Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (57 page)

CHAPTER 62

The Archistrategos Michael stood beside Zadok, staring across the boiling River of Fire into the darkness of God. An ominous current had shaken the heavens, sending cherubim, seraphim, and angels scurrying to the seventh crystal palace for guidance and protection. They huddled in wide-eyed flocks against the sparkling walls, afraid to breathe. Michael cast a taut look at Zadok. The elderly patriarch stood resolutely, fists clenched at his sides, as though he had a faint glimmering of the metamorphosis taking place before his eyes. Michael pitied him—humans had never understood. He dropped his gaze to study the sculpted hem of his yellow robe. In the marmalade light, it blazed with a crimson edge. Michael felt like an iron cage constricted the beating of his heart.

“What’s happening?” Zadok whispered.

Michael’s face contorted. Of all the angels, he was the most closely tied to Epagael—he could sense God’s very thoughts. His amber nostrils quivered. “Pain. Shimmering haze. They’re fighting a war of dominance.”

“Who?”

“The Aktariel/Rachel androgyne and Epagael.”

Michael cried out in pain and bent double, gasping. Epagael’s deepest essence convulsed with agony. The spasms of silent terror streaked unbroken to the brilliant edges of His infinite awareness. Michael dropped to his knees unable to bear the brunt of it.

“What are you feeling?” Zadok pressed. He knelt on the floor beside Michael and put a withered hand on the angel’s forearm, gazing up in fear.

“Disbelief. Epagael never seriously thought Aktariel could challenge him…. And guilt for the suffering. He knows now. He feels it writhing inside him like a tangle of poisonous serpents.” Michael clutched his stomach and rocked back and forth.
Yes, guilt so deep it bears the horrifying depth of Creation’s Darkness on its wings.

Michael jerked his eyes up to stare at the vortex. In the deep blackness across the River of Fire, stars coalesced into magnificent spots of awesome brilliance, then flickered and died. Galaxies pirouetted in cold graceful patterns. Universes spun hopes and dreams and denied them all.

Glorious. Majestic. Filled with bitterness.

And Michael knew what had happened. Aktariel had forced Epagael to slit His eternal eyes and gaze back at the patterns of the surviving multiple universes:

And He saw them naked for the first time. And knew them for what they really were:

Idols.

Empty.

Epagael had realized in agony that his infinite consciousness had been built upon those graven images. Just as surely as Aaron had carefully constructed an altar for his polished bull calf in the barren deserts of old, Epagael had gathered together his own idols and stacked them like stones around himself to form glittering fortress walls—and been blinded by the endless spinning maze of chaos. So blinded that his own altar to himself had begun to crumble and He’d barely noticed.

While He’d squandered his radiance on names and games the consciousnesses in the creation had cried out to Him—but he’d heard them not. For the tumbled rubble of those cold alien stones had covered his ears.

Michael ached with Epagael’s self-hatred; it swelled and festered into a wound that could stand no touch.

God tried to forget it.

God tried to turn His head.

… But He could not.

Neither Aktariel nor Rachel would let Him.

Cold sorrow swept Epagael up and metamorphosed into blind terror.

Across the face of the vortex, a shadow crept, neither male nor female, and a splash of light burst forth, spilling into the seventh crystal palace.

The cherubim shrieked and flew to hover against the ceiling. The angels muttered fearfully amongst themselves as the effulgence showered them.

Michael smiled.

For beyond the cold barricade of voids that separated the heavens from the multiple universes, a cleansing sea of light rushed. Universes melted beneath that bright hot flood.

Michael glanced down at Zadok’s bald head and worried face. “Do you feel it, Patriarch?”

“No, Lord. What?”

“The Redemption. It’s begun.”

EPILOGUE

And the angels sounded the trumpets and said, “Blessed are you, Lord, who has pitied your creatures.” Then Seth saw the extended hand of the Lord holding Adam, and he handed him over to Michael, saying, “Let him be in your custody until the day of dispensing justice at the last years, when I will turn his sorrow into joy …

Life of Adam and Eve.
1st Century, B.C.E. Old Earth
Standard. One of the Lake of
Acheron texts found on
Philonian, 2728.

Adam Kadmon sneaked through the brush on the ridge top, grinning. His seven-year-old face bore streaks of dust and his white robe was so filthy it looked like he’d been tending mean-tempered goats all day. He put a hand over his mouth and giggled while he peeked around the thin arms of a tiny date tree. The sweet smell of the plant filled his nostrils. Through the thin limbs, he spied his friend, Halakhah, hiding in the cool shadows of a tan boulder. She wore a long pale green robe covered with dirt. Adam stifled his laughter, thinking about how Halakhah’s mother always yelled at her when she came home after playing with him. Halakhah’s long black hair draped down her back like a dark tangled curtain. She eased up and peeked around the boulder, searching for Adam, and he struck!

He rushed out from his hiding place and let out a blood-curdling shriek of triumph. Halakhah spun more quickly than he would have thought possible and dove for him, knocking his legs out from under him. Adam fought valiantly, wrestling, trying to throw her off, but she was bigger than him. She pinned his arms over his head and sat on his chest with a wide grin on her face. Adam squirmed like a marmot in a trap, but she kept him down.

“I got you!” she cheered and started laughing.

“You always get me!” he growled, but laughed, too, so hard that his stomach ached. Halakhah finally rolled off him and they lay side-by-side in the warm sand looking up at the clouds that sailed through the deep blue skies. Today, they all looked like dragons to him, large and small, long-tailed and short.

“You know what, Adam?”

He turned and squinted at her. “What?”

Over the top of her head he could see a herd of camels trotting down the side of the hill north of them. A haze of dust rose. The herder ran after them, a stick in his hand, driving them into the city below.

Halakhah licked her chapped lips and grinned. “I’m thirsty. Let’s go to the city well and get a drink.”

“Okay.”

Adam craftily shot up and started running up the brush-covered hill.

“Hey!” Halakhah shouted.

He turned around, but kept walking backward. “Come on! We’re racing.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Girls. You had to tell them everything. He waved an arm frantically. “Come on!”

Halakhah got up and ran with all her might. She was a fast runner. Her green sleeves flapped out behind her as she sped up the sandy hill.

Adam anxiously waited until she got close then he grabbed her hand and dragged her to the crest of the hill. He drew a line with the toe of his sandal and grinned at her. “I’ll count to four, all right?”

She pulled up the hem of her green robe and hunkered down. “Yes. I’m ready.”

Adam took a bunch of deep breaths, getting himself ready. Below, the city spread like a glistening blanket of gold, the buildings shimmering as frostily as ice crystals. The fortress wall rose a hundred feet high and shone with the radiance of all manner of precious stones. The first level was garnished with jasper, the second, sapphire, the third chalcedony and the fourth, emerald. The twelve gates that dotted the high walls were made of pure white pearl. In the bright midday sun, they sparkled.

Adam opened his mouth to count, but stopped and pointed suddenly. “Halakhah … look! They’re back!”

Halakhah glanced up and a wide smile came over her face. They both stared in awe when the angels shoved open the gates of the city and stood like tall pillars in the entries.

Dressed in shiny garments that reflected the light like mirrors, they lifted their arms and waved to the people on the hillsides.

“Hurry!” Halakhah said as she waved back. She raced down the hill with all her might. “Let’s see what weird gifts they brought this time!”

Adam ran behind her, laughing. He loved the twelve guardian angels. They didn’t come very often, but when they did, they brought things that made the crops grow bigger, the trees grow taller, the animals get fatter.

And they talked long into the night with the city elders, telling them how to keep the aqueducts flowing and the city water wells clean. Sometimes, they brought books with brightly colored pictures of animals that didn’t live in Adam’s world. His father, a respected Rab in the city, told Adam that those animals lived in heaven.

Adam eagerly raced through a grove of olive trees behind Halakhah, breathless to see the angels, his heart bursting with happiness that they’d come again.

He rounded the corner and let out a yip of delight, his favorite angel stood at the Valley Gate, his brown hair blowing in the wind. His strange shimmering robe clung to his muscular body, like a snake’s shiny skin. The angel’s gaze drifted caressingly over the city—as though the sight of the jeweled fortress walls and golden buildings made him ache almost too much to bear.

Halakhah reached the angel first.
“Colopatiron!”
she yelled and threw herself into his arms. The angel laughed and swung her around playfully.

“Halakhah,” he teased. “You’re growing up too fast. And you, too, Adam.”

Adam slid to a halt by the angel and beamed up at him. As always, Colopatiron wore a strange necklace that glowed like a blue star.

Adam reached out to pat the angel’s knee affectionately. “I’m glad you came back,” he said shyly. “My father said those books you gave him made his brain hurt.”

“He did?” the angel’s blue-violet eyes sparkled. “Well, gravitation isn’t for everybody. I just thought it might help him with his next irrigation project.”

Colopatiron looked out across the hills to the goats that frolicked in the distance and a deep breath expanded his chest. His eyes tightened with longing. “It’s always so peaceful here,” he said. Then he turned and hoisted Halakhah up on his left hip and extended a hand to Adam. The angel smiled broadly. “Why don’t we go talk to your father about those books?”

Adam ran to take the hand. Somewhere in the distance, the haunting melody of the shofar blasted, twining around the jeweled walls like honey. Adam squeezed Colopatiron’s big callused palm tightly as they walked down the narrow gold-paved streets of Yerushalaim.