“It was Menes who fell at the deity’s feet and began begging for mercy for his state. The merit of uniting the Upper and Lower Kingdoms rests with him. If he had not succeeded in invoking my leniency, I would not have let him win. By the way, how are his lively troops doing?”
“They have the bodies of men and the minds of your former legionnaires. The combination turned out to be a bad one. Human flesh rots, and the higher mind planted in it is forced to live in decaying remains. The warriors of Menes draw angelic symbols with their blood. These symbols became known as hieroglyphs. They made them into an entire alphabet for humans.”
“So, even we’ve taught the humans something,” Alais said with a chuckle. “Seti, on the other hand, told me about some unknowing angel who harms us by teaching crafts and speech to mankind. Have you seen one?”
“No, ma’am,” Remy scratched the back of his head with his claw. “There is none in Egypt, that’s for sure. But the warriors of Pharaoh Menes, in whose dead heads you breathed the minds of your dead legionaries, are trying to recreate all the comforts of angelic life on earth. They do it for themselves, but Menes thinks it is your gift to him and his people.”
“Let him count it!” Alais graciously allowed it. “I liked him. I do want to give him a gift.”
“Perhaps you should go and see him.”
“Not now!”
“The Pharaoh has become dependent on his dead armies, but that has not broken him. Menes thinks like you now and waits for you. But his people, on the other hand, live in terror of the warriors rotting alive.”
“The people must be kept in fear,” Alaïs leaned over the parapet of the roof and looked down. “Get me the head of the king’s messenger. I don’t want him wandering around here.”
Remy wanted to dive down, but it wasn’t necessary. The sand walls crumbled, burying beneath them the man who dared to enter a palace made of sand. It was meant to be. This palace was built for the angelic race. Man is not welcome inside.
Alais flew down, shoveled the sand, and looked over the corpse. The king’s messenger had already managed to suffocate. Sand had clogged his nose, mouth, and ears. A strange bundle was found on the envoy’s chest. Alais turned it in her hands and unfolded it, the royal seal glittering underneath.
“This is called papyrus. Or is it parchment?” Remy scratched the back of his head with a black claw. “I think people call it something like that.”
“Don’t give a damn about people! Do you even know a subject other than them?”
“Humans breed faster than fleas. But angels don’t know how to breed.”
“I’ll think of a way,” Alais thought of the dead armies of Meneses, who had managed to inhabit the bodies of the dead warriors of her angelic legion. Using human flesh could give the dead angels temporary shelter. Even though a dead human body decays, it can be lived in.”
On the messenger’s scroll was written, “For the desert deity.”
“It must be for you,” Remy suggested.
The Egyptian hieroglyphics were indeed like angelic secret writing. Alais read it without difficulty:
“I have won! Thanks to you! Let me offer you praises and build a temple for you. Appear to my kingdom. Gardens and lotus ponds are spread out for you alone. My palace is prepared for you.”
Alais pulled the ends ofВ the message too hard and accidentally tore the scroll.
“Pharaoh must have thought my interest in him too personal.”
“And it wasn’t?” Remy looked at the scraps puzzled. “You helped him, after all. And other people you just killed. Kings and peasants alike – all are equal to angels.”
“How can I tell you?” Alais didn’t know whether to speak or whether admitting it would undermine her reputation in the eyes of her subordinates. “Menes was like me the day I rebelled in heaven. Of the two of us, at least he made it to the final destination. Thanks to me! It felt so good to meet my twin in the desert and help him. It was as if I had helped myself. But I didn’t need Menes’s gratitude.”
The desert was full of gold, jewels, and magic. Why did she need gardens and lotus ponds? All it took was a pinch of magic to turn the desert into an oasis. Alais could plant such flowers here that the king himself would envy her gardens. But she didn’t need to. The golden desert is more beautiful than all the gardens of the universe.
The palace ofВ sand was crumbling, burying aВ whole troop ofВ new messengers beneath it. Apparently Menes had sent them again toВ seek out and summon the desert deity toВ his palace. AlaГЇs watched the death ofВ the party from the air. The messengers were suffocating under piles ofВ sand. They were too weak toВ climb out ofВ the rubble.
“Let them sleep! They would never wake up!” Alais had long ago noticed that, unlike dead angels, humans didn’t come back to life. But their dead bodies can be used as a shell.
Not a moment after the death of the messengers, black spirits emerged from beneath the sands and seeped into the nostrils and eye sockets of the corpses. The dead bodies hissed. They rose to serve Alais. And yet she couldn’t even remember the names of her dead legionnaires. Nevertheless, barely had they had a chance to come back to life from the darkness of non-existence, they were coming back to her. Human bodies were a ridiculously rotten shell for disembodied demons. It’s a shame that once the bodies are fully rotted, the spirits will have no place to dwell. They’d have to find new shells.
“What if you put the souls of dead angels back into people’s bodies, and they’re still dwelling?” Alais pondered.
“That would be difficult,” Remy said. “Dead angels are attracted only to dead flesh. As long as there isn’t a human corpse nearby, they cannot be summoned out of the darkness of non-existence.”
“You could try a rite of summoning,” Alais said tensely. “You catch a living man, and I’ll use my sword to mark his body with angelic signs.”
Remy immediately obeyed the order. Another of the king’s messengers was beating in his claws, while Alais tore his clothes off and drew the signs of the rebellious angels on his skin with her blade. At first it seemed that the experiment was about to fail. The unfortunate man lost his mind as soon as the angelic signs appeared on his body. The messenger convulsed for a long time, and then he gave up the spirit.
“It is a weak flesh!” Alais kicked the body with the tip of her golden sandal, and the corpse suddenly twitched, convulsed. Something was tearing at it from the inside. The rib cage burst. Black claws ripped from the gutted flesh. In less than a minute, the monstrous creature stood before Alais, hatching out of the messenger’s body like a shell.
“Are you Zeno?” Alais recoiled, recognizing in the black freak the former golden-haired angel. It became unpleasant to look at. She turned away. The Angel Legion had become an army of monsters. But now she knows a way to bring back to life those who died in the fall. It doesn’t matter that they come back as monsters. What matters is that her army will become stronger. They need to prepare for the next war. In the deserts they got only a temporary respite.
The next traveler who appeared inВ the desert was not aВ rider. He ruled aВ foursome ofВ horses, while he himself stood inВ aВ strange contraption with wheels.
“A chariot,” Remy called the vehicle. “Noble men ride in one of these. Your ward, Pharaoh Menes, likes to ride in one.”
“Do you think it’s another message from him?” Alaïs soared into the air and intercepted the chariot at a gallop. The reins were in her hands. The horses bucked. The bewildered charioteer fell into the sand and stared into the face of the angel. He must have mistaken her for a deity, too, for he was stunned. Good thing he didn’t yet know how dangerous and cruel angels could be. Otherwise he would have run without a second thought.
Alais grabbed the wretched man and ripped his throat open with her claws. Only then did she take over his chariot as the new owner.
“It’s a good thing! Handy! Pity there weren’t more of those in Heaven,” she whipped her horses. The chariot started moving. The ride was like flying. Swirls of sand surged beneath the powerful wheels.
A grim shadow flew behind the chariot. Alais could no longer remember the last time she had seen that shadow. The shadow’s enormous wings covered the sun.
“Do you like human toys?” The shadow asked softly.
“Yes, I do!”
“Human things are practical, but not perfect. They lack heavenly brilliance.”
“So it’s well worth giving humans something new to invent. I want a chariot of pure gold like that!”
“It will be unusual if you want to appear to mortals.”
“And if it is beautiful, I want to dazzle them like the sun, but our sun is frozen in gold metal. And human inventions are very comfortable.”
“Your demons teach people what to do. You sent them to them yourself. Don’t you remember?”
“They seem to have overstepped their authority, things like that are only worth doing for us.”
Alais rode slowly, then faster. The ride felt like flying. The wind whistled inВ her ears.
“They weren’t angels now. It was time to change their names, as you had. It’s unfortunate, the new name makes it hard to get close to you, it contains magic.”
“It has to be,” Alais agreed, but something wasn’t right. She could feel it in her skin.
A trail of blood ran from the chariot’s wheels. She seemed to have driven over a corpse that her servants had finished eating.
Some sort of procession was approaching. It was time to call her warriors to the feast. She had already prepared to call out to them, but suddenly she felt something…
People are coming toВ worship her. So it is not honorable toВ attack them. She is aВ deity after all, not aВ desert robber. Bandits were the most common thing they caught toВ be eaten.
There were no bandits inВ the procession. Alais could not understand whether these people had been sent byВ Pharaoh Menes toВ worship her, or whether they themselves had heard about the miracles that were going on inВ the desert and had come toВ look for aВ deity here.
She did not ask them, but rode inВ her chariot past the fallen crowd. The people were enthralled byВ the sight ofВ the winged creature driving the chariot.
“Are you flattered by the worship of men? Don’t you long to slaughter them all?” The shadow behind her was nervous.
Alais herself didn’t know what she wanted today. Feeling like a deity turned out to be nice. Alais had power: she could do something good for people, show them some nice magic, but her monstrous servants swooped in behind her, and the procession of worshippers was gone in a matter of moments. The monsters wanted blood. Alais watched their revelry indifferently. Then she drove over the corpses.
The chariot left aВ trail ofВ blood inВ the sand. The wheels were stained with the blood ofВ the wayfarers. Red lines inВ the sand joined together inВ aВ bizarre pattern. It made the sandy plain look like aВ carpet.
Suddenly Alais felt something grim on her soul. She was used toВ treating people as people treat livestock. Humans are food for her legionnaires. If you compare humans toВ angels, humans are irrational. The heavenly race and the earthly race are too different. So why did it seem toВ Alais today that there were those inВ the crowd ofВ wayfarers who were worth paying attentionВ to?
Alaïs shook her golden curls stubbornly and grabbed the reins tighter. This was no time for melancholy. Morale is what counts. She had yet to fight another war. The more nourishing her warriors are, the stronger they will become. And the food for them is people. For some reason, cattle and birds did not attract the fallen angels. But animals, like people, are made up of meat and blood. So why are they not suitable food for the fallen angels? Something is not right. There’s something special about humans. But why is it? Of all the humans, Alaïs only liked Menes. Maybe we should go to him now. Or is it too soon? How long had it been since he’d won? Alais frowned. Time was measured differently on earth than it was in heaven. Every moment here was equal to a year. Remy, who often flew over territories inhabited by humans, reported that while she had been resting in the desert, the humans had already had many generations and civilizations replaced.
Alais didn’t even know if Egypt was the first human civilization. All she knew was that she wanted to see Menes again.
As she made laps around the desert, the sand turned brown with traces ofВ blood.
Before theВ fall
Alais remembered the war. She loved toВ perform ahead ofВ the angelic legion. She was aВ born leader. ToВ rule was her destiny. She was supposed toВ be inВ charge inВ heaven.
She would have won if the fight had not been with those with whom, before the fight, they were bound byВ love. During the war argument, everyone forgot about love. The three best angels were named Dennitsa, Michael, and Gabriel. All three loved each other. So why, as soon as war broke out, did they end up inВ different enemy camps?
The heavens were ablaze. Mirrored shields reflected the way the angels turned into monsters. Michael was very handsome. Winged, blond, blue-eyed – he resembled a dawn, too. He behaved too aggressively, and that made him vulnerable. Alais could cut his head off with a single sword blow, but she preferred to play him long in battle. She was giving him a chance. What if he still came to his senses and took her side? By waiting, she lost. An angel named Gabriel came between her and Michael. He wanted to separate them. Gabriel was so confident in his peacemaker charm that he flew out onto the battlefield unarmed. His appearance disoriented everyone. When a beautiful creature with dark curls and snow-white wings flies toward you in the heat of battle, you don’t want to strike at him at all. But Alais’s sword was already drawn to strike. The point was aimed at Michael’s shoulder, and wounded Gabriel. A deep wound split just below his left shoulder, where the men’s heart is. Blood spurted out. Until that moment, no one knew that angels had blood. Gabriel’s blood resembled scarlet rubies. It seemed to solidify the rubies on Alais’s sword.
Alais no longer remembered all the details. She didn’t even remember if Gabriel had been a brunette before the Celestial War. Or had his hair turned darker after the battle? Barely had he been wounded, a lily had sprouted in his cut chest. The flower resembled a parasite. The petals chewed the angelic flesh in which they grew.
Gabriel looked at Alais with a discouraged look. He couldn’t believe that she could have hurt him. His astonished eyes still haunted Alais. He was in great pain. The azure billow around his pupils, had turned purple. The heavens, too, turned purple. The angels of Alais began to lose, and then they turned into monsters.
Heavenly fire poured down on them like flames from a dragon’s mouth, but for a while it didn’t burn them.
Dragons! It is aВ strange comparison. They did not yet know what they were inВ the sky. The first dragons appeared among her fallen army. They were angels, inВ the sky capable ofВ breathing fire. On earth they became monsters, but the ability toВ breathe pure heavenly flame remained. It is aВ correction. Not heavenly! It has now become poisonous and all-destroying.
Well, the comparison came to mind depending on current knowledge. And cognition has changed because the reality around us has changed. The skies have been replaced by deserts. The sunlight froze them in gold. The sand, too, has become gold. Beauty has become ugliness. Unselfishness became mercantilism. It’s time to pass all these vices on to someone else. Animals remained immune to angelic vices, probably because they had no cunning of mind. So that leaves only humans. It’s time to deal with them.
Alais lifted her head above the sand on which she had dozed. Her angels were crawling in the desert, but you couldn’t call them angels anymore. They were demons now.
They had been through the fall and torture. Michael had come down toВ earth toВ become an executioner, but Gabriel had not. His luminous shadow flashed far beyond the earth, staked with glowing stakes on which the winged bodies ofВ the Legion ofВ Alais wriggled. Gabriel seemed toВ be crying.
Would she ever see him again? Alais wrote his secret name inВ the sand with the tip ofВ her sword. It was aВ kind ofВ magical call toВ the one who remained inВ heaven.
Gabriel did not appear. So someone had held him back. He himself had flown inВ and forgiven all. InВ contrast toВ Michael, he was more benign and never behaved aggressively. Michael inВ the fight was aggressive and became like aВ wild lion. It would be good toВ put that lion inВ aВ cage. Alais scolded herself for not taking her chance and decapitating him right away. Had he lost his head early inВ the battle, the enemy legion, left without aВ commander, would have gone toВ her side. She would have been inВ charge inВ heaven. And that would be fair. The most beautiful creature inВ heaven should be inВ heaven first. The second battle, while the defeated armies gather strength, is still aВ long way off. But she is first inВ the sands. She is mistress ofВ these deserts. This is her kingdom!
“There will be no life here, no grass and moisture. Only golden sand and strength,” were her first words in her new habitat. At sunrise they did not seem terrible, but suddenly there was an eclipse, shadows came, the desert took her words as a curse, and began to turn into a huge-sized living and irrational monster. One day it would consume everything. But now the sands are full of magic. Gold dust swirls, creating magical whirlwinds. The fiery figures are whirling across the desert. Some of the servants of Alais’s army suddenly began to transform, restoring some of the beauty that had been partially taken away. She loved it. She watched their dances of sand and fire.
She was reminded of the destitute wayfarer, covered in wounds, after his defeat. And she had helped him. Is it for good or for evil? What is Upper and Lower Egypt? Was it worth bringing them together? Alais did not know that. She only remembered that when she looked into Menos’s eyes, she saw a reflection of all her sorrows.
The desert lived! The desert was breathing! Alais could feel its breath. The desert beneath her had become aВ living, all-encompassing creature, with its downcast armies crawling on its sandy back. For now this creature slumbered, but one day it would awaken, and devour the world like aВ hungry leviathan. Not only were those ofВ her servants who fell into the ocean capable ofВ becoming giants, the desert, too, was aВ living and monstrous giant, completely under her control.
On the back ofВ this giant just rushed an outlaw who was searching inВ the desert for untold treasure. Apparently, someone had told him about the gold inВ the sands.
The bandit was unlucky. Alais’ servants spotted him before he found the gold. The sand floor stretched beneath his feet like a blanket. The man lost his balance and fell and stretched out on the sand. Alais flew up to him and looked up at him. Unlike Menes, this man did not impress her. He was not to be pitied. Let the desert consume him.
“This is desert. The word came from another word-empty!” Alais rounded her lips, repeating the human language. Ridiculous language, but one could get used to it. “How can you call a place with so much sand empty?” She ran the sand through her fingers, turning it into gold. “And where there is sand, there is gold. It’s everywhere the sunlight has fallen after me.”
The outlaw’s eyes lit up with greed. A whole desert of golden sand was beyond his wildest dreams. Only he rejoiced too soon. Alais was playing hardball with him. Not a minute later, the sand began to enmesh the unhappy man’s hands and feet. His whole body was sinking in the sand like a quagmire. The heads and figures of the angels who had fallen into oblivion were forming in the sand. The robber, who had noticed them, wanted to shout, but the sand clogged his nostrils and mouth.
“The desert lives!” stated Alais. “The desert breathes! The desert produces gold and belongs to me! She is a monster like them! It is an earthly monster. He did not fall from heaven. It was my power that turned it.”
“Have mercy!” The outlaw wheezed.
He saw her as aВ deity. It was the right thing toВ do. After all, she had wings, she had heavenly beauty. She had power that somehow the god could not take away. So she must be the one toВ rule the world she found herselfВ in.
“You wanted my gold,” Alais replied dryly. “Then drown yourself in it!”
The outlaw’s body sank into the sand and disappeared beneath it. Alais stepped her foot on the spot where he had recently floundered. Her sandal did not fall through the sand. The desert was no longer a swamp. But if a caravan or a rider drove through it, the sand would once again suck in living people like a swamp.
“The desert is hungry,” Alais concluded.
After the outlaw’s death, one of the sand figures floated to the surface and formed into a winged body.
“Are you Saail?” Alais frowned. The sandy face was hard to recognize. It seemed to be one of her dead angels. “Is it you?”
The sandy figure bowed. Apparently, Saail had taken the life ofВ an outlaw inВ order toВ recover himself. One sacrifice was enough for one angel, but not enough for the others. Alais glanced at the outline ofВ the heads inВ the sand.
“Take anyone who passes or passes through here,” she allowed.
Saail flew to lure new victims into the desert. His wings crumbled with sand. His whole body would probably crumble before he reached the desert’s edge, but he had a chance to be resurrected. Now he knows whose source of life he can take for his own benefit. Angels need people’s lives to rise from the dust. Let them take it.
Alais had no pity for people. The image of Menos arose before her eyes. Pharaoh had gained his kingdom on the defeat and bones of his own army. How he was like her! It turned out to be not at all difficult to give the dead bodies of Menes’s warriors to the dead angels. Disembodied substances took possession of the corpses, raised them from death, and sent them into battle.
Menes got his victory. But what did he do with the demon army? No sooner had the bodies ofВ the warriors decomposed than the demons had toВ fly away. But before that, they feasted. Surely Menes let them devour all his enemies.
How is he? Did the union ofВ the two kingdoms bring him happiness? Alais wandered through the desert and heard echoes ofВ their recent collusion:
“Do you want me to raise them from death?”
“Can you do that?” There was an echo over the desert of Menes’s words.
