Natalie Yacobson - Rhianon-4. Secrets of the Celestials

Madael followed her in, wings almost touching the doorjamb. It looked as if it should have left a fiery imprint, but there was none. Rhianon saw another angel-like creature sitting by the dying girl’s bedside. She suddenly wanted to hold a mirror up to it, as she had done the first time, and see how it was reflected in it, but there was no need. The tattered wings and bruised face were still beautiful. The bright white wasn’t black even on the feathers, but it wasn’t ghostly either. More like the color of chalk or paper than a ghostly sheen. Rhianon stopped. The bruises under her eyelids gave the impression that the angel was crying blood. Or maybe he really was crying. The sores-covered girl in the narrow bunk did not wake up. She could not see that a strange guest was sitting by the barely lit candle, as if to catch her last breath.

“Sethius!” Madael froze on the threshold and looked sternly at the man sitting by the candle.

Rhianon was about to ask him why this angel still kept an attractive appearance, but then the head with ruffled curls lifted and the bruises on his face suddenly became sharper, along with them came the burns and bruises. A moment more and he lost much of his attractiveness. The light arcs of his eyebrows turned black, something disgusting that resembled bugs crawled across his skin. Sethius could have been mistaken for a work of marble, so white he was, were it not for these glaring imperfections.

“I don’t…” He could barely move his split tongue, a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. “I don’t do anything you can’t do.”

“Then keep doing it,” Madael gestured to Rhianon toward the door. He was going to leave and leave the creature here. At the threshold, Rhianon turned around. She saw Sethius lean over the dying woman. He was not frightened by the sores or the supernatural contagion. He almost pressed his lips to her throat, as if he were really going to catch her last breath and the life that was flying away.

“He thinks he’ll regain his former appearance, at the expense of the others’ beauty,” Madael whispered as they left.

The candle, meanwhile, was almost out. There was only a tiny spark in the wick, but it too was about to go out. Rhianon could hear the faint whisper of an angel behind her, and she heard the rustle of wings. This time it seemed ominous to her. The black wings of death must have rustled just the same: wild and dreary. Not even the sound of a requiem would have upset her so.

Walking out of the house, she still felt like she was at a funeral.

“Sethius dreams of having his own crypt, and so do his friends,” Madael grinned for some reason. “It would be hard enough for them to have one, with all their pretensions.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You can’t. People survive on their own terms, and the damned have their own ways. Six of my best warlords have chosen to live on their own. Let them. I don’t need them anymore. Let them survive as they please. Now they have a burden on their shoulders.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were followed by the seventh angel, the one who didn’t fight on my side, but against me. It is wretched little soul. He couldn’t even hold his sword in his hands during the battle. The sight of his friends’ spilled blood made him sick. Lovers… what could you take them for? They are incapable of fighting against each other. And now he was freezing, starving, and losing his former attractiveness along with them in this contaminated land. He followed them himself. I used to laugh at him. Now I understand him.”

“What will happen to them?”

“I told you before, they want their own palace or crypt, a place where they can exist apart, feed off the energy of those mortals who fall under their spell. They want to be separate from my world, from earth and from heaven, but sometimes they need living souls. Who doesn’t want to have mortals as playthings and restore their beauty by taking other people’s lives?”

“Do they believe they can do it?”

“So far, only they believe. They don’t have much success. Perhaps they haven’t found a soul vicious enough to surrender its domain to them. In time, however, someone may seem so greedy for the cursed gold that they will worship the fallen angels and build for them their coveted crypt. It is a crypt for the seven angels. Here will be their fun, someone’s tears and lots of blood.”

“I saw him crying blood.”

“He drinks too much of it,” Madael whistled softly, the whistle like the echo of a string through the sleeping village, awakening a long echo. – And there’s plenty left, but it’s infected. Who knows what leprosy he will bear with it?

“He’s gone right before his eyes,” she still couldn’t imagine how such a beautiful creature could change so drastically.

“It happens,” Madael grimaced. “And more than once. It is sometimes in front of mortals. Some are beautiful, or at least pleasant-looking, for a long time, and then they go bad. People see and are frightened. I make it look like they’re crazy. You never know what a madman will see. I have to put the madman on a chain so that the demons won’t bother him anymore. And those same demons will laugh later. We must not reveal our existence to anyone. That’s the law.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

The question sounded like a punch. Madael looked away sharply.

“And the helmet that you can’t take off doesn’t bother you, does it? Even a sword you can’t draw whenever you want?”

“Even if you read my soul as an open book, stop, Rhianon. Someday things will be different.”

“Is it soon?” She picked up her skirts and staggered away, not knowing where she was going. Above her head something flew noisily, almost clawing at her gold crown. It seemed to be an ifrit, flying down from a distant mountain range, or maybe from the roof of one of the houses behind her. She didn’t get a good look.

Madael stared tensely into the darkness.

His hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. “I’ll deal with him later.”

“Later?” She frowned. “Is there anything else you want to show me? Or was this village the only thing you wanted to show me?”

“I didn’t want to bring you here in the first place. You asked for it,” he said, furious. “And there’s a sickness here.”

“So what if I’m with you?”

“Don’t be silly, even I can’t protect you from absolutely everything.”

“I don’t believe it,” she thought he couldn’t believe what he was saying either, but he looked worriedly up at the sky once more. No one else had flown across the gloomy sky, but there was an unpleasant, dark residue, like a comet’s mark, in the darkness. Evil has been here… Rhianon tucked the edges of her cloak tightly around her. She felt cold, though she felt hot inside.

“What were you going to show me?” She thought that an innocent question would lighten the mood, but the darkness echoed ominously.

“There’s a town…”

“Is there a plague that’s killing people there, too?”

“Not at all,” he smiled mischievously, a boyish grin. “There aren’t any people there. From afar, the city can be mistaken for a sprawling island of moss, but come closer and you can see the outlines of the ruins.”

“Do spirits live there?” Rhiannon wondered.

“Spirits like Orpheus,” he confirmed.

“But then it is interesting.”

“Just stay close to me when we go there. I don’t want you to get lost in the labyrinths of the city. There are a lot of precipices and cracks in the walls and dried-up wells. It’s easy to get lost there and never find your way out.”

“I am not afraid,” she followed him eagerly.