed on the safety of the coastal sands and then tilted his companion’s head to check the airway.

  Azazel wasn’t breathing.

  “Listen to me. Follow my voice,” he said while placing a hand on Azazel’s chest.

  Though not traditionally trained in the healing methods of the Thrones, Satanail had incurred enough minor wounds in his life that mastering a few tricks of their trade became a matter of convenience. He concentrated his grace to channel the energy of all life surrounding them down to the invisible single-celled organisms in the water. A faint glow emanated from his palm. Azazel awoke and coughed up the water drowning his lungs, dazed but unharmed.

  “Where, where am I?”

  “The shores of Shamayim. Bedlam on Heaven.”

  Shamayim was a region of constant environmental metamorphosis. It could be caked in snow one moment and then a barren desert the next due to the residual effects of the Cherubim’s work. The landscape shifted as if hands beneath the surface were kneading it like warm dough.

  “How can anyone live here?”

  “It is a place of discipline and labor, not residence,” Satanail explained. “Get up, we’re close. Oh, and do try to mind your surroundings this time.”

  Satanail and Azazel soon arrived at the hub of Shamayim: a structure dubbed the “Nest” but far more staggering in design and purpose than the simple name suggested. A series of stone columns rose from the land to support an enclosed platform that resembled a bird’s nest in a tree. Rainbows of luminous energy pulsed from the platform and spewed colors across the sky. The energy traveled along a patchwork of thin, silver tendrils that snaked down the columns and dug into the soil like roots to disperse through the regions of Heaven.

  “Is that…?” Azazel began but lost his thought in wonder.

  “The Nest.”

  The imposing structure was the institution of the Cherubim, the Choir that controlled Heaven’s environment with a process called terraformation. By using the Nest, they manipulated the atmosphere, temperature, weather, day/night cycle, and even surface topography—a science of much debate upon discovery. Satanail, however, felt that there was no danger in customizing Heaven as long as strict discipline was observed. One delinquent Cherub could send calamitous ripples through the delicate fabric of their climate.

  “Few angels outside of the Cherubim Choir have seen what lies within the Nest,” Satanail said as they entered. “This is an honor. Observe and touch nothing.”

  Inside, hundreds of sleeping Cherubs were entombed in padded, tubular beds. Regulated drips of water and manna nourished them through tubes inserted in their mouths. Freed from the limits of conscious thought, their minds produced a chaste form of energy. An aura of grace emitted from the pores in their bald skulls, collected in a mist, and was filtered down to the facility’s core.

  The entire Nest hummed with the Cherubim’s power as their grace fueled the terraforming process. Because of the required catatonic state, the non-active Cherubs monitored their brothers’ vitals to ensure that their output remained healthy and balanced.

  “Can they see me? Do they know we’re here?” Azazel asked Satanail while waving his hand in front of a Cherub’s face. The paired Cherub swatted him away with an annoyed huff.

  “Active Cherubs have no awareness of their surroundings. Every neuron in their brains is focused on the task.”

  Satanail found the Cherubim to be a respectable, but entirely boring, Choir. Their noble calling demanded total composition of mind. Since they were linked to the very forces that shaped Heaven, any thoughts other than cold, factual reasoning could impair the results.

  “Focused to do what?”

  “Whatever the Host desires,” answered a voice from below.

  A Seraph flew up from the recessed core to greet them. It’d been ages since Satanail saw Cassiel, but he appeared the same, even-keeled angel bereft of passion. He didn’t fault the dullard, though, for his lack of an engaging personality. Cassiel controlled Heaven’s constitution. That amount of responsibility was best left in the hands of one not prone to an excess of emotion.

  “Think of the Nest as a giant conductor harnessing the grace contained within my Cherubim,” Cassiel continued. “Every angel has all the energy of creation, it only needs to be tapped.”

  “You consider yourselves creators?” Azazel asked.

  “We dwell in the art of redirecting energy, not the creation of it. It is a pale imitation of the Creator’s might. A drop on our tongues to sample the taste,” Cassiel replied, amused by Azazel’s ignorance. “You have come about the storm.”

  “Yes,” Satanail replied.

  “That was not a question. This way.”

  Satanail rolled his eyes to Azazel as Cassiel led them down into the Nest core, an insulated pod saturated with a humid cloud of the Cherubim’s grace. A map of Heaven wrapped around the walls and shone with different colors to signify the weather systems in each region. A cluster of red tracked the storm’s movement from Araboth to Shamayim.

  Glass nodules vibrated within a central control dais, each one a solitary environmental microcosm containing snow, rain, wind, sunlight—the essence of every possible weather scenario. The Nest was Cassiel’s brush and the nodules his paints to transform the canvas of Heaven to their needs.

  “The storm is not of my design. It is quite the troublesome puzzle,” Cassiel said.

  “By design or not, the Nest can still control it. Why haven’t you?” Satanail asked.

  “I have been tracking its movements. Erratic. Irrational. No cause and effect. It serves no purpose other than as an agent of entropy.” Cassiel spoke as if the storm was a living entity.

  “I’ve no time for meteorological theory. What’s the meaning of this phenomenon?”

  “I can only hypothesize that it is a summoned response to a subconscious awareness of change felt across the entire Host. But as for what it means, you would know better than I.” Cassiel spoke plain with no intention to insult, but his delivery always felt pompous, like he saw others as flawed for their affections. A mind of pure logic had its own limitations.

  “Then I’ll purge this anomaly myself,” Satanail replied. “Pay attention, Cassiel. You may learn something.”

  Azazel coughed to hide his smirk. Cassiel wasn’t amused by Satanail’s friendly slight.

  “As you wish, Archon. I will act as your second.”

  “That won’t be necessary. The day a simple weather system bests my will is the day I cease to draw breath.”

  Satanail positioned his fingers over the nodules and breathed deep of the potent mist. The energy swamped his lungs, entered his bloodstream, and coursed into his brain until it achieved a harmony with each cell of his body.

  “Does he kn-kn-know how to operate this?” Azazel asked.

  “More than anyone,” Cassiel was forced to admit. “He built it.”

  The nodules grew hot under Satanail’s touch and provided access to their elemental properties. He focused on the thunderstorm: the movement of its rumbling clouds, the howling force of the winds, and the electrostatic discharges of lightning. He pictured it quelling and dissipating into clear, bright skies of blue. Cassiel was right—the storm was like a living entity, a belligerent animal that needed to be taught respect by its superior.

  “The storm is diminishing,” Cassiel said as the red splotches on the map lightened.

  But Satanail couldn’t maintain his concentration. Thoughts of Michael and the
Creator’s unknown Word shattered his focus. The feelings he was trying to suppress clawed their way back to prominence. The Nest began to sway on its columns, battered from outside. Satanail was no longer calming the storm…he was bolstering its intensity.

  Azazel lost his footing and clutched onto the wall. “Is, is this n-n-normal?”

  “Not at all. Satanail, you must stop,” Cassiel said. “Satanail!”

  “Don’t interrupt! I can defeat this,” Satanail insisted. He had performed the exact same method a thousand times before. The storm would fall, and Michael would reward his peerless skill with a return to reason. Yet the more Satanail struggled, the more clouded his mind became.

  “I am detecting massive storm systems generating in multiple regions. Shehaqim…Raqia…Araboth. Your mind is too frantic. Stop this!” Cassiel gripped Satanail’s shoulders—

  “NO!”

  Satanail lashed out with the back of his hand and belted Cassiel across the core.

  Cassiel’s head cracked against a sharp corner of the weather map, knocking him unconscious. An ugly divot opened over his temple and filled with blood like a puddle.

  Azazel cradled him, unhinged by the red seeping through his fingers. “He’s bleeding. Please, s-s-stop.”

  “Silence,” Satanail growled and refocused his efforts. It was only a storm, the cooling and condensing of warm air, not divine providence.

  Satanail wouldn’t admit defeat. His conviction was greater than any tempest, and the storm would bow to his will. Ridding his mind of all thoughts other than victory in the moment, Satanail’s refreshed concentration whittled down the storm until it was a light sprinkle of rain.

  “It’s done.”

  Satanail exhaled a puff of energy but received no accolades for his efforts. Azazel gaped at him, admiration replaced with confusion and apprehension.

  “What of Cassiel?”

  “He attempted to calm the storm and was overwhelmed, an unfortunate but not entirely uncommon accident.” Satanail’s words were spoken as fact with no room for argument. “Notify the Thrones and monitor his wound until they arrive.”