Caesarion actually cracked a smile before he remembered to erase the emotion from his face. The slow approach of his mother’s ship—during which he’d need to remain here—seemed interminable. “It’s all very confusing,” he admitted. “Jacob and Didymus had to explain things three or four different ways before we understood it all. I’ll try to explain if you’ll concede to a stool.”
Vorenus agreed, and a flick of Caesarion’s wrist brought a slave scampering out onto the wall to receive the order to procure suitable seating for Vorenus.
“Imagine trying to describe the Pharos lighthouse,” Caesarion said after the slave was beyond earshot once more. “On the ground it has a length and width, but of course it has a height, too. To describe it you’d need at least those three things. But that’s not enough, is it?”
“I don’t understand your meaning, sir,” Vorenus said.
“Well, the lighthouse changes over time, doesn’t it? Our grandfather replaced the statue of Poseidon at its top. That surely changed its height. And reinforcement at the base has changed its width, too.”
“So you need to state the time at which you’re describing it. I see.”
“Yes. Time.”
“Fair enough.” Vorenus’ voice didn’t sound entirely understanding, but Caesarion knew the old soldier well enough to know that he wouldn’t continue the conversation if he wasn’t interested.
“Didymus brought all this up when he suggested that we try to imagine one God, the creator of it all. God must, if He exists, live outside time. Above it, if you will, seeing everything that’s below just as easily as we can see a rock on the floor.”
“Makes sense, I suppose.”
Caesarion heard the slave returning with a stool for the old soldier, though he couldn’t turn his head to observe whether it was a suitable one; the slave placed it, as was proper, just behind the line of the two thrones. Only by straining his eyes could he see the haze of Vorenus settling into a sitting position. Then the slave retreated, the shuffle of cloth indicating deep bows of reverence. Caesarion only barely contained the urge to roll his eyes.
“Tell him about the angels,” Selene said when the slave had disappeared into the distance and it was safe to talk once more.
“Angels?” Vorenus asked.
“It’s a term from the Jews,” Caesarion said. “But we found it useful to talk in terms of that religion. It was easier that way with Jacob there. Angels are beings that are like gods to men, but are nevertheless creations of God, like us. They’re even supposed to appear like men, though of great beauty and strength. Like perfect beings.”
“There’s something like this in other faiths,” Vorenus said thoughtfully.
“I imagine so,” Caesarion said. “If there’s any truth in faith, Didymus pointed out, most religions should have at least a glimpse of it. We think these angels were among God’s first creations. They accompanied God and acted like His agents in the realms below Him—though you understand that ‘below’ is not accurate in a literal sense. Wherever God lives surrounds all of creation, in the same way a man on the first floor of the Pharos lighthouse is surrounded by the room around him, the vast height above him, and the passing of time that encompasses that in turn.”
“It is, as you say, confusing,” Vorenus said, sounding amused despite the tiredness in his voice. “But I think I follow. These … angels would be like a guard assigned to one level of the lighthouse, who cannot guard the whole forever.”
Caesarion hadn’t thought about it that way, but he decided the analogy fit fairly well—though he again managed to avoid nodding. “Just so, Vorenus. Now imagine that God lives at the highest realm of creation, and from there He can see everything. As Didymus explained it, for Him, past, present, and future would all be the same. So from His perspective nothing below Him would have free will. The only way for anyone to have free will, in other words, would be for them to be like God. Yet without free will God’s creation wouldn’t be truly alive. So He decided to give part of Himself to some of His creatures. This part, we think, is our soul. It is what then exists beyond our deaths, journeying up through the realms to that highest place where God dwells: the gift of true life, imparted through the gift of death, for only in knowing true loss can a being truly know love. At least that’s how Jacob explained it. The point is that God gave us the opportunity to become one with His eternity, to have the free will to live and love as we chose.”
“Because God alone is capable of free will,” Selene said. Her voice sounded distant to Caesarion, and he longed to look at her. “So the soul is a portion of God.”
“I think I understand,” Vorenus said. “And you believe this is true?”
“You know me,” Caesarion said. “I’m stubborn about anything. But this makes some sense. We’re all gods in the sense that we all have free will. We do as we wish.”
“And this one God just watches? Just sits and lets people kill each other?”
“It doesn’t seem so,” Caesarion admitted. “What happened isn’t exactly clear—Didymus didn’t know for sure, and Jacob either didn’t know or wasn’t telling—but there was some kind of dispute among God’s angels about God’s desire to give us free will. Some of the angels may have refused because they did not want to see man become greater than they were. Some may have objected because they didn’t want to lose God.”
The flagship of Egypt was close enough now to see the two figures lounged in luxury upon its deck, surrounded by wealth and slaves. Cleopatra and Antony were dressed as the victorious gods they pretended to be. Antony waved and smiled as the people ashore cheered and the men below the vessels deck pushed and pulled the long dipping and lifting oars. Cleopatra might as well have been made of rock.
“But God’s will couldn’t be denied,” Caesarion continued, his voice sounding rehearsed even to his own ears. “The only way to make us truly free was to unmake Himself. So God sat upon His silver throne, and in a surge of power He destroyed Himself, unleashing what Didymus called the breath of God, which instilled true life in those creatures ready to receive it. The rest of God’s great powers—the powers He’d used to create us all—were infused into His throne, which turned to broken stones of impenetrable darkness. And where He had sat upon it, all that remained was a book, the real book behind the legend of the Scrolls of Thoth. God, Jacob says, created of Himself a Book of Life and Death, containing the fullness of His knowledge. It is said to be the most powerful object in existence, and it remains in the Heaven where God resided, protected by the angels who forever mourn God’s sacrifice.”
“What of the angels who were against it?” Vorenus asked.
“Eventually, war broke out among them all,” Caesarion replied. “They were divided over what they believed God’s plans were for creation. There were some, it seems, who desired to destroy man. In order to defeat these angels who had fallen away from God’s will, another group of angels used some of those power-filled fragments of God’s throne to create a gate down through the dimensions. In a terrible cataclysm, Jacob said that an angel named Michael, leading the loyal angels, forced the defiant angels into the void. Gehenna, Jacob called it. Hades is another term, I think. Some call it Hell. After the war was over, after the Fallen angels were banished, the loyal angels, who called themselves the Vested, determined that they’d try to unite all the pieces of God’s seat, to bring the powers of God together in order to find the God they’d lost.”
“They tried to remake God?”
Caesarion’s shoulders raised to shrug before his mind overrode the instinct. He slowly lowered them back into position. “Jacob said as much. I don’t know how that would happen. Whatever they tried failed, though: the throne shattered across creation, and these pieces of God’s strength—the Shards of Heaven—have fallen here, where they remain sources of enormous power.”