I had never batted an eyelid at the bloodsports of the Imperial chamber. The other Elohim were more fond of torture than the Grigori, who preferred to slay as many targets as quickly as possible; indeed, we made competition out of our body counts. Yet now it twisted my insides to consider that each of those dumb creatures being tormented had the potential to mature into the like of the paragon I had glimpsed earlier. But then I knew that death would bring the human creatures a release that their tormentors would never know. That was provided the humans did not submit their soul to their tormentor in exchange for a quicker death. Long ago, the humans would agree to this easily, but lately something had alerted them to the eternal dangers of submission — our mysterious glowing human perhaps?
Araqiel and I came to a stop in the centre of the chamber, marked by a large round seal of the Fallen inset to the floor.
Each of the Fallen had a personal emblem that denoted their talents. These round crests were made from differing metals to distinguish their rank, and featured in the centre of the chestplate of their armour. But the seal on which we knelt was their combined insignia, which featured all seventy-two names of the highest-ranking officials in the emperor’s service. These seventy-two had legions of other Fallen beneath them, and thousands of infernal spirits at their command; depending upon how many of the living had submitted their souls to their torturer before death. None of the names of the Grigori were included in this insignia, however; we had our own emblem that was uniform, as we considered ourselves as one unit. I had never had cause to wonder at our complete segregation before today — it was just as it had always been, and the Grigori preferred this.
This chamber’s central seal was as close as anyone was allowed to get to the emperor, bar his nine overlords.
As we awaited the emperor’s leave to speak, the missing overlord, Bael, appeared on the platform on which the golden throne resided. Samyaza waved his right-hand man forward, and Bael raised himself and approached our liege for a private chat.
Besides his talent for spy work, Bael also had the ability to shapeshift into a large agile cat, a seemingly docile toad, or a combination of these, and there was his warrior-like Elohim form. The tone of his voice was as coarse as his character, yet he was too far removed for us to hear their conversation.
My attention was drawn to the frosted golden orb that spun continuously, high above the throne of the emperor. He called this art installation ‘the Paradox’. Only those Fallen Elohim of highest rank knew the meaning behind the orb’s mysterious title. I had ventured to ask after the meaning once, and had been told that it was for me to work out. I never had.
When Bael stepped aside, Samyaza was grinning. The verbal exchange must have been pleasing.
‘Azazèl, Araqiel, what an interesting day you are having,’ the emperor remarked, which caused me to wonder how long Bael had been secretly observing us this day.
‘Indeed, your Highness, I have been given much food for thought,’ I replied to cover my bases; no matter what Bael had seen, I knew for certain he could not know what was said in Lux.
‘You are of the mind to see if the Grigori can traverse the Eternity Gate,’ the emperor replied, in such a way that I could not tell if he was asking a question or giving an order.
‘This makes sense,’ I replied. ‘Our mission against humanity for the emperor has all but come to an end, thus we are now dispensable to your cause and can risk such a mission.’
Samyaza grinned broadly; he disliked my response because it was clever and evasive. ‘And you would risk the lives of your men in the attempt?’
This could be taken as an assumption, for the Grigori approached every mission as a combined task force.
‘It may be weapons that have prevented any from penetrating the gate to date, for I note that none have made the attempt free of arms. If our vessel and persons are stripped of weaponry, I believe we may be granted passage.’ I petitioned from on my knees, having not been given leave to rise.
‘And what do you expect to find beyond the gate, Grigorian?’ Samyaza queried.
Perhaps his spy, Bael, had overheard what the human had told me?
‘Somewhere that is free of the mind-eater virus, where our emperor’s safety can be secured,’ I replied.
‘But we all know that the Eternity Gate leads to the realm of the creator,’ Samyaza challenged.
‘Without investigation, that could yet prove to be a deception,’ I countered. ‘And should the Grigori fail and be cast back into this universe, powerless, our emperor shall still have your finest warriors in Tartarus to protect your throne and person from infection.’
The Emperor looked to his second-in-command, eyebrows raised in query.
Bael’s expression was completely blank, but he gave a nod before Samyaza took a pause to consider and looked back to us. ‘You know I can only be summoned from this realm?’
Again, I neither confirmed nor denied his question-cum-statement; Samyaza hadn’t brought up the illuminated human and I was eager to avoid the topic if possible. ‘Upon our success, that obstacle will be removed, and your liberation assured, my liege.’
Samyaza’s laugh mocked my attempt to avoid his suppositions; he knew there was more to my eagerness to leave. ‘And how am I to be certain that you will not have a change of heart once you are beyond the reach of my influence?’
What Samyaza meant to say was ‘beyond the reach of my retribution’. For although the Fallen could not die, we could be fed to the virus and slowly transformed into zombies as our minds and bodies were eaten away to skeletal form, forevermore to be tortured by the starving mind-eater trapped within. At least for the mortals taken by the disease, death eventually brought an end to their suffering.
It was at this point I noted the tortured screams had stopped, as had the music, and the focus of all in the room had come to rest on us.
‘The Grigori have never failed your Imperial Highness in any mission,’ I replied to his challenge.
‘This is not just any mission,’ he emphasised. ‘And that was before you Grigori were informed of how special you all are!’
I glanced aside to Araqiel to gauge his reaction to the claim; were we going to attempt to bluff our way through this?
‘It’s happening,’ he mumbled and then uttered aside to me. ‘Meet me in Lux.’
‘Now?’ I was perplexed by the request, given our present predicament.
‘Right now,’ he stressed as he fell face-first to the ground unconscious. In his back was a device I had never seen before — it glowed blue in the centre, and one of four curved blades that extended from the glowing central orb had lodged in his back.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ I looked to Samyaza for an explanation.
‘We have some new toys that we’ve been preparing for just this occasion,’ he informed as Baleth and Balam strode up, still in their three-headed forms — one face bull, one face ram, and the other Elohim — with their serpent tails lashing behind them. Taking up one leg each, they dragged Araqiel back down the aisle towards the exit doors.
‘What have you done?’ I was in shock, having never seen one of the Grigori incapacitated before.
‘Just a little psychic and physical sedation,’ Samyaza assured me. ‘Your brother shall be harmed no further, provided you stick to your end of our bargain and be my test case.’
Horror struck at the core of my being, for I knew that he intended to infect me with the new strain of the mind-eater virus. ‘We are leaving this universe to escape the mind-eater plague! To introduce it before you even arrive will defeat the whole purpose of the quest.’
‘No, the purpose of the mission is to free the Grigori from this desolation and leave the rest of us to rot here!’ Samyaza stood enraged. ‘But I have prepared a very special mind-eater for you, Azazèl, one that will ensure your compliance.’
Above my head I heard the sound of machinery engaging, and that meant only one thing — I was about to be isolated from the rest of the r
oom by a transparent tube that would drop from the ceiling any moment now. I had seen others fed to the gaseous entity for the entertainment of all in the throne room. Now it was my turn.
The thought occurred to teleport myself elsewhere, but what would happen to Araqiel and the rest of the Grigori if I did? There were only two hundred of us and thousands of them, we could not hope to win a war against the rest of the Fallen. Araqiel’s last request seemed my only option, although I did not know if being in a state of Lux would be any hindrance to the virus, or even if I could maintain that state of being once infected.
To the sound of the mocking laughter and jeers of the emperor’s overlords, I focused myself inwards and entered the light-field; my body dropped to the floor as the tube shot down to incubate me within its confines.
‘Azazèl! You made it!’
Araqiel emerged from the illumination before me and I was relieved to see him. ‘I thought they had subdued you?’
‘They did! Knocked the soul right out of my body and I don’t intend to return it from whence it came, either,’ he informed, seeming happy about that.
This was a shock to me, as I’d always been under the impression that the souls of the Fallen were trapped within their physical bodies, and that this state of Lux we’d discovered was just a suspended state that existed between manifesting our form between one place and another. ‘But what will you do, just stay here forever?’ Lux was preferable to the dark universe for certain, but insanely boring without company for all eternity.
‘Heavens, no!’ He laughed off that suggestion. ‘I am coming through the Eternity Gate with you. The human told me that I have a different route to follow to the rest of my brothers, but our paths will converge eventually, as our destinies lie beyond that gate.’
I shook my head. ‘I must be left behind, as Samyaza is exposing me to his new hybrid mind-eater as we speak.’
‘A mind-eater cannot feed on your soul if your soul is not in your body,’ he put forward, and again I was perplexed by my lack of comprehension.
‘But even so, it will feed on my body until there is nothing left!’
‘You will not need that body where we are going.’ He prompted me to look on the bright side.
‘How could you know that?’ A strange feeling crept over me and I shuddered at the hostile sensation’s advance.
Yet Araqiel was still grinning. ‘When we spoke, the Logos showed me so much more than just a pretty face —’
‘You also think it was the Logos?’ Suddenly my bad feeling rushed from my gut to my head and exploded into an influx of information that streamed into my mind. ‘Ah … no! No!’ I cried as I caught glimpses of the content.
‘What ails you?’ Araqiel gripped my face to get my attention.
‘This mind-eater is programmed with a grimoire containing all the evocations, seals and information required to summon the primary Fallen Elohim from their prison.’ My fate was sealed. ‘If such information is carried forth into the next universe, it would be disastrous for every living thing there!’
‘And there you have it, wisdom, love and compassion all in that one conclusion.’ Araqiel remained in good cheer. ‘Thus, if you are not delivered to a higher universe, it would prove just as disastrous for evolution, for clearly you carry the Logos in your soul.’
‘What?’ I did not fathom his meaning. ‘The Fallen don’t have souls; we are immortal and thus eternally physical beings.’
‘No, we have been misled about that,’ he said. ‘Even Samyaza and his ilk have souls, although they are trapped inside their physical forms, but only because they have yet to develop the emotional, mental and causal bodies needed to ascend higher in the evolutionary scheme. We Grigori are not so bound any more, for our camaraderie has allowed our souls to advance. What is this form you are wearing here in Lux, but an etheric shell that embodies your soul-mind?’
I looked down at myself, speechless a moment, as my mind raced to keep pace with the influx of information on both a physical and non-physical level. ‘But as soon as I rejoin my body, I will be brainwashed into forgetting everything!’
‘Then don’t,’ he replied simply. ‘No one will know you are absent.’
‘But …?’ I now had so many questions it was difficult to prioritise them. ‘My body cannot just stay in a coma state. And how are we to follow through the Eternity Gate if we are stuck here in Lux?’
‘We’re not stuck here,’ Araqiel enlightened. ‘Every soul is free to move anywhere within the confines of the universe it occupies.
‘Anywhere?’ I challenged. ‘Have you tested that theory?’
‘I have, actually,’ Araqiel confessed. ‘I’ve been exploring the boundaries of this state we call Lux for some time now. Perhaps a demonstration?’ he asked.
‘Please,’ I squeezed out the word under the duress of the disease latching onto my physical body; even though I wasn’t currently wearing it, I could sense the panic and agitation eating away at me.
‘Moving the soul around is not so different from willing your physical body from one place to another,’ Araqiel instructed, ‘only you focus on observing a place or person, rather than joining them.’
The light of Lux evaporated like a mist, and left me standing once again in the emperor’s throne room. My body lay before me, still unconscious inside the isolation tube that had fed the virus to me. I looked aside to Araqiel who now appeared almost completely transparent, and my expression must have been one of horror.
‘Never fear,’ he assured me. ‘They cannot see us. Even their psychic skills are useless against any being who resonates at a higher vibrational rate than they do.’
This announcement I did not entirely comprehend, but clearly Araqiel understood it, and that was liberating in a sense. But as I cast my etheric sight upon the Fallen, I now plainly saw all the tortured souls that they had held captive in this place with them, whose hatred of their plight had turned them into demons. ‘Can they not be saved?’
‘Every soul can be freed, but only once the being they have sworn allegiance to finds the compassion to let them go,’ Araqiel counselled.
‘And those who have been taken by the virus?’ I queried.
‘There is nothing left of them to be saved,’ he was sorry to advise.
I looked back to my own form and could clearly see a dark shadow that now enshrouded it. ‘So I am done for?’
‘You are being protected by our father,’ he assured me. ‘As am I. Samyaza considers he is clever enough to outsmart his maker, but he is deluded.’
‘That was not nearly as entertaining as anticipated,’ Samyaza commented, as the isolation tube retracted back into the roof and Bael descended the stairs from the elite platform and strode down the aisle towards my slumbering form.
‘How am I to pull off this deception without rejoining my form?’ I queried my spectral company.
‘Just wait,’ Araqiel suggested.
‘The Grigori are weak,’ Bael responded to Samyaza’s observation, as he reached down to drag my body up to standing, and I was deeply angered by his insult.
‘You won’t think so when I flatten you!’ I responded, despite the fact that I could not be seen nor heard.
It was at that moment that the eyes of my physical body suddenly opened, and finding its feet my person landed an uppercut king hit to Bael’s jaw, which sent him reeling backwards into a fire-pit, to the shock of all present.
Araqiel had a chuckle. ‘It seems you still hold some influence.’
‘How did I do that?’ I was awed by the event, as I watched Bael rise from the fire-pit seething.
‘As I suspected, the mind-eater is carrying your form,’ Araqiel stated.
‘You mean you didn’t know that would be the case?’ I was bemused. ‘Why speak with such certainty if you are in fact unsure?’
‘It’s confidence building,’ he explained. ‘And intention is everything, as you have just demonstrated.’
‘I am going to squash you, Grigorian!?
?? Bael threatened, as he headed towards me, flames still lapping from beneath his armour, and his hair ablaze.
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Samyaza employed his verbal leash and although Bael was loath to come to heel, he complied to his master’s command. ‘We need Azazèl to go prepare the rest of the Grigori and his ship for their mission.’
My body bowed faithfully to the emperor, served Bael the evil eye and spat in the overlord’s direction, then turned and strode from the room.
The momentary elation I felt in the wake of the confrontation dissipated quickly into panic. ‘We have to stop this!’ I pursued my body from the chamber, Araqiel accompanying.
7
ASCENT INTO MADNESS
Upon receiving the emperor’s orders the Grigori set about stripping our vessel of weaponry. We only ever had to use a transport to reach our destination when it was somewhere we had never visited before; once we were familiar with a place we could simply teleport there. The Grigori did not question the objective as it had been delivered by their commander, and as promised Armaros and Sammael had met with groups of our brothers in Lux to explain our suspicions. Hence all my task force believed that I had been successful in covertly securing permission for us to escape the emperor’s charge.
There was only one who suspected that our desire had been fulfilled far too easily and that something was amiss with their commander.
Armaros may have appeared the youngest and most fragile of us all — his fine fair hair and deep blue eyes only added to his passive appearance — but he was something of a favourite among his more boisterous Grigori companions due to his sharp mind, great knowledge and sheer likeability.
In spirit I stood by and cheered as Armaros voiced his concern to Sammael, while they stood supervising the removal of the huge guns attached to our spacecraft. ‘There is something not right with Azazèl.’