‘CRUCIFY the Nazarene!’ they cried. ‘Crucify the Nazarene!’ The demonized creatures clawed more deeply into their skulls. ‘Crucify Him ... Crucify Him...’ the macabre mantra rose through the skies.
Jesus stared, through bloody, glazed eyes, far in the distance towards the monstrous black chariot that was descending swiftly through the darkening clouds over Jerusalem.
Lucifer lifted his visor, his eyes glued to Jesus’ blood-spattered face. And smiled in triumph.
Chapter Thirty-six
The Place of the Skull
The skies of the First Heaven were eerily silent. Deserted. Nothing stirred save for the eastern horizon that was completely filled by Yehovah’s white-feathered warrior eagles hovering over the steep onyx foundations, under the heights of the clouds.
In supplication. Silent. Waiting.
The twenty-four ancient Kings of Yehovah lay prostrate, their faces flung to the ground in the Gardens of Fragrance. In supplication. Silent. Waiting.
Jether the Just knelt at the entrance to the throne room, his head flung on the jacinth floor. In supplication. Silent. Waiting.
A vast, stormy whirlwind blew from the entrance of the great rubied throne room, and out of this whirlwind burned a great, blazing cloud of blue fire, filled with flashes of lightning. Rumblings and thunderings emanated from its centre. The Great White Throne of incandescent light descended in the Holy of Holies. Seated on the throne was the One whose unspeakable brilliance of His being shone as the blinding radiance of a million, million suns of the brightness of jasper and fiery sardius – the Ancient of Days, Yehovah.
Silent. Waiting. For His only begotten Son. The Prince of Glory. To be crucified at the hands of the prince of the damned.
* * *
Ten thousand times ten thousand of heaven’s great angelic company were gathered in formation on the vast onyx plains of the Mount of the Congregation on the farthest sides of the north of the First Heaven, their heads raised, right hands on their chests, kneeling before their commander-in-chief.
‘My noble Angelic Warriors.’ Michael’s tone was fierce but measured. ‘This day, we face the most exacting undertaking of our Angelic Chronicles. What you are to witness will test your mettle to its very core. We patrol the Place of the Skull as observers. Provocation, no matter how brutal or vile, serves as no justification for reactionary behaviour.’ Michael paused. ‘Discipline. Restraint.’ He paced back and forth, his fist clenched around his sword. ‘Precision. Lucifer and his hordes’ provocation this day will without doubt inflame even the toughest of angelic champions. Draw on every ounce of your rigorous training.’ Michael dropped to one knee. ‘For you will surely need it,’ he whispered. He raised his head to Gabriel, who stood far off on the very top of the gleaming onyx mount, the Sword of Justice raised.
‘Rise, fearsome dread warriors of Yehovah’s armies!’ Gabriel declared.
As one, the Hosts of Heaven rose. Silent. Their noble, burnished faces grim.
Michael lifted the Sword of State and leapt into his chariot. Michael saluted, drew his silver helmet down over his face, then rode followed by the First Heaven’s fearsome angelic legions in their War Chariots.
To the Place of the Skull.
Golgotha.
* * *
Michael rode through the strangely deserted skies of the First Heaven, the First Heaven’s armies thundering behind. His soul was filled with a terrible foreboding.
Swiftly he left behind the shimmering indigo horizons of the Second and Third Heavens, riding the dark flashing thunderbolts, at last entering the strange swiftly falling dusk that was descending over Golgotha like a thick, shadowy veil, drawing ever closer to the Place of the Skull. His angelic host hovered well back in the murky skies.
The sweltering Palestine heat hung heavily in the darkening sky. Through the descending gloom, Michael’s gaze was drawn to three figures nailed to three wooden crosses on the enormous stark boulder. A lone, frail figure was nailed to the centre cross, His hair matted with congealed sweat and blood. Michael stared, horrified, unable to lower his gaze.
Jesus’ head was bowed, His tangled, bloody hair was fallen over His bruised face, His body covered in wounds and putrefying sores, marred beyond recognition, His eyes stared ahead, listless and dull, unseeing, His tendons crushed, His veins lacerated by cruel iron nails. Jesus of Nazareth.
Slowly Jesus lifted His head, and for a moment His eyes became clear. Through the cloud of pain, a fleeting smile of recognition glimmered on His parched lips.
‘Michael,’ he mouthed, His eyes lingering on the purple flag that flew high and proud from the pure golden cherubim and seraphim statues on Michael’s war chariot, the flag of the royal house, emblazoned with Yehovah’s golden seal. Then, suddenly, Jesus’ eyes filled with a deep apprehension.
Michael knew that he smelled devilry on the sultry breeze. He followed Jesus’ clouded gaze. There in the distance, beyond Michael’s angelic warriors, Satan’s champion, Moloch, prince of death, proud and terrible, rode the darkening clouds over Jerusalem. His legions of fallen satanic princes, the butchers of Perdition, held Perdition’s banner of death billowing out behind them as they drew closer to the Place of the Skull. The great satanic princes rode, followed by the fallen Archangels of Ashtoroth, the Thrones of Folcador, and the Shaman Kings, their long, tangled black hair flying, yellow eyes narrowed, green mucus dripping from their thin, purple mouths.
Michael hid his face from Jesus’ searching, loving eyes, then rode higher above the descending clouds, the hosts of heaven following close behind as Lucifer’s hordes began their descent towards Golgotha. The menacing black clouds descended swiftly, carrying the fallen hosts’ gleaming black war chariots nearer to the three wooden crosses. The satanic princes watched with a brooding fascination from their chariots. Silent. Menacing. Millions of hell’s rabid demonic battalions lined up behind them across the horizon, a dark depraved host of fallen angels and demons, waiting for the spoils of war finally to fall into their clutches. Today they would reap hell’s great trophy: the Nazarene.
Suddenly there was a great stirring in the heavens. The battalions of dark chariots moved aside, creating a pathway in the clouds for the mammoth dark-winged stallions that drew the monstrous black iron war chariot that carried the king of darkness himself. Thirty stallions surged through the skies, their monstrous veined webbed wings beating rhythmically to the dark arias of the Necromancer choirs of the damned. Slowly the war chariot descended on thunderbolts, directly above the Place of the Skull, opposite the central wooden cross.
Lucifer rose from the chariot and stepped out onto a thunderbolt. He stood, arms folded, tall and imperious, Imperial ruler of hell’s infernal army, his inscrutable sapphire gaze riveted on the contorted, blood-spattered face of the Nazarene nailed to the wooden cross below him. Lucifer raised his arms to the heavens.
‘Omniscient Father.’ A deranged, almost wrenching sob escaped him. ‘I would have spared you this...’ He surveyed the straggling crowd that surrounded the cross below.
‘Look what they have done to You, Nazarene...’ his strangled whisper was barely audible. ‘...this Race of Men – Yehovah’s obsession,’ he spat.
With enormous effort, Jesus struggled to lift His head from His chest, His gaze became lucid. He held Lucifer’s gaze for a long moment, His fierce, noble gaze penetrating to the very core of Lucifer’s soul. Then Jesus’ head fell back onto His chest.
Lucifer turned his head to see Michael at attention standing in the distance, directly opposite him. ‘How the tables are turned now, brother,’ he hissed. Jesus struggled again to raise His head. Michael watched helplessly as Jesus’ eyes filled with the unfathomable distress of His separation from His Father. Alone. Vulnerable. A slow malicious smile of triumph spread across Lucifer’s face.
‘Oh how Thou art fallen ... Nazarene...’
Michael stared ahead, his fingers trembling, grasping the Sword of State.
‘I shall kill His only beg
otten, Michael, that I might again be His only begotten,’ Lucifer leered.
‘Never will you be His begotten, Lucifer,’ Michael whispered, his voice soft but forbidding. ‘You, the unrepentant,’ he raised his face to Lucifer’s, his green eyes blazing with passion, ‘are cut off from Yehovah and his mercies for all time.’
‘This very day, Michael,’ Lucifer hissed, ‘the Nazarene will be incarcerated in the vaults of hell.’
He looked back to the dying figure on the cross, an evil fire flickering in his eyes.
‘I return to Perdition!’ Lucifer lashed his stallions savagely. ‘I unleash the Catacombs of Ichabod!’ he cried, then took off and rode the thunderbolts, disappearing into the darkening purple skies.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Golgotha
Jotapa moved swiftly through the thinning crowd that, now tiring of its sport, was turning for home. She was exhausted, worn out, having pushed Ayeshe and the royal Arabian stallions to the limits of their endurance to reach Jerusalem in record time. And even so, she was too late. Tears fell down her cheeks, sobs wracking her body as she pushed her way against the straggling throng. She and Ayeshe had ridden to meet Zahi at Joanna’s house, only to discover that the trial had been accelerated. The Hebrew had been crucified.
Joanna’s house was deserted. Zahi was missing, perhaps in hiding – she couldn’t be sure. It was all such a disaster!
Huge sobs racked her small frame. Her mind was racing. Why had she stopped Aretas from journeying to confer with Pilate? Aretas, as king of Arabia, wielded influence with the Hebrew leaders and the Romans. The Hebrew would still be alive. He could have taken refuge in Arabia and preached to the masses, who would have received Him as their own.
Jotapa moved onward. Nearer, much nearer to the three crosses. She lifted her face to the centre cross, then placed her hand over her mouth to still her scream. The Hebrew was unrecognizable, bloodied and unidentifiable save for His eyes – those clear, piercing eyes that were now glazed over with pain.
It was her fault that He was dying ... her far-fetched notions of His kingdom and His Father, the king who would come and overthrow Rome and save Him. She moved closer. His torn flesh was already buzzing with flies. Birds of prey circled low overhead. Jotapa’s flesh crawled. Exhausted, grief-stricken, and miserable, she fell on her knees in the mud, pushing her unruly locks off her grimy face with dusty gold-ringed fingers, too weak to lift herself up from the dirt.
Slowly she raised her head. A tall young man wearing a kingfisher blue cowled hood dressed in vestments of the very affluent, stood back from the crowd, his gaze never moving from the figure on the cross. She stared mesmerized, strangely drawn to him.
Slowly he turned his imperial face to hers. His beautiful features were flawless: the perfectly carved cheekbones; the long, fine platinum locks; the regal countenance. His gentle grey eyes were red-rimmed from weeping.
‘Do not grieve for Him, daughter,’ he murmured. ‘You could not have saved Him.’ He placed his hand gently on her shoulder. She frowned, bewildered, as a warm, gentle tremor surged through her being, invigorating her entire body. A strange comfort surged through her. She frowned. She had grown up surrounded by monarchs. The Hebrew had influential followers. This man was no commoner, his bearing was that of a prince. He was of royal blood, she was certain of it.
The young man turned his back to her, gazing back up at the cross, his lips moving fervently in supplication.
Jotapa tore her gaze away form him and rose unsteadily to her feet, searching around for Ayeshe, who was lost in the crowd. A short way from Jesus of Nazareth’s cross stood Mary, His mother, and three of His disciples. Below Him, five red-faced drunken Roman centurions played dice. A few yards from them, her lithe old Nabatean servant stared up at the cross, transfixed.
Jotapa watched as Jesus’ mouth moved, each word sheer agony. She leaned nearer, straining to hear.
‘I ... thirst...’
One of the soldiers staggered to his feet as a second threw him a filthy sponge. Drunkenly, the first tried to thrust it in their jug of Posca – that Jotapa knew to be the cheap soured wine of the legionnaires, but the jug fell onto its side. The second snatched the sponge and, with his filthy hand, soaked it in the spilled wine.
Jotapa gasped, her grief swiftly turning to fury. ‘Ayeshe!’ she commanded. ‘Bring me the basket of medicinal herbs – hurry!’
She ran a few paces, grabbing a branch from the hyssop vines nearby, then scrabbled in the basket, bringing out a medicinal sponge. Raising herself to her full imperial height, she pushed through the drunken soldiers, catching the last dregs of wine in the sponge. She turned to the centurion and smiled coquettishly, holding the hyssop stick out to him.
‘He thirsts.’ She smiled pleadingly. ‘Please...’ She gestured to Jesus.
The centurion looked at her with half-drunken interest. ‘You His sister?’ he drawled.
Jotapa nodded vehemently. ‘Yes ... yes, I am His sister. Please help Him.’
She held her breath as the Roman soldier staggered to his feet and stumbled over to the centre cross, his companions laughing raucously all the while. He turned back to stare at Jotapa, who nodded eagerly, once again gesturing to Jesus. She held her breath, desperate to soothe His raging, burning thirst.
She held her breath as the centurion thrust the hyssop stick to Jesus’ lips. Jesus drank from it. Tears fell down Jotapa’s cheeks. ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ she sobbed, her eyes riveted on Jesus’ face.
Thunder clapped, the dark clouds opened in fury, and the rain started lashing down.
Jesus opened His eyes. Looking straight at Jotapa, the faintest smile flickered on His lips. She stared at Him, transfixed. Then His head fell back down onto His chest.
Somehow, although she knew that it could not be so, she sensed that He knew she was there. Knew that she had tried to help Him. That He had been comforted.
‘Come, princess,’ Ayeshe cried above the storm, wrapping her in her cloak.
‘I cannot leave Him,’ Jotapa cried, rooted to the ground.
Ayeshe’s eyes grew fierce. ‘In a moment it will be too dark to see the way back, princess.’ He grasped her arm. ‘Zahi is ours,’ he added. ‘The Hebrew is not of our world. His God will take care of Him.’
And Ayeshe drew her after him down the hill, following the drenched and horrified crowd away from the terrible scene. She hesitated as they passed the young man, who stood with his hands raised in jubilation, gazing upward in wonder, oblivious of the rain lashing down on him.
She turned back to the cross, then to Ayeshe. ‘We must find Zahi!’
* * *
Lucifer vanished from the Crypts of the Shadows into the Catacombs of Ichabod materializing before the towering garnet altar.
He strode swiftly past the monstrous warlock cauldrons of bubbling hellbroths and bladderwrack pushing past the great magenta veil, until he stood in the Unholy of Unholies.
The thirteen Warlock Kings of the West knelt in the Inner Sanctum. They were clothed in the glistening white high priests’ garments of the Fallen, chanting incantations, their hands raised, but Lucifer’s attention was fixed solely on the three colossal shadowed Catacombs of Ichabod that lay behind them.
Eighteen misshapen three-headed Shaman-Ogres stood, the height of the gates, a hundred feet high, guarding the Catacombs. Each spiked Catacomb Gate was bound by monstrous iron shackles.
Dracul lifted his bony luminous green face to Lucifer’s.
‘We are prepared for the unleashing of the Iniquities of the Race of Men from the Catacombs, Your Excellency. The Shaman-Ogres await your command.’
Lucifer nodded.
The gargantuan Shaman-Ogres let out a deafening roar, then tore the iron shackles from the iron Catacomb Gates with their monstrous strength. The thirteen Warlock Kings of the West raised their hands, their long white capes flying in the tempests of Ichabod.
‘Unleash the Iniquities of the Race of Men!’ Lucifer cried.
As one, the Shaman-Ogres strained their weight against the first mammoth Gate. Slowly it swung open. Instantly a million black raging cyclones and clawed grotesque demons erupted ferociously engulfing the Unholy of Unholies, knocking the Warlock Kings and Ogres violently to the ground.
Only Lucifer stood in the midst of the ferocious swirling black cyclones, drinking in the iniquities in sheer exhiliration. Then the black cyclones erupted violently straight through the Crypts of the Shadows, through the cupola of the Black Palace in a savage churning black mass headed straight for the Place of the Skull.
* * *
Michael walked up the Nave of the throne room towards Jether. ‘I return from Golgotha. ‘He bowed his head. ‘Lucifer opens the Catacombs of Ichabod.’
‘It has begun. He visits the entire rebellion of the Race of Men on Christos.’ Jether whispered. ‘Past, present and future.’ He bowed his head, his hands trembling.
Michael clasped his shoulder.
‘Lucifer’s triumph will be shortlived. He plays into our hands. It will soon be over.’
‘That they too may know Him,’ Jether uttered.
* * *
The ferociously seething cyclones swirled above a rapidly growing gulf above Golgotha. Jesus’ hair blew violently as every particle of His being was instantly immersed in a violent light storm that coursed like an electric tempest through His being, lifting Him inches from the cross, then thrusting Him violently back against the coarse wood. He raised His face in horror to the black swirling gales that raged overhead, visible only to Gabriel and the legions of the First Heaven and those of the fallen.