The City of Light was the safest place in Westprime and its reputation drew survivors from what remained of civilized North America and the safe-towns on the southern continent. For the first decades following the Change as the City took its initial steps skyward, its inhabitants clung to the past out of fear. A world of Change with different ground rules was unfolding, and none knew how long it would last. Even though the first years revolved around the resurrection of the dead, walking and talking corpses suggested redemption over damnation. There was hope then. More so when these walking dead demanded employment, equal rights and answers. Science had no explanations for them and where science cannot speak, religion will.
But times change and the decades staggered passed. As the City grew skyward this defiance of the dead took on threatening proportions. There were clashes and riots so municipal government restricted the dead to the City’s lowest levels. Isolated in darkness, they wandered through memories of what they had been-hopeless; awaiting a doom they had not escaped in death.
For the living, it became apparent that the Change allowed them to enjoy virtual immortality with their natural aging arrested or slowed to count years as months. Since time no longer took them, they ran a higher risk of a violent death. And as fear grew in the living populace, defensive and retributive violence became a way of life. But the dead did not care. The prejudice was irrelevant for a much crueler fate awaited them. Time and dehydration would reduce their bodies to lumps of hardened leather. Cries for equality would be twisted into the howls of the damned.
But the City of Light lived on. The powerful, the wealthy, and the popular all made it their home for the dead were kept out of sight here, and it had become a place of Angels. Those Divine messengers of God were rumored to fly from the highest spans of concrete on the City’s tallest structures-where the sun still set on the day.
Archangel Tower was the City’s centerpiece. It rose a half again higher than the tallest building, slicing through the metropolis’ highest Levels. The Tower was built as a meeting place for the world’s religions. The vast monetary holdings of Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam had underwritten its construction. The Change had initially caused a polarization of the religions but as decades passed the larger and more powerful among them focused on the similarities in their beliefs.
The Tower’s many-windowed surface was polished marble, and its design combined the best and loftiest aspirations of the many religions represented within its walls.
Its massive main entrance was found on Level Three. Many argued that the Tower should be accessible to all Levels, while others-influential investors and powerful municipal decision-makers-suggested it be approachable only from the highest. Its architects compromised, placing the main entrance on Three: just high enough to avoid the great unwashed on the lower levels, while retaining a respectable declination in elevation that looked like humility. Later compromises included entrances on Levels Five and Six; but these deferments to class and wealth were masked as additions for the purpose of fire safety.
The main gates on Level Three were formidable, rising forty feet at the apex of their spear-point design. Before them were the Tower Grounds. An enormous disk of concrete and steel constructed and suspended from the Tower’s megalithic body encompassing four square miles of property. The Tower Grounds’ perimeter included manicured gardens and a lake for baptisms and meditation. All around this ran the Tower Wall built of marble thirty feet high. A single gate, a scaled down version of the Tower’s entrance, allowed the pilgrims in and kept the unbelievers out.
The Tower burst through all the City’s levels, before puncturing the Carapace, charging into the constant overcast and flying skyward. Its upper reaches were obscured by cloud and accessible by invite only. The two hundredth floor was honeycombed with luxurious offices. One of these belonged to the Reverend Able Stoneworthy.
He was a man of slight but sturdy frame approaching six feet in height. A loose fitting black suit hung on his angular body like a blanket. Its all-encompassing darkness hid his true dimensions. His head was large and round-ill-fitting partner to the thin neck that propped it up. The eyebrows that squirreled restlessly on his forehead were dense and darker than the thick curly hair on his head. They scurried about over bright blue eyes-pausing only to squeeze the penetrating orbs for some finer discernment. His nose, like his body, was thin and straight. It traced a long practical line to a thick-lipped mouth that hung down at the corners-the frown caused more by gravity than sentiment.
Stoneworthy pulled his fingers from the depressions they had made in the thick synthetic leather covering the arms of his chair. Awkwardly, he uncrossed his long legs, pulled them from under his desk. Leaning back, he drew in a breath, and then wiped a hand across his brow. By degrees his heart stopped racing. The air still stirred from his visitor’s departure.
Reverend Stoneworthy spoke with Angels infrequently. He had before the Change, but never then did they occupy his office with such Divine presence. Nor did their wings flex and stretch to the ceiling, their feathery tips brushing the fresco there. Of course, he hadn’t had such a beautiful office in the days before the Change. Then, he made do with what he could find: a rented tent, a local gymnasium or in the sun behind the open doors of his van. He had done the Lord’s work with fervor and hard work, knowing that the Word was the thing.
But like the rest of humanity, the coming of the Change had devastated him. As its wider ranging effects were felt, his Faith was put to a test that he failed. When Stoneworthy realized that both good and evil had inherited the earth, he began to doubt. He saw himself as a fool and hypocrite. The minister remembered well his fall from grace, hitting bottom, and being reborn. He thought of it daily to act as penance.
One night, he entered the home of a young prostitute, paying for her services with monies collected by his ministry. He engaged in all manner of immoral acts with the woman in an attempt to earn the damnation he had received. Myrah, a tired-looking woman of short stature, had full breasts, swollen belly and thighs. Stoneworthy picked Easter to meet with her that final time. Drunk on whisky, he played out all the acts the Devil whispered to him-then he slept.
But an Angel appeared. At first Stoneworthy thought he was dreaming, until he thoroughly clawed the sleep from his eyes. The quiet musical breeze from the Angel’s wings caressed him into belief where he lay in sweaty sheets. Filled with shame, Stoneworthy burst into tears and fell forward on the floor.
“Forgive me!” he had cried, rubbing his forehead on the tiles. There was silence for several heartbeats.
“You have sinned against the Lord,” the Angel said. Its voice was a clean wind that still blew in the minister’s mind.
“Forgive…” Stoneworthy wailed. “No. Judge me!”
“And yet…” the Angel said, “I see that though you have forgotten to speak the Word, you have not lost its meaning.” Stoneworthy’s mind began to clear then. “The Word is but a word. It is a container, as you are. And though the Word may be used in vain, its meaning will not be blemished.”
“I was afraid!” the minister bleated, peering upward at the flashing eyes.
“You did not fear. You doubted your God.” The Angel’s countenance was sharply contrasted by the radiant light from its halo. The being was like carved marble, great flowing robes dropping to its feet from broad white shoulders. A gleaming golden sword hung from the Angel’s waist on a shining belt. “Such doubt is sin. To doubt your faith is a pain carried inside your temple body, to doubt your God is a pain that shall last all eternity, for it resides in your soul.”
“What shall I do?” Stoneworthy had covered his face with his hands, weeping. “I have offended Him!”
“Offense?” questioned the Angel. “You offend him now, with such vanity. The Lord shall tend his flock, the obedient he will love. Those who will not heed his Word are free to wander the wilderlands with the Wolf. The Lord understands that you serve yourself with the Word; you do not serve him. And yet, you adore him by serving that part of him that lives in you.” The Angel gestured toward the bed. “Is this how you serve your Lord?”
Stoneworthy looked at the bed, and there was Myrah, still asleep. Her eyes were like a skull’s cast into dark shadows by the Angel’s light.
“No! No! I am so sorry! Slay me, Angel. Strike me blind! Punish me!” Stoneworthy struck his own breast, sputtering through his sadness.
“How shall I punish what should be punished by the Lord God inside you, and by he who is in Heaven above.” The Angel had surprised Stoneworthy then by cupping the minister’s chin with a long warm finger and drawing him to his feet. “ See that you do not do that. I am a fellow servant who worships God with you.” Stoneworthy rose, naked before the Angel.
“Do not despair. You have served the Lord in Heaven when the rest of mankind reveled in sin. And only when the end of the world came, did you doubt. For that the Lord is thankful. A man’s faith must not need proof and you had none before the Dark Days began. Greatness comes from a man’s ability to believe without proof. Pharaoh asked Moses for proof of the Lord’s existence. Was he great? The empire of Egypt is no more, and Pharaoh no more. For even with proof, they did not believe. Your greatest sin, Stoneworthy is your misapprehension of the signs. This Change as you call the Dark Days, is the first step to Salvation for you all. You must recapture your Faith, and learn to serve God as you have.”
The Angel rose to its full height-its great pinions spread, and from it burned a fire that scorched the minister’s soul. Stoneworthy howled, his body convulsing with pain. “Go. Now! As you are. As Adam and Eve were once cast out! And for a time, eat not of the world. For seven days go into the wilderness that you have courted. Then return to this City, and gather the holy men of earth. The truth of your mission will be made known to you if you find the truth of yourself in the wilderness-for there lies Faith. Go! Now!”
And as the Angel faded from his sight Stoneworthy ran naked from Myrah’s apartment. He ran through the streets joyfully bearing the humiliation, rejoicing in the terror of salvation. He left the City on bleeding feet and ran until his heart was ready to burst. Only when he could climb to the top of a tree-covered hill did he end his labor. He stayed in the wilderness for seven days, eating nothing, tasting nothing but the familiar sweetness of deprivation, terror and the Divine knowledge of his essential self. His fear taught him much, for few wandered the wilderness without it. After the Change, animals lost their fear of man, and no longer recognized his dominion.
The rain of the Changed world washed him-scoured away his sin, threatened the life of his body with cold and death. But he wrapped himself in a protective cloak of faith and rejoiced. When he returned, Stoneworthy set to work gathering together the priests, ministers and officials of the major religions that had already gravitated to the City. Through conferences and discussions, he began the process of joining together those that loved God, and devoted their lives to his work. They would form a beacon for the world to see, and this city of survivors would become the City of Light. With his fellow faithful he would create an altar worthy of God. For decades he labored, and it was done.
Stoneworthy felt the pang of his ancient guilt rearing up to check his pride. Faith had done the work. He reached out to stroke the office wall. The Tower had been built. Through great sacrifice and determination, it slowly rose above the midnight world of the Change. But that, like his transgression, was all so long ago. Even this lofty accomplishment could not overshadow his guilt. His conscience would not let him forget that. Yet he had been given a new mission and though he did not feel worthy, being chosen he would make himself so. He was so deeply stained that he relished all opportunities for ablution.
He could still smell the cinnamon in the air. The windowed doors that led to his balcony were open. Wind toyed with the filmy drapes that hung over them. A dim orange glow from sunset sky illuminated the carpet. The adrenaline began to leave his system.
He rejoiced. That God had sent a being of such power to visit him and for a sinner like himself to be entrusted with such a task. This new mission promised things far more important than the gathering of the Holy or the building of the Tower. To redeem a fallen Angel.