“True,” said Arcana.
The man stood up, his hand on his dagger. His tabard was stained with blood and food and the mud of battle. From the looks of him, he had not groomed himself since. From the smell, he had not bathed either. “Who do you serve?”
“God,” said Arcana, loud enough to be heard through the room. She was surprised at how many of the men jumped and started at the words.
The man laughed. “God, he says! Did you hear that?” He swung his arms wide. “Everyone! This one serves God!”
The room broke out in harsh, angry laughter, as if the men were both ridiculing her and hating themselves.
The man’s hands came down hard on the table in front of Arcana. “None of us serve God anymore!” he yelled in her face. “God left us to die in the desert! God let us sit outside Jerusalem for weeks! God doesn’t give a fuck about us! And God sure as fuck didn’t break down the Gates, did he?”
“Then who did?” asked Arcana.
“Who did?” The man’s voice was disbelieving. Once more he looked to the crowd. “‘Who did?’ he wants to know. Well, what I want to know is who you serve!”
Arcana caught his hand, and the dagger in it, as it raced toward her face. The man growled and tried to hit her with his other hand, but Arcana caught that one, too. Very gently, her voice so quiet it only reached the one man’s ears, she said, “I serve God. And you are going to tell me, in great detail, what happened here.”
“Fuck you!”
Arcana slowly tightened the grip on his hands. He winced at first, then moaned. “Let me go!”
“Tell me all that happened here,” repeated Arcana.
“He’s a spy!” the man shouted. “Kill him!”
The other knights roared and grabbed swords and axes. There were twenty of them, and they howled like beasts as they charged at Arcana.
“We will continue this,” said Arcana. She released both his hands and pushed him back with enough force that he flew through the air and cracked the mud-brick wall when he hit it. Arcana drew her sword and turned it from a blade into a club before gliding into battle with the crowd of men.
It wasn’t a fair fight, but then it never was with mortals. Unnecessary death was frowned on in the Army of God, whether human or otherwise. Rather than weakening them, it made the Angels of God more inventive fighters, capable of doing much damage without resorting to killing.
Six of her opponents went down in the first second, skulls and arms and legs broken. In the next second, three men were thrown against walls, and two others smashed against the ground so hard their pelvises cracked. In the second after that, three men had stabbed each other while attempting to stab Arcana, two more had broken heads from being smashed against tables, and three others had been thrown bodily out the small shop window.
The last man standing tried to run away. Arcana clipped him on the back of the head with her club and watched him go sprawling.
She turned back to the man she’d been questioning and once more took his hands in hers, ignoring the wails of pain and the spattered blood on the walls and floor around them. “Now,” she said, “tell me everything. From the beginning of your life to the present moment. But first,” she squeezed his hands hard enough to make him scream, “who do you serve, mortal? And I don’t mean your commander. What God do you serve?”
The man screamed wordlessly at first, and Arcana tightened her grip. At last he managed to gasp out, “Nyx! We serve Nyx!!!”
Arcana let the man’s hands go and sat back in surprise. That arrogant little…
There were many words Arcana could think of off the top of her head, but none seemed suitable. Arcana settled for growling deep in her throat and letting her body assume its rightful shape, the hateful garments fading away. She let her inner light glow and her wings spread. Instead of her robes, she wore her armor. Her club became a sword, glowing with the light and purity of Heaven. Around her she heard the men who were conscious gasp and swear. She let them feel the full force of her presence; she heard several of them weeping.
“Tell me everything,” Arcana said again, and this time the man in front of her quailed and hid his eyes from her glow.
“Please…” the man begged. “Spare me.”
“I do not promise that,” said Arcana. “Your actions are grievously offensive to God.”
“But…”
Arcana leaned over him, letting the full force of her presence inhabit her next words. “You will tell me everything. NOW!”
The others on the tavern floor did not move—did not dare move—while she listened to the man tell how the crusades had started. She listened to the misery of their trip and the many battles they’d lost on the way. She heard of their six weeks before the walls of Jerusalem and the destruction of their siege towers. He told her how three goddesses with black wings and snake eyes came down to them before the battle, how they had converted the army to the worship of Nyx and given them victory over Jerusalem. He told everything of the bloody, one-sided battle that had destroyed the Muslim army and the great pillage that followed. As near as Arcana could tell, no boy over thirteen survived the slaughter; and all of the women—and most of the surviving boys—had been raped in the seven days since.
When the man finished talking, Arcana straightened up and looked around the room with disgust. In a move faster than any mortal could see, she punched the man’s head. His skull bounced against the wall, leaving a bloody smear, and he slid to the floor. Arcana closed her wings and hid them as she turned away.
The woman in the tavern ran to her, trying to cover her body as she knelt before Arcana. “Forgive me, O Holy One. Forgive me for my sins. I have done… I have…”
“Anything these men did to you,” said Arcana, her tone as gentle as she could make it, “anything that you did to survive, was not a sin of yours. Do not fear for God’s wrath.”
“Please,” the woman begged. “Please help me. Help us all.”
Yes, thought Arcana. I think I will do just that.
Arcana laid her hand on the woman’s head and let her power heal the woman’s body and her spirit. “Find clothes,” said Arcana. “Dress yourself as best you can, and when the others come to inquire after their fellows, tell them that the one who did this said she would be at the Temple Mount in the morning. Can you do that?”
The woman rose and stood tall despite her half-dressed, despoiled state. “I can, O Holy One.”
“Good,” said Arcana. She strode out of the tavern, taking human guise as she did. She did not take on the shape or clothes of one of the fallen warriors. Rather, she stayed female, but tall and strong, dressed in the chain armor they wore, with a plain grey surcoat over it and her sword at her hip.
I think I will visit some more of these taverns, Arcana decided, and see what is happening in them.
It was near dawn when Arcana walked to the Dome of the Rock. In the course of the night she’d been in six tavern brawls and one street battle and had summarily executed five men she’d found engaged in rape in the middle of the streets. And everywhere she went, Arcana spread the word—she would be at the Temple Mount in the morning.
The Temple Mount had changed greatly since the last time she had visited it. Gone was the Jewish temple. Nothing was left but a single wall. Dominating it was a great temple, now defaced and pillaged. Arcana walked into it and found a dozen of the prettiest women and boys left in the town chained together against one wall, while another half-dozen were busy servicing men of rank around the room. Arcana killed the men and struck free the chains of the prisoners. She threw the bodies out of the temple and then surveyed the space. “Whose temple is this?”
The women and children looked guardedly at one another but said nothing.
“I am a stranger in your Jerusalem,” said Arcana, letting comfort, safety, and strength flow with her words. “I have not been here for a very long time, and I do not recognize it. Can you tell me who they worship here?”
As she spoke she saw them s
tand straighter and regain some shreds of their self-respect. When she was done, one of the woman, black-haired and chocolate-skinned, stepped forward. “This is a mosque dedicated to the worship of Allah, in memory of his prophet Mohammed.”
It was no one Arcana had heard of, but then, she had been trapped for a thousand years. But when the woman spoke of Allah, it was God she meant, and that was good enough. “Then it shall be cleansed.”
Arcana raised her arms and called on God’s creations, on the winds and the rain, and the water buried beneath the earth. All of it came at her bidding, flowing up and down and from across great distances, pushing aside whatever lay in its path to reach her. The women and children in the temple cowered together, clinging to one another as the wind swirled sand around them, scouring the obscenities and the dried blood from the walls. Rain poured in through the broken windows and joined the wind in cleansing the walls. From far, far beneath the ground, water seeped up the cracks in the floor and spread wide. The wind stirred it, too, and the dirt and blood and filth loosened and flowed away, out the door.
It took an hour. The women and children huddled, watching in awe and disbelief. In the end, the walls and floor were, if roughly blasted from the force of sand and water and wind, clean and free from filth. Arcana surveyed the room and nodded. “It is good.”
“You… you are…?”
Arcana realized she was still in human form. She smiled at the women and children. “I am a servant of God. And I suggest that you be gone from this place before the sun rises.”
The women nodded and led the children from the building. Arcana followed them out into the now-crisp air around the dome. Jerusalem was still a sacked city, and there were still evil deeds being done in Nyx’s name throughout. But morning was coming soon and she was going to put a stop to it. Of course, just because she had spread the word, there was no guarantee that the might of Jerusalem would come to the Temple Mount when the sun rose.
Arcana drew her sword and let her body assume its true shape. With ease she flew up to the top of the Dome of the Rock, only then noticing the remains of a man, his skull and ribs and pelvis impaled on the spike that topped the dome.
That has to be Nyx’s work, Arcana thought. No mortal could have put him there.
Scavengers birds had picked the remains clean, even though they were only days old. Now nothing remained but the bones. With the soul gone, the body was only dead weight, with no special purpose. Arcana laid her hands on the bones, whispering a prayer. This may have been a good man or an evil man; she didn’t know. But he had been Nyx’s enemy and for that, she acknowledged him. The bones dissolved, along with the stains the man’s fluids had left on the spike, and it all blew away into the wind.
Arcana drew her sword. I may not be Gabriel, but he’s not the only horn player in Heaven.
With a thought, her sword took the shape of a shofar—though it stayed as divine metal, rather than ram’s horn. Arcana took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and blew long and hard on the instrument. The sound echoed over the city, a clarion call that no man could ignore. Every able-bodied man grabbed his weapons and his armor and struggled into them. Every injured man tried to rise from his bed. All of them were filled with a nameless dread and a desperate, unstoppable compunction to be at the Temple Mount in time for the sunrise.
The women and children of Jerusalem, abused, beaten, and hopeless, felt new strength arise in their hearts at the sound of Arcana’s shofar, and a new hope imbue their souls.
The trumpet became a sword again and Arcana sheathed it. She smiled to herself. Not bad for an amateur.
She let her body change, matching the color and shades of the dome behind her so exactly that only one standing beside her would see her. Then she waited.
The sun rose and the men came to the west side of the Temple Mount in the thousands. They came with weapons in hand and hastily donned armor on their backs. They came in their bloody, dirty tabards, some with blood still on their weapons, others with flesh still wet from their assaults on the helpless of Jerusalem. Others came clutching bags of gold or jewels that they had looted, so that it would not be stolen from them as they had stolen it from its murdered owners. Knights rode up on horseback, and men-at-arms marched in groups to stand at the base of the Temple Mount and stare. All knew, beyond any uncertainty or doubt, that they needed to be there, that they were waiting for something.
They stayed there as the sun rose higher. They talked uncertainly to one another, none understanding what had happened. Some whispered that it was Nyx who called them all again. Others declared it was a call to battle, that Egypt must be coming, and they must prepare. The Knight Commanders kept their mouths shut and waited, knowing it was not they who had called the entirety of the army—even those on duty—to come to the mountain.
The sun rose above the Dome on the Rock, and Arcana rose with it, letting her camouflage fade and her wings spread wide. The sun hit her wings from behind, splitting into a thousand rainbows that blinded the men below in a dazzling wash of color. Her armor absorbed the light of the sun behind her, and channeled it out her front, so that she gleamed with a pure, white, blinding light. She had considered letting her hair loose as well but decided instead to wear it back in its ponytail, making her look as severe as she was feeling. Her magnificence was such that no man could look directly at her, yet none could look fully away.
“Men!” Her voice echoed over the entire army, and the contempt and anger in it made every man’s heart quail. “You have disgraced yourselves before GOD!”
The word she used was not “God” or “Yahweh” or “Allah” or “Jehovah” as mortals would call him, but God’s true name, in the tongue of the Angels, and the power of it swept through the men of the armies, sending many to their knees.
“You were sent to take GOD’S city! To hold it as a place of holiness for all who worship him. And instead, when victory was in your grasp, when you stood before the Gates, YOU GAVE UP!” Arcana drew her sword and light streamed from the blade. She pointed it down and let it sweep over the army as she spoke, making every man feel as if she was pointing it at him. “You gave up on your church! You gave up on GOD! You tasted defeat, and instead of gaining humility and rising up stronger, you turned away from all that was holy and gave your strength and your service to the Queen of Hell!”
The words rang true and the men below began quaking. Some voided themselves in the realization of what they had done. It had not been a goddess of battle that had led them to victory. It had not been a miracle.
It had been the Queen of Hell. And they had given themselves to her, body and soul.
“You have damned yourselves to Hell for all eternity!” shouted Arcana. “You have condemned yourselves to suffering without respite! To anguish far beyond that which mere mortal flesh can withstand! You have doomed yourself to eternal, unending pain and misery!”
Most of the men collapsed; many began weeping. Some stood where they had been, anchored to the spot in horror. Arcana waited. She read the expression on every man’s face, and knew each was convinced beyond a doubt. She waited a bit longer, until it happened.
“Please!” begged one of the soldiers. “Please, we did not know! Please, redeem us!”
Arcana smiled—though it wasn’t seen as a smile—and shouted, “REDEEM YOU?”
The man bowed his head, and thirty thousand others did as well.
“I cannot redeem you!” Arcana said, and the force of the words brought shame to them all. She waited to make sure they sunk in and then said, “You must redeem yourselves!”
Hope dawned in thirty thousand faces. She let them wait, let them pray that she would give them an answer.
I probably shouldn’t be enjoying this so much, Arcana thought. “You will cleanse this city! You will clean every drop of filth and blood from its streets! You will cleanse every drop of filth and sin from your bodies and your clothes, and you will burn the emblems of the Queen of Hell! You will repair the damage you have done
to all the holy places. And you will do this with your own hands!” She saw and enjoyed the horror in their faces as they realized the enormity of their task. “And when that is done, each of you will follow the path that Jesus walked, from the palace where he was condemned to the hill upon which he died!” She pointed the sword to the place where the Sanhedrin had once had their court and a blaze of bright flame shot from it, arching over the buildings and scorching the route into the ground. “You will follow that path upon your knees! You will pray to God to have mercy on your souls and forgive you your weakness, your sinfulness, and the vileness of your actions! KNEEL!”
Every man who was not already on his knees fell to them. Knights dismounted and knelt beside their horses.
“You have disgraced yourselves in the eyes of the LORD who is your GOD! You have brought shame upon yourselves, your families, and your nations, and you will not redeem it until you have done all as I have said!
“NOW GO, AND SIN NO MORE!”
And with those words, Arcana flew straight up into the clouds, disappearing from the men’s sight, even as her last words burned into their brains. As one, the crusader army rose to their feet and began dispersing through the city to carry out her instructions.
That will show Nyx, thought Arcana as she rose high above the city. She closed her eyes, trying to sense if there were any other Angels on the planet. There were none.
Heaven is blocked to me, Arcana thought. Earth is empty of Angels save for me. I alone must carry out the will of God until I can speak to him again.
She turned a wide circle and began winging her way forward until she was moving at nearly the speed of sound. I will find a way back to Heaven, and then I will ask God what is to be done to Nyx. And then, if it is his will, I will put an end to her once and for all.
Chapter 2
Sanity came to Nyx in flashes, like glimpses of treasure on the edge of the sea, one moment there, the next buried under waves of pain and horrific memory.
The Hellfire had long since stripped Nyx’s bones of flesh. It had burned away nearly everything of her mind. But her Angelic body, meant to heal no matter what, and trapped in Hell, where nothing could die, kept trying to rally, kept pulling her out of the madness and into sanity.