Fall of Lucifer (20 page)

Lucifer watched Zadkiel, disbelieving, as his own skin blistered, the rasping screams reverberating throughout the chamber.

Zadkiel continued to bathe in the radiance, untouched. Michael stared at him, magnetized. Slowly Zadkiel opened his eyes and looked towards the Christ.

Christos looked directly at him with a terrible sorrow. ‘Zadkiel.’

Lucifer lifted his arm away from his eyes, staring incredulously from Zadkiel to the Christ. Zadkiel abruptly lowered his head, a dreadful hopelessness clouding his features. All of a sudden, he shook uncontrollably and his blistered face bubbled. He reeled to the ground.

Charsoc raised his black head, his eyes filled with loathing for the Christ.

Christos turned to Charsoc. ‘You, Charsoc, holy steward of Yehovah’s eternal mysteries, have been found wanting.’

The fierce, scorching white fire bored into Charsoc’s eye sockets like laser beams. He let out an agonizing scream of pain and terror.

Christos turned to Lucifer. ‘You will bow before your rightful King.’

The demons fell prostrate on the ground as one.

Lucifer turned his blistering face towards the searing light. ‘This is my . . . kingdom! You trespass!’

Inch by inch, as though an invisible iron hand were levering him downward, Lucifer bent, finally falling prostrate before the Christ, his head bowed away from the scorching light.

Sachiel turned his ravaged features towards Christos. The seared eye sockets shed their scabbed ash and immediately became like new. Tears coursed down his raw and bloodied cheeks as they healed.

‘Gather all who would repent. By dawn you shall be home.’

And then He looked behind him and held out his right hand to the platinum-haired figure staring after him with intense yearning . . . silent . . . trembling.

Christos smiled like the sun. ‘Gabriel!’

Chapter Twenty-three

The Coronation

Lucifer watched from the rubied balcony of the Black Citadel. A vast fleet of long, open ships with his emblem on their sails rowed up the river under the crags of Perdition. Thousands of fallen angels followed the lead ship out towards the sands of the black Eden. They were headed back to the First Heaven.

He stared, mesmerized, at the imperial figure of Christos, clothed in white and standing majestic and tall at the front of the lead ship, His long, flowing locks shining in the white light that bathed His gracious features. Gabriel could be seen standing at Christos’ right hand, radiant, glorious.

With a supreme effort Lucifer managed to drag his gaze away. He slammed the balcony doors, turning to the ten generals standing before him.

‘He has invaded my kingdom and ravished my subjects with His presence!’ Lucifer spat. Incensed, he paced the chamber. ‘Yehovah shall now feel my bitter wrath.’ He swung around to Charsoc, who stared sightlessly ahead, his eye sockets now two seared and gaping cavities, his entire body still trembling uncontrollably. ‘Summon my princes to my coronation. I shall be anointed king!’

* * *

The walls of Lucifer’s throne room loomed tall and stark, a strange, translucent black, their vortex an enormous crystal dome of a dark black jewelled crystal. The vaulted ceilings soared a hundred feet and were fashioned with spectacular panoramas reminiscent of his inner sanctum in the Palace of Archangels – save this time the hues of his
trompe l’oeils
were darker, more sinister. Absent were the vibrant indigos and heliotrope and soothing lilacs he had loved so well; in their place were damson, deep magentas, and dark forbidding crimsons. At the far end of the nave towered a colossal garnet altar, its gleaming surface covered with thousands of sputtering black tapers permeating the chamber with their intense aroma of pure frankincense. Ornate carved golden seraphim and Gorgons adorned the two mammoth black gold throne room gates at the opposite end of the nave.

The soporific throbbing beat of Lucifer’s ceremonial drums mingled with the grand haunting arias of his dark angelic sorcerers, their tabrets and pipes pulsating through the chamber, fusing with lyres and lutes and the gleaming golden shofars of his militia heralds.

Lucifer sat majestically on an enormous glistening diamond throne in front of the black altar, clothed in glistening white robes embroidered with diamonds and molten gold. Jewels of every description were set in his golden breastplate: sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle. His bearing was still kingly. His beautiful features, though ravaged, were still haunting. His raven hair was plaited with lightning and fell past his shoulders onto his shining white garments.

Slowly he rose and knelt before the altar, his head coming to rest against the black garnet, muttering in a strange, guttural tongue, neither of angels nor of men. His incantations grew in intensity. Immediately hundreds of disembodied demons materialized from the translucent walls and knelt behind him.

Then the throne room filled with hundreds of thousands of the fallen angelic host. A hundred of his chief princes marched up the nave, led by Charsoc. They too knelt in a circular formation in front of his throne.

Charsoc addressed them. ‘My angelic brothers, I present to you Lucifer, this day to be anointed as
Satan
, king of Hades and of Perdition and of the nether regions. Wherefore all you who are gathered here this day, will you pledge to do your homage or service and assign yourself to Satan from this day forth?’

The entire assembly answered as one. ‘We do pledge,’ the angelic host thundered.

Charsoc turned to the chief princes. ‘Will you, chief princes of the netherworld, pledge to serve, honour, and worship almighty Satan, king of hell, tempter, adversary of the race of men? To execute forever his will only, to serve and venerate forever his person only, to be the executors of his iniquitous purposes, become his powers of darkness forever and ever, throughout eternity of eternities?’

The angelic host answered in unison. ‘We do pledge.’

Charsoc turned to face Lucifer, who rose from the altar. ‘Do you, Lucifer, seraph, light-bearer, vow to renounce Christos through eternity of eternities?’

‘I, Lucifer, renounce Christos through eternity of eternities.’

Charsoc moved nearer until Lucifer’s face was a hair’s breadth away from his own. ‘Do you, Lucifer, seraph, light-bearer, vow to renounce Yehovah?’

Lucifer lifted his face to the dome. A shaft of light shone down on him, illuminating his features. He took a deep breath, his eyes fleetingly vulnerable. A look of intense pain crossed his features.

Zadkiel stared at him, trembling. A terrible silence fell across the throne room, every eye upon Lucifer.

‘Do you, Lucifer, seraph – ’

Lucifer struck Charsoc across the face viciously. Trembling, he wiped tears away from his eyes with the back of his jewelled hand.

No one stirred. Charsoc stared sightlessly at Lucifer, trembling.

Lucifer walked to the altar and knelt, his head flung across its top. Minutes passed, and still he lay unmoving.

Suddenly he raised his head. ‘He does not heed me!’ he cried. He withdrew his broadsword and swept it across the altar in fury, sweeping the blazing black tapers to the ground. When he next spoke, each word was agony. ‘I . . . renounce . . . Yehovah.’

A ferocious thundering issued from the fallen angels and demons. ‘We renounce Yehovah!’ they roared. ‘We worship Satan.’

Charsoc held out to Lucifer a magnificently carved black diamond ring embedded in gold. ‘Receive the ring of kingly damnation and the seal of Satan.’

A dark knight placed a heavy gold ampulla into Zadkiel’s hands. Four dark knights in arms held a pall of heavy, fine gold over Lucifer’s head.

Zadkiel poured the tarlike anointing oil from the ampulla into a gold spoon and anointed Lucifer on the palms of both hands. ‘Be thy hands anointed with the dark sorceries of hell.’

Charsoc placed the oil on Lucifer’s bare chest. ‘Be thy breast anointed.’ He poured the remaining oil over the crown of Lucifer’s bare head. The heavy fragranced liniment ran down Lucifer’s forehead onto his neck and his cheeks. ‘Be thy head anointed.’

Charsoc raised his arms. ‘Thou art Lucifer, this day anointed Satan.’ He turned to the angelic legions, who rose as one. ‘We renounce Yehovah!’ he cried.

‘We renounce Yehovah!’ the fallen host answered.

‘Long reign Satan!’

‘Long reign Satan!’

The demonic shofar sounded, and slowly the gates opened. Eight of Lucifer’s most glorious warriors walked with military precision down the centre of the nave, the casket of the ark of the race of men upon their shoulders. To their rear walked the newly chosen satanic chief princes, led by Asmodeus. Slowly the warriors set the golden casket down directly in front of the altar.

Lucifer rose and turned. ‘We have taken possession of the covenant of the race of men. From this time on, I, Satan, am their rightful sovereign, the ruler of the race of men. The territories of the planet Earth, its solar system, the Second Heaven, are now annexed to the kingdom of Satan, emperor and regent of the nether regions.’

The satanic chief princes laid the ark on the onyx altar. Lucifer wrapped his ermine cloak around his frame and stared at his trophy. A slow satisfied smile spread across his features.

* * *

‘Charsoc was there?’

Jether stood with his back towards Michael.

‘He was found wanting,’ Michael stated.

Jether sighed in anguish. ‘I knew it would be so.’

‘He is sightless, Jether,’ Michael said softly. ‘He was greatly overcome, this much I know. He did not expect – ’

Jether spun from the window of the monastic chamber, his face raw with a terrible grief and anger.

‘He did not
expect?
He who sat on one of the eight governmental thrones of heaven? Who journeyed to the source of the universes and saw the chambers of the whirlwinds, the treasuries of the snow? Who entered the secret vaults of the cherubim and saw the very face of Yehovah?
He did not expect?
’ Jether’s breathing was laboured. He sat heavily in his chair, his head in his hands. ‘He who was steward over so much, who was accountable for so much – my friend . . . so greatly has he fallen.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘Charsoc made his choice. He revered the creation more than the Creator. And his choice was treachery and duplicity with full intention. He did expect, Michael. He knew exactly what to expect.’

Michael looked around the spartan chamber. Silent.

Finally Jether raised his head. ‘We must forearm ourselves, for Lucifer well knows that Charsoc’s knowledge of the mysteries of Yehovah can be perverted and twisted to fulfil his dastardly ambitions to annihilate the race of men.’ He stood. ‘Time is against us. We must make haste.’

Chapter Twenty-four

The Demon Seed

Thirteen rings of ice radiated from the top of the dark portals, the laboratories inside which Charsoc’s sinister dark apprentices spent their existence. These impish apprentices, the third of the younglings who had defected with the angelic hosts, laboured in the sweltering underground tunnels of the nether regions, rigorously pursuing their witchcraft and sorceries.

The air was thick with the eerie hum of demonic incantations, voodoo, hexes, and enchantments. Two-thirds of these younglings were deformed, with shrunken, misshapen limbs, distorted heads, and warped features.

Charsoc circled the laboratories, his thin bony face ablaze with malevolence as he watched through sightless sockets the dark apprentices rocking to and fro, like zombies, reciting their black arts and enchantments. Thousands of silver tomes and ancient black codices were piled from floor to ceiling:
Witches’ Brew
,
Hellbroth
,
Necromancy
,
Magic Lore
,
Walpurgisnacht
,
Alchemy
, and hundreds of other such titles.

Three younglings, their features contorted with malice, swiftly chained up a fourth youngling. The unfortunate apprentice screamed in terror as he was held over a mammoth cauldron of burning tar and fetishes. ‘We’re calling this one “Dwarf!”’ the smallest cackled maniacally. A satisfied smile crossed Charsoc’s features.

Lucifer entered the laboratory followed by a hundred of his chief generals. They ignored the younglings, who were shivering with terror, and walked straight towards a large black vault.

Charsoc’s embroidered black sorcerer’s cape billowed as he bowed before Lucifer. ‘The dark portals, Your Majesty.’

Lucifer stared at the vault, entranced. ‘My trophy. The sacred mysteries of Yehovah.’

Asmodeus nodded to his warriors. Carefully they lifted the heavy lid of the black iron vault. Silver smoke snaked up towards the dome from the contents.

Lucifer nodded almost imperceptibly, and Asmodeus leaned over to remove one of the heavy jewelled codices. As soon as he touched it, he let out a blood-chilling scream and withdrew his hand in agony. Seared into his palm was the insignia of the Royal House of Yehovah.