Fall of Lucifer (26 page)

There was an outburst of horror as his words sank in.

‘The records are meticulous. Even my fastidious mentor Jether will find them indisputable.’ He strode to the podium, his beautiful features starting to scar. ‘They are a race of rebels! I, their rightful sovereign, put man on trial!’ He made a sweeping motion with his hand, and thousands of records appeared across the chamber. ‘I lodge my claim against mankind in the courts of heaven. He cannot banish me to the lake of fire and not banish man. I
demand
judgment!’

He lifted his rapidly gnarling hands to the heavens. ‘The penalty
must
be paid. Every man’s soul is mine – to be with me in hell and the grave and in Tartarus. And when my judgment comes, they will burn with me in the lake of fire!’

Lucifer stopped in mid-speech and turned his head. He stared intently at Gabriel; then an evil smile spread across his face. His gaze moved to Jether, who sat completely still, not a muscle on his face moving. Lucifer walked to where the brothers and Jether sat. He grabbed the codex from Gabriel’s grasp and scanned it. Then he threw it aside and leaned his face near to Jether’s.

‘What are you up to, old man?’ he hissed. ‘
Angelic
blood cannot be shed – it does not qualify as the substitute mentioned in that book. Our blood is astral. Only one
born
from the race of men can meet the legal demands and pay the penalty!’ He turned to the hushed spectators, his maniacal laugh resounding through the auditorium. ‘And man’s blood is tainted, mutated from the Fall. Even the line of Noah. How easily it succumbed.’ He swung back around to Jether. ‘His scheme is flawed, old man. There is not one left pure. I claim my prize – the race of men must be destroyed!’

He stopped in mid-sentence. Sweat poured from his temples, and he seemed strangely weakened. His breathing became slow and laboured. The councils watched, transfixed, as his great strength ebbed from him. He leaned trembling against the podium, his head fallen over his chest, incapacitated.

‘Christos,’ Jether whispered.

A blinding light became visible at the back of the auditorium. Christos appeared and raised His hand, and instantly the Grand Councils froze in time. The council members on each side of the auditorium stood as wax figures staring straight ahead. Christos walked imperially down the grand sapphire steps of the chamber, drawing closer to where Michael, Gabriel, and Jether all knelt, paralysed. He stopped directly in front of the Lucifer, who had collapsed on the podium.

‘Lucifer.’

With intense effort, Lucifer raised his head inches from the podium. He was trembling as he stared into His countenance. Completely vulnerable.

‘Christos . . . ’

Gently Christos moved the raven locks that had fallen across Lucifer’s face.

Lucifer’s tormented eyes locked on the eyes of Christos. He clasped Christos’ hand, his grasp so fierce that Christos flinched. A deep serenity crossed Lucifer’s countenance, and a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth.

Christos looked upon him, deeply moved. ‘Lucifer,’ Christos said softly, ‘it is dangerous for you to kick against the goad.’

Lucifer’s eyelids closed heavily.

There was a long silence. ‘When He destroys the race of men,’ his voice was a whisper, ‘
then
I will repent.’

Christos vanished.

The Grand Councils broke from their paralysis. Lucifer stormed up the aisle. Several younglings stood to their feet in awe, hastily pulled back into their seats by their mentors. The great doors slammed as chaos broke out in the councils.

Michael stared angrily around the room. ‘Would we give him licence to gain his end? We play into his hands. Surely not!’ He hit the table with his palm. ‘We
must
find a way.’ He strode after Lucifer, his sword drawn.

Gabriel looked up from the tomes to Jether, who sat unmoving on his throne.

‘I go to Yehovah,’ Jether said at last. ‘I will tell Him we have failed. The race of men is lost to Him forever.’

* * *

Michael tore across the golden meadows after Lucifer’s swiftly disappearing black stallion. He had speculated that his brother could not have resisted one last dash across the eastern gardens that he had once so cherished. He had guessed well. He urged Ariale on, gaining on Lucifer with each second until he was almost neck and neck with his elder brother.

Lucifer turned, his hood flying in the gales, his disfigured face now fully visible under Eden’s lilac horizon. Michael leaned across and pulled on Lucifer’s reins with his great strength. The stallions whinnied as both magnificent steeds finally drew to an uneasy halt.

Michael and Lucifer remained mounted, staring at each other: Michael, raw with emotion, fierce; Lucifer, inscrutable. Both seemed dwarfed by the sheer majesty of the undulating rainbow horizons surrounding them.

Lucifer saluted and bowed his head in recognition to Michael. ‘I greet you, my brother, Chief Prince Michael, full of wisdom and valour.’ He put his hand up to his head, realizing that it was uncovered.

He winced. For a fleeting moment, Michael thought he appeared almost vulnerable. He remembered their last moments in this meadow, before evil had taken its full course, when he had clung, sobbing, to Michael, pleading with him to save his soul.

‘I read your mind, Michael.’ They stared at each other for a long moment. ‘You would urge me to repent.’

Michael nodded. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, suddenly unable to trust himself to speak. The memories of their brotherhood swept over him like all-consuming, searing waves that sought to drown him in their ferocity.

Lucifer expelled a terrible, trembling sigh. ‘I miss Him, Michael . . . ’ His voice was barely above a whisper. A terrible suffering clouded his features as he stared up at the seven spires.

‘You were His shining one,’ Michael entreated. ‘His confidant . . . ’

‘Evil’s hold is far-reaching in me, my brother.’ Lucifer swallowed hard. ‘There is no way back.’

Michael raised his head; tears coursed down the noble cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, not caring. ‘His mercies are endless.’

‘There is no restitution for
me
,’ Lucifer whispered. For a fleeting moment Michael could swear that Lucifer’s eyes were wet. He gazed directly at Michael without guile, as when they were younglings. ‘Even if I wanted it to be so.’

Michael was silent.

‘You will tell our Father of our conversation?’

Michael gazed a long time at his brother’s blistered, ruined features. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘Thank you.’

‘I pity you, Lucifer,’ Michael whispered. His eyes filled with a terrible love and a terrible sorrow.

Lucifer looked back at him with a strange fire in his eyes and spoke a tongue that was neither angelic nor of man. And then he was gone.

Chapter Thirty-three

The Holy Mountain of God

You were on the holy mountain of God;

You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.

You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,

Till iniquity was found in you.

Indigo lightning struck far above the rock face of the Holy Mountain. The sacred rubied entrance to the throne room was barely visible, wreathed in the silver glistening mists that rose and fell in Eden’s zephyrs. Seven scorching columns of eternal white fire blazed fiercely and unrelentingly at the outer entrance of Yehovah’s palace. An immense flaming rainbow was suspended directly over the mountain. Hues of every spectrum ebbed and flowed in intensity from violets and indigos through pinks and vermilions. Yehovah’s eternal remembrance of the race of men.

Michael, his white steed held by Sachiel, paced incessantly up and down the gardens outside the entrance. Gabriel stood silent near him. Finally he spoke.

‘They convene for many moons over the fate of man.’

Michael turned from his pacing, grief etched across his features. ‘He is filled with a great and terrible regret. His heart is broken that so easily they have deserted Him.’

His voice broke with sorrow. Gabriel clasped his arm gently. ‘There are still those of the race of men who love Him and seek after His presence.’

The colossal golden doors of the rubied entrance opened. Jether, exhausted, walked past the Watchers towards the brothers, his head covered by his grey mantle. ‘Yehovah mourns,’ he said softly. ‘He cannot be comforted.’ He looked at the brothers silently for a long moment, then bowed his head.

‘He loves them beyond our comprehension . . . ’

He looked at them, his features etched with grief. ‘The penalty will be paid.’

Michael stared at Jether, uncomprehending. ‘He will destroy man?’

‘No,’ Jether said, his eyes filled with agony. ‘He will send Himself.’

* * *

Michael rode bareback for a hundred leagues, his white stallion’s hooves thundering across the fields of Eden, his blond hair flying. The tears dried on his strong, noble countenance. His soul was aflame with unanswered questions and raw with pain.

He came to a halt on the western side of the Holy Mountain, at the back of the entrance to the throne room, outside the western labyrinths of the seven spires. He dismounted and lowered his head as he entered the sacred caverns. His path was lit only by the flaming eternal torches high against the walls of the caverns, which were fuelled by the burning coals of the seven spirits of Yehovah.

There were seven hidden chambers in the mountain, each descending into the inner sanctum of the labyrinths. Michael knew that the mountain held some of the answers he desperately sought. Aeons had passed since he had last walked these paths with Jether. The memory was still as vivid as if it had been yesterday.

He had been just seven moons of age, a fledgling prince, clutching his mentor’s muscled arm tightly, his eyes screwed shut at the same strange and terrible apprehension that nearly overwhelmed him now. And so they had passed the first flame, Wisdom, though he knew not to look or stop as he kept at Jether’s steady pace.

Then they passed Discretion and Valour, but still they did not stop. They ascended to a higher chamber, and as they neared the fourth flaming eternal torch, the young Michael fell prostrate, as if dead, onto the stony chamber bed. And he had heard a voice, at once within and without, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy – worthy is the Ancient of Days.’

The youngling raised his chin awkwardly off the chamber floor. Jether’s hand was upon his head, and a terrible burning sensation raced through his body. All at once he was upon his feet . . . he knew to look.

In front of him blew a stormy wind, and out of the wind burned a great cloud with a fire, and great lightning and flashings came out of the fire. Out of the fire came four living creatures – the mighty cherubim of Yehovah. The four-winged, four-faced creatures bowed in obeisance to the Ancient of Days. As they did, Michael could see the face of an eagle at the back of their heads. The eternal burning torch of Yehovah was in the midst of them, containing the burning coals moving to and fro among them. Out of the coals, lightning blazed. And beneath them were whirling wheels of living flame.

Then he saw Jether’s face glow as burnished bronze, his skin translucent with the glory of God. He walked into the midst of the whirling wheels of the cherubim. Michael saw a cherub stretch forth his hand and fill both of Jether’s hands with the burning coals of fire. Jether came out of the midst of the cherubim, and as he spoke, it was as though his voice shook the chamber: ‘Michael, partake of the stones of fire.’

It was a command. As though magnetized, the young prince started to walk, and as he walked, the cavern bed suddenly became a living, burning mass of gleaming sapphires, burnished as the summer sky. He found himself walking in the midst and up and down on the burning sapphire stones of fire.

‘The fires of holiness,’ said Jether. And as he spoke, he touched Michael’s lips with the red-hot coals. Michael felt the burning white-hot sensation flood through his spirit, soul, and body. It was as though Yehovah Himself had passed through him. He was flung to the ground.

‘Consume!’ Jether commanded.

Again the lightning bolts of holiness invaded him.

Michael shook with a trembling that would not stop. When he looked up, it seemed to him that many moons had passed. The living creatures and the whirling wheels were gone. Only the burning eternal flame on the chamber wall remained.

Jether’s weathered face peered down at him as he tenderly lifted the young Michael’s still trembling limbs from the floor. ‘You did well, young prince.’

Michael gazed up at him, still feeling the red-hot fire coursing through his veins.

Jether smiled tenderly. ‘You will not return until the appointed time.’

And Michael never had . . . until now.

* * *

He walked, head bowed, past the third eternal flame. But as he ascended higher into the chamber, a familiar dread seemed to fill his being. His ascent continued, climbing deep into the heart of the labyrinths. He stopped for breath.