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focus, or a diverting series of various dei ex machina.
a serial story by marshall vandegrift.
episode 5. and tears fell from her, whom they permitteth not to leave.
With my eyes closed, the world consisted of nothing but silent darkness and the firm mattress beneath my back. Opening my eyes changed little. Closed. Opened. Closed. Nothing but the unyielding black and too many unanswered questions. I twisted on the low bed, trying to find a more comfortable position, but my restlessness had nothing to do with how I lay. Surrendering to wakefulness, I swung my legs off the bed and sat up.
"Light," I said quietly.
After a moment's pause, the ceiling began to glow with a low, yet unhesitant light, illuminating my room. My cell, a small part of me noted. Not that I had actually been ordered to stay here... It had just been implied that it might be a good idea. And the Ophan standing outside the door was just there to enforce good sense, not to prevent me from wandering around the city on my own. And cats came when called.
I sighed and sat up, swinging my legs to the floor and surrendering to wakefulness. I squinted a little at the room, my eyes still adjusting to the too-pure white furnishings, such as they were. An empty desk and chair, a small set of equally empty shelves, and a small alcove whose three walls were consumed in a sink, shower, and toilet. My bag leaned against the desk, its blackness stark and solid-seeming next to all the white, and a small vent next to the ceiling blew in warmth, but the room remained otherwise bare no matter how I looked at it.
I had been here seven days now. The first day had been the most... unusual, not that the word had any meaning left to it after the events of the week. After Abdiel had revealed the nature of he and his companions, I had willing followed them. For a day and half, we journeyed, crossing five different... happentracks, as they termed them. A lifeless desert of frozen sand; a winding, cliff-face path above a storm-tossed ocean; a silent forest; a road through fields of something like wheat, tended by short men wearing wide-brimmed hats of straw; and finally, a city almost like that where I had grown up, except that every inhabitant wore hair varying shades of blue.
I had expected that upon arriving in Elysia, I would be taken to meet gods, or at least the leaders of the Elohim, that with them I would discuss my fate. Instead, I had been taken to this guarded cell, and my brief faith in the revealed Elohim had waned almost entirely.
Each day, I had had exactly two visitors. Three, if one counts the unseen Elohim who delivered my meals to the Ophan guarding my door. First, thrice waking me in the morning, the Cherub Daniel would bring an "honor guard" of Ophan soldiers to escort me through Elysia's winding halls and to one of the city's medical facilities. There, I would be greeted warmly by the Seraph Raphael, who would attempt to engage me in light banter while he analyzed me with unrecognized machines and Daniel watched me coolly. After she finished, Daniel would return me to my room, only speaking if I asked him a question, and always answering as briefly as possible.
My second visitor, who usually arrived soon after lunch, was Abdiel. Whether he had been ordered to visit me or had specifically sought special permission to do so, he never mentioned and I didn't ask. Each day, we would walk through the fantastic city of Elysia, and he would show me its wonders and tell me of its inhabitants. This day, a trek through the Market of a Thousand Worlds and its mix of human visitors and the native Elohim who towered above them, and a lecture on the castes of the Elohim. (Ophanim, laborers and soldiers; Cherubim, crafters and leaders; Seraphim, planners and rulers.) That, a walk through a garden filled with flowers, trees, and less recognizable plants from across the happentracks, and a discussion of the nature of Unogi, the god the Elohim served.
"Demiurge, not god" Abdiel would correct me, attempting to explain the nature of that which it was clear that he, himself, was stretching to even begin to understand. At one point, I asked when I would meet Unogi. He seemed surprised at my question and his answer surprised me in turn. "None speak with Unogi directly but the Archseraphim: Ramiel, Michael, and Metatron. Occasionally, Unogi will speak to another in his dreams, but only those three may enter the presence of the demiurge." In the face of responses such as that, as many questions became unaskable as simply unasked.
Yesterday, Abdiel had taken me to the surface portion of the city. Elysia's architecture was more than up to the task of keeping the underground portion of the city, the only portion that I had seen, from feeling claustrophobic, but it remained underground none the less. I had begun to miss sunlight and the open air, and had mentioned as much to Abdiel the day before, which was likely why he had arranged the excursion. I'm not sure what I expected to see, but the outer layer of Elysia was both surprising and breath-taking.
I received warning as to the nature of what awaited us when, before the final set of sealed doors leading us to the surface, we encountered a rack of cold-weather clothing. Parkas and snow-pants, boots, gloves, and snowmasks, all in perfect condition, yet all with a palpable sense of seldom use hanging about them. I put the warm clothing on over the simple gray garments the Elohim had lent me while Abdiel simply stood and watched, apparently finding no need to bundle himself against what lay outside.
As we stepped outside of Elysia, I expected blowing snow, freezing winds, and the cries of such birds as favor arctic climes. Instead, I was greeted by crystalline perfection. The ground was a solid sea of ice, untarnished by snow, but marked by great spires of frost, leaping their way toward the stars. And such stars... the air was thin, the sky cloudless, and the stars so bright that it almost hurt my eyes to behold them. The scene was lit only by starlight, but no sun or moon were necessary: they would only have marred the cold perfection of the scene.
We didn't remain outside for long. Abdiel seemed completely unaffected by the temperature, but even as bundled up as I was, I probably couldn't have lasted against the numbing cold for long, yet I count my view of outside Elysia as only the third image that nothing will ever completely erase from my mind.
Our return trip was quiet, as there was little to say after such as lay outside. Abdiel returned me to my guard, and I ate, then attempted to sleep. But now... only the empty room.
Not completely knowing why, I reach over drew the copy of the Babel text Belial had given me from my bag. I ran my hand across the firm blue covering, lingering on the curious silver symbol near the edge on the rear. When I had first arrived in Elysia, I had almost turned Belial's gift over to my guardians, but some small thread of suspicion stayed my hand. When it became clear that the Elohim were not my guardians, but my captors, I opened the book again, hoping for some message from Belial. That first time, surrounded by gibberish, the Babel text had clearly noted:
i warned you not to let them take you to elysia, didn't i? and what do you d o? abdiel flashes his eyes and flaps h is wings, and you follow him to the mo st dangerous possible place for you to go. hold tight and stay alive until i come for you.
Since then, nothing. Opening the text would reveal only page upon page of meaningless gibberish. It had been days since I looked, and the action seemed pointless, but my agitation forced my to do something, so, sitting on my too-white bed in my guarded room, I opened the Babel text again. Random characters. I turned the page, and there, in the center of an otherwise completely blank page, sat a lone word:
hide
Almost as if it were all one motion, I instantly stood, slipped the Babel text into my bag, and stepped into the shower while swinging the bag over my shoulder.
"Lights low," I said as an afterthought. The ceiling light muted, and at first it might as well have been impenetrable stone, but my eyes soon adapted, my vision becoming just enough that could I see the room wholly, if faintly.
I stood watching the door through the gap between the shower curtain and the wall, waiting for something to happen. My focus never wavered, yet I almost missed it anyway. After a minute or two, there was a faint--shimmering--within the door, which I only saw and could follow because I was so intent upon the door when it occurred. I watched intently as the shimmering glided slowly from the door and to my bed. There was a faint rustling and the shimmering grew stronger as the sheet and blanker were pulled back, revealing the bed's emptiness.
Then, without warning, the shimmering resolved into an Eloh, its eyes blazing, its body spinning as it flashed its sword upwards in a dizzying arc of brilliant light. To deflect a sword of pulsating darkness as it silently roared downwards, seeking the Eloh's blood. Before the Eloh, probably passing through the door as the one before him had, stood a man whose eyes and sword of perfect, all-absorbing black, whose face cloaked in concealing shadow formed the antithesis of his opponent. "Nephilim," one part of my mind provided, tinged with fear. "Belial," provided another part, tinged with anticipation.
Surprise lost by both, they stood for a moment, each contemplating the other. The Eloh's face was cold, as were the faces of all the Elohim I had met, but his face was colder still, hard within its frame of dancing, pale-blond hair and brilliantly illuminated by the shattering suns that had replaced his eyes. Between the night behind his eyes and the dim light, Belial's face was all-but invisible, but my mind traced his aquiline features and the sardonic smile he surely wore.
"I suppose it's no use asking how you managed to penetrate this far," the Eloh noted, his manner distracted. Belial said nothing. "Well, no matter if you choose not to answer freely now. Once the Order of Purification is through with you, we'll know everything, you Nephilim scum," the last almost spat with pure vehemence and paired with a lightning shift, the Eloh's blade twisting around in a low, sweeping blow. The swords met with the sound of life becoming death. The Eloh's blade twisted away again with impossible speed, seeking upwards, thrusting forwards, but the Nephil's blade was there again, deflecting it with perfect agility. Another twist, too fast for the eye to follow, and the Eloh's sword of terrible light was swinging downwards, but again the Nephil's blade of shadow met it.
For a single, horrible moment, they stood there, swords locked. Sweat beaded on the nameless Eloh's face, while Belial remained the perfect emblem of impassiveness. Then Belial disengaged, his stance becoming offensive. For another moment, they contemplated each other, then Belial struck. His sword swung in a wide arc downwards, shimmering with shadow, leaving behind it swirling eddies of darkness. His own darkness flared as he swung, the black of his eyes and body encompassing his whole being as his dark sword came toward his foe with impossible power. The Eloh brought his own weapon upwards, blocking the strike. There was a flash of blue fire as the weapons met, then the Nephil blade carried on, the sword of light shattering against the sword of darkness. With a wordless cry on the Eloh's lips, and his suddenly unlit eyes wide with horror, the sword of shadow screamed into the Eloh's flesh, parting it from bone, and blood from the flesh. The Eloh slumped to the ground, then fell forwards, dead.
The Nephil's darkness left his face, and I almost gasped with shock, for he was not Belial. His blue eyes darted around the room. Then he looked directly at me and spoke, his eyes glinting dangerously. "Athena Daybright, my name is Ba'al, and I extend you greetings on the behalf of Lucifer, elected lord of Abbadon. I am here to escort you to his presence, and I will complete this mission whether you are willing or not, although it will be far easier to escape Elysia with you conscious."
With nothing reasonable left to do, I stepped out from the shower and stood before him, looking defiantly into his eyes. Looking back, he nodded then turned, and I began to follow.
end episode 5.