Once again His silence was thunderous and soft and utterly empty. It was an emptiness of which those on Earth cannot conceive. I stood my ground because I could do nothing but what I had done, and I felt in my heart that every word I'd spoken had been true and untainted by fear. It occurred to me very clearly that if the Lord threw me out of Heaven, that whatever He did, really, I would deserve it. I was His Created Angel, and His to Command. And His to destroy if He wished it. And once again, I heard the cries of Sheol in my memory, and I wondered, as a human might, if He would send me there soon or do something far more fearful, for in Nature there were countless examples of excruciating destruction and catastrophe, and I as an Angel could be made by God to suffer whatever He wanted me to suffer, I knew.

'I trust in you, Lord,' I said suddenly, thinking and speaking simultaneously. 'Or else I would have fallen on my face as have the other Watchers. And that is not to say that they do not trust. But only to say that I believe you want me to understand Goodness, that your essence is Goodness, and you will not suffer these souls to cry in gloom and ignorance. You will not suffer the ingenious Humankind to continue without any inkling of the Divine.'

For the first time, He spoke very softly and offhandedly.

'Azrael, you've given them more than an inkling.'

'Yes, Lord, it is so. But Lord, the souls of the dead have given them much inspiration, and encouragement, and those souls are out of Nature, as we have beheld it, and growing stronger by the day. If there is a species of energy, Lord, natural and complicated beyond my understanding, then I am totally taken by surprise. For it seems they are made of what we are made of Lord, the invisible, and each is individual and has its own will. Lucifer was right, Lord. '

Silence again. Then the Lord spoke.

'Very well. I have heard your case. Now I have for you a question. For all that you gave Humankind, Azrael, what precisely did they give you?'

I was startled by the question.

'And don't speak to me of love now, Azrael,' He added. 'Of their capacity to love one another. On this the Heavenly Court is well informed and totally agreed. But what did they give you, Azrael? What did you get in return for the risks you took by entering into their realm?'

'Confirmation, Lord,' I said hastily, reaching for the deepest truth without distortion. 'They knew an Angel when they saw one. Just as I supposed they would.'

'Ah!' A great roar of laughter came from the Heavenly Throne and once again it swept up Heaven, so loud I'm sure that it must have reached the weak and struggling ears of Sheol. The Whole Heavens were rocking with laughing and singing.

At first I didn't dare to speak or do anything, and then suddenly, angrily perhaps, or should I say, willfully, I raised my hand.

'But I mean this in all seriousness, Lord! I was not some being beyond their dreams! Lord, did you plant the seed for this when you Created the Universe, that these beings would raise their voices to you? Will you tell me? One way or the other, can I know?'

The angels quieted down in little groups and pockets at first and then the laughter tapered off altogether, and something else replaced it, a soft singing of tribute to God in his patience, a soft acknowledgment of his patience with me.

I didn't join in this song. I looked to the great outer stretches of the rays of Light that came from God, and the mystery of my own stubbornness and my own anger and my own curiosity subdued me somewhat, but did not throw me for one second into despair.

'I trust in you, Lord. You know what you're doing. You have to. Otherwise we are... lost.'

I broke off, stunned at what I had just said. It far exceeded any challenge I'd thrown at God so far, seemed to even exceed the implications Lucifer had made, although I was still unaware of what he had done in my absence. In horror, I looked at the Light, and thought, what if He doesn't know what He's doing and never has!

My hands went to my face to stop my lips from saying something rash and thereby tell my brain to stop with its rash and blasphemous thoughts. I knew God! God was There. And I stood before Him. How dare I think such a thing, and yet He had said, 'You do not trust me,' and that was exactly what He had meant.

It seemed the Light of God grew infinitely brighter; it expanded; the shapes of Seraphim and Cherubim grew small and utterly transparent, and the light filled me and filled the recesses of all angels, and I felt in communion with them that all of us were so totally loved by God that we could never long for or imagine anything more.

Then the Lord spoke, the words wholly different now, for they competed with this effulgence of Love which overpowered the thinking mind. Nevertheless, I heard them and they penetrated to my heart.

And everyone else heard them too.

'Azrael, go into Sheol, and take Lucifer with you,' He said, 'and find there but ten souls who are worthy, of all those millions, to join us in Heaven. Say what you will to them as you examine them; but find Ten who you believe are worthy to live with us. Then bring those souls back to me, and we will continue from there on.'

I was ecstatic. 'Lord, we can do it! I know we can!' I cried out.

And suddenly I saw the faces of Michael and Raphael and Uriel, who had been almost obscured by the light of God, which was now receding within more endurable bounds. Michael looked frightened for me, and Raphael was weeping. Uriel seemed merely to watch, without emotion, neither on my side or for me, or for the souls, or for anyone. It was the face that Angels used to have before Time began.

'We can go now?' I said. 'And when must we return?'

'When you will,' said the Lord, 'and when you can.'

Ah, I understood. If we didn't find those ten souls, we weren't coming back.

I nodded, lovely logic and felt Lucifer's agreement at my side. I understood it. I accepted it.

I was about to speak, to ask, What of the Watchers, this little legion of flesh-educated angels behind me, when the Lord answered.

'They will wait in their proper place in Heaven for your return. They will not know my decision, nor their fate, until you bring those souls to me, Azrael, souls that I shall find worthy to be in my Heavenly home.'

'I understand, Lord. We're leaving with your permission!'

And asking nothing further, broaching no questions as to restrictions or limitations, I, Azrael the Archangel, and Lucifer, the Accuser of God, left Heaven immediately and descended into the great airy mists of Sheol.

So we came to Sheol, which I had only observed from outside before, and which was now enormous, containing still some of the first souls that ever sputtered with enduring life, and now millions of souls whose creeds and yearnings for the eternal had brought them to this place with great ferocity. Lucifer told me of what had occurred in the garden, and I shared his anger at God's pronouncement: if Adam and Eve bore the first souls, what were these spirits? The proof was all around us, that God was unjust in dismissing them. Mad expectations had pitched countless spirits into confusion. Others had grown so strong they exerted a sort of rulership among the others. And some had learned the trick of going down to Earth, escaping from the pull of other invisible souls altogether, and for wandering close to the flesh they would possess again, or influence, or harm, or love as the case might be. And there was a mad confusion of everything, for Lucifer's demons had slipped into the invisible world as well, and they too prowled the earth and the spiritual realm, eager to possess, wreak havoc, or make mischief, as their developments allowed. Where they encountered strong emotion of the sort they were bred of, they would multiply, existing twixt the visible and the invisible. But the great thrust of the world was and always has been the fate of its millions of Humankind.

Lucifer told me, also, of another development which had gone unmentioned at the great meeting in Heaven, one which had apparently been deemed unmentionable. Not only had he too taken a wife from among the humans, but he had fathered a child, and God had so cursed the infant as to be bound eternally to the earth, immortal and monstrous, feeding upon the blood of men to survive. All this had served only to make both of us more determined, to help these humans share in heaven's light.