A prince of darkness having descended from a throne above to lay claim to a lower world. Spawned from every contrary thing that had been festering within Creation’s folds from the very beginning.
It was all he could do to convince himself that he had only done that which had to be done. But it was a refrain that was losing a little more of its meaning with each invoking.
The fact that she felt the need to seek comfort from a polished rock made him think she was not in control. And if she wasn’t, who or what was?
The old seer practically glowed as he spoke. But the wanderer could not bring himself to share in his mentor’s reverence for this specter. There was something far too unsettling about a people this innocent being watched over by a creature this sinister.
For a season, the malevolent spirits of the underworld would be kept at bay, while at the same time the heavens above nourished by the rising smoke from another acceptable sacrifice where only the pure and innocent of heart sufficed.
At initial glance, he appeared nothing more than a malnourished thing, not fit to survive the rigors of a pitiless wasteland. But he carried himself with a quiet intensity, like a creature having not yet learned to fear. Believing not in its own mortality.
“Chaos! Try living the life of a woman in this patriarchal order of ours! Chaos is knowing that your father could sell you off into slavery whenever times get tough. Or any time at all, for any reason at all. Usually to some old creep who likes the company of younger women. Or in knowing that some overheated ape could force himself on you while out in the fields alone, taking ownership by lustful force instead. And then, in being forced by law to marry our attacker, the bondage becomes permanent. After all, nothing is more important than purity, right? At least for us women. You boys can have your dalliances with the harlots outside town, and mums the word. But a single accusation against a young girl can mean exile or stoning. And—let’s say we sidestep all these other traps—we still live under the constant cloud of knowing that our husband could banish us from our own home and children over something as small as a contrary word. This is our reality! We women live with it every waking moment of every cursed day in this kingdom. You could not imagine a greater chaos!”
Although she walked the same dusty earth as everyone else, she seemed to exist apart from it, like a pale reflection that could be made to fade and reappear with each shift of light.
And one by one, they fell to the ground and wet the earth with their tears. Men who treated stab wounds with spit and mud, sobbing like babies in the dirt.
From behind the mask, he is empowered to exert his will as though his adolescent sensibilities are the cistern into which all the generations of accumulated wisdom flow.
Samuel manufactured a polite smile of his own in return. He knew this wasn’t an offer. It was a royal decree. Whether he wanted it or not, he had just been made fate’s reluctant bondservant.
When the brightness of monstrous acts became too much to bear, darkness was the remedy. Darkness dulled the senses and cast a numbing haze over troubled recollections, obscuring the link between atrocities committed and the everyday world to which they were inextricably rooted.
Some insisted that he had gained a portion of the substance-divine for his heroic act of selflessness. Others believed he had always been a god, having surrendered a throne among the stars to toil in a realm of dust, all for a noble cause. And while it would be debated whether he had come down by volition or banishment, to the sheep who bore his mark he was nothing less than the Alpha and the Omega. Infused with the adversarial spirit born of the Great Deep. He was the eternal Satan, willing to defy the indifference of the hosts of heaven to preserve a small slice of purity in a world gone mad.
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The Satan and the Cherubim Overview
