God's Decree?

Loriel knew what it was like to live outside of God's grace. She was hollow inside a nothing shell of a being. She was beautiful as were all of god's creatures, but the grand cosmic joke was that all beauty wasn’t created equal. She was ebony as a pool of liquid chocolate and as exotic as the most rare and delicate bird of paradise. She was the form that all women aspired to be.

She started her fall from up high and planned to breach the first layer of hell if she had the conviction to do so. Her wings would more than likely burn in the fire, but it was the price you paid when you went where her kind feared to tread.

The air rippled and her billowing white wings were consumed in the heat of unholy fire. She no longer flew, but fell.

The impact on the burning volcanic rock was seismic. The shock wave sent sound all throughout the land, all but announcing the presence of that which was unwelcomed.

Loriel surveyed her surroundings cautiously, her wings burned black from fire and still smoldered. The place was devoid of sky, and color, and hope. It wafted in brimstone and each step on the blackened rock felt like that of the bones of lost souls. God drew his power from devotion so if she believed, he would be stronger thus making her stronger.

All manor of the damned skittered out of sight frightened by the light of the righteous, but eager and predatory, as if looking for cracks in her shield of faith. Little creatures that had never known a mothers love peeked from behind dead trees and scorched rocks. Loriel was close to 6 feet, so that made these beasts nearer to 2. Their eyes were big and unfocused, their teeth were jagged and many.

Some of their legs were so weak they had to crawl rather than stand, while others had extra limbs that did not follow the blueprints of gods design.

Loriel reached for her sword, not with an expert's precision, but with the desperation of a novice. The beast sensed Loriel’s uncertainty which bolstered their resolve, making her meat all the more tender.

They attacked.

They came slowly at first. They tested their boundaries inching closer then retreating. The beasts in the back surged forward while the ones in front snuck in closer.

With each passing second the numbers of the tiny creatures seemed to multiply. Loriel wasn’t without skill in the blade, but she certainly lacked the confidence of a master. The mob swarmed like piranhas in the midst of a feeding frenzy.

Loriel slew whatever came within the arc of her swing. The beasts nipped at her with their sharp little teeth. She knocked them away when they threatened to pull her down. Her blackened wings fluttered. Her instincts to take to the air were ingrained.

The drab sky opened up. Red rips tore at the face of the sky as a mockery to lightning. Instead of thunder there was only a loud hissing followed by seismic booms. Loriel saw a crater of fire land close to her person. The resulting fireball decimated the mob of beasts that rushed her down.

She felt a sharp sting on her shoulder, then another, then another. Her flesh hissed from droplets of fire. The beast scattered when the roar of erupting flames came down.

Loriel rose her arms, and what was left of her tattered wings. She ran aimlessly away hoping to find shelter from the onslaught of liquid burning. Trees wavered in an orange haze. The unfinished beasts melted, some managed to skitter under rocks, other dug themselves under the loose dirt they could find. Loriel didn’t have that option.

“Father protect me”, she mumbled through the roaring fire. An overhang of a heavy stone lay ahead of her. Had he forgiven her or was this merely the same luck granted to children and fools.

When Loriel approached the overhanging stone she slipped, and instead of falling under the huge rock she tumbled into a cavern whose entrance was so miniscule she couldn’t see it.

When Loriel stopped her descent down the rocky incline, she found herself in darkness, with only the light of the fire through the small hole to guide her. She could sense the presence of the unclean, the unloved, the unwanted. She saw them in flashes skipping from shadow to shadow. She brandished her sword from its sheath and it shone with a dim glimmer of holy light.

Loriel noticed something in silhouette. The shape of a man clung to the darkness. “Who goes there?”, she said to the wretched thing. “Why do you want to know?”, it said in an ominous and even voice. Loriel thought for a moment. She supposed she didn’t want to know, it was merely something to say because she felt she should.

“Don’t get many of you down here”, it said while blocking the dim light of the sword with its hand. Loriel lowered her blade, but did not sheath it. “I wouldn’t assume so”, she said cautiously. “May I ask why you’re here?”, said the shade. “No”, Loriel snapped back, “Why would you want to know?”.

Unlike Loriel, the thing that cleaved to the dark was more in tune with his emotions and answered, “Because I have nothing but time, and you are the first new thing I have seen in I don’t know how many years”. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you”, Loriel said. “Usually they don’t, you’re different though, not as battle hardened, soulless… you’re just a messenger aren’t you?”, inquired the man thing.

Loriel didn’t want to answer because it would make her look more vulnerable than she was and more prone to be attacked. “Maybe I can help you, whatever it is”, said the man. “Why would you want to do that?”. “So that I can redeem myself in the eyes of the lord, I don’t know any other way”.

Loriel thought about that statement and was mildly perplexed. “You’re damned, you cannot be redeemed”. “You and I both know that God works in absolutes the same as the weather changes”. Loriel agreed, but she didn’t tip her hand and show it.

“How can you help me?”, asked Loriel. “I have absolutely no clue until you give me an idea why you’re here”, said the voice. Loriel thought again, this time longer and harder. What did it matter if he knew, what could it change. “I’ve come for a baby”, said Loriel. “A baby, an unbaptized baby I suppose. I thought you said God won’t redeem the damned. Souls like that only go down, not up, but you must know that. What do you know that I don’t know?”. Loriel didn’t answer, and the shade didn’t press the issue.

“Fine, you need a name, and you need to get to the All Mother. Unless it was down here for long, in that case any one of those little critters you tangled with could have been yours. The All Mother baptizes them in hell…”. Loriel put up her hand knowing that part of the story and not needing to be saddened any farther by it.

“I have to believe I’ve gotten here in time…”. “And if you haven’t?”. Loriel didn’t answer. The creature in the darkness pointed to Loriel’s back and saw that her wings were healing slowly, regaining some of its former vigor. “If you get your wings back could you fly us out of here?”. Loriel nodded, but agreed to nothing.

“I’m Leo, by the way, who am I speaking to”. “Loriel”, Loriel said. “Nice name. If I were to help you could you get me out of here?”, asked Leo. Loriel had absolutely no clue, but she smiled, letting him decide what it meant. Leo being so starved for hope let that gesture nourish him.

In ideal circumstances she would not have thrown in with a damned soul, but time was a fleeting commodity. Leo happily stepped out of the shadows and presented himself in the sword's dim light. He was rotted through in parts. Coral grew from holes in his tattered clothes. His face was bloated and waterlogged as if touched by old death. “Come on, I know the way, maybe it’s not too late”.

***

Loriel and Leo walked amongst the desolate landscape. Broken monuments of things built long ago consumed by time lay scattered like corpses in the sun. Leo limped slightly ahead of Loriel, his knees creaked like rotted wood.

“If you approach her straight on, I don’t think you’d have a chance… no offense, you being a messenger, not an angel of death or destruction is all”. Loriel didn’t deny that she was ill suited for the task at hand, but it was none of his concern.

They approached a rising plateau which overlooked a spire of bones draped in webs. “You sure, looks like your wings are nearly back, you don’t have to do this”, said Leo. “I do, but thank you Leo. When I speak to the Lord again I will inform him of your kindness”. “I can go in with you, get you out. I can’t kill the witch, but I might just be able to hurt her”.

Leo produced 2 rusted flintlock pistols that were so waterlogged it didn’t seem likely it could fire. “You’ve done enough, thank you Leo”, Loriel said once again. Leo put his pistols away and sat on the ridge. “If you do manage to snag the child, you can pull me out… right?”, Leo asked with some measure of brightness in his glazed over eyes. Loriel smiled again, not wanting to say, not knowing if she should or could.

The winged messenger approached the spire with caution. Inside of the webs of this ghastly place were little lumps in cocoons. She stayed out of sight as best as she could. Little undefined monstrosities navigated the webs. She did a small precise incision on one of the cocoons just to confirm what she already knew. Inside were human infants in various stages of life, some fully formed while others more potential than child.

Looking at the thousands upon thousands of cocooned lumps, she wondered how she would even find the infant she sought. She didn’t think about the how just yet, because she knew she had to leave with it, nothing else mattered to her. Her course was righteous, regardless of her situation.

If she slew the All Mother perhaps she would find enough time to save the child she sought and several others. She ventured farther into the heart of darkness into the tower itself. When she entered the thing spiraled up with no concern for logic, there were stairs, mostly covered in white web. Tables, chairs, and shelves were enveloped in white. Whatever this place was once, it was no more.

She looked up and had a vertigo effect pull on her senses. A slow and melodic voice sang out on the air, vibrating the white web. Loriel hid behind a broken table and looked up. The shadow of the beast was visible far before it was.

The multiple legs of a fantastically huge spider walked a tightrope of the sticky white strands. Its back hump was engorged with squiggling unholy life. The top half of its body was more a mockery of the female form than anything else. Its breasts were bare, and its stomach was bulbous, obviously pregnant.

“Time to be born my precious creations”, said the All Mother. Her spider back half opened and mockeries of human children skittered out of her like insects. She sang a pleasant melody and loomed over a lump cocooned several feet over Loriel’s head.

The messenger slowly moved position and crept up the stairs to get behind her. If she could rise above her she could drop down and surprise her, that was her thinking, until her foot nudged a single innocuous strand of web.

The All Mother stopped her singing, and placed the cocoon back in the web. “I feel you, best you come out lest I make your stay here even more unpleasant”.

Loriel wasn’t quite set up, but she was at least in an elevated position. She dove. Her wings glid well enough to carry her down, if not up. The All Mother’s elongated neck twisted in anticipation, not fear.

Loriel rose her sword to smite what was wicked. Suddenly the determined messenger was suspended in place, her forward momentum completely arrested. Her foot caught on a strand of webbing. She dangled helplessly. The more she struggled the more webs entangled her.

“Loriel is that you?”, said the All Mother. Loriel looked at the beast in confusion. “It is I, I was once Danielle”, said the ghastly creature. “You may not have recognized me without my wings”, she said with a chuckle. “Why would god send you, why would a messenger come to kill me?”.

Loriel remained quiet, dreading the idea of ending up like her fallen sister. “No, not to kill me, you came to find a soul… didn’t you”. The All Mother scampered up her web to retrieve a cocoon.

Loriel used that time to cut as many strands as she could, though it wasn’t enough. The spider lowered itself to her level from a spinneret and was nearly eye to eye to eye to eye.

“You came for this, didn’t you, this child, I can smell it, I can feel it”, said the All Mother sniffing the cocoon. Loriel stayed silent. The All Mother opened her distended mouth as if to swallow the child whole. “No… no, I did come for her”, Loriel admitted. “Why, by God's decree?”, she asked.

Loriel tightened as if she didn’t want to answer, but the All Mother opened her mouth once again. “No… I came for the child”. “On your own, you defied god to retrieve a soul you knew was damned?”. The All Mother sniffed Loriel, then the baby. Her many eyes opened with surprise. “It’s your baby isn’t it?”. Loriel looked down in shame.

“Truly a miracle, impossible for you to still be an angel and have a spawn, but you did”. “It was a child conceived in love”, Loriel said with conviction. “Conceived? Angel’s can’t conceive, gender is an abstraction, without love”, the All Mother replied.

The All Mother paused as if unraveling pieces of a grander mystery. “You lost the baby before it came to term didn’t you? You know you can’t… you can’t, you could never change it’s fate, and you defied god twice. What makes you think you will not be ejected from his kingdom the moment you return”.

Loriel’s tears traveled up her forehead from her dangling inverted position. “Because God’s word is as absolute as the weather”, said Loriel.

Gunshots happened. The All Mother was struck and reeled back. Loriel snatched the cocoon from the beast the moment her eyes were affixed on her attacker. The spider hopped from her web to a lowered elevation. “Over here you damned beast”, said Leo quickly reloading his flint lock.

The All Mother flung a table at the wretched damned soul. Her body boomed when it touched ground. “Come on, come on you thick bottomed hussy”, Leo yelled while diving to the floor. “If you think your eternity was awful before I can assure you I can make it much worse”, said the All Mother who bounced on 4 back legs to pounce her prey.

Leo fired a flintlock, but it barely managed to slow her down. “Come on you she bitch”, Leo said defiantly. Leo’s eyes veered up ever so slightly. The All Mother roared in anger. She looked up to see Loriel flying out and up from the dark spire, cocoon under arm.

Leo smiled, knowing for once in his life he had done the right thing regardless of the hell he’d have to pay for it in return.

Loriel struggled to exit the fiery depths of hell. Pieces of her ripped away. Her flight became more a test of will than of physical prowess. The grip of hell was tight, but on burning wings she pushed through its depths. She exploded through its unholy maw and was spat out to earth.

She landed on a rock face overlooking a mountain staring at God's creation where heaven met earth. Then she tore away the webbing from the baby's face. She owed it life, it was the promise she had made it when her womb brought it into being. Then she looked to the sky as if to ask God was he so cruel as to deny it that.