TCF

The Adanite army led by Bezaliel had blocked and garrisoned all the roads leading to Salem from the north, south, and east. Salem itself lay on an island within a large lake fed by meltwater from a place where the northern and southern sheets of ice came together as one.

During the days of mourning for the father of King Melchizedek the Seraph Michael spoke in council of the movements of the Adanite army hy had discerned with the avatar of Chokhmah. “The forces now moving in the field are five times again what came against Salem before.”

“Five, or half, or a hundred times greater,” said Melchizedek, “it makes no difference. So long as I reign over this city, none shall face the enemy in the field.”

“My brother and lord,” said Lilith, “we have ships, and time enough to carry all the people of the city away.”

“But where would they go, Lil? There’s a hundred rustic coves scat- tered around the Sea of Aramel where little clans of fisherfolk barely survive from what little they catch and what lesser still they trade. The vale of the Dashok is too rocky. No crops will grow there.”

“Even so Your Majesty,” said Michael, “I beg you to release to me one seaworthy craft, at least. I would send spies to the very source of the river Dashok. Samael maintains a fortress in an ice cave there and supplies it by fold-door. It blocks any escape to the west.”

“Where are your thoughts leading, Michael?” asked hyz wife.

“Your brother is very wise, Lil. Hy knows Samael’s quarrel is really with the ruling family and your Fallen Angels, not with the ordinary subjects of Salem. There is a way out of this. Salem can live in peace.”

King Melchizedek queried, “Do you think the Fallen Angels can win through the cave?”

“As things now stand, Sire, that is impossible. Samael has me at a disadvantage. Hy knows precisely where the cave lies on the surface of Heaven and I do not. Lilith’s spies can remedy this.”

“Azarael and Jael would be perfect for this job,” Ophan Lilith said. “They’re ghosts. They could travel light and live off whatever sup- plies they find in the cave.”

“Then they shall have their barque,” said King Melchizedek, “and what provender and weapons they might need.”

It could not be hidden that the full might of House Gerash was drawn up against Melchizedek. As Salemites mourned Cherub Melchiyahu for the full twenty-five days, forces led by Bezaliel closed in until Salem stood isolated on the island that was coterminous with the city.

Melchizedek considered abdicating the throne, but no one believed Sa- mael would seat Princess Lilith on the throne to succeed hym, and a successor more to the liking of Samael was unthinkable to everyone who was now dwelling in Salem. Yet a siege would be even worse.

Hy said, “Beloved sister, the time has come for the Fallen Angels to quit Salem or renounce the sword for so long as they dwell within the city walls.”

Lilith replied, “Sire, this is a bitter edict, for my yen have already sworn their hand shall ever cleave to the sword.”

“And where shall they go, Lil?”

“Sire,” Michael said, “I propose to call together a council of royals with the aim of uniting all Heaven against Samael. I will fly Lilith and Leliel to Anshar but Raphaela will lead the Fallen Angels and all who would go with har to Rumbek.”

“And Raphaela? Where is sha? Let har stand forth.” Lilith’s second-in- command approached the throne and dropped to one knee.

Melchizedek waved for har to stand. “Do you, Hashmal Raphaela, under- stand the task that lies before you?”

“I confess that I do not, Sire.”

“There are no towns between Salem and the Ice other than a few scat- tered hovels and not a single road. You will ford the river many times and find little provender fit for angels along the way. Even the for- age for your horses will fail as you trace the Dashok to its source.”

Michael said, “I have made arrangements, Sire, to make it more likely that Raphael will prevail.”

“Excellent,” said the king. “Then if by good fortune sha safely passes to the lands held by the House of Larund, sha will find the Brown Beards are no friends of the pursuing Adanites.”

Michael said, “Sire, King Metatron boasts hy will welcome any refu- gees departing from what hy terms ‘the unlovely lands ruled by Keter’. So steadfast is this enmity that I plan to commit Queen Aurra and King Uriel to the council before I even meet with the Larund king.”

“We shall see if Metatron is willing to stand by hyz boast when the first refugees arrive to accept hyz hospitality. But I think you are overlooking something, Michael. If you can send me to Earth through a fold-door what stops Samael from sending yeng to hyz fortress?”

Michael said, “The king knows that elohim are living suns but perhaps hy does not know, and indeed hy could scarcely imagine the crushing forces that exist in the heart of suns. There is a dark light made by elohim that stays this pressure and allows their life to endure. The body of Daat is really a layer in the cold sun thinner than the finest gold leaf. It takes a full seven days for Daat to make sufficient ex- tra dark light to fatten his bridge to Keter such that a yang could use it. If this were not so Salem would have fallen long ago.”

“Lord Michael, you have made me come to believe the Fallen Angels will win through to Rumbek after all. I thank you.”

“And I thank you also, King Melchizedek for your years of service to me in the other world. I have made far greater demands on you than you ever did of me.”

“There has been a spring in this city,’ said Melchizedek. ‘It has lasted far longer and tasted far sweeter than anyone dared to dream. But if winter must now come to Salem, Michael, may the flowering we have known take root outside of the lands trampled by House Gerash.”

“Will you reconsider your rejection of the Change so that your sister may not be parted from you forever?”

“It is tempting, yet as the centuries wore on I think would become something alien to the living, like a stone smuggled into a nest of eggs.” The King saw how Lilith grew supremely unhappy at these words.

“Then Sire, think on the refined cruelty of the Eyes of Keter, and what you may suffer should you fall into their hands. Your sister ac- cepted the Change and not even the pains of childbirth made har blench. At the very least you could die at the moment of your own choosing.”

Melchizedek said, “I have no fear of that. Every moment that I remain alive in their captivity the Eyes will fear I will be snatched out of their hands by my sister, with all the attendant damage that would entail. They do not know sha will be whisked off to Anshar instead. No, Michael, my end will be quick and sure.”

Melchizedek saw how Lilith was allowing har tears to flow freely. Hy was moved to drop the airs of a king, step down from the dais, and embrace har one final time as any brother would the sister hy loved. Hy said, “I regret the years I had to admire you only in my thoughts.”

But Lilith could find no words other than to merely sob, “Oh, Deck, this parting is bitter. Bitter!”

Hy held har gently apart from hym and said, “Michael told me your dar- ling Leliel is the firstborn of the B’nei Elohim. The Children of the Gods! How fortunate you are, Lil!”

Then like the shadow of a cloud passing over the white sun the King saw how they were inflicting torment upon themselves as cruel as any- thing devised by the Eyes of Keter by letting the necessary parting linger too long.

At hyz command Melchizedek was arrayed in hyz finest raiment, and hy donned a jeweled cloak. Then hy led hyz weeping subjects to the lower levels of the city, and Princess Lilith longed to follow, but Michael gently stayed har, and together with Leliel they went another way.

Two hours later a lone craft neared a dark shore thronged with the enemy after making a nighttime crossing from Salem, but no darts flew, since it was yet too dark to see the identity of the boatyang. Lord Bezaliel passed through the ranks to properly receive the visitor. Suddenly night became day as the avatar of Chokhmah rose over the walls of Salem on a pillar of flame. Lord Bezaliel was not distracted as the other yeng were. Hy recognized Melchizedek and ordered weapons free. As the Cherub foresaw hy perished quickly in a storm of arrows.

The avatar’s light diminished as it bent to the north and picked up speed, becoming lesser in light than the orange cold sun that reigned over the night, then finally nothing more than an ordinary star as it raced out of sight. Never again would Salem know a ruling monarch.

As the Sarim Azarael and Jael of the Fallen Angels slinked their way through the ice tunnels west of Salem only three of Samael’s soldiers ever discovered them. Their bodies were left to be discovered in such a way that their deaths could be explained as entirely accidental.

The two yen found the location of the enemy’s main storeroom of meat and grain. Not even Chokhmah knew the exact position of that space where it sat under the ice, but she knew the position of Lilith’s headband, the one capable of casting a bright light, at all times.

Azarael left the artifact inside a container near the center of the ice cave in such a way that it would not likely be discovered and moved, even if the storeroom were actively being drawn down, which to har eyes it was not. After that sha and Jael moved some distance away.

They moved far down one of the tunnels radiating from the central space like wheel spokes, there to remain until such a time as they detected, as Michael put it using what hy warned was extreme under- statement, a disturbance. “This is not a suicide mission,” hy ex- plained.

They would never starve amid the bounty of stores but it was always cold. Fortunately they had a good remedy that never seemed to get tiresome. In the cozy little rat’s nest they made for themselves Jael slipped nude between fur blankets and purred to Azarael to come to har.



Ice pinched the Belt of Heaven in three places, leaving three unfrozen swaths. Each of these lands were about two thousand leagues long but only a hundred leagues from north to south. The Adanites styled their own the Middle Land. In practical terms it was the East Land.

The ice bridge between the Middle and East Lands was the thinnest of the three, and given much time it would be the first to melt, but it was four hundred leagues across and not smooth by any means. The ear- liest travelers despaired of reaching the end, and turned back. The few travelers who did cross the ice found themselves wading through a swampy tulgey wood that may have run for another four hundred leagues for all anyone knew, since no one found the one trickle emerging from the vast bog that was the ultimate source of the River Loenna.

Long before the humans of Heaven became angels or nephilim they mi- grated west, beating back the lethal native flora as they founded Sa- lem and points beyond. They crossed two more barriers of ice. Ulti- mately they reached a fertile land they called Rammon and went no fur- ther. In Rammon far from any interference from Keter the Gold Beards of the House of Sala developed an enduring culture unique in Heaven. It was based on the Ringhouse, a single common wooden dwelling of about eighty people at the center of a small circle of cultivated fields.

Along the rim of this circle one or two dozen footpaths entered the forest, but only four to six of these trails led to another Ringhouse some five or so leagues away. The rest petered out to game trails or (more likely) dead-ended in a grove of lethal whipping trees.

When girls were of age they were married to a fellow in a neighboring Ringhouse. Most people were born, lived, and died without seeing more than a dozen or so Ringhousen, yet it was very peaceful.

No Adanite invaders would cross the ice and the swamp for such meager loot. What combat, such as it was, came against Saharad, the sole city in Rammon, in periodic raids from the adjoining land of Gerazan by the Red Beards of House Bellon. From time to time Samael appeared to both sides with the latest Adanite weaponry and left with their gold.

And yet in the main the Gold Beards of Family Sala embraced Michael’s revelations of Chokhmah to an extent that rivalled the angels of Salem. To a man they were the proud subjects of a powerful queen, Aurra Fire- gem, whose very existence would be absolutely unthinkable to the Adan- ites.

When the avatar of Chokhmah made landfall nigh to Saharad it did not inspire the fear that once overcame Salem, for this was the third such appearance. The first had been with Michael alone. On the second occa- sion Lilith had joined hym. Now Leliel was present, being just two years of age.

Queen Firegem cancelled what audience her courtiers had prepared for that day to receive instead her unannounced visitors. With her husband Duke Evandr the two made an imposing pair, but the queen was not beau- tiful in the eyes of many men, as she was broad of face and frame.

Upon har introduction Leliel had sufficient discipline to render the Queen a parody of court etiquette before being allowed to roam free, yet neither Aurra nor Evandr were offended, so taken were they with the lovely child. But Aurra guessed that Michael’s news would be bad.

“Your Majesty,” Lilith began with a husk in har voice, and even as sha spoke sha was surprised at the depth of har emotion two weeks after the event. “Your Majesty, my brother King Melchizedek is dead, and even now the city of Salem is being trampled by the Adanite army.”

Dismay edged the Queen’s voice. “Why, Princess Lilith? How did this happen?”

“Your Majesty, the people of Salem embraced Michael as a teacher, even as you and your people have done here in Rammon. Lord Samael would not, nay, hy could not allow that to continue unchallenged. And for hyz part my brother saw how a siege was immanent. Hy deemed that no edict Samael would likely impose upon the angels of the city for their defiance could be worse than their starvation, so hy went willingly to the enemy camp and Michael assures me hy died quickly.”

The Queen glanced then at Michael. “And what did befall Salem, do you know?”

“Your Majesty, Samael appointed a governor over the city who levies a heavy tax. The Eyes of Keter multiply almost as fast as do the mourn- ful ordinances and road checkpoints, and none may depart. And yet for all that, Your Majesty, Samael has utterly failed, because a daughter and a granddaughter of King Melchiyahu remain alive, and both have slipped away from hyz grasp. I now hold Lilith to be a Cherub and the Queen of Salem in exile. Samael will come for har.”

Duke Evandr Firegem said, “Are you seeking asylum for Queen Lilith, your daughter, and yourself, Lord Michael? If so you are entirely wel- come, indeed we are eager to have you live here in Saharad, and if the city is not to your liking you may live anywhere in Rammon.”

“I thank you, Sire, but leaving myself and my family aside, Samael is pursuing other exiles from Salem even into the land of the Brown Beards. Were I to do nothing to stave off the war that must follow King Metatron would no more welcome them in Rumbek than Samael in Sa- lem.”

Evandr said in reply, “Lord Michael, if, perchance your best efforts to bring peace fail, and war does come to House Larund, know that we humans of Heaven hold ourselves to be exiles also, and Chokhmah to be our only God. We of Rammon will never turn away any who embrace her.”

“For that I thank you and Queen Aurra, Sire,” said Michael, “but if war comes it will hardly stop at Rumbek. Samael means to overawe the kingdoms of heaven one after the other before they can unite to stop hym. I bid you to think on this when next hy appears before you as a merchant of arms.”

After conversing more with Evandr and Aurra on many things of lesser import Michael healed some of the incurably infirm in Sarahad before returning to Anshar with Leliel. But Lilith went on to rejoin the Fallen Angels who had reached the dwindling upper stream of the Da- shok.

As Melchizedek had warned the cache was strongly defended. After the Fallen Angels forced the entrance the garrison commander ordered a slow retreat to the central chamber while dealing out fire. There the bulk of hyz troops made a stand that seemed impossible to break.

As Lilith’s forces emerged from one tunnel or another hy shifted sol- diers to meet the threats when they appeared. Lilith found it impossi- ble to attack the core simultaneously from more than a handful of tun- nels since the cross tunnels were few and the enemy knew them well.

Raphaela spied a drop of water rolling down Lilith’s cheek, and har lieutenant was shocked at first, then sha steeled harself up to rebuke har Queen. It was one thing to feel despair during a battle, it was quite another to allow that despair to be visible to underlings.

But a large drop of water landed square on Raphaela’s head. Sha looked up to see many such drops were falling from the dimly-illuminated ceiling of ice far overhead. The drops became a true rain. The ceiling began to glow with a light of its own and a deep thunder grew.

Lilith ordered the Fallen Angels to disengage and fall back in the tunnels. None witnessed the ceiling of the ice cave glowing orange before exploding, with the more fortunate Adanite defenders killed by house-sized chunks of ice and the less fortunate ones boiling alive.

Only the dying yeng saw the avatar of Chokhmah drill into the chamber of ice with all six engines skewed, some pointing up, some pointing down, others turning from side to side, all six motors spouting fusion fire from the heart of Sol and turning the water to steam. The water boiled away and the bodies of the yeng were crisped by the raw flame until even their ashes were scattered away. Lilith and har lieutenants walked to the ragged end of several tunnels trying to comprehend the chaos of the scene below. The avatar fell silent.

Far across the chamber at another tunnel stood Azarael and Jael, both quite safe. The applause of the two yen echoed across the now quiet space. Lilith dropped to the lowest level and spoke to the inert ava- tar. “Michael, if Leliel is in there with you, you’re dead. And if you left har alone in Anshar where Keter or Daat can get at har by fold- door you’re twice as dead!”

The avatar of Chokhmah began to shrink before har eyes until it was a white faceless figure with a head, arms, and legs. It said, “Do give me some credit, Lil.”

Lilith had quite forgotten that Chokhmah could fly her avatar perfect- ly well without Michael inside. In fact, there were nothing like reins inside for Michael to steer it. Chokhmah marched out of the Adanite supply cache with every footfall sounding like an avalanche.

When the vanguard of the Adanite army reached the garrisoned cache, now entirely in shambles, they were ordered to line the walls of the central chamber at attention. Carrying a fat short staff, black in color, Bezaliel picked hyz way to the center searching for a flat area. Hy found a spot that would suffice for hyz purposes and un- screwed a cap on the end of the staff, revealing it to be a hollow cylinder. Then hy withdrew a gray mat. Hy had been told by Samael hym- self that a whisker extended from this mat to the heart of the sun itself.

Bezaliel could neither see nor feel this whisker, and indeed hy won- dered how it was not cut or snapped when the mat was rolled up into the cylinder, so it was a divine mystery. All hy knew was that unroll- ing the mat would, in effect, summon both Samael and Israel to appear.

Hy let the mat fly open by itself and stood back to wait. The living avatars of Keter and Daat were suddenly seen within what seemed to be a glass sphere. Bezaliel and all hyz yeng fell to their knees as though they were a single body as the two seraphim stepped forward.

When Israel bade the yeng to rise, Bezaliel said, “Look what the she- demon Lilith has done, my lords!”

Samael looked at the sky visible through a gaping tunnel in the cave ceiling. Hy said, “No, this was Chokhmah, and not the first time I have been assailed by her avatar.”

Bezaliel dared not contradict hyz god, but did say, “My Lord told me that were Chokhmah to send an engine of war to Heaven the line running back to her could be no more substantial than spider’s silk, like be- tween yourself and yonder mat. Lord, let your servant understand.”

Samael deemed hyz failure with Zadkiel was in keeping hym uninformed, so hy deigned to instruct hyz new thrall. Hy said, “Chokhmah is my daughter. We share our living substance, which forms a short tube be- tween us in our realm, although our bodies are very far apart in yours. Chokhmah, in the guise of her avatar, once walked to Heaven through this tube, so the link between herself and her avatar is short as well, and she can open a fold-door in Heaven as easily as she can do so on Earth.”

“Lord, I fear the witch Lilith may appear at any time.”

“Of that you may have no fear,” said Samael. “Chokhmah can hold open a tube the width of a finger indefinitely, but a tube the width of an arm, such as when she powers her avatar from the fires of her own body, she can manage only for an hour, and even that only once a day. Every six days Chokhmah’s body makes sufficient dark light to briefly open a fold-door large enough for Lilith to enter, but where would the Princess go other than into the heart of a sun to die? I would not open a linking portal for my enemy, and never would Israel.”

A regiment of the Adanite army was left behind to set the garrison in order. It would be seven days before Daat could summon another fold- door. So there was nothing for Samael and Israel to do but ride with Bezaliel and the bulk of the force in pursuit of Lilith.

During the advance Bezaliel prattled on about the wickedness of Lilith to Samael’s annoyance, yet Samael did nothing to silence his lieuten- ant, as Lilith was indeed hyz foremost enemy in Heaven, and Zadkiel had badly underestimated har to hyz final destruction.

After a number of days the Adanite expedition emerged from the ice and the underlying hills to reach the flats of Magodon, where like numbers of Brown Beards stood across the path of their advance. Two soldiers of the House of Larund advanced alone under flag of truce.

Neither Samael nor Israel wore emblems of rank. Their raiment was that of common footsoldiers, and no banners flew over them, yet the envoys from the Larund side galloped toward the Seraphim without error. Then Samael saw one herald was Lilith harself, to hyz admiration. The other wore a brass helmet but when hy drew nearer Samael identified hym, from hyz own many visits to the court of King Metatron, to be the Ophan Barachiel. Both hy and Lilith dismounted and sank to both knees, bowing deeply before Samael and Israel with their hands open.

For Bezaliel to see hyz personal monster Lilith crouching before hym on har haunches, with har head offered as though a sacrifice to Sa- mael, was too much. Hy stepped forward with hyz blade raised over hym and screamed, “See Lord how I remove this dart from your flesh!”

Still upon har knees, Lilith reached for the Artifact at har side. Even as Bezaliel’s sword fell, the hissing black shaft extended and raised to meet it, and where they crossed Bezaliel’s weapon simply was not. The severed tip fell to the ground as Lilith lept to har feet.

When Lilith saw that no other attack was forthcoming sha let the black shaft retract into the Artifact and said to Samael, “Has the purpose of our embassy been taken amiss? We come in the name of Cherub Meta- tron to trade words with the lords of Heaven, not blows.”

Samael said, “Alas, Princess, the discipline and even the honor of my army has lessened of late, to my embarrassment. You can remedy this. Behold, Bezaliel here is entirely within your power.”

And Bezaliel was horror stricken as hyz own god turned him over to hyz nightmare. Lilith touched the Golden Gift to Bezaliel’s arms and legs in segments, letting all see how easy it was for har to turn a yang into a limbless ruin. Hyz agonized screams did not last long. Hy bled out at har feet.

“Your weapon,” said Samael. “I’ve not before seen the like.”

“Lord Samael, this is the Golden Gift, the weapon of a cherub. Michael give it to my brother King Melchizedek, and by heritage it came to me.”

Samael grew impatient and told Lilith to state har piece.

Sha said, “Chokhmah is willing to give you that which you most desire.”

Samael said, “I wonder if you could even comprehend what it was I crave most.”

Sha said, “Indeed, the courtship of elohim is beyond anything elyonim can learn, Lord Samael. Yet Chokhmah has put me in something of the role of a chaperone. Thou must please me to please her.”

“Then what must I do to please you?”

Lilith said, “Send the army of Adan back to the land of the Black Beards, and come not again save by leave of the rightful king.”

“Impossible, dear Lilith. Did you forget? I never relinquish one scrap where my forces make footfall.”

Lilith turned to har companion. “What say you to this, Prince Barachi- el? Touching oaths the elohim are never faithless like angels or men can be. Lord Samael’s resolve never to retreat from conquered land would also hold hyz army here just as firmly once his word is given.”

Barachiel said, “This land is of small worth. My father would be full willing, I deem, to give it in exchange for the word of a Seraph that no Adanite boots would ever cross west. And if that Seraph’s word ever proved false that precedent, too, would be worth the land. Yet I am only the son of the King and I have no power to set aside the smallest scrap held by House Larund.”

Lilith gave counsel that hy come before hym and ratify any covenant forged here.

Hy said, “If the Adanites advance no further I will return to Rumbek.”

Queen Lilith struck up the Golden Gift once more. Sha dug a deep trench in the stony ground between har and the Adanites and said, “My Lord Samael, sight north and south along this line. No soldier of Adan shall march west of this line until Barachiel speaks to Metatron.”

Samael said, “So too shall it be a fence barring the east to yourself and the Fallen Angels. You shall be queen in name only, with no city to rule. This doom is upon thee, thy daughter, and all who come after.”

Then Lilith uttered words formally sealing the bargain.

“Such a trifle,” said Samael. “Are you now sufficiently pleased, Your Majesty, that we may proceed to the other thing you spoke of?”

Lilith said, “Even if King Metatron gives hyz assent to our bargain there remains the matter of Demonstroke.”

“Yes, there remains the matter of Demonstroke,” said Samael as hy reached over his shoulder to draw the blade strapped to hyz back in a leather sheath, the diamond sword known as Dragonthorn. “In Heaven, Your Majesty, there always remains the matter of Demonstroke.”

Many creatures imported from Earth were immediately killed by the hos- tile flora of Heaven. Some survived to thrive in various niches or they were herd animals which men had tamed from old. Keter knew they would breed beyond the ability of Heaven to feed them. When Keter in- troduced dragons all that went about on two legs had to keep one eye on the sky as surely as small four-legged creatures feared eagles. But the predators created by Keter were merely taken to be strong threads woven into the growing tapestry of Heaven.

Men honored the wisdom of Keter in creating the dragons, and they were not truly afraid. For it was man and not any other beast who were the most terrible monsters the universe had ever known from the day that fangless, clawless big-brained ape came down from the trees.

On Earth man had contended with fierce predators for his meat. Now that he was unleashed on Heaven so much the worse for Heaven, dragons or no. The beasts were safe enough if they remained in their aeries where they bred only rarely, but emerging, they were hunted. Lays com- memorating the deeds of many would-be or actual dragon slayers were told in roadside inns dotting Heaven, even when only a single dragon remained alive. Keter grew weary of hyz toy at last after burning portions of many towns and cities across every land west of Adan. But Keter held Demonstroke in reserve against the chance that Chokhmah might assail the Adanite army with her avatar.

The Cherub Lilith, speaking for Chokhmah on the flats of Magodon which lay to the west of the ice barrier, offered Samael a mutual disarma- ment.

Samael made the diamond sword Dragonthorn to dart this way and that, and soon Demonstroke was seen in the sky. As he drew nearer the armies of House Larund and Adan drew apart, leaving only Barachiel, Lilith, Samael, and Israel standing at the new border.

The dragon circled to the north and lined up on the border. Even Sa- mael backed away from the line, and the others found it prudent to follow his cue. Lilith was fascinated by the grace of the landing. The wings of Demonstroke spread to their full extent and he sank. The dragon’s hind legs touched first, then he tipped forward to run on all fours. Demonstroke came to a stop and sank to the ground directly be- tween the four nobles exactly on the trench Lilith had carved. Sha saw that the beast did not belch smoke or even seem to breathe.

With the beast so inert, Lilith’s curiosity overcame har caution and sha advanced to touch the creature’s hide. Sha found its scales did not merely resemble metal, they were metal. Lilith guessed a truth about the dragon then, but said nothing to Barachiel.

Starting at the dragon’s tail Lord Samael walked up along his back. Hy said to Lilith, “Come, Your Royal Highness. Let us leavest Demonstroke in the keeping of King Uriel and so completest our bargain.” Sha watched Samael seat hymself forward of a horn on the dragon’s back.

Further, Lilith saw that Samael, who was patting hyz thighs, expected har to sit in turn forward of hym and behind a shorter horn. Sha sighed and took the indicated position, knowing it was the only way to be done of har errand for Michael.

Demonstroke sprang to life. Lilith was not dismayed by the sensation of sudden rapid flight. Sha had flown much higher and faster many times within the avatar of Chokhmah. Far below sha saw Prince Barachi- el turn west to ride to hyz father and say hy had given away the east- ern hinterlands of Magodon. Sha also saw the Adanite force dispersing at the command of Israel to garrison their new province against invad- ers who would never come. Samael’s thumb touched gems on Dragonthorn and the beast obeyed, which Lilith thought too mundane a ritual for a spell.

Demonstroke’s head bent back over them on its long neck and fire spewed out in a jet that propelled the dragon into the sky, pushing Lilith against Samael, and hy in turn against the bony ridge at the place where the serpentine neck joined to the rest of his body.

The dragon rose until the air became almost too thin for Lilith to breathe. Then Demonstroke’s head bent forward again. He extended his wings and with gentle flaps the beast extended his glide as the waste- lands of Magodon rose to meet them underneath. Then, when the tops of deadly trees native to Heaven nearly brushed the belly of Demonstroke, he bent his head back again and let loose another long jet of flame. They chased the sun out over the sea. Lilith lost count of the cycles as Sealiah Island grew ahead.

Lilith began to wonder, did Samael never eat or even piss? If it was to be a test of wills sha vowed sha would not be the first to speak. But as westering Rigilkent sank below the horizon they glided down to one of the many scattered campfires visible on Sealiah. A party of Brown Beards were preparing to sup around their fire on the moors in the north of the isle when Demonstroke appeared and scattered them all away in abject terror. When the dragon came to a stop, Samael slid off to check what was cooking, and hy seemed pleased.

Lilith joined hym after pissing behind the beast’s bulk and found sup- per was a good beef stew made all the more delicious by har near star- vation. Sha smiled and said, “Thou must have done this before. Will thy pet have some?” Samael grinned in turn and shook hyz head.

“Obviously, Lord Samael, thy dragon is not really alive. It must needs be a contrivance of some kind, akin to Chokhmah’s avatar, save that it appears to move like a beast. Is that why we must ride on its back? Would we be ducking pulleys and ropes werst we to rideth inside?”

“What a clever yen to have guessed Demonstroke is mechanical after sitting upon its metal hide for hours as it whisked har across the leagues. Tell me, Queen Lilith, didst thou imagine any living thing could maintain such a hot fire within itself?”

Lilith shrugged. “Perhaps I fell prey to the delusion thou hast fostered among angels and nephilim and men that nothing is impossible for any of the elohim.”

Samael said, “Demonstroke has a different purpose than Chokhmah’s toy and was not designed to carry anyone. Think ye Lilith, were this Chokh- mah’s avatar and we had murdered Eyes of Keter, and had destroyed their stores in the ice, and had scattered Larund yeng to steal their food, how soon the Brown Beards would already be returning, like Mi- chael hymself did at Salem. Not so with a dragon.”

Lilith took a deep swig from a wineskin no one would try to reclaim by reason of the nearby monster. “By the gods thou hast thought of every- thing, Lord Samael! But when we leave the beast with Uriel what is the qualifying stipulation? With thee there is always at least one.”

“I will tell the king that Demonstroke is controlled only by Dragon- thorn, which is true, and that Dragonthorn must only be touched by a virgin female or it will grow brittle, and that is not true now but it will be true by the time we reach Jelaket in the land of Sastrom.”

Lilith laughed. “I knew it had to be something like that. Dost thou knowest  Michael calls thee Ha-Satan?”

“Ha-Satan. The Accuser.”  Samael considered it, then hy shrugged and said it was fair.

“I wonder who it must needs be that accepts thy accusations,” Lilith continued. “Not Chokhmah, certainly. Michael hast said he deemeth humans and nephilim and angels to be students, Lord Samael. The worst thou could do is expose situations where world-dwellers might benefit from more instruction. And thou has vowed thou wilt never speak of us to El Elyon, the great city of all elohim. So it seems the only audience thou hast as thou perform the role of the Ha-Satan is Daat, the mother of Chokh- mah. And that is pathetic, dost thou not agree?”

Samael replied, “I am allowing world-dwellers, collectively, to build the case they are not the Students. For thou art not the first world-dwell- ers we have known. There wast another species much like thee in a cru- cial way, in that they would not heed our wisdom. We watched them drive themselves to extinction. The true Students are those willing to accept our teaching.”

“And thee, Lord Samael, art deluded if thou thinkest thou art the sole fount of wisdom. Chokhmah, too, is elohim, and we of Salem, and Ram- mon, and even some in the other world who embrace Chokhmah art willing to accept all her teachings, making us the Students indeed.”

Angered, Samael briefly considered killing Lilith on the spot for the rebuke. But Lilith read hyz fleeting rage as though hy were an un- furled scroll and said, “Chokhmah is ready to negotiate that thou may join with her, Lord Samael, but my personal safety is non-negotiable.”

“Do not make the mistake of thinking Chokhmah has all the advantages in a courtship, Your Majesty. She has been in existence for seven thousand years, didst thout not know? Most elohim become mothers within a span similar to a single human lifetime. She cannot put it off forever.”

Then it was Queen Lilith’s turn to momentarily reveal an emotion, but it was one of slight disgust. Sha said, “No doubt elohim have physical imperatives, Lord, but I care not to listen to details. Such would be the mommy daddy talk, but for living suns.”

“Then eat thy fill of what our hosts have so kindly prepared for us, nay, more than thy fill. Tomorrow morning we shall rise over the Nine Mile Wall that reareth behind Rumbek. By this time tomorrow we shall pass Elketz. In four days we glidest over the Wall of God.”

Samael stacked fuel nigh to the inert bulk of Demonstroke out of the wind and kindled another fire there. Upon an outer garment hy stretched hymself out, cursing the need of all world-dwellers to sus- pend their consciousness when it grew dark, in Heaven as it was on Earth.

Before the Deluge, Heaven was nearly completely circled by the Really Big River born on the frozen flanks of Mt. Tureth. It twisted its way east between the Northern and Southern Ice, which were then five hun- dred miles apart. Six vertical miles the river dropped. In those days the River emptied into the largest sea in heaven, known as Thalury. But the Great Deluge intervened to deepen the ice age. The northern and southern glacial sheets moved to within three hundred miles of each other, and in three places the ice was joined.

West of Rumbek the land of Magodon rose to become the very roof of heaven. Here lay the most extensive merger of the two ice caps. Glacier-carved U-shaped valleys delved far into the mountains but only a single way existed to skirt Mt. Tureth and pass beyond. There pairs of large wooden cages dangling from ropes and pulleys carried travel- ers and freight over a staircase of twenty-four cliffs, each one rang- ing from sixtyi-five to three hundred feet. Every haul that went up was balanced by a heavier haul that went down.

South of Mt. Tureth two dozen scattered cliffs merged into a fearsome sheer rock wall nineteen thousand feet high that stretched clear to the southern ice pack. This was the Wall of God, festooned with innu- merable cataracts, and there was not its like anywhere else in Heaven or on the Earth.

Demonstroke pitched over. For three air miles he dropped a mile in elevation, even as the treetops of the extreme western marches of Magodon remained just below his belly. Then he reached the ledge of the Wall of God and was out over the void. Lilith gasped at the view. Sha saw Thalury then, diminished from its antediluvian majesty yet still the greatest sea in Heaven. A bay reached all the way to the foot of the Wall of God, dividing the land of Sastrom from Haaretz to the south. To a dispassionate observer Demonstroke resembled nothing so much as a gnat buzzing outside a castle wall.

At the base of the Wall of God was a jumble of talus with some boul- ders as large as a house. These gave way to foothills that dropped another mile before reaching bottom land. Samael guided the dragon north over a series of forested ridges to reach the city of Jelaket.

At Adan in the east angels numbered in their hundred thousands, and nephilim in their thousands, but humans only in their hundreds. In Rammon in the uttermost west humans numbered in their hundred thou- sands and nephilim in their thousands, but angels only in their hundreds.

Magodon, which had taken Samael and Lilith the better part of a week to cross even by dragon, had angels and nephilim and men, each in the hundreds of thousands. But now Lilith and Samael had crossed over into the three lands of the Red Beards divided by Thalury. There humans and nephilim were counted in the tens of thousands but angels only in their thousands.

King Uriel hemself was of the nephilim while hez daughter Dafla was human. Lilith knew the course of young Dafla’s life was to irrevocably change when they arrived in Jelaket. The city was the keystone of Heaven, a seaport and the first step in the staircase to Mt. Tureth. Jelaket was the gatehouse for all goods moving east and west and grew fat on the duties levied thereon in commerce interrupted only by war or, just once, by Demonstroke himself.

Many of the people of Jelaket remembered when the monster came last, and they were not happy memories. When Samael landed in the large out- er courtyard of the castle of King Uriel, near the stables, hy was most unwelcome, but a flying dragon need never knock.

Watching from the ramparts, King Uriel saw hez archers assemble in a wary circle around the beast as the two riders dismounted. One che recognized as the Seraph Samael, but the other, a yin arrayed for war, che knew not. They conversed with hez guard, and one ran inside.

Uriel reached a silent count of nearly fifty before the soldier ap- peared. “Your Majesty, Lord Samael has arrived, and with hym is Queen Lilith of Salem. Sha says they have flown upon Demonstroke from the frontier between Magodon and Adan and crave audience with the king.”

Uriel said, “And shall I treat with foreign nobility while their liv- ing engine of war skulks within the walls of my castle like a blade over my neck?”

“Your Majesty, Lord Samael swore the beast would not move one whit so long as hy and the queen remaineth thy guests.”

The Cherub Uriel knew of a surety those were the words of Lord Samael, not that che once doubted hez soldier. Che knew Samael could never resist coating hyz menace with a honeyed tongue. Che said, “Attend to our visitors’ needs and seat them in the smaller council chamber. And send to notify the First Minister. When Lord Samael and the queen are ready we shall see them alone, Makassar and myself.”

Uriel knew the dragon must portend some deep form of humiliation and it would not do to receive the visitors in the big hall with others to witness.

At a casual first glance, First Minister Makassar Bronzesaber might have been mistaken for the king of the Red Beards, and Uriel merely his son. As a human male, for instance, Makassar really had a red beard, while the actual king, as a jen, could only manage a sparse down.

Lilith and Samael stood up when they entered, but Uriel said to them, “I beg thee, esteemed ones, be seated once more. I do not relish observing all the correct formalities here. For one thing, Queen Li- lith, thy claim to be Cherub hast outrun any news from Salem.”

They both seemed pleased by this overture and resumed their seats as King Uriel took hez own seat at the head of the table. Makassar re- mained standing at the king’s side as though interposing between Uriel and Samael, and he was armed with a sword. Samael glanced at it.

Uriel glanced at Samael glancing at it. Che said, “Forgive the per- ceived affront, great ones, that Minister Makassar is girded for vio- lence, but my servants tell me that you, at least, Lord Samael, bear a weapon yourself, and would not lay it aside. I am a cautious jen.”

Deliberately, with a stately pace, Samael brought out the diamond blade and laid it on the table with the hilt toward the king. Hy said, “Dragonthorn is not so much a weapon as a talisman, Your Majesty, with powerful spells to act as invisible reins upon Demonstroke.”

“Tell me, Lord Samael, what does thy dragon, or this blade, bewitched or no, have to do with me or any of the House of Bellon?”

“Your Majesty, if thou pleaseth,” put in Lilith, “the answer is bound up with the bloody dispute that rageth within House Adan. My father Mel- chiyahu lies dead. Samael took the natural death of my father as the signal to rekindle the Adanite family squabble and moved on Salem.” Lilith then grew bitter as sha spoke. “My brother, King Melchizedek, suffered a decidedly unnatural death. So I took my faction west but Samael followed us. Your Majesty, Michael has revealed to me that no matter how wicked we might deem a particular eloah to be, without ex- ception all elohim hold themselves bound by their word. So it fell to war to unseat my brother from the throne. A mere edict from Samael would not suffice to undo the earlier edict seating my ancestor on the throne. Also Samael has said that wheresoever the boots of his host go, there is the frontier of the House of Adan, forever, and so it must needs be. Yet I drew a line east of Rumbek, and Samael can do nothing but hold to hyz word that no Adanite arrayed for war shall cross west. Yet I knew with hyz dragon alone Samael could lay waste to every city and town outside of Adan. Naturally the question of what to do with Demonstroke arose as we parleyed. In the proposed bargain, Your Majesty, the Dragonthorn blade is to be kept here in your safe- keeping.”

“More specifically,” Samael put in, ‘the blade must go into the keep- ing of a human female of the House of Bellon. She must be one who has never known man nor jen nor ambi nor yang. She must remain pure for all the days she possesses Dragonthorn, or it will shatter.”

“Again I ask, Lord Samael,” said the king, “why the Red Beards?”

“When I brought humans into Heaven from the other world I have ever played the natural philosopher, mixing potions to see what happens. Can one maid child among thee remain chaste or do I break the glass- ware?”

Lilith spoke quickly to fill the sudden awkward silence as King Uriel fumed. “The Lord Samael makes an unfortunate jest, Your Majesty. All of Heaven knows the to be a good and wise king. Who better to keep the dragon out of play than a consecrated virgin in thy own court?”

“It is equally unfortunate,Your Highness’ said Uriel, ‘that I am in no mood for veiled threats, even when explained away as weak jests. Take thy diamond sword, Lord Samael, and make thine offer to Queen Aurra.”

After Uriel had uttered hez decision the blade began to glow.

Blue and white the weapon shone, so bright that Uriel, Makassar, and Lilith shielded their eyes. Samael simply looked away. When the glow faded once more Samael said, “The deed is done. Dragonthorn will shat- ter of its own accord without a damsel’s touch, and that soon. Nothing will then restrain Demonstroke from carrying out the purpose I in- stilled in him when he was first created. He will relentlessly seek out and extinguish the life of every world-dweller in Heaven, no mat- ter how long it takes. And he will begin killing here in Sastrom.”

“Your orders, my liege Lord?” asked the First Minister, and the king saw his hand gripping the sword beneath his tunic.

“Hold!” Uriel barked. This was the humiliation the king had expected. Che caught the glance of Lilith. “Did you know?”

“Only a broad outline, Your Majesty. Not this detail.”

Cherub Uriel looked into the eyes of Samael then and saw the matter was clearly nothing even Queen Lilith could describe as a joke. Che stood up. “Makassar, send for wine and see to our noble guests. A grievous errand has fallen to me and I must be about it.”

The Cherub Uriel loved hez daughter Dafla above all. Che was almost supernaturally patient with Dafla and denied her not the least thing. Even with all life in Heaven hanging upon one slender thread, che listened to the girl as she spoke of last night’s dream.

Dafla said, “Father, I dreamed it was night and the ground was covered with sleeping metal children. People came out of the sky in two tall silver engines of war that spouted fire, but they wore armor and I didn’t know if they were men or women, jin or ambe, yen or yeng. The first person picked up one of the metal children and they went into the first tower, and somehow I knew that metal child was myself, in the strange way of dreams. We flew into the sky and we were safe. But the second person stayed behind to pick up more children. Even though I knew I was flying away and safe, somehow I was also there watching the second person look for as many metal children as they could find, but that person was caught by dark iron men and killed. Then I awoke. Is that not the strangest dream you ever heard?”

Uriel smiled at hez Dafla. “I shall interpret your very strange dream, child. The first person in your dream is really myself. You feel protected around me, which is a good thought, because my entire will is bent toward keeping you safe. The second person is your mother. Dafla, your dear mother wanted to have other children by me, and those were the other little metal people in your dream. But in real life, as we know, she fell victim to poison in her drink, and so she was killed by the palace intrigues that never cease here in Jelaket.”

“As simple as that, Father?”

“As simple as that. At night your sleeping mind creates images to express what you feel deep in your heart. You are still dealing with your grief. I take solace from the content of your dream that you do not blame me for your mother’s death.”

“Never, Father!” Dafla was shocked at the mere suggestion that she would think that, or even dream it.

The king placed a hand on hez daughter’s hand to reassure her, and che said, “If you did blame me, even in your inner heart, your dream would have been very different.”

“Father why have you not married once more? Do you fear a second wife would be killed as well?”

“Not so, Dafla. Soon a woman will try to wedge herself into my life and I will know the identity of the poisoner.”

Uriel did not yet mention that che would wed Makassar after the assassin was exposed.

“Now we must set aside talk of your dreams, daughter, and our lingering grief for your mother, and our lamentation over things we can never change. Did you see the dragon?”

“Oh, yes father, but only for a little while. First Minister Makassar came and locked my window.'”

“Forgive him, dearest Dafla, he did so only at my command, that you might be safe. Did you know this evening I have been speaking with two nobles who came with the dragon from far in the east? One of them is Lilith, who is the Queen of Salem. I am certain you have not seen har before. But the other noble is a seraph named Samael. In Adan hy is a greater lord than even a king, although hy has no power to rule here. Lord Samael has taken counsel with me before on a number of occasions. Have you learned something of the elohim from your tutors, Dafla?”

“Yes, father, I have learned that the elohim are alive but they are not like angels or nephilim or humans. They never die. We see them as stars. Chokhmah is really the star we call Nahash, or the head of the snake. Keter and Daat are stars which are so close to us we see them as suns.”

“All that is true, Dafla.Your tutors are excellent. But in less than even your short lifetime the elohim have begun to appear to us in the form of angels as well. No one knows how they are able to do this, but the first to do so was Chokhmah. We know her as the seraph Michael. The eloah we see as the cool orange sun called Daat is also seen in heaven as a youth named Israel. And the hot white sun, Keter, has Samael as his living avatar. This is the same Samael who has spoken with me this evening, Dafla, and I would have you meet hym.”

Dafla slid off her bed where she had been sitting and rushed to embrace her father. “Of course I will see hym, simply because you wish it. But many lords and ladies have visited you before and I was never invited to meet them.”

“Truly, daughter, what is soon to happen I do not wish for you.”

“I don’t understand, Father.”

“Samael has already used hyz dragon for murder. It can hunt down and kill every living thing in Heaven. But Queen Lilith has forced a bargain on its master. The dragon will stay with us in the city, forever. But Samael always gives with one hand and takes with the other. Beloved Dafla, this dragon, Demonstroke, is controlled by a talismanic blade, the largest diamond in heaven. But now only one such as yourself can touch it. Only a human female who has never been a mother or a wife. Do you see why I wish the dragon had never come here?”

“I think so, Father.”

“Still, Dafla, you are too young to understand everything that Samael will take away from you if you accept the Dragonthorn. In years to come, what you lose will weigh upon your body and mind as a terrible burden. Yet what choice do we really have in this matter?”

“Father, do you fear that I, at age twelve, have no right to decide something for the Dafla to come at age twenty? Of course I do! That’s just me living my life!”

“Such wisdom in a child,” wondered Uriel. “Do you know when I hear your words I hear the voice of your mother? Now let us go see our noble guests.”

Uriel introduced Dafla to Samael and Lilith, who were waiting with Makassar. Lilith knew all along that only the king’s own daughter could safeguard the dragon. Samael had conditioned it upon her celibacy, and Uriel, for as long che reigned, could control that absolutely.

Seeing the diamond blade lying on the table and knowing Lord Samael had given it complete power over the dragon, a deception suggested itself to Uriel as a way to lighten the lifetime burden that was about to be laid upon Dafla. Che said, “Behold the Dragonthorn, daughter. Take up the sword and none shall have the power to deny your least whim, save in the one matter of which we spoke. With the blade in hand the beast must obey you. All my subjects must obey you. If you so choose, even I must obey you, as well as Queen Lilith, and Lord Samael.”

Makassar, Lilith, and Samael immediately discerned what the Bellon king was doing, and none dared to contradict hym, not even Samael, who smiled broadly at how Uriel had just set hez daughter on the path to her own destruction and che had no inkling that che had done so.

The king’s daughter did take up the sword, unleashing another light show that impressed everyone present save Samael, who worked it, and Lilith, the wife and first disciple of Michael, who knew all sorcery to be mere showmanship like the gentle ruse Uriel was carrying out with Dafla.

Lord Samael said, “I commend you, King Uriel, Demonstroke is now bound by chains that may only be broken by an act of human will. Furthermore, you have the means to travel anywhere in Heaven in mere days that would otherwise take a year or more. And none now dare assail you.”

King Uriel said, “Yes, Lord Samael, I considered that when I weighed laying this yoke upon Dafla, that it should be made lighter with a dragon at her beck and call. I need not see you again peddling arms of Adanite craftsyeng and making off with the gold of my treasury.”

Dafla took this cue and decided to test the power of the Dragonthorn blade. She pointed the tip at Lord Samael and said, ‘Leave at once, you, on foot if you must, and never return!” She pointed the tip at Lilith as well. “You must leave as well, for your part in upsetting my father!”

“Indeed.” Lilith stood up, reached inside har breastplate, removed a fragment of parchment, and handed it to Samael. Sha said, “I do not understand any of the symbols written here, but Michael said you would know them and take this to be our next destination.”

Samael read the parchment and summoned a fold-door, the one bit of sorcery that even Lilith could not put down as a simple trick. Sha and Samael were enveloped by an insubstantial dome that showed forth a land free of snow, roaring with the dim sound of Mt. Anshar in eruption.

Lilith bowed to the king and said, “Farewell, Your Majesty! May good fortune be with you and all who look to you.” Then with a loud noise that frightened Dafla to tears they were gone, leaving only a familiar but unnecessary crater in the floor that was Samael’s calling card.

Anshar may have been free of ice, yet it remained bitterly cold, much more so than Lilith and Samael were prepared to endure with the rai- ment they presently wore. Lilith broke into a sprint toward Michael’s home across the stony plain and Samael followed at the same pace.

So Lord Samael was come to the stone dwelling of Michael for the first time. There was much glass, yet natural heating from geothermal fea- tures ensured it remained comfortably warm indoors. Leliel, just four years of age, touched the back of Samael’s hand to har forehead.

“Leliel!” said Michael,sharply. “That is Lord Samael. Show us how you greet a seraph.”

Leliel released Samael’s hand as though it had burned har own and moved back a few steps. Then sha sank to one knee and all the while kept har eyes on the floor.

“Much better, Leliel.”

Lilith picked Leliel up long enough to kiss har. “Wait for me in the kitchen, baby doll.”

Samael watched har leave, then caught Michael’s eye. “Your daughter. Sha knew who you were, just not the proper etiquette. Then Michael and Lilith embraced for a kiss of their own. Samael watched their display of affection with disgust until Lilith broke it off and followed Leli- el toward the kitchen.

“Don’t you want to tell Michael what we managed to shake out?” hy called after har.

Lilith glanced back. “Michael is always in contact with me.”

Michael said, “Please, Samael, be seated wherever you wish. We have things to discuss while Lilith prepares what might be the last decent meal you and I will both eat for many days.”

“What do you mean last decent meal?”

“I see you have given little thought to this mating. As an eloah I am female and therefore I have not yet experienced intercourse, but I do have access to testimony by way of El Elyon, and no doubt you can con- firm, that the experience captures the psyche of an eloah like no oth- er. Do you not see how that will be a big problem in our case?”

Samael shook hyz head.”Please, I insist,” said Michael. “Let us take a seat, and I will explain.”

Samael did so, and after hy was seated hy took his first real good look at the home. “You have done well for yourself, yet this is still my world. I never conceded this land.”

“You have an interesting way of courting a lady, Samael, threatening to take away her house in the opening gambit.”

Listening to Michael refer to hymself (even obliquely) as a lady struck home the ridiculous nature of the whole situation. Samael could not help but laugh.

Michael guessed why Samuel found it funny and nodded. “Alone among the elohim you and I and Daat are in union with world-dweller flesh. So what do you think will happen to our elyonim bodies, left unattended, while we are fully occupied with our lovemaking as stars?”

That wiped the smile off Samael’s face. Hy said, “I imagine we would starve.”

“We’d perish for lack of water long before that,” Michael replied. “Do you tire of that yang’s body, Samael? Do you wish to shed your con- tainer? I assure you I am not yet finished with my own.”

“I see you have given this more thought,” Samael admitted. “I trust you have arranged things so we do not lose our living avatars.”

“Yes, and isn’t it a good thing you have ended the war in Heaven to the satisfaction of Lilith? Your life will literally be in har hands.”

“And what of you, Michael? What remains to be stipulated before we proceed?”

“You have no need of an avatar to move about Heaven since you and Daat can open a fold-door when you have accumulated sufficient dark light to do so. Soon, after my daughter comes into existence, I will have the power to do this as well.”

“In that you are very much mistaken, Michael. Daat can open a fold- door in Heaven because we are a relatively close binary star system. But when your daughter comes into existence she will be even more dis- tant from Heaven in real space than you are. How could you not know that?”

“And yet,” said Michael, “you permit me to pass a second bridge be- tween myself and my avatar through the bridge that came into existence when you fathered me, which bypasses real space. In this way I am able to power my avatar here with star-stuff when otherwise I could not.

“I see. So you stipulate that your soon-to-be daughter should have an avatar in Heaven as well, living or otherwise, such that you both might open fold-doors here and connect them with a fold-space segment, as I recently did with Daat to come to this place with Lilith.”

“Yes, that is the brideprice demanded of you, with the additional stipulation that my own presence here in Heaven with avatars is made permanent in a formal way. Heretofore it has only been a side effect of what you dubiously claimed to be research into the world-dwellers.”

“And what is to prevent you from using your fold-door to send assas- sins or thieves to my palace in Adan?”

“The word of an eloah prevents it,” Michael said with arched eyebrows, mildly astonished that Samael had made it necessary to say it.

“It is you who insisted on formality just now.”

Michael briefly allowed an expression of boredom to touch hyz face. Hy said, “Samael, you cannot give something with one hand without taking something with the other. I was reminded of that in your dealings with Lilith. So state your limitations on my fold-doors and we will move forward.”

Samael said, “You and our future daughter, our very near-future daugh- ter, are hereafter authorized to maintain avatars in Heaven. However neither you nor she may open a fold-door east of the Wall of God nor west of the large bog that marks the frontier between Rammon and Adan.”

“I presume those lines extend north and south to the poles.

Samael nodded, then hy said with a smirk, “Yes, but before you ask, I will say this little land north of Adan is not out of bounds. You may still reach your house. I would not want to my put my lady out of the mood for love.”

Michael rolled hyz eyes, then said, “So let me hear it. You have given with one hand. Now what, as is your custom, shall you take with the other?”

Samael laid all mirth aside. Hy said, “I know your long game is to have these creatures reach the stars since you yourself must not.”

“I warned you of that seven thousand years ago,” Michael said. “You might have have forgotten. But it’s not a game, long, short, or other- wise. I could do nothing, and these world-dwellers would still, all on their own, reach a nearby star and make themselves known to El Elyon.’

“Yes,” hy replied. “And as surety against that outcome, whether it is aided by yourself or not, I insist on bringing in my own watchers.”

“I can’t believe you are demanding that, Samael. No! I will not have your Eyes of Keter wandering Earth and sabotaging human history.”

“Then another place in your vicinity,’ suggested Samael. ‘Not Earth.”

“There is no place in my system outside of Earth where angels would not die moments after you left them there.”

“For now, perhaps. Your humans are also far from ready to cross to the stars. I can wait.”

“You may be waiting for many centuries,” said Michael. “But very well. When you desire a transfer, I will open a fold-door anywhere in my system outside of a sphere that is larger than the orbit of Earth by a factor of four.”

“That is not acceptable. Many bodies may briefly pass nearer while they make a circuit around your own body.”

“Then I will give you access to any object orbiting on an ellipse which is at least four times bigger on the long axis than is the Earth’s own ellipse. Yes, Samael, by all means let your angels swarm through my system, but they must never draw nearer to Earth than its satellite.”

“Is that everything?” Samael asked. “Are we finished?”

“Just one more thing,” Michael went on. “We both know you can summon a fold-door every five days because you are a bigger star, while I can do it every six days, and little Daat can only do it every seven days. In theory I could open a fold-door for you sixty times in a year. In practice, I refuse to let you monopolize my production of dark light in that manner. So when you send someone through, the next opportunity you will have to do it again is twelve days later, not six.”

Samael agreed to this, but hy was annoyed hy could not put a like re- striction on Michael in reply.

Michael and Samael went on to the next step, which was to stuff themselves with a meal prepared by Lilith. Afterward both seraphim would be hydrated and nourished only by intravenous means.

When living stars mate the male literally extends some of his living substance across the shortcut in space-time that bypasses the parsecs of real space separating him from the female. The sensation is ecstatic beyond all reason but it is only available to him by mating.

For female elohim the pleasure comes from her living substance being compressed to accommodate the male, which culminates when their living star-stuff merges to form a third individual. But mating is not the sole means of obtaining this compression. She can indulge herself. Put another way, female elohim could masturbate while males could not. Evolution drove this adaption. The female could postpone having inter- course until she found the most suitable mate. Males, in a perpetual state of blue balls, were motivated to make themselves suitable.

For thousands of years Chokhmah had resorted to this expedient, al- though never while in union with the seraph Michael, since the activi- ty captured her full attention to the exclusion of attending to the basic needs of living as an elyon. But now it was safe to do so.

Chokhmah did the thing once more and felt the organized living nuclear matter that was herself pile up in density, leaving a large area empty in the thin layer of the core where she existed. At the same time Keter pushed into her as well, unaware of the ongoing sabotage.

This is what was supposed to happen:

Eight to ten cycles of Keter pushing his substance into Chokhmah over several months, with each cycle culminating in a spherical wave that rang out from the star Sol at the speed of light, seeking a wild F, G, or K sun to germinate.

This is what happened instead:

One cycle of Keter pushing his living substance into Chokhmah over the course of three weeks, culminating in the germination of his eloah daughter in the habitable layer of Sol that had been emptied out by Chokhmah by pleasuring herself first.

The deed was done and Michael, who went into it prepared, was the first to come back to hymself in Anshar. Far away hyz half of the stellar body which hy now shared with a daughter was beginning to transform permanently into male and that brought an abrupt end to the mating.

Lilith helped Michael remove all the catheters, tubes, and needles, get dressed, then gave hym the first hot, solid food hy had taken in three weeks. Hy was pleased to find hy suffered no bedsores. Lilith and Leliel had done well in repositioning hyz body during the coma.

Michael still had his commitment to bring Samael through the coma as well, but only to the point where hy could recover on hyz own. Keter was beginning to realize what had happened and grew more wroth by the moment. The anger would carry through to Samael when hy awoke.

When Samael did awaken hy would find hyz garments cleaned and folded neatly by hyz bed, lukewarm chicken, rice, and greens, plus hot ground outside where Michael, Lilith, and Leliel had just moments before made their exit to the land of Rammon by means of the avatar of Chokhmah.

During the following year Chokhmah’s offspring (whom he named Binah in sounds intelligible to Lilith and Leliel) grew in awareness as a newborn eloah. Mother and daughter shared a single body and Chokhmah had never heard of a similar situation in all of the lore of El Elyon.

Chokhmah learned she could communicate with Binah through direct physical contact in a way that was fundamentally different from the way Keter must do so through a foldline. Binah could never sever the bridge to har father, but she did ensure that no information or substance was ever passed along in either direction. Binah would never establish a fold-door with Keter.

It was Chokhmah’s first real victory. The harem scheme of Keter and Daat had come to an abrupt end, at least on the branch that ran through Chokhmah. Binah had been conceived with Daat already designated as her future mate, but after Chokhmah’s sabotage that was never to be.

In the wake of Queen Lilith’s parley with Samael the status of the Fallen Angels was left dangling. They could not return east of the frontier, nor would the Cherub Metatron receive them before speaking to Lilith hymself. They made their encampment on fallow land and waited. They lived on what supplies they had filched from Samael’s ice cache, but these were finite, and as the days of waiting became weeks they plowed up the land around their encampment and prepared to gamble the last of their grain as seed for more food. No word came to them.

Lilith was aware of their predicament but sha was preoccupied. Immediately after the ruined mating between Chokhmah and Keter, while Samael was still incapacitated, Michael, Lilith and Leliel escaped in the avatar of Chokhmah on a curve directly for the land of Magodon. Leliel always joined them on such flights now, if only for the peace of mind of Lilith, who worried Samael or Israel might contrive some mischief involving a fold-door. Michael had warned of retaliation should hyz daughter be harmed by the seraphim, directly or indirectly.

For Leliel’s sake the flights in the avatar were gentled somewhat, with less of an impulse at takeoff and landing, and more of a continuous acceleration and deceleration. This made the period of free-fall at the top of the arc so short it wasn’t safe for Leliel to fly free. Instead, Lilith held fast to har daughter and said to Michael, “It occurred to me that when we arrive in Rumbek I might have to do most of the groveling. Metatron will accept me as the queen of Salem in exile but I deem hy knows next to nothing of your union with Chokhmah.”

“You had little time to appraise hyz son Barachiel of that,” Michael admitted. “You were about the business of stopping an invasion.” Still, Michael weighed what hyz wife said and altered the path of the avatar to a degree before their weight began to pile up once more.

Pastoral Seliah Island was the breadbasket of Rumbek. Forested uplands ranging between one and three thousand feet high ran the length of the island in two long undulating ridges, north and south, with one connecting ridge from east to west, thus forming a rough letter ‘H’. At the head of the Dul Valley on the north side of the connecting ridge was the castle of the Ophan Barachiel. But Michael choose to bring the avatar to ground on the south side, where gently-rolling slopes of grass were sparsely dotted with trees as benign as any of Earth.

Michael helped hyz wife down out of the avatar as sha carried Leliel, and led them a safe distance away where they could watch the artifact rise into the sky once more. Looking around Lilith expected to see the largest city in Heaven, but there were only scattered hovels. When Michael saw the questioning look in Lilith’s eyes hy said, “Something you told me on the flight led me to choose another sort of opening gambit with Metatron than frightening the king and hyz subjects with my avatar. I well remember Chokhmah’s first visit to Salem.”

“So a seraph and a cherub march from the hinterlands to Rumbek,” Lilith said, bordering on disbelief. ‘And Leliel almost too big to carry. ‘Walk, yes, to begin, but we shall also ride and even float. And there is no need, I think, to carry Leliel. Let’s see how sha does.’

The land was wide open with grass kept short by grazing animals and trees that resembled those of Earth in one important way: none of them tried to kill Michael, Lilith, and their daughter. Toiling north and west they gained six hundred feet of elevation in three miles.

Leliel seemed not to tire at all. By noon they reached the place where the connecting ridge joined the west ridge at an elevation of about a thousand feet. Michael indicated a long prominence to the south that rose another thousand feet. “They call that Living Mountain.”

To the north Michael indicated a round hill that rose five hundred feet more. “They call that one Yam Hill. Leliel! Let’s see how fast you can get to the top! The doll sped off and Lilith was shocked. Sha had never seen even wild animals run so fast after their prey.

Lilith guessed that Michael had changed her daughter somehow, made har swift of foot and tireless, and sha saw the utility of the change. One question remained. “When did you do it?”

“On the flight. I doubt that sha felt anything. The reentry would have distracted har.”

Leliel attained the summit of the hill far faster than Lilith would have imagined possible. Sha was waving at them furiously. Michael said, “Let’s ascend after har to assure ourselves sha remains safe.”

“Perhaps now sha no longer needs such protection as I can give har,” said Lilith.

They began to ascend the hill, with ever an eye to the summit to ascertain Leliel remained in view. Michael said, “It was not magic, Lil, what I did to har. Or at least it was a kind of magic that will cease to be magic someday when I can find a way to explain it.”

“I am your first student, Michael, and more, I am the mother of that doll. So let us see if you can explain it to me.”

“Yes, you are Leliel’s mother,’ replied Michael, “and so there are things about har that resemble you. Yet if sha had a sister they would not be identical. This is because all living things are governed by both law and by chance. We run so fast and no faster because there is a fire that burns within us that burns so hot and no hotter, and this is a law. Yet of old, purely by chance, some living things burned hotter. But these creatures could not endure long, because the hotter fire within demanded more food than they could find, and so they per- ished before they could pass this new law to their young. But Leliel is an ophan, and sha will never want for as much food as she can eat.”

“And this change you wrought in our daughter that you call a law, will sha pass the same down to har son or daughter when she is of age to become a mother in har turn?”

“No, it is imposed by me, it does not rise up from that which makes Leliel who sha is. Shall I undo it?”

“No, husband, let the change you have made stand. You have seen what a joy it seems to be for har, and if by some misfortune sha runs across enemies who would do harm to har, sha can easily outrun them. And you are right. Leliel, being noble-born, shall never want for food.”

They took considerably longer to attain the summit than did their daughter. Michael had started a tradition of giving each member of the B’nei Elohim a special talent, but Lilith started the tradition of giving them an apropos nickname when sha asked, “Are you well, Scout?”

“Yes momma! Look how far we walked!” Leliel pointed far below and far away where they could still see a circle of burnt grass. That was the place where the avatar had landed and taken flight once again. Michael directed their gaze to the west where houses could be seen.

“Do you see? Our walking is nearly at an end. That is the town of Vennor. There I will hire a carriage and we will be driven to edge of Tala Strait yonder.”

Lilith raised har head and beheld a swath of blue some seven miles distant, and a dark wall of rock beyond the blue.

“And what will you pay, Michael, when you hire this carriage? You carry no gold about your person, unless you’ve hidden it well.”

“I have some small diamonds, Lil. I can produce them without limit within my own body. I am speaking, of course, of my body as a living sun.”

In town they ate a late lunch. Lilith was astonished to see how much food har little doll Leliel put away. Sha wondered if sha had spoken prematurely to say Leliel would never want for food. But their hosts, amply compensated with a diamond, ever brought Leliel more.

Afterwards they rode within a carriage down the undulating creek valley that led from hillside Vennor to the well-ordered fields stretching west to Tala Strait. The hills they passed were lower, and fewer, detached from one another like lone sentinels over the plowed fields.

As they rode past the thinning hills Leliel fell asleep in har mother’s lap, so Michael and Lilith grew silent, content to stir their own thoughts. And Michael recalled how hyz wife had reminded hym that sha was his first student. That was true, and sha was a good student. Michael loved Lilith as hyz mate and as the mother of hyz daughter, but hy longed for a better student, one who would understand how hy had changed Leliel on the deepest level. This culture did not even have the concept of atoms, let alone machines made from atomic groups. But hy guessed that Lilith would have another child, a son or daughter, and Michael vowed to make a change in that child as well. Rather than being a fast runner, Michael would give the child a greater capacity to understand things than any planet-dweller who had yet lived.

When Keter and Daat suffered their inevitable defeat it would be at the hands of Leliel’s younger sibling, a mere angel who would outthink elohim. Michael even had the name picked out for his next offspring, whether it was male or female. Ithuriel, the Brilliant One of God.

The final leg of their journey to Rumbek by sea took place overnight. It was not far, but there was no wind so the ship was rowed. Michael and Leliel slept for the entire passage, but Lilith mostly lay awake, ruing every passing hour with no answer for har Fallen Angels.

At dawn when they awoke they went outdoors to the rail of the boat to watch its slow approach to the seaport. Everything Lilith had heard about Rumbek was true. Har eyes could not be denied. This capital of the Larund kingdom was by far the largest city in all of Heaven.

The Great Sea of the West Lands is divided into a pair of lobes by the Magodon Peninsula, which is as large as Florida on Earth and anchored to the mainland on the west. But sheer cliffs rising as much as four hundred feet guard every approach to the peninsula by sea.

This wall is sheer sandstone and cannot be scaled by any army. Where it is eroded by gullies the streams fill the entire channel. At the foot of this bluff around the peninsula lie impassible swamps and sinkholes that would swallow horses and trap the wheels of chariots. Also none can pass by land around the Great Sea to the north or to the south. There roaring waves run nigh to the Ice, and often frozen slabs melt and slide into the sea with great thunder. No permanent road can be carved and no tunnel bored to permit passage east or west.

Between Seliah Island and the city of Rumbek lay the much smaller Krone Island and Fanok Island, walled suburbs linked by a network of bridges. Even the smallest islet, Krone, was covered with dwellings and fortifications that alone made it greater than all of Salem.

The mainland was little wider than the road that traversed it. But behind this rose the Nine Mile Wall, that part of the cliffs ringing the Magodon Peninsula which was fortified by angels and nephilim and men. The Nine Mile Wall and the City of Rumbek were one and the same.

The dwellings of the city were carved into the wall, connected by tunnels with endless ramps and stairs. Where these dwellings faced the open air they boasted a facade of ornately-carved harder stone. Rumbek was so large it even spilled over onto part of Seliah Island. Where Tala Strait met the shore-line road there existed many warehouses and piers for the ships of merchants and for the peerless navy of King Metatron. On the other side of the road, at the base of the Nine Mile Wall, there were storefronts and market stalls beyond number.

A rare mood of unhappiness overcame Lilith when sha saw these shops and this distressed Michael in turn when he saw it. “What is wrong, beloved?”

“I can’t escape the memory that I used to extort shopkeepers for their money, when I already had everything I could ever need.”

“That was before you embraced Chohkmah,’ Michael said. “You are ashamed because cannot fall back on the justification others make that they fell in with the wrong sort of friends.”

“I was always their leader,” sha acknowledged. “I myself was the wrong sort of friend for them.”

Michael took out hyz little leather pouch of diamonds. “I know it hurts, Lil, but you can let it go. The shame you feel now is sufficient punishment for the misdeeds of your past. Take three deep breaths! Good. Now, will you help me choose something to purchase for Leliel?”

The tip of a large knife depressed the skin at Michael’s neck. The yang holding the blade said, “Give to me what you hold in your hand or I’ll let flow your life’s blood!”

This would have seemed sadly familiar to Lilith’s brother, Melchizedek, who was accosted in Harran.

“Scout!” barked Lilith. “Run away!” And such was Leliel’s training that sha immediately obeyed har mother as though it were a battle command, despite being only two years of age. The robber scowled at Lilith but dismissed har as any threat. Sha was standing too far away.

Michael carefully offered the bag of precious stones, knowing hy could always make more. While the attacker greedily grasped the pouch a terrifying hiss began to be heard. Lilith, standing well away from Michael, extended the dark shaft of the Golden Gift as long as a pike. Sha sliced the attacker’s own weapon in twain, leaving only the hilt and letting the blade clatter to the ground. That was Lilith’s idea of a warning shot, but it was a hint hy did not take. Hyz other hand stashed the diamonds in hyz pocket and fumbled for a second blade.

When the weapon came out Lilith swept the black shaft closer to the yang’s wrist than the first sweep had been. Hy screamed as his hand and the blade it was holding fell to the ground together. Michael kicked the bloody mess away as Lilith brought the Golden Gift to repose.

“Hold out your arm and I’ll help you,” Michael told him.

The yang brought out the gushing stump from under his armpit and Michael laid on hyz hands to staunch the wound. “You should be grateful you attacked a seraph. The way the relic cuts flesh leaves arteries wide open. Only a flame would seal them, otherwise.”

Lilith drew near to them. “No rebuke from my teacher?”

“It was a good deed,” Michael admitted. “Hy could not have killed me with yz blade for the same reason he’s not dying from yours. Hy seemed set on hyz unprofitable course of action even when you offered hym a way out.”

When Michael was satisfied the robber would survive hyz wound hy stood up and looked around. Leliel still had not returned from the place where sha had made har escape. Michael noted that many onlookers had witnessed the robbery attempt and the healing of the attacker’s arm.

Lilith darted off to look for har daughter. Shortly Leliel came to har father alone, showing off har new talent as soon as sha had learned from har mother that it was safe to come back.

“Where did you go?” hy asked.

Sha pointed to a place high above in the Nine Mile Wall.

“You did well to obey your mother so quickly.”

“Thank you father!”

After a long interval that spoke of Leliel’s new speed, Lilith re- joined them. “Five levels over our head my Scout was,” said sha.” And sha got there so quickly sha was able to watch all that transpired.”

“One good thing will come of this, at least,’ Michael said to har. “You have been seen wielding the Golden Gift. The Ophan Barachiel has seen you do the same on the frontier and has no doubt spoken of it to many. We should have our audience with the king soon.”

True to Michael’s words troops arrived and began questioning the crowd that had gathered around the scene. The robber attempted to scramble to hyz feet but Lilith pushed hym back down, digging in hyz pocket for the pouch of diamonds, which sha returned to har husband.

The troops were commanded by a yeoman of the king’s court who addressed Lilith as respectfully as hy could while yet being unsure of har identity. “I am Gruen, a humble servant in the court of King Metatron. Do I have the honor of addressing Har Majesty the Queen of Salem?”

“I am Lilith, yes, the rightful ruler of Salem. Yet I am dispossessed of that city.”

“Your Majesty, you shall be received by the king at mid-morning tomorrow. A messenger shall be dispatched to Ophan Barachiel in the Dul Valley expressing for the Ophan to return hither. Meantime the king bids you to lodge together with any who travel with you within chambers in the highest level of hyz castle. I assure you these lodgings are second in opulence only to those of the king hymself.”

“I would be honored to stay at the castle with my family.”

Gruen looked unfavorably upon the prisoner as hy was bound. “Were you but common travelers from Adan I would still be filled with shame for what this yang tried to do.”

Lilith said, “Do you think the king will listen if I tell hym the yang has already been amply punished?”

“Probably not,” Gruen replied, “and more’s the pity. No doubt hyz missing hand will argue with hym should hy ever again consider robbery.”

“But you should try,” said Michael. “Reckless forgiveness is all I ever had to teach at the Sunset Discourse, and nothing more.”

The Nine Mile Wall angled south and east for half its length, then abruptly changed direction to march south and west. At the pinnacle a razor-thin ridge of sandstone half as high as the Wall jutted into the Strait. This was the skeleton of the castle of King Metatron.

The flesh and bones of the castle were hard stone on the whole exterior, and what windows existed were only large enough for archers to fire their darts upon attackers below. There were three hundred ninety steps to the top, yet Lilith and Michael did not ascend them. Instead they were ported individually to the top in seats carried by staves. Thirteen teams of servants handed their passengers off to another team after ascending thirty steps. And all the while Leliel walked beside har parents, summing everything up with one word: “Lazy!”

Their lodgings were everything Gruen had promised. Lilith said to the attendants who waited upon them, “My daughter shall need at least five times the amount of food you would guess a child har age would need, and har chamberpot must be emptied with corresponding frequency.”

The castle stood straight out from the Nine Mile Wall and when day became night the lights of the dwellings of the city stretching north from them burned for a time. Michael extinguished the lights in their own dwelling to let Leliel marvel at them, but sha soon fell asleep.

Leliel was gently put to bed. A side-effect of Leliel’s new talent was sha tended to sleep much more than sha ever did. Michael and Lilith saw an opportunity to share intimacy, one that that had been delayed for many weeks. Michael and Lilith kissed and began to disrobe.

When Lilith laid aside har weapon, har brass, and the leather that protected har, as well as the mental armor that lay beneath all these, there was revealed, to har husband alone, a yin of exquisite tenderness who could not deny har sex. Michael this found very provocative.

Afterwards they lay together holding hands, limbs entwined, watching the pattern of light on the wall of the chamber slowly change as the king’s subjects who dwelt in the Nine Mile Wall extinguished the lights of their own homes as they would. Sleep quickly overtook them.

In the morning after a leisurely breakfast a gentle knock on the door announced the return of Gruen, who inquired how they had fared overnight. Hy was come to escort them into the presence of King Metatron.

“What has come of the yang who accosted us yesterday?” asked Lilith.

“Hyz Majesty is incensed,” Gruen replied. “Normally hyz view of justice is that the punishment should ever fit the offense, but it is some measure of the king’s wrath that this miscreant’s punishment is far in excess of what it otherwise merited.”

Gruen saw how it troubled Michael and Lilith both to hear that.

The King received them at the end of a long, narrow colonnade exposed to the elements, where hyz throne had been set with its back to the very face of the Nine Mile Wall. From here hy often enjoyed watching the doings of hyz subjects in the streets of the city far below. Lilith was brought before Metatron with har daughter Leliel in hand and with Michael at har side. Sha found the Larund sovereign to be like an echo of har beloved father of happy memory.

And yet, Lilith was forced to acknowledge to harself, if the greatness of a lord was reckoned by the realm over which hy was sovereign, Metatron bordered on the status of a seraph. All the angels of Adan at the heart of the Gerash lands would fill a mere burough of Rumbek.

Sha saw that the king’s son, Barachiel, sat at hyz right hand. So hy was neither dead nor in fetters, which told Lilith that hyz father had accepted the conditions of the truce hastily worked out on the field of battle between har and Samael. Metatron noted har glance.

“I am not certain I should welcome you to Rumbek, Queen Lilith,” said hy, after Gruen made the formal introductions. “My son Ophan Barachiel told me it was you who gave a fair portion of my land to the Black Beards in such a way that I must either ratify it or go to war.”

“Your Majesty,” replied Lilith, “Ophan Barachiel was at a disadvantage even with my Fallen Angels fighting at hyz side. It would have been a rout and your new frontier with the Adanites would be that much closer to this city. The King no doubt understands how decisions are made in battle conditions.”

Metatron grunted dubiously. Then: “It is said you are exiled from Salem. How come you to such a strait?”

“I spoke truth to yeng of the House of Gerash, but they hated the truth because it was like a bright light that threatened to reveal the dark things they do in secret.”

The king’s next question was sharp and to the point. “What is truth?”

Lilith glanced at Michael, then said in reply, “Your Majesty, truth is simply the way things are. We know this truth when our thoughts and deeds echo the world as it plainly is, without a single contradiction.”

“What do you ask of me, Queen Lilith? Shall I put my armies at your command? Shall I use force to protect the purity of your truth?”

Lilith said, “Nay, Your Majesty. If what I teach is so fragile that I must shield it from contamination, what I have cannot be the truth. The Eyes of Keter fight to convert others to their view and make war against other views, because what they call truth is too weak to sell itself to those who seek the truth with sincerity. They are certain they already possess the one truth and refuse to look at reality.”

“If truth comes to those who seek it with sincerity, then tell me, Queen Lilith, what is the most sincere truth?”

“Only this, your Majesty: the noblest activity is unending love.”

Metatron pondered this silently.

She said, “There is a yang who tried to rob my husband yesterday.”

The king emerged from hyz reverie to search the face of Lilith. Sha went on to say, “Your Majesty, what hy tried to take from Michael was of little account. If hy chose Michael could flood both Heaven and Earth with so many diamonds they would be like so many wooden beads.”

Hy said, “Yet it has come to me that your own daughter had to flee for har life.”

“Sha did so at my command, in the event the attacker threw hyz blade. I severed the hand of this yang to preserve the life of my husband. And that, I think, is a most extravagant punishment.”

Metatron saw to the heart of Lilith’s words to hym. With great tact sha was trying to balance hyz absolute sovereignty in Rumbek with the radical graciousness sha had learned from har husband and teacher. “Gruen!” barked the king, and hyz yeoman sunk to hyz knees before hym. “Gruen, tell the malik supervising this yang’s punishment that in my desire for justice it did not enter into my mind to be excessively cruel. Let hym be released from hyz suffering and let hym be cleaned and fed. Go in haste!”

The king’s yeoman bounded to hyz feet and fled.

Lilith made a small feminine gesture of respect from one Cherub to another. “Hyz Majesty is merciful and wise, yet a far greater thing weighs upon my thoughts than the chastisement of this thief. Some four hundred yen, exiles of Salem, are stranded on the frontier with Adan. They cannot return east under the same covenant that stays the forces of Samael from marching west, and even now their meager supplies are running out.”

“Queen Lilith, have you again established conditions on the field that leaves the House of Larund with little choice?”

“Nay, Your Majesty, at the last throw Queen Aurra has offered to settle the Fallen Angels in Rammon, yet this would have the effect of disbanding them as an army. What an army they are indeed that Samael has mustered all hyz warriors to drive them out of the Middle Land!”

“It is well that House Sala has opened their gates to you, yet I deem it would be a journey of at least two years to reach Rammon. Is that what you crave of me, Queen Lilith? Provender for your four hundred Fallen Angels, and leave to pass peacefully through Magodon?”

“Nay, Your Majesty. Give the word, rather, and to a yin my Fallen Angels will become your most loyal subjects.”

“Yet as an army they would be of no use when I march east to regain the lands occupied by Samael. You said yourself they are forbidden to cross the new border.”

“That is true, Your Majesty, but for such an endeavor you would no doubt muster your whole army to strike the Adanites. The Fallen Angels could patrol your western marches, lest those of House Bellon or perhaps even rebels within Magodon itself covet your unguarded lands.”

“And let us say I did not make your Fallen Angels my subjects,” Metatron suggested, “nor send them provisions, nor give them leave to cross my land. What then?”

“In that event, Your Majesty, the avatar of Chokhmah would come into play. May my husband address the king?”

“By all means let the consort of the Queen speak freely,” said Metatron. ‘I would learn of this avatar, and of those things which converted the whole House of Sala to follow Chokhmah, and which tamed the heart of a warrior yin.”

“Your Majesty is gracious,” said Michael. “An avatar is an object not made by angels nor nephilim nor men. If Your Majesty is willing to accept this, an avatar is made in the heart of a sun that is the body of an eloah, yet it can fly free, and part of the mind and will of the eloah is bound with this artifact. But mere words concerning an avatar will not suffice. If Hyz Majesty will come to the edge of hyz colonnade hy will soon see the avatar with hyz own eyes. It was set into motion from an idle state just moments ago.”

And indeed Metatron did rise from hyz throne to watch. A streak of rushing fire appeared in the sky over Tala Strait followed by two thunderbursts so loud it seemed to Metatron hy would be knocked over. The fire streak, the king could see, formed behind a small dark object that raced across the sky almost too quickly to follow.

“Behold, Your Majesty, the first avatar of Chokhmah. With this contrivance world-dwellers were discovered on Earth, whom the elohim name the Students. The same artifact once whisked me to a hidden place to be brought into full union with Chokhmah as a living avatar.”

“Tell me, Lord Michael,” said the king, “are you like Samael and Israel? In times past they have appeared before me, unheralded, and seem to have the power to come and go as they will heedless of my castle guard. Samael calls hymself a seraph, a master even of cherubim.”

“I was the first angel to join with an eloah, Your Majesty. As Chokhmah I taught the art to Keter, and he in turn taught Daat. Soon I will have the same power to move about Heaven at will but a covenant with Keter restricts my use of this power to the lands west of the Wall of God.

“Here I must resort to riding within the avatar. It brought me to Seliah with my wife and daughter and if needs be it can bring supplies to the Fallen Angels and the Fallen Angels themselves to Rammon, if aid is refused. I would honor such a refusal, your Majesty, even if it were not to my liking. In Magodon you rule absolutely, even over a seraph.”

“You need not resort to your avatar,” said the King, “for any of the yen willing to swear fealty to the Crown. A choice land will be given to them in my realm. They shall have whatsoever they might need to begin to become productive subjects, and you shall dwell with them.”

Lilith was visibly relieved. “I am grateful beyond all telling, Your Majesty, and the Fallen Angels who look to me will be much gladdened. Yet if you say they must lay down the sword, so shall it be, for this too would be their fate scattered among the ringhausen of Rammon.”

“Nay, Queen Lilith,” replied Metatron, “let them grasp the sword even so, and see that thou train them well. Samael is faithless. I portend his army one day shall pour through an overlooked loophole in the covenant and thy Fallen Angels will then repay me a hundredfold.”

Michael said, “I am certain Samael will never directly assail thee with the main bulk of hyz army, Your Majesty. Elohim will not break the bonds of even small concessions. Yet hy can still send assassins and spies by ones and twos, and arm all thy enemies, both within Magodon and without. And Samael will continue to foment hatreds between House Larund and the other houses, that thou would remain at each other’s throat, and hy might sell hyz remedy in the form of arms, first to one, then the other. Queen Aurra and King Uriel have already said this must end. Give the word of assent, Your Majesty, and I will bring the rulers of House Sala and House Bellon hither to take counsel with the aim of forging some form of peaceful union between the kingdoms of Heaven.”

Metatron said a council as Michael described would be a good thing. “And it would be, I think, the first such council ever taken in the history of Heaven. But for now let us find a land to settle the exiles of Salem, and watch for a time whether Samael will break the truce hy made.”

Michael bowed and affirmed the king’s command.

“Your Majesty,” said Lilith, “when we came to thy realm we touched down in a fair valley that runs south through the middle of Seliah Island. We fell in love with the place at first sight. There are some houses and farms but it seems to be lightly settled in the main.”

“Thou speakest of the Living Valley,” said Barachiel, who turned to face Lilith. “It is near to my own castle in the Dul Valley, though a ridge intervenes. The bordering hills run nigh to the water, so it is arduous to bring the increase of the valley to Rumbek.”

“The Fallen Angels shall dwell in the same vale,” said the king. “And thou, my son, shall extend generous hands until the Salemites are able of their own to work the land. This is the labor I lay upon thee for thy part in what Queen Lilith named a battle decision.”

Barachiel bowed hyz head low. “It shall be as you command, my father and liege-lord. But meantime, Queen Lilith and har family shall stay in a wing of my own house until a dwelling is built for them in the Living Valley. Alas, I cannot extend the same to har four hundreds.”

Then Michael, Lilith, and Leliel departed from the presence of the cherub Metatron. They were taken to dwell in the Dul Valley for a time while the Fallen Angels were supplied by goods carried by the avatar of Chokhmah and made ready to settle the land apportioned to them.