Thief (35 page)

The intimacy of their love was however, he realized, a measure of the differences between them all, and it had serious implications for the work still to do. Because he loved Sherial with both his heart and soul, because he had somehow joined with her on every level, was still joining, he had her protection, her love and knowledge to fall back on even where the others didn’t. Yet he was still human, still grey. It was the reason he alone would have to go back into that hellhole. It was also the reason he could with some degree of safety. Though he wouldn’t tell them that just yet.

“I am a good man. I really am.” The group stared at him wondering if he’d gone mad, yet also he guessed, understanding some of his message and trying to deny it, much as he had. Such treason couldn’t be allowed any longer. It not only undermined the rescue, it undermined them as well.

“Because I am good, I had the need to help others, to save them from what I had suffered. Because I had that need I became the greatest thief of my world, giving aid to the poorest and weakest, bringing at least mortal justice to those who would harm others. Goodness underlies all of my skills, - and all of yours as well. Whatever any of us does, goodness is what powers us, drives us. Pride, logic, reason, strength, power, everything else is secondary to our inherent goodness.”

“Above all else I am loved by God. As long as I believe this, as I accept that, no evil may ever defeat me. I can be killed, but never defeated.” And that was the heart of it. The brands could only work as long as the sufferer let them. Understand that simple fact, and they were powerless. Of course a bullet could still do a terrible amount of damage to him, as could a laser blast, a wolf bite, a curse or a mental or physical attack. That was why he needed these people. He needed their knowledge. He needed their support, and their backup.

And before all of that, first he needed them free.

“Repeat it.” He bellowed it at them, forcing them to say the lines. For it was a mantra of a different kind. Used properly, believed in, it would allow the power of goodness to protect them from evil. The trick was to make them believe in the words. To know them for the truth.

“Louder.” He screamed it at them, knowing only too well the pain they were in but knowing there was no other way. “Believe it! Feel it! The instant you can accept that simple truth to yourself, you are free.”

“We were fools. All of us. We were chosen first because we are good and second because of our talents. Yet we believed it was our skills that were what the angels needed. Our arrogance is our downfall.” He could see the light dawning in their eyes as he told them again and again the simple and yet horrid truth. As they understood their own idiocy. Exact reflections of what lay in his own eyes.

As they recited the lines again and again, he told them each why they had failed. He called on every emotional crutch he could find. He called them weak and stupid, their anger adding strength to the chant. Mya in particular hated the concept of being considered weak, and he saw the rage building as she finally understood. Abrax too. Hermen reacted to the stupid part. Above all else he had always considered himself clever. Pride is a good servant and a poor master he had once been told. Now was the time for the servant to show his colours.

He told Lea he had failed his friends through his self-pity, and Grould that he had been blinded by his own ego. Each of them was appalled at the very idea of his words, as he intended. It made them angry, and they needed that rage. Because they had every right to be angry, with themselves and above all with the fallen. Their rage was righteous.

Yet it still wasn’t quite enough. He, through Sherial saw it clearly. For they had all been through too much. They like him had been beaten, hurt, humiliated and shamed. Failure ate at them, undermining their strength, their belief. And they had all suffered longer than him. They couldn’t quite bring themselves to accept his words. They needed something more, as had he. They too needed a miracle.

Mikel knew what they needed. Sherial showed him.

Finally he told them to accept the love of their angels. To welcome them into their hearts, for finally that was the only way they could destroy the demons that beset them. He told them that trust was the key, for trust was where he had made his greatest failure, and they had too. In order to let them in fully, they had to trust them completely, as they would their family.

And it worked. Slowly he watched them pulling themselves free of the evil that had enslaved them.

Abrax was the first, somehow his simple trusting nature allowing him to let his angel shine through him. There was a flash of light that they all saw through their souls, and a dark, shrieking shape that skittered away as fast as it could. Too fast for Mikel to see, but he didn’t need to see it to know what it was. Abrax screamed with wonder and shock, a bellow that would have put most lions to shame, and fell to his knees crying with relief. Tears of joy, the same ones that filled Mikel’s eyes.

The big man’s release was like a trigger for the others. For where Mikel had seemed different to them having been heavily branded by both sides Abrax was one of them, and he was slow. If he could do it, then so could they. The big man both stung their pride and gave them hope with his success. One after the other the brands fled them and the resultant cries of relief and joy were music to his ears. Ears no longer only his. He hoped the demons heard and trembled.

Mya cried out in sudden joy and relief, and he watched her fall to her knees like the big man, while her staff turned half the sky into an inferno of colour. Through Sherial he suddenly saw the single thing that had helped her break free, as she surrendered her power to her angel, and welcomed her love. For it was her strength that had held her down. More than any other Mya had the need to be strong, and never realised that the greatest strength comes from joining.

Grould too had a strength problem. But it was his self-control that was his greatest weakness. The need to always be in control of everything he did. It made him powerful, and perversely it had made him weak. Yet once he had surrendered that control to his angel, that demon fled like there was no tomorrow.

Hermen’s weakness was his intellect. It had always been. No matter how foolish, at his heart Hermen had somehow believed that if he could understand the universe he could control it. He alone when he broke through, managed to speak of his pain, crying again and again that he had been so stupid. Yet even as the others comforted him, they told him he was right. For he had been foolish to believe that he, or any of the created could ever understand it all. They weren’t meant to.

Then finally it was Lea’s turn. Too young and too frightened, he had the worst of it. For his weakness and his strength was the comfort he took from his companions. Yet he also controlled them, using them even as he cared for them. Now half his companions were dead, and he had to give up the sanctuary that those remaining gave him, in order to be free. But somehow, his angel finally shone through him too, until finally he was free.

And then in one glorious moment, there were six. All free, all laughing and crying with reaction, all suddenly one with their place in the universe. And as they slowly looked around, and shared the joy of freedom, of their angels and of love, that reaction began to overcome them. One by one the villagers fell to the ground, laughing, singing, crying, but above all else knowing the double joy of their freedom and the understanding of their angels’ love for them.

It was a joy to behold, and he watched with eyes wide open. Two pairs of eyes. For it wasn’t only his joy to watch. Sherial too was celebrating, singing deep within his soul. A triple festival of joy as she finally had her love freed of the shackles he had so stupidly allowed to be placed around him, as she had wanted and ached for him to be. Then there was the triumphant release of the others, and the hope of rescue for the prisoners ahead. But to make her joy complete she had got her man as well. When this was over they would be together again, for life. They promised that to each other.

Through her Mikel knew that the other angels too were celebrating this day. He felt them. Other young angels like Sherial, who had brought their own champions in to fight for the prisoners, and who like Sherial had known complete misery as they watched them both fail and then be enslaved. As they had seen them change from vital, good men and women to the broken and bitter wretches they had become. Though they hadn’t loved in the same way, their pain had been every bit as great.

Now their champions too were free, and the angels too were celebrating as only angels can. They were singing, a siren song of joy and glory, which in turn was affecting everything around them. The local region of heaven was fast becoming a block party.

Hysterical laughter began to overcome them all, and one by one they fell to the ground unable to fight back the tears of joy. Mikel in particular felt that wild and savage joy, as he had watched the others break loose. For now he knew he was going to defeat the evil and free the prisoners. And he knew how. The plan had come to him piece by piece as each of the others had freed themselves, inspiration born of hope. Each one of the villagers freed gave him that much more of a chance, and then they were suddenly all free.

He had a plan.

“Sherial cannot enter the lair.” She was not allowed to, on a level that couldn’t be denied. Sherial was simply too good to even go near it. The evil repelled her, as did her goodness repel them. The demons truly were trapped in their little hell, surrounded and squeezed by a universe of goodness. “But I can.”

“I cannot overcome their evil, but Sherial can.” And that was the heart of the matter, an ancient riddle worthy of the Sphinx, but one that he had an answer to.

“At my heart is Sherial, through her love. Therefore through her I can overcome the evil of the demons, and enter the pit. With the knowledge of the others I can overcome whatever other defences they have.”

He repeated the riddle and its solution to himself over and over again, and with each repetition the feeling of Sherial’s love became stronger and stronger. Still it wasn’t enough, it would never be enough, but he would know that for his entire life, and strive always for more.

A sound, a feeling of unbridled power, caught his attention, and he turned. The titan was behind him, as he had known he would be. Mikel had asked for him to come, knowing this time he would, and also knowing why. The titans were like older brothers to the angels as they were in turn to humans. He protected them as they protected humans. Perhaps one day it would be humanity’s turn to be an older brother. He could only hope.

Mikel was unsure why the titan could approach this close to the hellish little nightmare over the ridge, possibly it was something to do with his nature or his strength, or possibly he was simply too far above angels and demons to care. Either way Mikel was glad. He needed Atal.

This second time Atal appeared different from the first. Though still built of the very rock and essence of the world, there was something new about him, something almost human. Yet it wasn’t the Titan who had changed, It was Mikel. For the first time he could feel some empathy, some kinship with the creature.

He was still powerful, in fact strength simply radiated from him. He still looked like a statue of living stone. But this time Mikel could see that he had some compassion, that he cared. He wasn’t blind to the fate of those inside the dark castle, nor was he unconcerned. But he also knew what was right and what wasn’t. It was written in the steely gaze of his diamond eyes. Which made it all the more interesting that he was here, looking almost as though he wanted to help. Something had changed for him, and yet only Mikel had changed. Was that enough to persuade him to go ahead with this mission? He wasn’t sure, but somewhere in the back of his mind, maybe in Sherial’s thoughts, he had the suspicion that it might be.

Mikel explained his plan to him, unsure why he bothered, the titan surely could have read every iota of it from his mind in the first billionth of a second. But perhaps it gave him a chance to repeat it yet again to himself, to check every single angle.

“Will you - ?” But even as he asked the question he knew the answer, for in some way the titan told him that of course he would. Why he wondered, had he bothered asking in the first place? But on that level of understanding that souls use, he also knew the titan was glad he had asked. The little pebble was finally showing promise.