Overcomer - The Battle - Judy Colella (best love novels of all time .TXT) 📗

something she’d been told to do at all costs from that point on. Perhaps now she would learn why.

“Come with me, Cian,” ordered Michael, and this time, instead of making the hill grow, he walked down its back slope. The boy followed, deeply curious. They had traveled only a short way when the Archangel stopped in front of a dark area on the right of the path. Without saying a word, he stared at it until it dissolved into the gold mist, then walked through, the boy at his heels.

They emerged not in a cave or some other hidden place, but directly into sunlight, and Cian stopped dead, struck silent and still by the beauty surrounding them. He breathed in, and so fragrant, pure and fresh was the air that he found himself wishing he never had to exhale again. The angel watched him patiently, having seen the effect of this place on humans once or twice before and fully understanding his reaction.

“Where – ” the boy began, then stopped, awestruck by every detail.

“This is the original home of mankind, the place where the first Earth Children lived.”

Cian scowled, trying to remember what the man from the monastery had said when he was staying in his family’s cottage so long ago. “Weren’t there two of them?” he asked a minute later.

Michael laughed pleasantly. “No, my boy, not at all. It started with one, then two, but they were told to fill the Earth, and soon began to do what the Glorious Creator included in His description as ‘very good.’ They came together and produced others of their kind. Most of them stayed here, but a few wandered away to Nod and some other places.

“By the time the Parents had the first of the Rebellious Ones, they were no longer here; all of them had had to leave in order for any to be redeemed by the Promise.”

Cian’s look of confusion told Michael what he needed to know. “Please sit,” he said, and they made themselves comfortable beneath the shade of a lovely tree, a kind that the boy had never seen before. It wasn’t all that tall, but its trunk was completely smooth, its branches graceful and curved into pleasing shapes, its leaves gigantic and almost dripping with life.

“Tell me what you do know,” said Michael, leaning back on one elbow.

Searching his memory, Cian stared off into an incredibly blue sky in which floated not a single cloud. At last he nodded. “I was about seven, I think, when the man from the monastery came to our cottage. He told us that he followed the teachings of Padraig, and that our gods were false. At the time, as you know, we worshipped Dagda and the other gods under his control. My father, I believe, said that he’d worshipped his gods all his life, as did his father, and his father before him, and life had been prosperous and happy. The man – he called himself a priest – told us that those gods had no life in them, but that his God had created everything, including the Earth itself, and the heavens, and all the stars. Then he told us about the first two people, and how they lived in a para. . .well, here. He said everything was fine until a snake or something came along and talked the woman into eating some kind of fruit – I don’t really get that whole story. Anyhow, she did, then gave it to the man. They got into so much trouble over it, they were thrown out of this, uh, whatever – garden. Then she had two sons, one killed the other, and oh – wait. There was something about this new God sending His own Son at some point to make everything right again between Him and people.”

A butterfly, its wings an incredible array of colors, suddenly alit on Cian’s hand. He raised it to eye level and watched it as it flexed the colorful wings for several serene, breathtaking moments, then flew off.

“It – it wasn’t afraid,” he said, wondering.

“Of course not – nothing living in this place knows any fear. Please continue.”

“Right. Well, then he told us about this Son, and how he died to bring mankind back into contact with this God, even though it seems to me an awfully long time in between... never mind. Anyway, there was something about the Earth and everything being created in six days? How is that possible?”

“First,” said the Archangel, enjoying himself, “He didn’t ‘create’ anything in six days. He created it all at the beginning. Then He had only to speak things into being. Here.” From the scabbard that Cian could have sworn was holding the Sword of Light, Michael pulled a large, cream-colored scroll. He unrolled part of it and laid it out on the grass between them. “Read.”

The words, which at first were no more than a pretty scrawl, slowly became comprehensible. Cian goggled for a moment, and then started reading out loud. “‘The exceeding great and only God, in the beginning, created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth became a desolation, having been laid waste, an indistinguishable ruin.’ How did that happen?”

Michael’s expression became grave. “One of the first creatures the Glorious One made was the Archangel Lucifer, the chief of angels, wielder of the Light. He was unspeakably, magnificently beautiful, beyond any human’s comprehension of that word. He . . .I do not wish to say more about him in that state, except to say that at some point, he, well, he turned away from the Light long enough to see and comprehend its lack – darkness. It called to him, in a manner of speaking, and he began thinking vain thoughts about himself because he now had new insights into the nature of light, and eventually convinced himself that he was too good to serve anyone, including his Creator. So he gathered to himself other angels by influencing them through their pride to follow him into battle against the Throne of the Glorious One. He promised many favors, many great things, to those who would stand by his side. The very first to choose Lucifer as his new master was Moloch.

“It was a terrible time, and the angels who were still servants of the Light grew profoundly sad. Once sides had finished being drawn, one third of our number had decided to throw in their lot with Lucifer. A dreadful battle ensued; I was appointed to lead the armies of the Living Creator and was made an Archangel. Lucifer, of course, was badly outnumbered. Fool. We cast him out from before the Throne, and the place he picked for his new home was this lovely little planet, with its blue skies and clean waters, its large, simple creatures and the smarter ones – they were much like humans, actually, but their ability to think and reason were less complex than your kind, yet not as instinct-driven as the giants.” He stopped, plucking up a few blades of grass, the memory clearly making him unhappy.

“So when Lucifer and his followers fell,” Michael continued, “they struck the planet like a huge meteor – do you know what that is?”

“Yes, I do. I took science in the private school I attended before coming to Connecticut.”

“All right. Then you must know what effect a celestial body of any notable size would have upon impact, yes? Everything on the surface died. Everything. It became, literally, a wasteland. The worst part, though, is that this didn’t happen in one day. It took a while, so all that lived, died slowly and over a considerable period of time. The warmth became cold. The cold became unbearable, and great mountains of ice raked the face of the ground forming huge valleys, while the force of the impact also disturbed the inner parts of the world and brought up the molten rock. Mountains that had never existed suddenly did; the climate changes all over the globe depleted food supplies, and eventually, when all of the major upheavals ceased, the Earth was, as the writing says, an indistinguishable ruin.”

Cian looked around at the peaceful, lush place where he was hearing this tale of destruction. “How did all this beauty happen?”

“Keep reading.”

“Okay.” He looked down at the scroll again. “‘. . .and darkness surrounded the faces of the resulting abyss. So the breath of the Glorious Creator blasted over the foul waters, cleansing them. And the Glorious Creator spoke Light into being once more, and thus it was. Seeing His Light, He knew that it was good, so He separated it from the darkness, that which was joyful from that which was misery, thereby making dusk and dawn, which became a united day.’”

“He did about twelve more things like that,” Michael explained, “eight of them before doing any creating again, and the last act before all was completed was the forming of man as you know him today.”

“So the, uh, Creator fixed everything Lucifer messed up. Why? Why didn’t he make another planet for man instead?”

Michael nodded appreciatively. “That’s an excellent question. It has a lot to do with justice, actually. He also wanted to have what you might call a family, one that would love Him even if given the choice to love another.”

“Free will.”

“Exactly. Lucifer, in the meantime, has been given many other names, most of them highly unpleasant, while he himself has grown even more unpleasant than his names.” Michael shook his head looking very, very sad. “He was once a dear friend.”

They were silent for a while after this, but because they were not at the Hub, Time was not standing still. The Archangel finally put away the scroll and said, “The things you read are words of power. The sentences are phrases of power. In the scroll you will also find the promises, one of which we already discussed; you saw for yourself some of the goodness of the Creator’s heart.

“You must know these things because each word, phrase, promise and act of goodness is powerful and can cut Moloch deeply. Your thoughts must be strong, and must be focused on the words from the scroll because that evil one will use everything it knows about you to make you weak or try and make you feel insignificant, stupid, even more so than your former foster-mother did. It’ll demand to know who you possibly think you are, that kind of thing.

“It’ll also use its abilities to convince you that you’ve been cut to ribbons; that your skin is hanging off; that your face has been blistered or worse; that you’ve lost a limb, or your innards are spilled on the ground. It will use every possible kind of humiliation it can think of to unnerve you, make you want to weep; it’ll tell you lies about Celeste, even say that it’s killed her or is going to; and it’ll use your anger against you as well. So you must know what kind of sword strokes to use to parry these suggestions, for that, in truth, is all they are. But remember this – under no circumstance should you answer or question any of its lies out loud.”

“But…but I don’t know everything that’s in the Scroll.”

“You will, Cian. I promise you that. We must go back now to the Hub so you can begin to study.”

With great reluctance Cian took his last glimpse of Paradise before they returned through the golden curtain. As soon as they were back on the hill, Michael had the three humans sit together so they could all see the Scroll. He told them to take as long as they needed, but that they basically had to memorize the entire thing. Then he and the Keeper left, and Celesta continued to play gently behind them as they read.

How long would it take to memorize all the words of Light? The three young people poring over the scroll could not have said; of course, Celesta knew, but as Time