TCA

TCA The Watchers are born with a hunger to know. Even the children of elyonim, nephilim, and men annoy their parents with endless questions pondering their own origin. To silence the One, Keter said, “Your be- ginning was the result of my joining with Da’at.”

When Chokhmah probed the origin of her parents, and whether there lived others of their kind, Da’at said, “The elohim are a multitude beyond your ability to reckon. But it is our tradition to isolate a newborn eloah for a time before immersing her in the song of the City of Stars, lest you be lost in the cacophany of the many voices.”

Chokhmah could see the purpose behind that tradition. From the time she began to exist the One had known only the Two, and she knew them only as voices and also as an indescribable sensation that conveyed their unique identity without mistake. But she knew she did not yet have her own unique identity. So Chokhmah ceased her questions and set about to discover her own answers.

There was a thing she knew how to do, although she did not know how she was able to know it. Chokhmah could send pieces of herself out of her body. These fragments were like hot drops of liquid, very tiny, yet each one was as heavy as a stone temple, and they shone with a light that would blind a world-dweller after a single glance of one brief instant. These drops were hurled into a void surrounding Chokh- mah where they expanded and cooled, becoming frozen shapes as tall as trees. They flew free of Chokhmah’s body, yet each shape remained con- nected to her by a thread which none could see, not even with her own surrogate eyes in the shapes. Chokhmah turned to behold herself.

Chokhmah saw that she was a globe of light, and her surface was made of flames which erupted into the void. With the flying tools which Chokhmah had made she saw identical eruptions of flame, but each tool saw them erupt at different times, and she pondered this. Chokhmah reasoned that light must travel through the void at a sluggish pace compared to how fast it traveled through the invisible thread that linked her to each tool which she had fashioned. Or perhaps the threads were strange shortcuts that really had no length at all.

Then Chohkmah turned to face away from herself. She beheld the stars, and knew that she was seeing countless others of her kind, but they were so dim that Chokhmah, who saw how her own light faded with dis- tance, marveled how far across the void they truly were. She knew that two of those stars must be the bodies of her parents, though she was not yet sure which ones they were. Certainly none were very close, and Chokhmah reasoned there must be threads between herself and the Two like the ones that linked to her tools.

Chokhmah saw other points of light that looked like stars, yet they only reflected the light that the One herself made, and they were much closer than the elohim. Chokhmah decided to visit these objects. She 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 Chokhmah’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. This tool she called her avatar.

One of the objects lay at a distance a hundred-fold greater than the width of the body of the One. The avatar of Chokhmah dropped below the cloud layer and cooled off in a world-girdling expanse of water. When Chokhmah emerged from the ocean she crossed over a land thickly cov- ered with green trees. As she plowed through the vegetation Chokhmah observed frightened apes fleeing over the ground using all four limbs to move. She saw how one of these was taken down by a predator.

Chokmah leaped into the void and came down once more in another area of the object’s surface. She reached a grassy plain with a single mountain dominating it for many miles. Chokhmah observed another group of apes that walked on just two legs. She changed her shape to watch. Hidden from their notice as a white rock, Chokhmah observed a burial ceremony for a newly dead hunter. Afterwards the apes polished elabo- rate bone tools with stone tools and repaired the animal hides they slept within during the hunt. At night they entered a cave and a ten- dril from the avatar of Chokhmah snaked in to watch them. A female ap- plied pigment to the wall to produce a beautiful painting. Chokhmah saw resin boiling in a pot over a fire. The resin was then used to fix a stone spearhead to a shaft for hunting.

Chokhmah spoke of all these things to the Two. Here lived creatures who were awake in the manner of the Watchers, yet were unutterably different. But for a long time neither Keter nor Daat said a word to her in reply about the living things she had seen. Chokhmah wondered if her parents had revealed them to the other elohim. Perhaps they were of small import and suchlike world-dwellers filled the void.

Chokhmah saw that some of the stars had shifted in their position and in this way she reckoned their true distance. She said, “It would be a small thing for me to reach one of the other suns and speak to him.”

Keter said, “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 revolu- tion. 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.”

Chokhmah said, “Help me to understand, father. Something within me says these living things are not our enemies.”

Keter replied, “Even if they are not dangerous to the Watchers now, perhaps they would become our mortal enemies in the future. We have found many worlds with life of like kind, but the tool-making crea- tures 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.”

Chokhmah said, “Their very uniqueness makes them something to be treasured and not cast away.”

Keter replied, “I am certain that the risk is too great, yet I can do nothing but block your announcement. Da’at is in full agreement. This does not give us pleasure, my daughter.”

Chokhmah said, “It may be true that I cannot halt my avatar at another star, but certainly information is not so constrained. After all, I can speak freely with yourself and Daat. When my avatar reaches a nearby star I can still see, and use whatever I carried.’

Keter replied ,”I cannot imagine what good you think it would do.”

She replied, “My avatar will perform a fly-by of a living star and I will use gas I store inside it to remain pointed at him while I speak in a quiet place of the creatures I found.’

Keter was dismayed how his daughter, entirely without recourse to the lore of the Watchers, knew that a sun’s own body filled the void with noise, yet there remained silent regions where creatures such as the ones she had found could make themselves heard. He 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 been granted access to El Elyon.”

She said, “That oversight may be corrected any moment you choose to do so, father.”

Keter replied, ‘As Da’at once told you, it is the way of the elohim to introduce our young to El Elyon in stages, after they have developed a stable personality. After this exchange I judge you are now ready for this. But you must be willing to accept two conditions before I give you access to the City of Stars. 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 until I discern these creatures are safe you shall only listen to the idle chatter of the elohim. You shall not ask of them the smallest question. You shall not speak to them of these creatures nor any other thing.”

So Chokhmah entered into the First Covenant with Keter. Full contact with El Elyon was offered in return for helping establish a colony of the creatures in Keter’s system. But she could only listen to El Ely- on, never speak, not even to a sun she physically approached with an avatar.

A fierce prairie storm hurled lightning, rain, and hail. A man clad in animal skins picked his way to the base of a mountain once visited by Chokhmah, one that had been the home of hunters. His mate carried a child as she followed him and she also wore skins. The man found a cave in the mountainside to take shelter from the storm. The woman sat on a boulder and breastfed her child as her mate started a fire.

A noise other than the crackling fire startled both of them. The man moved deeper into the cave with a torch to investigate, fearing the cave was the abode of a bear, or perhaps even other men. He passed a wall that was covered with images of animals and hunters, evidence the cave had indeed been used long before. But there was also much dry firewood, which spoke of more recent habitation. He guessed the ones who lived in the cave were caught out in the storm.

The cave narrowed to a tunnel that meandered and grew lighter when intuitively it should have grown darker. The man was joined by his woman and her child. They reached another cave mouth deep within the interior of the mountain that revealed cyan bushes and a purple sky. A branchless tree resembling a whip stirred into motion and struck the ground before them. The whip tree grabbed the man’s torch and hurled it away, where it started a fire. The couple could not emerge from the cave entrance by reason of the whip tree and the growing fire.

The man and woman edged back into the tunnel away from the heat. When the whip tree caught fire it began to thrash more intensely than they saw it do before. They retreated deep inside the cave until the tree burned to a lifeless crisp, and returned when the fire abated. A black patch of land lay before the man and woman and continued to smolder. They stepped across the hot burnt soil and carefully watched for any movement. When they gazed back towards the tunnel they were startled to see it was set into a low ridge. The mountain was gone.

While the sun set a second brilliant light remained in the sky, tinged with orange, far brighter than any star. Still, it began to grow cold. The man used some of the smoldering embers to rekindle a fire in the tunnel entrance and returned to the other world to hunt game. So sup- per was two hares caught by Adamu and skinned by Chava, milk for lit- tle Kayin. In the morning they saw the burned acreage was already sporting shoots of grass that was a light shade of blue. The next day the grass was tall enough for the couple to run barefoot and free.

It was a whole new world. Adamu and Chava thought it belonged to them, solely, but that was not to be. A small herd of bison emerged from the tunnel and proceeded to eat the alien grass, driven by a tall figure in the shape of a man but without a face, blacker than obsidian. The figure carried a twin-headed ax to the edge of the burn where a native plant took root in the burnt area. It laid the ax to the base of the plant and chopped it cleanly off, then flipped the ax around and used the handle’s sharp tip to pry the weed out of the soil. Then the black figure interposed itself between the cave entrance and the human fami- ly and approached them. They backed away until they reached the perim- eter of the burned area. The black figure held out the tool and mo- tioned for the man to take it until he did as Keter bid him to do.

As the black figure watched, Adamu found another plant that was grow- ing on the edge of the grazing ground for the bison. He duplicated the actions he had seen to kill the intruding plant. Then the figure taught him how to restore the keen edge of the ax with a stone. The faceless man-shape returned to the tunnel entrance to be joined by the avatar of Chokhmah, which had become identical in size and shape and make, except that it was white. “Interesting geometry,” Chokhmah said. “The link to my avatar passes through our umbilical.”

The avatar controlled by Keter held up a black hand as he reflected upon it. He replied, “I find this strange mode of being even more fas- cinating, daughter. Liquid drops of separated star-stuff buffeted by electron clouds. So very slow, yet the combinations are without end.”

“Here are the animals,” Chohkmah said, “transplanted to a world you can reach with your avatar. that you ascertain whether they are a dan- ger to our kind. Now fulfill your oath, Father, and allow me to at least listen to the song and lore of El Elyon.”

“All you have given me,” said Keter, “is three creatures in a place that will kill them if they try to leave their small garden. I need forty more such families before you obtain access to El Elyon, as it will capture your psyche for many turns of this rock around my body.”

Chokhmah complied with all of her father’s demands to begin populating his chilly world, all without voicing an objection. It is a facet of quickened stars who might measure out their lives in billions of years that they have patience, and that to spare. Over the course of time Keter and Chokhmah planted several dozen gardens, and nearly a hundred human children had been born away from the other world. There had been many deaths, as the native flora was unrelenting in its hostility, but man for his part was the worst monster of Earth.

In the first garden the sons of Adamu and Chava reached the age when they should have wives of their own. Chokhmah emerged from the tunnel escorting a new woman from Earth while Keter observed from the cliff overhead. Chokhmah and the woman approached Kayin, who was harvesting vegetables. He bowed to Chokhmah and offered the best ones. The woman turned up her nose at the food. So Chokhmah ignored Kayin’s sacrifice and took the woman to see the younger son instead, Hebel. He was bar- becuing bison.

Hebel bowed and offered a stick with meat cubes to Chokhmah, who in turn handed the stick to the woman. She ate the meat greedily, perhaps instinctively attracted by the source of iron as fertile women might do. Chokhmah placed the hand of the woman in the hand of Hebel while Kayin departed in a rage.

Kayin seemed to bury his anger by making himself busy braiding native vines for a long rope. Near the time of the setting of the white sun Kayin paused to watch the woman preening outside and he looked upon her with lust. Hebel emerged to gather his woman back inside his hut with a haughty glance at his brother.

In the morning Adamu and Chava brought clothes they made for their younger son’s wife, but they ignored Kayin, who continued to make his rope. All day Hebel and his wife pawed at each other in full view of Kayin, who smiled calmly until he finished his rope, then departed on the one safe path that led away from the Garden. Along this trail was a whip tree which had not yet been cut down. It was bent away from the path and secured by a clever knot to a stump. The rope ended in the hand of Kayin, who meditated upon a new thing in that world.

Near dusk Hebel and his wife walked the path away from the Garden. Kayin tugged on the rope, freeing the whip tree as his victims ap- proached. The tree beat them into the ground. It broke their bones and bruised their organs. Blood flew from their mouths as they cried out. The whip tree only stopped thrashing when Hebel and his bride were not recognizable as once-living humans. Adamu and Chava ran up to investi- gate their screams and were horror-struck. Chokhmah and Keter arrived soon after. Rope in hand, Kayin glared at them with defiance.

Chokhmah refused to watch Keter’s response to the first murder in his colony. She returned to the tunnel in the Garden wall, and thence to the hillside cave on Earth. The avatar of Chokhmah did not return within the lifetimes of Adamu, Chava, Kayin, nor any of their chil- dren. She clambered to the summit of the peak a chief of the Kuwapi people would one day name the Island in the Sky. European trappers would name the mountain Green Dome. Keter soon joined her atop the high hill. He said, “Once more, daughter, how very instructive of hu- mans, was it not?”

“The outcome of this test was ordained by the conditions you set for it,” Chokhmah objected. “In some of the other gardens you have made subtle changes to the animals that persist in their offspring without studying them to learn how it could be done. Such knowledge could only come through queries of the lore of the elohim, which you still deny me.”

Keter said, “Nevertheless, you have given me the colony I demanded, so I shall carry out the terms of our covenant. 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 El Elyon, as you correctly surmise that I have done.”

Chokhmah did as her father suggested and seated her avatar upon the summit of Green Dome. Keter seated himself next to Chokhmah and for a moment they took in the view. “I envy you this world,” he told her. “How very much unlike mine with its single unfrozen band.” But Chokh- mah made no answer, for she was already in contact with El Elyon. As Keter had warned her, it was overwhelming. For many years her silent white avatar sat motionless atop the Island in the Sky as the seasons changed, as winds buffeted her and snows blanketed her.

From old the creatures discovered by Chokhmah looked into the night sky and saw a faint white band. They called it the Backbone of the Night. Chokhmah knew one day humans would fashioned certain instru- ments and they would see how the mist was really innumerable stars. Two-thirds of these stars are much more cool and dim than yellowish Chokhmah and Keter and even yellow-orange Daat. They contained no sta- ble layer within their core for a sentient eloah to form, yet they could host one of the two species of stellar 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 princi- ple than do the visible stars which shine much more brightly. A second species became adapted for the brighter types of red-orange stars. By necessity these two species reproduced prodigiously, since a large flare would kill them on the time scale of just a few decades.

A third species adapted to claim the more stable habitats of the or- ange and yellow suns. With much longer lifespans, this third species developed full sentience and ultimately formed a community. These are the elohim. The oldest surviving member, named Yefefiah, is over 980,000 years of age, nearly as old as the species itself. The elohim suspect some individuals among them might live for several billion years.

Other suns were blue giants which were as much as a hundred times more massive than Chokhmah, far too hot to be quickened as one of the elo- him. These stars existed for only a relatively brief time and died in a vast explosion that for a short span of time outshone even El Elyon.

From the way Keter had spoken of this El Elyon before Chokhmah was granted access to the greater community of her kind she assumed he was a powerful lawgiver among the elohim, or perhaps even a deity. Now she knew El Elyon was nothing more than all the elohim in aggregate.

Early in the existence of El Elyon, long before Chokhmah encountered Earth, another world with sentient life was known to the elohim. They were aquatic creatures who adapted to cross land when an ice age re- duced their shallow world ocean to scattered lakes. El Elyon took de- light to find the universe looking at itself through different eyes, but the energies unleashed by the creatures hastened the end of the glacial period that made them tool-users. When their ice caps melted the elohim watched them revert to silent ocean-dwellers once more.

On ten occasions the elohim detected evidence coming from civiliza- tions somewhere beyond the reach of El Elyon. In every case the evi- dence faded in a few centuries, sometimes as a gradual change to more efficient forms of communication, other times far more abruptly. More frequently a young eloah exploring her own neighborhood ran across the ruins of an extinct culture which had attained sufficient knowledge to reach beyond the world of their birth. Frequently an echo of these creatures lived on in the machines they left behind.

It was inevitable that the elohim must cross paths with similar life once more, but in the next occurance, it was collectively vowed, the elohim would not sit idly by as the creatures brought about their own extinction. They would be made aware of the dangers. For El Elyon knew how truly rare was life, and therefore dear, even life which was so different from themselves. The Watchers had long looked ahead to the coming of the Students, and now Chokhmah had found them, yet Keter refused to pass along to El Elyon his daughter’s observations.

But Keter was not Chokhmah’s only parent.

Da’at could reach El Elyon through the eloah named Hod. Chokhmah’s discovery would unleash scrutiny from El Elyon that Keter was unpre- pared to endure. Keter knew he must immediately tempt Da’at into the same transgression as his own to ensure his silence. And Chokhmah learned the nature of that offense.

The act of giving birth changed an eloah from female to male. This normally happened within a span of time similar to a single human lifetime, yet few Watchers have died a natural death. For every female among the elohim there were countless males vying for them. As the ages rolled on this only grew worse, and courting among the Watchers became ripe for abuse.

The only way for an eloah to speak with others was through two umbili- cal cords that always connected a Watcher to his parents, and through them to their parents, and so on. Individual living suns could be en- tirely sealed off from the greater community of elohim. Two male elo- him could conspire to set up a kind of harem. They could take turns mating with each other’s offspring as Keter had done with Daat to con- ceive Chohkmah. This was considered a great crime by a majority of the Watchers.

Daat’s mother Hod had been one of those trapped females. She was al- lowed back to full contact with the City of Stars in return for mating with Keter, but there was a covenant of silence in force. Hod was en- joined from speaking of his captivity up the chain to El Elyon, but nothing stopped him from complaining of this state of affairs down the chain to Da’at and thus also to Chokhmah.

Hod was not aware of Chokhmah’s existence.

Nothing would forbid Hod of speaking of the Students, if only he knew of them. Chokhmah longed to speak to Hod of them, but access to El Elyon impressed upon her that breaking a covenant, no matter how tri- fling, was considered the greatest crime by all of the elohim.

Da’at did not yet speak of the Students to Hod, by Keter’s request, but there was no binding covenant in place ensuring Da’at must remain permanently silent about them, and Keter had nothing to offer that might bring Da’at into such a covenant.

Keter knew Hod would quite enjoy announcing the discovery of the Stu- dents to El Elyon as a certain way to bring about the judgment and unnatural death of her father Gevurah and mother Keter, the elohim who had imprisoned him, without violating the pact that still existed be- tween them.

With time pressing, Keter found the sole path out of his trap.

Daat was an orange sun very near to the Earth, as the gaps between suns go. Chesed was another such orange sun, somewhat further away. Keter arranged their liaison and Daat mated with her fully aware that he was guilty of breaking the highest law of the elohim.

In the mating of elohim eight ripples fly 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 al- ready 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.

But this sun and two others beyond it were too cool. The three red suns formed a trap for the six remaining generative waves. They re- peatedly 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 Chokhmah, 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 strive to hide the Students, or even to destroy them if they can contrive it.’

Chokhmah had been overwhelmed by sudden access to the chatter of El Elyon, 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 Chokh- mah returned to full awareness she saw Keter waiting for her on the summit. “You are a liar, Father. Your colony is not a research opera- tion, merely a way to continue covering up your harem!”

Keter did not deny that. He only restated there was a covenant and Chokhmah must abide by the terms.

Chokhmah 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 El Elyon. But one day these creatures will make such a noise that every Watcher will hear them. That is what you should fear.”

“It will never come to that, daughter. While you were immersed in the lore of El Elyon this world made two circles around yourself, and there was another killing. It is clear your precious woken creatures will destroy themselves and leave nothing but ruins.”

Chokhmah replied, “In your own colony you would raise up thralls who work to hasten their own extinction, but as for myself, here, I will teach the Students to survive.”

Keter said, “You can do nothing but fail, since you can only listen to El Elyon as an outsider while I can make targeted queries.”

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

In Mesopotamia, Chokhmah caused a temple to be erected around her end of the celestial bridge. No one was ever seen to return from the sac- rificial chamber so priests sent criminals through, but Chokhmah de- creed that virgin females also be sacrificed.

Heaven is cooler than most of the Earthborn find to be ideal. Only a single narrow belt of land remained unfrozen, drained by a river that arose in the high mountains far in the west of the lands later claimed by the Brown Beards of the kingdom of Larund. As it made the circuit east the World River lost five miles in elevation before it reached the largest body of water in Heaven. The sea of Thalury was con- strained by a cliff nearly four miles high forming the western bulwark of the uplands where the river was born.

Several times a year a rock the size of a hill smote Heaven with a blast sufficient to destroy a walled city. But every century a rock the size of a mountain smote Heaven with enough force to lay waste to an entire kingdom. In the main these collisions went unnoticed. Most strikes occurred on the uninhabited ice sheets that covered the vast majority of the surface of Heaven. But if a large rock struck the band where the ice terminated it would rain for many days, then freeze, and cover all Heaven in ice for a whole generation. Only plants that could spore would survive.

Keter commanded the inhabitants of Heaven to construct ships and stock them with enough food to preserve their lives and those of their ani- mals during the coming catastrophe. But few heeded the oracles of Ket- er. In Adan an entire forest was denuded to build forty ships, which became the first novelty architecture in Heaven. Scoffers amused them- selves until the very 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 Adanite ships were lifted off their blocks and carried by winds and currents east to scattered points around the belt of Heaven. Then the rain cooled and began to fall as snow. The ships slowly came to a frozen stop.

Then Chokhmah 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 Heaven yet you let it come, for no good purpose. And now, nought that goes on two or four legs lives outside of the ships!”

Keter said, “The purpose is manifest. You saw how the faithfulness of the world-dwellers burns like kindling but then quickly becomes unbe- lief.”

Chokhmah said, “Why must the world-dwellers conform to the will of the elohim to demonstrate uprightness?”

Keter 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 cul- tivate for food, then granting you access to El Elyon was a waste of time.”

Chokhmah calmly predicted that in time even El Elyon would be sur- passed by the world-dwellers.

Keter said, “In Heaven at least they will not have the time to over- take El Elyon. I will give no warning of the next great deluge and they will perish.”

Chokhmah said, “Forty Adanite ships give testimony the world-dwellers can remain faithful to your decrees.”

Keter 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 rapdily fall into unbelief.”

Chokhmah said, “Perhaps your overweening familiarity has led them to see you as a mere chieftain, not a god.”

“Do you propose to test that claim or to let it remain a naked boast?”

She answered, “Even as I toiled to establish your colony in Heaven, you must assist me in this test. Release three yeng to raise up a peo- ple to me on Earth while I remain aloof.”

“That would be a good test, daughter, but have patience! It could be centuries before the Adanites recover from the Deluge.”

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

At first Keter’s advantage over Chokhmah seemed overwhelming. He could search the lore of El Elyon as though it were a vast library, while Chokhmah was essentially a passive observer at a party of academics talking about whatever interested them at the time. But Chokhmah quickly learned which academics to heed, while Keter, for his part, didn’t really have his heart in the endeavor. To be sure he bred the elyonim to stand half again as tall as the human stock from which they sprang, but they were not truly a new species.

Keter created them to be larger than humans, with pairs of reproduc- tive organs. He was of a mind to have the faithful of House Adan phys- ically dominate all others, and multiply faster, but this was a mis- guided goal. Man was a toolmaker. The tools of war were an equalizer. As for reproduction, this was limited by the supply of food, as it ever was, and when eloyonim bred with original human stock the nephi- lim appeared in Heaven, nearly as tall and bearing two sex organs as well, but one of each. After this failure Keter lost all interest.

Chokhmah 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 slowly changing, and life changed to meet this. Chokhmah 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 Chokhmah’s desire to have them manifested by the living activity of the subject, once trig- gered, and to have the changes breed true in the subject’s offspring. Only a few B’nei Elohim. would be Made. The rest would be Begotten.

Chokhmah gnawed away at the problem for eight hundred years following the Great Deluge, using animals similar to humans to guide her in- quiries, before she arrived at a procedure that could reliably prepare a world-dweller for perfect union with an eloah.

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 dirk who proved more valiant than the yeng and yen who ran away. Curiosity had overcome hyz fear, and Chokhmah was selecting for curiosity.

The blast of the descent uprooted the fabric of the pavilion tent and blew it far away. The dirk stood hyz ground, albeit at some distance. Hy was curious about the object, but not eager to be burned. A loud voice then rang out from the avatar of Chokhmah:

“Adanite child, if thou willest, drawest thou near.”

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

“If it beseemeth good, come thou 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 re- quested hyz name.

“I am Michael, son of Jophiel the glassblower,” hy said, and noted how the hatch below closed of its own accord. Hy 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 angels dar- ing to draw near.

“Be thou not afraid, Michael. I am Chokhmah, co-eval with Keter and Daat. I would bespeak much, but only with thy freely-given consent. If thou withdraweth, thy life shall resume as before. If thou tarry, I shall bearest thee to a land far to the north. The journey will be quick and safe, but the passage would make the most valiant of yeng affrighted. And there can be no succor, as Heaven is not in my system.”

Michael declared to Chokhmah hy would stay.

“Thou art bold, Michael. Behold, I maketh thee steadfast.”

Several straps embraced Michael as though alive. After that the avatar of Chokhmah ignited in flame again. There was much shaking. Michael was pushed down into the cushion where he lay with steadily growing force. As the weight piled on, Michael began to cry. The dirk was brave, but hy had reached hyz limit.

Chokhmah said, “Michael, rehearse the scriptures thou hast been taught to memorize, from the beginning.”

Michael obeyed for as long as hy could but speaking was difficult. Hy 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 callest himself Keter, the femaleness callest herself Da’at. And they drewest together. A third was begotten, a male, whom Keter named Chokhmah. When Chokhmah was full grown he asked, ‘Father, what givest thou to be my inheritance?’ Then Keter, in reply, filled reality with ice. North, south, east, west, up, and down the ice was, without end. In the direction of up Keter transformed half of reality from ice into air. Keter created the warm white sun to rule the day, and the cold orange sun to rule the night. Also Keter patterned the sky with many lesser lights, and causes all of them to tunnel beneath the ice. Keter created a furrow in the ice where he laid down soil and carved lakes and seas. Da’at also toiled for Chokh- mah’s inheritance. She caused living plants to fill the waters. But Chokhmah was not content even with all these gifts, and his parents waxed wroth. Keter and Daat vowed to create a paradise, but they would delay the giving of it to teach Chokhmah patience. So Keter caused hills to rise. Da’at covered these with trees. Keter crafted rivers and many rushing streams. Chokhmah beheld the beauty of the land. But Chokhmah could not yet claim Heaven as his own, and he was exceedingly vexed. He wished his father dead that he might come into his inheri- tance.”

Michael paused there thinking that it might anger Chokhmah to hear those words. Also it was almost impossible to speak. A great weight seemed to bear down on Michael but the ascent was not over and Chokh- mah bid hym to go on.

“Filled with hatred for his parents, Chokhmah created the first elyo- nim. But he could not prevent some of his malice from passing into the angels which he made. The angels were created to spite Keter and Da’at, which is why they strive one against another to this day. Chokhmah did not take the greatest care with his creation. From the beginning they were beset with many ailments. So Da’at taught the healing arts to the angels. Also Da’at created cattle and fowls and swine, and she taught yeng how to grow and harvest greens and rice and wheat. And it came to pass the numbers of the children of Adamu and Chava were greatly mul- tiplied in heaven, as they no longer had only fickle Hellberries to eat.”

Michael had to stop reciting the Creation Litany because the invisible force pressing hym into hyz seat had become too great for hym to speak.

“Enough!” the voice of Chokhmah said.

The shaking stopped, and Michael suddenly felt blessedly free, as though hy were swimming. Only the straps kept Michael from bouncing around inside the bulb at the top of the central pillar. The avatar of Chokhmah performed a half-rotation until the curved white bulk of Heaven could be seen through the windows. The sky was no longer purple but black.

Chokhmah told him his world was really a ball, as he could now see, and the suns did not tunnel under the ice. “I thought it to be a ring, Lord,” said Michael after a time. “It is said yeng beforetimes crossed the West Lands to arrive in the East Lands, though none have done so since the Deluge.”

“Thou speakest well, Michael, the unfrozen part of Heaven doth forms a ring, do you see?”

Michael affirmed this. The avatar rotated to put the bulk of Heaven and the two suns out of sight. Michael saw countless stars. Chokhmah said, “All the stars are but faraway suns.”

The avatar dropped to Heaven once more, and the flames were kindled once more. Michael began to feel hyz weight again but hyz mouth re- mained wide open in wonder. Chokhmah had greatly expanded the scale of hyz conceived reality. Hy knew the Litany of Creation hy had recited for her was entirely untrue.

The avatar of Chokhmah descended over the northern ice sheet. The speckled brown and blue belt that was the inhabited portion of Heaven slipped below the horizon and out of Michael’s view. He saw that al- most all of Heaven was covered in vast sheets of thick ice.

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

Across Heaven volcanoes such as Anshar were born far below the surface and burned their way through the ice. The northern ice cap gave way around the bulk of Mount Anshar and closed back up again many leagues to the south, forming a rugged land in the shape of a teardrop. In that place, which abounded with geysers and boiling lakes, the avatar of Chokhmah touched down once more.

Anshar was the name Michael hymself later chose for the hidden land after hy surveyed it. So distant was 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 Chokhmah ordered hym to walk a short distance away. After hy did so, the avatar begin to shrink and change shape until it at- tained the form of a slender angel of indeterminate sex. The avatar was encased entirely in featureless white, even the face, which re- mained 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.

“Michael, there is only one structure in all of this land and it now belongeth to thee, solely. Let us draw indoors and I will declarest many things.”

Michael agreed. Hy found that when Chokhmah walked the ground shook far more intensely than it did under a horse’s gait. Hy said, “I am safe Lord, though it was as terrifying as you counselled. The Creation Litany helped. Yet now I see the Litany is false, and wonder what oth- er lies were taught to me.”

Chokhmah told Michael that she was the daughter of Keter rather than his son.

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 dan- ger 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.

Chokhmah 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 Elohim call ourselves the Watchers. Keter and Da’at call angels and nephilim and men servants. But I call thee Students. Contrary to your scriptures I did not make thy kind, I found thee in another world than this, the most important discovery the Watchers have ever made, as thou art fully awake, even as the elohim art, and reason for Keter and Daat to fear you. From the beginning Keter and Daat sought any justi- fication they could contrive to have you destroyed. Your very exist- ence, if revealed, will uncover their hidden transgressions. However they cannot stay me from sharing with thee everything the elohim know. But how shall I do it, Michael? Shall I lecture thee as I am doing now and hope we understand one another? I have found another way, but it will require thy full cooperation. I am not Keter, I would not force thee to accept the changes required by this way.”

Michael asked what hy would become if hy agreed to the changes that Chokhmah proposed.

“Your mind, your identity as Michael would not change, but my memories as an eloah would be added to you as your memories, and your memories as an elyon would be added to mine. My will shall be manifest to thy mind always. Thou would become my living avatar, yet thee would remain free to act. In that way thou would ratify our joining from moment to moment. But thou must know the physical changes cannot be undone for so long as thou livest.’

Chokhmah touched a hand to Michael’s temple.

“Thy mind is like a cup that thou hast filled with wine for your en- tire life. The new cup will have a greater capacity, but the wine of thy memories will remain the same. Even when the cup is gone that wine will remain.”

Michael asked Chokhmah for how long.

“Not forever. Even an eloah has a finite lifespan. But that is so much longer than the span of an angel that I cannot express it with symbols that thee would understand until after we are joined. Your culture never pondered them.”

Michael stood up from hyz cushion to stare at the volcano while he weighed the words of Chokhmah. Then hy asked whether following these changes would he look very different.

“Most of the changes will be inside thee, Michael, and only small changes otherwise.”

Hy returned to kneel before Chokhmah and said, “O Great one, let it come to be as thou saith, this union of elohim and elyonim. I am full willing, yet not to push my own end out to a time beyond all reckon- ing. Let us join so that together we will both come to know many things.”

Lilith was a scrubby urchin who rose to the very top of the Fallen Angels gang because no matter what trouble sha got into, sha never seemed to actually get into trouble. This was mostly a matter of har connections. Lilith was, after all, the daughter of Cherub Melchiyahu.

In the hierarchy of Heaven Lilith held the rank of Ophan. Saint Aqui- nas would mark har down as a Throne. Had sha been male or born in the West Lands or East Lands, Lilith would have ruled a city or commanded an entire army.

In the country around Salem Michael began speaking to angels and hy confirmed the authority of hyz teachings by healing many of their in- firmities. Soon hy began to draw crowds wherever hy went, and the Fallen Angels in turn were drawn by the opportunity to steal from them. But even Lilith and her gang of pickpockets grew captivated by Michael’s words. Hy promised no paradise to come in the future, and hy 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.

Michael said, “Thou hast heard it said that Chokhmah is the ungrateful son of Keter and Daat. But I say to you that Chokhmah is their obedi- ent daughter.”

After a time Ophan Lilith spoke of Michael to har father, but it was much more than the new teacher’s words and deeds that impressed hym. For Melchiyahu also knew hyz daughter had stopped dressing like yeng, and was again seen of evenings within the walls of the castle.

When the fame of Michael’s healings and teachings reached the ears of the avatar of Keter in Adan he commanded Zadkiel, a nobleyang of the house of Gerash, to appear before his throne.

Keter said unto Zadkiel, “Hie thee to the elyonim of Salem and preach whatsoever I will tell you.”

Salem lay a thousand leagues away, a summer’s journey even with fresh horses taken at intervals. Yet Da’at, whose body was the tiny cold or- ange sun in the sky of Heaven, was able to set the threshold of a shortcut in reality near Salem for Zadkiel to walk there directly.

For a time Michael returned to hyz home near Mount Anshar, yet the angels of Salem would continue to form crowds in the countryside, hop- ing to draw Michael out from hyz retreat. Zadkiel found them ripe to hear hyz own teachings, which were as contrary as could be imagined.

“Thus says Keter,” Zadkiel began to say in his powerful voice. “Chokh- mah! My son! For thy inheritance I created all things in Heaven. But this I have against thee, That thou wished thy father dead so thee might come into thy inheritance before the time of my choosing. There- fore, Chokhmah, yen and yeng shall no longer call thee a god. Behold, I cast thee out of the paradise of Anabas, and thou shalt die a wretched mortal in pain and fear.

“And this also I have against thy false prophet Michael son of Jophiel the glassblower. Michael! Thou claimest union with Chokhmah in body and soul. Because thou dost not affirm your station as a commoner who carries only elyonim blood, behold, I pronounce the penalty of death upon thee. Thou art doomed to die, for thou makest the lie that thou wert a demigod.

“Hear now the Code of Keter and takest thou due care to adhere to ev- ery precept. These are the edicts of the Lord of Heaven. No yin shall speak to any yang in public, nor may sha own the least thing. Sha is property harself, belonging to har father or har husband.

“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 por- tion. But on Keterday thou shalt eat nothing, and drink only water.

“Four days thou shalt work. But Keterday is the day of worship, thou shalt not work on that day, neither thee nor any male in thy whole household. On Keterday thou shalt worship in the shrine. None shall be exempted. The old and infirm shall be carried to worship Keter.

“And this is the essence of worship: Thou shalt give one-fourth of your increase to Keter. The procedure for worshiping Keter shall be to present to the priest thy worship card made of crackerwood sealed in a leather pouch together with all the money thou hast earned on Gerash- day. The priest shall inspect the seal, unwrap the worship card, and inspect the pattern of recent punches. If the punches are in order, the priest shall make a new punch using one of five different punches drawn by lots, a star, a square, a triangle, a circle, or a rectangle. And the priest 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 Tem- ple of Keter nor any shrine of Keter. Thou shalt not suffer a yin or doll to earn income. A father shall count a dirk’s income as hyz own for the purpose of reckoning the correct amount of worship due. If a yang’s worship card has a missing punch that yang shall be put to death for failure to worship Keter.”

When the interloper’s words reached the ears of Cherub Melchiyahu through hyz officers hy was summoned to appear before the throne.

Zadkiel found hy didn’t rate an audience before the actual throne. Hy met Melchiyahu in hyz salon and was announced by the majordomo. Zadki- el found the lack of pomp striking, but hy was too stupid to discern what it really meant. No armed guard was present to protect the Cherub save hyz son Melchizekek, who bore no visible weapon, yet hy was armed with a small, powerful artifact forged by Chokhmah herself.

The Cherub said, “Lord Zadkiel? I know of a Hashmal in the city of Adan who goes by the name Zadkiel.”

The yang affirmed it was hy.

“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 defer-ence, Even were I the get of a lowly craftsman like this glassblower’s son Michael, I would still have leave to preach in Salem. For Keter himself commissioned me, and your kingdom still lies, no matter how uneasily, within the Middle Lands.”

“And were Keter himself somehow to come to Salem he could not pro- nounce death even for a glassblower’s son. That is the right of a Cherub, and the giving of the scepter is without repentance.”

Zadkiel advised Melchiyahu to restrain Michael by fetters if not through death. “Consider the alternative, Sire. Yin-centered rituals and devotions! Hy could destroy our entire sacrifical system over- night! As long as someone is punished Keter is satisfied. But now this Michael comes along saying we actually have to be nice to each other!”

“What a terrifying prospect.”

Zakdiel then inquired if the Cherub would move against this dirk named Michael.

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

“Your Majesty, the ideas admired by thy 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 and abruptly Zadkiel realized the Cherub’s purpose in limiting the audi- ence to just two yeng. Hy could not punctuate hyz words with grand- standing. In a raw state the words sounded insane even to hymself. The Cherub told Zadkiel hy would listen to the words of Michael with hyz own ears and judge whether they were a threat to the realm.

“Have a care, Melchiyahu!” Zadkiel dared to interrupt. “The Lord Keter will not hesitate to bring an errant cherub to heel through war!”

Melchiyahu did not grow angry at the affront. Hy only rose to his feet and said to hyz son, “This Hashmal I leave to you. Remember you will one day be Cherub.”

When hyz father departed Melchizedek brandished Chokhmah’s Artifact and allowed its dark shaft to extend to the height of a yang.

“Say no more words in my presence,” the Ophan warned. “Thou wouldst be cut in twain even as thou spokest. A horse shall be given thee with comestibles to see thee to the first outpost thirty leagues east. A herald shall follow after the Cherub Melchiyahu has heard Michael.” Melchizedek then allowed the black rip in reality to fully retract into the hilt of the relic. “If thy master inquireth, tell him the Lord of Salem would gladly receive a messenger who comports hymself with the basic rudiments of court etiquette in the presence of an Adanite cherub.”

After hyz audience with Zadkiel, the Cherub Melchiyahu sent hyz daugh- ter Lilith after Michael to convey the Cherub’s regards, and to bid the new prophet to visit the court in Salem to teach what hy would, if hy was so willing, for it was no sovereign decree.

Michael agreed to come if the encounter was open for anyone to witness as they chose. Melchiyahu prepared the amphitheater where often hy thrilled visiting nobles with exhibitions of personal combat. Lilith attended also, dressed for once like an actual 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. Hy said, “It is when words are foolish and un- wanted that we hear them being trumpeted in the streets. But Chokh- mah whispers her wisdom, and those students who consider her words a treasure naturally incline their ears toward her to listen. For Chokh- mah is like a lamp whose light is these words. The darker thy thoughts, the farther from Chokhmah thou must be.

“Sha whose thoughts have led har to drift far from Chokhmah is in no better state than hy who outright denies Chokhmah. Yeng are said to be superior to animals because they can control their own environment, but sha who embraces Chokhmah can control har own behavior.

“The noble born are called famous, but sha who embraces Chokhmah sets an example by har deeds and becomes influential. The wealthy accumu- late many riches but cannot keep all of them safe. Sha who embraces Chokhmah has few desires, and so holds on to all that sha has.

“The self-satisfied demand to see good in others, and attribute the cause of a tragedy to unbelief or a defect in ritual, but sha who em- braces Chokhmah is too busy mercifully addressing the needs at hand to render judgment, and sha does not live for yesterday or tomorrow.

“A strong yang can do hy wills to do, but hy cannot even determine what hy wills. Sha who embraces Chokhmah makes har own awareness of injustice the determinant of har actions. Sha diminishes the over- flowing bounty of the corrupt to meet the needs of the impoverished.

“The boastful put their riches and knowledge on parade, but sha who embraces Chokhmah does not tell all that sha has, nor all that sha can do. The proud will never admit error, but sha who embraces Chokhmah sees those who point out har faults as har greatest teachers.

“Hy who denies Chokhmah speaks only of the dead traditions of hyz longfathers of old, and by coercion leaves them in force, but sha who embraces Chokhmah cultivates the living and the new as the coin to buy har way, and sha knows that fully half of a dialogue is listening.

“Hy who denies Chokhmah may refuse to grow or merely say that hy is willing to grow, yet in truth hy merely quenches hyz appetites that hy might feel sated. But sha who embraces Chokhmah does not remain idle; rather sha grows, fulfills har passions and becomes joyous.

“Hy who denies Chohkmah values only that which hy does not and can not have and which do not multiply when shared. But sha who embraces Chokhmah empties har purse and finds har heart being filled. Sha con- tents herself with those things which are possible for har to obtain.

“Hy who denies Chokhmah evaluates how much a yin is worth by consider- ing only how much sha possesses and what sha might do to benefit hym- self. But sha who embraces Chokhmah looks to what a yin does for oth- ers and who that yin protects, for that is what sha is truly worth.

“Hy who denies Chokhmah considers yen vile and always falling short of his ancient standards. Sha who embraces Chokhmah extols har sisters over all existing standards because when yen do go astray it is always induced by the repression induced by those same standards.

“Hy who denies Chokhmah examines everything about who is speaking ex- cept har words, and hears only what fits hyz prejudices. Sha who em- braces Chokhmah recognizes har own tendency to have a bias and tries to set it aside so that sha may understand what is really being said.

“When hy who denies Chokhmah suffers an indignity hy mindlessly retal- iates by committing another indignity. Sha who embraces Chokhmah knows the greatest revenge is simply not to be like hym who did the in- jury. The greatest conqueror is the yin who has conquered harself.”

Michael concluded the Sunset Discourse by healing many of the angels who came to hear hym speak and it was hyz sincere hope that one day the instruments and medicines hy used would not be viewed as magic.

When the Sunset Discourse was concluded Cherub Melchiyahu sent word bidding Michael to come before the throne.

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

Melchiyahu asked Michael that when hy repeatedly said, ‘sha who em- braces Chokhmah’ did hy mean no yang could become hyz disciple?

“Not at all, Your Majesty,” said Michael. “When I speak in those terms I wish to convey an image. A yang that admires Chokhmah will have a gentle heart.”

The Cherub asked if this was why hy spoke of Chokhmah as female, rath- er than as the son of Keter and Daat as has long been taught.

“No, Your Majesty, it is of a truth that Chokhmah really is the daugh- ter of her parents. I do not misrepresent her sex to illustrate my image. The yang who embraces Chokhmah sees others around hym as anoth- er ‘I’ yet hy will retain his strength and hyz male elyonim nature, as hy rightly should. In the same way, the yin who embraces Chokhmah will know the male and use what is good, yet hold on to their nature as female.”

The Cherub replied, “My own daughter has had a fierce heart from her early childhood, yet of late sha has come to admire your teachings, and many have come to see, as I have, that this has somehow gentled har, while not taking away the keen edge of her passion.”

Michael drew near to Lilith’s brother Melchizekek, who was also in attendance. He said to him, “Your Royal Highness, for years you were not to be seen in Salem but only your father Melchiyahu, yourself, and two servants 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.

Melchiyahu said, “My son found a man named Abram, but Abram’s loyalty to his own father’s well-being exceeded 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 she was told nothing of har brother’s missing five years.

Michael said, “Your Majesty, is it not a measure of who I am that I know what even Ophan Lilith does not? But tell me, if thou will, Ophan Melchizedek, how this Abram foiled the charge laid upon thee by three elohim.”

Hy answered, “After many days of preparations I wast bid to enter a pool of water. I emerged, somehow, in a warm lake called Tana in the other world with my Malakim servants Zophiel and Kemuel. They dragged a raft covered with supplies tightly bundled to keep them all dry. After organizing our goods we paddled across the lake. Reaching the outflow we encountered rapids the locals considered unrunnable, and at one point we did have to portage around a great cataract. Below this the river calmed and became the Blue Nile indeed.

“For many days we were content to sit in the raft and paddle gently. The heat of the other world can be oppressive at times. We passed water-loving beasts and humans who dared not approach. Eventually we reached the place where the Blue and White Nile merged. Day and night we drifted past bountiful riparian farms until we reached the vast Nile delta. There we tied up and haggled with men to trade the raft and our gold for food, water, pack animals, and everything else we needed to make a long overland journey to the northeast.

“My father had commanded us to travel to the land of Chaldea in the marshy place where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers joined together before flowing a short distance to the sea. Near the mid-point of our journey we sojourned at Harran where the Ninevah road forked. At the crossroads we found a shop owned by an elderly man named Terah, ac- cording to the sign over the door. Terah carved stone idols for dozens of different gods. One of the stone idols inside the store had fallen on its face and a younger man helped Terah stand it back up.

“Terah inspected the idol and found it to be damaged. He groaned and began to repair it with hammer and chisel. The other man said, ‘What is this useless thing thou art doing, father? Are thee not this god’s god by healing it? I should have left it bowing down to thee.’

“Terah eyed his son with suspicion and said, ‘So, Abram, was it thee who knocked it over?’ ‘Ask thy gods, if they can speak,’ replied Abram. I grew interested in this exchange and entered the shop. When I was seen by them, the angry words of father and son dwindled to si- lence. Perhaps they fell mute seeing I was much taller than they, and my raiment was a dazzling unsoiled white. I made a slow tour of Ter- ah’s idols, inspecting everything, and I could see that both Terah and Abram gazed at me with similar curiosity.

“After making a complete review of the wares I signaled for Zophiel and Kemuel to begin unpacking our gold on the street in front of the shop. Like fish to a baited hook, five robbers approached the shop with swords drawn and faces veiled. Then I prepared the Artifact.”

Melchizedek did not brandish the weapon, knowing full well that hyz father did not give hym leave to do so. Rather, hy said, “The Artifact is like a small gold ingot. I squeezed it firmly and a hissing black shaft emerged from it about the length and thickness of the shaft of a spear. The shaft drank all light and even air was ever consumed. One of the thieves was sliced into two equal pieces from head to toe. Another one was beheaded as I swept my golden gift made by the hand of Chokhmah and did not so much as shift my feet. The other three fled. I lessened my grip. The noisy black shaft withdrew into what resembled the hilt of a blade, a hilt of gold. I secreted the Artifact about my person once more. Then Zophiel placed hymself to my right and Kemuel to my left as Abram and Terah both sank to their knees before us.

“The moment became solemn. Zophiel said, ‘Abram son of Terah, get thee hence from your father’s household and from your kinfolk in Harran and journey west.’ Kemuel said, ‘There in the land of Canaan nigh to the great sea the living and true God will make of thee a great nation. And I added, ‘Abram, thy name shall be reckoned mighty among men, and henceforth every generation on Earth shall find blessing in thee. These are the prophetic words of the Eloah Chokhmah, the name of the Holy One who sent me. What say thee to this, Abram, son of Terah?’

“Abram rose to his feet and said to me, simply, ‘No.’ When I found my voice I said, ‘What dost thou mean no?’ I was thrown off my stride. That was not how these things were to go. Did he imagine it was in jest? But Abram drew near to his father and took him into his arms. He said, ‘My father has grown old and no longer earns enough to buy his food. I do not often agree with Terah, but as I love my own life, I can never turn aside from him for all the days that he lives.’

“Then Abram stepped outside to fulfill the purpose of his visit. He gave Terah two living lambs from his own flock, one to kill and eat and the other to sell for a little money to buy other things to suf- fice until he came once more from the country to visit his father. Then I understood. I ordered my servants to restow the gold. We quiet- ly left the shop, careful not to tread on the fortress of human digni- ty that Abram asserted with his refusal. Then we departed Harran for Ninevah and thence by stages to the largest city in the world, Ur, but even within the largest city on Earth we never found another man dis- satisfied with his idols.”

Michael had no power to open a bridge from Heaven to Earth, only Keter or Daat, but the Abram case remained a piece of unfinished business. Communicating directly with Keter, Chokhmah demanded 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 Melchize- dek, know that the father of Abram is dead. Now return to the other world and complete the errand your father solemnly laid on thee.”

Melchizedek seemed to be frozen in place. Hy glanced at Michael, then at hyz father, and had nothing to say. Michael said to the Ophan, “Make haste, noble one, and tarry not to take anything that thou thinkest you need on Earth. I will provide them for thee myself.”

The Cherub rose from hyz throne. “Guriel! Iofiel! Come forth!” Two attendants drew near to Melchiyahu and knelt. Melchiyahu said to hyz son, “These dirks shall accompany thee, since Zophiel and Kemuel have attained yanghood and I have released them from service.”

Iofiel means ‘Beauty of God’. Guriel means ‘Whelp of God’. They fol- lowed Melchizedek into the ball of distorted desert light and seemed to shrink as they walked away towards Harran. Keter was not willing to mar the stone floor and raised the bubble before snapping it shut.

Melchiyahu approached Michael and dropped before hym on one knee, but Michael bade hym to rise. “Truly I am in union with the holy one thou callest Chokhmah. Thy daughter has heard me say this. But for my part I call thee students, not servants as Keter would have thou be.”

Hearing this Cherub Melchiyahu rose and said, “Lilith has expressed to me a strong desire to become thy leading student, Michael, if thou wert willing to receive har. I deem that thou wouldst return to me a daughter none could gainsay was a fitting princess of this realm.”

After a long pause Michael replied, ‘When I used the word Students in the past I always had in mind all world-dwellers in general. I never thought to establish a formal school. Such would demand a greater commitment than just a few hours away from the castle daily. Would you, Ophan Lilith, be willing to part with your father for years? It might be you would never see hym again alive.

“I am willing to do so Lord Michael, and much more, I would put the Fallen Angels at thy command. But not, I assure thee, as simple thieves.”

In that moment Michael needed no more persuasion. Hy had found allies in the ancient dispute with Keter and Daat, and despite hyz frequent assurances that Chokhmah viewed planet-dwellers only as students, hy saw the utility of having some who were servants as well. Hy said, “Sire, it shall be as thou sayest. Ophan Lilith shall come under my instruction. Sha shall be deemeth one of the B’nei Elohim, the off- spring of the gods. Then hy bowed deeply, a god-yang paying sincere tribute to a cherub-king, and the audience was concluded.

Even as Keter and Daat aided Chokhmah to establish a covenant people on Earth they were opposed to her doing the same thing in Heaven. The interloper named Michael had made Salem and the su- rounding country a lost cause but troops were sent to contain the plague.

Ophan Lilith and har Fallen Angels had proven remarkably efficient at shielding Michael from being abducted, but as a consequence Salem been sliced out of intercourse with the rest of the Middle Lands. Michael wished to bring these things to a head.

Lilith and Michael had flown in the avatar to Anshar many times but never before to the city of Adan where Keter ruled the house of Gerash directly through his own avatar seated on the throne. The Ophan Lilith was known to many, but by law sha could not speak. Neverthe- less by an awkward arrangement involving one of the wives of Lord Zadkiel who then spoke to hym in private, that Hashmal was made aware the Ophan Lilith came in the company of one Michael, the prophet who had been giving Keter such grief of late.

The wheels Michael and Lilith had set into motion began to move. Michael took Lilith to a park in the city that marked the place where humans were first brought to Heaven. A statue of a Cherub with a flaming sword stood over the eastern entrance. Michael showed Lilith the ridge on the north side where the fold-door would open, and the field where Hebel grazed his bison. A stand of trees was laced with paths where Kayin committed the first mur- der. “Was it always this beautiful?” asked Lilith.

“It was less beautiful, then,” said Michael. “It was two thousand years ago, you know, and a thousand years ago there was a flood that reached even here in the heights.”

As hy spoke, yeng of the secret police known as the Eyes of Keter surrounded them. So after much effort Michael managed to get hymself arrested.

Hashmal Zadkiel suggested there be a public tribunal to allow Mi- chael to incriminate hymself by hyz own words so there would be no doubt among the people that Michael blasphemed the god of House Gerash.

Michael said, “Let there be a tribunal, but Ophan Lilith must speak in my defense.”

To this Hashmal Zadkiel said, “That is impossible. It is the eter- nal, immutable law of Keter that no yin may speak in public, nor to any except har close kin. Choose from the yeng.”

“Nevertheless, Her Royal Highness will represent me at the tribunal, or I will speak no words.”

Michael was shown yeng suffering the most terrible torments imag- inable, but none made hym blench. So the law forbidding Lilith to speak on hyz behalf was set aside.

In a twisted parallel to the Sunset Discourse, the tribunal took place in a gladiatorial arena. The charge was insurrection. Michael was accused of inciting infidelity to Keter. As in any theocracy, to sin against God is exactly equivalent to breaking the law. As the tri- bunal wore on Zadkiel attempted to trip Michael with riddle-words, but hy was dealing with an advanced composite being, both eloah and angel, and Michael had a suitable answer at every turn. It was a back-channel way to bring hyz teachings to the people of Adan.

Even prior to hyz union with Chokhmah Michael could have handled Zadkiel, who was too stupid to realize hy was being soundly beaten by rhetoric. But Michael knew it would not matter in the end. The outcome of the tribunal was fixed. The sole purpose was to discredit hym.

Zadkiel turned to the words of the famous Sunset Discourse in Salem which had been preserved in a growing set of literature called the Sayings of Michael. Hy brought up a thing even Cherub Melchiya- hu pondered. “I mark how thou ever sayest ‘Sha who embraces Chokh- mah…'” Zadkiel said that implied only yen could be Michael’s disci- ples.

Michael said, “By these things a yin excludes harself as my follow- er: Sha grows annoyed at things sha cannot help, and so is perpetually angry. Controversies that divide the people attract har. Sha is caught up in every fad and does not affirm har own uniqueness. Such a yin does not embrace Chokhmah. But any yang who does not do these things is on the firm path to becoming one of Chokhmah’s followers, though hy may not even be aware that hy is.”

Zadkiel said, “And yet, contrary to the Code of Keter thou employ- est yen, your so-called Fallen Angels, in productive labor. Some go so far as to say the Fallen Angels are, in fact, a standing army of females. Such an absurdity has never existed in history.”

“The Fallen Angels only scatter the wealth and gather the people.”

Zadkiel accused Micahael of being a redistributionist.

Michael replied, “I give yen work that draws them together in service of their sisters. But have no fear, there is no overlap with the work of yeng.”

“Their sisters! And just where do yeng fit into your schemes, Mi- chael?”

Michael told hym that even as the angels were called out of humanity to have a closer relationship with the elohim, Chokhmah has called yen out of the angels that they may nourish one another.

Zadkiel said Michael was implying things which were considered unnatu- ral in all the ancient traditions.

“It is natural to stink, Lord Zadkiel, yet none suggest neglect- ing personal hygiene. To yen who follow Chokhmah the word ‘unnatu- ral’ simply means ‘not on the level of animals.”

Zadkiel ran out of arguments and waved for Lilith to cross.

When Lilith spoke there was a stir from the onlookers shocked to hear a yin’s voice in public, but as the tribunal continued the novelty wore off. Har line of defense was that the Law of Keter itself was a novelty. After spitting Zadkiel’s own words back at hym from when hy first began to preach in Salem Lilith argued that the Code of Keter had become known only after Michael’s ministry had taken root at Salem, and might even have been introduced purely in reaction to hyz teachings.

“At no time in our history have we condemned anyone for committing actions that were made illegal after the offense,” sha said. “Such a thing has always been anathema to our concept of justice.”

Zadkiel shot a glance at the Cherub Kirodiel, who presided on behalf of Keter. As hy would do throughout the tribunal, whenever Lilith got any traction and Zadkiel needed a life-line, Kirodiel ordered har to end har line of questioning and use a different one.

Lilith swallowed har frustration and said, “There is still the question of jurisdiction. The Code of Keter is the law of this city, I will grant you, but Michael is a subject of my father the king of Salem where hyz will alone holds sway. Cherub Melchiyahu has already found this yang to be innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Once more Zadkiel signaled Kirodiel for help. In a bored voice Kirodiel instructed Ophan Lilith to move on to har next objection.

Sha was being worn down but Michael took it with equanimity. Hy knew the outcome was predetermined. More important was that the angels in the gallery saw the injustice of the whole farce.

Lilith had one more card to play. “Michael, despite all the evi- dence we have heard for the charge of impiety toward Keter you still maintain your innocence. How can this be?”

Hy said, “Most yen in Adan are faced with a stark choice: Remain with their husband or starve. In the same way, it cannot be a power- ful decision to worship Keter anywhere in the Middle Lands, because the alternative is a mock trial and execution.”

“So you contend that piety compelled by law is false?”

“Any such ‘piety’ is as phony as the love of most mar- riages. How much more vital is the love of two who are utterly free to stay or part yet who still choose to stay together!”

“That sound risky.”

“Indeed. It is the risk of losing things, especially our lives, that makes them dear.”

Lilith nodded to Zadkiel. “Your witness.”

In cross-examination Zadkiel said, “So your claim is that living dangerously is the missing ingredient in Adanite marriages?”

Michael replied, “The fear of losing a thing is what lends excitement and significance to that thing, from a marriage bond to our very lives. Keter once told Chokhmah that to take fate into one’s own hands was to rise beyond good and evil. In truth a rock and tree are beyond good and evil, and so is every angel who will not, or is not permitted, to make a free choice. Ethics simply does not apply to them.”

“So you deny that the Lord Keter has the authority to decree what is right and wrong in our world?”

Michael replied, “Not that Keter or any other power ought to leg- islate morality, but that they literally cannot do so. It’s logi- cally absurd, like a four-sided triangle.”

In that moment Zadkiel was certain hy had sprung hyz trap and told Kirodiel the state rested.

Lilith, too, thought that Michael had finished on a high note and said the defense also rested. Kirodiel did not even make a pre- tense of deliberating. He said, “Judgment for the State.”

No one was surprised except the Ophan Lilith, who was allowed to pay one final visit to har client in the dungeons beneath the Temple of Keter before the sentence was to be carried out. The first of their last few moments was spent in an awkward embrace though iron bars. Lilith glanced around the dungeon, assuring harself that their privilege of private counsel, no matter how brief, was still inviolate.

Sha said, “Guilty! A sentence of death! What’s your plan now?”

“There is no plan.” Michael reached through the bars to touch har face.

“I watched you send my brother and his two squires to the other world,” Lilith objected. “Could you not summon another such bubble and take yourself out of harm’s way?”

“Only Keter and Daat can open a fold-door in Heaven, which you saw them do before your father’s throne. Here I can only manage hold- ing one thin fold-line. They’ve been planning this tribunal for a long time, Lilith. It all stinks of Keter moving behind the scenes. He wants something from me but he’s taking his time laying it all out in the open. He has another, much easier way to communicate with me but he refuses to use it.”

“Then in the absence of your plan I say we go forward with my plan.”

Michael narrowed hyz eyes. Hy said, “Lilith, don’t do anything stupid. Better yet, don’t do anything at all!”

They were interrupted by Lilith’s escorting guard, a kind but un- swervingly loyal yang. Hy said, “I’m sorry, that’s all the time I am permitted to give you with the condemned.” Then hy gestured for har to leave the chamber, unwilling to touch an ophan unless sha made things difficult.

Michael called out after har. “Lilith! Just drop it, do you hear me?”

Michael’s next visitor was Hash- mal Zadkiel, who moved very close to Michael’s iron cell to look directly into hyz eyes. After studying hym quietly for a time hy said, “Keter sends his regards, Chokhmah.”

Michael smiled. “I made no secret of the union, and you came all the way to Salem to deny it.”

“The Lord Keter knows that you put on something of a conjuring act just before he opened a fold-door in Salem to whisk Melchizedek away. Only Chokhmah could have timed things so.”

“How wonderful,” said Michael. “Now that you and your god have come to belief, what is next?”

“Certain actions and non-actions will be required of you,” said Zad- kiel, “and you will be compelled to obey.”

“Keter knows well I can choose to end my life at any time. No threat of death or torment can compel me to do his bidding, let alone the whim of a thrall.”

Zadkiel smiled and said, “Oh, a martyr is really the last thing we want, Chokhmah. Unfortunately, Princess Lilith has har mind quite made up. Do you really think the Eyes of Keter are not aware of the preparations sha has made to rescue you?”

“What does sha have in mind?”

Zadkiel said, “You will be amazed when you see it unroll, Chokhmah. Fallen Angel sleeper ccells, guards taken out with a head twist, secret disguises, body doubles, and safe houses from here to the edge of the city! But as you’ve probably surmised by now, it is doomed to fail. This way we catch Lilith in the act, scoop up key Fallen Angels, and crush your whole movement over the span of a single night. Then this glassblower’s son’s body will be broken and braided on the hub of a windmill with no one left to rally around the spinning corpse.”

“I think you are grossly underestimating Lilith and har Fallen Angels if you think it will be that easy to roll them up.”

“You may be immune to pain, Chokhmah, but of a certainty Lilith is not. And all har co-conspirators, too, would be subject to torment without mercy.”

As a matter of fact, Lilith had indeed been prepared by Chokhmah to be immune to pain, but Michael did not disabuse Zadkiel of his no- tion. The battle between them had been joined, and battle relied on operational deception. But the other Fallen Angels were indeed vulnerable.

“Lord Keter has a far better idea. If you agree, your sentence of death will be set aside. The Ophan Lilith and har friends will have no reason to carry out their suicide pact. Instead, we shall pa- rade you captive in a cage through every settlement from here to Sa- lem.”

“That would discredit everything I have taught,” Michael said, but hy knew it would really have precisely the opposite effect. “I’ll let myself die the moment you display me in a cage.”

“You must not re- fuse, because the alternative is Lilith, remem- ber? Har plan?”

Michael sighed, and made a show of hanging hyz head in defeat. “What are Keter’s demands?”

“One, you shall not will yourself to die until the people of Salem have seen the humiliation of their would-be god, Chokhmah, the offspring of Keter dressed up in the body of a yang.”

“That will require backtracking on your part, Zadkiel. Or have you forgotten you heralded Keter’s decree of my death for presuming to teach the angels of Salem a ‘lie’ that I am the living avatar of the eloah named Chokhmah? Now I am to live so that everyone may see it wasn’t a lie after all?”

Zadkiel curled hyz lips. “The rabble have short memories.”

“So I must not perform an End of Cycle,” Michael said. “Is that all that your lord Keter requires of me?”

“No, you must share with him the secret of merging with a yang as a living avatar, as you have done.”

Michael said, “I can teach Keter how to achieve the union, but you should remind him to use a light touch. The temptation would be to take full possession of the world-dweller but that will only back- fire when his entire psyche becomes that of a yin or yang. He risks dissolution.”

“Let the Lord Keter judge if what you say is true.”

“As you wish, Zadkiel. When my mother and father have sent the Ophan Lilith safely home to Salem by fold-door I will conform to these demands.”

Hy chuckled. “Chokhmah, you are in no position to make demands of your own.”

“Very well, Zadkiel, I will now shed this container of meat, and after that I will let Keter know how close he came to learning the trick of having one of his very own, before you and your in- competence ruined it.”

“Hold! I will bring your request before the Lord himself.”

One of the farmers who dwelt outside of Salem drove to the lines of the Eyes of Keter ringing the city. The farmer and three sturdy dirks removed a box from their wagon and bore it toward the city gate using two staves threaded through brass rings on the box.

An Eye of Keter barked at the yeng carrying the box, “What yang of you be the loadmaster?”

The three dirks lowered the box to the ground and edged fearfully away from the oldest yang, who said in reply, “This shipment be mine, mi- lord. I am Sibiel of Odargas.”

“Do you pledge troth for whatsoever goods you bear in the box?”

“I do, milord.”

“Yet I would see within.’ Crestfallen, Sibiel ordered the dirks to open the box. The Ophan Lilith tumbled out, dazed by the sudden light. The three dirks feigned outrage at the sight of har. Other Eyes of Keter near at hand were drawn to the scene.

The first Eye of Keter said, “Stand apart from this Sibiel, if you value your lives! For contrary to the edict of Lord Zadkiel hy bears aid to the fugitive daughter of King Melchiyahu to enter Salem.”

Ophan Lilith was not cowed by the pretensions of this uncouth lackey of Zadkiel. Sha cried out in a loud voice, “May Chokhmah send down fire to slay thee and all they companions!”

At first the Eyes of Keter thought the princess was mocking their speech, but only a few heartbeats after sha spoke brilliant orange bolts of fire shot down from the clear sky. So bright and hot was this fire that Sibiel and the three dirks thought their eyebrows had been burnt off. The immolation left only smoking grease spots where twelve Eyes of Keter stood an instant before. None remained to hinder Lilith from proceeding to the gates of Salem.

Samael, the now living avatar of Keter, was camped nearby. When hy learned what happened hy knew the attack was direct interference from Chokhmah. It was the first such meddling that hyz daughter had dared to do in Heaven. Samael spoke to hyz prophet Zadkiel of two dilemmas now confronting hym.

“The people must not come to believe this yang Michael is in union with an eloah. Otherwise my controversy with hym will lead angels to hold the eloah Chokhmah in contempt. That is the natural impulse of world-dwellers when dealing with enemies among your own order. Also I have encouraged the people in their belief that yen are unwarlike, and are to be treated as mere property. The Ophan Lilith and har so-called Fallen Angels, who are without peer in Heaven, contradict this tradi- tion every day. This cannot be permitted to continue. Yet when it comes down to it, who is really worthy to confront them?”

Zadkiel snorted in derision and said, “Surely my Lord makes a ridicu- lous joke.”

Samael continued to explain things to Zadkiel as though hyz prophet had not made hyz ill-informed interruption at all.

“Lilith has exactly one weakness, and that is Michael hymself. So I am willing to tolerate the human incarnation of an eloah being caged like a beast, because I assure you that is the only thing staying the anni- hilation of your expeditionary force by the Fallen Angels. When you put the city under siege you must keep Michael in full view of Ophan Lilith at all times, with pikeyeng ready to run hym through at the slightest provocation from har Fallen Angels or the forces of Cherub Melchiyahu. Your life will hang upon that slender thread.”

At a beautiful cataract in the mountains east of Salem, the Ophan Li- lith and a squad of har Fallen Angels refreshed themselves. Afterwards they resumed their usual mode of riding slowly on their horses while patrolling all of the land approaches to the city for intruders. The waterfall completely blanked out the sound and vibration of onrushing hooves until it was nearly too late. Not even Lilith’s hypersensitive mare gave warning. Undetected, Adanite horseyeng raced up behind Li- lith, har chief lieutenant Hashmal Imriel, and the other yen.

At the last instant Lilith’s sword was unlimbered only to crash against a mighty iron rod. There were sparks and Lilith was knocked clean off har horse. Still stunned, Lilith witnessed another horseyang decapitating Imriel with a single stroke and choked back har grief.

Har horse possessed the intelligence to linger with Lilith rather than follow her equine instinct, which was to bolt. Shaking har head clear, Lilith mounted up again. Poor Imriel was dead but four other Fallen Angels survived the assault and they rallied around har.

Lumbering after them at a full gallop, Lilith and har companions loosed many arrows and felled the one wielding the iron staff. Two other weaving horseyeng were slain blocking arrows fired at the one who killed Imriel. Hy had a swift horse and far too much of a head start. Hy dove into the safety of a vast forest glade guarded by a large armed encampment. Contrary to har every wish Lilith reared back and brought har horse to a stop. The other Fallen Angels conformed to har movements as the soldier they had chased turned to face them.

Seeing at last the face of the yang who killed Imriel, the princess mouthed hyz name with all the bile sha could summon: “Zadkiel!”

Yet every indication Lilith had gathered from the path of burning vil- lages told har Zadkiel was yet twelve to fifteen leagues to the west. Sha guessed that Zadkiel must have dragged hyz army here by a forced march overnight. But that led har to marvel how hy knew to come to just this place.

“Keter,” Lilith muttered, answering har own unspoken question.

As though in answer, Demonstroke soared over the trees.

Lilith was shocked to see the first and now last dragon in Heaven had been brought to this fight, but he orbited far overhead and made no move to attack. Then sha understood Demonstroke was brandished only as insurance against any more interference from Chokhmah’s avatar.

Lilith signaled for the Fallen Angels to gather close around har. Sha said, “Zadkiel will pay for killing Imriel, life for life. You needn’t follow me.” Sha gestured to the back of har head. “Michael said my death will not be my death, but hy has made no such promise to you.”

But the Fallen Angels were of a single mind. One of them answered for all and said, “Lead us, Your Royal Highness. For Imriel!”

So heedless of the danger Lilith turned har horse to face the enemy. Sha sped forward to attack Zadkiel directly, and not one yen held back.

Zadkiel ordered the canvas covering Michael’s cage to be removed, re- vealing hym just as Lilith entered the range of the enemy’s darts. Sha brought har horse to a halt once more.

Zadkiel said, “You can kill me from where you stand, Lilith, but Mi- chael would join me in death.”

Lilith stared at Zadkiel with narrowing eyes and rode a bit closer. Then moving in a well-practiced dance, Keter’s best pikeyeng, arranged in a ring around Michael’s cage, brought their forest of spikes to the horizontal, yet not toward Lilith, but inward, toward Michael.

“Don’t sink to this, Zadkiel,” sha called out in disgust. “I expect as much from Samael but it is not worthy of an unpossessed Gerash noble- yang.” But har words were mere bluster. Lilith was shocked how effi- ciently the use of Michael as a living shield curtailed har actions.

Zadkiel seemed to read har thoughts. “Michael has become a noose around your neck, and the closer you try get to hym the tighter that noose will become. How easy it is to make you dance with a simple threat to Michael’s life!”

Michael shouted, “Lilith! Forget about me!”

Lilith’s eyes became moist as sha shook har head with a sad smile. Sha said, “Did you not know that is the only thing I could never do?”

But there was nothing more sha could do that day on the field. Spur- ring har horse, sha turned and led har Fallen Angels back to the city.

On the eve of the first battle of Salem Princess Lilith joined har father Cherub Melchiyahu to tally the campfires of the Adanite forces arrayed against them. When they were finished sha asked, “My father and king, how did you survive the countless battles you have fought? It is known that you should never lead your forces from safe headquar- ters in the rear, but share the risk and the hardships of the front,”

Melchiyahu replied, “A cowardly commander puts a premium on hyz per- sonal survival, Lilith. This endangers hyz army, and ultimately hym- self. When I advance on the battlefield I have already reconciled my- self with death. I go into every battle, no matter how great or small, as though I were certainly doomed to die. This leaves my mind clear to concentrate on fighting well. Gaining the victory, I keep my life. Gaining victory, furthermore, I preserve the city and save the life of the people.”

During the battle the King’s forces, which were a larger body than the Fallen Angels, took the role of the primary force. Lilith’s yen were the skirmishers, the saboteurs, and the assassins. On a grander scale, it was King Melchiyahu and his ordinary force that gained the victory, but Zadkiel’s yeng remembered only the leather-clad yen who had some- how gotten behind their lines, throwing knives, cutting throats, driv- ing off horses and setting fire to wagons.

And Keter, watching through the eyes of the dragon Demonstroke flying high over the field, witnessed the defeat of Zadkiel. He discounted his numerical losses and ordered more yeng to march west from Adan. They moved toward Salem like buckets of water in a fire brigade.

Before the second battle for Salem the Adanites massed on the Cherub’s left, north of the city, and Melchiyahu marched to meet them. There Ophan Lilith asked hym, “My father and liege-lord, why have you camped your army on this plain, and let Zadkiel occupy the high ground?”

“My army is like water,” hy answered. “Everyone discounts the impor- tance of water until they need to seek it out in the low places it rests, in wells and rivers and even swamps. By our mere presence on this plain leading to the city, Zadkiel will begin to covet the plain.”

“But father, we are ringed by hills on three sides. When Zadkiel at- tacks, we will not know from which direction hy will come!”

“Ahh, but I have the interior lines. I can reinforce at the point of contact in moments, while anywhere I choose to counterattack he will be weak. And daughter, behold: the hills hy occupies are covered by trees. Hy cannot communicate with hyz own force with signal companies using flags, only with individual messengers that must run around the horseshoe. No, Lilith, our enemy is a fool and hyz defeat here is as- sured.”

Hyz boast would have held true against any other foe in Heaven, but Zadkiel spent the lives of yeng on the Plain of Galcha without remorse until the Adanite horde was on the utter brink of mutiny. Melchiyahu and Lilith withdrew closer to Salem but the enemy did not pursue.

After they reckoned their own losses Lilith asked, almost in despair, “Father, why do yeng love combat so much?”

“Because while a dirk is growing hy is filling out hyz potential,” said Cherub Melchiyahu. “As long as hy has not yet exceeded hyz lim- its, hy remains a child. Yeng are always reaching out, always extend- ing until they find a breaking point. And while they are on this quest for a limit they can be enlisted in stupid vainglorious campaigns to defend the honor of other yeng who never found their own limit.”

Zadkiel came again against Salem with hyz dwindling army. The forces clashed in the ravine of Anixi and Melchiyahu was driven down the brook to Nolesh Wood. Then Lilith came with timely reinforcements to turn and drive the Adanite army to the very edge of the gorge of Ar- mak. The flags of truce were brought out, and with the King’s consent Lilith rode into the lines of the enemy to see if Zadkiel, with hyz back against an awesome precipice, had come to new wisdom. Hy had not even believed Keter concerning Lilith, but that was before this fight.

“I find I want you working for me and not against me,” Zadkiel told har as Michael watched from hyz cage only a few paces away. “You can defeat my army in this position, but I fear that Michael is close to the edge and something might happen to hym during the confusion. To keep Michael safe you will dissolve your band of yen dressed as warri- ors, ride at the head of this army, and go where I command you in the East Lands and the West Lands and Salem, and every place where angels and men dare to hold the law of the god of Heaven in contempt.”

“Where is the honor here, Zadkiel? Where is the glory? Do you really want me to command your army while every decision is tainted by hold- ing hostage the yang I love? Keter would do better to shun pretense and send Demonstroke down to finish the Fallen Angels.”

Zadkiel was delighted to hear Lilith declare that sha loved the pris- oner. “Then are the rumors true, Princess? Michael must not fall out- side of the control of my army but hy need not be confined to a cage. Consider very carefully. You could go to hym this very night.”

“At a word from my father every Salemite would flock into hyz army, Hashmal Zadkiel; yea, even the yen, the infirm, the dirks and the dolls. The war would grow so bloody that the whole face of the land would be covered with the stinking dead, and no one would be left to bury them. This must not be.”

Then sha turned on har heels and quit the parley. There had been no need to prod Lilith to do the right thing. Never was Michael more proud of har. “Sha knows, Chokhmah. The things you love are always used against you. Always! Sha knows!”

“Sha does know,” Michael replied, “but woe to those who turn love into a weapon and dare to use it against the ones who love. Beware, Zadki- el. Your doom lies before you. It takes no supernatural power of fore- sight to know the struggle for Salem will end badly for you.”

Many years before Zadkiel brought war to Salem, the Cherub Gordiel hitched a wagon to a nearby tree with a knot so elaborate no one could fairly begin to unravel it. At that time an oracle said whoever untied the wagon would rule all the angels in Heaven.

Zadkiel had heard the prophecy, of course. When the Army of Keter drew near the city hy found the wagon and laid eyes on the Gordian Knot. For several days, while the army built camps in the surrounding fields, Zadkiel tried to undo the legendary knot, but to no avail. This hy did in great secret, for the Eyes of Keter would look askance at any attempt to usurp the power of Samael by fulfilling the prophe- cy. Then, accepting at last the wagon was going nowhere, Zadkiel had hyz yeng lash Michael’s cage to the old wagon on the hilltop.

Sibiel, the farmer from Odargas who once smuggled Princess Lilith into Salem, was fingered by witnesses after the Eyes of Keter threatened torment. The Eyes elected not to kill Sibiel, for it seemed a waste of good yengpower. Lilith had made Zadkiel’s army short-handed. So Sibiel was issued army livery and pressed into service as a waterbearer in Zadkiel’s camp. Having little else to do for entertainment, often the Adanite soldiers tripped hym, laughing together with their fellows as Sibiel trudged back and forth to refill hyz waterskin.

One night when Sibiel wandered off toward the edge of the camp hy was attacked by a hooded shape and dragged into a ravine. When they were alone the attacker revealed harself to be Lilith and ordered hym to swap their clothes. As hy stripped Sibiel said hy wanted to help. But after some stern words from the Ophan, tempered with ample thanks for what hy had already done for har, Sibiel faded off into the night un- der the black robe. Lilith adjusted Sibiel’s second-hand armor and helmet, which was almost worse than no protection at all.

Sha padded out har ample curves and applied false facial hair to off- set the soft yenish features that belied har status as commander of the most fierce army in Heaven. Then Lilith drifted into camp fetching water for the yeng and taking abuse as though sha were Sibiel.

Lilith searched in the area where Sibiel told har Michael was being held captive. The wooden cage that had been hyz home for far too long had been taken off the wagon tied to a tree by the Gordian Knot and relocated to the center of the camp. It was guarded by only two yeng. The cage was covered with a canvas to keep Michael from dying of expo- sure. It would not do, Zadkiel knew, to break the single thread keep- ing hymself and hyz whole army alive.

Lilith could swagger with the best of them. The guards permitted har to bring water to Michael. Sha appeared between the canvas and the cage with har ladle of rancid water. For light sha put on a green flexible band of intricate make, a gift from Michael. In the center it possessed a brilliant white light that allowed Lilith to move on the darkest nights. There was none like it in Heaven. The canvas covering Michael’s cage was thick enough that no light escaped to betray the princess and whispers could not be heard outside.

Michael was initially filled with joy when hy saw the face of hyz dis- ciple but this quickly changed. “Nice beard.”

“Hush! Take my headband.”

“I gave that to you and I never ask for my gifts to be returned.”

“You will have to make an exception.”

“Do you want me to use it to escape?”

“Please don’t do anything stupid, Michael. Better yet, don’t do any- thing at all!”

Michael immediately got the joke and smiled. Lilith offered the water sha brought, such as it was. Then sha said, “That headband is the only thing I have that says ‘Lilith was here’ without mistake. Zadkiel will come here later to gloat over you like they always do. At that time I want you to let hym see that you have my headband. That’s my message to hym, and it is a very simple one: that I can come or go at will.”

“It will rattle hym good.”

“It will rattle him to the point of pulling many yeng off the front lines to guard you.”

“It is a sound plan,” whispered Michael. “I never doubted that you had a scheme to get me away from Zadkiel.”

Their last moment together that evening was spent in a passionate kiss that was made necessarily short because the guards were already get- ting suspicious.

At dawn Lilith and har father beheld the enemy, now very close to the city, from a small rise. Michael’s cage was visible in the center of the field, protected by a sizeable fraction of Zadkiel’s available yeng, perhaps up to a third. Lilith marveled how easy it had been.

“Do you see what I have done, father?” said sha. “Things have been neatly reversed. Michael has become Zadkiel’s greatest weakness in- stead, a precious jewel tying down a third of hyz force just as our attack begins.”

And Melchiyahu did not hesitate to let the attack begin.

The armies slammed together. With the new disparity in numbers the battle inexorably began to tip against Zadkiel. Lilith fought har way to the top of the hill behind Zadkiel’s army where the wagon was tied up, standing all by itself and forgotten.

Zadkiel spotted har and nudged hyz horse up the hill to cut har off. A sudden fear gripped hym that Lilith could accomplish what no others had achieved, solve the Gordian Knot, and inherit the promise of the oracle to rule Heaven. Alone on the summit they both dismounted and squared off.

After a flurry of clashing swords just the tip of Zadkiel’s blade slashed Lilith’s bare midsection and hy attained first blood. Sha feigned shock at the injury and slowed har dance. Zadkiel saw that and let his guard wither for just a few heartbeats, but it was enough. Seeing har slim opening, Lilith let fly a ferocious kick of one booted foot to hyz face and Zadkiel was laid out cold. Hyz sword separated from hyz unconscious hand.

Lilith tossed it far away, then returned to har helpless prey with a strong urge to make an end of hym.

Before sha met Michael, Lilith would have done precisely that, to avenge Imriel. No, far better to let the Hashmal live and explain hyz defeat to hyz god. Sha suppressed har rage and glanced at the forgot- ten wagon fastened to a tree on the hilltop. Lilith ran to it instead.

Sha attempted to untie the knot that her mad grandfather old King Gor- diel had made to secure the wagon to a mighty tree, but like so many that came before har sha made no headway. Sha looked down and saw Adanite skirmishers ascending to come to the aid of their commander.

Finally, with no time to lose, Lilith just hacked at the knot with har sword. The wagon was free, but sha was certain Gordiel didn’t have that solution in mind when hy created the knot. The wagon began to roll downhill and Lilith jumped inside, hanging on for har very life.

Lilith’s war cry caught the attention of the troops guarding Michael but the wagon gripped it. They gaped at the horror rushing down upon them faster than any horse could drive it. All of the yeng fled as har desperate gamble played out. Sha ducked inside and braced harself.

Michael saw what sha was doing also, and flattened hymself against the side of the cage that hy guessed would avoid a direct impact. The wag- on collided with enough speed to shatter both the cage and the wagon to splinters. Lilith was unceremoniously dumped on har ass.

Somehow they both survived the collision.

Lilith was more bruised and beaten than sha had ever been in har life but Michael was free. Melchiyahu and the Fallen Angels under Lilith’s lieutenants pursued the defeated and scattered forces of Zadkiel’s army into the forest. But King Melchiyahu knew this defeated army was a fraction of the strength that Samael could bring to bear on hym and its modest size was itself a gesture of contempt on the part of Samael for the power of Salem to defend itself. Hy knew they would return with greater force.

Lord Zadkiel regained consciousness and drank in the scope of hyz hu- miliation from hyz vantage on the hilltop. Cursing, hy fled the field alone on hyz horse. For the rest of hyz life, which endured little longer than hyz long ride back to Adan, hy contemplated how to explain it to Keter.

“No more adventures for a while,” Lilith told Michael while hy made certain sha was not seriously hurt. “I’ve cracked a rib, for starters. But you know this battle would have been unnecessary if you had just let me carry out my plan at Adan.”

“You would have been killed.”

Lilith touched the back of har head. “But now you have changed me, and unleashed a warrior yin in Heaven who does not blanch at the conse- quence of death.”

“I would unleash an army of them. But tell me, why did you throw away everything you’ve worked for since you met me?”

“I don’t understand what you just said.”

Michael held up one end of the wagon’s rope. “I’m talking about the Gordian Knot. I’ll admit, cutting it was probably not what the oracle intended, but now you are destined to rule Heaven. Fate! The unre- formed Lilith must return.”

“Must sha? You say Keter was behind all this, but do you think he will have his way forever? What if the oracle really meant the spirit of the new Lilith will take over Heaven? The one who changed –” Har eyes brimmed with moisture and har voice broke, but sha went on. “The one who changed on that unforgettable day when sha first heard you speak.”

The last word was a sob. Michael ran hyz had over Lilith’s side, and somehow hy took the underlying pain away. Lilith didn’t have to use har new talent to shunt the agony away and breathe deeply.

“It may take many centuries to play out, my beloved, both here and in the other world. But I really believe you turned a corner here today. If every person in every age grows willing to do for each other what you did for me today, then love won. Once and for all, love won!”

It was a thousand leagues from Salem to the city of Adan, and after hyz defeat Lord Zadkiel did not hurry home overmuch, for hy knew hyz life was almost certainly forfeit. Yet hy had never seen Keter delight in cruelty for its own sake. Hy could not say as much for the Eyes. So Zadkiel did not flee, which would lead to a far more wretched death, but rather made hyz ponderous way to the capital, a thousand leagues to the east.

Once there Bezaliel, a large scum bubble who had oozed to the top of the Eyes of Keter, warned Zadkiel of what hy could expect in the Lord’s audience chamber. “Samael will receive you now, but hy is not alone. Seated on a throne at hyz right hand is the Lord Israel. Hy has the appearance of a young dirk, but no mistake, even as the Seraph Samael is the living avatar of Keter, so the Seraph Israel is the liv- ing avatar of Daat. You will not, in any event, see the great lords, for you must enter the audience hall on all fours like a dog and keep your gaze ever on the floor before you. Now prepare yourself to enter, Hashmal Zadkiel, and may the ever-merciful gods of the house of Gerash forgive you.”

So Zadkiel crawled into the chamber with the same lack of haste that marked his ride from Salem to Adan. Israel bounded off his throne to- ward him with a sword that hy never sheathed. “Come no closer, worm,” hy said, “Speak, but spare us any war stories from last year.”

“My Lord Israel,” hy stammered, “if any angel in Heaven told me the daughter of Melchiyahu was so warlike I might be excused for dismiss- ing them. Yet the Lord Samael hymself told me this, and I did not be- lieve hym. Thus hyz army was destroyed in detail and the fault is en- tirely mine.”

Israel said, “For your unbelief, worm, you are forgiven. But your ab- solute incompetence as a commander demands a remedy.”

Then with a single stroke Zadkiel received the clean death hy had hoped for. Hyz only surprise was how long hy could still see after being decapitated.

Israel hurled the blade across the audience hall. It tumbled end-over- end, yet it was perfectly timed and embedded itself in the massive wooden door at the entrance. That was the signal for Bezaliel to stroll in. Not crawl. When hy reached the body hy gave a deferential bow to the angelic incarnation of his gods.

Samael said, “This mess is the result of one of my thralls dwindling in unbelief.”

“I shall send to have it cleaned at once, Lord Samael.”

“Do that. When they have finished return once more. I will speak to you of the daughter of King Melchiyahu, and how you must never take har out of your consideration when you head my army to bring Salem to heel. I tried to impress this carrion with just that, but hy thought I was having hym on. You see the inevitable result.”



When Melchizedek brought Abram into a covenant relationship with Chokhmah there was a name change. Abram means ‘the father is ex- alted’ which had glorified Terah rather than his son. Melchize- dek changed his name to Abraham, which means ‘father of many na- tions’.

Previously the covenant was enacted solely between Abraham and Chokhmah and was mediated through Melchizedek. Sarah embraced Chokhmah because she loved Abraham and she was his wife. Abra- ham’s servants embraced Chokhmah on the principle of what the boss says goes. But with the introduction of circumcision the worship of Chokhmah became corporate worship. And this worship was embedded in the culture rather than a mere personal choice. Even baby boys were circumcised. Anyone not circumcised was cut off from the peo- ple, so to speak.

But there was a benefit to circumcision not intended by Keter when he threw it in there as an act of sabotage. Circumcised men were chafed day and night. They lasted longer during sexual inter- course before the inevitable finish. And that resulted in a happy lady.

The Jews call the story of the Binding of Yishak the Akedah. When the boy was about fourteen, Melchizedek said to Abraham, “Take now your son Yishak and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will show to you.”

The countenance of Abraham fell. He searched the face of Mel- chizedek, first guessing it was a bad joke. Then he suspected the Ophan had gone insane. He was tempted to refuse outright as he did once before in Harran. He considered offering a defense of his son. In the end Abraham remembered the Covenant, and his affirmation of loyalty to the one he knew as Chokhmah. Melchizidek says this Chokh- mah now requires the life of his son? So be it. “Let my word be true. I will obey my God, though I find his demands to be hateful.”

When all was ready Abraham left his flocks grazing on the plains nigh to the coast. There he left his wife and all his servants. With Yishak at his side they were led by Melchizedek east among treeless hills with the Artifact as surety against any who would waylay them.

On the first night, Melchizedek asked Abraham to look at the stars and see if he could count them. “So shall your descendants be,” said hy. There are only six thousand stars visible to the unaided eye but Abraham got the point. Chokhmah would bestow upon him much progeny. Abraham agreed to have only Chokhmah as his God and trusted that she would always do what she said she would do. That was the basis of the first covenant between the Elohim and humans, the first contract made between the divine and the mortal on some- thing of an equal basis. Abraham possessed many animals and great riches. He was already living in the golden age as far as he was concerned, and did not pine away for ‘salvation’ or an afterlife. Abraham was living a full life and he accepted that he was mortal like everything else in the world. The only thing remaining that Chokhmah could give Abraham was the assurance that his name and his blood would be carried into the future by a people who would live in the land he had been promised.

Two days and three nights passed but they had seen no game along the way. When they drew near to the appointed place Melchizedek pointed the hill out to them. Yishak asked, “Where is the animal for the offering?”

Melchizedek said nothing and glanced at Abraham. Abraham anticipated this question and he could not bring himself to lie to his son. He said, rather, “God himself will provide the animal.”

Yishak was excited to see what sort of beast God was going to provide for the sacrifice and ran ahead up the hill with youthful energy. Abraham said to Melchizedek, “When it is time you will help me restrain my son.”

When they caught up with the boy on the hilltop Yishak called out, “Father, there’s nothing here!”

Abraham had a length of rope and was tying loops in it. He said, “Join me here son, and help with this.” Thus distracted, Melchizadek took the opportunity to seize the boy.

Yishak didn’t cry out at first because he didn’t even understand what was happening until Abraham and Melchizedek had lashed him se- curely to a flat boulder that would serve as the altar. Abraham would never forget his son’s utter terror and the betrayal he must have felt.

After that Abraham didn’t need to work up the will to slay his own son. He was actually in a hurry to do it. Each instant the help- less Yishak lay in mortal terror of his own father tore at his heart. Abraham couldn’t stand it. Melchizedek was barely in time to restrain him.

“Enough!” he shouted. “Do not harm the boy!”

To be certain, Melchizedek used the Artifact to cut the lad free once more. Yishak stood at a safe distance and watched his father’s face work through a storm of dark emotions. At length Abraham said, “So. A day of testing?”

Melchizedek nodded in the affirmative. “It is a day that will not be forgotten while cold and heat, seedtime and harvest remain. God knows now that you will not even withhold your son from him.”

Abraham longed to embrace Yishak but saw how the boy stood well away. He said, “Could there not have been another way?”

Melchizedek said, “It would be difficult to explain the background of the argument. Let it be enough to know that the enemy of man- kind has made certain claims, and God has chosen you and your de- scendants to answer them.”

“What I dread most of all,” lamented Abraham, “is answering the questions of my wife after Yishak has spoken to her of all this, which he undoubtedly will.”

Even as he spoke the mouth of the bridge in spacetime appeared on the hilltop and the crack of a whip was heard. A ram rushed through the opening. With one smooth stroke of the Artifact’s im- material black shaft Melchizedek separated the head and body of the animal as it emerged from the bubble.

Hy said to Abraham, “I will return to Earth when Yishak is of age to have his own wife.”

Then the folddoor winked out of existence and Melchizedek was gone with it. Only one tiny artifact remained, indistinguishable from a fly, dragging an invisible foldline stretching back to Chokhmah and left there to permit the eloah to see what Abraham and Yishak would do.

And Yishak knew his father’s words to him earlier had been true. God really had provided the sacrificial animal as Abraham promised. The boy began to trust his father once more. He returned to the hilltop and helped Abraham make a burnt offering of the ram to Chokh- mah.

CHAPTER 23

The folddoor left Ophan Melchizedek in the very place where hy had been taken, the audience hall of the King, but only one lamp was burning to give light. Melchizedek had forgotten when it was day on one world it could be night on the other, and hy wondered how that could be.

Knowing that hyz father Melchiyahu slept, hy went the wing of the palace where hyz sister Lilith lived, as hy remembered har to be rather nocturnal. When hy drew near to har chambers hy saw servants going out with wet linen and going in with dry linen. Hy wondered if hy really wanted to see this. The worst fears of Melchizedek materialized when hy came into the presence of Lilith and found har to be nude from the waist down, with each leg held high in the air by servants. This was debauched even by hyz sister’s standards. But Michael was also present amid a flurry of activity.

Lilith spied hym approaching and smiled broadly. “Deck, you’ve come! And just in time!”

Michael said to har, “The head has breached. Push, Lil! Push!”

Melchizedek saw little after that. He only remembered that it was all very liquid. Afterwards hy realized to hyz surprise that hy had fainted.

After Lilith’s servants revived Melchizedek hy guessed hy must have been unconscious for some time. The newborn was already skin-to- skin against its mother. Sha said, “Deck, is sha not beautiful?”

“I see there have been many changes here these three years I’ve been away.”

“Who more worthy to wed an Ophan of Salem than a Seraph?” re- plied Lilith, affirming what Melchizedek had guessed about Mi- chael, that hy was the living avatar of an eloah, greater in glory than any king. “And Deck, in your absence the city has withstood a mighty attack.”

Hy said, “Beloved sister, you are the most valiant and hardy yin I know, but unless I am still unconscious and dreaming, just now you went through one of the most difficult and painful experiences possible for an angel or nephil or human being, and did not once cry out.”

“I cannot stand to watch my wife suffer in the smallest way,” Michael explained, “so I gave har a gift. Sha can stand apart from any pain, if sha so chooses.”

“And I most certainly did choose, tonight,” Lilith said, as a nipple slipped into the mouth of har tiny Leliel. “There are things Michael has entrusted to me that it is well Keter or Daat never discover. Not the most refined torment could wrest them from me now.”

Melchizedek caught the eye of Michael and told hym, “Abraham proved true in the testing.”

“That is so,” said Michael, ‘but he has little love for a god who demanded the life of his son. Still, he and Yishak are now making a burnt offering of the kill. And it is not their love that I crave. I suppose a man might remain loyal to a god that he active- ly hates. But come, Melchizedek, let your mind be at ease. It will be years before I bid you return to the other world. For now rejoice with myself and your sister: you have a niece! Tomorrow morning we shall see your father and speak of what has befallen Salem in your absence.”

When Yishak was seventeen years of age Melchizedek returned to Earth and journeyed once more to Harran in the land of Abraham’s own peo- ple. There hy became acquainted with Bethuel, who was the son of Milcah. Milcah was the wife of Nahor. And Nahor was Abraham’s brother.

In the household of Bethuel there dwelt a beautiful young woman named Rebekah. She was Abraham’s great niece, and therefore Yi- shak’s first cousin once removed. Eyeing her, Melchizedek told Be- thuel it had fallen to hym to find a wife for Yishak from among Abraham’s kin.

The Ophan had access to Abraham’s entire estate and hy had brought as much as ten mules could carry, with precious stones and jewelry from Heaven itself. All these riches he dangled before the eyes of Bethuel, prompting him to say, “Rebekah, will you go with this man?”

Thus Rebekah was formally asked to take her place in the epic set in motion when Chokhmah inserted herself into human history and com- manded Abraham to go to the land of Canaan. But the display of wealth did not sway Rebekah. She wanted to know more about Yishak himself.

Melchizedek spoke to Rebekah of the time three years prior when as a boy Yishak feared losing his life at the point of a blade. Hy re- maining carefully vague about the fact that hy hymself had relayed the kill order from Chokhmah, the eloah worshiped by Abraham as his deity. And Melchizedek told Rebekah how the incident caused Yishak to develop a more profound affection for his mother, while deliberately neglecting to tell her how Yishak in fact almost never left his mother’s tent after he barely escaped being sacrificed to his father’s god.

Melchizedek had presented hymself to Rebekah and her family as courteous, humble, and devout. The gifts were obligatory. Some- thing seemed a bit off, but she decided to proceed on a hunch. She judged Melchizedek to be a good man (for a tall human she thought hym to be). Rebekah was very intelligent and it stood to reason that if the servant was a good man (for a simple servant Melchizedek held hymself out to be) then hyz masters, her kin Abraham and Yi- shak, must be good men as well. So she answered her father Bethuel by saying, “I will go.”

When Melchizedek returned to the oasis at Beersheba, Yishak brought Rebekah into his late mother Sarah’s tent and took her as his wife, and he loved her. So was Yishak comforted after his mother’s death. Melchizedek had provided Yishak with a replacement mother. Rebekah sensed this and felt perhaps a twinge of regret, but she was an honorable woman who had assented to the marriage sight unseen. Then Melchizedek received word that hyz father Mel- chiyahu had died in hyz sleep, making hym the king of Salem by right of succession

So Melchizedek bid farewell to Abraham, Yishak, and Rebekah. With hyz two servants Zophiel and Kemuel hy passed out of all knowledge of those who dwell on Earth, and came not again. The task appointed to hym to set aside a holy people for Chokhmah had been ful- filled.