ISBN 978-5-0059-1330-2 (т. 9)

      ISBN 978-5-0056-8618-3

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

      Immortal lovers

      He gave the statue his beauty as well as his youth, his strength… He was no longer the first toy in Madael’s collection. It seems that recently, when the angel had first picked him up on the field, it had been a handsome blond young man; now a miserable decaying creature crawled with difficulty across the mosaic floor. It wasn’t as black and charred as its fallen brethren, but it was sickening to look at, too.

      Madael turned away. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself that. Not since he’d mutilated Yve, he supposed, but now his anger was festering, and he wanted to take it out on other living things. The pain and dissatisfaction he’d accumulated over the past few days had to find an outlet. He was tired of turning his divine body into a bastion of hellish pain. And so he had endured it for too long. Now let others suffer. Now it was their turn.

      The merciless angel tormented and destroyed not only the rare gifted, but everyone. At first they bowed at his feet out of admiration, then out of fear. He became a bloody deity. He didn’t need a sword to crush people’s lives. He broke people as if they were toys.

      That’s what power means. Even his demons, huddled in their darkest holes, grew frightened of him after they watched him crush the insects that we humans call people. Once they saw him, they lost their will. One look at Dennitsa and people completely lose their pride and dignity. They crawl under the footsteps of their infernal deity and don’t even notice how quickly their flesh decays.

      Madael even felt content to see how painfully they died. Perhaps some of them had been her supporters, her associates, her lovers during their lifetime… His head ached at the thought of Rhianon, as if a wreath of thorns was already becoming. If consciousness could bleed, he would bleed forever.

      Rhianon… Not only had the girl betrayed him, she had lured his faithful servants to her side. She had not only betrayed him, she had won his loyal servants over to her side. He involuntarily remembered God’s purpose for her to take his place. He is flawed, she is innocent, he is fallen, she only blossoms, he is all burnt, and she generates fire herself. He should have hated her, and he loved her. All the jealousy he should have had for the new favorite of the god arose only toward Rhianon herself. It hurt to imagine her in the arms of another.

      He was determined to prove to the traitors that humans could serve him just as well as they did. And now, instead of a supernatural sculptor, he had a decaying boy crawling at his feet, a plowman whose coarse hands, however, were no less capable than those of the greatest of masters. Madael could bestow his talents on anyone, even the most foolish one. He could make anyone great, but the human age is short. Men wore out even faster than supernatural beings could change them. So it was that in a matter of days, instead of a healthy young man, there were living relics crawling at his feet. Madael despised humans for their weakness. The short-sighted human head could not bear the insights and talents he could bestow upon it.

      It was different with Rhianon. She easily took all the best qualities from him, and it was as if she herself had become a better person. She was not damaged by his dangerous knowledge. He could gift her again and again. And there was always room for something new. He missed her.

      He could have defeated Rhianon, swept her head from her shoulders and carried it away with him as his greatest treasure. In his power, in his hands, her severed head would become imperishable. She would live on. Kisses alone would have been enough for him, if he could not tear out her body as well.

      Behead her for what she had done. A tempting thought! Instead, however, he put his gold crown on one of her marble busts. The ruby stones, in a gleaming setting, immediately flashed, shading the whiteness of the marble. They were rubies and pearls, flame and innocence. He ran his hand through the marble curls, and his wings fluttered nervously behind his back. The quiet rustling sounded like mournful sighs.

      Rhianon! Now he really wanted to cry. He wondered if his tears would be fiery or bloody. He didn’t know that yet. He could only catch the occasional reflection in the mirrors that the wings behind his back had become almost black. They contrasted unusually with the light wheat curls. The reflections in the mirrors lived. Before, only they had become separate from him. Now there was a new living thing inside him – an intense pain. There was no stopping it. It was like the experience of the lost angels in the Cathedral of Thunder. It was like being torn apart by claws of steel from the inside, but the fire was still burning you from above, and there was no way out of the dead end where the infernal pain had driven your mind. He was stronger than they were, he could resist it, but the pain was overpowering. Even when he was falling from heaven, it didn’t hurt this much.

      The sculptor crawled and worked, creating the last statue with wings, So far only one wing was complete. He was giving it his beauty, youth, and vitality, but he himself was deformed. His wings sagged, his fingers twisted, he could no longer walk, only crawl and sculpt. He worked tirelessly, diligently, and still perfectly. It was even more perfectly than before. Now that the pieces of Madael lived in his fingers, the labor was becoming costly to himself, but genius to the world.

      Madael watched his work coldly and carefully.

      The human sculptor was doing exactly the same thing, but he could die before his work was finished. Arnaud, sitting in the alcove and fiddling with his harp, pretended not to notice it. He tried not to watch his master breathing life into the dead bodies only to watch them writhing in agony.

      He had to get used to his new life in the midst of nightmares, though his lot before had not been an enviable one either. The existence of a wanderer rejected by both the mortal and spirit worlds would have enticed few. But Arnaud was resilient. His new master appreciated it. Day after day he guided his servant through a new hell, but Arnaud was still unperturbed. Perhaps it was only because he was originally insane. In any case, he now contemplated the world as only madmen could imagine it. He saw a beautiful devil. This devil was the de facto lord of the universe, he took lives, he dispensed talents, he made marble move and fire burst forth, or, conversely, he froze the world into ice.

      What he observed was already insane in itself. He was not, however, on a chain, as a madman should be. Ever since he had been in the Cathedral of Thunder, he had not been out of his wondrous state of contemplation. Everything seemed magical to him, his own hands touching the strings of the harp and the wheat-golden curls of the fallen archangel. Arnaud admired him, himself, and even the eerie burnt creatures lurking in the shadows. Everything had its own amazingly unique shapes. Everything was astonishing in its own way. Perhaps only an artist could see the world this way, but Arnaud was not one. His soul belonged to the harp. His body, inextricably linked to the instrument, enjoyed its sounds. Sometimes Arnaud listened to the music and felt fine, but the wounds in his belly would not heal. The ritual went a little differently than the others and had slightly different consequences. For now, Arnaud was not going to puzzle over what it would bring him. There would still be time for that – all eternity – but for now he was a servant of Madael. He could look at him, be near him. Anyone else would have traded his most beautiful dreams for that, but Arno couldn’t help but think of Rhianon as well.