Messiah: The First Judgement (Chronicles of Brothers) (43 page)

Marduk smirked.

‘All the fallen that were conquered are delivered to the Abyss, sire. To the molten core. As are the insurgents among the ranks of the wicked dead.’

‘My edict has gone out?’ He turned.

‘Your edict has gone throughout the penitentiaries of hell, great Majesty. There will be no whisper of the Nazarene’s visit to the courts of the damned. It is punishable by the Abyss.’

‘Well and good, Marduk. The missives are sent?’

‘The stygian missives are circulated to all the dread fallen, sire. The satanic princes of Babylon and Grecia – the principalities of Belphegor. To the fallen archangels of Astaroth ... The Thrones of Folcador, the Warlocks of Ishtar.

All the great principalities of evil and terror above the earth and under the earth gather for the dread assembly of vengeance, my lord.’

‘Tell Charsoc my winter palace must be prepared for their coming.’ Lucifer looked down at the lapis floors beneath his feet.

‘As soon as it is prepared, demolish this palace, that there be not one stone left standing – that there be no trace of the Nazarene’s presence remaining in my kingdom.

‘It shall be done, my lord.’

Lucifer put his hand to his head, running his fingers over the new growth of hair. They gleamed black with a malevelant evil. Vengeance.

‘Every trace, Marduk. When the council is over, the Nazarene will have ceased to exist!’

* * *

Jether and Michael looked up from the waterfalls of nectar, far beyond the horizon, to a lone figure who stood in the gardens of the labyrinths outside the seventh spire, gazing out towards Earth. ‘He is returned again from Earth,’ said Michael.

Jether nodded.

‘It draws Him continually.’

Jesus stood silent, watching the earth as it spun slowly on its axis. The lightnings and thunderings from the spires at the top of the mountain struck continually all around Him. His face betrayed a deep yearning.

‘He is torn,’ Jether murmured. ‘By two worlds – ours in the First Heaven, and the world of the Race of Men.’

‘We cannot feel what He feels,’ Michael whispered. ‘We have not been one of them.’

Gabriel knelt in supplication under the great willows. He raised his head.

‘I have watched each dusk as He leaves,’ he murmured. ‘He returns each dawn.’

‘He visits those who accept His sacrifice, who long for His appearing. He yearns for His subjects; He is their King.’ Jether’s voice was soft.

They watched in silence as Jesus walked towards the rubied lightning bolts that flashed from the secret portal that led from the seventh spire directly before the Great White Throne.

‘He goes to requisition Yehovah. He is touched by their infirmities.’

Jesus walked into the glorious source of the thunder and lightnings, His head raised, surrounded by an unearthly radiance, His face exultant with the rapture. Then vanished.

* * *

The Great Silver Battlements of the citadel of Gehenna glistened in the nine magenta ice suns that rose from the murky, cold skies above the ice-capped crags of Vesper in the Second Heaven.

The wild, barren ice wastelands stretched for miles, surrounding the great forbidding fortress. Freezing arctic blizzards and tempests from Mars circled the citadel continually, venting their fury on the alabaster battlements of Lucifer’s winter palace.

Gargantuan white vultures circled the bleak plains, their wingspans reached a hundred feet, their mangy feathers grimy with dried blood.

The menacing satanic princes arrived one by one in their chariots of the damned, each pulled by twenty dark-winged griffons. From Babylon and Ethiopia, Grecia, and China they came. From Siberia and from Persia. From Gog and Magog. Their great and terrible armies assembled on the ice plains of Gehenna to execute their bidding.

Thousands of the sinister Black Magi rode across the plains on their headless three-humped camels. Close behind flew the Witches of Babylon and the dread Warlocks of Ishtar on the backs of werewolves and dragons, their faces raised in ecstasy to the ice blizzards.

From above the skies they came – thousands of dauphin scribes with cloven hoofs, flying towards Gehenna, and from under the earth they came, Hera and the Banshees of Valkyrie, riding on Leviathan and giant serpents. The Wort Seers of Diablos and the Necromancer Kings. All across the plains, as far as the eye could see, the fallen were gathering.

Answering the call. To hold high court in the Dread Councils of Hell.

Lucifer turned from the window facing the great hall and smiled.

‘The disciples of hell are assembled,’ he said. ‘Let the gathering commence.’

* * *

Lucifer stood under the vast open dome in the centre of the Great War Chamber of Gehenna, his eyes closed, his robe blowing violently in the dark blizzards that blew in from the White Dwarf Pinnacles. The nine magenta ice suns were setting, and in their place rose the seven comets of Thuban, their flaming hoarfrost tails blazing above the bleak ice plains of Gehenna. Hundreds of ferocious snow hellhounds, each with six heads and glowing red eyes, patrolled the plains in packs.

He bowed his head, his arms outstretched, as six enormous black seraph wings extended from his spine. A second later, he was in the ornately carved high place of the war chamber, a thousand feet up. He stood, resplendent in his ceremonial robes, crowned with translucent rays of light in the carved horn pulpit that hung from the high place in the centre of the dome. His back was turned to the hundreds of thousands of fallen gathered in the war chamber. A great oration came forth from his lips. The sound was as the sound of celestial pipes and of flutes and clarinets and of every pipe ever heard in the universe. A discordant song of the damned burst forth from the host of the fallen in response.

The monstrous bells of limbo pealed, rung by the Banshees of Valkyrie from their perches in the basilica belfry.

Lucifer lifted his sceptre, his magenta velvet robes billowing in the violent ice tempests.

He turned to face the damned gathered in the great war chamber – the great assembly of powers of evil and terror – the rulers of the dark world. His intense sapphire eyes blazed fiercely.

The great prince of Babylonia stood. ‘We have heard, O great Satan, that your kingdom is plundered,’ his voice was spun like silk. ‘The Gates of Hell spoiled, the keys to hell and death purloined.’

He sat caressing the razored edge of his jewelled scimitar, an inscrutable smile on his face

The menacing Dragon Warlord of China stood in his robes of crimson dragon robe silks. ‘Word has reached us, the fallen, that your empire has been pillaged.’ His beady yellow slit eyes glinted with mutiny. ‘The crypts of hell are ransacked.’ He sat, folding his broad hands across his chest, fingering his great iron mace.

‘Word has reached us under the earth...’ The ancient leader of the Harpies flew before the throne, her body of a winged monster, her head of an ugly old crone. ‘...that your power is dissipated,’ she warbled, her wings flapping.

The Dread Warlocks of Ishtar stood as one body. ‘Persuade us, iniquitous Light-Bearer, dark seraph, that thy kingdom still stands,’ they hissed in their dark treacled, seditious voices. ‘Or should we choose another to rule over us?...’

The dark, subversive whispers raged through the assembly of the damned. The stooped Darkened Councils and magi sat under the high place, their cowled hoods concealing their faces. Marduk arose from the bench of the Darkened Councils and bowed his head in reverence.

‘You have been summoned to the Dread Councils of Hell, princes of darkness and great powers of the damned, by the one and only true king of this world, Lucifer, crowned Satan.’

Lucifer surveyed the assembly. The room fell silent.

‘A dreadful day has dawned in the regions of the damned.’ His voice shook with rage.

‘A day so dire, that none could conceive it.’

‘The Day of the Nazarene.’ No one stirred.

‘Golgotha,’ a voice whispered.

A great shudder of terror ran through the entire assembly.

‘Golgotha!’ the banshees shrieked, clasping their ears.

‘We lose our strength!’ the Witches of Endor cried.

‘Golgotha,’ The warlocks of Ishtar clutched their throats. Retching.

‘Golgotha!’ the Wort Seers of Diablos rasped.

Lucifer stood, his sceptre raised.

‘We would settle the score – we seek revenge!’ he cried.

The entire assembly stood to their feet as one.

‘We seek revenge, O Satan!’ they cried as one voice.

‘Draw and quarter the Nazarene,’ Hecate, the ancient crone, shrieked, her twisted green fingers clasping her throat. ‘Steep Him in wolfsbane.’

‘Boil Him in burning pitch!’ shrieked another.

‘Cut off His hands and feet and feed Him to Leviathan,’ hissed the Lord of the Warlocks.

Lucifer raised his hands to quiet the assembly.

‘No!’ he cried. ‘You will have your bloodshed later – I vow it. There is a more expedient way, but first...’

He cast his eye across the chamber.

Twenty-four fallen satanic princes, his generals, wearing black armour and golden crowns, walked before him, bowing deeply.

‘I seek for
loyal
followers...’

A thousand of Lucifer’s Black Horde stepped forward and sealed the great gates.

‘
Devoted
disciples.’

He nodded to Balam. Instantly fifty of his menacing Black Guard surrounded the great prince of Babylonia. The Shaman Kings took savage hold of the dragon warlord.

‘Throw the craven traitors into the Abyss!’ Lucifer cried.

Huldah and his Shaman Kings dragged the prince and the warlord through the rear hall, out to the ice wastes.

‘Wait ... I shall gift you with five hundred crimson-bellied dragons!’ screamed the warlord.

Lucifer looked straight ahead in contempt.

Their blood-curdling screams of terror echoed through the bleak ice wastelands, filling the chamber. Then a sombre silence fell.

Lucifer surveyed the assembly in triumph.

‘Should you choose another to rule over you?’ he whispered.

He strode down the hall, studying the faces before him intently, and stopped in front of the old harpy crone. Again he nodded to Balam.

‘No-o-o-o-o-o!’ she screeched as two of the Black Horde grasped her wings and carried her off. Her demented screaming filled the Chamber, then died away.

‘Who else casts doubt on me?’

One by one the damned stood to their feet all across the Chamber.

‘O fallen one, Satan, tempter, nemesis to the Race of Men,’ they chanted in unison, ‘we declare our allegiance. There is none so great as you.’

‘We declare our allegiance. We worship you,’ echoed the damned.’

Lucifer smiled.

‘I call upon Charsoc, dark apostle, sorcerer.’

Charsoc rose from his throne at the head of the Dark Grey Magi and bowed.

‘Mighty Emperor,’ he said, bowing again to Lucifer. He turned to address the gathering. ‘My revered compatriots of the damned, I recite the articles of Eternal Law: “If one undefiled from the Race of Men is willing to shed His lifeblood on behalf of the Race of Men, and become a substitute for judgement, the said Race of Men, past, present, and future generations, will be released from eternal judgement by the death of that one.” This is binding Eternal Law.’

Lucifer raised his head, a sinister smile on his face.

‘For those of the Race of Men ... only if they
receive
the great sacrifice.’

Charsoc nodded, his face ripe with evil. ‘Each time one of the Race of Men accepts the Nazarene’s sacrifice, he is branded with the seal of Yehovah – the seal of the First Heaven on his forehead – the seal of the Nazarene. It is a seal that denotes his transferral from the kingship of Satan to the kingship of Yehovah.’

Charsoc nodded to his liege Lord. ‘The seal is not visible to those of the Race of Men,’ he hissed. ‘It is visible
only
to those of the First Heaven and to the realms of the damned. It represents the shed blood of Golgotha.’ Charsoc surveyed the fallen. ‘It bestows on its wearer the same powers as the Nazarene.’ A ripple of horror spread like wildfire through the chamber.

Dagda, brother of Nakan, now grisly king of the Necromancers, stood up and lumbered to the front of the hall. ‘I have seen the seal only once,’ he croaked. His voice was thick with iniquity. He shuddered, clutching his black cloak to his cumbersome frame with his fleshy pigmented hands. ‘It smoulders on their foreheads like a hideous luminous furnace in our spirit realm and renders us, the damned, powerless against such a one.’

Lucifer paced up and down, his hands behind his back. ‘It greatly compromises our power in the realms of men. If a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million of the Race of Men were to wear the seal, it could decimate the realms of the damned.’

Sethunelah, the ancient leader of the macabre Black Magi stood. ‘The Spirit is not strong with the Race of Men.’ His voice was a soft nightmarish slither. ‘They are formed of the mud, and the dust of earth clings to them. They live by their minds, their souls consumed with the affairs of men. They do not comprehend affairs of the Spirit.’ He smoothed his black robes with pale bony fingers. ‘We, the fallen, must feed on their weakness.’