TC0

0A

There was a thing Daughter knew how to do, although she did not know how she knew it. Daughter could send pieces of herself out of her body. These fragments were like tiny hot drops of liquid, yet each one was as heavy as a stone temple. These drops were hurled into a void surrounding her where they expanded and cooled, becoming large frozen shapes. They 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 own surrogate eyes in 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 how her own light faded with distance, marveled how far across the void they truly were.

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

One of the objects that shone only with reflected light 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.

The 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. 0B

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. Daughter's discovery of humans would unleash scrutiny that Father was not prepared to endure. Father knew he must immediately tempt Mother into the same transgression as his own to maintain the 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. 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. 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.

Keter found the sole path out of his self-inflicted trap. Mother 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 over four years for the first ripple from Chesed to reach a wild but cool orange-red 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, four months later, it 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. 0C

When her parents continued to say nothing about the humans Daughter found she said, after a time, “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 the elohim 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 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. 0D

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 the Elohim 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. 0E

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 woken 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.”

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. 0F

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, or even than orange Mother. They contained no stable layer within for a sentient eloah to form, yet they could host species of life similar to but 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.

Other suns were blue giants as much as a hundred times more massive than Daughter, far too hot to be quickened as one of the elohim. Once or twice in a century these stars died in a vast explosion that for a short span of time outshone even the entire city of stars in aggregate.

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. 0G

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."

Father 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."

Keter 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. 0H

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 Chemah, 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." 0I

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-E 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. 0J

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. 0K

"Do not be afraid, Michael. I am Bat-El, coeval with Elyon and Chemah. 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 hy 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.

To calm the dirk, Bat-El said, "Michael, rehearse the scriptures you been taught to memorize, from the beginning."

Obeying, Michael said, "Before time was, in a place that was no place, the principle of life had being, male and female, that life would ever seek the other and continue life. The maleness called himself Elyon, and the femaleness called herself Chemah. They drew together. A third was begotten, a female, whom Elyon named Bat-El. When Bat-El was full grown she asked, 'Father, what givest thou to be my inheritance?' Then Elyon, in reply, filled reality with ice. North, south, east, west, up, and down the ice was, without end. Elyon transformed half of reality from ice into air. He created the warm white sun to rule the day, and the cold orange sun to rule the night. Also Elyon patterned the sky with many lesser lights, and each day he causes them to tunnel beneath the ice to rise again the next night. And Elyon created a furrow in the ice. There he laid down soil and carved lakes and seas.

"Chemah also toiled for Bat-El's inheritance. She caused green growing things to fill the waters. But Bat-El was not content even with all these gifts. Then Elyon and Chemah vowed to create a paradise, but they would delay the giving of it to teach Bat-El patience. Elyon crafted rivers and rushing streams. Elchemah covered the hills woth trees. And Bat-El the beauty of the land, but she could not yet claim Kemen as her own.

"Bat-El grew exceedingly vexed, and wished her father dead that she might come into her inheritance." 0L

Michael paused his recital there, fearing it might anger Bat-El to hear those words. But the ascent was not complete, and Bat-El commanded Michael to continue reciting the Litany of Creation.

So Michael said, "Bat-El it was who created angels and nephilim and men. But he could not prevent some of his malice from passing into the creatures which he made, which is why they strive against one another to this day.

"And Bat-El did not take great care with his creation. From he beginning they were beset with many ailments. So Chemah taught the healing arts to the angels. Also Elchemah created cattle and fowl and swine, and she taught the angels how to grow and harvest greens and rice and wheat. And the children of Adamu and Chava were greatly multiplied in Kemen." But Michael could say no more, as the weight had grown so great that he could scarcely draw a breath. More minutes passed.

"Enough!" said Bat-El. The invisible weight suddenly lifted from Michael. He felt blessedly free, as though he were swimming in the air. The avatar of God turned until the white bulk of Kemen could be seen through the windows. Michael saw the sky was no longer purple but black.

Michael saw that Kemen was really a ball, and the suns did not tunnel under the ice. "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 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 Elyon, who had commanded angels 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. 0M

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. 0N

"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 Chemah 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." 0O

The words of Michael son of Jophiel when he had been made the living avatar of Bat-El in the days of Melchiyahu son of Gordiel and king of Salem:

"The One became aware of itself when there was a separation from Other, and there was Two. The interplay between the One and the Other became personified as The Third. The Third gave birth to all things.

"Know that The Third, whom the dwellers of Kemen name Bat-El, gives rise to things without effort, therefore she creates without possessing, and accomplishes without expectations of praise.

"Bat-El intervenes in the people's affairs only when it is necessary for their well-being, not from a whim, nor from a desire to demonstrate divine power.

"The spirit is fulfilled by its activity. The body is fulfilled by its substance. The people are fulfilled by living. The noble are fulfilled by good governance. The noblest king calls himself the servant of the people.

"When the palace is splendid but the harvest is poor and the storehouses are sparse, when the noblelen wear much finery and gorge on meat and wine, but they carry weapons because they fear the ordinary people, the city is far from the way of Bat-El.

"Winds flatten houses. Dams are silted up. Roads are washed out. Insects decimate crops. Vegetation grows to cover landmarks. The noblest king knows all these things, so he rejects the delusion that he can control the world.

"A moral code represses the people. When a king attempts to rule by intelligence he cannot anticipate every emergency. When he abandons rigid law and cleverness the people spontaneously return to good order.

"A storehouse filled with gold cannot be protected indefinitely. If you pile up great wealth in one place, it is the gold that will own you as you bend your mind and all your strength to make it secure.

"Diamonds are not essential for life, yet they are priced higher than any other jewel. Without water life is impossible, yet it is priced lower than any other commodity. The one who embraces Bat-El makes himself like water, dwelling in unbuildable places and treasuring simple things that are considered worthless.                              0P

"The great city that does not act toward its neighbors in an arrogant way has the good will of the smaller cities, and they willingly join the greater. The small city that does not resent its lower station enjoys the benefits of being united with the greater one. In the face of an enemy anyone can ally with the strong, but to ally with the weak takes true courage.

"With ten people, three seek long life because they fear death. Three seek an early death because they are reckless. Three find death because they seek to live their short life to the fullest. Only one neither fears death, nor hates life, nor worries that life is too fleeting. The yan who embraces Bat-El does not grasp life, so how can life be taken from her grasp?

"When hellberries flourish it is impossible to walk through them. When they store their juices for winter the way becomes clear again. Flourishing is not eternal, retreating is not eternal, but flourishing and retreating, taken together, are eternal. From the beginning the generations have come and gone in good order.

"Use honesty to rule a city but use deception to fight a battle. The skillful commander pretends he is incompetent. He makes his brigades appear to be divisions to demoralize the enemy and cause him to quit the field without fighting.

"When peace negotiations fail the skillful commander mourns as though he as already failed. When he obtains victory he does not gloat. The commander who is thrilled at the prospect of bloodshed can never enlist the willingness of his forces to endure hardship."

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. 0Q

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 Elchemah. 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 angels 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.

He said, "Hear now, dwellers of Salem, the divine law of our Lord Elyon, which shall be for you and for all the inhabitants of Heaven a perpetual decree.

"For this the Lord Elyon speaks against thy false prophet, Michael son of Jophiel the glassblower: 'Michael! You claim union with Bat-El in body and soul. Because you do not affirm your station as a commoner who carries only angelic blood, behold, I pronounce the penalty of death. You are doomed to die, for you make the lie that you are a demigod!'

"The men and women who dwell among you shall be servants unto the len of you, and none shall be set at liberty.

"Even as men and women are servants of len, both len and yen are perpetual servants unto Samael. But the jan, or the ambi, who are both male and female in one flesh, are an abomination to your god. They shall be cut off from all the lands of Heaven where Samael is called lord. If a yen gives birth to a jen or an ambi her own midwife shall strangle the abomination with its own umbilical cord, and the body taken to the Eyes of Samael as token of the husband's cuckoldry. Then the mother shall be put to torment, and the manservant of the household whom she names as the father shall be put to death.                              0R

"Four days are appointed with names after the names of the four great families. These are Saladay, Bellonday, Larunday, and Gerashday. Three days thou shalt eat, and on Gerashday, thou shalt eat a double portion. But on Elyonday thou shalt eat nothing, and drink only water.

"Four days thou shalt work. But Elyonday is the day of worship, thou shalt not work on that day, neither you nor any male in your whole household. On Elyonday you shall worship in the shrine. None shall be exempted. The old and infirm shall be carried to worship Elyon.

"This is the essence of worship: You shall give one-fourth of your increase to Elyon. The procedure for worshiping Elyon shall be to present to the Eye of Elyon your worship card made of crackerwood sealed in a leather pouch together with all the coin you earned on Gerashday.

"The Eye of Elyon shall inspect the seal, unwrap the worship card, and inspect the pattern of recent punches. If the punches are in order, the Eye of Elyon shall make a new punch using one of five different punches drawn by lots, a star, a square, a trian- gle, a circle, or a rectangle.

"And the Eye of Elyon shall store the worship card back in the leather pouch, add a seal, and return it to the worshiper; but the money hy shall put in the temple treasury. Yen, however, shall not worship, nor shall a yin be found in the Temple of Elyon nor any shrine of Elyon. You shall not not suffer a yin or doll to earn income.

"A lan shall count his son's income as hyz own for the purpose of reckoning the correct amount of worship due. But if a lan's worship card has a missing punch he shall be put to death for failure to worship Elyon.

"Fourteen years a dirk shall live under the absolute rule of his father. But in his fifteenth year he shall serve in the army of Elyon as one of the ishim for three years. If the ish has attained the age of eighteen years and has not advanced to the ranks of the malakim, he shall be discharged from the army. The dirk will be then fully a lan, and for so long as he live he shall be accountable to worship Elyon even as did his father.

"The malakim shall command the ishim by squads. When the malak has attained the age of twenty-one years and has not advanced to the ranks of the ravmalakim, he shall be discharged from the army and shall be accountable to worship Elyon.                              0S

"The ravmalakim shall command the ishim by platoons. When the ravmalak has attained the age of twenty-four years and has not advanced to the ranks of the sarim, he shall be discharged from the army and shall be accountable to worship Elyon even as do the former malakim.

"The sarim shall command the ravmalakim by companies. When the ravmalak has attained the age of twenty-seven years and has not advanced to the ranks of the erelim, he shall be discharged from the army but he shall be numbered with the Eyes of Elyon and shall lead len in their worship of Elyon for so long as he lives.

"Outside of the temples and the army the sarim enforce the decrees of Elyon among his people, and they enforce the decrees of the king insofar as they do not make the law of Elyon of none effect.

"The erelim shall command the sarim of the army by battalions and he shall be numbered with the Eyes of Elyon as inspectors. The erel holds his appointment for life.

"The hashmalim are numbered among the noble born of the angels of Heaven, equal in standing to a baron. A hashmal commands the erelim of the army by brigades but when erelim act in their role as inspectors in the Eyes of Elyon the hashmal holds no authority over him.

"When a dispute arises between two len among the common folk a hashmal shall be appointed to act as their arbiter and none, even among the great lords, shall gainsay his ruling.

"The princes among the angels of Heaven are the ophanim, equal in standing to a count. An ophan commands the hashmalim by divisions and appoints the hashmalim as magistrates in all disputes that go before law.

"The kings in Heaven are the cherubim, equal in standing to a duke. A cherub commands the ophanim by armies and rules in disputes among the nobility of Heaven. The giving of the sceptre is without repentance: a cherub cannot be removed from his throne but through death.

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 majordomo. 0T

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. For 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!” 0U

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."

After that Melchiyahu sent his daughter Lilith to bid the prophet Michael to visit the court in Salem and preach what he would, yet it was no sovereign decree, and Michael agreed to come only if the encounter was open for any of the people to witness. So Melchiyahu prepared the amphitheater where he thrilled visiting nobles with exhibitions of combat.

Lilith attended as well, dressed for once like an Ophan. These were the words Michael spoke in Salem as the white and orange suns sank in the west. In years after the sermon was remembered as the Sunset Discourse. 0V

"The thralls of Elyon are said to be superior to animals because he can control his own environment, but the Student of Bat-El is superior to the thralls of Elyon because she can control her own behavior.

"The thralls of Elyon are called famous, but the Student of Elyion sets an example by her deeds and becomes influential.

"Thralls of Thaumuiel accumulate many riches but cannot keep all of them safe. The Student of Bat-El has few desires, and so holds on to all that she has.

"The thralls of Elyon demand to see good in others, and attribute the cause of a tragedy to unbelief or a defect in ritual, but the Student of Bat-El is too busy mercifully addressing the needs at hand to render judgment, and she does not live for yesterday or tomorrow.

"The thralls of Elyon can do he wills to do, but he cannot even determine what he wills. The Student of Bat-El makes her own awareness of injustice the determinant of her actions. She diminishes the overflowing bounty of the corrupt to meet the needs of the impoverished.

"The thralls of Elyon put their riches and knowledge on parade, but the Student of Bat-El does not tell all that she has, nor all that she can do. '

"The thralls of Elyon will never admit error, but the Student of Bat-El considers those who point out her faults to be her greatest teachers.

"The thralls of Elyon speak only of the dead traditions of their longfathers of old, and by coercion leaves them in force, but the Student of Bat-El cultivates the new as the coin to buy her way, and she knows that fully half of a dialogue is listening.

"The thralls of Elyon may refuse to grow or merely say that he is willing to grow, yet in truth he lives only to quench his appetites that he might feel sated. But the Student of Bat-El does not remain idle; rather she grows, fulfills her passions and becomes joyous.

"The thralls of Eluyon value only that which he does not and can not have, and which do not multiply when shared. But the Student of Bat-El empties her purse and finds her heart being filled. She contents herself with those things which are possible for her to obtain. 0W

"The thralls of Elyon evaluate how much a yan is worth by considering only how much she possesses and what she might do to benefit hymself. But the Student of Bat-El looks to what a yan does for others and who that yan protects, for that is what she is truly worth.

"The thralls of Elyon consider yen vile and always falling short of his ancient standards. The Student of Bat-El extols her sisters over all existing standards because when yen do go astray it is always induced by the repression induced by those standards.

"The thralls of Elyon examine everything about who is speaking except her words, and hears only what fits his prejudices. The Student of Bat-El recognizes her own tendency to have a bias and tries to set it aside so that she may understand what is really being said.

"When a Thrall of Elyon suffers an indignity he mindlessly retaliates by committing another indignity. The Student of Bat-El knows the greatest revenge is simply not to be like he who did the injury. The greatest conqueror is the yan who has conquered herself."

Michael concluded the Sunset Discourse by healing many of the angels who came to hear hym speak and it was his sincere hope that one day the instruments and medicines he used would not be viewed as magic but as the mere tools of an artisan that anyone couls master.

Then King Melchiyahu sent word bidding Michael to come before the throne, but as with the Sunset Discourse it was not given as a royal command, but as a humble request.

After he entered the castle and drew near to the Cherub's seat Michael was announced by Lilith, who at her father's command was still in the temporary role of herald. No titles were given. It was known that Michael was a lan of the city, the commoner son of a glassblower.

King Melchiyahu said, "Your sermon refered to the Student of Bat-El as feminine. Are len excluded from your teachings?"

"Not at all, Your Majesty," said Michael. 'When I speak in those terms I wish to convey an image. A lan who embraces Bat-El will have a gentle heart and sees others around him as another 'I' yet he will retain his strength and his male nature, as he rightly should."                              0X

"My own daughter has always had a fierce heart, yet she has come to admire your teachings, and I am not the only one to mark how this has gentled her."

Prince Melchizedek raised his eyes to take in Lilith's red dress and he could not recall the last time he had seen her wear one. He noted how her eyes seemed to be drowning in Michael and in an instant he knew what was happening to his sister. He asked, "Who are you really, Michael?"

Michael drew near to Prince Melchizekek and said, "Your Royal Highness, for years you were not to be seen in Salem but only your father knew that you were in the other world searching for a man who was not content to worship the gods of his fathers."

The Ophan was stunned to silence.

King Melchiyahu said, "My son found a man named Abram, but Abram's loyalty to his own father's well-being exceeded any loyalty to what was, to him, an unknown god. Melchizedek found no other of his like, and when he returned he reported failure."

Lilith said, "I was told nothing of my brother's absence."

"Is it not some measure of who I really am," Michael said to the prince, "that I know what even your sister does not? Yet I will offer one more sign, one far more convincing."

Bat-El had no power to open a space-time bridge in Kemen, only Elyon or Chemah, but the Abram case remained a piece of unfinished business. Communicating directly with Elyon, Bat-El demanded the appearance of a link. A bubble grew to envelop Michael and through it Earth could be seen. Desert heat seeped through the wormhole into the Cherub's throne room.

Michael stepped out of the spherical mirage and said, "Ophan Melchizedek, know that the father of Abram is dead. Now I bid you to return to the other world and complete the errand your father laid on you. Tarry not to take anything that you think you will need on Earth. I will provide them for you myself."

Melchizedek seemed to be frozen in place. Hy firt glanced at Michael, then at his father, and he had nothing to say.

His father said, "Make haste, my son. Do as Michael commands."

So Melchizedek entered the ball of distorted desert light and seemed to shrink as he walked away towards Harran. 0Y

Elyon, as he had one once before when Melchizedek was sent to Earth, did not raise the bubble before snapping it shut, leaving a crater on the floor of the king's audience hall.

King Melchiyahu was suitably impressed by the demonstration. He approached Michael and dropped before him on one knee. But Michael bade hym to rise, and said, "Truly, Your Majesty, I am elyonim flesh in union with the one you call Bat-El. Your daughter has heard me say this. But for my part I call you the Students, not our thralls as Samael would have you be."

Hearing this Cherub Melchiyahu rose and said, "Lilith has expressed to me a strong desire to become your leading student, Michael, if you were willing to receive har. I deem that you would return to me a daughter none could gainsay was a fitting princess of this realm."

Michael replied, "When I used the word Students in the past, Your Majesty, I always had in mind all world-dwellers in general. I never thought to establish a school. Such would demand greater labor than just a few hours away from the castle every day. Would you, Princess Lilith, be willing to part with your father for years? It might be you would never see him again as a living lan."

"This I am willing to do so, Lord Michael," said she, "and much more: I would put the Fallen Angels at your command. But not, let me assure you, as thieves."

In that moment Michael needed no more persuasion. Hy had found willing allies in the ancient dispute with Elyon and Chemah, and he saw the utility of having some students who were servants as well.

Michael said, "Sire, let it be as you propose. I accept your daughter Ophan Lilith as the first acolyte of what I shall call the B'nei Elohim, the offspring of the gods."

Then he bowed deeply, a god-lan paying sincere tribute to a cherub-king, and the audience was concluded. Then the prophet Michael, in the role of tutor rather than preacher, took the daughter of King Melchiyahu under instruction as his disciple.

Then once more the avatar of Elyon was seen descending outside of the city. At Michael's request the king ordered his servants to stock the avatar with such greens and eggs and meats as would not long keep, for otherwise Anshar was well-provisioned with dry goods. 0Z

And Lilith's own maid-servants gathered what clothing and other necessities the ophan would need for an extended time away from the city, for not even Michael could foretell how they they should remain abroad.

Then Lilith was taken on her first flight high over Kemen on a path much like the shot of an engine of war, and Michael marveled that she seemed fearless, but such was her love and trust in him. They dwelt together at the house of Michael in Anshar, and he instructed her in many things.

And, as it would inevitably come to be, since both of them were young, and they saw each other to be comely, and were accompanied by no others, they came together to live as lan and wife.