FORBIDDEN
By Mark Knight
Copyright © 2012 by Mark Knight
All Rights Reserved.
Chapter I
The Council Chamber shone as though sculpted from light.
But for the nine male and female Council members it was a place of serenity, order. Lesser beings would shrink in here, shielding their eyes and cowering amidst the magnificence of it all. This was, after all, the Council.
“Call forth the accused.”
As the head of the Council, Saliha was always the first to speak. Tribunals always began with her. Out of the nine Council members seated at the semi-circular conference desk, she was the youngest, though exuded a special gravitas all her own. Each of the blue-clad members was equal in every way, however. Each decision weighed neatly and fairly against those of the others. Saliha was the leader, but the Council of Nine acted as one.
A young woman approached the dais. She was just as striking as Saliha, though in a markedly different way. Slim, sylphlike, with hair so fair as to be almost white. There was a glow about her - brighter than the room itself but not quite as bright as the members of the Council who now bore their eyes deeply into her soul.
The young woman stood upon the dais, chin held high. Despite the vulnerability in her crystalline blue eyes, they fervently declared to the Universe: 'I have done nothing wrong'.
“Your designation please,” said Saliha.
“Phaedra,” replied the accused.
“And your function.”
“Angel.”
A male Council member to the right of Saliha – clearly the oldest of the nine - leaned forward slightly.
“More specific than that, Phaedra...” he said.
“Messenger,” said Phaedra. Then, after a small pause, “In training.”
Saliha kept her gaze riveted to Phaedra’s eyes. “Do you know why you're here, Phaedra?” she asked.
The young angel messenger did not bat an eyelid. “Yes,” was her cool response. “Because I was caught.”
The Council was not amused. A ripple of displeasure – or was it shame? – pulsed out from the Nine. Phaedra remained cool.
“Do you think this is a game, Messenger?” asked an elderly female Council member, hair so white that it blended into the brilliance around her. “These are very serious charges.”
“An incident such as this has never occurred!” declared the old man. “It is without precedent!”
Phaedra cocked her head slightly. “Then you should find this hearing interesting.”
Incensed muttering from the Council.
For the first time since the hearing commenced, Saliha allowed herself a look of concern. “We are trying to help you, Phaedra. A defiant attitude will not aid your case...you must know that.”
“All I know, ma'am,” Phaedra responded, “is that I am here because of the prejudice of the Hierarchy.”
“You speak with the aplomb of an Archangel, or a Principality,” said the elderly woman Council member.
“Or even a Dominion!” exclaimed the old man. He swept his hand outward. “Fit to be seated with us here on this Council!”
“Do you see yourself as higher than what you are?” asked one of the younger Council members – a woman, similar in looks to Saliha.
“Then what do you see yourself as?”
“Wronged.”
A collective sigh heralded the long silence that followed.
Finally, Saliha stood.
“There will be a short recess,” she said.
The nine Council members got up quietly from their seats. A few exchanged unuttered words. Soon, Phaedra was alone in the chamber, standing there on the small dais like a life-sized ornament.
Her face softened as the defiant attitude she’d so carefully crafted melted away. Closing her eyes, she allowed her mind to drift back to the events that had led her to this point.
* * *
“Well? Who are you, then? Another one of the Supreme Being’s pets?”
The voice was deep and husky. It was the only clue that the demon was in the cell.
Stepping cautiously inside, she noted that the cell was incredibly dark and very cold. She creaked the door open a little more, letting in a fresh splash of light. The coal-textured walls of the prison were dank and old. It was small, like a closet, and yet large enough to hold the one being she had come here to see.
The light from the outside accented just enough of the prisoner for Phaedra to get an idea of what he looked like. He wasn’t totally unlike an angel, she mused, quite surprised. He was more muscular, of a redder skin tone, and possessed a collection of small, stubby horns across his forehead. Other than that, not the monstrosity she had been led to believe.
He was huddled against one corner of the cramped cell, like an animal left to die. But his stay here was only temporary, she knew.
“I-I'm an angel,” she stammered, voice weaker than planned. “In training. They sent me here to look in to the face of evil.”
The demon let her have a good look.
“And the verdict?” he said finally.
She drew herself up, finding strength in tightened lips and steady shoulders. “Just what I expected.”
The prisoner grinned from one side of his mouth. “But not all that different from you, though,” he countered. “Arms, legs, head. I just see things a little differently.”
Phaedra folded her arms. She had the advantage here. She could afford to glare down at him like the bug that he was. He was a demon, an abomination. She was an angel.
“Save it. I'm only here to look at you.”
“And what do you see?”
“You heard me.”
The demon regarded her with disarming seriousness. “No, what do you really see?”
She then saw the chains of cold steel that bound the demon’s wrists and ankles. Blood trickled from the over-tight shackles. For a brief flicker of a moment, her face softened.
“Ahh,” responded the demon. “A chink in the celestial armour.” He sat up as best he could, the effort making the chains clatter sharply against the hard rock of the cell. “So, do you have a name?”
Phaedra didn’t answer.
“Come on,” he urged, though not in a taunting way. “The question can't be that difficult! Your name...?”
“Phaedra.”
The demon’s eye twitched. It seemed that he was in pain. “Phaedra, please don't make me crane my neck any more than I have to.”
Phaedra squatted down to the demon’s eye-level.
His eyes, she noted, were stark, penetrating, crimson pools. She should have been frightened of them. She was, though in a way which exhilarated her.
The demon looked anything but frightening right now.
“In this short space of time,” he said in a deep, warm tone, “you've shown me more respect than any of your comrades. They took me, shackled me, and jammed me in here - just so you and the other greenhorns could stare at my ugly mug.”
“Well, I'm the last one today. You'll be able to return to your people soon.”
The demon looked deep in to Phaedra’s eyes, his molten irises fusing with her sky-blue pools.
“You care, don't you?” he continued, voice belying his fascination with the young Messenger. “You see me for what I am - a conscious entity, just like you.”
Offended, confused, Phaedra stood bolt upright.
“I could never care about a creature like you,” she told him, hard. “You're a demon. The personification of evil.”
“Am I? Have you seen within my heart, Phaedra?”
Confused and angry, Phaedra stormed out of the cell.
The demon smiled, cocksure.”Until we meet again!” he called as the windowless prison door slammed his cell back into darkness.
/> * * *
Still she stood upon the dais, still alone. The dais felt cold, despite her footwear. Perhaps it had been the memory that had bled the warmth from her. As with so many memories, it dovetailed neatly into another…
* * *
The asteroid was harsh, unsympathetic to life. Yet a battle to claim it was about to take place.
Five angels, Phaedra among their number, faced off against a group of demons a dozen meters apart. Between them, only the steaming, rocky terrain.
Phaedra shifted her weight from one foot to another, hoping that the others of her team would not notice. She was anxious, and not just because of the impending clash.
From her viewpoint, the demons looked very similar. All wore tattered clothing of some rough-hewn material – not out of poverty or destitution but rather crude defiance. Each one of them carried a jagged sword forged from an obsidian-like metal. Eyes were angry. Teeth clenched in anticipation of carnage. She expected nothing less from them. Even from him.
The leader of the demon faction – even taller and sturdier built than his comrades – took a defiant step forward.
“In the name of Chaos!” he roared, the stentorian tones crashing off the surrounding cliffs. “I claim this world for Prince Diabolos!”
The angel leader thrust his gleaming sword skyward. “You have no claim here, demon!” the muscular leader shouted back. “This world, as all the worlds of the cosmos, was made by the Supreme Being - creator of all things!”
The demon leader gritted his teeth, nose wrinkling into a snarl. “Then send forth your champion!” he demanded.
The angel leader put his hand on the shoulder of the athletic male standing at his immediate right. This was his champion.
Likewise, the demon leader made the choice from among his group. “Erebus,” he commanded. The demon champion stepped forward.
Across the expanse, the angel champion raised his sword in readiness, catching the glint of the planet’s sun as it shortly slipped out from between ashen clouds.
Phaedra suddenly stepped up.
“Sir,” she said to her leader. “Let me.”
The angel leader appraised her, his crystalline eyes questing into her own. Finally, he gave her the nod. She advanced.
The two champions – one of Light, and one of Darkness – met upon the barren ground. They stood eye to eye (though Phaedra was a little shorter), neither one of them blinking.
“Make this look good,” said Erebus low enough for only Phaedra to hear.
She smiled, guardedly, and winked.
The combatants commenced with a dual shout as both sword blades burst into flame. Metal clashed with metal, the shrieks of the blades pinging and panging off the surrounding rock forms.
Phaedra had succeeded in making her first dozen slashes calculated misses, the sword gouging out lumps of protruding rock, dousing the combatants with bright sparks. She pressed forth her attack like an angry gladiator.
Erebus staggered back, but soon gained an advantage, chopping at Phaedra as though trying to split a log. Finally, his blade sliced across her shoulder, sending forth a shower of light from the bright soul within her. She cried out in pain, and slumped to the ground.
Erebus stabbed the ground triumphantly with his sword, planting it like a flag.
“This world is ours!” he exclaimed to the Universe.
But the gloat was short lived.
“Finish her!” came the command from his leader, eyes flashing flame.
Erebus turned to meet his leader’s angry gaze. “We've won, sir! Why provoke the wrath of the Supreme Being?”
“You have your claim!” the angel leader called to his counterpart.
Suspicious, though not yet sure why, the demon leader made a dismissive hand gesture. As though the planetoid had never been of any consequence, he and his demon gang retreated.
* * *
“Why did you do it, child, this terrible thing?”
The expression on the Archangel’s face was one of concern and extreme disappointment. It made Uriel seem infinitely distant, despite his closeness. Sitting next to Phaedra on the marble bench, the great mentor of Phaedra’s life sojourned with his fallen pupil while the hearing was in recess. The Archangel was in his prime – youthful of countenance though with hair as white as snow. He’d been her advisor since the beginning – since her inception in the Light that created all things. He never expected this, the thing that she’d done. Not from her. Not from anyone.
“I thought you were my friend, Uriel,” said Phaedra, eyes full of hurt. “Or are you just my mentor?”
“Mentor, overseer, teacher - you know that an Archangel has many duties. Right now, I can only act as your advisor.” He smiled, though to her it was a smile of pity. “But I am still your friend, Phaedra. Remember that.”
Phaedra tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away.
“Look at you!” she said. “You won’t even hold my hand.”
“The rules, Phaedra. It is not permitted.”
“Why? Because of my 'crime'?”
Her mentor nodded. “Yes. Because of your crime.”
Phaedra took a deep breath, then looked deeply into the Archangel’s eyes. “Do you think I've done wrong, Uriel?”
For the first time since she’d known him, he appeared uncomfortable. “It's ... difficult. I'm bound by so many things. I must concur with my Order...and the Hierarchy.”
Phaedra looked to the far wall of the anteroom. “It’s ridiculous,” she said, voice low. “All of it.”
Uriel stood up and glared at her. “Phaedra!” he exclaimed. “Don’t ever say that. Not ever!”
Standing to face him (though she had to angle her eyes quite high to look into her tall mentor’s eyes), she grasped his arm before he had time to step back.
“Uriel,” she said, hard, brazen. “Look at me. Look at me.”
The Archangel did so. Phaedra bolted her gaze upon his.
“You know I’ve done nothing wrong,” she declared.
Uriel’s face was impassive. “All I know is what I saw.”
* * *
The world was green, lush, virgin.
As Phaedra walked amongst the mists and delicate dews of the newly created planet, surveying trees, plants, and streams, she thought paradise never looked so good. And it was paradise. As much as any other of the Supreme Being’s creations within His cosmos. From its verdurous surface to it firmament of soft lavender, it was perfect. There was only one thing to say.
“Beautiful,” observed Phaedra, a smile upon her face. “Isn’t it?”
“The work of the Supreme Being is always beautiful,” said Uriel, enjoying the highly oxygenated atmosphere.
“My first survey! This is just so exciting.”
“The Seraphim have told us that a proto-intelligent species is already emerging here,” Phaedra’s mentor informed her. “It is our job to instil within them an awareness of the Supreme Being.”
“Which will eventually become instinct?”
“Yes. Every one of them will know of His existence, even though they have not seen.”
“But...do they really have to know about evil as well?”
“Unfortunately, Phaedra, the Fallen Ones must also reveal themselves. Every mortal being has a choice - good, or evil.”
The young Messenger was very careful in how she formed her next words.
“Do you think the Fallen Ones see themselves as evil?” she asked.
Uriel raised an eyebrow. “A strange question…”
There was silence between them for several seconds.
“And the answer?” pressed Phaedra.
“The answer, my young charge,” the Archangel said, placing a hand on her shoulder, “is that the mind of evil is not a place for you or I. Focus on good, focus on light. Anything else is an abomination.”
Phaedra only nodded, and said no more.
Later in the day, as the sun was beginning its descent into a deep purple horizon,
Phaedra, walking alone in a misty, wooded area, suddenly stood still. There had been a sound. A twig snapping.
Someone.
“Uriel?”
Walking from behind a tree, grinning through a long stalk of grass that he was casually chewing, the young demon halted in front of her.
Cool, seemingly unfazed, Phaedra folded her arms. Her barely perceptible smile was enough to show the demon that she was glad to see him.
“Erebus,” said Phaedra. “Why is it that wherever I go, you turn up?”
The demon took the stalk from his mouth. “Well, let's look at it another way,” he said. “Why is it that wherever I am, there you are?”
“That's it, twist everything like the devil you are.”
Erebus flicked the stalk away. “I do my best.” He looked past her, then left and right. “So, where’s the Boring One?”
She didn’t like when he made fun of her colleagues, but couldn’t help smiling at his comment nonetheless. “If you mean my mentor, Uriel, he's consulting with some other Archs.”
“Which means that we’re—”
“Alone.”
“Yes.”
Phaedra raised an eyebrow suggestively. “Wicked,” she said coquettishly, walking sensuously towards her demon lover. “Aren’t we?”
“That depends on what you call ‘wicked’!”
They moved into each other, hands caressing, bodies writing, lips teasing.
“Do you know what your comrades would do to you if they found you consorting with a demon?” said Erebus.
Phaedra was lost within the demon’s russet-skinned embrace. “I don’t really care,” she replied breathlessly.
Sinking to the ground, the lovers made raw, animalistic love, neither able to stop, neither wanting to stop.
What neither of them saw, nor sensed, was that they were being watched. Several meters away, from behind a clump of trees, stood Uriel. He had come to find the young angel under his tutelage, to tell her it was time to return home. Instead, he found his worst nightmare.
* * *
The tribunal was back in session.
“Call forth Uriel!” announced the Council leader, Saliha.
Uriel strode up to the dais and stood upon it, facing Saliha.
“Your designation, please,” said Saliha.
“Archangel,” Uriel replied, not a flicker of emotion upon his face. “Third sphere.”