The Shadowhunter's Codex (39 page)

A NOTE ON JONATHAN SHADOWHUNTER’S ORIGINS

While the story of the creation of the Nephilim is one that has been told and retold continually since that creation, there are several key details of Jonathan Shadowhunter himself that are, frustratingly, lost to history. His home prior to his encounter with Raziel is known only to be somewhere in central, northern, or western Europe, because at the time his journey was interrupted. David reports that their party was traveling east. Over the course of history almost every nation has made a claim as the home of Jonathan Shadowhunter; there was a powerful faction in the eighteenth century that believed him to have been a massive Icelandic warrior, for instance, though we now believe that theory is somewhat far-fetched.

A DREAM OF SHADOWS

Our only direct report from the group that beheld Raziel comes from translations of accounts supposedly written by David. It’s not known whether he wrote these accounts as they were happening or wrote them as memoirs later in his life. They are, however, the closest we can come to the truth.

In his notes David relates a conversation that, he says, took place the night before the creation of the Nephilim. The three travelers were camped in the forest. Several days before, they had met and fought a small lone demon on the road. They did manage to chase it off, but not without Jonathan suffering a deep, dangerous wound in his right arm. The wound was thickly bandaged, and Jonathan held his arm immobilized in a sling, but then, by the light of a small, almost smokeless fire, he unwrapped the bandages from his arm, and he said to his companions, “This cut is deep and long. The demons have put such a wound into the flesh of the world itself, which can be bandaged, but under the bandages it will not heal.”

Abigail agreed that this was true, but that the three of them, young and inexperienced, had little power to help. David remained silent, as was his preference, staring into the fire and considering.

Jonathan continued, “It does not work simply to kill demons. They damage the world by their very presence. They must be eliminated, the wound of the world bound and dressed so that it might begin to heal.”

He told them of a dream: “On the night that I pledged my sword to the Crusades,” he said, “I dreamed I stood in blazing sunlight, golden like the light of heaven, and my sword shone so that I myself was blinded. On the night my arm suffered this scratch, I dreamed differently. I had realized that the demons I sought would not come to me, in the light. They remained safe in darkness, and their power lay in keeping their secrets.

“In this dream I still held my sword, but it did not shine. Instead I crept through the shadows, which embraced me like a child. The shadows became not the demons’ ally but mine. When I struck with my sword, it was with silence and speed, and none but myself and the demon knew what had transpired.”

We cannot know whether the events that led to the creation of the Nephilim were destined, or were manipulated into place by Heaven, or just arose by chance. Whether the world would have been destroyed without Jonathan Shadowhunter, or whether some other leader would have arisen, is a matter for speculation. The fact is that in the hour of greatest need, Jonathan Shadowhunter did rise up and become that leader.

LAKE LYN

The next day (according to David), the party’s travels took them to Lake Lyn, in the mountains of Central Europe. The lake was not the glittering blue of today but a black roiling tear in the fabric of the world through which demons passed back and forth freely. Jonathan, David, and Abigail were attacked there by a swarm of demons, of some species we can’t now identify. (There are a few possibilities supported by different scholars, but all we have is David’s description—“very large, like a bat and a shadow, an eagle and a serpent, that towered over us like a thunderstorm.” Idiots. Obviously it was a swarm of Serpent-eagle Thundershadowbats.

Suuuuuuure

The party fought the demons back as best they could, but Jonathan was already wounded, and neither Abigail nor David possessed great physical strength. David tells us that Jonathan threw off his sling and bandages and fought valiantly through the pain. They held the demons off from killing them, but were overwhelmed. Finally the demons took all three into the lake, to drown them.

Fighting against his fate, Jonathan used what little breath he had to ask a blessing on the lake, to sanctify it as a place where things of evil, such as these demons, would not be welcome. He prayed, and his prayer was answered.

RAZIEL AND THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS

And Raziel rose from the lake, bearing with him the Mortal Instruments. All action ceased. Even the demonic energies of the tear in the world seemed to stop. In the forests surrounding them, birds quit their singing.

Raziel spoke, saying,
Be not afraid.

I am an angel of the Lord come unto you, Jonathan. You have called me and I have come.

Jonathan said, “Please, save my friends.”

We cannot blame Jonathan for not asking Raziel for a greater gift; indeed it is admirable that in such a moment he would think first of the lives of his companions.

Raziel lifted Jonathan, David, and Abigail from the lake and placed them on the shore. The Angel’s figure was human, but so large that he could cradle the three mortals easily in his palms.

Then he lifted his arms, and with a single great motion he flung the remaining demons high into the air. Jonathan watched them rise and rise, eventually fading to pinpricks that vanished against the stars. Then Raziel turned his gaze back to Jonathan.
I know your dream,
he said. Raziel threw them INTO SPACE. Awesome.

Jonathan was struck silent. He looked to his friends, and saw that they were not conscious but were breathing.

On the banks of the lake, Raziel placed the Cup, the Sword, and the Mirror, and told Jonathan each of their functions. Beside them he placed his Book, and he told Jonathan the function of this as well. With his finger he gently inscribed across the wound in Jonathan’s arm the first
iratze
seen on Earth. Jonathan watched in awe as his flesh again became unbroken, as if the natural order of the world briefly moved backward, and the pain of the injury subsided. He bowed his head and gave thanks. Then Raziel lifted the Cup and in it he mixed his angelic blood and the blood of Jonathan, and he said:
In your dream you saw a great truth—that to destroy the things of darkness, it is sometimes necessary to descend into the shadows to join them. You shall bring men and women into the darkness with you, and you will master the shadows, and you will hunt.

From now until the end of the world,

You shall be called Jonathan Shadowhunter

For you and your kin will drive the shadows of the world away

And you will make light in dark places

And you will be called Nephilim, as it says in the book of Genesis:

“The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”

For you will be of men and yet you will be of angels; both in one.

Raziel seemed less annoyed with everybody back then.

Dealing with humans for the last thousand years probably hasn’t helped his mood.

IDRIS

The Angel Raziel, in his generosity, had two more gifts for Jonathan Shadowhunter.

The first was the gift of
adamas
, the heavenly crystal that glowed with heavenly fire, that could not be cut or carved by mundane means, and the secrets of whose working could be found only in the Gray Book.
Demons will recoil from its power,
said Raziel.
It shall be the metal of the Nephilim forevermore, however much is needed.
And he presented to Jonathan a polished branch of
adamas
, the first stele.
With this will you draw the sigils of Heaven.