Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (90 page)

I
.
 
Dawn of the Immortals

Research into
the origins of the immortal angels and demons is a difficult prospect at best.
Not only has time immeasurable passed since their creation, but there is no
childhood or early life to examine. They were not, and then in an instant, they
were – this moment is known as The Awakening. Some vague memories possessed by
the oldest and most powerful angels indicate they simply became aware of their
existence and the presence of God. Likewise, it is worth noting that the first
demons to Awaken did so in the presence of Satan.

In the early
times of their awareness, the immortals were disembodied entities of pure will,
or
āyus
, and existed in harmony. Angels and demons, as they are now
known, had not yet embraced the eternal enmity that now defines their
relationship. Time itself, as it is measured on Lokka, was not a material
concern to the immortals, so there is no definitive way of knowing how long
their peaceful coexistence lasted.

The relative
strength of the immortals varied greatly, and groups began to coalesce as those
of similar strength banded together in commonality. The stronger an immortal’s
āyus,
the more likely they become to develop an individual personality and take their
own name (referred to as Awakening, in honor of the original moment of their
creation), and in some cases ascend to a higher state of existence. Only a few
angels and demons began their existence with sufficient
āyus
to
immediately Awaken, and these became the first Seraphim and a few Dominions and
Powers among the angels, and among the demons they declared themselves princes
and chief lieutenants.

The societies of
angels and demons are fundamentally different due to one primary factor. All
angels are considered to be of the same basic species, but rank themselves
based on strength. The Choirs, as these ranks are known, have certain physical
characteristics common to most of their members, but these features are
malleable and are entirely at the whim of the individual (more likely among the
higher Choirs than the lower). An angel of a lower Choir may rise to a higher
rank if he gains both sufficient strength and chooses to ascend. Demons,
however, exist in a wide variety of species and may gain strength as a member
of that breed, but unless they ascend to the rank of demon lord, they will
always be considered to be a member of their origin species.
[42]

The manner in
which immortals gain in strength has always been something of a mystery. To be
sure, it is possible for one immortal to absorb some of the strength of another
immortal he slays (some few have even been able to absorb strength from a
lesser entity without first destroying it, as a form of vampirism), and indeed
this discovery is part of what touched off the Great Schism. But angelic
scholars have theorized that many avenues of empowerment exist, with
possibilities raised from the mundane to the bizarre. Immortals may temporarily
lose power as they expend their strength (typically through combat), but this
seems to be quickly replenished to its former level. The most certain method of
permanently lessening one’s power seems to be genesing, in which one immortal
splits off a piece of his
āyus
to create another immortal.

There are
conflicting reports of who was the first immortal to genese another. Nearly
every text found in Medina that addresses this moment indicates it was Yariel,
one of the first Powers to Awaken. One text, however, claims that it was
actually Gabriel himself, leader of the Seraphim and the most powerful of all
angels, who genesed the first immortal offspring.
[43]
As both
Yariel
and Gabriel were slain during the Great Schism, only second-hand accounts from
distant memories remain to tell the truth of this moment, and history seems to
have settled on Yariel. For certain, there was some debate as to whether
genesing more angels was a proper course of action, so the first such occasion
was the cause of much discussion and dissent.

At some point before
recorded history began, the immortals all felt the undeniable impulse to take
on corporeal form. The demon princes assumed unique forms in keeping with their
more evolved status and individual identities, while the lesser demons were
drawn to craft common shapes based on their emerging species. Gremlins,
bloodhawks, childris, daemelans, hellhounds, drolkuls, balrogs, and many other
species of demons coalesced around common physical forms.

By contrast,
angels uniformly took the form of winged humanoids and chose to differentiate
their Choirs on relatively simple differences in appearance. Seraphim all have
six wings, while Dominions and sometimes Powers typically have four, and the
other Choirs normally only have one pair.
[44]

II
.
 
Pleroma

At the dawn of
time, the immortal plane came into being. None truly know whether it was
created concurrently with the immortals or if, as some have theorized, its
existence predates even the divine. For certain, when the first immortals
became aware of their surroundings, the landscape stretched out before them
infinitely in all directions, and as far as any have been able to determine,
there were indeed no boundaries to the size and scope of the immortal plane.

When they came
into being, the name of their realm was already known to all immortals:
Pleroma. Translated simply into the human tongue, the word means “fullness” –
as with most of the immortal language, however, the actual meaning goes far
beyond the literal word. A better translation would be a “fullness of divine
existence, power, and presence,” but even that lacks the depth and vibrancy
embodied in the original word as spoken by an immortal.

Perhaps the most
astounding fact about Pleroma is that its appearance tended to vary based on
who was viewing it. Different individuals could look at the same portion of the
land and see completely different things, and each would be absolutely
convinced his perception of their reality was the correct one. Over time,
lesser immortals came to view Pleroma from the same perspective as their more
powerful brethren, and indeed many accounts confirm that a lesser angel’s
vision of Pleroma would change simply by being in close proximity to a Seraph
or Dominion. More and more, the angels came to view their realm as a cloud-like
landscape littered with crystalline pillars and gleaming white stone mountains.
The few accounts on-record from demons indicate they came to view their realm
as a barren landscape of cracked, desiccated rock and harsh, unforgiving
wastelands.

III
.
 
War of the Immortals

Over time, the
differing natures of the immortals began to strain what had for a time been
peaceful coexistence. Words such as “good” and “evil” had long since come into
being, but were originally abstract concepts to be bandied about by immortals
still testing the limits of their existence. Eventually, however, animosities
built among various factions that ultimately coalesced into outright hostility
between angels and demons.

Most of the
demons rallied to the call of the most powerful among them, the demon known as
Mephistopheles, self-proclaimed King of Demons. Mephistopheles slowly began to
dominate the wills of his followers, subtly at first, then more openly later as
the demon lords and princes who might have challenged him fell under his sway.
The only two demons known to have stood openly against him were Abdiel and
Kaelus.

The Great Schism
officially began with a singular event – the destruction of the Seraph Gabriel.
This not only marked the beginning of open warfare, it is also the first known
instance of a demon slaying an angel, or vice versa. (Some demons had been
slain by their brethren as they explored the potential for absorbing each
other’s power, but open combat was still unknown at that time.) A trap was set
by several of the demon lords and princes, foremost among them being Aesthma, a
demon lord raised from the ranks of the childris.

The Seraphim
immediately sought out the most powerful demons and demanded justice for their
brethren’s demise, but they were turned away and came near to assaulting the
demons on the spot. Instead, they retreated to their city of Medina and took
council on the best course of action. Mephistopheles, meanwhile, used the
opportunity to further cement his hold on his followers, claiming the angels
were plotting to annihilate the demons in reprisal for what he initially
portrayed as a tragic accident.

The demon prince
Abdiel spoke against Mephistopheles’s aggression and attempted to break the
demon king’s hold on enough of his followers to forestall open warfare, but
instead his brethren tore him apart and destroyed him on the spot. His close
companion, Kaelus, held back and left his own objections unvoiced for fear of
sharing Abdiel’s fate.

Not long after
the deaths of Gabriel and Abdiel, the Seraphim Mikal, Uriel, and Maya led a
group of their brethren to confront Mephistopheles. To this day, no one knows
who attacked whom first, but almost immediately the two sides found themselves
in pitched battle, and the Great Schism was begun in earnest.

Lesser angels
and demons began genesing as many of their kind as they could safely create
without jeopardizing their own existence, seeking to bolster their ranks as the
war flared to ever-greater levels of violence and destruction. All moral
questions and quandaries among the angels about the propriety and presumption
of genesing another immortal quickly vanished.

IV
.
 
The Sundering

Scholars hold
that the wildly different visions of Pleroma were a major factor in the Sundering
of Pleroma during the Great Schism. An elven scholar once stated “A leaf cannot
be all green and all brown at the same time,” and this seems as eloquent a way
as any of stating that a thing is what it is, and it cannot be two
contradictory things at once. As angels coalesced around one shared vision of
Pleroma and the demons another, it’s thought that the very fabric of existence
began to tear.

What few records
exist from the times of the Great Schism (most of which still predates recorded
history) indicate that the Sundering was an action conceived of by the Seraph
Maya, who was quickly becoming one of the most powerful angels in Pleroma.
Using the differing visions of reality and augmented by power drawn from the
Throne of God itself, the Seraphim combined their abilities and split the
infinite realm of existence in half. The resulting division opened a hole into
the nether,
[45]
and the lands under demonic control were hurled into a separate, parallel plane
of existence.

The desolate
lands experienced by the demons were already known as Hell. The demon prince
Kaelus once told his angelic companions, Mikal and Raphael, that Mephistopheles
had chosen the name based on the immortal word
hel
, which roughly
translates to “the lower realm” or “underworld”. Kaelus claims the demon king
was fostering the view among his early followers that they were perceived as
less than the angels, deliberately stoking resentment and drawing them further
under his power.

After the Sundering,
the cloudlike landscape of the angels became known as Heaven, from the immortal
word
heven
for “sky”. The name was first put forward by Maya, who
claimed the name came to her as divine inspiration. Since no one came forward
to gainsay or dispute her claim, and as none of them had felt any other such
inclinations from God in opposition to this, her word as adopted and became
universally recognized.

An unanticipated
side-effect of the Sundering (to any but the minds of the divine, that is) was
the Creation of the mortal realm. A new plane of existence, a place of pure
corporeality, came into being, its existence centered around one particular
celestial body that was somehow linked to both Heaven and Hell. Though few
angels or demons paid any attention to this new realm for what is now believed
to be millions of years (perhaps more), the central world of Lokka would
eventually develop a new phenomenon that would draw the eyes of angels and
demons alike: life.

Satan’s Gambit