Arabia—788 B.C.
QIEL FELT COLD AND lonely. Something was happening to him that had never happened before. He was no fool; he knew enough from talking with friends about what would happen when boys began to become men. But this wasn't that. This was cold. He felt truly ill. His mind was filled with visions of horrifying monsters, tentacled beasts, things with scales and fins, the creature Leviathan.
His captor had shackled him here in this dark cell. A blacksmith had driven the pins through the manacles that chained him to the wall. He didn't know what had happened to his mother. He had wanted to cry earlier, but now he withheld all these fears, allowing them to coalesce inside of him, hardening into hatred, fury, even vengeance. He knew from what his mother had taught him that vengeance belonged to El alone, but still. He needed something to get through this. He would not allow himself to cry like a child. It was time to close the book on those chapters of his life. It was time to move forward into manhood now.
He pulled against the chains. They were heavy; he could barely pull them taut against their own sagging weight. A rat ran across his naked toes, its little claws raking across his skin, and he managed to get enough of a piece of it to kick it through the air, its hindquarters and its tail straight out as it spun. He growled and pulled on the chains harder, but they were too heavy. He shouted out in rage, feeling the man, but the voice that echoed back to him was that of a little boy who was frightened. Alone in the dark with the rats and chains.
He wanted more than anything to call out for his mother, to see if she was all right, but he withheld that, too. He didn't want to hear what such a cry might sound like if it echoed back to him in this place.
He dropped his hands to his sides and stood, puffing his hair out of his face as he breathed. Qiel felt cold. He retched onto the floor. Something was happening. Something his mother hadn't told him about.
A noise came to him then. It was the sound of dripping. His chains felt cold and moist, and his breath became visible as mist in the darkness. Yes. This was new. This was dangerous. He wasn't sure how he felt about it.
***
WHEN URIEL FINALLY CAME back to herself, she didn't know what had happened or how much time had gone by. She only knew the scalding shame of regret. She had been fool enough to think that Anael wouldn't be able to find her, and worse, that if he did, he would allow her to live out her life with Qiel in peace.
But no.
Her passion for destruction, her capacity for boundless hatred, had dissipated into dust over the last few centuries. It was scant enough as to have become immeasurable. "Anael," she called out in the darkness, rising to a sitting position. A sharp pain in her temples followed this sudden motion, and she held a hand to her head in response to it. She sobbed. "Anael." She hadn't known the feeling of desperation in centuries. "Anael!" she screamed at length, bringing on fresh pain and dizziness. She pressed both hands to her head and fell to her knees, doubled over.
Then, a voice. "Ready now?"
She didn't need to look up to know who it was. She sobbed again. Qiel had burned all the rebellion out of her heart. She hadn't thought such a thing could ever happen. All the senseless hatred had fled from her since her son had come into her life, and she knew what love was by having tasted it. "Your servant will do whatever you ask of her," she breathed. She could feel the wicked smile that spread itself on the hideous face of her foe in response.
"I will be Seer. You will bring me the Bloodstone, or your boy will never be free."
"Your servant wishes to see her son," she pleaded, breathing raggedly. She called out for him. "Qiel."
Laughter. "Preposterous. I cannot risk that, and you know it. Do not blame me for what you have wrought. I know your capabilities, Uriel. You shall not see him until the Bloodstone is in my hand. How else can I know that you will prove yourself trustworthy?" Anael then paused, and Uriel could hear him pacing back and forth.
"You dishonor me greatly, half-breed. You failed to fulfill the bargain we struck. I cannot say that I am surprised." He snorted.
Uriel felt a surge of anger. How ironic that you also failed to supply the plans and strategy that would have fulfilled your side of it, scum.
"As it happens," Anael said, "especially with you sons and daughters of dust, as your lives wear on, you change. Your young passions wither and rot. The motivations that once were pure and undefiled—your many hatreds undiluted—wane as new seasons break over you.
"But I know and see much," he spat at her. "I perceived that you were delaying, that you were lying to me, that something profound within you had changed and that you intended to dishonor both me and the agreement. I knew that your heart had softened toward your father even before I arranged for Yshmial's magnificent entrance into your pitiful life. How poetic that a young man can seduce a woman such as you. It is a delicacy rare indeed."
Uriel's eyes widened briefly and then clamped shut against a swamping wave of grief.
"My task and aim are simple," Anael continued. "I require that little red stone. You have both a weakness and a motivation, though they are both specifically different now. Oh, yes, motivation for you can still be found—a chink in your prodigious armor." He stood. "I have found it. Now, bring me the Bloodstone, or your little boy will rot in his chains and I will throw his lifeless husk to the birds so that his bones may be picked clean. I will bring you to heel."
She sobbed once more, but then managed to control herself. "Your servant will do as you command." She looked up at him, a dark silhouette barely visible in the dank light of a solitary distant torch. "I will bring you the stone."
She then vanished from view.
***
YAMANU SAT WITH ZEDKIEL by the fire late into the night, trying to be quiet, to sense what he was missing.
Outside Zed's house, in the streets of Ke'elei, none moved but a few scattered sentries on their rounds. Most of the guards were on the wall or at the main gate as usual. Though appearances insisted by peaceful witness that all was well, Yamanu felt unsettled.
"I wish Kreios were here," Zedkiel said.
Heaviness descended upon Yamanu. "As do I." He fell silent for a moment. "I am afraid Kreios has gone very far indeed, that he intends—it is clear now—not to return."
"I agree. I think further that he cannot. There is too much pain here."
Yamanu looked at Kreios's brother. "We all thought we knew what we were doing when we left paradise, did we not?"
Zed snorted, smoking his pipe, making ripples in the smoke that was pooling in his lap.
"And El allowed it." He sighed deeply. "El will not be surprised that we are learning a thing or two under the sun."
"We are learning about pain and loss."
Yam gestured to the bedrooms where Zedkiel's family used to sleep. "It was good while it lasted."
Zed nodded darkly. "She . . . they . . ." He gestured to both bedrooms, including his wife and his child, "died of old age hundreds of years ago now. But the pain remains."
"They lived good lives. Safe. And they now sleep, having been full of years under the sun. When El returns and paradise has come, when mankind has overcome, when they receive and share in the glory of El, the reunion will be sweet indeed."
Zedkiel looked at his angelic friend. "We thought we knew. But none of us knew how badly it would hurt to bury our families in the ground until that terrible unknown day. None of us could have imagined such a thing."
"Maria lived a full life, Zedkiel."
The other angel was silent. Evidently he had nothing to say.
"Do you feel it too?" Yamanu asked, changing the subject to what was really foremost upon the minds of both angels.
"Yes. Coming at us from under the earth," Zedkiel said.
"Yes."
Yamanu puffed on his pipe, considering things. Whom can we tell? Anael's counsel had grown dark indeed in centuries past, and the City of Refuge had become less and less resplendent, more and more like a festering scab upon the mountainside. There were hushed discussions amongst the Fallen, talk and rumor of some leaving Ke'elei for good, doing as Kreios had done. Perhaps there was a better life out there in the open.
Living cloistered like this seemed more and more reckless to Yamanu with each passing day, but it was not as if he could voice opinions like his to just anyone. Sentiments that were warm toward independence were frowned upon. Anael's council made free thinkers a spectacle, ostracizing them in the public hall and holding them up to open contempt and mockery.
Yamanu sighed. It has come to this—the council lacks all sense. There can be no prophetic warnings anymore, no debates, no discussions. And even if we wish to flee, we must do it in secret. In the dead of night. If Yamanu and Zedkiel—and whomever else happened to be a sympathizer—wanted to leave Ke'elei, they would be required to use the shadowing arts against their own kind and brethren. They would be forced to hide from El's own angels in order to take a chance at living by their convictions. Has such a thing ever been done, even thought of?
Yamanu reflected on these things. Increasingly now, he felt very strongly that the City of Refuge was not safe, and that they would be required to abandon it if they wished to make themselves so. How odd, he thought, that Ke'elei should become a prison. It was the exact opposite of the builders' intentions. That meant that there could only be one set of fingerprints on this latest development—they were all over it.
He shook his head and puffed on his pipe. His days were long and dark, and oh, how he craved for the light of day to dawn once more, and the feel of a sword in his hand.