Judgment game of lords b.., p.15
Judgment (Game of Lords Book 3), page 15
“We need more females, do we not? We must attack the Heavens. We must take one of the Realms.”
~ ~ ~ ~
It was a moonless night as Legion sat at the entrance to his cave, meditating in the darkness. Darkness had become his trusted friend. Ever since Calla had thrust him into the Dark Cage, he had discovered a source of power he needed. He laughed, imagining himself thanking Calla for introducing him to such a dear and trustworthy friend as the darkness.
He looked down into the barely visible shadows of the distant valley, forests, and plains of Luminare below him, and his mind pictured all of the Angels in all of the Realms. In his mind, he could now see the small, dotted landscape of distant campfires. He pictured all of Luminé’s Angels sitting around fires, complaining about their wretched lives. Most of them wanted to return and were anxiously waiting for their Archangels and Commanders to remove the roadblocks.
Legion closed his eyes tightly, dwelling on their thoughts, their minds, feeling myriads upon myriads of discontented feelings. He concentrated in the darkness, spreading his dark seed further upon them. It was subtle, and yet Legion could feel it was real. The dark seeds he had sewn on them on the long-ago Day of Creation while being led to the Dark Mountain were slowly coming alive. He could feel the Angels’ dumbed-down thoughts, incoherent, disturbed, confused, becoming increasingly irrational. None of them were Heaven’s Angels anymore. They were fallen beings, sinking into lewdness and debauchery. None of them knew it yet, but they were becoming his Angels.
~ ~ ~ ~
Luminé stood next to Oxana on the porch of their headquarters, both of them dressed in their full uniforms. He raised his hands high, silencing the enormous crowd in front of him. He paused for effect, relishing the moment of quiet, then shouted, “As all of you know, we do not have enough land in the Southern Realm. The Angels and Archangels in Heaven openly boast about how we are crowded like animals into a tiny piece of land, while they have enormous tracts of land in the Seven Heavenly Realms. In addition, an imbalance to the natural order exists as you all know; there are not enough female Angels here.”
Luminé quieted down and watched the rumblings sweep through the hundreds of thousands of Angels gathered all around the grounds and the skies above his headquarters.
“I have heard that many of you wish to return, but I must tell you now, The Lords have betrayed us! No one can return. Ever.”
Shouts, only a few at first, then more, began to spring up. They were murmuring and talking, anger on hundreds of thousands of faces.
Luminé paused, letting their response linger, then shouted, “And one of our own has betrayed us!” He turned to Vamorda. “Bring out the traitor!”
Again, he paused, watching the growing anger on many of the faces. He continued, “On the day we left, The Angel Lito was supposed to deliver a message to me. It was from the Lord Yeshua who secretly placed a last-minute condition, stating that we could never return to Heaven. Yeshua and Lito crafted this plot. Lito purposefully failed to deliver it. Many of you remember, he was late in joining us. His reward was that he was to be made into an Archangel in the Heavens, taking my place as head of the 2nd Realm. For other reasons, I had him arrested and put into a Dark Cage, preventing him from escaping to receive his reward. But now, he will pay the price.”
Luminé nodded, and Vamorda and her guards pulled Lito out. He fell flat on the compound ground, curled up in a ball, his eyes closed and his whole body shivering and shaking. The entire crowd grew silent. No one had ever seen an Angel come out of a Dark Cage. Luminé could see the eyes of all wavering between anger and fear.
Lito was picked up and dragged to two tall wooden stakes that had been placed in the ground for this day. His arms were tied to stakes on either side of him, stretching him out, forcing him onto his knees. He was exhausted and barely conscious, as Luminé knew he would be having just emerged from almost a year inside the Dark Cage.
Luminé walked up to him, leaned forward, and whispered, “Confess to your crime, Lito, and I will let you go free. Do you understand? Just confess, and you will be free.”
Lito tried to open his eyes, but they closed just as fast.
“Do you understand?” Luminé whispered.
Lito nodded, keeping his eyes closed.
Luminé stepped back. He looked across the breadth of the crowd. All were silent, and it made Luminé nervous. He shouted, “Lito, do you confess to your crime? Tell us all by nodding. Do you confess to this crime of being a traitor?”
Lito swallowed, and lifted his head, then nodded several times, and collapsed in exhaustion.
Luminé drew the Golden Sword from his sword sheath. He held the sword high, pointing it to the sky, shouting to the silent, nervous mass of Angels, “I have been growing more and more powerful. As the Lord of Luminare, I now have the power over life and death. We will be taking back what is ours, but first, the traitor must die.”
Lito, who had been friends with Luminé prior to their disagreement a year earlier, swallowed hard, trying to shake off the utter disorientation he felt, trying to understand what Luminé was talking about.
Luminé turned the sword handle in his hands, so it faced downward like a giant dagger. He glanced at the stunned crowd, then shouted, “Lito, because you betrayed us, you are sentenced to death.”
Lito looked up. “But, but I didn’t… ”
Luminé’ violently thrust the Golden Sword downward, driving the razor-sharp blade between the back of Lito’s shoulders.
Lito screamed, and his face froze. Blackness descended onto his mind. His knees shook, trying to get away, but the impaled blade held him down.
Luminé drew out the blade. Lito’s right arm broke in half, and he swung limply to the left. His left arm, too, fell apart, and he collapsed with a loud thud face down into the dust. Slowly, his face and torso began to dissolve. Screams were heard from those closest who could see the details. Blood poured into the dirt as his body fell apart. Then the pooled blood seemed to sweep itself back together, rolling back toward the shrinking mass of tissue and bone, all dissolving. Finally, the remains of his legs, arms, and skull shriveled further. All that was left was a tunic and a pile of dust.
Oxana covered her mouth in horror, and a shocked cry went up from the entire crowd, followed by silence and murmuring.
~ ~ ~ ~
Legion stood concealed under a hooded tunic inside the compound near the back of the crowd, worried at the reaction. Luminé had not won them over. He had not convinced them, not yet. Fool! He thought. You had them, now killing Lito has lost them. This was the critical moment, the moment when Luminé would be turned on, and it was coming too soon. He could not lose Luminé now! Too much had to happen still. He pulled the hood forward, partially covering his forehead and eyes, and covered his hand over his eyes, closing them tightly, entering into the darkness.
He heard Luminé begin to speak, but he needed to push it aside. He needed to sway the Angels. He pictured their faces and felt the anger in their minds. He felt their shock at being told they could not go back.
~ ~ ~ ~
Luminé stood before the two wooden stakes with the rope dangling in the wind. He stepped over Lito’s dust pile, stepping through the stakes, and held the Golden Sword high, letting it shine for all to see. “This is the Golden Sword of the Prophecy. The Lords have made us their prisoners here! The Angels of Heaven think they are better than us. They think we are second-class Angels. We are not their prisoners! We are free-born Angels, who have every right they have. We will not let this stand. We need more land for our kingdom, and we will take what rightfully belongs to us!”
~ ~ ~ ~
Legion felt the swell of indignation from the crowd. They were moving but not fast enough. He began to chant, using his dark powers, sweeping now not through one mind at a time but through whole sections of the crowd. How? he thought, and it instantly came to him. The Golden Sword is empowering me. He smiled, eyes shut tight, and began to chant.
As he did, he heard Luminé shout, “We will attack the Heavens, and take the land we need. We will take the 6th and 7th Heavenly Realms for our own!”
“Yes,” Legion responded. He had not expected this to happen so soon. It was brilliant, and he reminded himself he had chosen wisely so long ago when he chose Luminé. He tried to stay calm, entering deeper into the darkness, feeling the mood of the Angels turning. He began chanting in the darkness of his mind, as if broadcasting to all, “Go to war. Yes, Go to war. Yes. Go to war.”
Shouts of approval came from various pockets, only a few at first, then more. Then rumblings and drawing of swords. Legion opened his eyes, basking in the deed he was doing. In every corner of the compound Angels were jabbing swords and spears into the air, voices sporadically calling out. One yelled, “Yes, take what is ours!” Another shouted, “We are free!”
Antonio was the first of the Archangels to step forward. He walked out into the clearing where Luminé and Oxana stood and raised his sword high, shouting, “War! War! War!” Soon more joined in, then more, until the thunder of hundreds of thousands of Angels shook the skies with their shouts of “War!”
Luminé raised the Golden Sword high and answered them, “Yes! We will go to war!”
The chant shifted, slowly at first but it quickly gained momentum, and soon it thundered through the entire compound and surrounding skies, ‘Luminé. Luminé. Luminé. Luminé.”
Luminé turned to Oxana, smiling. He took her hand and raised it into the air, taking in the exhilaration he had not felt since the day he had decided to leave Heaven.
~ ~ ~ ~
Legion watched the scene unfold and smiled. Yes, go to war, for you will not be victorious, and you will all become mine.
Preparations
Oxana felt the warming of her lower abdomen strongly as she turned over in her sleep. Darkness flooded her mind, but she wanted to ignore it. She was too tired, too stressed to get out of bed, but she knew she had to. As confused as she felt, she needed more information to make her decision. Earlier, in the compound, she had found herself caught up in the euphoria of the chants of war and the cries for Luminé to lead them. It reminded her of the very beginning when Luminé had bravely led them. Luminé was right, and he had done it. He had found a way for them to get out of not telling the Angels the truth. Now, he was right too, in that a show of strength was exactly what they needed. It would distract the masses.
She threw off her blanket, dressed quietly, and crept down the hall and out the back door of the living quarters, flying into the night sky to the Mountain cave where Legion was waiting. She needed to read Legion’s mind somehow. Luminé was playing a high stakes game, and he very well may fail. What then? Legion would save her, she hoped.
She spotted the mountain and swooped down to the plateau outside the cave entrance. The cave was lit, a small fire burning, but Legion was waiting for her this time. He was standing behind the fire, facing her, his broad, muscular chest bare, wearing only a cloth around his waist. His hands were on his hips, and his blond hair hung down his strong back.
She bowed slightly and said, “Greetings, Lord Legion.”
She waited as he did not reply but only tilted his head. His eyes glanced momentarily at the bed at the side of the cave wall, then back to her.
Legion smiled, walking around the fire towards her, and said, “It is good Luminé goes to war. He needs to show the Lords who he and his followers truly are and what they are capable of.”
Oxana nodded slowly, though she had real fears about what they were about to do.
“Will we succeed?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, I believe you will. This land is not enough to hold Luminé’s kingdom.”
These were words she needed to hear, but was he telling the truth? She couldn’t tell. He interrupted her thoughts.
“Oxana, you have done well, but there is something you must do.”
“What is it that I must do?”
“Luminé cannot bring the Golden Sword with him. You must make sure he does not. And you must find out where he has it hidden.”
“But why not? Won’t it help us to win?”
“No, it is not for now. The Golden Sword is the sword of the Prophecy. Yes, it has the power to take eternal life, but it is not for now. It is for me to use when the proper time comes.”
Oxana listened, but she was not sure she believed him.
“Come here, Oxana.”
She moved forward further into the cave toward him. Legion reached out his hand, running it through her long brown hair. “You are afraid, Oxana. I can see in your mind. You fear being left aside, being abandoned by Luminé.”
She pulled back, and yet part of her needed to hear more. He was right. These were exactly her fears. She leaned in again, letting his hands fondle her long hair.
Legion said, “I am a Lord, Oxana. Only I can assure you of never having to fear such things.” He paused, carefully watching her reaction, then said sternly, “Go and convince him not to take the sword. Tell him if it falls into the wrong hands, he will lose the only bargaining chip he has. He cannot risk losing it, and it will not help him win the war.”
Oxana nodded. “I will convince him, my Lord.”
Legion placed his hand gently on the back of her neck, pulling her closer, but Oxana pulled away.
“What is wrong, Oxana?”
“Nothing is wrong. I have to get back.”
Legion watched her turn and fly off into the sky above the mountains. He was not used to being rebuffed, and Oxana seemed to be making a habit of it. He would let it be for now.
~ ~ ~ ~
Adon walked out across the dew-laden field to his stable and untied his black horse, Hunter. He led him out into the morning sun and gave him one last drink of water from a bucket, then mounted him and took off across the plains toward the north. He could have flown, but he felt like riding this morning and Hunter needed exercise. When he reached the sea he pulled them both into the air and flew across it to the 1st Heavenly Realm. He landed himself and Hunter on the beach, then continued at a slow trot along the smooth sand toward Splendora’s seaside home.
He had sent her a message the night before, and as he approached he could see she was sitting on the porch waiting for him. Adon smiled and waved as he rode up and dismounted. Splendora was one of his favorites, not because she was perfect, but because she had a good heart, one that believed in the power of good to overcome evil. How else could she be so in love with Luminé? Her ability to see the good in him, while few others did, revealed the pureness of her heart, and in Adon’s books that counted for everything. She was the embodiment of all they held dear, of the goodness and love they wanted to spread throughout all the Heavens and Earth.
Splendora stood up, happy to see him, and said, “Good morning, Lord Adon.”
“Good morning to you, Splendora. Have you made coffee yet?”
“I have. Come and sit down, and I will pour you a cup.”
Splendora went inside, then returned with the coffee. They sat on her porch, sipping their drinks, looking out at the morning sun peeking over the gently rolling waves, not saying anything. After a while, Splendora asked, “Why did you wish to see me?”
Adon smiled, “I want to understand what is going on with Luminé.”
Splendora nodded, staring into her coffee, trying not to show the sudden resurgence of the heartbreak she had been privately enduring.
Adon watched her and said, “You have always loved him.”
She looked into her coffee, nodding.
Adon said nothing. Nothing needed to be said.
She turned, “Lord Adon, no one understands. Yes, I have loved him since the beginning. I wanted him to come back! He wanted to fix all this!” She shook her head. “Why didn’t they let him?” She tried to sip her coffee, but she could not hold back the tears of sorrow that would not be denied.
Adon took the coffee from her hand and set it down. He stood and lifted her hand, motioning for her to stand, then hugged her tightly. “I’m sorry, Splendora.”
She held him, resting her head on his shoulder, trying not to cry. “They don’t understand, my Lord. He is in trouble.”
Adon’s eyes narrowed. “What trouble?”
“He never told them they could not come back.”
Adon pulled away some. “He never told them?”
“No, he said that he didn’t know how.”
“But… but what does that mean?”
“It means he is afraid when they find out that they are going to put him into a Dark Cage.”
Suddenly, Luminé’s desperate attempt to meet with them made sense. Adon hugged her tighter. “Splendora, I know this may be hard to believe, but someday, and I don’t know when, we are going to fix this mess.”
He felt her long shuddering sigh, a release she needed, and he was glad he was there to help her. He let her go and in a concerned voice, asked, “Do you have any eggs here?”
“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes as a small smile snuck its way onto her face. “Why do you need eggs?”
“Because I am going to make us some breakfast. You sit down. I’ll take care of everything.” Adon went into the kitchen, trying not to show the worried thoughts racing through his mind. He needed to get down to Luminare and find out what was going on for himself.
~ ~ ~ ~
The Angel Gabriel knocked at the door of his favorite commander.
“Who is it?” came the reply from Sadie.
“It’s your boss!”
Inside he heard lots of shuffling around, then Sadie’s voice, “Just a minute!”
Gabriel chuckled to himself. There was something about Sadie that always made him smile. Finally, the door opened, and Sadie stood before him in her bare feet, with a hastily thrown on, disheveled tunic, and her hair going in multiple directions.
