TCD

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Melchiyahu sent his daughter Lilith to bid the prophet Michael to visit the court in Salem and preach what he would, yet it was no sovereign decree, and Michael agreed to come only if the encounter was open for any of the people to witness. So Melchiyahu prepared the amphitheater where he thrilled visiting nobles with exhibitions of combat. Lilith attended as well, dressed for once like an Ophan. These were the words Michael spoke in Salem as the white and orange suns sank in the west. In years after the sermon was remembered as the Sunset Discourse.

“Thralls of Thaumiel are said to be superior to animals because he can control his own environment, but the Student of Elyon can control her own behavior. Thralls of Thaumiel are called famous, but the Student of Elyion sets an example by her deeds and becomes influential. Thralls of Thaumuiel accumulate many riches but cannot keep all of them safe. The Student of Elyon has few desires, and so holds on to all that she has. Thralls of Thaumiel demand to see good in others, and attribute the cause of a tragedy to unbelief or a defect in ritual, but the Student of Elyon is too busy mercifully addressing the needs at hand to render judgment, and she does not live for yesterday or tomorrow. Thralls of Thaumile can do he wills to do, but he cannot even determine what he wills. The Student of Elyon makes her own awareness of injustice the determinant of her actions. She diminishes the overflowing bounty of the corrupt to meet the needs of the impoverished. Thralls of Thaumiel put their riches and knowledge on parade, but the Student of Elyon does not tell all that she has, nor all that she can do. 'Thralls of Elyon will never admit error, but the Student of Elyon considers those who point out her faults to ber her greatest teachers. Thralls of Thaumiel speak only of the dead traditions of their longfathers of old, and by coercion leaves them in force, but the Student of Elyon cultivates the new as the coin to buy her way, and she knows that fully half of a dialogue is listening. Thralls if Thaumiel may refuse to grow or merely say that he is willing to grow, yet in truth he lives only to quench his appetites that he might feel sated. But the Student of Elyon does not remain idle; rather she grows, fulfills her passions and becomes joyous. Thralls of Eluyon value only that which he does not and can not have, and which do not multiply when shared. But the Student of Elyon empties her purse and finds her heart being filled. She contents herself with those things which are possible for her to obtain. Thralls of Thaumiel evaluatea how much a yan is worth by considering only how much she possesses and what she might do to benefit hymself. But the Student of Elyon looks to what a yan does for others and who that yan protects, for that is what she is truly worth. Thralls of Thaumiel consider yen vile and always falling short of his ancient standards. The Student of Elyon extols her sisters over all existing standards because when yen do go astray it is always induced by the repression induced by those standards. Thralls of Thaumiel examine everything about who is speaking except her words, and hears only what fits his prejudices. The Student of Elyon recognizes her own tendency to have a bias and tries to set it aside so that she may understand what is really being said. When a Thrall of Thaumiel suffers an indignity he mindlessly retaliates by committing another indignity. The Student of Elyon knows the greatest revenge is simply not to be like he who did the injury. The greatest conqueror is the yan who has conquered herself.”

Michael concluded the Sunset Discourse by healing many of the angels who came to hear hym speak and it was his sincere hope that one day the instruments and medicines he used would not be viewed as magic. King Melchiyahu sent word bidding Michael to come before the throne. D1

After he entered the castle and drew near to the Cherub's seat Michael was announced by Lilith, who at her father's command was still in the temporary role of herald. No titles were given. It was known that Michael was a lan of the city, the commoner son of a glassblower. Melchiyahu said, “Your sermon refered to the Student of Elyon as feminine. Are len excluded from his teachings?

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

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

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

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

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

Lilith said, “I was told nothing of my brother's missing five years.”

“Is it not some measure of who I am,” Michael said to the prince, “that I know what even your sister does not? Yet I will offer one more sign.” Michael had no power to open a space-time bridge in Kemen, 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 Melchizedek, know that the father of Abram is dead. Now I bid you to return to the other world and complete the errand your father solemnly laid on you, tarry not to take anything that you think you will need on Earth. I, Elyon, will provide them for you myself.”

Melchizedek seemed to be frozen in place. Hy firt glanced at Michael, then at his father, and had nothing to say. His father said, “Make haste, my son.” So Melchizedek entered the ball of distorted desert light and seemed to shrink as he walked away towards Harran. Belial, as he had one once before, did not raised the bubble before snapping it shut, leaving a crater on the floor.

King Melchiyahu approached Michael and dropped before hym on one knee, but Michael bade

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hym to rise. 'Truly I am in union with the holy one you call Elyon. Your daughter has heard me say this. But for my part I call you the Students, not our thralls as Samael would have you be.”

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

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

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

In that moment Michael needed no more persuasion. Hy had found willing allies in the ancient dispute with Samael and Beliel, and he saw the utility of having some students who were servants as well. Michael said, “Sire, let it be as you say. I accept your daughter Ophan Lilith as the first acolyte of what I shall call the B'nei Elohim, the offspring of the gods.” Then he bowed deeply, a god-lan paying sincere tribute to a cherub-king, and the audience was concluded.

Even as Samael and Belial aided Elyon to establish a covenant people on Earth they were bitterly opposed to her doing the same thing in Kemen. The interloper named Michael had made Salem and the surounding country a lost cause in Samael’s view but troops were sent to contain the plague. Ophan Lilith and her 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 and allowed himself to be taken to the Adanite capital, where he was made to stew for a number of days in a dungeon cell before receiving his first visitor, the Hash- mal Zadkiel. The noblelan moved very close to Michael’s iron cell to look directly into his eyes. After studying hym quietly for a time he said, “The Lord Samael sends his regards, Elyon.”

Michael smiled. “I made no secret of the union, yet you came all the way to Salem to deny it, and pronounce death upon me for having the audacity to claim it,.

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

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

“Certain actions and non-actions will be required of you,” said Zadkiel, “and you must 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 whims of one of his thralls.”

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Zadkiel smiled and said, “Oh, a martyr is really the last thing we want, Elyon. Lord Keter has a far better idea. Your sentence of death will be set aside. Instead, we shall parade you captive in a cage through every settlement from here to Salem. The people must see the humiliation of their would-be god, Elyon dressed up in the body of a helpless captive.”

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

Zadkiel curled his lips. “The rabble have short memories. Lord Samael also demands you reveal the secret of merging with a lan as a living avatar, as you clearly have done.”

“When my mother and father have brought Ophan Lilith here for, let us say, a week of final instruction, in somewhat more comfortable surroundings than this cell, and after they have sent her safely home to Salem once more, I will conform to the demands of Samael.”

Zadkiel chuckled. “Elyon, you are in no position to make any demands of your own.”

“Very well, Zadkiel. I will now shed this container of meat. After that I will let Samael know, through the more direct means that are always available to his daughter, how close he came to learning the trick of having a meat sack of his very own before your intrasigence ruined it.”

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

At a beautiful cataract in the mountains east of Salem, the Ophan Lilith and a squad of her 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 Lilith, her 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 her horse. Still stunned, Lilith witnessed another horselan decapitating Imriel with a single stroke and choked back her grief. Her horse possessed the intelligence to linger with Lilith rather than follow her equine instinct, which was to bolt. Shaking her 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 her 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 her every

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wish Lilith reared back and brought her horse to a stop. The other Fallen Angels conformed to her 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 his name with all the bile she could summon: “Zadkiel!”

Yet every indication Lilith had gathered from the path of burning villages told her Zadkiel was yet twelve to fifteen leagues to the west. She guessed that Zadkiel must have dragged his army here by a forced march overnight. That led her to marvel how he knew to come to just this place.

“Samael,” Lilith muttered, answering her own unspoken question. As though in answer, the dragon Demonstroke soared over the trees. Lilith was shocked to see the first and now last dragon in Kemen had been brought to this fight, but he orbited far overhead and made no move to attack. Michael, speaking within her mind, told her Demonstroke was brandished only as insurance against interference from his avatar, which could also fly and vomit sun fire.

Lilith signaled for the Fallen Angels to gather close around har. She said, “Zadkiel will pay for killing Imriel, life for life. You needn’t follow me.” She gestured to a pair of white horns on her head. “Michael says my death will not be my death, but he 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 her horse to face the enemy. She sped forward to attack Zadkiel directly, and not one yen held back.

Zadkiel ordered the canvas covering Michael’s cage to be removed, revealing hym just as Lilith entered the range of the enemy’s darts. She brought her horse to a halt once more.

Zadkiel said, “You can kill me from where you stand, but Michael 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,” she called out in disgust. “I expect as much from Samael but it is not worthy of an unpossessed Gerash noble- yang.” But her words were mere bluster. Lilith was shocked how efficiently the use of Michael as a living shield curtailed her actions.

Zadkiel seemed to read her 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!” The words appeared simultaneously in her mind.

Lilith’s eyes became moist as she shook her head with a sad smile. She replied to Michael, both vocally and internally, “Did you not know that is the only thing I could never do?” But there was D5

nothing more she could do that day on the field. Spurring her horse, she turned and led her Fallen Angels back to the city.

On the eve of the first battle of Salem Princess Lilith joined her father Cherub Melchiyahu to tally the campfires of the Adanite forces arrayed against them. When they were finished she 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 his per- sonal survival, Lilith. This endangers his 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 somehow gotten behind their lines, throwing knives, cutting throats, driving 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.

Zadkiel came again against Salem with his 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 his back against an awesome precipice, had come to new wisdom. Hy had not even believed Samael concerning Lilith, but that was before this fight.

“I find I want you working for me and not against me,” Zadkiel told her as Michael watched from his 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 warriors, 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 Kemen 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 holding hostage the yang I love? Keter would do better to shun pretense and send Demonstroke down to finish the Fallen Angels.”

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Zadkiel was delighted to hear Lilith declare that she loved the prisoner. “Then are the rumors true, Princess? Is it love, then? Michael must not fall outside of the control of my army but he 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 his 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 she turned on her 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, Elyon. The things you love are always used against you. Always! She 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, Zadkiel. Your doom lies before you. It takes no supernatural power of foresight 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 (or was told by Gordiel to say) whoever untied the wagon would rule all the angels in Kemen. Zadkiel had heard the prophecy, of course. When the Army of Samael drew near the city he 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 he did in great secret, for the Eyes of Samael would look askance at any attempt to usurp the power of the Lord by fulfilling the prophecy. Then, accepting at last the wagon was going nowhere, Zadkiel had his yeng lash Michael’s cage to the old wagon on the hilltop.

Lilioth padded out her ample curves and applied false facial hair to offset the soft yenish features that belied her status as commander of the most fierce army in Kemen. Then Lilith drifted into camp fetching water for the yeng and taking abuse as though she were a male commoner pressed into service. Lilith searched the area where Michael was being held captive. The wooden cage that had been his 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, but the cage itself was guarded by only two yeng. It was covered with a canvas to keep Michael from dying of exposure. It would not do, Zadkiel knew, to break the single thread keeping himself and his whole army alive.

Lilith could swagger with the best of them. The guards permitted her to bring water to Michael. She appeared between the canvas and the cage with her ladle of rancid water. For light she 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 Kemen. 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 he saw the face of his disciple but this quickly changed. “Nice beard.”

“Hush! Take my headband.”

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“Do you want me to use it to escape?”

“Please don’t do anything stupid, Michael. Better yet, don’t do anything at all!” She offered the water she brought, such as it was, then 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 the villains in plays always do. At that time I want you to let him see that you have my headband. That’s my message to him, and it is a very simple one: that I can come or go at will.”

“It will rattle hym good,” Michael admitted.

“It will rattle him to the point of pulling many len 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 they sensed guards were already getting suspicious.

At dawn Lilith and her 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 she. “Things are neatly reversed. Michael has become Zadkiel’s greatest weakness, a precious jewel tying down a third of his force just as our attack begins.”

And Melchiyahu did not hesitate to let the attack begin. The armies slammed together. With the disparity in numbers the battle began to tip against Zadkiel. Lilith fought her 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 her and nudged his horse up the hill to cut her 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 Kemen. 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 he attained first blood. She feigned shock at the injury and slowed her dance. Zadkiel saw that and let his guard wither for just a few heartbeats, but it was enough.

Seeing her slim opening, Lilith let fly a ferocious kick of one booted foot to his face and Zadkiel was laid out cold. Hyz sword separated from his unconscious hand. Lilith tossed it far away, then returned to her helpless prey with a strong urge to make an end of hym. Before she met Michael, Lilith would have done precisely that, to avenge Imriel. No, far better to let the Hashmal live and explain the defeat to his god.

She suppressed her rage and glanced at the forgotten 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 her she made no headway. She looked down and saw Adanite skirmishers ascending to come to the aid D8

of their commander. Finally, with no time to lose, Lilith just hacked at the knot with her sword. The wagon was free, but she was certain Gordiel didn’t have that solution in mind when he created the knot. The wagon began to roll downhill and Lilith jumped inside, hanging on for her 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 her desperate gamble played out. She ducked inside and braced harself.

Michael saw what she was doing also, and flattened hymself against the side of the cage that he guessed would avoid a direct impact. The wagon collided with enough speed to shatter both the cage and the wagon to splinters. Lilith was unceremoniously dumped on her assm but somehow they both survived the collision. Lilith was more bruised and beaten than she had ever been in her 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.

“No more adventures for a while,” Lilith told Michael while he made certain she was not seriously hurt. “I’ve cracked a rib, for starters. You know this battle would have been unnecessary if you had not allowed yourself to be taken to Adan.” Lilith touched the white horns upon her head head. “But now you have changed me, and unleashed a warrior yan in Kemen who does not blanch at the consequence of death.”

“Tell me, Lil, why did you throw away everything you’ve worked for since you met me?”

“My husband and teacher, I do not 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 Kemen. Fate! Now the unreformed 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 Kemen? The one who changed –” Her eyes brimmed with moisture and her voice broke, but she went on. “The one who changed on that unforgettable day when she first heard you speak.”

The last word was a sob. Michael ran his had over Lilith’s side, and somehow he took the underlying pain away. Lilith didn’t have to use her 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 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!”

The fold-door left Ophan Melchizedek in the very place where he had been taken, the audience hall of the King, but only one lamp was burning to give light. Melchizedek had forgotten when it D9

was day on one world it could be night on the other, and he wondered how that could be. Knowing that his father Melchiyahu slept, he went the wing of the palace where his sister Lilith lived, as he remembered her to be rather nocturnal. When he drew near to her chambers he saw servants going out with wet linen and going in with dry linen. Hy wondered if he really wanted to see this. The worst fears of Melchizedek materialized when he came into the presence of Lilith and found her to be nude from the waist down, with each leg held high in the air by servants, debauched even by his 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 he realized to his surprise that he, a warrior of Salem, had fainted.

After Lilith’s servants revived Melchizedek he guessed he must have been unconscious for some time. The newborn was already skin-to-skin against its mother. She said, “Deck, is Leliel 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?” replied Lilith, affirming what Melchizedek had guessed about Michael, that he 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 yan I know, but unless I am still unconscious and dreaming, just moments before you went through one of the most difficult and painful experiences possible in this world and you did not once cry out.”

“I cannot stand to watch my wife suffer in the smallest way,” Michael explained, “so when she came to me in Adan I gave her a gift. She can stand apart from any pain, if she so chooses.”

“And I most certainly did choose, tonight,” Lilith said, as a nipple slipped into the mouth of her tiny Leliel. “There are things Michael has told me that it is well Samael or Beliel not discover until it is too late for them. 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, it is not his love I crave. I suppose a man might remain loyal to a god he actively hates. But come, Melchizedek, let your mind be at ease and rejoice with your sister: you have a niece! Tomorrow we shall see your father and speak of what has befallen Salem in your absence.”