Fall of Lucifer (2 page)

Lucifer was all glorious, and all terrible as slowly he surveyed the valley before him. A thick red mist of human blood mingled with the reek of burning human flesh that rose unendingly from the valley of slaughter. Millions of massacred soldiers – Chinese, European, American, Arab, Israeli – floated next to drowned horses and half-submerged tanks and other armoured vehicles in a vast quagmire of blood and mud 1,600 furlongs long, all that was left after the assault of the massive 200-million-man army.

Hundreds of thousands of griffin vultures, their wingspans over nine feet long, blackened the crimson skies, circling the killing fields while massive swarms of raptors gorged ravenously on human flesh. On the outskirts of the valley of Jezreel, on higher ground, bodies, severed limbs, and decapitated heads lay in random piles.

A holocaust.

The eerie silence hung heavily over the valley. Nothing stirred but the blood-curdling screeching of the vultures.

Lucifer waded through the bloody quagmire, which reached up to his dark stallions’ bridles, towards higher ground. A smile of approval crossed his crimson mouth. Then, sensing a presence, he turned the war chariot around.

Several lengths away, at the edge of the gorge directly opposite Lucifer, a regal figure mounted on a splendid white Arab stallion surveyed the valley.

Michael took off his golden helmet, his long corn-coloured hair falling to his broad shoulders. His green eyes gleamed with nobility. He raised the Sword of Justice, his jaw clenched – the only sign of his blazing fury.

A wry smile played on Lucifer’s features. He turned and mockingly saluted. ‘Put your sword away, brother!’ Lucifer’s voice shattered the eerie silence.

‘It is not yet time.’

‘The Judgment hastens, Lucifer!’ Michael’s noble tones rang out across the valley.

Lucifer lifted his visor with one sharp movement. He pulled on his stallions’ reins, his impatience thinly veiled. ‘Even Michael cannot pre-empt what is written.’

Across the valley Michael waited, fierce, silent.

Bareback on his white steed, Gabriel came into view behind Michael on the horizon, his long platinum locks falling past his shoulders, his face and head uncovered, his silvered crossbow hanging at his side.

A fleeting vulnerability crossed Lucifer’s countenance.

‘Gabriel . . . ,’ he whispered softly. Then a strange, evil smile glimmered. ‘One for Eternity!’ he cried.

Gabriel drew a sharp breath and bowed his head.

‘Brothers!’ Lucifer’s cry echoed . . . tormenting. His eyes glittered black as he brandished the cat-o’-nine-tails menacingly. ‘I will annihilate the whole race of men before I am done.’

He drove the panther tails embedded with sharp steel violently onto the lead stallion’s back, drawing blood. The horse’s eyes flickered red, and he snorted in pain, sending flames and sulphureous smoke billowing from his nostrils.

‘I will take my vengeance!’ Lucifer cried.

He and his Mephistophelean stallions took off on the burning white crest of the black hurricanes and rode the thunderbolts, disappearing into the darkening crimson skies.

My tormented brother, Lucifer, you return my missives unopened.

The nib of Gabriel’s pearlescent quill pen scratched tirelessly on the heavy linen paper embossed with his crest, Prince Regent.

A full millennium is passed yet still you are silent. Our Eternal Father grieves deeply for you, as do Michael and myself.

We urge you to repent.

I know you think of me still, for even this past eventide your tortured countenance haunts my sleeping and waking hours. I rode this dawn across the lush golden meadows of the eastern plains of Eden you loved so ardently, and I recalled those balmy days of the First Heaven when we spent our moons in horseplay and swordsmanship – and triune brotherhood.

Gabriel laid his pen down and pushed the long golden locks away from his brow. A terrible suffering clouded his features.

‘And I remembered back to the time, before the shadows fell across our world.’

His voice was barely above a whisper.

‘When we were just brothers . . . ’

Chapter One

The First Heaven

100 Millenniums Earlier

The reflection of the twelve palest-blue moons glistened on the First Heaven’s tangerine horizon. Shooting stars and lightnings arced over the silvery crystal sea, the pearlescent white sand on the celestial beach shimmering, it seemed, into infinity. With each wave, clusters of luminescent diamonds the size of pomegranates washed up onto the glistening sands. Towards the eastern horizon lay Eden, its magnificent, lush hanging gardens and amethyst waterfalls barely visible from the sea’s edge.

A full league back, riding bareback on the crests of the foaming silver waves, a familiar muscular form sped past Gabriel, his white stallion straining forward. Michael, bare-chested, laughed exuberantly as he raced, his regal head raised, the flaxen hair flying.

‘Gabriel – the palace!’ he shouted, in sheer exhilaration as he raced through the frothing surf.

Gabriel’s white mare sped forward in the shallows until she was neck and neck with Michael, galloping towards the towering, copper-hued Cliffs of Zamar.

In the distance, from the western wing of the golden-columned Palace of Archangels, rising high above the western wall, a lone imperial figure watched the brothers race. He stood on the huge, ornately carved pearl balcony of his palace chambers, a magnificent black panther wearing a heavy gold collar studded with rubies pacing by his side.

The face’s sculpted alabaster features were perfect in their beauty. The wide, marble-smooth forehead, high cheekbones, straight patrician nose, and full, passionate mouth were framed by long, gleaming blue-black hair that fell past his shoulders onto his shining white garments. A golden girdle circled his waist; his feet were clad in gold. His deep crimson velvet cloak blew behind him in the breeze, the ruby-studded golden broadsword at his side. His head was crowned with a translucent light that seemed to dance in the angelic zephyrs.

Lucifer watched intently as his brothers raced on the eastern shores, his imperious sapphire eyes blazing a fervent blue, his gaze locked onto the two stallions hurtling across the sand.

Michael tore across the beach, Gabriel a full length behind him, through massive pearl gates two hundred feet high. The entrance to the First Heaven.

Their stallions thundered across the large, glistening diamonds paving the winding road to the stately, golden columned Palace of Archangels. As the racing steeds drew closer, the palace gates opened as if by an invisible force.

Lucifer slapped his thigh and smiled in amusement as Michael, in a final burst of energy, urged his stallion a full two lengths ahead of Gabriel.

‘Strategy, Gabriel – Michael’s strategy!’ he murmured.

Michael and Gabriel galloped through rows of grand white columns, past vast crystal orangeries, and drew to a halt in front of the eastern wing of the palace. Michael’s chambers lay beyond the grand halls. There he swam each dusk in the deep, balmy springs that flowed through the palace quarters.

Michael dismounted swiftly and strode up the gilded steps. He hesitated outside the heavy golden doors engraved with the emblem of the Royal House and, smiling, saluted to Lucifer on the balcony.

Lucifer lifted his hand in acknowledgment, his blue eyes lighting up with pleasure, then walked back into his palace chambers.

The vaulted ceilings of his inner sanctum soared a hundred feet. They were fashioned with exquisitely painted frescos – hues of azure and indigo, heliotrope, damson, and amethyst merging into magenta and vermilion. Spectacular panoramas covered the ornate carved ceilings of the chambers. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, in its yet future day, would be but a faded replica of Lucifer’s majestic
trompe l’oeils
.

The enormous rubied palace windows were flung open, and the sounds of the angelic orations from the Mount of Assembly echoed throughout the chamber.

Beneath the immense walls in the very centre of the chamber stood a huge, golden aeolian harp. All across the chamber lay musical instruments of every kind: lyres, lutes, psalteries, dulcimers, pipe organs, a collection of pipes and tabrets, fifes, flageolets, pan pipes, serpents, cornets, gleaming golden shofars of every description, chimes, and treble bells.

Lucifer leaned over and picked up his viol and bow, which stood upright in pride of place near the harp. He thrummed the viol’s strings as he walked back out onto the balcony. With his nimble, jewelled fingers he drew the bow across the viol’s bridge, his eyes closed in rapture as he played, supreme master of his instrument, in adoration of Yehovah.

Suddenly, a dazzling, pulsating light fell across Lucifer, blinding him and completely covering the pearl balcony. He dropped to his knees, the viol discarded on the marble floor, and shielded his eyes from the blazing light with his forearm.

Sheer ecstasy crossed his countenance. His brothers forgotten, slowly he dropped his arm from his face, his eyes gradually attuning to the blinding, iridescent radiance that cascaded down on Lucifer in blazing, shimmering light streams. He raised his countenance, shaking his head from side to side, bathing his features in the prisms of white fire, recklessly drinking in the intense brilliance.

Turning his face to the panorama of light before him, he bowed his head, lifting his arms wide to heaven, the strong, masculine hands spread wide in reverence.

‘Our Father . . . ’

The light intensified dramatically.

‘Creator . . . Preserver . . . ’

The shimmering increased tenfold, radiating from deep inside the vast range of the Golden Mountains.

Outside the palace, the outer brilliance of the radiance emanated from thousands of translucent, angelic forms and white eagles, which blanketed the vast golden mountain and the translucent Crystal Palace that rose thousands of leagues beyond the white, swirling mists.

Surrounding the palace’s perimeter was an immense, towering jasper wall, over one hundred feet wide and four hundred feet high, studded with clusters of diamonds, emeralds, jacinth, amethyst, jade, and lapis lazuli, all exuding their own dazzling light. Beyond the northern wall, almost completely obscured by the mountain, stretched the infinite onyx plains of the Mount of the North, the mount of angelic assembly, where a hundred million of the angelic host gathered in legions serving under the three great angelic regents: the archangels. The chief princes. Yehovah’s three mighty warriors and commanders: Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer.

Rising above the western wall was the splendid Palace of Archangels where the three brothers dwelt in harmony and kinship – a triune brotherhood. Michael, the chief prince and holy commander-in-chief of Yehovah’s angelic hosts, filled with valour, honour, and might. Michael, the warrior. Gabriel, the revelator – the youngest prince, filled with wisdom and justice and soon to be inaugurated. And the eldest of the three brothers, most adored of heaven, Lucifer, the light-bearer, prince regent, and Yehovah’s viceroy. His throne was second only to the royal throne of Yehovah Himself. Lucifer, filled with wisdom and perfect in beauty. The shining one.

On days when Lucifer climbed to the highest vantage point of his pearl balconies, he could distinguish the translucent Crystal Palace, carved out of one immense diamond and soaring above the mount where dwelt the twenty-four Ancient Ones. The twenty-four angelic monarchs, ancient governors of heaven and stewards of Yehovah’s holy mysteries – His holy elders, their white hair like spun silk falling to the floor, golden crowns upon their heads. Executors of His holy purposes.