The divine weapon vaguely resembled a handful of rapiers, heated, melted, and reshaped into a bulb-like structure near the hilt from which the slender strands twisted around one another, spiraling as they converged to a tapered tip. Gaps between the strands gave it the look of an ornament of wrought iron, not that any man would mistake the blade’s unknown metal for mere iron. The Sword was forged from an austere, silvery substance that softly glowed. A human weapon of the same size would have demanded to two hands to properly wield it, but once Mordwell Verune wrapped his fingers around its hilt—feeling its lukewarm touch—he lifted the Sword off the floor with the slightest tug of his arm, making him quake in awe.

It barely weighed anything at all.

“It…” Verune whispered, shaking his head in disbelief, “it is more wondrous than I could have ever imagined.”

“Does it appear corrupted?“ Eustin asked. “Can you feel it?”

“We would not be able to tell,” Verune replied. He held the blade out in front of himself. A gentle tingle crept up his arm. “The change was not physical in nature, but spiritual.”

Darkpox was but one half of the punishment for Eadric’s sins. The other half was borne by the Sword itself. Forward from the day of Eadric’s demise, any and all attempts to invoke the Sword’s power tore open gateways to Hell: windows in the air. Anyone could do it. It did not require one of the Chosen to bring calamity, nor were subsequent Chosen ones able to calm the Angel’s ire.

“Yes,” Eustin said, “it was just as my father told me. The Sword was sealed away to protect mankind from ourselves.”

“From further misuse,” Verune added.

“But it might still be tainted with the Angel’s wrath,” Eustin said.

Verune nodded in agitation. “The Angel would not abandon us in a time of true need.” Slowly, the former Lassedite rose to his feet.

The Emperor cleared the path ahead. For the first time in his life, Eustin opened a door on someone else’s behalf.

The two men locked eyes for a moment.

“Father Agan shall not have the Melted Palace,” Verune whispered, holding the Sword aloft. “I will not let a heretic besmirch the City of God and doom us all to oblivion.”

Soon, Orrin, Angel willing, all will be well, Verune thought. I’m coming. I’ll set everything right.

The scene that played out as the overthrown Emperor and the defrocked Lassedite strode into the foyer with the Sword of the Angel in hand was like a painting of old. The first sound was silence, followed by a clatter and another as the fan Madeleine waved at the Empress’ side fell from her grasp, as did George-Donald’s silver platter. There were gasps. Screams. People cowered. John Rousas fell to his knees. The handmaiden trembled, wide-eyed. Bound by a corset, the Empress’ breaths heaved louder and louder until they melted into a shriek.

Archluminer Staples, Prince Gus, Princess Elena, and her husband Rush prostrated themselves before the Sword, pressing their heads against the cold of the marble and the opal.

Rising from his seat, the stoic Duke Quinis made the Bond-sign as he stumbled toward the holy blade with tears in his eyes. “Lord. Lord. All I desire is you. All I desire is you.” His words smeared across his sobs. “All that I have written seems to me so much straw, now that I see your glory with mine own eyes.”

“Praise the one true Lassedite!” Rush Rousas said. He lifted his head and raised his arms skyward. “Praise!”

Verune stepped into the middle of the room. The Empress crawled toward him, raising a trembling hand, her hair in disarray.

“Mordwell,” she whispered. “Mordwell…”

“Silence, all of you!” Verune snapped. “This is not a matter of power. We hold the order of the world in our hands! We cannot let it be broken.”

“Verune, this is madness!” Madeleine said, wide-eyed with horror. “If—if the legends are true, you—you will sin, just as Eadric did.”

“I have no other choice!” Verune screamed, weeping in terror. “If we do nothing, we are all damned! Now, be silent! I must set things right!”

“Forgive me, O Angel! Forgive me for my sins! I am unworthy! I am nothing! You are all!” Prince Gus wept openly onto the marble floor, too terrified to lift his head.

“Husband… Eustin,” the Empress murmured, raising her head to her husband “how can this be? The Sword was lost ages ago…”

Eustin shook his head. “Not lost, Phila. Hidden. For its own protection, and for our own. The Church kept it secret for centuries. When the Munine were repelled and the Second Empire was forged, the decision was made to split the burden between the Church and the State. The secret of the Lassedites would be the secret of the Emperors, now and forever.”

“This power was not meant for us,” Madeleine said.

“Quiet, you presumptuous hag,” Rush said.

“I know your kind, Mr. Rousas,” Madeleine said, shaking her hand. “You think truth is absolute, and that your thoughts—and yours alone—are absolutely true.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Truth presupposes the Angel’s Word,” Rush said. “Without it, all is desolation. My riches are for His Glory, as is my life, and the lives of my descendants.”

“Enough!” Verune snapped. His voice rose to a fevered pitch, even as it trembled in fear. “Everything will be set right. The Godhead will see our faith, and smile at our loving obedience.” The hummingbird robe shook with Verune’s deep breaths, making the pellegrina and cassock shimmer. “It is our only hope!”

Verune stepped into the center of the room and knelt to the floor. He lifted the Sword, clasping it hilt tightly in both his hands.

“Hear me, O Holy Angel! I speak to you as your discreet and faithful slave. Please, my Lord, hear me!”

Verune’s thoughts crystallized under the pull of his prayer. His cause was righteous, his conscience clear. Love was his guide. True love.

The love divine.

The Angel would answer him. The corruption would be undone. The elements would stir at the Sword-bearer’s beck and call like they had in the days of old. And the wrongs would, at last, be righted.

Verune begged “My Lord! My Light! The enemy is at the gates. The One, true Church has been divided against itself. Ruin is ready to strike. I do not wish to see the covenant broken.”

The blade warmed beneath his touch.

“Please, O Holy Angel. Save us! Rescue us! By the Testaments of your Words, your Church must endure. I shall keep the covenant, I swear it. Please, O Angel, let me serve you. Let me do your will. I will be your weapon. Please, spare us your wrath, and I will mete out your justice. O Angel, O Angel, lend me the truth of your strength, and the strength of your truth. Give us a blessing to shine through this darkness!”

In his hands, the Sword buzzed. A jolt shot up his arm as the Sword’s twining, silvery curves began to twitch, and twitch again, and then—

—Verune’s chest tightened. His head tingled.

The Sword moved. Its blade’s interwoven boughs began to twist—a wheel, slowly turning—orbiting the weapon’s central axis. The components were like quicksilver whenever they touched one another, merging and splitting again as they passed.

The Imperial family and the Archluminer made the Bond-sign, gaping in awe. Tears ran down Verune’s face. To know truth was a gift. But to see it? To touch it? There could be no greater miracle than this. A lifetime of effort and sacrifice now bore fruit. The warmth coursing into Verune’s grip was the Angel’s Love itself, filling him with its grace. The heat flowed into him in waves, in sync with the Sword’s quickening motions, seeping up his arms, prickling as it passed, as if Verune’s blood had turned to streams of sand.

“Oh Holy Angel, O Maker of Man,” he yelled, “I call upon your power. I call upon the Bond of Light!”

Air-currents rippled out from the former Lassedite, sending curtains a flutter. Flowers shuddered in their pots.

From the tip of the Sword, a point of light flared into being, rapidly expanding, opening a hole in the air. The hole was like a mirror in an unlit room, a limpid, tenebrous disk. Its edge was a buzzsaw toothed by bristling light that crackled and swirled. The disk’s darkness swelled and swelled, dwarfing Verune as its buzzsaw rim phased into the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Suddenly, the darkness dissipated, clarity spreading across the hole’s surface like ink in a pool.

Everyone stared.

The hole was a window to somewhere… different.

An irregular landscape dreamed beneath a violet sky. Two dark suns hung low on the horizon. They took their twilight with them as they sunk behind the horizon, granting room for the dawn. Mountains floated like icebergs in the swirling, brightening sky. Below, green earth sublimated into mist, shrouding the forest that hovered beneath the mountains’ luminous anti-shadows. The tree-things within the mists glowed with a dark radiance. Their vitreous branches thrummed, resonating with sounds no words could describe. Creatures strange and wild skittered in the depths, casting anti-shadows wide and bright.

Archluminer Staples approached the miracle, trembling in awe. Quickly, he came to a stop and sank to his knees while holding up his hands. He muttered ecstatic prayers.

“O mighty Angel! Welcome! Welcome!” Staples proclaimed. “Thy Kingdom is come! Thy Will is accomplished!”

Without warning, the image fractured and then, just as suddenly, reassembled. But now, the scene through the window had changed configuration, as if time had spun out of control. The world on the other side had begun to rot. The mountains had crumbled, their corpses set adrift. Forests were frail, dissolved into frozen bubbles. The trees fell bright and silent. Rifts clawed across the violet sky. A fell wind blew through the gaps.

“Somethin’s movin’,” George-Donald said, pointing in horror. “Ah can see it.” He staggered back in fear.

Like a viper, Rush lunged at his manservant, grabbing him by the leg and pulling him down. George-Donald cried out as his knees bashed onto the marble floor.

Then, came motion: an anti-silhouette.

A void of white rose from the foreground, blocking the dark suns’ dying night-embers. Footsteps shook the evaporating earth. The marble floor rumbled beneath Verune’s feet.

The anti-shadow grew and grew.

It was coming closer.

It touched the hole. The window rippled as a creature emerged.

“The Hallowed Beast…” Verune whispered.

For what else could it be but the mightiest of the Godhead’s hypostases?

A head like a great fox thrust through the hole, with fur as blue as ice and just as pale. Then another, red as blood and just as bold. Then a third, as black as the Night and just as deep.

The triple-headed beast stepped out into the world, furred in glistening whorls and stripes of its heads’ three colors.

A forelimb shot out.

Verune stepped back in awe.

A paw pressed down, raking massive, silvery claws across the floor. The claws sent up sparks as they gouged furrows in the marble.

The beast’s three heads twitched in anticipation, each staring in a different direction, blinking the third eyes atop their skulls. The beast smacked its other foreleg forward and pulled, dragging itself out of the gateway. It twisted its body left and right, prying itself through, as if something was caught. Then it sputtered forward and shook itself out. Something on the creature’s back emerged into the foyer and wriggled and unfurled.

Wings.

Feathered wings crested up from the creature’s back, rooted behind its shoulders. The pale, fibrous feathers were inked over by golden patterns. There was intent behind their design. Intent and intelligence.

“Look.” Madeleine pointed at the beast.

It was melting—and not all at once. Spots of liquefaction covered its body like hives. The melting flesh trickled down its flanks like candle wax, then dripped onto the marble floor where they pooled, slowly hardening.

Verune screamed in holy terror. “Hallowed Beast!”

What was this? Was this punishment? Judgment?

Have I sinned, Lord?

The three heads snapped to attention, as if they’d heard Verune’s thoughts. The beast roared as it lunged toward the Lassedite. But then the beast’s nine, bloodshot eyes bulged and the beast stopped, mid-motion. Its snarling heads spasmed, bending at odd angles. One of its wings opened wide and splayed its feathers on the floor, wetting them in the fluid of its dissolving being. The beast flexed its paws, digging into the marble, and for an instant, it flickered, as if it wasn’t wholly there.

Then the puddles moved. They flowed toward Verune.

Toward the Sword.