A Seed
by Damien Hunt

The explosion rocked the entire hillside, sweeping a large portion of one side with flames and blasted rock. Zathrael was knocked from his feet, coming to a rest upon the burnt black earth of the country lane. Upon his knees, arms barely holding him up as his head drooped low in anguish, his majestic wings sprawled upon the ground, limp and scorched. His tears, when they finally came, ran through a layer of ash upon his cheek, slowly washing through a series of created rivulets. Splattering upon the heated ground to sizzle and evaporate, just as quickly replaced by more falling tears.

He hadn’t expected the blade to do that, although he perhaps should have. It was a holy relic, the flaming sword of his order, people burned crucified for the mere touching of a Gabrielite’s sword, but none of this was occupying his thoughts at the moment. Zathrael could only think about his failure, the lives of the small country side family that lay smoldering nearby his own prone body, dead, gone and because of him. The events played over in his mind, what he might have done different, better, something, anything that might have saved them and why he hadn’t chosen those perfect actions to begin with, when it had mattered.

Flying back towards his Himmel, the tower rising so incredibly high above the great city of Nuremburg, flying alone. His fellowship ravaged by the talons of the infernal Dreamseed and Zathrael’s own quest for answers another failure. He had spied the family on the roadside, just a simple wagon bearing country wares for sale and trade at some local urban market, being pushed by the father and his sons while the mother and sisters continued to make assorted crafts and nick knacks for sale. A simple life, a pious life, a precious life, the kind of life that Zathrael had sworn to protect. He had spotted them too late, the drone of insectile wings giving just enough warning for terror to unfold within the poor family, but not enough for them to seek escape. The huge dragonfly like demon descended upon them, long emerald talons glittering in a rare shaft of sunshine pouring through the clouds above as if Heaven wished to witness the atrocity.

Emerald glitter turned crimson, a wet sheen. Life taken before the righteous flames of Zathrael’s burning relic could prevent it. The demon was alone, no match for the wrath of Heaven and it fell before the onslaught, squeals of pain emitting from alien mandibles. The dying howls of the demon, a parody of something natural, only enraged the Engel further. It was a demon, only the twisted nightmare of the adversary, the Lord of Flies. It wasn’t real. Falling quiet, Zathrael surveyed the consequences of a mere nightmare, death. Dreams could kill you and standing there stunned, Zathrael had pondered all that might mean.

“It is difficult, yes?” a kind soft voice, tinged with something disturbing, asked, startling the fallen Engel and pulled him back to the moment at hand. For a time Zathrael could not muster the strength to lift his head, the burning pain from his destroyed blade washing over his scorched form. When finally he managed to turn his ash and tear stained face up to examine the speaker he was met with a wizened old man in the simple robes of a wanderer. “So much that is happening, all we can ever catch is glimpses of the truth and wonder at their meaning.”

Zathrael continued to stare at the strange wanderer, confusion mixing into the depths of his depression. He noticed, with growing confusion, the formations rising up from within the earth beneath the sandaled feet of the wanderer and indeed in the wake of his passing. Seashells and small skeletons of creatures long dead. Perhaps held in the earth’s deep embrace for centuries. The Engel looked back up, still kneeling upon the ground, still weak with despair. In a voice, trembling with the helplessness of shaken conviction, Zathrael managed to say the only thing that he could, the only thing his mind could or would wrestle with at the moment. Seeking, beyond any real hope that this strange old man might help him to gain understanding, “I failed to save them.”

The old man remained unchanged, that something in his voice a kind of hopeless sadness as he replied, “Perhaps you were never meant too.”

The reply did well only to ignite that anger within the divine being’s heart and he felt himself rise to his feet rather quickly, the hilt of his blade no longer where his hand instinctively grasped. It made no sense, nothing made any sense anymore, he did not understand and he must. He must know why, the whys, all of them. So tired, tired of everything going so wrong and without any reason. It must have been displayed upon his face, the old wanderer raising one long greyed eyebrow. More of the shells and small fossils began to surface upon the road as the Gabrielite took a step towards the wanderer. His next step faltered as his reverie suddenly filled his mind’s eye once more and his failure continued to replay in horrid detail.

A cough, weak, but nearby and a welcome sign of life. A survivor, a chance for the Engel’s efforts to not have been in vain. Nearby, under the overturned wagon and covered in the splattered blood of his own wife and children, the father lay motionless in the dirt. Easily the deceptively small angelic creature lifted the wagon from him, revealing also one of the father’s eldest sons, also motionless, but without apparent injury. The father’s eyes followed the motion’s of the Engel, yet the mortal could not move. Zathrael waited, making sure they weren’t actually harmed in some way that he could not immediately see. He found a small sting mark on each of their necks, a foul yellowing mark that stank of poison or worse.

Another cough and the barest breath forming a word, then another, slowly asking the horrified Engel for one last grace from God’s child, “please... help... us...,” a grimace of pain and something moving under the stained tunic, “before...it... finishes...”

Horror mounts upon horror as the Gabrielite lifts the tunic, smearing his child like hand with sticky half dried blood. Within the bruised chest something writhes, the father’s face wincing in pain as the demon spawn consumes him from within and grows. His nearby son mewls in similar pain, too young to fight the paralytic poison as his father has but obviously still capable of fully feeling the torment that grips them both as demonic parasites leach their life away from within.

“Please... God...” the father doesn’t fall silent, moans of agony continue from him and his son, but the Dreamseed have achieved new heights of torture. No longer is the father able to concentrate enough to form words, they just wait for it to be over, a release. They are good church folk, Zathrael can see that. His sword ignites, a blade of hot flame that ends their suffering. The spawn die as well, their source of life taken from them. Silence descends upon the Engel, not even the stir of the constant stormy winds makes any sound.

With a roar of rage the heavenly warrior heaves his flaming sword towards a nearby jut of solid bedrock, the howl dies away in defeat as the flames arc through the air. Clouds shift above, the shaft of sunlight fades as the eye of Heaven closes to the blasphemous sight. The explosion rocks Zathrael from his feet, waves of holy fire wash the road and hill and with a startled snap the Engel finishes his second step towards the strange old wanderer, the remembrance once more with its completion.

“Why?” it is the only question the Gabrielite can think of, though he might ask it in an almost endless number of times, so many reasons have been hidden away from him.

The wanderer turns and begins to continue on his way, past the Engel, already new formations rising up in his wake. A small pause as he passes, “that is for you to decide, Zathrael, seek your answers Engel.” The Gabrielite watches, unable or perhaps for some reason unwilling to halt the wanderer. Behind him the formations have already begun to fade away, the earth pulling them back into its deep grasp.

“Remember always that whatever it is that you find, you must always decide, you must choose what it is that is the truth,” the stranger gives him one last look, eyes older than can be possible, heavy with the burden of knowledge, “for that is the nature of faith.”

He disappears quickly, down the path and on his way, the earth’s relics fading away as his presence recedes. Left alone, Zathrael turns towards the bodies of the fallen family and moves silently towards them, purpose slowly regained. It shall take some time, even for the mighty Gabrielite, before the family is all properly buried. Time to think, to ponder, to seek his answers. Sorrow does not fade, but no longer weighs quite so heavily upon him now, his wings lift up and fold upon his back. Hope, however small, returns to the divine creature. With that hope is sown perhaps a seed of truth, truth and faith.

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