April 10, 2008
In Hell.
Something prickled at Ashmedai’s awareness, needling him out of his trance state. The sound of chains echoed in his ears for a moment, but the demon ruthlessly forced the jangling back, searching out what had awakened him.
An angel stood in his doorway.
Ashmedai rasped a dry chuckle, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’ve finally begun hallucinating.”
“I doubt it.” Blue-gold light crackled across the room as Raziel moved. He stopped a few feet away from the laughing demon.
“Well, you didn’t fall, I’m sure. Not you. And I doubt the Voice would send you here for something, unless he didn’t intend for you to come back.” Raziel’s face tightened, and Ashmedai laughed again. “What, am I right after all?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here, Secret? Got lonely up there after all?” The red light coloring the room dimmed slightly as Ashmedai winked.
Raziel sighed. “None of the above. I know you know why I’m here, Ashmedai. You’re not as stupid as you act.”
Ashmedai froze, then buried his face in his hands. “I’m mad; you know that.”
Raziel knelt. “You’re not mad enough, you mean.”
“I’m hearing things…”
The angel pried Ashmedai’s hands away. “Yes, but nothing that isn’t real.”
Ashmedai glared up at Raziel. Raziel smiled grimly.
“He’s waking up, Ashmedai…”
Forms and Powers.
When Raziel looks at them, he doesn’t see the shapes they wear, not really. Well, he does, sort of, in the sense that they all still look vaguely human, but no humans ever look like they do to him.
Kathleen is a wild tangle of the thorniest roses he’s ever seen. The colors of their flowers vary, but they’re always a little black and a little crimson. Sometimes, he thinks he glimpses blue at her core, and on one occasion he could have sworn that she didn’t look so much like a rosebush, but a tree.
Gabriel is light, but the beguiling light of a mirage, not the revealing light of the sun. He is pale and wavery, as tenuous as the illusions he weaves.
Adrian is a skein of threads, pearlescent and sharper than the finest wire, trailing off every which way. Sometimes, it’s hard to see Adrian himself through all the webwork of Creation; he blends in seamlessly.
Jonathan is a strange one, a creature of soft shadow sharpened by his pain. He is almost invisible to Raziel’s eyes, moreso even than his son, and is more an impression of cool relief and gentle healing than anything else.
Alexander stands out more clearly than anyone to Raziel’s eyes; his watery form is laced with tracings of Raziel’s words. They echo out from the cold, deceptively placid man, edging him in angelic radiance. Sometimes, Raziel can’t see him through the brilliance.
Nathan is surprisingly good at rendering himself human to Raziel’s sight, but even his best attempts cannot disguise him entirely. He is a mountain laced with iron; sometimes, Raziel is sure he glimpses signs of a molten core. He rather hopes he’s wrong about that; otherwise, Nathan is a cataclysm waiting to happen.
Ekion is the least human to Raziel’s sight, even less human than the walking hurricane. He is wind and sound; at his calmest, he is still air, invisible and silent. At other times, he is movement and pressure and noise, though never cacophony. He does not need to be a hurricane; he may not drive straws through trees, but he has a steadier hand.
Liamariye resembles nothing so much as a great bird, maybe a killer stork. She is lightning and heat and dry tinder; with the slightest friction, she burns. The mistake most people make with her, Raziel muses, is in being dazzled by the lightning and ignoring the fire.
Arawn makes Raziel dizzy, so he avoids looking at him. When he has to, Raziel feels like he’s looking in the world’s most disjointed kaleidoscope, but behind it is the sense of something immense. Raziel isn’t sure which sensation is more disconcerting.
Cain looks human to Raziel; indeed, he’s the only human who does. It’s really beyond him why the others find Cain strange.
December 30, 2007
Strangeness.
Kathleen had just sat down behind her desk when a strangeness walked in her office. She reacted as every disgruntled professor does (or dreams of, anyway) and threw her coffee at it.
Raziel ducked the flying mug. “Either Leonora was lying when she called you a morning person, or she has a very strange definition of ‘morning person’.”
Feeling even more disgruntled, Kathleen retrieved her mug, pulled out a tube of superglue, and set about repairing it. If she ignored the strangeness, it would either go away or become annoying enough to kill.
It wasn’t the particular power that was vexing Kathleen. All angels had it, even Cain, who’d kept it when he went human. She dealt with it on at least a weekly basis, and it didn’t bother her much anymore. No, it wasn’t the power that was bothering her.
Kathleen was just disturbed to find that Raziel made a prettier woman than she did.
Conversation by a Lamppost.
Someone was sitting on the only working streetlamp in Arkham. Curious, Kathleen went to see who it was.
“Hello, Rose.”
Of course. It was that bloody angel.
Raziel looked down at her, his blue-gold eyes amused. “A bit late for you to be out, isn’t it? You teach classes tomorrow.”
Kathleen stopped just on the edge of the light cast by the streetlamp, hands on her hips. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting a friend.” Raziel swung his legs idly, then stilled and focused on Kathleen.
Kathleen shifted restlessly. It was uncomfortable, being on the receiving end of that starburst gaze; it was worse when Raziel started to blur out of his human form, taking on an azure-and-gold glow. Two-toned streams of energy flickered around him; he reminded Kathleen of nothing so much as a restless, predatory bird.
“What?” she said, fidgeting with the hem of her jacket.
“You know what you are, right, Rose?” Raziel asked, his voice soft.
Kathleen’s yellow eyes met his, and she nodded once before striding off. Raziel watched her go.
A little way down the street, she paused, half illuminated by a house light, and for a minute, she wasn’t a human, but a thing of roses and thorns. The moment passed, and Kathleen walked on.
A few rose petals drifted up to Raziel. They smelled of apples.
Spirits of the Earth.
They burn brightly, to those who have eyes to see. They cast the world around them into stark relief; Heaven and Hell become mere tones of Earth in their presence. The intermingling of their lights make the world more vivid and less solid, revealing and concealing, blurring the lines drawn by angel and demon, transforming simple morality into a multitude of ambiguous colors.
In that lies their true nature, one even they seem unaware of. Their very existence is a shield between human and the combined forces of angel, demon, and self-proclaimed god. If Armageddon is to come, it must go through them, and I would not lay odds on it succeeding.
Not all of them are human, though it could be truly said that they are all humanity’s representatives. They are, I think, pieces of the Earth’s soul, if it has one, or facets of mankind’s common spirit.
The shining ones, they’re called in whispers. The name is apt.
Watching them, I shiver; eventually, our paths will collide, and I am not looking forward to that day. One of us must fall.
“‘Who, then, is able to stand before me?’” Raziel walks over to me, and I avert my eyes from his glow. “You look thoughtful, Michael.”
I turn back to look at the Earth; far below us, the other shining ones glimmer. I say nothing.
Raziel clasps my shoulder briefly, and leaves.
Far below, another light touches the Earth.
Raziel quotes from Job 41:10.
Secret.
When he was newly-created, just a little mote, he was insatiably curious. He got everywhere. He got in everything. Around the umpteenth time his maker pulled him out of some tight nook, he decided he was curious about his maker, the Being with many, many names. He didn’t like any of his maker’s many names, so he called his maker One. One said he’d never been named after a number before.
He followed One everywhere, bouncing along in One’s footprints. (He was still a mote; it would be many eons before he’d absorbed enough energy to get form.) He followed One through stars and burning emptiness; he followed One through the waters of planets and played with the dust motes. He bounced on flower petals while One walked in the garden. In short, he had a grand time.
One found his antics amusing, even if the grown-up angels didn’t. Sometimes, in the big meetings, One would put him on the table, or hold him and stroke his head. When the angels glowered, One just smiled.
One day, while he was bouncing along after One, One picked him up. (One’s hand dwarfed him; he was a very small mote.) “You need a name,” said One. “I know!” One bent so that he was eye-to-eye with One. He bounced excitedly in One’s palm; most angels didn’t get names while they were still motes. One laughed. “You follow me everywhere, and get into everything, and you want to know all there is to know. I see now that there is no secret in Heaven safe from you; in time, you will come to know them all. Therefore, I will call you my Secret, because the only secrets I will have will be the ones you keep.”
Secret tried on his new name. It fit him well. He looked up at One, who was watching him expectantly, and bounced cheerfully.
