Also, there is much that is hidden. In images and in the watermarks. They appear much clearer to my eyes than yours—but this is going to require some time.
“Which is exactly what we do not have. How much time will it take?”
The Born’s eyes continued scanning back and forth.
Impossible to say.
Fet was aware that his anxiety was a distraction to Mr. Quinlan.
“We are loading the weapons. You have an hour or so—then you’ll come with us. We are getting Nora back …”
Fet turned around and walked away. Three steps later, the Lumen, the Master, and the apocalypse evaporated. There was only Nora in his mind.
Mr. Quinlan returned his attention to the pages of the Lumen and started to read.
INTERLUDE II
OCCIDO LUMEN:
THE MASTER’S TALE
THERE WAS A THIRD.
Each of the holy books, the Torah, the Bible, and the Koran, tells the tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So, in a way, does the Lumen.
In Genesis 18, three archangels appear before Abraham in human form. Two are said to proceed from there to the doomed cities of the plain, where they reside with Lot, enjoy a feast, and are later surrounded by the men of Sodom, whom they blind before destroying their city.
The third archangel is deliberately omitted. Hidden. Lost.
This is his story.
Five cities shared the vast, lush plain of the Yarden River, near what is today the Dead Sea. And out of all of these Sodom was the proudest, the most beautiful. It rose from its fertile surroundings as a landmark, a monument to wealth and prosperity.
Irrigated by a complex canal system, it had grown randomly through the centuries, radiating outward from the waterways and ending up in a shape that vaguely resembled a dove in flight. Its ten-acre contours crystallized in that form when the surrounding walls were erected around 2024 BC. The walls were over forty feet tall and six feet thick, constructed of baked mud brick and plastered in gypsum to make them shine brightly in the sun. Within them, mud-brick buildings were built so close together as to be almost on top of one another, the tallest of which was a temple erected to honor the Canaanite god Moloch. The population of Sodom fluctuated around two thousand. Fruits, spices, and grains were abundant, driving the city’s prosperity. The glass and gilded bronze tiles of a dozen palaces were visible at once, glinting in the dying sunlight.
Such wealth was guarded by the enormous gates that gave entrance into the city. Six irregular stones of enormous size and heft created a monumental archway with gates fashioned from iron and hardwoods impervious to fire or battering rams.
It was at these gates that Lot, son of Haran, nephew of Abram, was when the three creatures of light arrived.
Pale they were, and radiant and remote. Part of the essence of God and, as such, void of any blemish. From each of their backs, four long appendages emerged, suffused with feathery light, easily confused with luminous wings. The four jutting limbs fused in the back of the creatures and flapped softly with their every step, as naturally as one would compensate for forward movement by swaying one’s arms. With each step they acquired form and mass, until they stood there, naked and somewhat lost. Their skin was radiant like the purest alabaster and their beauty was a painful reminder of Lot’s mortal imperfection.
They were sent there to punish the pride, decadence, and brutality that had bred within the prosperous walls of the city. Gabriel, Michael, and Ozryel were God’s emissaries—His most trusted, most cherished creations and His most ruthless soldiers.
And among them it was Ozryel who held His greatest favor. He was intent upon visiting the town square that night, where they had been instructed to go—but Lot beseeched them to stay with him at his residence instead. Gabriel and Michael agreed, and so Ozryel, the third, who was most interested in the wicked ways of these cities, was made to acquiesce to his brothers’ wishes. Of the three, it was Ozryel who held the voice of God within himself, the power of destruction that would erase the two sinful cities from the earth. He was, as it is told in every tale, God’s favorite: His most protected, His most beautiful creation.
Lot had been blessed aplenty, with land and cattle and a pious wife. So the feast at his home was abundant and varied. And the three archangels feasted as men, and Lot’s two virginal daughters washed their feet. These physical sensations were new to all three of the angels, but for Ozryel the sensations were overwhelming, achieving a profundity that escaped the other two. This represented Ozryel’s first experience of individuality, of apartness from the energy of the deity. God is an energy, rather than an anthropomorphic being, and God’s language is biology. Red blood cells, the principle of magnetic attraction, neurological synapse: each is a miracle, and in each is the presence and flow of God. When Lot’s wife cut herself while preparing the herbs and oil for the bath, Ozryel beheld her blood with great curiosity; the smell of it excited him. Tempted him. And its color was precious, lush … like liquid rubies glinting in the candlelight. The woman—who had protested the men’s presence from the start—recoiled when she discovered the archangel staring at her wound, enraptured.
Ozryel had come to earth many times. He had been there when Adam died at the age of nine hundred thirty and he had been there when the men who laughed at Noah drowned in the raging dark waters of the Flood. But he had always traversed this plane in spirit form, his essence still connected to the Lord, never having been made flesh.
So Ozryel had never before experienced hunger. Never before experienced pain. And now a flood of sensations besieged him. Having now felt the crust of the earth beneath his feet … felt the cold night air caress his arms … tasted food grown of the land and carved from its lower mammals, what he thought he would be able to appreciate at a remove, with the detachment of a tourist, he instead found drawing him closer to humankind, closer to the land itself. Closer to this breed of animal. Cool water cascading over his feet. Digested food breaking down inside his mouth, his throat. The physical experiences became addictive, and Ozryel’s curiosity got the best of him.
When the men of the city converged upon Lot’s house, having heard that he was harboring mysterious strangers, Ozryel was enthralled by their shouts. The men, brandishing torches and weapons, demanded to be shown the visitors, so that they might know them. So aroused were they by the rumored beauty of these travelers, they desired to possess them sexually. The brute carnality of the mob fascinated Ozryel, reminded him of his own hunger, and when Lot went to bargain with them—offering his virginal daughters instead, only to be refused—Ozryel used his power to slip outside of the house, unseen.
He shadowed the crowd, briefly. He kept a few feet away, hidden in an alley, feeling the delirious energy of the mass movement—an energy so unlike God’s. Yet they were filled with the same beauty and glory that were gifts of the divine. These undulating sacs of flesh—their faces never at rest—raved as one, seeking communion with the unknown in the most animalistic manner possible. Their lust was so pure—and so intoxicating.
Much has been made of the vices in Sodom and Gomorrah but little could be seen as Ozryel walked the streets of that city, lit by a complex system of bronze oil lamps and paved in raw alabaster. Gold and silver door frames adorned the porticos of every door within its three concentric plazas.
A gold portico announced wares of the flesh and a silver one announced darker pleasures. Those who crossed the silver doorways would seek cruel or violent sensations. It was this very cruelty that God could not forgive. Not the abundance and not the abandon but the rank sadism the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah would show to travelers and slaves. Inhospitable cities they were, and uncaring. Slaves and captured enemies were bought from caravans to please the patrons of the silver porticos.