A War in Heaven

As I have been reading Paradise Lost for my lit class instead of grabbing interesting bits and pieces to store in my brain for the paper I have to write about it I keep fixating on the interesting ways it meshes and adds to my own mythology that I have created for The City 'verse.  I don't want to go into specifics, but have to say that I really appreciate Milton's vision of Hell.  I don't know if I will ever need to write a description of "my" Hell in one of my novels, but I do have Angels and Fallen Angels, and the War of Heaven is a crucial part of this world's secret history.  Having a picture in my head of both Hell and Heaven is probably a good idea, even if it is backstory that never makes it into a published draft of anything.

So, I feel like I have been talking and talking about writing, and not showing anything, so I am going to give you an excerpt of something I wrote.  Since we were talking about Angels and Demons, I will give you the prologue from a novel I have tentatively called To the Edge of the Earth.  Written during National Novel Month 2010, it isn't finished, which frustrates me, but I did get over fifty thousand words of it done.

He hung from the Tree of Bone, wrapped in layer upon layer of chains.  They were unique chains.  The Tree was the only place that they could be seen, for they were forged of two metals, one of heaven, and the other of hell.  He struggled, trying to get some sort of leverage, but the burn of the chain and the pressure on his wings made tears spring to his eye, though he refused to allow them to fall.  He gazed around at his silent companions, the still figures hanging from the Tree as well, a warning for all to see.  This is what happened to the children of Angels and Demons.  Hung from the Tree of Bone to fall into the eternal Delirium that came from its branches.  If he strained he was sure that he could hear the whistling of the wind at the Edge of the Earth.

"Whistling," he whispered, a silent giggle on his lips as his eyes slid shut.  The delirium was whistling at the edge of his mind.

"You shouldn't fight it," a voice said.  He snapped his eyes, one the color of liquid gold, the other the color of oil, open to focus on the being in front of him.  It was female, but she was no one he had seen before.  She had not been part of the mob of Angels and Demons who had brought him here, nor had she been one of those who had watched as his body was bound and hung.

"Fight what?" he asked after a moment.

"The Delirium."  She floated up off the ground with barely a flicker of her wings, she had eight of them, he noticed, one for each color of the rainbow.  "It can give you truth, if you let it."

"And then I would be lost to it for all time."

"Oh, no.  Not lost.  Once, this was a place of discovery, a place for sacrificing the self to achieve truth and knowledge.  Merely dipping into the delirium does not condemn you to it."

"Tell that to them."  She looked around at the other figures sadly.

"They are not gone, only lost.  Waiting for the one who would free them."

"And is that you?"

"Not I.  I am only a messenger.  What is your name?"

"I have been called nothing but Freak, since the moment I came into being."

"So, you have no name.  That means you have the honor of naming yourself."

"I am to be called Nighthunter," he said, his voice carrying an eerie monotone.  He shook himself and frowned a little.  He had not meant to speak.

"The Delirium speaks for you," she said.

"If you cannot save me from my chains, then why have you come?"

"I never said I could not save you.  I have the power to free you, but I do not have the power to save them," she said, nodding her head in the direction of the closest figure, a woman, her face slack, eyes closed, though she bore the tell tale signs of what the Angels and Demons called "half-breeds" in their more kind moments.

"Then get me down!" he shouted, breaking the stillness of the moment, though nothing moved.

"I will let you go on one condition.  Allow yourself to go into the Delerium, and then tell me what you see."

"Do I have a choice?" he asked.

"You will eventually fall into the delerium, whether you want to or not.  But if you let yourself go, then you will not be overwhelmed.  It will be easier to return.  But it is your choice to tell me what you see."

"Did you offer any of them the same deal?"

"No.  You are the first."

"Why not?"

"I do not know.  My Lord does not explain what he orders me to do.  He merely said that the time was nearing and that you were to be given the chance to go free, with this stipulation."

Nighthunter was silent for a long moment, and he felt what could only be his sanity fraying.

"You say I will return?"

"You will return, no worse for wear."

"Then I will do what you wish."

"Then stop fighting."

And he did, and color and light and noise flowed over him.

* * *

He watched.  He didn't know if he had a body, but if he did then he could not move it.  For a moment he was overwhelmed by the movement.  His vision moved, though he had not moved his eyes or head.  He was not certain if he had a head or eyes.  Then he saw the Tree.  It was the Tree of Bone.  But there was no one hanging from it.  He moved again and he saw the woman that had been hanging next to him.  She was carrying swords of fire and ice, and battling with three demons twice her size.  And she was holding her own.

He moved again and he was watching himself fight against one of his own kind.  A half-breed with one wing the color of gold and one wing made of bone.  Behind him lay an angel, four white wings, dead on the ground.  He moved again and he watched as a girl, looking younger than had any right to be in battle, but who could only be the child of a human and a half-breed fought against an angel and a demon.  He moved again, and he was close to the Edge.  The motion around him slowed, as if everything else was secondary to what was happening right here.  A boy, no a young man, was plowing his way through Angels and Demons on his way for the Edge of the Earth.  He would not stop, and he seemed to be unstoppable.  He had six wide wings that were acting as both weapons and shields.  A set of white gold winsgs, a pair of dark grey wings, and a pair of brown wings.  He leapt into the air, over the heads of those fighting on the ground, dodging those who fought in the sky and landed only yards from the Edge.  The dark field of stars beyond pulsing.

Between the Edge and the boy were an angel and a demon.  They stood side by side, as if they were friends, though Nighthunter knew that they were ancient enemies, Iofiel and Mihr, two of the leaders on opposing sides during the War of Heaven.  It was a memory that he had gained from one, or both, of his creators.  The boy knelt in the crouch he had landed on.

"I will pass," he said, his voice low, but full of confidence.  "And you should let me."

"Let you?  So that the Old Laws can be shattered?  The Old Ways lost forever?" said Iofiel, the male demon.

"I will set you free."

"Free?!  What you call freedom is only another word for anarchy!  I will never let you reach the Edge!" said Mihr, the female Angel.

"Then I will make you!"

The three of them clashed with a noise that caused the battle closest to them to cease.  They watched, knowing that the outcome of this battle would be decide all of their fates, and that none of them could interfere.

Ice formed in their footsteps and fire in the shadows as they fought each other, the two older beings barely able to hold the younger in his passion.

And then in a titanic burst of light and metal two blades met, one of demonic steel and the other an immaterial blade.  And they shattered.  And in the instant of hesitation the celestial sword struck the boy in the chest.

"You lose!" hissed Mihr.

The boy looked down at his chest, molten gold blood dripping and turning black as it struck the ground.

* * *

And then Nighthunter woke up.

"What did you see?" asked the woman waiting for him.

It took him a long moment to organize his thoughts, his mind lingering with the boy who had fought so hard until the very end.

"I saw war," he whispered.

And she smiled.

She pulled a blade out of the air that was nearly as long as she was tall, and sliced through the chain holding him suspended and as he fell to the ground the rest of them shattered.

He stretched his wings, one white gold and the other slate grey.

When he looked up, the woman was walking away.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

"I am called Titania, Angel of Light.  Don't die, Nighthunter."

And then she was gone.

(c) Robert Lloyd Erickson 2012