Heaven's Angels

 

 

I have talked of many things thus far, and perhaps given the impression of a grotesque, cruel, and hostile world. This is perhaps not untrue, but it is not the only facet of Anlil. There yet remains beauty and awe untainted by the horrors of godless creation, and it is in the form of the angels, the commingled offspring of the human soul and the will of Heaven, that such beauty shines brightest.

They are glimmering things, angels. Like opaque glass or pearl is their skin, and their eyes and veins are golden underneath. Their hair is purest white, pearlescent, or golden, as their feathered wings are, and they have one to four pairs. Sometimes a smaller pair covers the eyes, and sometimes they emerge from the wrists and ankles. Some have multiple pairs of arms, or circling bands of golden light or a halo of that same radiance. Among the True Faiths, angels may further differ in form. The Gospel of Dominion's angels are near-always clad in glimmering armor, while Eternity's angels have their shimmering golden bones visible underneath their skin, their eyes empty sockets of white flame. Rapture has its three eyes and hair of twisting fire, and Castigation has its flagellated cripples bleeding shimmering ichor, yet seemingly unhindered by their mortifications. Even lesser faiths like the Gospel of Purgation boast their own angelic subtypes, in that case the implacable watchers whose flaming blades tirelessly seek out the hidden sinner.

When a prophet obtains knowledge of a Gospel, the spiritual power such enlightenment brings is as the thunder and lightning, as gunpowder detonates. It is a spark of divinity which erupts about the numinous essence around it, and from that turbulence are the heavenly daimons born, ingrained with the precise scriptures of the Gospel as it forms in the prophet's mind. As heralds and proof that they are no fraud, they aid the newly risen in their task of spreading the good news, and when they pass the angels shepherd and protect the flock which is left behind, forming choruses and hosts beholden only to themselves.

It is, to be clear, not their presence by which the Gospels ward the mind against Primeval Sin and other weaknesses. This remains the duty of the faithful, to study and internalize the divine law which grants them freedom from the cannibalistic urge and the means to live a good life. But the external threats of Creation are countless. Oneirian spirits twist the minds of those waylaid by their endless dreams, devils grow within the hearts of the weak and feed their inner cruelties, and other wicked powers haunt the night and predate upon the flock. It is for these threats that angels seem made to thwart. Though, rarely do they act openly, for their numbers are always few. Rather, they tend to appear in visions or as messengers corporeally, offering guidance and warning to those with the means to solve the issue. How the angels learn of these issues is unknown, but speculated to be the work of secret miracles which sense the presence of wicked beings and grant the power to scry upon distant places. Many magi would commit unspeakable crimes to study them.

So enraptured are faithful mortals by their angelic stewards that the faiths ever strive to imitate them. Of them, most notable are Eternity and Dominion, whose churches create golems of flesh, made of parts chosen for utmost beauty, and beget dynasties of half-angelic monsters by devouring the flesh of their true compatriots, respectively. Far more expendable and less ethereal than a true angel, their role is often similar, but more direct. Eternity's false angels, for example, guard graves and cursed ruins, while Dominion's angels fight alongside their men-at-arms in their endless holy wars, or even rule kingdoms outright. They bleed and die as any mortal will, even if the killing of them is more difficult.

When they are forced to act, it is with terrible might, raining down killing rays of holy light and scouring winds of salt and fire, among other great miracles. Though more than this they lend their divinity to aiding the weak, protecting the defenseless, and healing the sick and broken, when they can.

It is unknown how the angels replenish their numbers. It is said among certain semi-heretical sects that one can become a true angel through strictest following of a Gospel along with certain ceremonial or esoteric rites, while others say that they beget offspring as men do, though detractors find this far to vulgar to contemplate for such pure and holy beings.

It is also known that there are stray angels, which seem almost half-formed, serenely witless, drifting through the sky, presumably in divine contemplation. Are they failures, what passes for death among them, or something else? Certainly, the false angels prefer them as prey. Less weighs on their conscience.

And it is also known that there are fallen angels, ones who have somehow lost their divine imperative and revel among the mortals, indulging their every desire. Neither driven to evil or good, they are almost childish in their glees and tantrums, but augmented by their terrible power. Some are even worshiped as gods themselves by the ignorant or desperate, and sometimes these beings are even benevolent. Scholars call these powers the supernal daimons, some of the greatest living daimons, and among the Faiths opinions are divided. Some revile and shun them, others welcome them as brothers, provided they show sufficient contrition for their desertion of their heavenly mentality. Once the fruit of freedom is tasted it cannot be forgotten, they say, but they may still choose to use their gifts to the betterment of others, as any mortal can. They often are vibrantly colored, adorned in jewel-like growths, and emit fire and smoke that they wear like garments. Gone is their ethereal aura, replaced by something carnal, lurid, garish. 

It is said that if one prays reverently and is a true student of the Gospels, an angel will assuredly hear it. Whether they shall act upon it is another matter. 

Scholars, faithful or not, often seek angels to ask them for aid in interpreting the Gospels, or determining the nature of Heaven. In truth, they are too rigid in their thinking for the former, and know nothing of the latter. They are the laws of spontaneous generation applied to the wonder of Heaven, born from its confluence with the mortal soul as the squirming things which became the creatures of the World emerged from the random eddies of the swirling numinous ocean. 

They are as lost as we are, and have nothing else to cling to aside the faith which abides with them from the first moments of their existence. Is it any wonder some go mad?