Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (17 page)

“None other than
Shaitan Himself,” Kaelus-Birch replied with a wry smile.

“You spoke with
the Dark One?” Mikal gasped. His wings rustled restlessly at his back, and the
uppermost pair half-spread in alarm.

“Not that I had
a choice, but yes.”

“You may know
more of the mind of our enemy than anyone, then.”

Garnet shifted
uncomfortably against the table and reached for a nearby mug of cahve, which
turned out to be empty. All of the housekeeping staff of the Iron Axe had been
directed to stay in the denarae camp outside the city walls for the night, so
Garnet raised his mug slightly and looked for who was closest to the kitchens.

“Michael?” he
said softly.

“Yes?” the Seraph
said, turning to regard him.

“Sorry, my
Michael, not you,” Garnet said. The Yellow paladin nodded and disappeared into
the kitchens for a moment. He reemerged with a large pot of cahve, which he set
over the common-room fire so they would have more of the potent, bark-colored
liquid on-hand. This promised to be a long night.

“Can we call you
something other than Mikal?” Flasch asked. “I don’t mean to give offense,” he
said hastily, “it’s just that, well, we’ve known our Michael much longer than
we’ve known you, so the name sort of sticks to him. It’s going to get
really
confusing, otherwise.”

Michael was
closest to Flasch, and he looked at Garnet questioningly, one hand
half-extended toward Flasch. Garnet shook his head, hiding a smile.

The Seraph smiled
slightly to show he took no offense. “You may call me Thanatos, if you must,”
he said.

“Death,” Marc
murmured.

“Yes, what
happened to Uriel? Why did he relinquish his position to you as the Angel of
Death?” Kaelus-Birch asked. He glanced pointedly at the crystalline sword
hanging at Mikal’s side, which the Seraph immediately drew for them all to
behold. The hilt gleamed like polished silver and was intricately crafted like
spread angel wings, but masterfully designed to be functional in its beauty. This
was no prop or show piece, it was made to be used in battle. The transparent
blade looked fragile, but they’d all seen the wounds created by the sword and
knew it could shear through steel like so much paper.

 “He
refused to do it,” Mikal said, staring fixedly at the scintillating sword as he
slowly turned the blade in his hands. “He cast down his sword and stormed out
in anger. I was appointed in his stead. Death. That has been my title ever
since I accepted this unhappy and terrible mission,” the Seraph said, his voice
melancholic. “It is not a position I relish, but it must be done, for the sake
of the higher good.”

“You were there
when we were attacking the demons,” Garnet said warily. “You slew those
paladins then.”

Mikal nodded.
“Ease your thoughts on one point, young paladin, for I had nothing to do with
your father’s brush with mortality.”

Garnet stared at
him, then nodded and some of the tension went out of his body.

“Wait,” Danner
said with an angry frown, “unless I’m mistaken, your mission here was to murder
virtuous warriors.” Mikal nodded. “Why?”

“Their souls!”
Flasch said, snapping his fingers. They all looked at him. “Good men go to
Heaven, right? When they die, I mean. So if you want to reinforce your ranks in
Heaven, how do you do it? You kill off good men, and I imagine warriors are
preferable to common shepherds, so when they die, you get a fresh new soldier
ready to fight.”

They turned to
Mikal, who nodded grimly. Their expressions all darkened – they had known some
of the men who’d died, and they had nearly lost one of their best friends to
this morbid doctrine of necessity. Marc had already reached this same
conclusion, as had many of the others, he suspected, but he’d shied away from
tackling the thought head-on and confronting the angel with his mission. One
didn’t simply accuse an angel of murder.

“What I don’t
understand is why it should be necessary,” Flasch said, frowning. “I don’t
think there’s
that
many more men with evil hearts than good in this
world, so why…” he trailed off, deep in thought.

Brican cleared
his throat as if to speak, but Garnet waved him quiet for a moment.

“Shhh,” Garnet
said, “don’t interrupt his strain of thought.”

Still apparently
lost in thought, Flasch calmly stood and crossed the room to Garnet. Before
anyone could say anything, Flasch deliberately reached out one hand and smacked
the Red paladin upside the back of his head, then calmly walked back to his
seat at the fireplace and sat down again.

Danner, Michael,
and the other officers of Shadow Company stared alternately at the two men for
a long moment, then abruptly burst out laughing. Alicia and Moreen – who was
sitting near, but not next to, Birch – joined in the laughter, while Birch,
Perklet, and Mikal looked on in silent bewilderment.

“Now, if that’s
out of your system,” Flasch said, and they all quieted, “I’d like to hear from
our new
friend
, the Angel of Death, why it is Heaven feels it necessary
to slay paladins to fight in their war.”

There was no
hint of mirth or playfulness in Flasch, and his words leeched the warmth from
the room brought about by his turning the tables on Garnet.

The members of
Shadow Company, who knew Flasch best, stared at him in surprise at the tone of
hostility in his voice. No one could think of a time when they’d seen the Violet
paladin lose his temper, or even show more than minor annoyance at something.
His perpetual light-heartedness made Flasch almost as unflappable as Michael,
who as a Yellow paladin exuded the virtue of temperance.

With a flash of
insight, Marc realized it had everything to do with the fact that Flasch was a
Violet
paladin. The Violet Facet embodied the virtue of piety – proper respect for
God. They had all just learned that the powers-that-be in Heaven, the
incarnations of
Goodness
, had authorized the wholesale slaughter of
virtuous mortals in order to strengthen their armies. They had ordered a
Heavenly assassin to come to the mortal plane and murder soldiers who had
devoted their lives to protecting the virtues and ideals of God and Heaven.
Such a betrayal would hurt all of them when it truly sunk in.

How would it
affect the faith of their friend Flasch?

Mikal shook his
head slowly as though denying something.

Guilt?
Marc wondered.
Responsibility?

“Heaven’s ranks
are not what you think or hope them to be,” Mikal answered finally, his eyes
flat and emotionless. His voice seemed odd as well – more detached. Admittedly,
Marc had only known the Seraph for an hour or so, but something had just
changed. “For centuries, we have held to a high standard of morality, admitting
only those we deemed worthy enough to have their souls reside with us in
immortal Heaven. Thousands upon thousands have been turned away, deemed not
worthy and sent to Hell to pay for the blemishes on their souls.”

They all
recoiled in horror, everyone but Birch, who looked out through flame-filled
eyes and felt the fury building inside him – fury that was only partly his own.

 “You fool!
What have you done?” Kaelus-Birch said, shouting. He stood and positioned himself
directly in front of the Seraph, who recoiled slightly, wings fluttering in
alarm. “You have doomed not only your own existence, but that of every living
creature in this world! Your negligence and elitism will be the cause of
apocalyptic death and destruction on a scale you cannot begin to imagine!”

“They’re only
mortals,” Mikal began.

Kaelus-Birch
roared in fury and struck the Seraph across the face with a balled fist,
sending the gray angel stumbling across the room. Mikal reeled and collided with
a thick support pillar, then straightened and looked at the demon in anger and
shock. His wings spread wide as he braced himself for a fight. The humans and
denarae in the room watched the scene wide-eyed.

“The Mikal I
once knew would never have uttered such a blasphemous betrayal against the
Almighty and those whom He entrusted to your care,” Kaelus-Birch roared. “Uriel
was right to cast down his sword, and you should have died before taking it up
yourself. What happened to you, Mikal? I may have been imprisoned, but I still
saw much of what went on in Lokka, thanks to Shaitan’s visits. Where is the
angel who led the Epiphany to this world? Where is the Seraph who stood alone,
sword and spear in hand against a thousand demons, all to protect a group of
mortal
children whose families had been slaughtered?”

Flasch leaned
over to Marc without taking his eyes off the two immortals, and whispered,
“What’s the Epiphany?”

“The first
recorded arrival of angels to our world. It marked the transition between what historians
call the Dark Ages and the Age of Lords,” Marc murmured, equally enthralled by
the argument before them. “Centuries later, they returned, and it was they who
inspired and recruited the first paladins, organizing the Prism to stand
against demonic cults and eventually the unholy hordes that were preparing to
strike against our world. Ancient texts mention they may not have been there
with the full sanction of the Heavenly Hosts, but no one’s ever been able to
verify that, until now maybe.

“Pay very close
attention here, Flasch,” Marc said softly. “This is history in the making, and
we’ve got trackside at the first meeting between an angel and a demon since the
Merging War, and it’s between two of them that haven’t seen each other since
the dawn of Creation.”

“You’re actually
enjoying this, aren’t you?” Flasch accused.

“Why, yes, I
am,” Marc said.

“I’m surprised
you don’t have a stylus and paper out taking notes,” Flasch muttered.

Marc blinked and
immediately began searching the room for an inkwell.

- 2 -

Mikal stared at
the mortal shell before him, boring through the fire-filled eyes to the demon
within. Even mitigated by the mortal host, Mikal felt himself drawn into
shaishisii
.
[15]

Since the dawn
of their existence, angels and demons had used the contest of
shaishisii
to determine who was the more powerful, and the lesser would naturally defer to
the greater. Even angels within the same Choir could usually tell instinctively
who was more and less powerful than they, but some were so evenly matched that
shaishisii
was the only way to determine who should yield to the other.

Beyond merely a
contest to judge strength,
shaishisii
could be pushed further, and in
some cases the more powerful contestant could dominate and control the thoughts
and actions of the lesser. Mikal had used a lesser form of such domination to
cause the mortals around him to ignore his presence when acting as the Angel of
Death. Demons used the practice to force each other into abject slavery, creating
what they called
dishnara
.

Millennia ago,
Mikal had been friends with Kaelus and knew he was powerful, perhaps even more
powerful than Mikal himself. The instinctive comparison didn’t seem to work as
well between angels and demons, and no one had ever even considered engaging in
shaishisii
with one of their immortal opposites, lest he lose control
over his actions to demonic impulses. Even Kaelus and Abdiel were considered
too risky by Gabriel, who had forbidden them to try.

Still, Michael
thought he’d had the measure of his friend. Now, however, being drawn in
through the mitigation of the mortal host, Mikal found himself matching his
power against the demon within, and what he found nearly staggered him.

Kaelus was more
powerful than ever before! The sheer force of will emanating from the demon,
even contained and subdued by the shell of mortal flesh he wore, was enough to
easily overwhelm the Angel of Death. The backwash of that power rippled through
Mikal’s
āyus
, and for an instant it was as though he was waking
from a horrible nightmare.

Something faded
away, and Mikal looked back on his recent activities and was both sickened and
horrified.

“What have I
done?” he whispered, looking desperately at Kaelus. The fiery eyes gleamed, and
Mikal felt the weight of his transgressions press down on him like leaden
weights. The very essence of his existence buckled beneath their oppressive
weight, and Mikal fell to his knees, his eyes still locked desperately on
Kaelus’s.

Images came to
him then, memories of intense pain and suffering. He suffered the aftershock of
remembered agony, and his body felt as though it were being rent asunder. Mikal
had never known pain such as mortals experienced it: mere bruising, broken
bones, torn and bleeding flesh, burning, suffocation, drowning, disembowelment,
and more. The tide of sensations threatened to drown him completely, until at
last he managed to tear his gaze away from the flames.

Mikal found
himself panting heavily on the floor, and still he could feel the lingering
pain in his body, like a physical memory embedded in his immortal flesh from a
past experience. He looked at Kaelus again, fearful of meeting his eyes, but he
forced himself to look into the flames again. This time he felt nothing – the
experience had seared through him and left him anesthetized to further
affliction.

“How much did
you suffer, my old friend?” Mikal asked.

“Not I,” Kaelus
replied, using the mortal’s body. “I was too dangerous to risk torturing, for
fear I might overpower my assailant and escape. The man in whom I reside, the
mortal
shell that has protected me, was trapped in the pits of Hell for six years of
our time. If ever you’re tempted to think of mortals as frail, I suggest you
think back on what you’ve just felt and ask yourself I you could have endured
the same.