32.10

 

Hasmed develops a look of puzzlement, blinking several times before covering his eyes with his hands. “Bright,” he says, “Bright.”

Roisin opens his fingers very slightly, so the eyes can adjust to the new levels. “It will be at first,” she says, “but you’ll become less sensitive to it over time. Open your fingers wider as your eyes adjust. You have been denied sight for so long it’s given you a sensory overload. It’s why pirates often wear an eyepatch, so that they can keep one eye adjusted to the deck brightness and the other comfortable with the darkness of below decks.”

Paul raises his eyebrows. “I always thought it was because they’d lost an eye.”

Astaroth leans in toward her ear, the one furthest from Hasmed. “What are you doing? This is the Annihilator. He could destroy us all. Name him and be done.”

“Yes. Name me. You have become Torment. End this and be done.” The void around him collapses inward, then expands outward in a silent, trembling pulse. He slowly opens his fingers, able for the first time to see the splendour of Creation. “Ugly. You have turned Creation ugly and foul. You have polluted it. You have poisoned the air and filled the seas with pestilence. You have dug into the heart of creation and stolen its lifeblood. You have become parasites on the face of the earth and Heaven will do well to cleanse the world of you.”

“Look at the beauty of the world. Why do you persist in the condemnation of God’s finest work? Didn’t He make a covenant that he would never destroy mankind again?”

“And you killed Him for it.” Hasmed shakes his head. “Take these orbs away for there is nothing here worth seeing. Name me or return me to my brothers without. I am lost to them.”

Roisin takes his hands in her own. “Why? Why be like this. Without the Creator to write your scripts you can be free.”

“Free,” he repeats, his voice now a low growl. “Free is… not permitted.”

Roisin shakes her head. “There is no one left to permit or forbid.”

Hasmed stands, pulling his hands free of hers. He has the strength to crush them, but doesn’t, and for that she is grateful. His voice hardens, the water over pebbles of his brief soliloquy now turns to the staccato of jackhammer on concrete. “Free is… undefined.”

“Yes.”

He grows in stature until he towers over her. “Free is… dangerous.”

“Yes.” Beside her, Namaan stands, facing up to the angel despite his fear of the most powerful being in the room. He tries to move between the two of them, but Roisin won’t let him.

He tilts his head, pointedly closing the eyes she gave him. “Free is… Fallen.”

Roisin looks up at the smooth skin where his eyes should be and does not flinch. “If you want it to be.” She touches his arm. “You don’t have to be an angel anymore,” she says. “You don’t have to be Annihilation.”

Hasmed’s wings twitch, glitch, fold inward. His outline flickers. “Fallen is… choice?”

Roisin nods. “You asked me what you are. I won’t answer that.” She places her hand over his. “But I can tell you what you could be.”

Hasmed leans forward, trembling.  “Could you? You are the Creator now?”

Roisin frowns. What? No. I’m not the Creator. That’s the whole point. I don’t want to choose who you are. I don’t want to choose who anyone is. I just want the world to keep going.”

“Why? You have destroyed it. You have created a thermal reaction that will boil the seas and bring famine to all the lands touched by man. It will die in agony and in pain, facing the void without hope of resurrection.”

“We can change that. You and I. We can change the world for the better. We just need enough time to effect the changes the world needs. An end to pollution, to plastics, to strip mining. All the things we’ve learned are the wrong path to tread. We’ve developed solar power, wind turbines, Thermal conversion. We can stop burning coal and gas and oil. We can stop depleting the world of resources and begin to build them back.”

“Why?” Hasmed takes a deep breath of the polluted air. “The next generation will destroy it once more. You are worse than the basest of life forms, for they do not seek to destroy that which sustains them. There is nothing you can say to convince me the world is worth saving.”