Chapter 12: The Refining Fire

Chapter 12:  The Refining Fire

Once again Cami laughs back at me, making me think of wind chimes.  "I guess I can understand that."  A sudden look of surprise comes over her, "Wait!  Is this the first time we're meeting?"
My mouth opens and closes for a second, trying to find words.  "No.  No, we met at the church, remember?"
"Ah, sorry!  Sometimes it's hard to keep track of which way is forward and back when you're here, you know?"
I shake my head.  "Not really, no."
She pauses, and then laughs again, "Oh, right, humans.  You're kind of weird, you know?"  She steps away, fading into the darkness and leaving me more confused than I was before.

I look around, but find nothing but pitch black in every direction.  Even the light from my flame is barely illuminating anything.  I look at it for a second before cursing my own stupidity and taking my pajama top off of it, before marveling at how even now the darkness seems to only absorb the light.  It feel colder than it did before, too.  I turn back to where Cami was, "Wait, I forgot Safiya, she's-
"Fine," I hear Cami say.  "She'll be fine.  I know someone who sees these things."
"But what happened?"
"We left," she shouts happily.
I nod slowly.  "Cami?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think you could try actually explaining something, just this once?"

She laughs again, this time sounding somewhat embarrassed.  "Ah, right, sorry.  I forget sometimes that humans don't understand things so easily."  She hums in thought for a moment.  "Well, you see," she starts.

(WHY IS [HE:Val] [HERE:The Plains of the Idyllic])?

I'm once again floored by violent, wracking pain as not-words detonate in my head.  I open my eyes to find that I'm flat on the ground.  My vision's filled with tiny purple spots that slowly begin to fade.  The pain is slow to recede, but in its wake is comprehension.  The first thing I realize is that I'm in the heavens, somehow.  The second is that whoever said that, it wasn't Cami this time.  I can hear her shouting, though it's hard to make out through the blistering discomfort in my head.

([I:Ureliah] SEE NO REASON/PURPOSE TO SPEAK/COMMUNICATE IN LANGUAGES BENEATH/INFERIOR TO [THE FIRST TONGUE:Enochian])

There's a feeling of something breaking, of excruciating pain, and then silence.

---

I wake up, for the second time this night, feeling like every muscle in my body is seriously considering mutiny.  A deep yet feminine voice calls out, "Good morning, Val."
I pull my sore arm up to plant it firmly on my pounding head.  I groan out "What just happened?"
A motherly figure moves into view, with the same golden hair and pure, white wings as Cami, but her hair is waist-length and curled.  Her eyes are hidden and her body is covered by dozens of wrappings, each marked with stylized eyes.  The rest of her face is, for lack of other descriptions, perfect.  There's almost an elven quality to it, were it not for the rounded, human features enhanced by a warm, kind smile.  "I'm sorry," she says, reaching down to place her hand on my forehead.  "Ureliah avoids us, and so we couldn't tell her of what I had seen.  She spoke in the tongue that precedes creation, and humans were not meant to hear it."

A sharp, higher pitched voice calls out, "It's his own fault.  If he's too weak to hear me speak then he deserves what happens."
And then I hear Cami again, "It's not his fault!  Human brains just can't process information like that.  They have to get it slowly, bit by bit, or else you'll hurt them."
The sharp voice, which I'm guessing is Ureliah, angrily answers "And that's weakness.  If they hadn't been so weak, maybe we wouldn't be here."
"Enough."  The angel above me speaks the one word, and though it's in her same soft tone, I can't help but feel a momentary pang of dread.  "We have a guest again, and we are not presenting ourselves well.  Let us not bicker."

Silence fills the darkness before the angel turns back down to me.  "You have questions, I know.  I will answer a few of them.  Others you will answer for yourself.  I am Zephariel, Eighth of the Thrones among the Five-and-Three, Keeper of Wisdom taken from Near Tomorrows, Mourner in Song of the beauty lost in war, and Speaker of Those Letters which have been written in uncertainty."
She pauses, looking down at me.  Or, at least, I think she is.  It takes me a moment to realize that she's waiting for a response.
"Nice to meet you."

She nods to me and finally removes her hand.  "Now then, there is something that we would like you to do for us.  It is but a simple thing."  She places a hand on the manacle around my wrist as she tilts her head and asks "Would you walk with us?"
I nod.  Whatever it is I've been dragged into, I guess it's fine.  At least, I can't seem to bring myself to distrust her - Zephariel - anymore than I could distrust Cami.  It's like it's impossible to stay nervous or uncomfortable while she's smiling at me.  That theory is disproven when the thought that I might be having my mind altered by them causes my gut to clench uncomfortably.

She lifts herself up almost as though she simply willed it to happen, before extending an arm to me.  I haul myself up with a short, "Don't worry, I got it."  Before I even have the words out, though, she's already turned and started walking into the shadows.
"Come quickly; we are to witness something that has not happened in many years."
I do as I'm told.  For a moment the weird sense of being dragged along by some inexorable tide is just part of being around angels.

I jump as Cami pops her head around my arm to look at me.  "She's great, isn't she?  Zephariel's the last Ophde, so she sees all kinds of things."
I hum in feigned understanding.  "So you two are different kinds of angels?"
She turns forward to look into the darkness that we're walking toward.  "Us three, yeah.  Ureliah's the last Seraph - or Valkyrie, in the Nomad Lands - and I'm the last Cherub."
The grass we're walking on gives way to some sort of glass with thousands of facets barely visible beneath the surface.  It seems like they should all be shining back the light toward me, but instead they're just vague, squarish shapes beneath the surface.  After a minute more of walking Cami comes to a stop and presses a hand on my arm to get me to do the same.

Then we wait.  When you dream, there are times when you cross continents - going from one place in your memory to another one that you know to be a thousand miles away in minutes.  Time becomes entirely mutable.
This isn't like that at all.  Instead there's an unnerving sense that I don't really have any grasp on what time it is or how long I've been here.  I whisper to Cami, "What are we waiting for?"
"The light to come back."
"Ah.  Where'd it go?"
"He took it with Him when He left.  He didn't want to have any part of Himself missing for the last fight."
"So why's it coming back?"
She turns to me and flashes one of her toothy smiles.  "Because you're here!"

She turns away before I can form a response, and I immediately see why.  The crystal beneath us is starting to reflect the slightest glow.  Shafts of blue light form around our feet before plunging deep beneath the surface, refracting off of each of the thousand facets to form intricate fractal patterns.  These grow and strengthen, building until what appears to be the giant crystal that we're standing on itself begins to glow.  As it seems to become saturated with brilliant aquamarine the light seems to pull itself back inward, before shooting upward in a thousand pillars into the sky.  Once again I'm struck by how intense it is; I should be blinded, and yet everything is still so clear.

I let out a slow breath as I see the system unfold and recognize its purpose.  The pillars of light all strike a bronze disc in the center of the sky, and then the heavens are revealed to me.  Daylight returns in the blink of an eye, casting light on endless aeries of wind given form and solidity, hanging low in the skies.  Pillars of multicolored flame decorate plateaus of verdant grass.  Jungles of emerald crystal stretch for miles, beyond which lay oceans whose waters spiral upward in spheres and loops.  Rainbow-hued birds and fish wink in and out of sight as they dance in the brilliant light.  All of it stretches out from atop the raised lake of crystal that the four of us are standing on, overhanging the rest of the plane by a quarter mile.  The cold in the air is blown away by a warm gust that soothes the aches in my back.

"One last thing, if you would," I hear Zephariel say.  I turn to see her standing next to a simple iron brazier near the center.  "I understand it is quite the sacrifice to ask of you, but would you part with a fraction of your flame?"
My brain's still overloaded from the color-saturated view that I've just seen, but part of it recalls what Cami said, and between that and this I'm only more confused.  "Sacrifice?  What- I mean why would," I stop while trying to figure out which question to get out first.
"Please?"  I look down and to my side to see Cami giving me the most wounded puppy dog look I've ever seen in my life.

I let out an amused sigh.  Whatever's happening, I just can't feel worried about it.  It's not mind control, but more like reflex.  Yeah, it's instinct.  Whatever they're doing I just know that it's fine.  I walk around shafts of piercing light up to the brazier, noting that it's built so that the flame doesn't shine up or out, but downward into the crystal.  "The crystal enhances the firelight, and the bronze disc reflects it back down."
Zephariel nods once.
I grab the light by the handle and stare at the brazier.  "It doesn't have anything to light."
She smiles as though I just said something terribly amusing.  "And you do?"
Touché, future-seeing angel.  I lower the lantern into the brazier, and the flame splits in two.  One spark hangs in the center, shining downward.  The other stays with me.

With it comes the realization.  "It wasn't that a mage cursed my mother," I start as I turn to Zephariel, "was it?  That's not where this came from at all."
"You were blessed."  Ureliah's sharp, high pitched voice cuts through the area as though it were just a few decibels too loud to be projected by a human.  "More so than any hero to come before you, you were blessed.  To call this gift a curse is sacrilege against-"
"Against no one," Zephariel interjects.  "There is no one to sacrilege against, save the fallen and those pagan gods which men now return to worship.  Let us speak our minds now."

For the first time in a long, long time I look down on the weight hanging from my arm with a sense of hatred.  I turn to Ureliah, who is adorned with golden filigree platemail that looks like it hangs a few inches off of her, as though hesitant to touch the radiant beauty.  Her golden hair almost reaches the ground and her features and expression are as sharp and hardened as her voice.  She stares back at me as though daring me to ask my questions.
"What is this thing?  Why is my mother dead?"

She raises herself to her full height - which is still at least six inches below me - and half-bellows "That 'thing' is a shield, wrought by His hand to protect your very soul from their unclean hands.  It is the only armor that He knew could carry you to the very heart of their armies to slay their vile and accursed queen, as was your purpose."
A hand rests on my shoulder and I turn to see Zephariel looking sadly at my face.  "And the reason your mother is dead is because, in those final years, He did not care how many had to be sacrificed.  Humanity was losing, and He feared the demon lord's victory moreso than anything else.  It is why all of His commandments, save the first, were cast aside.  And it is why His last hero was gifted the smallest portion of His strength."

"It was not given to you the power to smite foes, shrug off blades, or to be faster or stronger than all others.  You were given but two gifts: the destruction of all lust within you, and His voice to guide you."
I nod once, momentarily confused before understanding sets in again.  "And I never heard His voice because He died before I could remember anything."
Now it's their turn to stare in confusion at me.  Zephariel's the one to speak up, "That can't be true.  You are supposed to still receive His visions.  That was why it was so confusing when Camisahasriel came to me some time ago and told me of your situation.  Are you saying you truly have never seen the dreams that He gave to you?"

I shake my head, "I've never seen one.  It's been years since I actually remember dreaming anything.  Maybe I just don't remember," I offer.
The Valkyrie to my right looks, if anything, even angrier at the idea.  Her voice turns cold and quiet as she muses "You were gifted the sacred connection with the divine that is now forever denied to me, and you forget it every morning."
The - Cami called her an Ophde - angel to my left places an arm on her shoulder, "Be calm, Ureliah.  We do not know what is taking place here."  Her expression slowly shifts to one of pain as she turns to face me again.  "Val, you have been through much tonight, and aided us greatly, but I'm afraid that we must know what has happened to the last gift our Father bequeathed.  It may help us to understand what our new place is in the heavens, and in the material."
She takes a deep breath, "I'm sorry, but please bear with it."  And then her mouth completely fails to move as she speaks.

(REMEMBER)

---

The bonfire is raging in a moonless night.  The flames aren't what I'm afraid of.
A thousand weapons gleam, reflecting the light in a dozen directions.  Only one of them is scares me.
The ground is dry beneath my feet.  It is wet beneath my eyes.
There are dozens of men, each wearing the polished, gleaming armor of the war-paladins of old.  I don't know why I hate them.

I try to move from where I stand, outside of some sort of fire circle in the middle of the woods.  Each step I take only leads me back to where I was, leaving me effectively paralyzed in spite of my seeming freedom.  I don't know why, but I am panicking like I've never panicked before.  The sense of dread is so complete that I can barely stand it.  Something is horribly wrong and I don't know what it is.

The largest of the men is speaking a prayer in a language that I vaguely recognize.  It's some sort of dead language that the Order used in its rituals.  Even though I can't make sense of the words, somehow I understand perfectly what he's saying.
"I thank you, oh correct master of all things, that I am so blessed that I am able to spill thine enemies' blood on this day."
Is he talking about me?  No, I know that he isn't, but I don't know how or why I know that.
With a gesture he calls out to the others, "Bring the beast forth!"

The scream exits my throat before my mind realizes why.  Two of the men step forward, holding Vee between them.  They're dragging her to a large stone between me and the flame.  It's surface is stained brown.  I scream for them to stop, but my voice and the image both come to an abrupt stop.  Hands wrap around my head, but only to press me more firmly into the softness on my face.
A whispering voice hushes me, and the hands start to slowly stroke my head as I hear Lythalia's voice.  "It's all right, Val.  It's all right.  None of this is happening; it's all just a dream."

"Don't touch me!"
"Headsman, step forward!"
I try to cry out, but my voice is still muffled.  Lythalia just holds me tighter in response.  "Don't listen to it, all right?  Only listen to my voice.  We're the only people here."
Vinata screams again, but it's cut short by a single, resounding strike of metal on stone.  I try to move, to scream or to look or to do anything at all, but I'm just as stuck as I was before.  All I can do is cry.

The hands go back to stroking my head as I feel my sister lean forward and begin talking into my ear.  "Val, I want you to let me in someday, all right?  It won't be to hurt you, or to do anything else.  Just let me in someday.  I can make the nightmares stop, but you have to let me in."
"Bring forth the next!"
I can hear Cara scream.
I go limp, unable to do anything else.  I can't stop it.  I can't do anything.  I hang in her arms, and I cry, and I listen to my sisters die one by one, begging me to save them.

---

I collapse into the overly green grass.  I'm not experiencing two separate events at the same time anymore.  I'm just here.  The relief spreads like a wave through my soul.
The first voice I hear is Cami's.  She slowly, hesitantly offers, "They were supposed to be visions of victory."
Then Zephariel.  "They are.  He was to see the victory of humanity, but in his heart theirs is a cruel and terrible victory."

Ureliah sounds even angrier than she was before.  "That heretic succubus has tainted the visions-"
"She has protected an innocent, as we were called to do millenia ago."
"How," Cami asks.
"Succubi existed in the Dreamlands before they ever touched the material.  They enter dreams as easily as we enter the heavens."

The world goes silent, save for the pleasant wind on my cheek and the sound of songbirds in the distance.  I'm the one to break the silence this time.  "I think I'd like to go home now."
"Yes, that would be for the best.  Camisahasriel and I have much work that we must do, for we are soon to have souls in this place again.  Ureliah, if you would take him to the border."

The walk back is slow, but beautiful.  The gentle breeze and sweet, floral scent on the air feel like they're actively trying to comfort me after what I saw.  Or, at least, they're trying to make up for my companion.  Every minute or so she turns and stares at me as though I'm doing something horribly wrong.  When it feels like we've passed the halfway mark back, across the field to where we started walking she finally states "You're strong."  It almost feels like it was meant as a question.

We continue walking until the colors seem to bleed out of the world.  The sky is still blue and the grass is still green, but in comparison to the hypersaturated shades everything had a minute ago it feels like I stepped into a black and white movie.  The angel stops, turns, and gives me the slightest flicker of a smile.  "I'm glad that you're strong.  Had the war continued, I would have been the one to train you, that you might slay the demon lord and bring salvation to your kind."
I nod weakly, still emotionally drained from the vision I was struck with.  "Yeah.  Instead my mother died for nothing."

Her face turns sour, before collapsing into a simple frown.  She takes a breath and hesitates before quietly stating, "I don't claim to understand it, but Zephariel talks sometimes about how she sees patterns.  She thinks that there's still a purpose, a destiny that we're following.  She says that everything happens for a reason, and that we're being guided by something into a better world."  She looks away and to the ground, "I no longer hear His voice commanding me, but when she speaks of these things, it feels right.  Like when He spoke."

A brilliant, golden glow begins to fill my vision as she finishes, "I cannot say for certain that she is correct, or even that it is correct for you, but I feel that things will become better than they are now."

The light disappears in an instant, leaving me in the park next to the bleachers.  The sun is shining over the horizon.  It reminds me that I still haven't gotten any sleep.

I begin the cold, barefoot walk back home.