He imagined that it was a kind of testament—a monument—to why a place such as Tartarus existed. At one time, before the stink of death had infected it, this place would have been special, a tiny pocket of Heaven floating within the depths of the inferno.
The huge concave walls, now spattered with the blood of conflict, showed another such struggle; they showed the story of the Morningstar and those who had followed him, moving moments captured from long ago depicting how they had waged war against the All-Father.
Leading to their fall.
These disturbing moments of betrayal and carnage would be the first things the prisoners of Tartarus would have seen upon their arrival, as well as the last when it came time for their release. A grisly reminder of the wrong they had done.
Remy wanted to look away from the horrific scenes of warfare as they were played out but found himself held by the sight.
Is it possible that it was even worse than I remember? he thought, watching as the two opposing angelic forces clashed upon the golden fields of Heaven, and in the open sky above.
Remy stepped over the bodies that littered the ground of the entryway into the Heavenly chamber, drawn closer to the images of the Great War and the end of a way of life that had been denied him forever because of it.
The battle depicted upon the curved wall of the vast chamber went to white, the searing brightness nearly blinding. Remy lifted a hand to protect his sight.
A face suddenly appeared upon the wall, the resplendent light emanating from around his beatific features. Remy had forgotten how beautiful the Son of the Morning had been, which made what Lucifer had done all the more offensive.
He had been God’s favorite—the chosen son—the first of them all.
Remy felt an undying anger overtake him as the Seraphim was stirred by the sight of its most hated enemy. And deep inside, buried beneath the fury, his human nature bowed its head in sorrow over the enormity of what had been lost on account of this being.
Deciding that he’d already wasted too much time on things long past, Remy was prepared to go deeper inside the formidable structure, when his eyes caught sight of movement at his feet.
What he believed to be the corpses of dead fallen angels shifted suddenly, giving off the illusion of life. Remy spread his wings, propelling himself back out of harm’s way as something emerged, exploding with a bloodcurdling shriek up from beneath the bodies of those vanquished in battle.
It had once been one of his own, an angel of Heaven, but now it appeared as something else. Its robes clung wetly, the gore of those slain in combat making the angel raiment stick to the body like a second skin.
Through the scarlet taint Remy suddenly recognized the face of Uriel, the warden of Tartarus.
His wings had once been snow-white, but now were flecked with crimson. Eyes huge and wild, the warden surged at him, a sword forged from the elemental forces of Heaven crackling in his hand. Uriel raised his weapon but paused in his attack when he saw that it was a Seraphim there before him.
The niggling voice of the Pitiless pistol screamed, to be used inside Remy’s head; he could actually feel the metal of the trigger gently caressing his index finger, attempting to seduce it into action, but Remy stayed his hand, forcing the weapon down by his side.
“I’ve come to help,” he told Uriel, watching the bloodstained expression turn from one of absolute panic to one of surprise.
Slowly Uriel lowered his weapon, head tilting from one side to the other as he studied the angel before him. It was as if he truly didn’t believe his eyes.
“I’m Remiel,” he said, hating the sound of his angel name. After all these centuries, it still sounded wrong—dirty—coming from his mouth. “Of the host Seraphim. I’d learned of your situation here and have come to—”
He never got the opportunity to finish the sentence.
“Lies!” Uriel screamed, his blood-covered face twisted in unabated fury. He came at him then, sword humming like a swarm of angry bees as it cut a swath through the air.
Remy quickly moved out of the way. If not for his wings propelling him back, the arcing blade would have split him in two.
The angel was beyond talking to, the madness of this place—of Hell—having taken root. He was lost to sanity.
The warden’s blade buried itself in the cold floor of the prison lobby, passing through the bodies of the dead that littered the ground, as insubstantial as smoke.
Again the ornate pistol clutched in Remy’s hand begged to be used. It showed him how deadly it could be: multiple blasts of gunfire, multiple victims falling to the weapon’s voice.
So many victims.
“So many lies,” Uriel bellowed, tugging his blade free. “We believed it was over—the indignity perpetrated upon us by one of our own—but it was all a lie.”
The warden charged with a roar, the blade in his grasp sizzling as it cut the air in search of Remy.
Remy leapt above the sword, his wings taking him up toward the cathedral-high ceiling. From the corner of his eyes, he saw projected upon the wall of the chamber the final act to the most disturbing of dramas, the powerful Morningstar brought down by the legions loyal to the Almighty.
He saw Lucifer driven to his knees, wings shackled in restraints of gold. There was a calmness in the features of God’s adversary, an expression of peace that spoke nothing of defeat.
Of surrender.
Uriel had taken to the air, his blood-colored wings pounding as he erratically came at Remy.
“How could we have been so blind?” the warden wailed. “So complacent? Did we learn nothing?”
The burning blade descended. Reflexively, Remy lifted his gun hand, halting the sword’s arc with the barrel of the old-fashioned pistol. The weapons collided with a blinding flash, and Remy was thrown back by the powerful concussion.
Landing in a roll, he quickly got to his feet, blinking his eyes furiously, attempting to clear away the sunbursts that blossomed there, obscuring his sight. He was ready for Uriel’s next attack, but the warden was nowhere to be found. As his vision began to clear, he saw that he had been knocked into another area of the prison by the force of the blast.
He was in an enormous chamber composed of the same icy material that formed the structure of Tartarus itself. It reminded him of the inside of a hive, the walls honeycombed with circular cells. He was dwarfed by the vastness of it all, and it made him feel incredibly small.
As he was drawn farther into the room, Remy could see inside the honeycomb-like apertures. He could not help but stare in rapt amazement at the frozen shapes of the fallen angels within. Some of the chambers were open, what had once been contained inside having been freed.
How many have the Nomads managed to release? the Seraphim wondered, nearly overwhelmed by the sheer number of cells that dotted the walls. This was an awful place, and Remy now understood why Uriel had not followed him in here.
The fallen were very much alive within their icy cells, reliving their moment of betrayal over and over again for an eternity.
Or for as long as He deemed fit.
Standing there, surrounded by all this pain and sorrow, Remy again questioned the concept of a loving God. And cursed how far Lucifer had caused them all to fall.
The voice of the warden drifted out from somewhere in the room, and Remy realized that he no longer held a weapon, the Pitiless pistol having been lost in the explosion that had propelled him into the prison chamber.
Uriel flowed from the darkness, his Heavenly sword poised to strike.
Remy whirled to meet the attack, his hands catching Uriel’s wrist, preventing the burning blade from falling.
The warden was screaming, insane ramblings of a mind shattered by the magnitude of his failure. What had happened here would affect all reality, all the way from Earth to the gates of Heaven itself.