The Devil's Secret (21 page)

Three arrows ripped into Flying Owl: one in his side, one in his chest, the third in his neck. He fell to his knees, then into the dirt, and bled to death even as the battle unfolded around him.

Thilial screamed.

The events of the next several minutes were a blur to her even as they occurred. Thorn left her so he could partake in the battle. Blood flew everywhere, and most of the men died. Someone set the priest house on fire. Women and children fled toward the town exit as fast as their feet could run.
So much death in a refuge town.

Worst were the demons, brazenly shrieking at their human charges, maximizing death, earning every scrap of prestige they could wring from today’s events.

Thilial lay stunned, centimeters above the ground, able to do nothing but look on in horror. Wise Fox and Lanky Stride and River Fish and Weaver and Flying Owl and most of the other Real People she’d come to love over the past several months were all dead. This was the only world she’d ever known, and in a matter of minutes, it had crumbled around her.
If I die now, that would not be so bad. I’ll just wait here for the demons to kill me. That sounds nice. I’d rather not go on living after this. I’ll just wait here for the demons to kill me.

And sure enough, when the chaos died down, Thorn approached her. He floated above the myriad dead bodies below him, grinning, admiring his own handiwork. His self-important smile remained on his face as he halted above Thilial and gazed down at her.

All I wanted was to help you
, she nearly said.
Why did you do this?
But she couldn’t muster the will to speak.

Other demons encircled them. Thilial saw the eagerness for one last kill on every one of their faces.

Thorn laughed lightly and casually. He shook his head. “Stupid little angel,” he said. He reached down to deliver the final blow.

“Thorn.”

The sonorous voice was unmistakable. Every demon in range turned toward the giant silhouette emerging through the smoke pouring from the priest house.

Thorn straightened his posture. “Welcome back.”

“What’s happened here?” Xeres said. He took in the remains of Tugaloo as he approached Thorn.

“I had an opportunity to slaughter these people. I took it.” Thorn’s voice overflowed with pride. He looked every bit an eager young boy trying to impress an elder.

Xeres’s shoulders slouched, and Thilial noticed how haggard and tired he seemed. He gazed again at the devastation Thorn had caused. “Well done,” he said softly, with no trace of his usual majesty.

“Congratulations on your achievement, as well,” Thorn said. “Your return from the Sanctuary will be heralded throughout the land.”

“Yes. And what’s this? You’ve found an angel, too?”

“She came to me just before the massacre. I was about to kill her.”

“Hmm. Allow me.”

Thorn hesitated. He briefly eyed Thilial before nodding and backing away.

The demon lord loomed menacingly over her, blotting out the sun, standing taller than the trees in the forest. “Leave me,” he said to his followers. “I wish to end her life in solitude.”

Thorn frowned. The other demons murmured amongst themselves, realizing the fun was over. The gathering dissolved as they went their separate ways. Sulking, Thorn cast one last glance back to Thilial, then disappeared inside a billowing pillar of smoke.

Kill me, please. I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to live in a world with demons and death and sin.

Xeres leaned toward her. She closed her eyes and prepared for the end. When she felt his hands on her, she instinctively braced herself against a crushing blow. But the blow never came, and soon she found herself floating upright, her wings free behind her. When she opened her eyes, Xeres was already drifting back toward the woods.

You’re not going to kill me? Why aren’t you going to kill me?

“Xeres!” Thilial yelled.

The great demon lord turned to her. Even from across the field of bodies and debris, she could see the heartache in his eyes. Any visage of power he’d once had was gone. He actually looked like a child, lost without his parents in the wasteland that was now Tugaloo.

He nodded to Thilial, then waved a hand toward the town’s exit behind her, as if to say, “You’re free.” Then he floated off toward the woods again.

Thilial eased back up into the angelic realm. A hundred angels—not all of them local—waited there for her. They stared at her, and she stared back. For a long while, no one spoke.

Gleannor broke the silence. “How naïve must you be to try and help a demon?” She floated out in front of the other angels, right up to Thilial. “All they want is power over you. They can’t be helped. They aren’t capable of change. You are an absolute, full-blown fool.”

I know
, Thilial almost said. But instead she hung her head and weakly followed her peers to face her punishment.

God often walked barefoot about His House in Heaven, so Thilial did not hear Him approach down the path to the isolated bench in the gardens. Gentle hands touched her and massaged her aching shoulders. She lowered her face. She did not want to talk to Him.

“My child, know that I love you. You have done wrong, but I forgive you.”

“I should have known better. I will not make such a mistake again.”

She felt His hands leave her shoulders, and heard His feet rustle through the grass as He moved to sit on the bench beside her. Butterflies danced in the air around Him, avoiding the blue crackling of His electrified hair. Two baby pandas wrestled on the marble floor nearby. The breeze cooled Thilial, and the music of harps was soothing as ever. God had taken every measure to ensure her comfort.

She waited for the punishing blow.

“You are still young, Thilial, and have much to learn. Demons… demons were once just like you. Some of them do still retain a remnant of their old selves. A small sliver of the lives they could have lived had they not sinned against Me.”

Thilial nodded. “I was tempted to view them with compassion, and I was wrong. I am sorry.”

She still hadn’t looked God in the eyes, but she sensed His hesitation. His robes swished against themselves as He adjusted His position on the bench. “When I was younger, I thought that all beings could be controlled the same way: if I clenched My fist hard enough, they would obey Me. But this approach led to war. So I came to see that some beings require freedom in order for Me to rule them.”

He snapped His fingers. A jolly bulldog came bounding across the grass. It stopped at His feet, panting, slobbering with joy. “Angels, bless you all, are simple creatures. I say, and you do. You do not ask for freedom because you do not need freedom. But not all creatures are like you.”

God suddenly plucked a butterfly out of the air, right in front of Thilial’s downward-turned eyes. She followed His hand back toward Him until she finally gazed upon His radiant, holy face. The very sight of Him overwhelmed her.

He gently stretched the butterfly’s wing so she could see where He’d grabbed it. That spot on its wing was now clear, uncolored, and bent out of shape. “Some creatures, such as humans, will break under the stress of too much control. If you even but lightly touch them, they will fall. They require freedom. Their choice to obey is only real if they do so freely.”

God let go of the butterfly, and though it tried to flap its wings, it could no longer fly. It fell to the grass at His feet and fluttered helplessly there. The bulldog whimpered at this, and ran off.

God caught Thilial’s attention with a wave of His hand. He motioned toward the brawling pandas. “Some other creatures, such as demons, will only destroy if left to their own devices. They are too foolish to realize or care about the harm they cause to themselves and to others.” Thilial noticed some blood on one of the pandas. “What should we do with such creatures?” God asked.

Thilial thought for a moment, then cautiously said, “We should educate them. We should prevent them from harming themselves, and demonstrate to them why they are wrong. We should give them any resources they need in order to change themselves for the better.”

God shook His head. “No. We must give them total freedom as well. We must allow them to wallow in the misery they’ve wrought for themselves. It is they only way they will learn.”

“But if we give them no means to escape, and no knowledge that they even
can
escape, how can we ever hope that they will escape?”

“That’s for them to figure out, isn’t it? It is they who made the poor choices that led them to where they are now. So it is they who will have to find a way out of their predicament. Until they do, we must not let them taint our perfect Heaven. The only way to teach them how to live in our world is to deprive them of it.”

One of the pandas was getting too rough for the other, who backed away from the tussle. But the aggressive panda pounced forward. Blood streaked across the marble as the bears rolled atop it.

“Some angels ask Me why I allow suffering, or why I would send beings to Hell before they were able to become who I wanted them to be. But the answer, young Thilial, is that beings who refuse to think for themselves are responsible for their own problems. I love them, so I’ve given them the freedom to escape their suffering anytime they want—just look at Xeres’s virtuous choices in his Sanctuary. True freedom—the kind of freedom you and I enjoy—can only be granted in exchange for obedience and conformity. It is a simple fact of the world I have created.”

But could we create a new, better world?
a part of Thilial almost asked.
A world where the weak and foolish are not doomed?
But by now she knew better than to say such a thing. She’d experienced Thorn’s wickedness firsthand. She supposed that God was right. He was always right.

“Don’t worry,” said God. “Humans, at least, aspire. They will eventually come around.”

“Yes, Lord,” Thilial said. She had never looked at God’s world from this perspective before. She didn’t fully comprehend it yet, but… she couldn’t pull her gaze away from God’s eyes. Safety dwelled in those eyes, and strength. In those eyes, she knew she could find the fortitude to overcome the mockery she now faced among the other angels. With God’s strength behind her, maybe she could even overcome her own poor judgment and help God bring those demons who refused His salvation to justice. “Thank You, Lord,” she said. “I am Yours.”

God nodded His own gratitude. “My methods still aren’t perfect, but at least I’m still in control, and I can move all beings toward what is best for them. Will you be a bearer of My light, Thilial? Will you help Me save a world in darkness?”

It was as if He’d read her thoughts. Maybe He had, for all she knew. “Absolutely,” she said. “I am wholly devoted to You. Anything You ask of me, I will do.”

“You are My daughter, Thilial, and I love you dearly.”

He embraced her, and all her worries and pain eased away.
Flying Owl’s death will mean something now. I will use it as fuel. I will make demonkind pay.

The Lord rose. After a final loving nod, He paced away toward His other business. Thilial felt intensely grateful that He had seen fit to have mercy on her. She felt renewed.

As she stood to leave, she noticed some motion in her periphery, and looked downward to find the butterfly still flopping about in the grass.
Ah, how unfortunate.
In His zeal to make His point, God had neglected to fix the butterfly He’d broken.

The survivors of the bloodbath and of the pox took the bodies of their dead into the forest a short distance from the town. There they built cairns on the forest floor, one for each deceased Real Person: priests and rebels alike. Underneath the rocks, they put items that their loved ones might find useful in the darkening lands on the other side of the sky vault. Grasshopper placed a few arrowheads in Flying Owl’s cairn.

Will I see him again?
Thilial wondered. She wasn’t sure if she’d done her work well enough to earn Flying Owl a place in Heaven. The massacre, begun by Flying Owl’s own hand, didn’t help matters.

From Gleannor, Thilial had learned that the uprising had spread to other towns of the Real People. The priests were being slaughtered across the land, and soon the order of the Ani-kutani would fade into a dark corner of history. The people would be in control of their own future.

As long as I can show them the way of the Lord.
These people were good at heart. They, like the rest of humanity, would obey if given enough knowledge. Thus they deserved freedom. Thilial only wished Flying Owl and the others could be here to see that future. There must have been a better way to resolve matters than bloodshed.

Thorn perched in the knotted branches of the treetops, gazing plaintively down upon the mass of burials. Thilial hated him. Not only for what he’d done to her and to Flying Owl, but also for how he’d denied his true self.
If he refuses to think for himself, I’ll leave him to wallow in his own darkness.

Before long, Xeres floated down next to him. They watched the sad scene together, great wails of grief climbing the trees toward them.

“So much death,” Xeres said.

Thorn laughed, but the laugh came out forced, insincere. “We will spill enough blood to fill the oceans, to make mothers weep for their slaughtered sons and daughters until the end of time. You will be the greatest demon, and I will be by your side.”

Xeres stared at the death beneath him and didn’t speak for several moments. “Yes,” he said listlessly. “That is the plan.”

When Flying Owl’s cairn had been completed, Thilial journeyed back to the ruins of Tugaloo. The fires had been extinguished by rainfall the previous night, including the sacred fire. Today was the day of the Bush Feast Ceremony, yet no one had performed it, nor had anyone made plans to perform it.
Yet the world is still here.

More Real People would come to help the survivors rebuild Tugaloo in a separate yet nearby location. Thilial would encourage them through the whole process. And if demons interfered, she would wage a war of whispers against them so ferocious that they would kill themselves before daring to touch one of her charges again.