CHAPTER II
Seraphim and Cherubim
From the top of one of the scarce hills of the Second Heaven, angels Michael and Ravel entertained themselves in an extremely popular game among their kind.
“Nice move,” said Michael, swapping his tired wing for the other to continue to protect himself from the rain that gently bathed the surrounding plains. “You're getting faster and faster. Soon, you're going to have to look for a more skilled opponent than I am.”
“The Silver City will lose its beauty before that happens, old friend,” laughed Ravel, also keeping one of the wings on his head. “You're a master at Gaborah. All I do is strive to keep up with you.”
The tragic friendship of Michael and Ravel, the source of numerous angelic songs and poems until the end of time, was particularly extraordinary for involving a Seraph and a Cherub in those early days. For then it was common for the members of the two castes not to get involved outside of work. The only obvious exception was between males and females since all of them had been born Cherubim and had been taken as companions by both the Seraphim and the male Cherubim. But not for everyone. Michael was one of those who had refused. Unlike his good friend Ravel, who had married Azazel, the most beautiful of all females, desired by Seraphim and coveted by the princes of the Silver City themselves, except Matraton, always alone and closed in on himself. But Azazel had the independent spirit, and she gave her free heart only to the one she desired. Ravel, wide-smiling and warm, who loved Azazel the moment he saw her and was taken by surprise to be matched by such a stunning creature. For Azazel had blue eyes like the crystal-clear waters of Tamberiam, the largest oasis of the Third Heaven. And her hair was of a golden superior even to the rich gold veins of the Gorthnens, the Deep Mines, a set of endless tunnels dug in the rocky and dusty Gorth valley, steep dividing between the Minarath and Krull mountains, the two black columns that rose at the southern end of the Fourth Heaven.
All the names, for all things and known places, had been given by Samael Morningstar, according to the angelic language and the designs of God. Prince Samael even baptized the angels, beginning with the third generation of Seraphim.
But his brothers tried to create some names for themselves. Like Gaborah, the Game of Mind, designed by Nathanael for the amusement of his subordinates in the intervals of the tasks, which soon spread through the celestial domains.
The pieces used in the Gaborah were actually one of the many small species of animals that had recently appeared in the three planes below the Silver City. Its appearance had provoked great surprise and commotion among the Heralds of the Lord. Samael had called them insects, Asharemn or Little Suspicious, always seeking refuge and safety in the shadows of vegetation or under the ground. Not that they had anything to fear from the angels, who loved them like God's other creations. But it was of the shy nature of the insects themselves, which were then beautiful and devoid of stingers, venom, or ability to fly. For evil, which would try all creatures seeking to subvert them, had not yet beaded upon them.
Therefore, in those times of seemingly eternal peace, angels still lovingly used insects as part of their games, with Gaborah being the most famous of them, for their simple but challenging rules.
Using the power of the mind, each player levitated from the ground a set of nine beetles of a respective color, usually black or grey. The one whose mind first forms, in the air, with their set, a three-dimensional figure obtained victory. The game combined mental discipline and creativity because one could never repeat a figure made by oneself or by the opponent. To this end, one counted not only the current match, but all those disputed by an angel. There was no risk of cheating because angels did not cheat. This problem would only arise later when others came to practice Gaborah.
Michael and Ravel were about to start another round, when a messenger arrived in a flapping of wings, a Cherub carrying the banner of Samael, a black background disappearing under countless rays of white light irradiating from its center.
“Michael, Seraph of the Twenty-Eighth Order, the Five of the Silver City summon you to appear before the Great Hall,” announced the messenger.
“I'm afraid we'll have to continue our game later, my brother,” Michael said, with a smile for Ravel. A smile that disguised his anxiety at the magnitude of that call.
Ravel nodded, saying goodbye to Michael, who left behind the messenger.
Worried about his friend, although there was nothing he could do, and leaving him six cycles until he needed to return to work in the forges of Tormel'ab, in the southern district of the First Heaven, Ravel took off to the eastern end of the Second Heaven. There, the winding Iamujj River flowed into the vastness of Oerpeb, the Elliptical Lagoon, marked by the tiny and lonely island that Samael called Iarth Analel, Green Cradle, due to its bright and fragrant grass. But which had come to be known as Moen Atpeb, Altar of Water, after Ravel and Azazel chose it for the celebration of their marriage.
For the angels, marriage was a ceremony restricted to the bride and groom, who exchanged their oaths of eternal union before God as the sole witness. For this reason, Azazel loved that tiny island more than anywhere else, spending much of her time on it, usually reproducing on canvas the enchanting landscapes that unfolded around her. A work capable of extending into eternity, for countless were the hues of light that flickered through the insular grass, and endless, the combinations of colors that adorned the clear waters of Oerpeb. Each begging to be immortalized by the different pigments created by Azazel, carefully extracted from different types of flowers and tree trunks, as paint for her paintings.
Hence, Ravel's certainty that he would find his wife before her easel mounted on the Moen Atpeb, holding in her hands the palette and brush that he had carved himself for her. For Ravel was skilled at shaping wood as well as metal.
Azazel was absorbed in her art when her husband snatched her. They loved each other so much that words became unnecessary on such occasions. Their mouths preferred to be filled with burning kisses, leaving all the talk to the sensual ballet of bodies. Quickly disposing of their white robes, husband and wife rolled naked on the grass, in a tangle of arms, legs and wings, which became more intense as they came together passionately and deeply.
Azazel groaned and stowed at Ravel's cadence. Mad with pleasure, and at the same time, wishing to escape, Azazel sought to get rid of those mighty arms. However, Ravel knew his wife too well and held her tightly by her wrists.
All Azazel could do was turn her body over his, ending up sitting on that tireless lap. In her sweet agony, she would beat her wings, trying to launch herself into the firmament. Ravel, in turn, anticipated each of her movements. He held her tightly by the waist, holding together as if they were one. His wings began to keep pace with hers. They took flight in a dance of love that took place in the form of spins and whirls, so high that Moen Atpeb was reduced to a tiny green dot, lost in the blue water spoon, in which, far away, the Elliptical Lagoon had been transformed.
Finally, Azazel fell apart in unparalleled pleasure, her whole being contracted, from head to toe, from the tip of her nipples to the ends of her wings. Overcame and satiated, she broke down motionless in the arms of Ravel, who glided affectionately with her back to Moen Atpeb's soft grass. He threw her back on that green carpet and resumed her waist movements that honored Azazel's beauty. He reached an unforgettable apex within the most beautiful creature the universe has ever known. Then the folly of mutual desire gave way to the exchange of caresses and gentle kisses between the two naked angels who loved God over all things, but knew how to celebrate the gift of their Creator like no other couple, in that little particular novice in the Second Heaven.
The messenger stood in the Great Hall, announcing the presence of Seraph Michael to the four princes seated on their golden thrones ornamented with magnificent jewels. The fifth throne, larger and more imposing, central to the others, was empty. There was something about it that upset Michael. A certain pride that seemed to celebrate its owner instead of the glory of God.
Michael sought to ward off such a thought, for it was unworthy to imagine that any angel would feed pride to the detriment of the Lord. Especially in that blessed place. The Great Hall was erected by the Creator precisely to celebrate the covenant with His children.
Even the Five never ceased to be impressed by the majesty of the enclosure, unmatched by any known standards. Its black slate columns were the tallest and its white onyx floor, the most gleaming of the Silver City.
This was Michael's first visit beyond the immense white gates, carved from top to bottom with words of praise to the Almighty. It was not surprising, therefore, his stupor and admiration before such splendor.
“Welcome, Michael,” Nathanael said, with a smile as tender as it was characteristic.
Michael bowed to a respectful greeting.
“What do the First Ones desire from this humble servant of Almighty God?” asked Michael, anticipating, in his heart, the reason for that summons.
“Explanations,” spoke Camael, with severity. “Explanations of why a Seraph refuses to obey the Lord's plan.”
“And even more serious,” amended Gabriel. “Incite others to follow you in your mistake.”
“If you refer to the movement I have started, I assure you that I do not make any mistakes.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow at odds. Camael had an expression of genuine curiosity. Nathanael exhibited his customary discomfort with what ran away from the routine. Matraton, as usual, was uninterested. His face, a cold and indifferent mask before the outside world. An insurmountable barrier to the thoughts he kept only for himself.
“Don't you make a mistake?” Gabriel got angry. “The Creator sent the females to make them our companions. Your ‘movement’ is a direct denial of this divine precept.”
“And it raises doubts and uncertainties," Camael added. “By your actions, marriages that had been celebrated were not consummated or are in dissolution. The few angels left to take a partner now refuse to do so.”
“I understand your concerns, milords. But I would never, at any time, deny a divine precept. No angel would do that,” Michael defended himself. “Unlike the Five, created to reign in the name of the Father, the rest of us have been granted the grace to choose our work according to our abilities and our closest friends according to our affinities”
“For this, God gave each angel a personality,” Nathanael added, with the spontaneity that was peculiar to him.
“That's right, my prince,” said Michael. “Why then, I asked myself, would God not grant us the same grace as to the law of marriage?”
One could see the disagreement in the eyes of the princes. Except for Matraton's, empty and absent.
“Because it is not for an angel to interpret the words of God,” said Samael, rising from behind his throne. Michael bowed his head before the Firstborn. “His words are clear, just, and powerful. His love for us is infinite.”
“Yes, milord.”
“Our Father has sent us the females and the pleasures they offer precisely as proof of His love. What are you, Celibates, if you disdain for this divine gift?”
“We do not condemn the present nor those who accept it. We only consider marriage to be a distraction from our main task, which is to praise the Almighty.”
“This decision is not yours to be made.”
“I know that, milord. So, before I walked down this path, I asked God if I acted to His liking.”
Gabriel and Nathanael looked at each other, surprised. Camael leaned forward on his throne, with great interest. A spark of life sprang into Matraton's face. Samael, however, laughed, incredulous.
“Did God speak to you?”
Michael nodded.
“God has long not allowed anyone in His presence,” Samael said. “I would know if you had ascended beyond the towers of the Silver City to be with Him.”
“You don't have to go to the Creator to hear His word," said Michael. "You can do it from anywhere. I got it from my quarters.”
Samael froze.
“How is that?” asked Camael.
“My doubts about celibacy were excruciating,” Michael said. “Distressed, I found myself asking the Father, during my prayers, for an answer that would cease my torment. In His immense mercy, He granted it. His voice whispered in my mind that I would follow the path of my heart.”
Samael was stunned. God had driven him away from His presence, and now Samael discovered that He spoke to others behind his back!
Grief grew in the First One's chest.
“God is everywhere and can speak to any of us. Just pray,” said Michael. “As you can see, my princes, the Celibates exist under the blessing of the Creator. He accepts married people, but also those who prefer to dedicate themselves solely to praise Him.”
Samael had ceased to hear Michael's last words. Conflicting thoughts struggled within him like a storm. Jealousy and envy. The most beautiful, proud, and perfect of angels, did not deserve to be treated like the others. Or less than any other. He was too good for that.
Being the Prince Regent of the Silver City was not enough for him. He wanted so much more. He desired God only for himself.
Battling such feelings and ideas, Samael withdrew from the Great Hall to the solitude of his private quarters, far from even the worried looks of his five wives. For if most males had taken for themselves a single female as a wife, it was up to the Seraphim of a better position to possess two to four consorts. Being the Firstborn, Samael enjoyed the largest share, the five most beautiful females of creation, after Azazel. Their names were Prosperine, Rosier, Verrier, Astarte and Eisheth.
Locked in his private chambers, Samael knelt and prayed in the darkness for long cycles. He did so with all his will and faith, but the Lord did not answer him. For Samael did not ask for help or comfort. Just, by the selfish yearning to be God's favorite.
Overcame with despair, Samael destroyed, in fury, the luxurious furniture of his quarters. Bitter, he crawled to his favorite window. A deep, narrow, high span through which Samael liked to contemplate the darkness that existed beyond the dominions of the Four Heavens whenever he sought silence and meditation.
But this time, Samael Morningstar saw something entirely different.
Something that took him by surprise, and that was not there the last time, mere seven cycles ago, when he meditated in front of that same window.
Far away, in the void, a small white light flickered, stubbornly, as if struggling to escape the eternal darkness that seemed to want to engulf it.
Samael left his chambers, ignoring his wives, worried and still frightened by the sound of the destruction he had promoted, and proceeded directly to the palace roof. Fascinated, he admired, on the distant horizon, that tiny light provoking his curiosity. Without thinking, the Firstborn took off toward his destiny.
Endowed with his own natural brilliance, Samael seemed, by itself, a spark of white light, lost in the immensity of darkness that surrounded him.
And it was long and tiring Samael's journey to the strange bright spot. But as he approached it, Samael was rewarded with the stunning vision of its real dimensions and forms. Because it was huge under any parameter. Much bigger than all the Four Heavens put together. Besides, it was not a single light, but a set of lights. Millions of them. No, billions. In the most varied colors and designs. Elliptical, spiral, spherical, white, yellow, blue, red... Of a beauty only comparable to God´s eyes themselves. To these lights, it would be given the name of galaxies.
And Samael was even more amazed to realize that these galaxies were made up of billions of even smaller lights, which would come to be known as stars.
Absorbed that Samael was before such work, too late he realized that he had glided into the Great Light.
It was as if Samael felt the impact of the Creator's own fist on every fiber of his being, as the water that turns into ice with extreme cold, Samael's spiritual body condensed into a physical body.
Samael felt his senses sharpen; for the first time, there was heat in his skin, saliva in his throat and a heart beating in his chest, pumping blood through veins that previously did not exist. He had to use his hands to protect his eyes, suddenly sensitive to the strong glowing that was around him.
Though rapturous and confused, Samael decided to move on and explore the young cosmos that unfolded before him. Strangely, his angelic instincts attracted him, among so many vast and beautiful galaxies, to a more modest-looking and uninteresting. A spiral of medium proportions, strongly illuminated in its center.
The closer it got the more Samael discovered how much the wealth of detail in a galaxy went far beyond the stars. There were nebulae, quasars, cosmic nurseries, ion storms, and already some primordial black holes.
In his flight through the outer arms of the spiral, Samael came across giants circling the stars. Those that would come to be called planets. And that these planets also differed in appearance and structure. Some were gaseous, others rocky; some, hot, others, cold. There was not one planet identical to the other. Like angels, each was unique in its own form.
When he believed that no new find could surprise him again, Samael found out where his instincts had guided him all along. A small blue planet presented itself before him, spinning meekly around a monotonous star.
Descending on it, Samael found a world teeming with life, not as he knew it in the Four Heavens, but of a free and nervous nature. Devoid of that sense of order, tranquility and passivity that characterized angels and other spiritual beings. More than anything, the meat animals lived and died.
Death was a profound shock to Samael. For in the spiritual world everything was eternal. In the corporeal world, one lived with fineness, after a while they ceased to exist. Of all Samael seized during his stay on Earth, the concept of death was what moved him the most. He could only thank the meat animals for being irrational, and thus not aware of their tragic fate.
In that era, evil had not yet perverted animals into predators that violated the flesh of the weaker. By then, they fed only on plants. And death was caused only by old age or accident.
Samael spent a lot of time in those stops, bathing in the clear waters, befriending the animals, delighting in the late afternoon breezes and the warmth of the mornings on his face, discovering the beauty of night and day, dawn and dusk. But mainly, sleeping under the sky of an immature universe, endowed with so many stars, as you would never see again, that illuminated the forests and woods under an ocean of silvery light.
It was a world that filled Samael's heart with joy and peace. And that's why it became so hard for him to leave. Certainly, those wonders were works of God that angels should become aware of. However, the conflict in him grew. A nascent and unspeakable desire to keep that world to himself. A selfishness that embarrassed him, but that was increasingly difficult to deny.
Samael tortured himself by imagining ways to show his brothers the universe and, at the same time, hide the Earth from them. But how would that be possible? Wouldn't they feel the same compulsion that had attracted him to Earth in the first place? And even if he could deceive them, what would keep God from revealing the world to them?
These thoughts tormented him, the desire for possession had taken root so much in his mind that Samael no longer enjoyed the spectacle of a dawn or the mere pleasure of flying through the clouds under the warm sun. Bitter, he began to mistreat the animals, for which he had shown so much affection. His sick obsession caused him to retreat to the darkness and silence of the caves he encountered, where, as in his chambers in the Silver City, he took refuge, free of distractions, to meditate and order his reasoning.
Samael spent his days concatenating miraculous and unachievable plans to deceive his brothers. But all his ramblings faded, on a cold, gray day, under the sound of thousands of approaching wings. So many that it looked like thunder from a raging storm. A phalanx of angels appeared on the horizon. There were hundreds of them, coming to the new world.
Taken by surprise, Samael quickly walked away, hidden under the shadows of the forests like a miserable specter. They had violated the sanctity of that world. His world! But the hatred he experienced for those angels soon turned to fear. To find out the truth.
After all, how could he explain to them the time he had spent in that place without having informed them of its existence? His throne in the Silver City would be threatened if they found him there. And now that the secret was broken, his title and privileges as Prince Regent were all he had left.
Seized by the concealment, Samael waited patiently for the mantle of the night and, sneaking around the tops of the mountains, took off away from that world and his nosy brothers.
He flew as fast as he could out of the universe. And in doing so, his corporeal form returned to the spiritual. However, his greed and anger would never cease to accompany him. He only tried to disguise them from his peers with great effort and competence upon returning to the Silver City.
Samael was greeted with pomp, worry and surprise. The angels had troubled themselves terribly in the face of his sudden and prolonged absence. Especially since it had come at the same time that many angels, through the Four Heavens, had seen the little distant bright spot in the darkness. Even overwhelmed by curiosity, they long waited for Samael's return, before finally deciding to dispatch an expedition to the mysterious light.
“I found a refuge in the Fourth Heaven, as deep as the Gorthnens, to meditate and pray. I could never have imagined that something so unusual would arise, demanding my presence with such urgency,” Samael lied, and many other lies would still come, which, among his countless names, would make him Satan the Deceiver.
But then Samael's reputation remained immaculate, like that of any angel, and his brethren took his word faithfully and believed in it.
“Tell me about the expedition you sent,” Samael demanded.
“Nathanael and Camael left three cycles ago, leading a phalanx of Cherubim to investigate the strange light, with orders not to take longer than necessary,” said Gabriel, referring to the phalanges as then defined, working groups composed of fifteen hundred angels, not the combat detachments they would later turn into.
Samael nodded.
He would wait for their return, and then convince the others to set up an outpost in the new world, where he was determined to reside and reign. Unfortunately, he would have to share it with the others, but this was a lesser evil than losing it altogether.
In silence, his mind was on who he would leave in charge of the Silver City. The obvious choice would be Gabriel, though, in his heart, he preferred Matraton, as he felt a peculiar identification with the Angel of Silence.
His intimate machinations, however, were suddenly interrupted when his natural brilliance intensified and expanded through the towers and walls of the Silver City.
At that moment, Samael forgot all his lusts and frustrations, burying them, even if not deep enough, in his heart. For that was a sign from God.
He was summoning the Firstborn into His presence. And Samael wept with joy over it.