He bowed his head, his arms outstretched, as six enormous black seraph wings extended from his spine. A second later, he was in the ornately carved high place of the war chamber, a thousand feet up. He stood, resplendent in his ceremonial robes, crowned with translucent rays of light in the carved horn pulpit that hung from the high place in the centre of the dome. His back was turned to the hundreds of thousands of fallen gathered in the war chamber. A great oration came forth from his lips. The sound was as the sound of celestial pipes and of flutes and clarinets and of every pipe ever heard in the universe. A discordant song of the damned burst forth from the host of the fallen in response.
The monstrous bells of limbo pealed, rung by the Banshees of Valkyrie from their perches in the basilica belfry.
Lucifer lifted his sceptre, his magenta velvet robes billowing in the violent ice tempests.
He turned to face the damned gathered in the great war chamber – the great assembly of powers of evil and terror – the rulers of the dark world. His intense sapphire eyes blazed fiercely.
The great prince of Babylonia stood. ‘We have heard, O great Satan, that your kingdom is plundered,’ his voice was spun like silk. ‘The Gates of Hell spoiled, the keys to hell and death purloined.’
He sat caressing the razored edge of his jewelled scimitar, an inscrutable smile on his face
The menacing Dragon Warlord of China stood in his robes of crimson dragon robe silks. ‘Word has reached us, the fallen, that your empire has been pillaged.’ His beady yellow slit eyes glinted with mutiny. ‘The crypts of hell are ransacked.’ He sat, folding his broad hands across his chest, fingering his great iron mace.
‘Word has reached us under the earth...’ The ancient leader of the Harpies flew before the throne, her body of a winged monster, her head of an ugly old crone. ‘...that your power is dissipated,’ she warbled, her wings flapping.
The Dread Warlocks of Ishtar stood as one body. ‘Persuade us, iniquitous Light-Bearer, dark seraph, that thy kingdom still stands,’ they hissed in their dark treacled, seditious voices. ‘Or should we choose another to rule over us?...’
The dark, subversive whispers raged through the assembly of the damned. The stooped Darkened Councils and magi sat under the high place, their cowled hoods concealing their faces. Marduk arose from the bench of the Darkened Councils and bowed his head in reverence.
‘You have been summoned to the Dread Councils of Hell, princes of darkness and great powers of the damned, by the one and only true king of this world, Lucifer, crowned Satan.’
Lucifer surveyed the assembly. The room fell silent.
‘A dreadful day has dawned in the regions of the damned.’ His voice shook with rage.
‘A day so dire, that none could conceive it.’
‘The Day of the Nazarene.’ No one stirred.
‘Golgotha,’ a voice whispered.
A great shudder of terror ran through the entire assembly.
‘Golgotha!’ the banshees shrieked, clasping their ears.
‘We lose our strength!’ the Witches of Endor cried.
‘Golgotha,’ The warlocks of Ishtar clutched their throats. Retching.
‘Golgotha!’ the Wort Seers of Diablos rasped.
Lucifer stood, his sceptre raised.
‘We would settle the score – we seek revenge!’ he cried.
The entire assembly stood to their feet as one.
‘We seek revenge, O Satan!’ they cried as one voice.
‘Draw and quarter the Nazarene,’ Hecate, the ancient crone, shrieked, her twisted green fingers clasping her throat. ‘Steep Him in wolfsbane.’
‘Boil Him in burning pitch!’ shrieked another.
‘Cut off His hands and feet and feed Him to Leviathan,’ hissed the Lord of the Warlocks.
Lucifer raised his hands to quiet the assembly.
‘No!’ he cried. ‘You will have your bloodshed later – I vow it. There is a more expedient way, but first...’
He cast his eye across the chamber.
Twenty-four fallen satanic princes, his generals, wearing black armour and golden crowns, walked before him, bowing deeply.
‘I seek for loyal followers...’
A thousand of Lucifer’s Black Horde stepped forward and sealed the great gates.
‘Devoted disciples.’
He nodded to Balam. Instantly fifty of his menacing Black Guard surrounded the great prince of Babylonia. The Shaman Kings took savage hold of the dragon warlord.
‘Throw the craven traitors into the Abyss!’ Lucifer cried.
Huldah and his Shaman Kings dragged the prince and the warlord through the rear hall, out to the ice wastes.
‘Wait ... I shall gift you with five hundred crimson-bellied dragons!’ screamed the warlord.
Lucifer looked straight ahead in contempt.
Their blood-curdling screams of terror echoed through the bleak ice wastelands, filling the chamber. Then a sombre silence fell.
Lucifer surveyed the assembly in triumph.
‘Should you choose another to rule over you?’ he whispered.
He strode down the hall, studying the faces before him intently, and stopped in front of the old harpy crone. Again he nodded to Balam.
‘No-o-o-o-o-o!’ she screeched as two of the Black Horde grasped her wings and carried her off. Her demented screaming filled the Chamber, then died away.
‘Who else casts doubt on me?’
One by one the damned stood to their feet all across the Chamber.
‘O fallen one, Satan, tempter, nemesis to the Race of Men,’ they chanted in unison, ‘we declare our allegiance. There is none so great as you.’
‘We declare our allegiance. We worship you,’ echoed the damned.’
Lucifer smiled.
‘I call upon Charsoc, dark apostle, sorcerer.’
Charsoc rose from his throne at the head of the Dark Grey Magi and bowed.
‘Mighty Emperor,’ he said, bowing again to Lucifer. He turned to address the gathering. ‘My revered compatriots of the damned, I recite the articles of Eternal Law: “If one undefiled from the Race of Men is willing to shed His lifeblood on behalf of the Race of Men, and become a substitute for judgement, the said Race of Men, past, present, and future generations, will be released from eternal judgement by the death of that one.” This is binding Eternal Law.’
Lucifer raised his head, a sinister smile on his face.
‘For those of the Race of Men ... only if they receive the great sacrifice.’
Charsoc nodded, his face ripe with evil. ‘Each time one of the Race of Men accepts the Nazarene’s sacrifice, he is branded with the seal of Yehovah – the seal of the First Heaven on his forehead – the seal of the Nazarene. It is a seal that denotes his transferral from the kingship of Satan to the kingship of Yehovah.’
Charsoc nodded to his liege Lord. ‘The seal is not visible to those of the Race of Men,’ he hissed. ‘It is visible only to those of the First Heaven and to the realms of the damned. It represents the shed blood of Golgotha.’ Charsoc surveyed the fallen. ‘It bestows on its wearer the same powers as the Nazarene.’ A ripple of horror spread like wildfire through the chamber.
Dagda, brother of Nakan, now grisly king of the Necromancers, stood up and lumbered to the front of the hall. ‘I have seen the seal only once,’ he croaked. His voice was thick with iniquity. He shuddered, clutching his black cloak to his cumbersome frame with his fleshy pigmented hands. ‘It smoulders on their foreheads like a hideous luminous furnace in our spirit realm and renders us, the damned, powerless against such a one.’
Lucifer paced up and down, his hands behind his back. ‘It greatly compromises our power in the realms of men. If a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million of the Race of Men were to wear the seal, it could decimate the realms of the damned.’
Sethunelah, the ancient leader of the macabre Black Magi stood. ‘The Spirit is not strong with the Race of Men.’ His voice was a soft nightmarish slither. ‘They are formed
of the mud, and the dust of earth clings to them. They live by their minds, their souls consumed with the affairs of men. They do not comprehend affairs of the Spirit.’ He smoothed his black robes with pale bony fingers. ‘We, the fallen, must feed on their weakness.’
Failenn, queen of the demon witches, rose from the back of the assembly.
All eyes were riveted on her. She wore a long, flowing diaphanous dress of white gossamer, her porcelain skin visible beneath it. Her floor-length auburn hair, woven with lilies, fell thick and gleaming down her back. She walked towards Lucifer, her voice beguiling, honey-tongued yet poisonous as hemlock. ‘Lure them with our enticements, my lord. Persuade them with our intellects.’ She flung around, transformed in an instant into a hideous, hunched crone with wrinkled green skin like a toad’s, a long, twisted chin, gnarled and clawed hands. ‘Deceive them with our enchantments!’ her chilling scream rang out. Lucifer rubbed his fingers together in pleasure.
The Dread Warlocks of Ishtar stood, all ten thousand speaking as one voice.
‘Venerated Excellency.’ Their dark depraved tones echoed through the Chamber. ‘We must dethrone the Nazarene in the minds and souls of the Race of Men until they consider Him as just one of themselves – no greater, no lesser. We will humanize them. Secularize them. They will call Him virtuous. They will call Him good ... but they will not call Him God.’
‘They shall call Him noble,’ the Banshees screeched.
‘They shall call Him good,’ cackled the Witches of Babylon.
‘They shall not call Him God!’ the Necromancer Kings cried.
‘They shall call Him noble,’ the Demon Witches wailed.
‘They shall call Him good,’ the Warlocks of Ishtar rasped.
The entire assembly stood.
‘THEY SHALL NOT CALL HIM GOD!’ they roared.
Lucifer and Charsoc exchanged glances.
‘And if he is not God,’ Lucifer murmured, ‘he is dethroned ... in the hearts and souls of the Race of Men.’
A great cry broke out across the War Chamber. ‘Dethrone the Nazarene!’
‘Dethrone the Nazarene!’
Lucifer stood, an evil smile on his lips.
‘We shall erase His name and face forever from the records of the Race of Men. The terrible sacrifice shall be a mere myth for the weak and stumbling and the babes in arms. The sacrifice on Golgotha shall be in vain, for they shall not heed it.’
Lucifer raised his voice to the heavens.
‘Mobilize all armies of the damned to deceive the Race of Men. Above the earth and under the earth, rulers of the dark places. Powers. Principalities. Thrones. Satanic Princes, Shaman Kings, Warlocks, Witches, Magi, Harpies – all who are subject to you – are my loyal subjects. We shall next convene at the turn of the second decade of the second millennium of the Race of Men.’
He ran his pale fingers slowly through the dark stubble on his head.
‘The Nazarene shall wish He had never stirred the wrath of the son of destruction.’
* * *
AD 33
Five Years Later
Jotapa stood outside Aretas’ chambers, folding and refolding the now crumpled, tear-stained missive that had arrived from Jerusalem only an hour before. Five years had passed since the Nazarene’s death on the cross on Golgotha.
Ghaliya was now with other believers in Jerusalem and communicated with Jotapa faithfully. The Hebrew’s death had not been in vain. Zahi and hundreds like him had insisted on staying with the disciples in Jerusalem. The Hebrew’s followers had multiplied in number all over Palestine and Asia Minor.
Two years ago, Zahi and Duza had left Jerusalem, travelling to Phoenicia and the isle of Cyprus, journeying through Thessalonica and finally arriving in Antioch, in Syria. Jotapa smiled through her tears. Zahi knew her exotic tastes and would send her colourful and outlandish trinkets from the marketplaces of the cities where they toiled, preaching of the Hebrew’s Father and of the First Heaven. But four months ago, the trinkets and missives had stopped.
And today she had received the awful confirmation from Ghaliya.
First, the brilliant and gifted youth Stephen with the tight black curls, whom Zahi had loved and tutored at nights in all the great languagues of Arabia, had been stoned to death outside the city of Jerusalem. But worse news was to follow. Written in the swarthy fisherman Peter’s hand, the missive was only barely legible – but legible enough to send her running from the room, screaming.
The faithful Ayeshe had soothed her with the ancient Arabic lullabies, but neither of them knew how to break the appalling news to the king, Aretas.
‘I have to do it, Ayeshe,’ she had whispered. ‘It is a daughter’s task.’ And at last Ayeshe had agreed.
Since the night of the conversation of the Hebrew’s resurrection, Aretas had withdrawn from Jotapa, from Arabia, and from his God. His body had weakened alarmingly, and though physicians had come from all over Arabia, Persia, and India with their potions, still Aretas grew frailer. Jotapa knew that both Zahi and Duza prayed for his soul faithfully, that he would remain steadfast in his faith in the Hebrew. And now this last hideous blow.
She paced up and down outside his chambers incessantly, then finally nodded to Aretas’ royal guard, who at once opened the huge golden doors.
Aretas stood, aged and frail, leaning on a cane, his hands behind his back, staring out at the fountains in the Royal Pavilions.
He turned.
‘Jotapa.’ His expression was soft.
‘I have missed your fellowship, daughter.’
‘As I yours, father,’ Jotapa replied softly.
He looked down and saw the tear-stained missive clutched in her hand. His face turned to stone. Without a word, he limped across the marbled floor and snatched it out of her grasp.
Unfolding it, he quickly scanned the contents. He uttered a terrible, almost noiseless scream, the papyrus fluttering from his hands to the floor, he stumbled to the window in a daze.
‘My beloved tender Zahi...’ He stared out of the windows, tears streaming down his face, unheeded.
‘Crucifed upside down!’ He turned to Jotapa, his face ablaze with a terrible fury.
‘Tell me, Jotapa, WHERE is the love and mercy of the God of the Hebrew? It is a farce!’ he raged, slamming his fist on the table. ‘A desperate myth for gullible children as they build their dirt castles on the desert floor ... My son, dead,’ he whimpered.
‘Never – Jotapa!’ He snatched up the cross from the altar and smashed it down on the table. It shattered into three pieces on the marble floor.
‘Never will His name be spoken again in the house of Arabia. Never will the Hebrew’s name be heard.’ He turned, his eyes flashing dangerously with rage.
‘Never again will a Hebrew be our friend.’
Jotapa watched helplessly as Aretas beat his feeble fists against the wall, his arms flailing.
‘My son is dead,’ he lamented, his eyes glazed and unseeing. His frail body collapsed under him, and he slid down the wall to the floor. ‘Zahi...,’ he moaned.
Chapter Forty-seven
The Rubied Door
Aretas lay sleeping, propped up by seven fringed vermillion satin pillows. Jotapa sat next to him, his frail veined hand clasped in hers. He was restless, thrashing from side to side, his silk bedclothes soaked with his perspiration for the fourth time that day. He drew deep, rasping breaths.
Ayeshe smoothed his brow with old, veined fingers. Too often before, he had heard the death rattle as life ebbed out. Simple as the old Bedouin was, he knew that King Aretas was dying. It was all connected with the Hebrew. Of that, Ayeshe was certain.
Jotapa rose from his bedside, re-lit the sputtering lanterns, then poured out another draught of medicinal potion into the king’s goblet. The potion, the latest of a dozen this month alone, had arrived by camel that dawn from the caliph of Persia in the east.
Aretas’ old compatriot, Abgar of Edessa, had journeyed across desert and plains to visit him, but Ar
etas would tolerate none of the Armenian king’s stories of how the Hebrew had healed him when he lay dying; indeed, Aretas had sent the great and generous king away, grieving for the loss of their old friendship.
Ayeshe shook his head.
‘His malady is a sickness of his soul. The potion will do nothing!’ Ayeshe threw his hands up in the air, muttering darkly in Syriac under his breath. ‘It is all to do with the Hebrew.’
Jotapa sighed. ‘He is slipping away from us, Ayeshe. He has become a shadow of the great king of Arabia he once was.’
‘He has not forgiven the Hebrew for dying on the cross or for taking his firstborn son from him.’
There was a soft knock at the door. Jotapa frowned. It was late, only a few hours before dawn. She reached for one of the lanterns and walked across to the bedchamber door, softly opening it, gasping as a brilliant light radiated through the entrance.
In the centre of the brilliance, facing Jotapa, stood Jesus.
She dropped to her knees.
Her gaze moved upward, from the hem of His indigo silk robe to the platinum sash around His waist.
His face radiated a light so brilliant that His head and hair seemed white as snow, but as the shimmering waves of light settled, she could make out the deep, flaming dark mane. Resting on His head was a golden crown, set with three great rubies.
She stared mesmerized at the high, bronzed cheekbones, the blazing clear eyes that flashed from hues of blue to emerald to brown like flames of living fire. The great King of Heaven. Her King. Beautiful beyond imagining.
Jesus walked slowly over towards Aretas. He stopped beside the bed, Jotapa watching from the door. He gazed down at the sleeping king with a look of infinite tenderness and compassion.
‘My friend, Aretas,’ he murmured, bending over him, gently stroking the thinning silver hair on the dying king’s head.
‘Blessed are all those who have not seen Me and yet still believe,’ he murmured in wonder. ‘He looked down at Aretas with a deep compassion in His eyes – a compassion that understood a king’s confusion, that forgave a king’s scepticism, that washed away a king’s bitterness, that embraced Aretas the man, Aretas, the friend who had protected Him as a babe in arms.