TC0

There was a thing Daughter already knew how to do when she came into existence: she  could send  pieces of  herself out  of her body. These fragments were like hot liquid  raindrops, yet each one was as heavy  as a  stone temple. In the void surrounding Daughter they expanded and cooled, becoming large frozen shapes which flew free  of Daughter's  body, yet  each shape  remained connected to her by  a thread  which none  could see. Not even Daughter herself with her surrogate eyes within the shapes could see this thread.

Daughter saw her body was a globe of light, and her surface was covered in jets and loops of flame which erupted into the void. In the distance she saw countless others of her  kind, but they were so dim that Daughter, who saw the way  her own light faded with distance, marveled how far across the void they truly were.

Daughter also saw  other  points of  light,  much closer,  that reflected the light that she herself made. She slightly fattened the link to one of her tools and let hot plasma flow through it. This plasma then escaped into the  void and caused the  tool to move. As it responded to Daughter's will she  lived through the tool vicariously, as though her  body was free to  move through the void. It had become a manifestation  in molecular chemistry of her nuclear chemistry self.

One of the lights lay at a distance a hundred-fold greater than the width of the Daughter's body. Her avatar dropped below the cloud layer and cooled off in a world-girdling expanse of water. When the avatar emerged from the  ocean it crossed over  a land thickly covered with  green trees. As she plowed through  the vegetation Daughter observed frightened  apes fleeing  over the ground using all four limbs to move.

Her avatar arced through  the void and  reached a  grassy plain with a single mountain dominating it. Here Daughter saw another group of apes that walked erect. She changed her shape to watch. Hidden from their notice as  a white rock, Daughter  observed a burial ceremony  for a  newly dead  hunter. Afterwards the apes polished elaborate bone tools with stone tools and repaired the animal hides they slept within during the hunt.

At night the apes entered a cave and a  tendril from the avatar of Daughter snaked in to watch them. She saw a female ape apply pigment to the wall to  produce a beautiful  painting. Daughter also saw resin boiling in a pot over a fire. This resin was then used to fix a stone spearhead to a shaft for hunting.

Her parents nothing about the creatures Daughter found. After a time she said, "It would be a small thing for me to reach one of the other suns and speak to him."

Father said, "No, Daughter, the  link to your avatar  will grow too  thin to  be useful  as  a conduit  for matter  when it  has reached the  distance light travels  in the time  this inhabited world you discovered makes one  full revolution. You could begin such a crossing  but you could never stop. We  rule our own near vicinity absolutely, but we can reach no further. If it were not so, even now I would be  preparing to cross the void and destroy all of these living creatures you have discovered with fire from my own belly."

Daughter said, "Help me  to understand,  Father. Do  you really wish to  destroy them?  Something within  me says  these strange living things are not our enemies."

Father replied, "Even if they are not dangerous to us now, they could become  our mortal  enemies in the  future. We  have found many  worlds with  life  of similar  kind,  but the  tool-making creatures you  have discovered are unique.  They are potentially dangerous to  us because they are  fully awake, even as  we are, guided  by their  own will  rather than  by their  nature. Given time, nothing would restrain such ones. "

She said, "Certainly these creatures are intelligent. Does that not make  them something to be  treasured by our kind  for their very likeness to us, and not merely cast away?"

Father replied, "If these creatures learn the lore of the Elohim nothing shall hinder them from doing whatsoever comes into their mind to do. How can they be  good students if they  prove to be unfaithful  servants? The  risk to  our kind  is too  great. Not immediately,  perhaps, but  certainly in  the future.  I can  do nothing  but block  your announcement.  Your mother  is in  full agreement. But this does not give us pleasure, Daughter."

Daughter said, "It may be true that I cannot  halt my avatar at another star,  but certainly information is  not so constrained. When my  avatar reaches a  nearby star I can  speak to him  in a quiet  place,  directly, and  speak  of  the creatures  I  found circling me."

Father was dismayed how Daughter, without recourse  to the lore of the Watchers, knew  a sun's  own body  filled the  void with noise, yet there remained  silent regions where  even creatures such as the ones she had found could make themselves heard.

Father said, "You are too young to understand the responsibility that has been  thrust upon  you by  your misfortune  of finding these creatures.  You have  not yet been  granted access  to the city of stars. It is the way  of our kind to introduce our young to  the other  Elohim in  stages,  after they  have developed  a stable personality. But after this  exchange I judge you are now ready for this  and therefore I will announce your  own birth to the  other  Elohim.  But  you  must be  willing  to  accept  two conditions.  The first  is you  must send  some of  these clever animals you  have found to a  world circling myself, that  I may examine whether  they are  amenable to  our control.  The second condition is  that you shall only  listen to the chatter  of the stars.  You shall  not ask  of them  the smallest  question. You shall not speak to them of  these creatures nor any other thing, until I myself announce the  existence of these  creatures. Our highest law will bind you to this Covenant."

To these conditions, Daughter  reluctantly agreed. So Daughter entered into a covenant with  Father to  speak no words  to the Elohim, and to bring a male and a female  of these creatures to Kemen for  a time of testing  before allowing them to  set aside their servitude and embrace the Elohim as teachers.

When she had carried out the letter of the  agreement, and even threw in an infant human for free, the avatar  of Father joined Daughter as she looked down upon the new garden. And she said, "Here are the servants, as I vowed, brought within reach of your avatar to do with them as you will."

But Father said, 'All you have given me is three creatures in a world that  will kill  them if  they try  to leave  their little farm. You must bring to Kemen forty more such families before I will hold our covenant to be fulfilled."

There is no native fauna in Kemen but some of the flora moved of its own accord and most of it was dangerous. A whipping tree can render a man down to a pile of broken bones and bloody flesh in a few  heartbeats. Some of the  leaves formed  clenching mouths with teeth. Thorny ball bushes rolled under their  own power by shifting their weight and  selectively gripping the ground. Most plants were deadly to touch. Daughter and Father toiled together to plant several dozen gardens in Kemen and  populate them with wayward couples brought from Earth through a shortcut in reality that any two Elohim could  establish. The first children to be born  away from  Earth came  to be. But many of the  colonists brought to Kemen died long before the span alloted to them, all killed by the  hostile  flora. Later, beginning  in the  first garden, the colonists even began to kill each other.

Daughter refused to watch Father's response to the first murder in Kemen. She returned to the tunnel  in the Garden  wall, and thence to the hillside cave on Earth where  the first colonists were taken. Daughter did not  return within  the lifetimes  of Adamu, Chava, Kayin, nor any of their children.

Father soon joined Daughter atop  the high hill and  said, "How very instructive of world-dwellers, would you not agree?"

Daughter said in  reply, "In  the other  gardens you  have made changes to their  bodies which persist in  their offspring. Your testing in Kemen is no longer pure. It has little bearing on the original stock here on Earth."

Father said, "Yet after the killing today it is clear to me your precious creatures will destroy themselves and leave nothing but ruins, both on Kemen and on Earth. Neither Kayin nor Hebel were changed as  you rightly note  I have done  in some of  the other gardens, yet Hebel now lies dead at the hands of Kayin."

Daughter said, "You would raise up thralls who hasten their own extinction, but here  on my own world I will  teach them to live together and survive.  In this I know I will  have their willing participation, while in  Kemen I foretell you will  only heap to yourself the resentment of your slaves."

Father said, "I have given thought to their  survival on Kemen, notwithstanding your  accusation. The changes I  have introduced will, over the course of time, make the males far more mighty of frame and sinew,  and the females far more  fertile and desirous to the  eye. Now lower your  center of gravity, daughter,  it is unbecoming a goddess to have her avatar fall on its face. And do not forget you must never make targeted queries of the Elohim."

Daughter did as her father suggested and seated her avatar upon the summit of a small mountain which overlooked a vast plain in the middle of one of the larger landmasses of Earth.

Father seated himself next to his daughter and for a moment they remained silent and simply took in  the view. "I envy you this world," he  told her after a  time. "How very much unlike Kemen with its narrow unfrozen band."

But Daughter made no answer, for she was already in contact with the City  of  Stars. As Father  had  cautioned  her,  it  was overwhelming. For many  years  her  silent  white  avatar  sat motionless atop the mountain as  the seasons changed,  as winds buffeted her and snows blanketed her.

Daughter learned how once  there existed aquatic  creatures who adapted to cross land when an ice age reduced their world ocean to scattered  lakes. The Elohim  were  delighted to  find  the universe looking at itself through other eyes. But the energies unleashed by the  creatures  hastened the  end  of the  glacial period that made them  tool-users and  they slowly  reverted to silent ocean-dwellers  once more. Collectively the Elohim vowed they would not sit idly  by as similar creatures  brought about their own extinction.

But Daughter's discovery of humans would  unleash scrutiny that Father was not prepared to endure. From the moment Daughter had spoken of them Father knew he must immediately tempt her mother Belial into the same transgression  as his own to  maintain his coverup.

The act of giving birth changed an eloah from female to male. As the ages rolled  on the  ratio of  males to  females only  grew worse, and courting became ripe for abuse. The only way for an eloah to speak with others  was through two umbilical cords that always connected to  her  parents, and  through  them to  their parents, and so on. But this could be abused. Individual living suns could be entirely sealed off from the greater community of elohim. Two male elohim could  set up  a secret harem  and take turns mating with each other's offspring. Among the Elohim this was called the Forbidden Way.

Mother's own mother Hod had  been one such trapped  female. Hod was granted full contact with the  city of stars in  return for mating with Father,  but there  was  a covenant  of silence  in force, and  breaking a covenant  was considered a  greater crime than even the Forbidden  Way. Yet if Hod only  knew of  it, he would  not  hesitate to  announce  Daughter's  discovery of  the humans to the city of stars as a certain way to bring about the investigation, judgment and death of Father.

Elyon found the sole path out of his self-inflicted trap. Belial was an orange sun very near  to the Earth, as  the gaps between suns go. Chesed was another such orange sun,  somewhat further away. Father arranged their liaison. In the mating eight ripples flew out into the void. It took nine years for the first ripple from Chesed to reach a wild yellow sun and quicken into a living and conscious being. The second ripple  from Chesed  arrived a month later. But Netzach was already well along in becoming the newest female member  of the  Watchers, so  the ripple  did not tarry. Instead, it continued on until reached a  very small red sun and began to quicken life there.

This sun and  two others  beyond it  were too  cool. The three red suns  formed  a  trap  for  the  six  remaining  generative sphere-waves. They repeatedly quickened  into newborn  elohim, only to result in a  stillbirth soon after. At the end of the mating Chesed, the mother of Netzach, had  become forever male. And Belial, having succumbed to the Forbidden  Way, allied with Elyon in maintaining the secret.

From old the creatures discovered  by Daughter looked  into the night sky and  saw  a  faint white  band. They called it  the Backbone of the  Night. Daughter was confident  that one  day humans would fashioned certain  instruments and they  would see the mist was really innumerable stars.

Two-thirds of these  stars  are  much more  cool  and dim  than yellowish Daughter and Father and Netzach, or  even than orange Belial and Chesed. They contained no stable layer within for a sentient eloah to form, yet they could host species of life more primitive than the elohim.

A distant ancestor of the  Elohim diverged into  three species. One adapted to the much cooler red stars and even colonized the ubiquitous warm brown stars that  burn, ever so dimly,  under a different principle  than do the  visible stars that  shine much more brightly.

A second species became adapted  for the brighter types  of red stars. By necessity they reproduced prodigiously, since a large flare would kill them  on the  time scale of  a few  decades. A third species adapted to claim the more stable  habitats of the hotter suns.

With much longer lifespans,  this third species  developed full sentience and, ultimately, established  a community. These are the Elohim and  the  oldest surviving  member,  whom the  B'nei Elohim named Yefefiah, is over 980,000 years of age.

And Daughter, filled now with the lore of the Elohim and noting the appearance of a newborn half-sister, thought to herself, "My own parents have become enemies not only of myself, but enemies of our whole kind. They have  fallen into the Forbidden Way, and now they  will strive to hide  the Students, or even  to destroy them if they  can contrive it." And this she vowed to oppose at every turn.

Daughter had been overwhelmed by sudden access to the chatter of the City of Stars, even as her father had warned, but over time she learned to  separate her  identity from  the truly  endless stream of information. Atop the mountain her avatar stirred to action once more.

When Daughter returned to full awareness she saw  the avatar of her father  waiting for  her on  the summit. She stood her own avatar up on its feet  and said, "You  are revealed as  a liar, Father. This  is not a  research project,  it is merely  part of your illegal  harem! You have  no intention of  announcing their existence to the Elohim, no matter how they behave. In fact, you are toiling to ensure they present themselves in the worst light possible, in the  event the Elohim do find out  about them, that you might defend  your coverup and have grounds  to destroy them out of hand."

Elyon did not deny any of the accusations  that Daughter hurled at him. He only restated there was a covenant and Daughter must abide by the terms.

She said, "Have no fear that  I will break our  covenant, for I will do  what my own parents  could not, and obey  every law and custom  of  our  kind.  You  and mother  have  fallen  into  the Forbidden Way,  and how  ver shortsighted of  you. And  how very unfortunate for you the  long-foreseen Students have appeared in this place and time. You know that one day these creatures which I have found will make such a noise that every Watcher will hear them, and  wonder how  they could have  evaded detection  in the very heart of  the City of Stars. Many Elohim  will question why the native sun of these  creatures remains unquickened, or if it is  quickened why  does  it remains  unannounced?  That, all  by itself, with  no breach on my  part, will begin to  unravel your transgression here. And that is what you should fear."

"It will never come to that, daughter. While  you were immersed in the chatter of of the Elohim this world made just two circles around yourself, but on Kemen  there was yet another killing. It is clear  your precious woken creatures  will destroy themselves and leave nothing but ruins."

Daughter replied,  "On your  colony  you  would only  raise  up thralls who  work to hasten their  own extinction. As for  me, I will teach my students to survive."

Elyon said, "And you can  only fail, since you,  as covenanted, must only listen  to the Elohin as an outsider  while I can make queries. This gives me a perpetual advantage over you."

But Daughter did not despair. Vowing to preserve the sentient creatures she found, Daughter knew  she would have  the willing participation of those she called the Students, while Mother and Father would only heap  to themselves  the resentment  of their slaves.

As time went  on,  the changes  Father bred  into  some of  the colonists made them sufficiently distinct that one time could no longer really be confused with the original  human stock. These were the elyonim. They stood two feet taller than men, and each individual possessed two  genitalia  rather than  one. But the species had not really diverged. Elyonim could mate with humans, and their offspring, called  nephilim, where  entirely fertile. Nephilim stood only a foot taller than men, but  they, like the elyonim, had two genitals. Where they differed from the elyonim was that their genitals were always one of each.

Father was considered the god of the elyonim, so  he was called of them by the name of Elyon. And Mother was called Belial, the goddess of wrath. Daughter, too, took on a name among the people of Keman, and was known simply as Bat-El, literally the daughter of God.

Every century a rock the  size of  a mountain smote  Kemen with enough force to lay  waste to  an entire  kingdom. In the main these collisions went unnoticed. Most strikes occurred on the ice sheets that  covered the  vast majority  of the  surface of Kemen. But if a rock struck the narrow equatorial band it would rain for many days, then freeze, and cover all Kemen in ice for a generation. Only plants that could spore would survive.

Elyon commanded they construct ships and stock them with enough food to preserve their lives and those of  their animals during the coming catastrophe. But few heeded  the oracles  of Elyon. Only in  Adan  was  there  built  any  ships. Scoffers amused themselves until the day a  dazzling blue-white light  was seen over the southern ice and rain began to fall in nearly unbroken sheets.

Forty days and nights it rained scalding water  until the ships were lifted off their blocks and carried by  winds and currents east to scattered points around the belt of Kemen. Then the rain cooled and began to fall  as snow. The ships slowly came  to a frozen stop.

Then Bat-El waxed wroth at both  of her parents. She said, "It would have  been a  small thing  for one of  you to  prevent the object from  striking Kemen  yet you  let it  come, for  no good purpose. Nought that  goes on two or four legs  lives outside of the ships!"

Elyon said,  "The   purpose  is  manifest.  You   saw  how  the faithfulness of the world-dwellers  burns like kindling but then quickly becomes unbelief."

Bat-El wondered aloud, "Why must the  world-dwellers conform to the will of the Elohim to demonstrate their uprightness?"

Elyon replied, "If you cannot discern that we are as high above these creatures  on the  Chain of  Being as  they are  above the things they cultivate for food,  then granting you access to the City of Stars was clearly just a waste of time."

Bat-El said, "I have time to waste. In due time even we Watchers will be surpassed by the world-dwellers I have found."

"In Kemen at least they will not have the  time to overtake the Elohim. I will give no warning of the next great deluge and they will all perish."

"Father, seven  Adanite ships  give  testimony  that the  world dwellers can remain faithful to your decrees."

But Elyon said, "The Adanites remain loyal to me only because I speak to  them directly from time  to time. Were I  to turn away from  them  for a  short  span,  they  would rapidly  fall  into unbelief and contempt for the Elohim."

Bat-El said, "Your familiarity has led them to see you as a mere chieftain, not a god. I propose a test. Release to me a colonist to raise up a people to me on Earth while I remain aloof."

"That would be a good  test, daughter,  and I will  accept your demand,  but have  patience! It  could be  centuries before  the Adanites fully recover from the Deluge."

Bat-El named this testing the  Second Covenant. She knew there would be no unannounced rocks from the sky until it was done.

She also knew that when  the plants  and animals of  Heaven and Earth multiplied, their offspring were of like kind, but not so alike as to be identical, and  this was proper, as conditions on both worlds were  always changing, and life must  change to meet this. This was built in to the fundamental principles of life.

Bat-El sought to create a living avatar, but the attributes she specified had never  been  fastened upon  by  any living  thing because such changes,  such as  the ability  to override  pain, undermined that organism's ability to compete with  others in a shared environment. The possible changes were also constrained by Bat-El's  desire  to  have them  manifested  by  the  living activity of the subject, once triggered, and to have the changes breed true in the subject's offspring.

Bat-El gnawed  away  at  the   problem  of  creating  a  living avatar for  eight hundred  years  following  the Great  Deluge. She used animals  similar  to humans  to  guide her  inquiries, before arriving at a  procedure that  could reliably  prepare a world-dweller for something akin to union with an eloah.

When all was in readiness Bat-El flew her avatar to the city of Salem far  in the west of  the lands held by  the Adanites along the narrown unfrozen ribbon that circled the girth of Kemen.

Outside of Salem's stone walls the angels of  the city rejoiced over a record harvest. But as the celebration of Hellberry Days reached a fevered pace something the  size of an engine  of war descended on blue flame heralded only by a terrifying roar that scattered the crowd.

The first Salemite to return to the pavilion was  not a soldier of the warrior caste nor one of the elders of the council, but a mere child. Yet this dirk proved more  valiant than  the adult angels who ran away. Curiosity had overcome his fear, and it so happened that Bat-El was selecting for curiosity.

The blast of the  descent uprooted the  fabric of  the pavilion tent and blew  it far  away. The young lan  stood his  ground, albeit at some distance. He was curious about the  object, but not eager to be  burned. A loud voice then  rang out  from the avatar of Bat-El:

Bat-El said, "Adanite child, if you are willing, draw nearer."

The dirk obeyed. He saw how by resting on six legs the avatar of Bat-El remained shoulder high above the  ground. Underneath the central pillar a round hatch dropped open on a hinge and inside this hatch were steps.

Bat-El said, "If it seems good to you, child, come inside."

The dirk squeezed between  two of  the six  white legs  to look inside the hatch. The central pillar was hollow. There was much light within, and also many ribs embedded in  the interior wall forming circular edges to be grasped. As the dirk crawled inside the central core the voice requested his name.

"I am Michael, son  of Jophiel the  glassblower," he  said, and noted how the hatch below closed of its own  accord. He climbed until the core flared out into a larger space with cushions and windows. Looking outside from there, the dirk saw only a handful of elyonim daring to draw near.

"Do not be afraid, Michael. I am Bat-El, coeval  with Elyon and Belial. I have much to tell you, but only with your freely-given consent. If you withdraw now,  your life shall resume as before. If you tarry, I  shall bear you to a far  land. The journey will be quick and safe, but the passage would terrorize even the most valiant of len, and there can be no succor."

Michael declared he would stay, which greatly pleased Bat-El.

She said, "You  are  bold  in a  way  that  belies your  years, Michael. Allow me to make you steadfast."

Several straps embraced Michael as though they  were alive. The avatar of Bat-El  ignited in  flame again,  and there  was much shaking. Michael was whisked into the sky far away from the city of Salem where he dwelt. But as the avatar rose a great Michael felt himself grow heavy and he began to cry. The young lan was brave but Bat-El spoke truly of the terror of the passage.

At the top of the arc  made by the avatar  the invisible weight suddenly lifted from Michael. He felt blessedly free, as though he were swimming in the air. The avatar of Bat-El turned until the white bulk  of Kemen  could  be seen  through the  windows. Michael saw the sky was no longer purple but  black, and he saw that Kemen was really a ball.

"I had thought it  to be  a ring, Lord,'  said Michael  after a time. "We  hear tales that  men have  crossed the West  Lands to arrive in the East Lands."

Bat-El said, "That much is true, Michael. The  unfrozen part of Kemen does forms a ring, do you see?" Michael affirmed this.

The avatar turned to put Kemen  and the two suns  out of sight. Michael saw countless stars. Bat-El said, "Know this, Michael, for it is of a truth: All the stars are but faraway suns."

After a short span of time the avatar fell  to Kemen once more. Michael began to feel his  weight again but his  mouth remained wide open in wonder. And he knew that Elyon, who had commanded the elyonim to memorize the Litany of Creation, was exposed as a liar.

Precipitation is greatest at the poles of Kemen,  where the two world-glaciers, north  and  south,  are miles  thick. And the glaciers move very slowly, grinding the  surface and underlying bedrock flat. Only at the equator are  temperatures warm enough to melt the ice. There at the  foot of long  terminal moraines large chunks of ice shear away and melt, the source of water for many streams and freshwater lakes.

Across Kemen volcanoes are born below the surface and burn their way through the ice. The ice caps give way around  the bulk of them and close  back up again to form rugged  lands in the shape of teardrops. In one such place, which abounds with geysers and boiling lakes, the  avatar of  Bat-El touched  down once  more. Anshar was the  name Michael  later chose  for the  hidden land after he surveyed it. So distant is Anshar from  the inhabited places along the equator that no angels had ever discovered it, thinking the Northern  Ice  to be  a  wasteland that  continued without bound.

When Michael  climbed  back  down through  the  central  pillar and reached the  ground  Bat-El  ordered him  to  walk a  short distance away. After he did so, the avatar begin  to shrink and change shape until  it attained  the  form of  a slender  angel of indeterminate  sex. The avatar  was  encased  entirely  in featureless  white,  even  the face,  which  remained  perfectly smooth with not even eyes to see nor mouth to speak. Yet see and speak it could still do.

The figure pointed across the barren flats to a dwelling made of glass and wood. It said, "Michael, there is only one structure in all of  this land and it  now belongs to you,  solely. Let us draw indoors and I will declare many things."

Michael agreed. He found that  when Bat-El  walked the  ground shook far more intensely than it  did under a horse's  gait. He said, "I am safe Lord, as you  said, I would be,  though it was every bit as terrifying as  you counseled. Reciting the Creation Litany as you commanded me did help. Yet now I see the Litany is false, and I wonder what other lies were taught to me."

Bat-El told Michael she was  the daughter of Elyon  rather than his son as the Litany taught.

The house was more glass than wood, built on a stony knoll with an outstanding view of the ever-changing fire torrents of Mount Anshar only two leagues distant across a pumice plain. But there was no  danger of  lava  engulfing  the  house. A great  chasm intervened.

In design the house  was merely  a single  room with  an alcove above the kitchen where Michael could sleep with some degree of privacy,  but there  was no  other  living soul  for a  thousand leagues. On the main level were plush cushions and a glass table of superior make. Bat-El required no cushion for  comfort. She simply seated her avatar on the stone floor to put its head on a level with Michael's head and began to speak.

"We call ourselves the Watchers.  Elyon and Belial  call angels and men their servants, but I call you the Students. Contrary to your scriptures I did not make your kind, I found your ancestors living in  another world  than this. It  was the  most important discovery we  Watchers have ever made.  World-dwellers are fully awake, even  as the Elohim  are, and  for this reason  Elyon and Belial fear you.  From the beginning they have  contrived to see you destroyed. Your very existence, if revealed to other elohim, will uncover  their hidden  transgressions. However  they cannot stay me from sharing with you everything the elohim know.

"But how shall I do it, Michael? Shall I lecture you and hope we understand one another? I have  found another way, but  it will require your cooperation. I am not like my father Elyon. I would not force you to accept the changes required.

"Your identity as Michael will not change, but my memories as an eloah will be added to  your memories,  and your memories  as a young angel will be added to  mine. My will shall be manifest in your mind always. You will become my living avatar, yet you will remain free  to act. In  that way  you would ratify  our joining from moment to moment. But you must know beforehand the physical changes cannot be undone for so long as you live."

Michael said he was curious about the  proposed changes. Bat-El touched a hand to Michael's temple and said, "You mind is like a cup that you filled with wine  during your brief life.  The new cup will have a greater capacity,  but the wine of your memories will remain the  same. Even when the cup is  gone that wine will remain, but not forever. Elohim have finite lifespans like other living things.  But that is so  much longer than the  span of an angel that I  cannot adequately express it to  you. Your culture never pondered such magnitudes."

Michael stood up from hyz cushion to stare at the volcano while he weighed the words of Bat-El. Then hy asked, "Following these changes you propose to make in me, will I look very different?"

"Not very different. Most  of the changes  will be  inside you, Michael, and  there will  be only  small changes  otherwise. You will have  two small white  horns as a  visible mark to  set you apart from the other elyonim."

He returned to kneel before the avatar Bat-El and said, "O Great one, let it come  to be as  you say, this  union of  elohim and angel. I am willing,  yet not so that I may push  my own end out to a time beyond all reckoning.  Let us join so that together we will both come to know many new things."

Lilith was a scrubby  urchin who  rose to the  very top  of the Fallen Angels gang because no matter what trouble she got into, she never seemed to actually get into trouble. This was a matter of her connections. Lilith was, after all,  the daughter  of a cherub, King Melchiyahu. In the hierarchy of Kemen Lilith held the rank of Ophan. Had she been male or  born in  other lands Lilith would have ruled a city or commanded an entire army.

In the country around Salem Michael when he  began preaching to the  angels  he confirmed  the  authority  of his  teachings  by healing many of their infirmities. Soon he began to draw crowds wherever he went, and the Fallen  Angels in turn were  drawn by the  opportunity to  steal from  them. But even Lilith  and her streetwise pickpockets  grew  captivated  by  Michael's  words. Michael promised no  paradise to  come  in the  future, and  he assigned no blame for the errors of the past.

Michael taught a quiet spirituality  of the present  that spoke directly to the hearts of yen. Lilith witnessed Michael healing angels with salves prepared from fireweed and the bark of vogul trees. And Michael said, "You have heard it said  how Bat-El is the  ungrateful son  of Elyon  and ElBelial.  But I  say to  you Bat-El is their obedient daughter."

After a time Ophan Lilith spoke of Michael to her father, but it was much more  than  the  new teacher's  words  and deeds  that impressed him. Melchiyahu also knew  his daughter  had stopped dressing like len, and  was again seen  of evenings  within the walls of the castle.

But word of Michael's healings  and his teachings  also reached the ears of the  avatar of  Elyon in Adan. He sent a noblelan named Zadkiel to be his eyes and ears in  Salem. He was ordered to assess the damage and staunch  the bleeding. But for a time Michael returned to his home near Mount Anshar.

The elyonim   of  Salem  continued   to  form  crowds   in  the countryside, hoping  to  draw  Michael out  from  his  retreat. Zadkiel found  them  ripe  to hear  his  own  teachings,  which contradicted Michael's doctrines precept-by-precept.

When the words of  the interloper  Hashmal Zadkiel  reached the ears of King Melchiyahu through his officers he was summoned to appear  before  the cherub. Zadkiel found  he didn't  rate  an audience  before the  actual throne. He met Melchiyahu in  his salon and was announced by the king's majordomo.

Zadkiel found the lack of pomp striking, but he  was too stupid to discern what it really meant. No armed guard was present to protect the Cherub save his son Melchizekek, who bore no visible weapon, yet  he was  in  truth  armed  with a  small,  powerful artifact forged by Bat-El herself that was called  at times the Killing Relic, and at other times the Golden Gift.

The Cherub said, "Lord Zadkiel? I have heard of a Hashmal in the city of Adan who goes by the name Zadkiel. And  yet you did not obtain leave from Prince Melchizekek to preach in our realm. You did not even  ask my daughter Princess Lilith.  Ophanim, both of them."

"Sire, I say this all due deference, Were I the  get of a lowly craftsman  like this  glassblower's son  named Michael,  I would still  have  leave  to  preach in  Salem.  Lord  Samael  himself commissioned  me, and  your kingdom  still lies,  no matter  how uneasily, within the Middle Lands."

"Were Lord  Samael  himself  to  come to  Salem  he  could  not pronounce death even for a  glassblower's son. That is my power, solely. The giving of the scepter is without repentance."

Zadkiel said, "Then  sire, at  the  very least,  I counsel  you restrain this Michael by fetters if not by death."

"Not in haste, self-described Voice of Samael.  My own daughter admires this young prophet and puts his words into action, which gladdens my heart in a way I cannot begin to tell you."

"Your Majesty, the ideas admired by your daughter spread through the land like a plague. Already the river of  pilgrims who flow to Adan seeking absolution ebbs.  The priests had to raise rates across the  board! Michael is a  dagger pointed at the  heart of the state."

Melchiyahu looked at hym with a mixture of  pity and amusement. Abruptly Zadkiel  realized  the Cherub's  purpose  in  limiting the audience to  just  two noblelen  in  this private  setting. Grandstanding was impossible. In a raw state his words sounded insane even to himself.

The Cherub said, "I will  listen to  the words of  Michael with my  own  ears and  judge  whether  they  are  a threat  to  Lord Samael's greater--" "Have a  care, Melchiyahu!" Zadkiel dared to interrupt. "I solemnly assure you the Lord will not hesitate to bring an errant cherub to heel through war!"

Melchiyahu did not grow visibly angry at the affront, though his son knew from long experience  that his father  concealed great wrath. The cherub only rose to his feet and said, "This hashmal I  leave to  you.  Remember, son,  that you  will  one day  rule Salem."

When his father departed Melchizedek reached into his cloak and brandished a unique weapon given to him by the avatar of Bat-El herself. He called it the  Killing Relic. In appearance it was like a gold ingot, or the handle of a blade. It was small enough to fit in  Melchizedek's hand. With a firm squeeze  a hissing black shaft emerged from the hilt  to grow as long  as an angel was tall.

"Say no more words in my presence," the  ophan warned, shouting over the noise. "You would be cut in twain even as you spoke."

To affirm the truth of what he said, he sliced the corner of the massive and ornate stone table before Zadkiel as though it were made of bread. The severed piece fell to the floor with a solid thump and did not bounce once. Melchizedek had not felt the call to demonstrate the Relic since  returning from the  other world after his failure with Abram.

Melchizedek allowed the black rip  in reality to  fully retract and he continued, more quietly. "A horse shall be given to you with comestibles to see you  to the first outpost thirty leagues east  of Salem.  Tarry you  there. A  herald shall  follow after Cherub Melchiyahu has heard this Michael preach.

"But you, Hashmal Zadkiel, must  never return to this  city. If your master  inquires, tell  him the Lord  of Salem  will gladly receive  an  ambassador  who  comports himself  with  the  basic rudiments  of court  etiquette  in the  presence  of an  Adanite cherub."