Fantasy and Myth

An Angelic Bargain

Ages ago...

Icarus soared in the golden sunlight, his feathered wings catching the rushing wind and lifting him ever higher. He heard the distant calls of his father, Daedalus, but the wind snatched them away before he could understand them. The sun was warm on his face, and laughter filled his mouth. After being imprisoned in the labyrinth on Crete by King Minos, flying in the open sky, breathing the clean air was wondrous beyond description.

A flicking sound reached his ears as his flight became unsteady. Looking to the wings his father had crafted for him, he saw the wax melting in the heat of the sun and the feathers breaking loose and falling behind him in a wake of aerial debris. His began to lose altitude and plummet toward the deathly embrace of the sea. Flapping his arms to try and recover his altitude only broke away more feathers and increased the disintegration of his constructed wings. It wasn't long before the feathers were gone entirely and he was waving his arms in the open air.

In the instant before he hit the waters, everything around him froze. Although he could turn his head, even twist his body, he remained suspended in place as if hanging in the sky by unseen ropes. Droplets of water, having broken away from white capped waves, hung still and free, clear gems of liquid sparkling in the sunlight.

"Icarus," a voice called. Loud and majestic as a waterfall, the voice thundering through the stillness of the frozen moment made Icarus instinctively flinch. The voice called again with more insistence, "Icarus!"

"Yes?" he answered when he was able to find his voice again.

"You have been chosen," the voice declared.

"Chosen for what?" he questioned.

Golden light brighter than the sun burst into existence before him, forcing him to shield his eyes. From within the midst of the light, the voice called to him again. "Icarus. You have been chosen to receive the wings of an angel. There is a price, and should you decline the wings and the associated costs, time shall resume where it was before we spoke."

"Considering I'm about to drown," Icarus reasoned out loud. "I'd say my best choice is to accept."

The light dimmed to a degree Icarus could see without having to shield his face, and the golden rays withdrew and condensed into the armored form of an angel. A pair of silvery wings, each nearly as long as the man was tall, slowly moved through the air, keeping the celestial being aloft with marginal effort. Solidified sunlight encased the divine warrior in layers of ornate armor. A sword was held ready in the right hand, its blade a polished mirror.

"Do you accept the costs of the offered wings?" the angel insisted.

"I will pay what is asked of me," Icarus agreed.

The angel moved its free hand, and Icarus was turned around in mid-air so he was no longer hanging upside down an instant before impact but was instead standing in the open sky above the motionless waters of the ocean

"Your feathers shall be fifty in number," the angel explained. "And, you shall serve the Hosts of Heaven fifty years for each feather. Long life shall be granted you in order that you may render payment in full. If you should be killed, you shall be restored at the cost of a century of additional time."

"Wait!" Icarus protested.

"You promised to pay the costs," the angel pointed out, raising his sword. "By your own free will, you did strike this bargain. It is by no fault of mine you didn't ask the costs before accepting. The deal was offered and agreed upon. Now, it shall be done."

The angel touched the tip of his sword against Icarus' chest. White flames lit the blade, rushing down the metal and out across his skin. Icarus's muscles tensed as he winced, leaning back as if hoping to avoid the fire. The expected agony did not follow; the flames washed across his skin like a warm rain, leaving neither charred flesh nor blistered skin in their wake. When the flames reached his back, they solidified, stretching out to either side and becoming white wings of such brilliance, a noonday sun on fresh snow wouldn't have shown as brightly. Armor appeared next, though it was a gleaming gold metal rather than what the angel wore. A sword appeared at Icarus' side in a sheath hanging from a belt securely fastened around his waist.