Infernal

The Key is no more human than you or I, Stephen had said.

Richard struggled to wrap his mind around the statement and its meaning.

Not human? He thought. The Key isn’t human? The man seated before me isn’t human?

I am not human?

He rejected the notion.

“Of course I’m human,” he protested, leaning forward and placing a closed fist on the table. “I was born in Atwood, Kansas in 1975 to Patricia and Donald Farris, both human beings. Barring one incident I’ve lived a perfectly normal, human life for forty years. At least until ALL this nonsense started. I eat. I drink. I bleed and I can be hurt and will eventuALLy die. How can you sit there and tell me I’m not human?”

“In the context of a single human lifespan you are right.” Stephen told him He was smiling broadly, as a parent does when a child is on the verge of learning a new and valuable lesson, “Richard Farris is human. But you are much more than Richard Farris. As your friend Charlie is much more than a dog and I am much more than Stephen Bana.”

“I reacted the same way when I first discovered my true nature,” Stephen continued. “I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t conceive of it. Despite my knowledge of the Rips and ALL that I had learned, I refused to accept it. Eralah helped with that, and I have since had a hundred and seventy-five years to understand it.”

“You’ve met Eralah,” Richard said.

“We are old friends.” Stephen said. “She is the one who found me over a century ago and enlightened me as to my true nature. I, in turn, sent her to you, just as she sent you on to the Seraph. It’s an old custom, the steps to enlightenment. Protracted and deliberate, almost certainly out of date. But there are traditions that must be followed even now.”

Richard relaxed and sat back in his chair. He drank cool, refreshing water from the goblet set before him. In any other time, any other place, in spite of ALL that he had experienced, he would have dismissed Stephen’s words as those of a madman. But on this Earth, in this time, in the eye of what had to be the largest hurricane to have ever existed on any Earth, he was willing to at least listen.

“I haven’t had a hundred and seventy-five years,” he said, “so you will have to explain ALL this to me.”

Stephen took a wedge of cheese from the table, nibbled at it in contemplation, and then drank from his own goblet before speaking:

“I will start at the beginning,” he said. “not the true beginning, you understand. Even two centuries is insufficient to unravel the account that far back in time. I’ll start with what humans accept as the beginning; with the void.”

“There was nothingness within the void, an immeasurable and incalculable expanse so vast that not even darkness existed within it. It simply was.

“This was abhorrent to the ALL, which exists outside the void and desires light and harmony above all else.”

“The ALL?” Richard interrupted. “Are you referring to God?”

“God is a human word, Richard. As are the words Angel and Demon. Humans, with their limited understanding of the ALL and the Multi-verse around them tend to simplify what they do not understand. Out of innocence. Out of ignorance. Out of fear of the unknown. It is not a fault, but rather, the way it was meant to be. They are like children in a world with no adults to guide them. In time, several thousand millennia perhaps, they will come to understand the true nature of the ALL and what It represents. But we must act first, so that they have the opportunity.”

“Very well,” Richard said. “Please continue.”

“The ALL saw the void as an artist sees a canvas; blank, but with limitless possibilities. Being pure energy, It took a piece of Itself and set it free inside the void. This created matter, which spun about, colliding and separating in accordance to the will of the ALL. Out of this the Multi-verse was born.”

“The history of creation,” Richard said.

“Exactly,” Stephen agreed. “You’re familiar with the rest so I’ll spare you the details of the division of night and day, the creation of land and the creatures that crawl upon it and skip to what humans think of as the sixth day, but was actually a span of time so infinitesimal as to be incalculable. That was when the ALL created man.”

“Most biblical texts have it that God created man and woman in His own image and likeness and gave them dominion over the creatures of the Earth, but that’s an oversimplification. The ALL not only created man in Its own image, but gave him a piece of Itself. A small but incredibly powerful particle of the ALL resides in every living, breathing, human being.”

Richard started to speak but Stephen held up a hand, stilling him.

“This particle of the ALL also gave man dominion over the Sabaoth. Man knows this as the Heavenly Host.”

Richard blinked. “That would mean that man has power over the armies of God!”

“Yes,” Stephen agreed. “And not just the armies, but the Seraphim, the Cherubim, what the Bible refers to as Archangels, the twelve elders, and every other thing in heaven save the ALL itself.”

“That’s…” Richard began but could not find a suitable word to express his astonishment.

“That’s the root of the problem,” Stephen said. “The ALL had created a new realm brimming with life. That was not unexpected. It had done so before and has done so since. But this time, for reasons none of us understood, It had given one of Its creations a precious gift. Selected one species, out of billions and billions across a million billion realms, for an honor It had never bestowed before.”

“It gave man a soul,” Richard intuited.

Stephen nodded. “It elevated man to a position above all else in existence, second only to the ALL itself. Dissension immediately broke out. There was a lot of jealousy, bitterness, anger. Most of us were content to simply voice our opposition to this development—we would not have dared move against the ALL—but there was one among us, one with the impudence to act on his resentment at being forced to bow down to what we all considered a lower species.”

“Lucifer,” Richard said; then: “Satan.”

“Again,” Stephen said, “Human words, but they convey what the creature is. Darkness and evil personified. Our name for him and those that eventually followed him is Infernal.”

“The Infernal raged against the ALL. So great was his fury that he sought to destroy what the ALL had created. It was the Infernal who tempted the human woman, who encouraged her to gain knowledge, thus disobeying the laws the ALL had set forth for them. His plan was to demonstrate that this new form of life was unworthy of the gift the ALL had bestowed upon it in the hopes that the ALL would wipe humanity from existence.”

“But the ALL didn’t wipe humans from existence,” Richard said. “In fact, It encouraged them to multiply.”

“So It did.” Stephen agreed. “Which only infuriated the Infernal further. He viewed man’s punishment for this transgression as punitive; a slap on the wrist. So he coerced one of them to murder, a capital crime even in our realm.”

“Again the ALL did not destroy his creation. And in fact set It’s mark upon the murderer so that none could punish him. He wanders to this day among humanity, causing mayhem and chaos wherever he goes, but that, brother, is another story altogether.”

“At this point,” Stephen continued, “it was obvious to the Sabaoth that the ALL would never destroy man, and that It in fact had plans for these creatures. Plans, it was feared, that would upset the hierarchy that had been in place for a billion millennia. Many Sabaoth joined the Infernal; once wondrous creatures, full of light and harmony, but now wicked and corrupt, seeking only to destroy every good thing; the light, the Multi-verse, and most pointedly man and all of his creations. It continued this way for centuries until the ALL called upon us, the Keepers of the Throne: The one-hundred and forty-four thousand who bear his mark upon our foreheads.”

“We too had reservations about man and what his existence meant for the Sabaoth. We cried out to the ALL that we could not protect the throne, our one and only duty and our sole purpose for existing, if It set others above us. The ALL ignored our pleas, much as It had thus far ignored the actions of the Infernal. Some felt we should join the Infernal, aid them in their cause. But our duty is to the ALL and we are incapable of acting against It.”

“The ALL gave each of us part of a manuscript. We were to deliver this manuscript to man so that he might learn of his place in the Multi-verse. The Infernal set upon us immediately, destroying entire parts of the manuscript and altering others. Their intent was to confuse man, keep him ignorant of his true place in the Multi-verse. This treachery could not go unanswered.”

“The War in Heaven,” Richard said. “I’ve read the account written by John Milton.”

“Ah, Milton,” Stephen said. “He had much of it right, you know; an amazing feat for a human. But he had much of it wrong as well. He just didn’t have the information necessary to furnish a full, detailed account.”

“It was a war, though,” Stephen continued. “The battle lines had been drawn and the ALL chose us, the Keepers of the Throne, as his defenders. We fought for millennia and many Sabaoth, both Infernal and Keepers, were slain. But none of us can truly die. We only rise again in another form, take up our swords, and the fighting continues. Neither side gained ground. It was simply senseless violence and bloodshed.”

“In the midst of this war man continued to thrive. The Infernal continued with their attempts to corrupt him. And we, the Keepers, continued to both defend man and carry out our orders regarding him.”

Stephen sat back and took a piece of the bread from the table, began chewing it. His eyes wandered over the fresco painted on the ceiling. Richard, caught up in the narrative and literally on the edge of his seat, waited for more. It seemed the older man was finished, but there was much more that Richard didn’t know, didn’t understand. He still did not accept that he wasn’t human; had heard nothing to convince him otherwise. The account of creation and the war that followed, while fascinating, was incomplete. And thus far had had nothing to do with him.

There has to be more, he thought; then said aloud:

“And then?”

“Walk with me,” Stephen said. He stood and stepped away from the table. Two of the robed men immediately appeared and began clearing it.

“Now wait a minute,” Richard protested, then looked closely at the monk nearest him. The man had leaned over to collect the water goblets and the tray. As he did so his hood fell back revealing the side of his face. His skin was a waxy grey color shot through with blue veins. His neck, similarly lined, was long and thin. Richard’s eyes shot to the man’s hands and he saw longer than usual fingers tipped with blood red fingernails that more resembled claws.

Richard bolted upright, knocking the heavy chair he’d been sitting in onto its side. The clatter startled the monk and he jerked erect, his hood falling back completely. He stared at Richard and hissed. He head was bald, his eyes a penetrating shade of yellow. His ears tapered to a point at the pinna. It was his teeth, however, yellow and stained, the canines unnervingly long and sharp, which held Richard transfixed to the spot.

“Christ!” Richard barked.

“Have no fear,” Stephen said as the monk replaced his hood, gathered the tray, and left the hall without a word. “The indigenous population of this Earth suffers a rare disease which alters their biology drastically. They are harmless here.”

“Is that a fucking vampire?!” Richard demanded.

“On any other Earth he would be,” Stephen answered. “But on this Earth they are innocuous. And in service to the ALL.”

Richard ran his hand across his head—his hair was getting a bit long and he needed a trim—and breathed deeply. “I thought vampires were a myth. Stories cooked up to tell around the campfire and at sleepovers. Bad novels written to keep readers awake at night.”

“You will find,” Stephen said, extending his arm and leading Richard away from the table, “that what you take for fantasy is rooted in truth. Every book ever written, every film ever made, every creature wondrous or foul, exists on some Earth, somewhere. Every course of action that can be taken by man or beast has been or will be. What humans call the imagination is really a subconscious awareness of the Multi-verse and all it contains. Some merely dream of it, while others write it down; perhaps out of some collective but unconscious need to share their knowledge.”

“You said they’re harmless here, on this Earth,” Richard said, following Stephen down a passageway to the right of the hall. “Does that mean that Stoker wasn’t full of it? There are vampires running around out there killing people?”

“Every course of action, Richard,” Stephen responded.

Richard whistled long and low. The implications were staggering.

At the end of the passageway was a wooden, man-sized door. Stephen unbolted it and led Richard up a winding staircase. They passed through another door at the top and emerged onto a long balcony overlooking a well maintained botanical garden. Flowers both familiar and foreign to Richard were laid out in herringbone patterns. At the center of the garden was a fountain shedding water in two different directions across the foliage. Stone paths followed along both sides of each waterway. Japanese style bridges joined the two paths at each end.

This section of the monastery had been out of Richard’s line of sight as he approached the structure. Beyond the walls, night had fallen. He looked out, taking in the view of the eye wall of the storm.

It throbbed with energy. Lightning coruscated within. Thunder shouted out in joyous rejoinder. Wind whipped the briefly illuminated clouds to inconceivable velocities. He found the sheer savage power of the storm invigorating.

“Look closer,” Stephen urged from his right elbow.

Richard did so; uncertain of what it was he was looking for. Then it dawned on him. While the winds inside the eye wall raced counterclockwise at a frenetic pace, the wall itself was not shifting in any direction. It was as if the storm were held in place, neither strengthening nor diminishing; a hurricane that would rage for eternity.

“It doesn’t move,” Richard said. “How is that possible?”

“Much like the moon on your Earth,” Stephen said, “this Earth rotates in a synchronous rotation so that the same face is always directed at the sun. Much of the planet is uninhabitable, with one side a molten ruin, the other a frozen wasteland. We are in the green zone, a small sliver of land a mere ninety miles wide between the two with a breathable atmosphere and tolerable climate. The storm is the result of cold air from the arctic side of the planet colliding with the heated air from the volcanic side. It is self-sustaining and, like the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, a semi-permanent feature that may last for millennia.”

“How long has it been here?” Richard asked.

“The monastery was erected in the eye of this hurricane long before I arrived here,” Stephen said. “And it will still be here long after I am gone.”

“Amazing,” Richard said.

“It is,” Stephen agreed. “But that’s not why I wanted you to see this.”

“Why then?”

“This hurricane seems perpetual; immutable. And indeed, it has existed far longer than anyone now here remembers. So long that it predates the history of this Earth’s inhabitants. Everything reaches an end, however. One day this storm will begin to die out and life on this Earth will be forever changed. The storm that now provides fresh water in the form of rain, shelter from the extreme climes, and a consistent supply of oxygen from the winds will wane, eventually breaking up and vanishing completely. Then the inhabitants will be abandoned, left to live or die by their own devices.”

“Your point?” Richard said.

“We are my point. The Keepers, the Infernal. Even man, It’s wondrous and most loved creation.”

“The ALL has abandoned us, Richard,” Stephen told him solemnly. “We questioned It’s will and It banished us ALL.”