Fall of Lucifer (6 page)

Jether poured the holy oil from the ampulla into a gold spoon and anointed Gabriel on the palms of both hands. ‘Be thy hands anointed with holy oil.’ He poured the oil on Gabriel’s bare chest. ‘Be thy breast anointed with oil.’ He poured the remaining oil over the crown of Gabriel’s bare head, then lifted both arms. ‘By His holy anointing, pour down upon your head and heart the blessing of the Ancient of Days, that by the assistance of His heavenly grace you may govern and preserve one-third of Yehovah’s heavenly host, committed to your charge this day.’

Michael and Lucifer each walked to the head of his third of the angelic host: Michael’s on the right, Lucifer’s in the centre. Gabriel walked to the last third on the left-hand side of the chamber.

‘And now, I adjure you,’ Jether cried to the assembly, ‘let us lift our voices as one as we repeat the pledge of allegiance and devotion to His Excellency, Gabriel.’

Gabriel knelt before the angelic hosts of heaven as Lucifer held the Sword of State over his head.

‘We, the hosts of heaven,’ Lucifer declared, ‘do become your liege servants of life and limb, and faith and truth we will bear unto you throughout eternity of eternities. So help us, Yehovah.’

Gabriel, still kneeling, raised his head to the angelic host, then rose and took his throne to the left of the twenty-four Ancient Ones.

Lucifer turned to the angelic legions. ‘Long reign Gabriel!’ he proclaimed.

‘Long reign Gabriel!’ Their cry resounded through the palace chambers.

‘All hail Yehovah!’

The entire angelic assembly rose to their feet.

The thunderous, stentorian unison of hundreds of ten thousand times ten thousand angelic warriors rose to a crescendo. ‘All hail Yehovah!’

‘All hail Yehovah!’

* * *

The sounds of the jubilation oratios from the Mount of Assembly echoed over the Crystal Sea across to the magnificent marble-columned gazebo on the pearl sands.

Michael dismounted and walked up the gilded gazebo steps. He caught sight of Gabriel leaning against one of the immense white marbled columns, entranced by the magnificent lightning and thunderbolt displays over the sea. They stood together in silence, watching the rainbow-coloured dolphins as they cavorted in the silver waves of the Sea of Zamar.

‘Well, Gabriel,’ Michael said, ‘now you’re really one of us!’ He slapped Gabriel hard on the back.

‘Respect, Michael! My liege man of life and limb, if you recall!’

‘Hear, hear!’ echoed Lucifer.

He stood in the gazebo entrance, an imposing presence, surveying his brothers, with his panther Ebony sitting at his side. Gabriel turned, his face flushed with the exhilaration of the day’s events. Sachiel, Lucifer’s attendant, bowed and removed Lucifer’s heavy velvet imperial robe. Lucifer walked over to Gabriel and kissed him affectionately on both cheeks. Ebony walked through the lush, hanging tropical gardens and stopped, purring, next to Lucifer.

Lucifer stroked the great panther tenderly, taking a sweetmeat from a golden platter. ‘Ebony, my sweet.’ He held it out in his palm to the sleek feline, who devoured it voraciously and licked Lucifer’s fingers affectionately with his coarse tongue. Then Lucifer strode over to where the balmy turquoise and gold pools shimmered under the pale blue moons, loosening his mantle as he walked. Michael turned to his royal angelic courtier. ‘A’albiel, I would celebrate with my brothers!’

A’albiel poured a thick gold elixir from a silver flagon into three garnet-studded goblets on a marble table. A’albiel passed a goblet of the elixir to Michael and then to Gabriel.

Michael nodded graciously. ‘Thank you, A’albiel. You may leave us.’ A’albiel bowed low and departed.

‘You disappeared, Lucifer!’ Gabriel chided. ‘Michael and I were waiting in the dining hall for you the whole of the celebration party.’

‘Forgive me,’ Lucifer said, his tone subdued. ‘I have been preoccupied. I was walking to and fro on Tertus.’ He sat pensively, bathing his muscular legs in the tepid springs.

Gabriel frowned. ‘You are not yourself tonight, Lucifer.’

‘He thinks!’ Michael walked over to him to offer him the goblet of elixir. ‘He
always
thinks!’ Michael’s green eyes were dancing with mischief. ‘But
what
he thinks he does not tell. Perhaps – ’

His voice broke off as he caught sight of a strange crimson stain on Lucifer’s right palm as Lucifer reached for the elixir. Michael looked at Lucifer quizzically. Lucifer closed his palm swiftly around the goblet, then sipped long and hard, staring back enigmatically at Michael.

Gabriel turned to Lucifer, enthralled. ‘Tell us, Lucifer, is Tertus as beautiful as they say? Surely it cannot compare with the First Heaven.’

Lucifer closed his eyes in awe. ‘It is magnificent, Gabriel. It is our Father’s finest handiwork.’

Gabriel and Michael bowed their heads. ‘He is worthy,’ they echoed.

Asmodeus walked through the door, bowing deeply before Lucifer.

Lucifer nodded and smiled. ‘Asmodeus.’ He noted that Asmodeus carried another missive sealed with Yehovah’s golden seal. He immediately held out his hand for it.

Asmodeus bowed to Lucifer. ‘Your Majesty, the missive is for His Excellency, Chief Prince Michael.’

Lucifer frowned, studying Michael and Gabriel. Then he nodded graciously. Asmodeus walked swiftly towards Michael and bowed, handing him the missive.

Lucifer rose from the pool and walked over to the grand hanging candelabras in the centre of the chamber. He moved his palm almost imperceptibly, and two hundred golden wicks burst into blazing copper flames. ‘Ah, frankincense!’ Lucifer inhaled deeply, appearing not to watch Michael at all.

Michael tore open the missive with his golden cinquedea and studied the contents.

Lucifer turned to Gabriel. ‘Let us walk.’ He clasped his arm through Gabriel’s, and they moved through the vast, sweeping corridors of the gazebo’s grand halls, Ebony padding at Lucifer’s side. They continued through the vast atrium and into a huge crystal observatory on the roof of the gazebo.

Solar systems and galaxies of manifold universes became visible through the enormous crystal dome of the observatory. Lucifer lifted his hand, and at once the crystal dome receded, leaving him and Gabriel standing almost in the centre of heaven’s vast panorama.

Lucifer pointed to a magenta planet surrounded by rings of ice and a myriad of suns and moons. ‘Behold the beauty of Tertus, Gabriel – three hundred suns, thirty moons . . . hues beyond imagination . . . forty thousand light-years away.’ A blue arc leaped from his palm. Instantaneously, the planet magnified a hundred times. The brothers stared in awe at the cosmos.

Lucifer bowed his head in reverence, his voice a whisper. ‘He is incomparable. The great King of the universe.’ They bowed their heads in unison, and there was a moment’s silence.

‘His discernments are holy and unfathomable,’ Michael interjected, leaning in the doorway . . . watching them indulgently. He held up the missive in his right hand, exhilarated.

As he walked over to join them he moved his palm across the heavens. A mass without form or void appeared, with only one sun and moon. ‘Our Father’s new galaxy. From matter.’

Lucifer stared up at the galaxy contemptuously. ‘A futile mass of mud and vapour and gases. I stopped briefly to view it on my way back from Tertus.’ He smiled dismissively, caressing a blue grape in his fingers. ‘It is the most base and insignificant sliver of our Father’s cosmos.’ Slowly and deliberately he looked up at the planet Earth and covered it with the grape until it was excluded from his view. He placed the grape in his mouth and swallowed. ‘I quite fail to see its purpose.’ He stared dispassionately ahead.

Michael stared back unrelentingly. ‘But Yehovah
always
has a purpose, Lucifer.’ He held out the missive to Lucifer. ‘He would have us visit the new galaxy – you and I together; He has named us.’

Lucifer glared at him in irritation, purposely ignoring the missive, instead stroking Ebony’s silky neck. The panther purred loudly.

Michael stared at his brother, perplexed. ‘It is His express will.’

Gabriel lay sprawled across a golden throne, his hands behind his head, staring up at the formless mass. ‘We are spirit beings, Lucifer. We cannot comprehend all that our Father creates. This universe will be matter.’ He shrugged. ‘We were born for
this
dimension.’

He sprang to his feet, picked up Lucifer’s sword, and deftly cut the tops of a cluster of silver and blue rose-like flowers. Immediately they sprang back into perfection. ‘We are celestial spirits,’ he said. ‘Silicone-based. We eat astral food; we bleed astral blood.’ Gabriel looked out across the galaxies in wonder. ‘Why, I have heard across the zephyrs, my dearest Luce, that our Father’s new race is not of an angelic or celestial nature at all, but will be in
His very likeness
. It is said that He longs for fellowship,’ he mused recklessly.

He took a large bite out of a juicy silver pomegranate; immediately it sprang back into its original perfection.

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed. He sliced a luminous blue fruit deftly with a small ivory-handled fruit knife. ‘I have no interest in your zephyrs’ whisperings, my brother Gabriel.’ His grasp tightened around the fruit knife. ‘Your conversation becomes tedious – we
are
His fellowship. You speak of treachery.’

Gabriel gave Lucifer a quizzical glance.

‘No, brother,’ Michael said, staring intently at Lucifer. ‘He speaks of
man
.’

The word hung in the air between them.

Lucifer turned to him, his breathing shallow.

He snatched the missive from Michael and scanned it, his expression like stone. ‘I am steward of thousands of magnificent universes in our Father’s galaxies. I am ill equipped to squander my time on such nonentities.’

Then, with a sharp, sweeping movement he picked up his sword belt, put on his cloak, and strode back through the grand halls out onto the beach, Ebony at his heels. Gabriel and Michael followed just paces behind him.

Lucifer stood, sphinxlike, on the pearl sands, staring out towards the shores of the eastern horizon.

Michael watched as Lucifer’s chin set in a firm line. The only other betrayal of Lucifer’s unease was his fist, which was clenched so tightly around his sword that his knuckles were white.

Then, like lightning, his mood changed. He looked directly at Michael and smiled his dazzling smile. ‘Enough of young Gabriel’s whispering zephyrs!’ He grabbed Gabriel by the scruff of his neck. ‘Our Father awaits His chief princes.’

Lucifer released Gabriel and clasped Michael’s strong hand in his. The three placed their right hands on their chests. ‘Brothers!’ Lucifer’s strident tone rang out across the crystal seas.

‘Brothers!’ the three voices echoed in unison.

‘Brothers for eternity!’

[[GABRIEL IMAGE]]

Our laughter rang out across the Sea, echoing far across the First Heaven’s coral horizons.

Gabriel dipped his quill in the sepia ink and continued writing.

And it seemed that in that moment, there in the celestial chambers, life and harmony between the three of us and our Father were perfect.

If we had only known the shadows looming on our perfect horizon . . .

Shadows that would herald a fallen universe.

Chapter Three

The Portals

The scientific portals were gargantuan. Displayed now at the top of the mammoth crystal dome was the Milky Way galaxy, which seemed to extend for billions of light-years straight out from the portals, into the real galaxies far above the Tower of Winds. Thousands of millions of newly created suns, gathered into masses of spiral arms, radiated from the top of the central crystal portal, while baby dwarf stars hung over the infinite thousands of rows upon rows of glistening white storehouses of the galaxies.

Xacheriel, the Ancient of Days’ curator of the sciences and universes, was one of the twenty-four ancient kings under Jether’s governance. He and his wise ones were the devoted executors of Yehovah’s unutterable marvels, governors of the three great portals, and custodians of the sacred vaults of the flaming cherubim and seraphim. These vaults housed the countless billions of DNA blueprints, genomic codes, and the boundary lines of Yehovah’s innumerable galaxies, seas, and universes.

But today Xacheriel had suspended his scholarly pursuits and left the central portal to school the new intake of youngling apprentices. The younglings were an ancient angelic race with the characteristics of eternal youth and a remarkable inquisitiveness, expressly designed as apprentices to assist the Ancient Ones in their custodianship of Yehovah’s countless new galaxies.

Xacheriel strode down the aisles of the younglings’ laboratory, the great school of the universes. Vivid blue lightning bolts sparked around his golden crown, flashing dangerously close to the unfazed white owl on his right shoulder. A breathless youngling ran behind him, holding his cloak off the ground with great difficulty.