behindcloseddoors | CLOSED ♔ and who shall i blame for this sweet and heavy trouble

What an asshole.

[Des is pretty much done with God at this point.]

I didn't answer for a moment. The comment was charged with contempt and humor, of course. Then I spoke.

'That's true, Lord. And suffering is so terrible for humans, injustice is so terrible for the balance of their mind that it can destroy those lessons learnt in bed, magnificent as they are!'

'Oh, but when Love is reached through suffering, Lucifer, it has a power it can never gain through innocence.'

'Why do you say that? I don't believe it! I don't think you grasp it, Lord, listen to me. There's one chance for this to be proven my way. One chance.'

'If you think for one moment you will interfere with my ministry and my sacrifice, if you think you can turn the tide of the vast forces already moving towards this event, then you are no more an angel, but a demon!' He said.

'I don't ask that,' I said. 'Go through with it. Minister, outrage them; be arrested, tried, and executed on the cross, yes, do all of it. But do it as a man!'

'I intend to.'

'No, you'll know the whole time you're God. I'm saying Forget that you are God! Bury your divinity in the flesh the way it's been buried intermittently. Bury it, Lord, leaving yourself only your faith and your belief in Heaven, as if it had come to you through Revelation immense and undeniable. But bury in this desert the true certainty that you are God,. Then, you'll suffer it all as a man suffers it. Then you'll know what this suffering is at its heart. Then will the joy be stripped from agony! And you will see what men see when flesh is ripped, and torn and blood flows, and it is your own, and you will be broken as well and not ask this of your Creations!'

'Lucifer, men die on Golgotha every day. What is important is that the Son of God knowingly sacrifices himself in the body of a man.'

'Oh, no, no!' I cried out. 'This is disaster!'

He seemed so sad suddenly that I thought he might weep for me. His lips were parched and cracked from the desert. His hands were so thin I could see the veins. He was not even a great specimen of a man, only an ordinary one, worn down by years of toil.

'Look at you,' I said, 'starving, thirsting, suffering, tired, lost in all the darknesses of life, the true spontaneous evils of nature, and dreaming of glory when you exit this body! What kind of lesson can such suffering be? And who will you leave with the guilt for your murder? What will become of all those mere mortals who denied you? No, please, Lord, listen to me. If you won't leave your Divinity, then don't do it. Change the plan.

'Don't die. Above all, don't be murdered! Don't hang from a tree like the God of the Wood in the Greek stories. Come with me into Jerusalem and know women and wine and singing and dancing and the birth of little ones, and all the joy the human heart can contain and express!

'Lord, there are times when the hardest men hold infants in their arms, their own children, and the happiness and satisfaction of those moments is so sublime that there is no horror on earth that can destroy the peace they feel! That is the human capacity for love and understanding! When one can achieve harmony in spite of everything, and men and women do this, Lord. They do. Come, dance with your people. Sing with them. Feast with them. Throw your arms around the women and the men and know them in the flesh!'

'I feel pity for you, Lucifer,' He said. 'I pity you as I pity the mortals who will kill me, and those who will inevitably misunderstand my sacrifice and my laws, and what I would ask of them. But I dream of those who will be touched to the core by my suffering, and who will never forget it and seek to replicate it, and will know what love I felt for mortals that I would let myself die among them and grant them the chance to redeem themselves from Sin and Sheol. I pity you. Feeling as you do, your guilt will become too terrible to bear.'

'My guilt? What guilt?'

'You're the cause of all this, Lucifer. You're the one who said I should come down in the flesh. You're the one who urged me on to do it, who challenged me, who asked me to offer these humans a way to reach Heaven, and now you fail to see the miracle of my sacrifice.

'And when you do see it, when you do see souls perfected by suffering ascending to Heaven, when you see my Chosen One cross the River of Lethe of their own volition, after suffering all a soul may suffer, what will you think of your paltry little discoveries made in the arms of Daughters of Men? What will you think? Don't you see? I will redeem suffering, Lucifer! I will give it its greatest and fullest potential within the cycle! I will bring it to fruition. I will allow it to sing its own magnificent song!'

'No, no, no!' I stood up and railed at Him. 'Lord, just do as I ask. Go through with it, yes, if you must, found this miracle upon a murder, do it that way, if that is your will, but bury your certainty of your Divinity, so that you really, really do die, Lord, so that when they drive the nails through your hands and feet you know what a man feels and no more and when you enter the gloom of Sheol yours is a human soul! Please, Lord, please, I'm begging you. For all humanity, I'm begging you. I can't see the future, but I have never been more frightened of it than I am now.'

[ he breaks off, looking into the distance, his words echoing. ]

[Des rests his chin on his knees, saddened by the ignorance coming from someone who claims to Know All.]

You weren't asking much. [Suffer like us, then maybe you'd get it.]

And yet.

When He died He was man, but that man was never without the power of God.

[ lucifer seems too shaken to say more just yet. but something has changed in the landscape. a figure is seated in the circle of stones, the figure of a dark skinned, dark eyed man, emaciated and covered with the sand of the desert, and he's looking at them. and without one fiber of his flesh being other than human, He is obviously God.

His presence is petrifying, but not frightening. He merely looks at des with the softest sympathy in His face, and the same unbounded acceptance of them that had been felt in Heaven.

The Son of God.

"Come here, child," he calls out softly, over the desert wind, in a human voice. "Come closer." ]

[Des gets to his feet, but remains rigid, staying closer to Lucifer, but looking to Azrael as if unsure if this is part of the test or not. His fingers clench and unclench, and he ventures closer, anger outweighing his fear of what might happen if he gets too close.]

[ azrael gives him a bitter smile. ]

Des, it is always a good idea, no matter how He is behaving, to do exactly what He says.

[ "I want you to come into Jerusalem," He says. He reaches out and brushes back Des' hair, and the hand is as Lucifer described it: dry, calloused, darkened from the sun as his brow. But the voice hovers somewhere between natural and sublime and strikes a timbre beyond the angelic. It's the voice that spoke to him in Heaven, only confined to human sounds.

"Come into Jerusalem. It won't take you long, no more perhaps than a few moments, but come into Jerusalem with me, on the day of my death, and glimpse my Passion - see me crowned with thorns and carrying my cross. Do this for Me before you make your decision whether or not to serve Lucifer or the Lord God. Would you really return to Earth without this glimpse of what I offer? Would you really give up this chance to glimpse me crowned with thorns? When have you ever passed up a challenge, and think what I am offering to you now. No, you wouldn't back off from it, even if Lucifer urged you to do it." ]

[Des doesn't regard the touch with the contempt one would expect. He has made his decision. And everyone knows how stubborn he is.]

Fine.

[ "Lucifer," says God Incarnate. "Bring him, show him the way, let him but glimpse it. You be his guide, and then go on with your examination and your appeal."

He looks at Des and smiles.

"Remember. This is only the world. And you know the world. Sheol awaits. You have seen the World and Heaven, but you have not seen Hell."

With that, He vanishes. ]

What's that supposed to mean?

[HE DOESN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HELL, RIGHT? THAT'S NOT A THING, RIGHT?]

It means precisely what He said, Descant. If you would join our cause, you must understand it - and to understand it means to see it firsthand.

What? To give me incentive not to screw up? [GRUMBLE MUTTER. Everyone in this desert sucks.]

Because you need to understand what we do, and what Hell is. But come. Let us not keep Him waiting.

[ and lucifer leads them into the city, a city of deep brown and faded yellow stones and clay. there's a huge crowd of people, robed and veiled and ragged - the smell of human sweat overpowers, the heat of stagnant breath, and stench of human waste and camel dung. no one takes notice of them, though he can feel the press of people around them, feel unwashed men shoving against him, and brushing in front of him, and the sand salts the air here within the walls of the city, within these narrow streets.

people cluster in small rounded doorways, peep from windows above. soot mingles with the everlasting sand. women drawing their veils around their faces cleave to one another, pushing past. up ahead, they can hear screams and shouting. the crowd pushes around them so tightly that des can't even move further.

lucifer is right beside him, watching all calmly, no preternatural gleam now. ]

[Des snaps and glowers at the people who brush against him and pays them no heed, drawing closer to Lucifer without realizing he's doing it. The screams draw his attention and he hastens his pace, drawn to the sound of trouble instinctively.]

[ lucifer puts his left arm around des' shoulder, clutching him protectively, and divides the crowd in front of them, effortlessly it seems, until they emerge in the front line of those who wait at a broader thoroughfare as the procession advances. the shouts are deafening. roman soldiers move past, their garments soiled with grit, faces tired, bored even, dreary. across the way, on the other side of the procession, a beautiful woman, her hair covered by a long white veil, throws up her hands and screams.

she's looking at the Son of God. he's come into view. des can see the big crossbar of the crucifix first, on his shoulders, sticking out on either side of Him, and then His hands, bound to the beam, dangling from the ropes, already dripping with blood. His head is bowed, the brown hair is matted and dirty and covered over with the crude black crown of spiked thorns; spectators are pressed to walls on either side of Him, some taunting Him, others silent.

there's barely room for Him to walk with his His burden. His robes torn, His knees bruised and bleeding, but walk He does. The stench of urine overpowers from the nearby walls.

He trudges towards them, face hidden, then falls, one knee going down into the stones of the street. Behind Him, Des sees others carrying the long post of the cross which will be planted in the ground.

at once the soldiers beside Him pull Him up. they steady the crossbar on his shoulders. His face is visible, not three feet from where they stand, and He looks at Des and Lucifer. Sunburnt, cheeks hollow, mouth open and shuddering, dark eyes wide and fixed on them. He looks, without expression, without appeal. the blood pours down from the black thorns sticking into His forehead; it runs in tiny streams into His eyelids and down His cheeks. His chest is naked under the open rag of robe which He wears, and it's covered in the ripe, red stripes of the lash.

the crowd goes on screaming and cursing; and shouting and pushing; little children peep through; women wail. others laugh; a great horrid stinking multitude beneath the relentless sun that sends its rays throughout the close urine-stained walls.

closer He comes. He shudders in his agony, the blood running down His face into His shivering lips. He gives a gasp as if He will strangle, and des can see that the robe over His shoulders, beneath the rough wood of the beam, is soaked with blood from the scourging. He can not endure another instant, and yet they push Him, and He stands directly before them, eyes down, face wet with sweat and blood swimming in it, and then slowly He turns and looks at Des.

He stands there, staring at him and Lucifer, stepped out of time and holding the moment in its fullness, in its agony, as He looks at them both and speaks Des' true name. His voice is so feeble and torn he can scarce hear it. ]

[Des grits his teeth. He's not unmoved by this display- he's done his share of torture on this earth. This is the sort of cruelty he's endured for four thousand years, consolidated into a single moment. There's no real pity in his eyes- you get what you paid for- but his chest hurts all the same. It's the same side of him that would never let something that grants true immortality fall into the hands of even someone who wanted it, because he knows what it brings and it's not a curse he'd wish on anyone who couldn't possibly fathom what it feels like.

And God doesn't know. God is still God underneath all that. At the same time, however, Des has been bent and broken and knew, the whole time, that he would return to life when it was all over. Is the suffering not the same?

No, he thinks, because I didn't choose it.

So he watches, turning his eyes away from God, expression placid. This doesn't make him agree with God. This makes him want the suffering to stop even more.]

[ He comes closer, and as he stares into Des' eyes, Des experiences a falling sensation, as if the whirlwind were gathering around him again, the noise of the crowd swelling as he is suddenly barraged by sensation...

The cross, the nails driven through His wrists, not His hands, His body twisting and turning as if in the last moments, He wil escape, and His head bashes down on the crossbar, so that the thorns go into His scalp, and then the nails through His feet, and His eyes rolling, the pound and pound of the hammer, and then the Light, the immense Light rising as it had over the balustrade in Heaven, and filling the world, and then it is receding, swift, soundless, and leaving behind a long tunnel or path, straight from Earth to the Light.

Time presses in with suffocating heat, and He is before them, staring at them, tears spilling down out of His eyes, through that blood that already covers Him.

And then the sky is shifting, the blue sky over Jersualem, the sand-filled air shifts; the whirlwind mercifully surrounds him and the Light fills his eyes as the wind carries him in silence and stillness, his robes transposed once more to his own coat and shirt, what he'd worn in the snows of Chicago.

Smoke rises from the earth. Cries and screams again. With a hard, shattering blow, Des strikes a wall and a floor (13 dmg). Horses go by, the hooves barely missing his head, sparks flying from the stones. A woman lies bleeding and dying before him, her neck obviously broken, blood pouring out of her nose and ears. People flee in all directions. Again the smell of excrement mixed with blood.

It is a city at war, the soldiers looting and dragging the innocents from out of archways, screams echoing as if off endless ceilings, the flames coming so close they singe his hair.

A soldier's foot comes up and kicks the side of his face, hard, sending him sprawling on the stones (9 dmg). ]

[Des officially has no idea what the hell is happening.

He's been here before- again, not specifically here, but he's been in enough wars and street skirmishes to know the agony and the shock and the disorientation and he forgets all about God and the cross and Lucifer and Azrael in a panic to get away. He pulls himself up to his knees, blood oozing from a cut on his face and sucks in a breath, looking around desperately for a way out or any sign of Lucifer and Azrael. (Spot 18)]

[ ♬ counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums - a perfect circle

he would see that he's in a huge domed church, with gallery upon gallery of Roman arches and columns. All around him, against the glitter of gold mosaics, men and women are being cut down. Horses are trampling them. The body of a child strikes the wall above him, the skull crushes, and the tiny little limbs drop like debris at Des' feet. Horsemen slash at those fleeing, with broadswords hacking through shoulders and arms. A violent explosion of flames makes it as light as midday. Through the portals, men and women flee. But the soldiers go after them. Blood soaks the ground. Blood soaks the world.

All around and high above, the golden mosaics blaze with faces which seem now, transfixed in horror as they behold this slaughter. Saints and saints and saints. Flames rise and dance. Piles of books are burning. Icons are smashed into pieces, and statuary lies in heaps, smoldering and blackened, the gold gleaming as if eaten by the flames.

Lucifer's voice is right beside him. He is sitting, collected, against the stone wall, alone. ]

Hagia Sophia, my friend. It's nothing, really. It's only the Fourth Crusade.

What you see are the Roman Christians slaughtering the Greek Christians. Egypt and the Holy Land have for the moment been forgotten. The Venetians have been given three days to loot the city. It was a political decision. Of course they were all here to win back the Holy Land, where you have I have lately been, but the battle wasn't in the cards, and so the authorities have let the troops loose on the town. Christian slaughters Christian. Roman against Greek. Do you want to walk outside? Would you like to see more of it? Remember it? Books by the millions are being lost now forever. Manuscripts in Greek and Syriac and Ethiopian and Latin. Books of God and books of men. Do you want to walk among the convents where the nuns are being dragged out of their cells by fellow Christians and raped? Constantinople is being looted. It's nothing, believe me, nothing at all.

God would ask you to see the beauty in it. To close your eyes to the darkness.

[ the clang of horses' hooves comes perilously close again, and the reek of the blood of the dead baby lies against his leg heavy and limp like something wet from the sea. Near him lies the body of a man with his head half severed from his neck, the blood pooling on the stones. Another figure tumbles over him, knee twisted, bloody hand grasping for anything that will give him purchase, and finding only the naked pink child's body, which he throws aside. Its little head is now nearly broken off. ]

Would you like a change of scenery? We can move on. We can go to Madrid and treat ourselves to an auto-da-fe, do you know what that is? Where they torture and burn alive the Jews who won't convert to Christ? Perhaps we should go back to France and see the Cathars being slaughtered in the Languedoc? You must have seen plenty of this when you were growing up. The heresy was wiped out, you know, the whole heresy. Very successful mission on the part of the Dominican Fathers, who will then start on the witches, naturally. There are so many choices. Suppose we go to Germany and see the martyrdom of the Anabaptists. Or to England to watch Queen Mary burn those who had turned against the Pope during the reign of her father, Henry. I'll tell you an extraordinary scene that I have often revisited. Strasbourg, 1349. Two thousand Jews will be burned there in February of that year, blamed for the Black Death. Things like that will happen all over Europe...

The Inquisition? That one was fun. [Des snorts and staggers to his feet, knees soaked with blood. A miraculous fort save of 16 keeps him throwing up on the stones to mix with the carnage.]

I get it. God's a dick. [He coughs into his hand.] You think I haven't seen half of this? You think I'm really gonna doubt. I know what suffering looks like. He can't buy me with a cross.

Desire for a part of Heaven's light isn't reason enough to join me, Descant. Desire for revenge against God or Michael for the injustices you've suffered is not enough. If you would understand why we must do what it is we do, you must look at the system with open eyes, and reject it - and never let all this pass from your mind.

All this will do [ he gives a sweeping gesture ] is divide Greek and Roman Catholics forever. And as Constantinople weakens, then the new People of the Book, the Moslems, will pour past the weakened defenses into Europe. Do you want to relive one of those battles? We can skip directly to the twenty-first century if you'd like, see what still rages today. And while we are considering the People of the Book - Moslems, Jews, Christians - why not go to listen to the cry of the starving Kurds whose people are being exterminated? If you want, we could just concentrate on the sack of holy places - mosques, cathedrals, churches. We could use that method to travel right up to the present time.

Mind you, not one suggestion I've made involves people who don't worship God or Christ. People of the Book, that's what I'm talking about, the Book which starts with the One God and keeps changing and growing, His true message distorted and warped and lost and altered as He allows.

And today and tonight, documents of inestimable value go up in flames. It is the unfolding of Creation; it is Evolution; it is sanctified suffering on somebody's part surely, because all of these people you see here worship the same God.

[ his voice stops, but the battle doesn't. there's an explosion. flames roar so high that he can see the saints on the very dome. in one flash, the entire magnificent scope of the basilica blazes around him - its great oval, its rows upon rows of columns, the great half-arches supporting the dome above. the light dims, explodes again, as cries ring out with renewed vigor.

lucifer's voice is intimate, as if his voice is carried effortlessly to right beside des' ear over the din ]

Can Hell be worse than this?

[ the stench of the manure of the horses is mingled with urine and blood, but the cries are the worst. the cries and the incessant clang of metal. ]

Would you know what the battle truly is between He and I? The rules? What I meant when I said I was winning the battle, how I am His adversary? What you are supposed to do to offer me your help?

[ he sits relaxed, one knee up, arms folded, face clear one moment in a flash of flame and pale the next. he's soiled all over, and seems rather limp and in a strange misery of ease. his expression is neither bitter nor sarcastic, only thoughtful - fixed with an enduring expression just as the faces on the mosaics are fixed as they bear lifeless witness to the same events ]

Would you have us pass so many wars? We leave behind so many massacres. We have passed over so much martyrdom. But then you do not lack imagination, Descant. And you have seen much.

Edited 2014-02-09 18:18 (UTC)

I've seen enough. [He laughs, bitterly.] You think I made this decision easily? You know me- Azrael knows me. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't decided.

[He's stubborn to a fault and once a decision's been reached, he has a hard time getting out of it. Make the best of it, no matter how much it ruins everything. That's his life.]

But if it makes you feel better, show me your worst.

No, Descant. You've been brave, just as I thought you would be. Your anger is plentiful and it comes from the heart.

We'll go.

[ he sounds satisfied, and des can hear the wind rising. it's the whirlwind and the walls have already flown backwards. ]

Rest now.

[ the souls whirl around them in the dimness. he can feel arms around him, wind ripping at his hair. for a moment, he seems to see the Son of God enter a vast dark and gloomy place. the rays of Light emanate from his small distant figure in all directions, illuminating hundreds of struggling human forms, soul forms, ghost forms. the Light grows brighter, the rays merging into one great blaze as if des were in its very presence, and songs rise, louder and clearer, drowning out the wailing sounds, until the mingling of wail and song become the nature of the vision and the nature of the whirlwind. and they are one. ]

[Des closes his eyes and hopes this means they're going back to Chicago and the storytime is over and he learns what he has to do next and he can skip the brutal Hell part.

That would be great.]

[ illusion - vnv nation

des is lying somewhere, in an open place, on the rocky ground. lucifer stands some distance away, in full glorified form, wings high and stiffly drawn behind him, and he sees God Incarnate, risen, the wounds still red on His ankles and His wrists, but He has been bathed and cleaned and His body is on the same scale of Lucifer, greater than human. His robes are white and fresh and His dark hair still richly colored with dried blood, but beautifully combed. it seems more light seeps through the epidermal cells of His body than before His crucifixion, and He gives off a powerful radiance, which renders the radiance of Lucifer slightly dim by comparison. the two do not fight each other, and are basically the same kind of light.

des can hear them - arguing. out of the corner of his eye he can see this is a battlefield littered with the dead. it's not the same time as the fourth crusade - this is an earlier epic, and the bodies were the armor and clothes that he connects to an early century AD, though he can't be certain which.

the dead stink. the air is filled with feasting insects and even some lowering, awkward vultures, which have come to tear at the swollen hideous flesh of the soldiers, and far off, he hears the nasty argument, in growls and barking - of contending wolves. ]

Yes, I see! [ lucifer is angry, speaking in a tongue that isn't english but one des understands perfectly. ] The gateway is open to Heaven for all those who die with Understanding and Acceptance of the Harmony of Creation and the Goodness of God! But what about the others! What about the millions of others! Has your Chosen ascended yet, to redeem them? They believe you died for their sins! They think you have already done the work for them!

[ "And once again, I must ask you," says the Son of God, "why I should care about the others! Those who die without understanding and acceptance and knowledge of God. Why? What are they to me?" ]

Your Created children, that's what they are! With the capacity for Heaven if only they could find the way! And the number of the lost exceeds by billions those few who have the wisdom, the guidance, the experience, the insight, the gift. And you know it! How can you let so many vanish into the shadows of Sheol once more, or disintegrate, or hug the earth becoming evil spirits? Didn't you come to save them all?

[ "I came to teach them how to save themselves," He says. "Again, I tell you it is a cycle, it is Natural, and for each soul that goes now unimpeded into the Light of Heaven, thousands of others must fall. Of what value is it to Understand, to Accept, to Know, to See the Beauty? What would you have me do?" ]

Help the souls who are lost! Help them. Don't leave them in the whirlwind, don't leave them in Sheol struggling for millenia to gain understanding after death by what they can still see on Earth! Make your message clear to man, let him know what to aspire to, make the path available to all! You've made things worse, that's what you've done!

[ "How dare you!" ]

You've made it worse! Look at this battlefield, and Your Cross appeared in the sky before this battle, and now Your Cross becomes the emblem of the empire! Since the death of the witnesses who saw your Risen Body, only a trickle of the dead have gone into the Light from Earth, and multitudes have been lost in argument, and battle, and misunderstanding, languishing in darkness!

[ "My Light is for those who would receive it." ]

That's not good enough!

[ God Incarnate strikes Lucifer hard across the face. Lucifer staggers back, wings unfolding, as if reflexively so that he can take flight. But they settle once again, a few graceful white feathers swirling in the air, and Lucifer raises his hand to the imprint of God's hand which blazes on the side of his face. The imprint is distinct, blood-red as the wounds on the ankles and hands of Christ.

"Very well. Since you care more for those lost souls than you do for your God, let your lot be to collect them! Let Sheol be your kingdom! Gather them there by the millions and tutor them for the Light. I say none shall dissolve or disintegrate beyond your power to draw them back into being; I say none shall be lost, but all shall be your responsibility, your students, your followers, your servants.

"And since you spite the salvation I have offered mankind, since you believe them too weak to produce a saviour such as I have prophesied, let your lot be to try and thwart my Chosen, to drive them to breaking, to renounce my name and their quest, to admit the suffering not worth my Light!

"And until such a day as Sheol is empty! Until such a day as all souls go directly to the Heavenly Gates, or until you turn six hundred and sixty six of my would-be saviors from their path, you are my Adversary, you are my Devil, you are Damned to spend your time on Earth which you love so much and Sheol or Hell, whichever you choose to call it, your Kingdom. And only now and then by my grace may you come into Heaven, and see to it that when you do you have your angelic form!

"On the Earth, let them see you as the demon! The Beast God - the God of the dance and drink and the feast and the flesh and all the things you love enough to challenge Me. Let them see you as that, if you have would have the power to stand against me, and your wings shall be the color of soot and ashes, and your legs shall be as a goat's legs, as if you were Pan himself! Or as a man only - yes I give you that mercy, that you may be a man among them, since you think it such a worthy enterprise to be human. But an Angel among them, no! Never!

"You will not use your Angelic form to confuse and mislead them, to dazzle them or humble them. You and your Watchers did that enough. But see that when you come through my gates, you are properly attired for me, that your robes like snow. Remember to be yourself in my realm!" ]

I can do it! I can teach them; I can guide them. You let me run Hell as I choose to run it and I can reclaim them for Heaven; I can undo all that your Natural Cycle has done to them on Earth. And if I prove that your path to Absolution is impossible, that you ask too much of these human souls, you will admit you have done wrong in this system of Suffering and Confusion? You will grant them a greater part of your Light and redeem them from this world of death and decay?

[ "I should like to see you do it! Send me more souls through your purgation. Go ahead. Increase my Glory. Increase the bene ha elohim. Heaven is endless and welcomes your efforts. Do what you can to turn those who would walk the path of Christ, those prospects who would willingly suffer for my Glory knowing what awaits them in the end, from their path. Make them believe the entirety of creation conspires against them and you will see that humanity will produce One who will walk unbowed beneath the weight of whatever earthly torments are brought to bear upon them!

"But you don't come home forever until one of these tasks is finished. Until the passage from Earth to Heaven includes all those who die, or until 666 of my finest saints are led astray by your delusions, or until the world itself is destroyed - until evolution has unfolded to the point where Sheol, for one reason or another, is empty, and mark my words, Lucifer, that day may never come! I have promised no ending to the unfolding of the universe! So you have a long tenure among the damned." ]

And what on Earth? What are my powers? Goat God or Man, what can I do?

[ "What you should do! Warn humans. Warn them so that they come to me and not to Sheol." ]

And I can do that my way? By telling them what a merciless God you are, and that to kill in your name is wicked, and that suffering warps and twists and damns its victims more often than redeems them? I can tell them the truth? That if they would go to you, they would abandon your religions and your holy wars and your magnificent martyrdom? They would seek to understand what the mystery of the flesh tells them, the ecstasy of love tells them? You give me permission? You give me permission to tell the truth?

[ "Tell them what you will! And in each case that you draw them away from my churches, my revelations, misunderstood and garbled though they may be - in every case that you turn them away, you risk another pupil in your hellish school, another soul which you must reform. Your hell will be crammed to overflowing!" ]

Not through my doings, Lord. It will be full to overflowing, but that will be thanks to you!

[ "You dare! Tell them what you will, Lucifer, but you will not pour your lies into my Chosen, those who the angels who serve me identify as prospects for this quest to Absolution. Twist those around them, recruit those you would from their confidants to try to steer them into sin and fear as you so espouse. But until they stand ready to cross the Waters of Lethe, you will not speak to them, nor tell them why they suffer! Let their strength and faith show you how wrong you are! They will not need the secrets of the universe to be revealed to them, they will not demand them as you have done. They will Believe in Me and My Plan." ]

Let it unfold, my Lord, as you have said it always should. Only now I am part of it, and Hell is part of it. And will you give me those angels who believe as I do, and will work for me, and endure this same darkness with me?

[ "Take them! They will be cast down with you, and you may recruit other helpers from the earthbound themselves, as I know you have already learned to do with your unholy powers - granting new bodies to spirits to make them immortal monstrosities to serve you! The Watchers who fell with you will be cast down into your pit. Take them!" ]

I will. Hobble us in our earthly forms if you will, but still we will triumph. I will bring more souls through Sheol to Heaven than you will bring by your direct Gate. I will bring more reformed souls singing of Paradise than you will ever gather through your narrow tunnel. It is I who will fill Heaven and magnify your glory. You will see.

[ they fall silent. lucifer is in a fury, and God Incarnate in a fury or so it seems, the two figures facing each other, both of equal size, except that Lucifer's wings spread back and out in the semblance of a form of power, and from God Incarnate comes the more powerful, heartrendingly beautiful Light.

Suddenly, God Incarnate smiles.

"Either way, I triumph, don't I?" God asks. ]

I curse you!

[ "No, you don't," God says sadly and gently. He reaches out and He touches Lucifer's face and the imprint of His angry hand vanishes off the angelic skin. God Incarnate leans forward and kisses Lucifer.

"I love you, my brave adversary!" He says. "It is good that I made you, as good as all else I've made. Bring souls to me. You are only part of the cycle, part of Nature, as wondrous as a bolt of lightning or the eruption of a great volcano, as a star exploding suddenly, miles and miles out in the galaxies so that thousands of years pass before those on earth see its light." ]

You are a merciless God. I shall teach them to forgive you what you are - Majestic, Infinitely Creative, and Imperfect.

[ God Incarnate laughs softly and kisses him again on the forehead.

"I am a wise God and a patient God. I am the One who made you."

the images vanish. they do not fade. they simply disappear. des lies on the battlefield alone. the stench is a layer of gases hanging over him, poisoning every breath he draws.

for as far as he can see, there are dead men. ]

[Well.

That explains a lot.

Des sits up with a groan and then gags midway through it. He takes a shuddering breath though his mouth to stave off the stench, but only comes up choking again.

He shakes it off, forcing himself to his feet so he can get a better look across the battlefield. (spot 20 total)]

Okay? Now what.

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