Son of the Morning (87 page)

‘Those fruits will be yours to give. What a boon is the kindly master to his servants. If a man waxes poor then he should be sold to his brother. Therein lies his protection. How many men have been saved from starvation by selling their families to the lord?’

‘After the lord took the grain that would keep them free.’

‘Your lords defend you.’

‘From other lords.’

‘I could protect you, set angels to guard you so that you would never strike your foot against a stone.’

‘Not while my fellows starve.’

‘You could be their defender.’

‘Better they have no need for defence. Let us live as we lived in Eden, without masters.’

The boy became angry, stamping his foot. ‘Can’t you see that I’m trying to help you?
I
was the master in Eden and it was in Eden that the first sin crept in when Adam bit the apple.’

‘You put the apple there for him. Why, anyway, should he not know what you know? It was the rule, not the man, that was at fault.’

The boy raised his hand and Dow was flying up, the air trailing from his fingers, so fast did he move. He saw out over the wide country of the night, over oceans and lands – to the east where the light blurred the horizon and to the west where the stars still hung in an inky sky.

‘I will give you all this,’ said the boy, ‘all of it will you rule. No king but you, no courtiers but those you choose. Set up your friends as men of rank, open your granaries to the poor, abolish war. Only bow down before me.’

‘If all these things are in your gift you have no need of me.
You
open the granaries.
You
make men as they were before you shut them out of paradise and set them at each other’s throats. Do not put such power into the hands of a corruptible man such as me. Set me down, Îthekter, for I am friend to Lucifer, the one maker of things, and I call you to guilt and shame in his name.’

‘Bow down and I will release the angels from the briar.’

‘And the banner?’

‘You will not want it if you bow.’

‘Release us!’ the angels pleaded from the chapel below, their voices a beautiful harmony.

‘I will not bow. Take my hand and call me friend and equal.’

‘You are not my equal! I could destroy you.’

‘Then do. You kill so many, why not me?’

The form of the boy shifted and changed and Dow saw that sword again, driven deep into his belly. He understood. Lucifer had put it there. Only Lucifer could remove it. Or perhaps his most trusted friend on earth. The Antichrist – Dow. God strikes down his enemies. The only reason Dow was still alive was almost shocking – even to him, a Luciferian. God needed him.

Dow spoke. ‘Would you have me end your pain? Renounce your overweening claims, accept you are no better than anyone else, repent your deeds and vow to live in peace with all men. Then I will remove the sword.’

‘Bow before me. Be my servant. Then take this sword from my belly and use it to rule the earth in my name.’

‘I will not take it away while men must bow to you.’

‘I will destroy you.’

‘If you could, I would already be dead. You need me, Îthekter. That is no shame. Every living being needs another.’

‘I have a further power over you,’ said the youth, ‘one that may still see you kneel. Do you know where you are? Do you know the nature of this pleasant isle?’

‘It is Heaven.’

‘No. This is the path to Hell I reserve for the worst of sinners. This is where they live, thinking they are forgiven, thinking that they will have an eternity among the pines and the flowers, waiting only for their loved ones to appear to make it perfect. This is Gehenna gate, the one to which only I have the key and through which the truly disobedient are pushed once they are used to a life of comfort. Let me open the gate.’

God moved his hand and there was the sound of a deep, deep drum, so powerful Dow felt he was being punched in the chest.

A smell of sulphur filled the chapel and the air by God’s side buckled as if a great fire warped and bent it. A face emerged, a man walking in a priest’s cassock. He was ghastly pale and his eyes were no more than burned holes, a gag of forged metal about his mouth. In his hand he bore a pair of scissors. Dow flinched. It was the man who had cut him, all those years ago.

‘This is Father Tregarn,’ said God, ‘a useful priest, but one who, as you see, sinned and needed to be punished. However, sinner punishes sinner in Hell and the devils find the terror to suit each wayward son, each ungrateful daughter. See whom he punishes.’

Two more figures emerged. One was a squat little man with grey skin, his hands deformed and smashed. He had a rope about his neck which was attached to a woman he pulled behind him. Immediately he saw her, Dow cried out. It was his nan.

‘Tell him how you suffer,’ said God.

‘I used my tongue against God, so every day the blind priest comes to me and cuts it out, and every night it regrows. I hear him crawling and creeping for me among the flames and endlessly try to avoid him, but I am tied to this man, as I was tied to the poor in life and I cannot move away.’

‘She could be free,’ said God. ‘I would set her free if only you bend the knee. Take her hand and I will accept it as your homage.’

‘Nan,’ cried Dow.

‘Dow.’

‘I love you.’

‘And I you.’

Dow was bursting with sweat, the heat of the open gate overwhelming, his longing just to touch his dear nan immense.

‘One day you will be free! I will take the banner. I will find the keys and free all those unjustly imprisoned by this tyrant!’

‘Maria! Giannio!’

Orsino was behind him.

From the heat haze two more figures came, a woman and a child staggering, little devils like monkeys sitting upon their shoulders, pressing their hands over their eyes and ears. The mother and the boy reached out but, as soon as they caught a glimpse of each other the monkeys moved their hands over their eyes, causing them to stumble and miss each other.

Dow was struck by the woman’s resemblance to Sariel. They must be Orsino’s wife and son.

‘Here are two who loved each other more than they loved me,’ said God. ‘Is it not written that anyone who loves his father or his mother or his children more than me is damned? It says so in the Bible – I really don’t see any grounds for complaint. Nevertheless, bow the knee and they too may walk free. I will grant them entry to Heaven where they may dwell forever in fragrant groves by sparkling waters.’

‘Dow!’ said Orsino. ‘For all that I have done for you, for the times I have saved you, for the protection I offered, I beg you now, repent. Come to God, if not for yourself then for me.’

Dow saw the overwhelming love in Orsino’s eyes, saw how he reached out for his wife and son, and he was moved. He owed his ability to maintain the struggle against God solely to the Florentine. Nan cried out as the priest found her face with his hand, reaching around swiftly to grab her by the hair. Dow could stand no more. He could endure any suffering inflicted on him, but not this.

‘Release her,’ he said. ‘The woman and the child too.’

God gestured to the priest and he let go of Nan’s hair.

She fell gasping to the floor.

‘You will bow?’ said God.

‘I will bow.’

God smiled broadly and the ceiling of the chapel burned with light before giving way to depthless stars.

‘Then remove the sword,’ he said.

Dow saw the sword was made of light, he was made of light, as was the chapel and all the world. Only God, only God had a streak of darkness in him, shot through where the sword penetrated.

Dow tugged on the blade and it started to move.

‘Dow, no!’ Nan shouted.

‘I cannot endure it, Nan,’ he said, ‘even if you can. We will do some good when I am a king of the world.’

‘If God can release me, he can release all those he has imprisoned. I have seen little children with their knees broken for refusing to say their prayers. I have seen …’

The priest grabbed her again and she screamed.

‘I will never remove the sword unless you let her speak,’ said Dow. He took his hand from the hilt.

‘Let the faithless harlot talk,’ said God.

‘I have seen poor men with their hands cut off for taking a hare from the lord’s forest, I have seen men’s skin shaved from their faces because, in life, they refused to grow a beard; women condemned to eternity in a shirt of briars for wearing clothes of wool and linen mixed, church gossips driven mad by chattering devils. Let him release all those.’

‘That I will not do, for those are my laws and they are holy,’ said God. ‘What use is authority if never exercised? What use the sword that lies eternally in its scabbard?’

‘Save but a few, Dow, it’s better than none!’ Orsino was shouting, trying to reach his wife, but forced back as if by a great wind.

‘You will suffer forever,’ said Dow to Nan.

‘Not forever! You, Dow, you will release me! God is stricken. He can be beaten!’

Dow shook his head. He put his hand to the hilt of the sword again. God smiled.

‘Bow! Bow! Save us all!’ cried the angels.

‘She will change her mind in Heaven,’ said God. ‘She will see that mercy is not for everyone and is all the more precious for that.’

‘You speak the truth,’ said Dow. ‘As you judge, so are you judged. You have no power over me, Îthekter. I will take the banner and drive you from the earth.’

The youth smiled, his eyes fixed on Dow’s hand. ‘To do so you will need to kill your father.’

Dow touched his tunic where the fork scar lay. ‘Not so.’

‘He was the abomination – a king who was friend of the poor. He wanted to abandon the place I had given him and live as a poor man, thatching, tending his flock, watching winter become spring, summer turn to autumn, sowing and harvesting and not troubling himself about the affairs of nations. He would have raised up the poor so I offered a fallen angel a way back into Heaven to persuade him. I could not force him to my way so I had him seduced by Despenser, to bring him back to his duty, impose order and control.’

‘You’re lying. You could have just killed him.’

‘I am infallible and to have removed him would have been to admit error in appointing him. No. I have bound the Evertere thus, so you might never remove it. Lucifer teaches you to never kill another believer. There lies a believer. You cannot take the banner and so cannot oppose me. Remove the sword and rule Heaven with me instead.’

Dow could not accept what he was hearing – that he was the son of a king, a high man born to rule. ‘I defy you!’ he shouted.

The air seemed to boil, great welts of light scarring the chapel, the ceiling invisible, fire streaking the sky. God stamped his foot.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘shan’t we just see about that? I shall bring my kings and angels against you. I shall see you smashed. I could destroy you now. But you will see your world in ashes, you will see all hopes cast down and you will reach out to me to beg to please me. Do you remember the devil girl in the woods. The one who burst?’

‘I remember her.’

‘Remember her well. She did no harm to you, for you are of an angel born. But you carry a gift for humanity which I will allow you to inflict upon the earth if you do not come to obedience.
And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.
Do you doubt my power?’

‘I doubt it.’

Now Îthekter began to rage, the heavens blazing, red and gold, his body radiating fire. ‘I will see you brought low. I will see you beg for forgiveness and declare me lord of creation! I will see you beg to be my servant, Antichrist! We will see how strong you are when the people suffer. You will remove the sword!’

‘I’d say you’d got that wrong,’ said Dow and, grasping the hilt, he thrust the blade as hard as he could. A scream so piercing it blew the walls from the church, echoing out over the island, throwing Dow down. When he opened his eyes the land around him was blackened and burned, the church a ruin, its walls no greater than the height of his knee. Only the plinth remained, the angels, the king and the roses that ensnared them. Orsino, crouched behind the angel shield, weeping, unable to stand or unable to bring himself to stand. Dow could not tell. Îthekter had gone. Dow drew his falchion.

The angels were in front of him, begging from the briars. ‘Did you bow to save us?’

‘You are not fallen angels,’ said Dow, ‘for, if you were, you would not be afraid to die for this cause. You are deceivers, set there by God to stay my hand and keep me from the banner.’

‘No!’

Dow raised the sword and struck at Aftiel. The angel tried to come for him but the briars held it back. The angel screamed, bursting with a red light like the dying sun. He cut at Afriel, who died with the blue and yellow light of the dawn.

Orsino stood up, looking around at the blackened island. He had his hand on the knife at his belt. ‘You didn’t save my wife and son.’

‘I will save them, they will be free. I will take the banner and raise Hell here. From there our demons will find the keys to Hell and all the sinners will walk out again.’

Orsino approached the limit of the briars and looked down at the dead angels, now fleshy and bloody. The briars writhed and flicked towards him and he took a step back.

‘And to think,’ said Orsino, ‘that I tried to teach you feats of arms. One of these would account for an army if the mood took him, yet you have killed two.’

‘It doesn’t please me to destroy such beauty,’ said Dow.

‘And a good job,’ said Orsino, ‘because if it did there would be no holy things left in the world. What are you, Dow?’

‘I’m a man who would put things right.’

‘You should fear God. And yet I saw you spite him and walk free. My Maria, my Giannio. Why did you not save them?’

‘Because I would have damned all the others,’ said Dow. ‘God fears me. Did you not see? He is the king of fear and yet he dare not strike against me.’