“It is sand to sand, it is blood to blood! My name is mixed with yours,” Alais belatedly remembered that the first thing she had written in the sand was her current name. Her fate with Pharaoh seemed to be closely intermingled. Was it a higher design? Or was it just an oversight?
The sand suddenly turned scarlet. Something was stirring under the sand, as if all the dead angels were planning toВ break free from the realm ofВ death and live again.
Pharaoh looked around, dazed, as if he were having a nightmare dream. And the winged legionnaires of Alais hissed at him like a victim. They were climbing out of the dunes, clawing at the dunes from within, digging mazes of tunnels beneath the sand. Demons nested everywhere in the desert. Of course, the defeated warrior who wandered in didn’t know that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come. And there would have been no deal.
“Your army is crushed and dead! My army,” Alais cast an eloquent glance at the hissing black creatures, “is the same as dead! We have more in common than one might think. And I have an unexpected sympathy for you, human! We both rebelled for power, we both failed. But it is worth trying to turn it into a victory.”
Was it her charms that swirled the storm inВ the sands, or was it the heavens that protested? The sand became hot. It swirled inВ an orange cloud around her scorched army.
“I will raise your army from its graves,” Alais promised, “but in return you and all your descendants will obey me. Every new Pharaoh will obey my orders.”
What else could the defeated ruler do but agree with her? She is aВ deity and he is only human. Even aВ ruling king is only aВ man under the heel ofВ an angel, not like aВ defeated one. Alais realized it was time toВ learn toВ speculate on her heavenly origins. Menes obeyed her unconditionally.
Alaïs gracefully threw her arm behind her back. Pharaoh marveled. Obviously, human hands were not as flexible as angelic hands, and such a movement might have seemed unnatural to humans. We must be careful not to pass for a mere trickster in his eyes. Somehow she cared about this man’s opinion of her and her subjects. Probably because he was the first in whom she saw an earthly reflection of herself. She had fallen, he had fallen, only in his own way, but it was time for them both to raise their armies, some from ashes, some from death and earth, and fight again.
Behind her back, between her wings, Alais carried a sword left over from the battle in the heavens. Its hilt might have seemed like a fanciful ornament placed between her shoulder blades. But behind that sun and wing-shaped ornament, lurked a deadly blade. It was no longer fiery. Alais didn’t like it. The steel hissed, but it did not glow in her hands. Still, it was enough to perform the ritual. She ran the blade across Menes’s palm, open for a friendly greeting. Menes clenched his teeth to keep from screaming in pain. The cut was so deep it nearly severed part of his arm. Blood spurted out and dripped into the sand. There was blood on the blade as well. The blood was just right.
Alais plunged the sword into the ground almost to the hilt. Now it burst into flames. It was time to read the spell. But she couldn’t remember the words. No problem! In angelic, any wish spoken aloud becomes magic. To the man her hissed speech tore at his ears. He clamped his ears shut, and the desert storm grew worse and worse. The sand rose. In the light of the flames it began to look as bright red as blood.
Pharaoh’s dead warriors rose from the earth and sand, shaking them off like dust. They were monstrous, but strong. The spirits of the dead angels entered into their bodies to make them rise. Pharaoh himself didn’t know about the spirits yet, though he probably didn’t care. The defeated do not choose with whom to ally or into which realm to fall. Alais knew this from her own experience.
AВ huge army marched through the desert and waited beyond the desert. The warriors who had risen from death were countless. Menes will surelyВ win.
“You will not participate in this battle?” Remy hovered beside Alais. His black wings cast shadows over her radiant form.
“Let them fight. They will fill the country, and we will come later. It will be easy to follow them on the path they have cleared.”
“The path is clear enough for you,” Remy’s voice became hushed.
“People are building temples. I can feel it.”
“Are there temples to you?”
“They don’t know yet themselves. We must occupy these temples before the god we have fought against does. There must be no room for him here, fly and tell them to chase all his servants from the earthly temples before they wander there. Let the people worship only me and my warriors. The God on whom we raised our swords remains far away in the heavens, and the earth belongs only to us from now on.”
Remy understood her. AВ club ofВ black tornado swirled inВ the place where he hovered. Its speed could only be envied. It would arrive inВ the country before the armies reached there.
“It is civilization!” Alais watched the red tornadoes in the desert, from which the dead armies rose. – Who had thought of building it on a land on which only animals had roamed before?
Men were but animals, and now, suddenly, they had become intelligent. Did the angels bring intelligence to earth and infect these creatures with it? Without intelligence, they were easier prey, and now you have to make deals with them. Wouldn’t it be easier to just squash them all at once?
Alais sprinkled the bloody sand on her palm, and it turned into aВ huge ruby that was shaped like aВ tear.
“Take it!” She called to the king, who still could not believe that his armies were rising from the dead. Even his horse, killed by enemy arrows, rose from the sand and run back to his master surrounded by a sandstorm. Once white, now black as night. The horse’s eyes shone an ominous red light. The snake he had crushed froze something like a bracelet on its leg just above the horseshoe.
“Urey!” The king couldn’t believe he was seeing his favorite again, but the ruby pleased him even more. The face of one of Alais’ lost standard-bearers was clearly visible in the stone. It began to resemble something of a woman’s face. Instead of many pairs of wings it was surrounded by many arms and legs. The former cherub had become like a monster within a stone. Souls change, and so do bodies. This standard-bearer’s name was once Kali. She recognized the face, no matter how monstrously it had changed. So lost spirits sleep in the sands, and somehow they could be brought back.
Alais placed the ruby in the king’s hand.
“When I come, it will bleed. Then you will know I am close.”
Menes bowed toВ her. Unlike Remy, he was not taken aback that she was not coming toВ fight with him. He expected her toВ come as soon as he established himself on the throne, and their separation would not be long. The sands inВ the desert are like time. They flow, folding into sandstorms. They breed demons. Alais was engrossed inВ looking at the swirling bloody grains ofВ sand even before the armies rising from death rushed into the decisive battle.
Times ofВ Sand
Remy flew over the battlefield and brought the news of Menes’s victory.
“Upper and Lower Kingdoms are united,” he announced with a bow.
“I wish we could have won as easily!” Alais smashed the miniature palace she had built of sand with her hand. It would have cost her nothing to enlarge it to a grandiose size and dwell in it. They would be surprised by a palace made of sand in the desert. It would be easy for an angel to fly into such a palace, but the crumbling arches and ceilings would most likely bury the man who walked in.
The sandy palaces were nothing compared toВ the heavenly palaces. Alais felt homesick. It was always bright inВ heaven, but evening and night often fell on earth. Before the angels had fallen toВ earth, it had always been night. The light brought into the deserts ofВ Alais was only enough for part ofВ theВ day.
“The sun has followed me fickle ever since we fell here. Do you think it has given up on me?”
“It’s more likely that its rays can’t reach you here,” Remy concluded. “You were too far away.”
Part ofВ the sun has fallen on land that was once inВ perpetual darkness. Oh, my! Alais laughed, and her wings trembled. AВ chill ran through her body.
“The sun is where I am!”
Remy nodded in agreement. Alais’ body shone in the night in a way that dispelled the gloom.
Gemstones crunched in the sand beneath her feet. You could pick them up with your hands. Some people found out that the desert was full of jewels and came to get them. That’s when they fell into the claws of the monster armies.
Somehow it so happened that the blood and tears ofВ the angels that fell inВ the sand turned into precious stones. The angels, having fallen toВ earth, became known as demons.
Were they demons? Alais frowned. The word was unfamiliar. It seemed toВ be what Mikhail had called them all when they were tortured after their defeat. Not long ago there had been aВ sea ofВ stakes and red-hot blades, but now there was only sand.
The light of the sun was reaching the ground, overcoming the distance. The sun’s rays reached out to Alais. They touched her face, slid across her skin, and solidified something like a golden plate.
“It’s a mask!” Remy explained. “I heard Michael call our cut-off faces masks. He flew around the stakes on which your armies were crucified and cut off the faces of the defeated angels. He made masks of the cut-off faces for some reason.”
“I don’t remember that,” Alais peeled the gold plate from her skin. “So you’re called a mask!”
The mask completely copied her facial features. Looking at it was the same as looking inВ aВ mirror. The only difference was the color. The white changed toВ gold.
“Michael wants to talk to you,” the mask sang, its lips rounded.
“It’s the first living mask I’ve ever seen,” Remy marveled and touched the golden face with the tip of his claw. “The masks Michael had taken off all of us and carried to heaven were dead.”
The golden mask wriggled and squirmed in Alais’s hands.
“Tell him I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want to talk to him.”
“I can’t tell him anything,” the mask hissed, moving its ears like wings. “My function is only to relay reports to you. He wants you back. Everyone wants you back.”
Alais tosses the mask back into the sand. Let it lie there. The mask tried toВ crawl after her for aВ while, but then fell behind.
Soon the discarded masks became numerous. The sunlight that reached the deserts was as if it were trying to create a replica of the lost angel. Its rays froze Alais’ face and turned into talking masks. One day the sun’s rays created something like a golden statue that was trying to come alive. The statue copied Alais’ winged figure and her curly head.
Alais looked at it as if inВ aВ mirror. Golden curls snaked down her shoulders and folded into aВ halo-like shape at the back ofВ her head, her facial features strikingly beautiful. The wings were the largest organ ofВ her body, towering over her head and casting aВ shadow over her shoulders.
“I should fight again!” Alais lovingly stroked the hilt of her sword. “But it is not yet the time. We are too exhausted.”
“Shall I gather the masks?” Remy asked.
“No, let them crawl wherever they want.”
“But they can take some of your power.”
“They’re useless,” Alais said, tossing the last of the masks into the dune. The mask moved as if it were a lizard.
The masks could crawl and even fly, moving notches in the form of wing-like ears, spikes, or horns. But Alais didn’t care about them. They’re just masks. They have no personality. They’re just a mold of her.
“I wish I could take away the masks Michael had cut off the faces of my legionnaires,” Alaïs closed her eyelids. She was reminded of the heartbreaking screams. The armies that had followed her into battle were doomed. They had been tortured, they had been destroyed. They were worse than dead.
Alais lifted one golden mask and scrutinized the flawless features.
“I was the most beautiful angel in heaven, and I still am. Who would have thought my entourage would be monsters!”
The abandoned mask flew into the sand, managing toВ sing something. These masks were too talkative. Her head ached with their suggestions and prophecies.
How was Menes? Was he happy that he got his kingdom with the help ofВ demons? OfВ this the masks did not know. It was useless toВ even ask them.
They could have paid Menes a visit on their own, but it wasn’t time yet. He had only recently won. He would have to settle into his role as ruler before an angel from the deserts would appear to him. There is no hurry. Alais had grown accustomed to the fact that time flowed incredibly slowly.
A slight envy of Menes tormented her. He’d achieved victory all too quickly. She, on the other hand, had to wait and save her strength.
Alaïs sat on the white horse that had come from the darkness with the rays of dawn. It was her former friend and comrade-in-arms! She recognized him by his eyes and his posture. Strange that he had become a horse. But the horse, as it turned out, could turn into a burnt creature with black sagging wings. He’d just been with mortals and noticed that it was in fashion for their chiefs to have horses, so he became a horse for his mistress. Mistress, not lord! It still sounded unfamiliar. Alais clenched her incredibly strong hands into fists and unclenched them again. The strength was not gone, but her appearance had changed slightly. She was even more beautiful than she had been. But it was the sex… It felt like something was missing. Masculinity, darkness… Her stronger part seemed to be slumbering somewhere, turned into animated darkness. And to live without it was somehow a misery. Alais was ready to run through the desert all day to find what was missing, but how to find something that you only assume exists and it might not really exist? But she could feel it. It was there. The golden desert breathed darkness. A part of her, drained entirely of darkness, rested here somewhere. It must be found. Only by uniting with her can the war in heaven be fought again.
The shield behind her back retained, like a picture, the image of the head of an angel who died in battle. Her standard – bearer became the shield that protected her to this day. Orvelyn! His reflection in the shield seemed to see her. He had serpentine curls, a cold, beautiful face, and golden spikes on his wings and claws. It was a pity he was only a shield now. His company had always pleased her.
The desert had become aВ living creature, like aВ monster. And that monster now served her. Alais looked around the expanse ofВ her new kingdom inВ the sands. She could lay here for centuries, accumulate strength, and rush off toВ war with the heavens again. But Remy had said it was time toВ conquer the human realm, so she decided toВ give it aВ try.
Mirror ofВ the Universe
The first mirror that Dennitsa looked into after he fell and saw his transformed maiden face there was only aВ puddle on the sand. The puddle solidified into mica and then turned into amalgamated glass. AВ ligature ofВ golden symbols stretched along the edges ofВ the glass. The gems inВ the ornament flashed like watching eyes. Eyes they were. There was aВ special power and aВ special mystery inВ the mirror.
“There is not even ash left on you,” Remy murmured beside him. “Truly, God loves you, because even when you have fallen, you are as beautiful as you were. Or is he powerless to harm you? Then you are truly our commander, for there is no one stronger than you.”
“What is about the darkness?” Alais sensed something stronger in the wilderness, but separated from herself. “It is my shadow!”
“It is yours! Then it’s yours to lead,” Remy hovered around her, bloody meat blotches and blackened gold ornaments on his ash-burned elbows. It was as if he had pulled them out of the earth, where they had been forged by fiery dwarves. Alais didn’t recognize them at first as soldiers in her army. Too stunted, but then she recognized their voices coming from the depths of the earth. How had they shrunk so much?
“Only you can control your own shadow,” Remy insisted, though he, too, had sensed the darkening power thickening over the desert like a black cloud.
“There’s something wrong here!”
They couldn’t see the source of the power yet, but it was felt as something shattering, ready to sweep away the world they were in with a single blow. Her desire to do this, too, could be felt. So why wasn’t the job done yet? What is holding back the darkness?
“It is your unwillingness to reunite with it!”
“Is that what you said?” Alais turned around, but Remy was no longer there.
“It is your unwillingness to share its burns and its pain,” the voice murmured again over her ear, dark as night. “It is your fear of getting burned by what people call passion and what you don’t know at all. It is your fear of going back to heaven and finding the all-consuming fire there again. Your reluctance to lose your independence, but together we would be better off. After all, we are still one.”
So says the genie of the lamp in people’s tales. That’s how her spirits work when they see mortal travelers. And in the lamp they may well come to live. One such lamp, made of gold by an underground dwarf, Alais took for her. Many spirits had taken up residence in it, gushing out in a silvery mist. They were twelve or thirteen. All of them served her faithfully. Even while in the lamp, they could easily observe events around the world and could find out about everything to report to her. But from where and more importantly from whom the dark voice emanates, even they did not know.
“We are made one, like sun and shadow. Like fire and the ash it creates. Like beauty and ugliness united in your army. Our army! We must be together again.”
The voice began to drive her mad. It must be God’s attacks. He wants her back, leaving her burnt servants on the ground.
“Don’t compare me to them and to him. To overthrow him would make me a better man. We simply lacked strength and unity. Only together are we strong.”
The banner of hell is fire. Alais sensed those who had descended into hell, the abyss that opened beneath the earth. A voice spoke from there. And it didn’t belong to any of her warriors. It was as if it spoke to her from her own mind. It was the darkest part of her. Angels don’t have a shadow like humans, but after the fall, it seemed to appear.
“We walked through the fire to be together,” the voice continued to exhort. “God cannot divide us.”
“But He did!”
Why did she say that? The darkness let out aВ shriek ofВ rage that shook the desert.
“You are my reflection, and I am yours, and we will be together again.”
“Angels don’t have reflections, but she did. First in a puddle spit out by a water creature that crawled into the desert, then in a mirror.”
“You’re not an angel anymore, and neither are anyone else with you,” the grim voice continued to whisper.
Alais glanced over her shoulder at her wings. Yes, they had turned black. It probably seems that way because of the darkness. They were golden in the daytime. But they’re supposed to be white for angels. Gold is the color of vice brought to earth by fallen angels. Gold is the solidified substance of the sun. A dead sun! And it is supposed to be alive. Gold as a metal is contrary to its original divine nature, which may be why people so often kill each other over it. Just as often they killed each other because of Alais herself, who became the source of birth, both light and gold. The desert was filled with the blood of travelers and their corpses, which were devoured by her ever-hungry servants. They ate the flesh, drank the blood, but their wounds hardly ever healed. What could be done for them?
“Abandon them!” It was the voice of the shadow that spoke again. “And go back to heaven. Apologize! God will immediately forgive you, and you will begin to prepare his angels for battle again. Many will follow you again. You are so good. If you fall again, God will forgive you again. He has always adored you, my bright shadow. Seduce him at last and destroy him. And then summon me.”
She recognized the voice ofВ her own mind, though she thought differently now. The fall had changedВ her.
“I can’t leave them all behind,” she nodded at the monsters crawling in the sand. “All those who followed me are my responsibility now.”
“They are defeated and crippled, and you are wasting your time with them.”
“I love them!” She knew how wild that sounded right now. She did not love them when their beauty delighted the heavens, even when they followed her into battle, they were only an army. Every warlord needs an army. It is a tribute to custom. Feelings were restrained. But now love broke through. Because of her they were brought down, because of her they were tortured, because of her they were mutilated and burned, and yet they were still willing to serve her.
