Angel Fall (32 page)

T
he Voice…

The Terrible Voice…

Within the soul pit Alex’s consciousness groaned. Writhing, he tried to burrow deeper into the darkness where the last shred of who he was had crawled to escape the sucking horror.

“Awaken!”

The Voice…

The Terrible Voice…

No escape! The Voice was dragging him out, forcing him to fuse with the prison of blood and bone. Slowly he began to feel the heaviness of the flesh, to hear the beating of a heart, and he hated it; he wanted to be dead. Then splinters of remembering, splinters of the last things. The old man and the singing monster. The shrieking. The surging up from his belly.

“Awaken!”

The Voice…

The Terrible Voice…

But what was this?

It was coming from
outside
…through the ear holes. Alex began to realize that he was alone—alone inside himself. The crawling nightmare was gone. But it brought no relief, no joy, because what he wanted most of all was to be dead, dead and gone forever. His soul had been sucked down to nothing, the consciousness that had called itself “Alex,” the thing that had lived in his body from the moment he was born, that had strutted and lusted and raged and hated, what was it now? A speck without a name, a pinprick quivering in the darkness where the horror had squatted and sucked until there was nothing left but the invisible “skin” of “self” that had contained the knowledge of who he was.

“Awaken!”

Gasping…wheezing…grunting…Alex opened his eyes. He was lying on his back and above him drifted a blurry vastness.

“Stand up!”

Flopping over onto his belly, he struggled to push himself to his hands and knees.

“Stand up!”

Finally on his feet, teetering back and forth like a bag of blood propped on a two-legged stool. As he rubbed his eyes, vague images appeared; in front of him were stained-glass demons and they were holding something, no, some
one
. A girl. And the girl was holding a baby. Who was the girl? Somebody…somebody…trying to remember. And then she screamed, “Alex!”

His name.

Yes, that was his name.

And hers…it was…Tori.

Why did he know that? Now she was crying, calling out his name over and over. He whispered hers. She saw him do it and it made her cry even more.

“Turn around!”

The Voice…

Turning, he saw the Nightmare above him.

Run…

Hide…

Crawl back into the pit.

But he couldn’t move. All he could do was stare and twitch and tremble.

“Take the child! Take him from her!”

What was he supposed to do? The girl named Tori was screaming at him, “Don’t…Alex! Don’t! Please, don’t kill the baby!”

“Take the child! Take him from her!”

Stumbling forward, he tried to obey. But the Tori-girl fought and kicked. Finally the glass monsters forced her to let go, and the baby fell into his hands. He stared into its eyes.

He knew who he was.

He was Alex Lancaster. And the girl named Tori was his little sister. As he stared into the eyes of the child, all of it came flooding back. He was someone! He was a person and he was alive!

“Look at me!”

Alex looked up…and his heart shriveled. Above him was another set of eyes, and from them flowed waves of loathing that obliterated all but the vilest memories. Staring up into the Darkness of those eyes he knew who he really was and who he would be forever.
No one!
A vile, empty, worthless slave! The eyes told him all of that, and in the depths of his being, he knew it was true. Suddenly he was burning with thirst, but not for water, a thirst for dying, a thirst to drown the filth of his nothingness in an ocean of eternal sleep.

“Walk up the stairs. Walk!”

He stumbled to obey. Such excruciating pain! The flesh was so heavy. Like an old man, one step at a time, Alex lurched and staggered up into the steaming mist. Roar-singing voices drowned out his sister’s screams. He heard scraping, the grinding rumble of stone on stone. When he reached the top, the floor was broken in front of him. The oil was oozing into a chasm of velvet darkness. As he stared into the hole, a voice whispered, “Think only of yourself. Think only of sleep without dreams, without guilt, without sorrow. All you have to do is hold the child, close your eyes, and fall. Death will bring eternal sleep.”

So tired.

So desperate for sleep.

And the darkness looked so soft and inviting. He leaned forward.

Almost ready to do it. Almost…

But something held him back. He felt a strange warmth in his arms. Looking down, he caught his breath. The baby…the warmth was coming from Him and His eyes were so beautiful. As he stared into them, he heard a soft voice whisper in his heart.

“Alex, I love you.”

A new voice. Not the voice of a child. A voice that was gentle and strong. In the voice and in the eyes there was such sorrow. Sorrow and love…for him.

“Alex…I love you.”

A sliver of light.

“A
LEX
, I
LOVE YOU
…”

Juddering shock.

“A
LEX
, I
LOVE YOU
!”

The soft voice was drowned out by a mocking, rasping taunt:
A
LEX
, I
LOVE YOU
!
That voice! He knew that voice! It was the voice he hated. It was the voice of his father.

“Listen, Son, I’m sorry I can’t be with you, but I’ve got a big report due in the morning. I just wanted to call and say good-bye. I know you’re thinking about killing yourself. Let me say that, in my opinion, it really is a good idea. You’re such a screw-up that you’ll never amount to anything anyway, and this is your chance to do something right for a change. Of course, you’re so spineless you probably don’t have the guts to pull it off. So when I come home and find you alive, it’ll be just another reason for me to be ashamed of you. But hey, maybe someday I’ll have a son who’ll make me proud.”

The words made no sense, but that didn’t matter. Instantly the sliver of light vanished, and the gentle voice was drowned in a wave of rage and hate. Weeping, suddenly Alex couldn’t stop weeping. Needed to die! Desperate to die! To forget his father! To forget the “truth” that broke his heart! In his mind, a voice that he thought was his screamed that “truth” over and over in words that Alex had heard a thousand times.

My father doesn’t love me. He’s ashamed of me. He went away to have a son that he could love.

The voice didn’t belong to him. But he had listened to it all of his life, and it had so filled his brain that he thought every vile word it whispered was his own. And so the Evil Spirit had gorged on him, veiling its presence behind the words he called himself, “I,” “Me,” “My,” “Mine,” every foul sentence in his head carefully formed to sound as though he were saying it, when it wasn’t his voice at all. Nestled deep within him, it had vomited an incessant spew of hate and lies, always twisting the agony, screwing it into his soul, making him dance like a puppet to the jittering syncopation of self-pity, guilt, and rage. And while he danced, lashing the people who loved him. But now the dance was almost over.

“Look down,” whispered the Voice.

Dark mystery! What was this that he was holding? A beautiful child? No, its face had changed. Stroke by stroke, line by line, in colors drawn from Alex’s heart, the Master of Lies had painted a small, soft phantom. The face…it was the face he had seen in pictures. The child he was holding was his father’s new son, the son who had replaced him! That it couldn’t be real didn’t matter. It was real! Then came the death whisper.

“One chance! One shot at paying him back! Take away his freaking precious son. Kill the little piece of garbage that he loves. Make him lose both of us together. Just do it. Jump and fall!”

Staring into the tiny, phantom mask, for one moment Alex hesitated. Then he leaned forward…and dropped into the hole.

F
alling into emptiness…

Falling and falling…

Hurtling down with the child in his arms.

But something was wrong. He wasn’t asleep. He was awake. Death was supposed to be sleep without dreams. But suddenly Alex was more awake than he had ever been in his whole life. What had he done? He had jumped to kill himself and his father’s child. But that was insane. The baby wasn’t his father’s. It couldn’t be.

In a single second all the lies that had clouded Alex’s mind turned to ice and shattered. Down, down he fell into an ocean of total darkness. Darkness that smothered! Darkness that bled all life from the soul! And in that Darkness he knew what Death really was. Death was not
sleep
, because Death was not
dead
. It was a hungering Presence all around him, thick and black like clotted blood.

Fool! Stupid fool!

He had thrown his life away.

Murderer! Horrible murderer!

Not enough just to murder himself, he had murdered a baby. Sacrificed Him! Destroyed Him out of nothing but jealousy, hate, and rage. How could he have been so blind?

Down…

Down…

They were dying together.

And in the dying, Alex loathed himself, loathed every minute that he had ever lived, loathed with a perfect revulsion, because in the clarity of Absolute Darkness he saw who he really was. He was
evil
. Evil had lived in him from the moment he was born. Tiny and soft at first, it had been like a seed. Every day he had chosen to water it with a flow of little selfish sins. And as he had grown older, the flow had turned into a steady stream of sewage, the purest feces of self-pity, hate, and pride. Fertilized with filth, the plant had grown into a mass of reeking roots and bloody vines buried so deep in his flesh they were part of him. Why had he murdered? Because for years the hate of murder had been rotting in his soul, waiting for a chance to spill out.

And in the clotted Darkness he knew what Hope was. Hope was the Glistening Shadow of God’s Presence that had haunted every moment that he had lived. Hope was the Echo of Beauty, the Song of Songs. It was the voice that had whispered, “I love you.” Yes, even at the end, in the swarming hate, it had whispered, trying to make him see that he was loved in spite of who he was. And in that Love there was Hope enough to last forever.

But now there was no forgiveness—in the Dark it was blindingly clear. Hope was the
chance
to be forgiven, the
chance
to say, “I’m sorry.” The Glistening Shadow that had haunted him with hope had whispered that even
he
could be forgiven. All he had to do was ask. But asking meant giving up his favorite poison, the endless drink of sweet slime that he had sucked into his soul. To get forgiveness you had to give it, you had to forgive the ones you hated and stop sucking their blood in your mind. He had gagged at the thought of forgiving. Never could he have done it. And now the choice was sealed.

For the first time, “never” really meant forever.

As Alex fell, he began weeping with a sorrow that he had never known. Yes, now he knew what Death was. It was the place of the broken heart, the place where Love and Forgiveness were only memories because the glistening shadow had been thrown away.

Weeping, weeping…

He would never stop weeping.

But then he heard a sound that froze the tears. From far away came a whispering moan, and then another and another! Nothing human could make those sounds. The moans were everywhere; all around him he could feel the heat of circling creatures like sharks in a bloody ocean. And they were moaning with hunger! Hugging the baby, he screamed, “Go away! Leave us alone!”

Suddenly, a rush! Iron claws gripped him.

He tried to fight, but it did no good. Shrieking, they dragged him down. And Alex learned another awful truth. The Clotted Darkness was only a doorway. Waiting below was the Deepest Death of all.

S
lowly it began. A tremble. Then another. As Tori lay sobbing on the floor of the cathedral, she felt the whole building began to shake, and after the shaking came pounding. The hideous chant of the phantoms stopped, and every face turned toward the great doors. Something was pounding on them. Pounding! Pounding!

For a heartbeat there was silence, followed by an
explosion
! The doors were blown to dust, and Tori saw Him.

Instantly all the dark creatures of the cathedral screamed as though they had entered hell. For a moment the One from the Great Mountain stood like a statue and His eyes swept the room. With the softness of a whisper, the waves and veils of steaming mold froze in the air, and all the thousands of creatures froze with them, hanging from floor to ceiling in tapestries of icy filth.

Then He began walking.

Slowly, with the crimson moonlight around Him, He walked through the vast room. Old! He was old beyond imagining and covered with scars as though He had spent all of time locked in a vicious war. Old, yet His eyes were young as the morning and the crimson fire that burned in them was from beyond the stars.

He walked slowly through the darkness and the evil. When He reached the front, He stopped and looked into Tori’s eyes. One brief moment.

Then He turned…walked up the stairs…and leaped into the chasm.

S
hrieking, his mind frozen, Alex was dragged down through waves of Darkness. And every moment the Thickness of Death grew heavier. Suddenly he saw something, far away, a tiny pinpoint of light! Rapidly it expanded into an eerie glow.

Was that hell?

Were they taking him to hell?

A moment more and he could see what it was: a gash that looked like a burning wound. And he heard a new sound—weeping! Soft weeping. The weeping of children. Millions of them!

Billows of stench churned around him, burning his eyes and throat. Then he was in the gash, streaking down thousands of feet between smoldering walls. He screamed as the bottom raced toward him, but before he could smash into it, he wrenched to a stop, almost dropping the baby. Alex found that he stood at the bottom of a gigantic gorge. On either side towered walls coated with crimson mold. It grew like steaming fur from every slope and crevice, and under the mold the chasm was caked with clotted blood that drooped in pendulous waves. It was a gorge that had been carved by a mighty river of blood. And the soft crying of children was everywhere.

Alex spun around. In the billowing steam behind him loomed a hundred twisted forms decayed almost beyond recognition. They were the Mighty Ones of the cathedral windows, the Lords of Glassy Darkness. What was left of their flesh was embedded with shards of softly tinted crystal, and through the splinters Alex could see their starving, raging souls. Among them was a face veiled in long black hair. Once more he tasted the spittle on her lips. As he stared into her eyes, the disease of the cathedral that had never left him began to burn.

They shoved him forward. Slipping, he fell to his knees, sloshing in a sluggish rivulet of half congealed gore, all that remained of the torrent that had flowed here. Jerking him up, they shoved him again.

They wanted him to walk.

Trying to obey, he began dragging one foot at a time out of the bloody muck. But with each step, the oozing thickness sucked at his shoes. Hugging the baby and struggling not to vomit, Alex stumbled up the twisting gorge, splashing through half-scabbed pools, splattering through turgid bogs, on and on between walls so narrow that he had to push through layers of mold that left him slick with bloody spores. And with every step the weeping of the children grew.

Finally he rounded a bend and saw it. In front of him loomed an arena carved from bleeding stone with walls so high they disappeared into the blackness. And in the center was a hole shaped like an open grave. From out of it boiled clouds of burning light. And it was toward this that they drove him, through blood so deep that it gurgled around his knees. When he reached the edge of the pit, the creatures lifted him. With a crimson cord they bound him with the baby in his arms. Then together they were lowered into the hole. As Alex lay on the bottom, he felt his back settle into a pool of warm bloody ooze. He was burning with fever; sweating, shivering, teeth chattering.

Carved on the walls were the faces of children, their eyes deep-cut with agony and their mouths torn in silent screams. It was their blood that had formed the river. He knew it. And it was their spirits who were crying. Soon he would share in their endless death. But never could he share their innocence. And the most innocent of them all would be murdered in his arms. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he whispered, “
I’m sorry
.” But the words meant nothing.

From far away Alex heard a roar and froze; it came again, a guttural shriek like a lion awakening to its prey. High above in the blackness appeared a shimmering streak—something was falling, rushing down in a rainbow of flashing glory. Instantly Alex knew what it was and began to sob. As the falling rainbow grew, a suffocating heaviness mashed the air from his lungs. He wanted to scream, but no sound came.

So hideous—so beautiful!

The starry streak was taking form. Falling toward him was a Mighty Angel covered in a mist of rainbows with wings that flashed like shattered diamonds in the sun. As he descended into the arena, all his creatures fell prostrate, screaming, “Praise to the God who has fallen. Glory to the One who burns away light.”

Like a monstrous crystal sculpture, Lammortan hovered, then came to rest in the swamp of blood. Slowly he bent down and peered into the hole. Alex tried desperately to drown in the muck. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t even close his eyes. Above him, within the glassy flesh, flowed rivers of blood in ten million colors. With infinite hunger the eyes gazed at him, and Alex felt his mind begin to crumble. But from the Angel’s lips came a caressing sigh,
“Not yet. The taste of the blood means nothing if there is no soul within the flesh to feel it pour
.” The Angel began a juddering chant.

From one of his wings the Angel drew out a long crystal splinter caked with blood. Bending down, he lifted the baby’s head and bared his throat. Alex screamed as the dagger rose. But suddenly, a vibration; the dagger hand began to shake. The Angel was trying to stab with all his might; he was pushing down, but his arm wouldn’t move. Then came a sound so low that Alex wasn’t sure it was real.

The air shuddered with a soft murmur:
“My children…my children…”

The crystal eyes froze.

The murmur came again, louder,
“My children…where…are my children?”

High above, the darkness stretched and rippled like the fetid scum on a pool of sewage, and then it burst! Down from the darkness roared a sheering wind, and in it a Voice cried out in agony,
“Crimson River, bloody sea, the screams of my children cry out to me. Where are my children?”

Shaking, gagging, the Angel slavered out, “It’s…mine. The Law…followed it. Given to me. All mine…”

Lightning words streaked the air,

In the terrifying silence that followed, Alex saw a great shadow high above. Finally the Angel croaked out, “Buy? Buy? With what? The price must match the purchase.”

With iron sadness the Voice replied,

Alex was so stunned that he couldn’t breathe. What had he heard? “My life for the slave…?” Suddenly into his heart came a desperate hope. He stared at the glittering face. The Angel was looking up. The Shadow of the Crimson Throne was growing brighter. But the throne was empty. Into Lammortan’s eyes came raging joy, and in his crystal flesh appeared a jagged reflection. Alex couldn’t make out what it was. As it grew, a strange, rough voice echoed in the bloody walls. Never had Alex heard anything like it. The ground shook with each agonizing word,
“Blood for blood…mine…for all the blood. The Death Thirst…to quench it. Yes, mine. I have come.”

Alex couldn’t see who had spoken. All he could see was the Angel’s face filled with a terrible ecstasy. “Is it really you? The Great Seeker has left His Crimson Throne? And would you leave it forever? Yes, blood for blood. By the Law it must be accepted. Your blood instead of theirs. I will grow drunk on the finest Wine of Heaven. If this is your choice, lie down.”

And then it happened. Into the hole leaped a Being who glistened with mist and crimson moonlight. And the baby laughed for joy. Alex thought he was dreaming. It couldn’t be! But standing over him, looking down into his eyes, was the One he had cursed and thought that he had murdered. Standing
over
him, standing
above
him, standing
between
him and the horror beyond was the One he had thrown into the chasm. And in that moment he understood a great mystery of Heaven, that Eternal Power and Glory can be hidden in the humblest form.

Seeker
, that’s what He had been called and that is what He was, the Seeker who had searched for him and found him and had tried to keep him from harm. But much more than that. In His eyes Alex saw the One who had painted the starry hosts, had woven the oceans and mountains on every world. With the Breath of His Spirit, had formed the galaxies, flinging them out like grains of sand. And then, in a moment of time on a tiny world, had called his life from nothing, had painted a child named Alex into the warm darkness of his mother’s womb. In the eyes above him, Alex saw the One who knew him as no one else ever could, knew all the horror, hate and evil that had brought him here. Knew it all, and yet, to save him had leaped into the bloody pit of his soul, leaped in with a Love so great that he could feel it burning.

As Alex stared up into His eyes, he knew that in them was Forgiveness enough to last forever, forgiveness for every evil thing that he had done, forgiveness for the asking. As he lay in the reeking hole, he found the only hope that mattered. In tears he whispered, “Forgive me…”

But then a flash of jagged crystal, and the dagger fell. With a shriek the Angel plunged it, crying out, “Now I will rule upon the Crimson Throne.”

Screaming…screaming…Alex screamed as over and over, the knife slashed into the One who stood above him, slashed his back, slashed his neck, slashed his head. And around the pit, all the glassy creatures joined in. On and on it went. The eyes of the Seeker filled with agony, but never did they falter or grow afraid. And in them, Alex’s dreams came true. He saw the eyes of the Father who would never leave him, the eyes of the Hero who would give his life to save a lost and dying child. In them, Alex saw the Heart of God.

Blood rained down, blood thick and warm, drenching through Alex’s clothes, soaking his skin. It was a feast of murder. And the murderers were laughing, shrieking, dancing. A hundred hideous faces clustered around the most awful face of all. A hundred fists gripped daggers, groping down to gash and gouge.

Finally the One who stood over him could stand no longer. With the daggers falling, he lay down by Alex’s side. Sobbing, Alex whispered, “Let me die with you.” The Great Eyes looked at him with overwhelming peace, and then the Life of the Seeker faded away. But the slashing frenzy went on. Alex screamed, “Stop it! Can’t you see he’s dead?” They didn’t hear him. They just kept shrieking and stabbing, licking themselves, drinking the blood.

But then…
so strange
; Alex began to hear distant singing. In their ranting orgy the creatures were deaf to it. Slowly it grew, a lovely voice singing a Song. Where was it coming from? At first he couldn’t tell. Then he realized that it was coming from all around him.
It was coming from the blood
, growing louder because every moment there was more of it. So much blood pouring from the body. Alex began to hear words. Where had he heard them before? It was the Song of the Burning Angel of the Chamber, the Song that had crushed him and broken his heart, full of splendor and majesty, it soared. The words…now he understood them. He knew the Song and what it meant.

It was the Song Above All Others, the Poetry of Fire whispered when the stars were born. But wonderful mystery,
the Song was about him
. All the loveliness and splendor was a promise sung before time began, a promise to reach down into the depths of his horror, to save him, to change him, to fill him with Life that would never die. And singing in it, he heard the secret of who he was.