“Yes, this will do.”
At Hadriel’s words, Joan carefully set down the sofa and the cocoon upon it. Truthfully, she didn’t need to move the sofa, but the French saint had been hesitant to manhandle the chrysalis of her charge. The cocoon might be a semi-divine construct able to shrug off modern weapons, but the thought manhandling it like luggage felt irreverent.
The area the warrior angel had chosen was situated about halfway between the building and the nearby wood. Above them, it was nearly dusk, the first stars were just appearing. It was now more or less the same time that Joan had tried to conduct her own ritual to Awaken Adam. Hopefully, this one would prove to be more fortunate in its execution.
Once the saint had set it down Hadriel simply laid both her palms upon the chrysalis and closed her eyes. For a moment nothing happened, and Joan considered asking her if that was all, then a musical note began to echo out.
The sound was as clear as the most finely crafted bell one could imagine, hanging in the air with a sort of perfection that no mortal instrument could have possibly duplicated. Joan knew this, or at least something similar. It was the sound of Hadriel’s true name, the one given to her by her creator, rather than the one used by mortals to identify her.
To every angel, there was a note, a pitch, a tone that they and only they could produce, and when the High Heavens sang the Music of the Spheres it was these notes that created the music. The Heavens needed no instruments, no voices, no music halls, the music that only the realm of angels could produce was the essence of its very inhabitants, the Celestial Choir needing nothing but their true names to create the music that left even the gods in awe.
Slowly, the perfect note faded away, and Hadriel floated backwards, away from the chrysalis. As she did so her movements were lethargic, everything about her from the set of her shoulders to the slight droop of her wings suggested exhaustion.
“Is it done?”
At Joan’s question, the angel slowly turned to face her, her eyes drooping slightly, but still burning with an intensity that shone through her fatigue.
“Y-yes. It was harder than I expected, the amount of power needed was enormous, but I can feel the reaction occurring within his cocoon. Soon his Awakening will be complete.”
“Are you well, honoured Hadriel?” the resurrected soul asked. “Your efforts seem to have left you drained; will you be able to recover soon?”
“It is no great concern,” the red-winged angel assured her. “The drain upon my energy merely took me by surprise due to its intensity. With a few minutes, I shall be much recovered. I will need only a few hours to regain my full strength.”
As she spoke Joan’s attention was drawn to the cocoon behind her as it began to give off light. It started as a soft glow along the ‘seams’ of the chrysalis, but those thin lines quickly grew brighter. At the same time, the misshapen panels that had once been Adam’s skin began to take on a shine of their own. There seemed to be no set colour to the glow, as it shifted constantly, different spots being different colours in a dancing chaos similar to the aurora borealis. As the pair of Heavenly agents watched, the light began to mount brighter and brighter. As the light grew brighter the speed the shifting colours danced to also grew, until the brightness reached its zenith. The entirety of the cocoon shone in a brilliantly coruscating dance that was at once beautiful and maddening to see.
It only lasted for a short time though because, as both the intensity of the light and the speed of the dance reached a crescendo, they froze as though time had stopped!
The sudden change was jarring. She had been tracking the dance as it had accelerated, and the abrupt transition from motion to a dead stop caught her so much by surprise that her vision swam for a moment. As she watched the multicoloured lights condensed into a single point above where she guessed Adam’s heart to be within the chrysalis. In short order, the entire display had collapsed to a singular point no larger than the fingernail on her thumb. For a moment it just hovered there, giving her the chance to appreciate the perfection of its colour, a shade that was every hue and yet none, and then it exploded!
There was no force to the explosion, no sound, no heat. All that happened was a bright burst of light, as what must have been thousands of sparks, exploded from where the single point had been. The lights went flying everywhere about the field, only to then pause in place, hovering in mid-air and lighting up the night.
“Honoured Hadriel, is this supposed to be happening?”
“I . . . I am uncertain,” the admission came as both a surprise and a shock since this was the first time that the angel had shown anything other than total confidence. “The process is continuing, and I cannot feel any disharmonies in the energies that are being released, but this is so much . . . it should not-”
Anything else the crimson-winged agent of Heaven might have been about to say was cut off as the thousands of tiny lights about them began to move once more. About them, the light of the day was fading as the sun fell below the horizon, but the multitude of firefly-like lights served to provide more than enough illumination as they moved about. This time though there seemed to be a purpose to their motion, not the blind burst of earlier.
Joan watched in fascination as they flowed in four different directions, coming together in clusters as they buzzed about like a swarm of bees coming together. As they drew closer their individual light grew brighter and brighter until it became painful to look at them. The resurrected soul was forced to look away, but as she did so she heard a sound that was . . . something she had never heard before. The only way that she could think to describe it was to say that it was the opposite of hearing crystal shatter. There was something almost musical about it, something joyous! It was still ringing in her ears when she looked back to see that the blinding radiance had abated, leaving a wondrous sight to behold.
“Unbelievable!”
The hushed word was uttered by the angel beside her, the tone almost reverent. Joan could understand why the soldier of the High Heavens was so awestruck, the sight before them had robbed the saint of any words at all.
The multitude of lights was gone now, and in their place were four enormous orbs that hovered six feet above the ground and seemed to be slowly orbiting the cocoon. Each orb was massive, easily large enough for someone to walk into. Each of them was different, and each of them radiated power in a way that even a blind man would have been able to see.
“That one . . . that one has the feeling of Lady Bath Kol!”
Hadriel didn’t seem to be aware that she was speaking out loud as she reached out to the nearest of the spheres, but Joan could hear her clearly. In truth, she completely agreed with the angel’s assessment, even though she had never met the Voice of God, and so could not identify her presence. However, the orb left little doubt as to the nature of the power it held.
The sphere was coloured in a mixture of white and blue, the hues evoking the image of a blue summer sky threaded with white clouds. Light shone from the globe, a strong warm light such as one might find on a midsummer day when the sun shone down from above, but a breeze kept the air from being oppressive. Still, it was not simply the appearance of the sphere that drew the angel, it was the unfettered Heavenly power that radiated from it like heat from a furnace.
What was even more breathtaking wasn’t the scale of the power, but rather its sheer purity. This was the very essence of the High Heavens, unmarred by . . . anything. Even when Joan had been in Heaven, she had seen angels marred and marked. They were small blemishes, the simple results of the natural anger and frustrations that even the soldier of Heaven had to deal with as part of their lives. Those that had chosen to be reborn as mortals for a lifetime were also marked, though not with sins or stains. Instead, they seemed to be weathered, toned by that life in a way akin to a farmer being tanned by working in the sun. These changes carried over to the power that the angels wielded, meaning it was every bit as hued as the angels that it came from.
But this, the energy in the sphere, it was completely pure, untouched by any sort of taint.
The French saint could only stare in wonder, her heart bursting with pride for her charge. She had known that he was a descendant of Bath Kol, but she had underestimated the power he would inherit with his Awakening! This would . . .
Joan’s thoughts ground to a halt as the great sphere of heavenly might drifted past her, only to be replaced by another.
. . . Another? Yes, she had all but forgotten about the others.
Staring at the large sphere that was now closest to her Joan tried to calm her nerves as she studied it. This globe was not a container of the power of the Heavens, of that there was no doubt. Rather than the sense of sun and sky that had matched the colours of the first sphere, this was an ever-shifting mass of red, orange and yellow. It could easily have been mistaken for flames save for the fact that the orb did not burn. No heat came off it, no flames flickered within it, instead, there was simply a sense of . . . vitality!
That was the only way that the resurrected soul could think to describe it, the huge globe seemed to be filled with pure life energy, the vital force of life that empowered all living beings from the humblest worm to the mightiest god. Normally such energies were liquid, flowing through the body like invisible blood, but what she saw before her practically crackled with pent-up force!
There was power there, enormous power, the sort that could allow a demigod to crush monsters with their bare hands. But what concerned Joan was that she could not recognize the origin of that strength, she only knew that it was neither heavenly nor infernal.
Her gaze moved to the next sphere, and she found it to be no less surprising. It differed from the first two in that it seemed to be more solid, more material. Where the other two were energy in one form or another, this globe was composed of substance. The material was not solidly in place, but instead seemed to be constantly altering and shifting about. As Joan watched the bricks of dark stone that made up its surface split apart as short spikes of crystal emerged, then spread to cover it. Then rods of metal extended from the crystal, then there were more rods growing from the first ones in an almost organic manner. Spreading, forming constructions until once again the orb was covered, this time in a network of metal that was incredibly complex. Then the metal began to melt, heating up until it was molten, only to solidify and have wooden structures begin to spring up upon it.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Joan watched in fascination, only to realize that despite the orb constantly building outwards it never seemed to grow larger. Realizing this she stepped back, trying to look at the whole thing at once, only then realizing what was happening. It was a cycle, a beautiful, impossible cycle with the old layers constantly sinking back into the sphere, even as new layers were being built up.
Unlike the others it didn’t radiate power, instead, it felt solid, firm in a way the other two lacked, a bedrock upon which anything could be built.
“Wha . . . what is that?!”
The resurrected soul’s attention was pulled away from the constantly shifting sphere to look over at Hadriel. Unlike Joan, the angel continued to follow after the globe of celestial energy. Apparently, doing so had led her to pay attention to the fourth sphere before the French saint had reached it. Looking at it, Joan could understand why seeing it came as a shock, especially if she had been focused upon the orb of celestial purity beforehand.
The fourth sphere was black, perfectly, unnaturally, so. The first two had each radiated power in their own way, while the third had been hard and solid, power held within it, waiting for use. This one though . . . it instead seemed to drink in all the power that touched it. Light, sound, even the natural mana that pulsed through the world, all of it flowed into the black orb in a way that was distinctly unsettling to one with the senses to understand it.
“The Abyss . . . ? But how can that be?”
As she spoke Hadriel reached out to the black globe but stopped before her hand touched its surface. Both her action and her words were enough to make Joan’s eyes widen in concern as she turned to look at the fourth sphere as though it were a snake poised to strike. She had good reason to, she had heard the way in which the angel had referred to it, ‘the Abyss’ not ‘an’ abyss, but ‘the Abyss’, and the resurrected soul knew what she must mean by that.
The Abyss, the one with the ‘the’ and the capital letter at the beginning, was how the angels referred to the original black void that was the first of God’s creations. Before it there had been nothing, then, by his very awareness of that nothingness it became the Abyss, the original void from which all was spawned, the ancestor, the precursor, of the blackness between stars. It no longer existed, not in the pure form it had possessed before the rest of Creation sprang into being, but even so the mere memory of it was regarded as one of the most powerful and dangerous forces in existence since it was so old. Even the angels had come afterwards, even the oldest and strongest of them such as Michael or Lucifer were younger, and as such below it on one level of the hierarchy of existence.
There were a few gods that were incarnations of it, but they were among the strongest and most inhuman of all deities, the sort that even the champions of Heaven would be hesitant to fight without planning and preparation. Some demons were also attuned to it and were the sorts of monsters that even gods feared. Simply put, the Abyss was powerful in the most primal sense of the word.
Despite the nature of the power it held, the sphere did not seem to be violent in the way she would have expected. Had anyone told her that the power of the Abyss was being summoned then she would have thought it would take the form of some sort of portal in the air, an open breech in space relentlessly consuming everything with its never-ending hunger. Instead, what she saw before her wasn’t as greedy as she would have expected. There was a light breeze flowing into the sphere, but it was not trying to suck all into itself. Instead, it just floated there, an orb of perfect darkness. Tentatively the resurrected soul tried to see if she could feel anything from it.
What she felt wasn’t violent, but it was . . . deep. It wasn’t so much that she could detect the presence of a power, there was nothing she could see, feel or touch with any of her mystic senses. Instead, it was just pure instinct, intuition telling her that there was something buried and lurking in the depths of the void. Aside from that there was . . . nothing, just a vast gulf of nothingness that seemed to be without end. As she stared at the globe longer, she felt the vastness within it.
Infinity, trapped in a space the size of a large cart from her time. The thought was enough to make her shudder in disquiet. Now she understood at least some of why Hadriel was so disturbed, after all her senses must be far more acute than Joan’s. What must she be sensing from the sphere? The power of the original void was mighty, easily enough to give even an angel pause.
So why was some of its power here?
For a moment Joan felt her heart freeze at a thought! Had the foes that had attacked earlier found a different way to strike at them? Was this their new gambit, summoning the ultimate void in the hopes that it would swallow Adam up before he could fully Awaken? But as the thought rose, she realized it was foolish. Had it appeared close to him then perhaps her scenario could have been possible, but instead the sphere of the Abyss was floating in formation with the other three globes of . . . what?
Now that she thought about it, what were these great orbs? She’d been so focused on trying to identify what each of them contained, or was made of, that she hadn’t paused to wonder why they were there in the first place!
“Honoured Hadriel, do you know what is happening?”
The question seemed to be enough to snap the soldier of Heaven out of her daze as she turned to look at the French saint. Then her gaze sharpened as she gave herself a small shake.
“I . . . I can only speculate, but I believe that these spheres represent the divine energies that the young mortal has been channelling through his Awakening.”
“I do not think I understand.”
What did she mean? She had identified the first sphere as being that of Bath Kol, so what were the other ones?
“We know that the mortal was meant to gain power through his bloodline with Lady Bath Kol, so that would explain the first of the spheres. It is an externalization of the power accumulated within him; his body is feeding it into a vessel outside of his flesh so that his body will not be overburdened by it within him. If that is true, then . . . then these other spheres must likewise be external repositories for divine power.”
She looked uncertain, but her words caused Joan’s eyes to widen as she stared at the other three globes. Each of them was just as big as the orb holding the heavenly power, and even to her supernatural senses they didn’t feel weaker, so that would mean . . .
“Adam is not just the Legacy of Lady Bath Kol then? He also carries the blood of others?!”
“It could be!” Hadriel had turned back to the slowly orbiting spheres and was staring at them intently. “I was assigned to this mission somewhat abruptly, so I was not as well briefed as I should have been, but-”
“The Lord . . .” The angel’s words were cut off as Joan spoke, her words slowly forming as she drew the pieces of information into a line in her mind. “The Lord said that his line was a distinguished one, one that could be traced back to Bath Kol, but . . . but I think that I may have . . . misinterpreted His words.”
“What do you mean?”
To the returned maiden’s surprise, there was no accusation or castigation in the angel’s voice. Instead, she sounded the gentlest that she had since her arrival.
“What I remember of what He told me is fragmented, but now that I think on it . . . ‘distinguished’ is not the exact word He used, it is simply the closest interpretation I could fit to it at the time. Another meaning for the . . . notion he communicated could also have been ‘rich’ or ‘rare’.”
She paused for a moment thinking hard about exactly what she knew, or thought she knew, about the audience she’d had with the Lord, God.
“Perhaps . . . perhaps it was not that Adam’s line could be traced back to Lady Bath Kol, rather it was that his line originated with Lady Bath Kol?”
Yes, yes that made sense! Joan nodded to herself as she looked to the spinning spheres, then back to Hadriel. The angel was also nodding, her red wings flexing slightly as she also watched the orbs.
“That would explain it. If his line began with the Voice in older times, shortly after the Paths of Eternity were closed, then it is entirely possible that other bloodlines might have been added over the centuries. Even when in mortal form, gods are drawn to power like iron filings to a lodestone, it is simply a part of their natures. It could be that the blood of others has also found its way into the line, which would mean that Adam . . .”
Her voice trailed off as they both stared at the quartet of great spheres.
Four of them!
Four!
It wasn’t unknown for a demigod to be the inheritor of two Legacies, or to have a Legacy in their past that had drawn their divine parent to the bloodline, but four? That was unheard of! What was even more concerning was that up until now Joan had thought her charge's importance came from his ties to Bath Kol. Yes, demigods that inherited their powers from Legacies were generally weaker than those with a directly divine parent, but given the status of the Voice of God as one of the strongest angels in Creation, the resurrected saint had thought her charge might prove to be the exception.
However, the proof that she had been incorrect was now right before her. Yes, the power of an elder angel did flow through Adam, but so did that of three others of equal might, which meant he was the inheritor of four Legacies!
What did that mean?
Not for the first time Joan wished she had spent more time studying lore in the archives of the High Heavens, rather than devoting so much of her efforts to becoming the warrior she’d wished that she could be.
A sudden shift in the light of the area drew her attention away from her thoughts and back to the cocoon. Once more light was dancing across it, but not the dance of ever-shifting colours that it had been before. This time it was only one colour, and for the life in her she could not have said what colour it was.
Golden? Maybe, there was certainly something golden about it, but at the same time that wasn’t it! Silver? Again, perhaps. Silver was associated with purity. The colour before her was pure in a way that somehow surpassed even the sphere of Bath Kol. She was sure there was something metallic about the hue, yet at the same time, it made her think of soft sunlight and firm stone, of the roar of the storm and the current of a stream. She stared at it, her vision blurring as she tried to focus upon a colour that was too elusive for her to gain a firm grip upon. It didn’t hurt, but there was discomfort, even so, she felt she had to . . . to what? Witness? Remember? Simply see that enrapturing colour?
“Oh . . . that is . . .”
The words were spoken so quietly by Hadriel that Joan almost missed them, but even as her curiosity spiked, her eyes didn’t stray from the point of light hovering only inches over the chrysalis. It was a good thing that she didn’t turn away, otherwise, she would have missed what happened next.
The globes that had been orbiting the cocoon suddenly changed direction and rushed towards the chrysalis that lay at their centre. Their abrupt change of both speed and direction was shockingly swift, even though the reborn maiden only saw it from the corners of her eyes. What she saw in detail was when all four spheres collided with each other as they were all drawn to the single point of light above Adam’s form. There was a brief moment where the space before her eyes swam, not from her vision being obscured by dirt or tears, but rather as though space itself was twisting about some invisible point as each of the globes seemed to both crash into and merge with each of the others. There was a sound like continents crashing into each other, then all five lights were gone and-
White and light, that was all there was!
Joan took a stumbling step backwards, away from the brilliant white light that seemed to be swallowing up the world. Panicking she started to raise her arm to shield her eyes from the light that she knew would burn them out of their sockets, only to pause as a realization struck her.
The light . . . it was bright, brilliant beyond anything she could imagine, the incandescent radiance of a thousand times a thousand stars erupting into blazing novae, and yet it did not hurt! Her eyes simply stared into the massive onrush of white and saw it consume the world. Off to the side, she could hear Hadriel voice a low enraptured sigh, but to the woman that was once called the Maiden of Orleans, it was unimportant.
All that held her attention was the light!