The Complete Vampire Chronicles 12-Book Bundle (The Vampire Chronicles) (342 page)

He looked at me. “Remember, we are angels. Until this time, there had been nothing punitive to our minds; nothing that made suffering in our thoughts! You grasp? And I suffered; and fear was a tiny component of it.”

“And what did God say?”

“What do you think He said?”

“That it was all part of the plan,”

“Exactly. ‘Watch. Watch, and look, and you will see that essentially nothing new is happening; there is the same interchange of energy and matter.’ ”

“But what about the spark?” I cried.

“ ‘You are living creatures,’ said God. ‘It is a credit to your fine intellect that you perceive such a thing. Now watch. More is to come.’ ”

“But suffering, the punitive quality.…”

“It was all resolved in a Great Discussion. Discussion with
God involves not only coherent words but immense love of God, the light you saw, surrounding and permeating us all. What God gave us was reassurance, and perhaps the reassurance that this inkling of suffering in me required—that there was Nothing To Fear.”

“I see.”

“Now comes the Fourth Revelation, and remember my organization of these revelations is arbitrary. I cannot take you through the minutiae, as I’ve said. The Fourth Revelation I call the Revelation of Color, and it began with flowering plants. The creation of flowers; the introduction of an entirely more extravagant and visibly beautiful means of mating between organisms. Now understand mating had always taken place. Even in the one-celled animals there had been a mating.

“But flowers! Flowers introduced in profusion colors which had never been before in nature, except in the rainbow! Colors we had known in Heaven and thought to be purely celestial and now we saw they were not purely celestial but could develop in this great laboratory called earth for natural reasons.

“Let me say at this time that spectacular colors were also developing in sea creatures, in fishes in warm waters. But the flowers struck me in particular as exquisitely beautiful, and when it became obvious that the species would be numberless, that the patterns of petals should be endless, our anthems again rose to Heaven in such music that everything before seemed lesser, or not so deep.

“This music had of course already been tinged with something dark … dare I say it—the hesitation or the shadow produced in us by the Revelation of Death and Decay. And now with the flowers, this dark element grew even stronger in our songs and exclamations of wonder and gratitude, for when the flowers died, when they lost their petals, when they fell to the earth, it seemed a terrible loss.

“The spark of life had emanated most powerfully from these flowers, and from the larger trees and plants that were growing
everywhere in profusion; and so the song took on its sombre notes.

“But we were more than ever enthralled with the earth. In fact, I would say at this time that the character of Heaven had been changed utterly. All of Heaven, God, the angels in all ranks, were now focused on the Earth. It was impossible to be in Heaven merely singing to God as before. The song would have to have something in it about Matter and process and beauty. And of course those angels who make the most complex songs did wind together these elements—death, decay, beauty—into more coherent anthems than those which came from me.

“I was troubled. I had a sleepless mind in my soul, I think. I had something in me which had already become insatiable.…”

“Those words, I spoke those words to David when I spoke of you, when you first stalked me,” I said.

“They come from an old poem that was sung of me, written in Hebrew and now rarely found in translation anywhere in the world. Those were the words of the Sibylline Oracle when she described the Watchers … we angels whom God had sent to observe. She was right. I liked her poetry, so I remember it. I adopted it in my definition of myself. God only knows why other angels are more nearly content.”

Memnoch’s whole manner had become sombre. I wondered if the music of Heaven which I had heard included this sombre quality he was describing to me, or whether its pure joy had been restored.

“No, you hear now the music of human souls in heaven as well as angels. The sounds are completely different. But let me go on quickly through the Revelations, because I know that they aren’t easy to grasp except as a whole.

“The Fifth Revelation was that of Encephalization. Animals had differentiated themselves in the water from plants some time ago, and now these gelatinous creatures were beginning to form nervous systems and skeletons and with this formation
came the process of encephalization. Creatures began to develop heads!

“And it did not escape our notice for one divine instant that we, as angels, had heads! The thinking processes of these evolving organisms were centered in the head. So it was with us, obviously! No one had to tell us. Our angelic intelligence knew how we were organized. The eyes were the giveaway. We had eyes, and these eyes were part of our brains and sight led us in our movements, and in our responses, and in our search for knowledge more than any other sense.

“There was a tumult in heaven. ‘Lord,’ I said, ‘what is happening? These creatures are developing shapes … limbs … heads.’ And once again the anthems rose, but this time mingled with confusion as well as ecstasy, fear of God that such things could happen, that from Matter things could spring which had heads.

“Then even before the reptiles began to crawl out of the sea into the land, even before that happened, there came the Sixth Revelation, which struck nothing short of horror in me. These creatures, with their heads and their limbs, no matter how bizarre, or various in their structures, these things had faces! Faces like ours. I mean the simplest anthropoid had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. This is a face, such as I have! First the head, now the face, the expression of intelligence within the mind!

“I was aghast! I raised the worst arguments. ‘Is this something you want to happen? Where will this end? What are these creatures? The spark of life from them grows stronger, flares hotter, and dies hard! Are you paying attention!’ Some of my fellow angels were horrified.

“They said, ‘Memnoch, you are pushing God too far! Obviously there is a kinship between us, magnificent as we are, the Sons of God, the inhabitants of the
bene ha elohim
, and these creatures. The head, the face, yes, it’s evident. But how dare you challenge the plan of God?’

“I couldn’t be comforted. I was too full of suspicion, and so
were those who agreed with me. We were puzzled, and back down to Earth we went, persuaded by the earth to wander, to walk. I could now measure myself in size by the scale of things as I earlier mentioned, and I could lie amongst soft bowers of plants, listening to them grow and thinking about them, and letting their colors fill my eyes.

“Yet, still the promise of disaster haunted me. Then an exceptional thing happened. God came to me.

“God doesn’t leave Heaven when He does this. He merely extends Himself, so to speak; His tight came down and took me in where I was, rolled me up into it and against Him, and He began to talk to me.

“Of course this was immediately comforting. I had denied myself the bliss of Heaven for long periods, and now to have this bliss come down and enfold me in perfect love and quiet, I was satisfied. All my arguments and doubts left me. Pain left me. The punitive effect upon my mind of death and decay was eased.

“God spoke. I was of course fused with Him and had no sense of my form in this moment; we had been so close many a time in the past, and we were this close when I had been made, and came forth out of God. But nevertheless it was a profound, merciful gift for it to happen now.

“ ‘You see more than other angels,’ He said. ‘You think in terms of the future, a concept which they are just beginning to learn. They are as mirrors reflecting the magnificence of each step; whereas you have your suspicions. You do not trust in me.’

“These words filled me with sorrow. ‘You do not trust in me.’ I had not thought of it as distrust, my fears. And no sooner had I realized this than that realization was sufficient for God, and He called me back to Heaven and said that now I should watch more often from that vantage point and not go so deep into the foliage of the world.”

I could only stare at Memnoch as he explained all these things. We stood on the bank of the stream still. He didn’t seem
comforted now as he told me about this comfort. Only eager to go on with his tale.

“I did go back to Heaven, but as I told you, the entire composition of Heaven was now changed. Heaven was focused on Earth. Earth was the Heavenly Discourse. And never was I so aware of it as on this return. I went to God, I knelt in adoration, I poured out my heart, my doubts, above all my gratitude that He had come to me as He had. I asked if I was free again to return to the World below.

“He gave one of His sublime noncommittal answers, meaning, ‘You are not forbidden. You are a Watcher and your duty is to Watch.’ So I went down—”

“Wait,” I said. “I want to ask you a question.”

“Yes,” he answered patiently. “But come, let’s continue on our journey. You can step on the rocks as you cross the stream.”

I followed him this way easily enough, and within minutes we had left the sound of the water behind us, and we were in an even denser forest alive, I think, with creatures, though I couldn’t tell.

“My question,” I pressed, “was this. Was Heaven boring compared to Earth?”

“Oh, never, it’s just that the Earth was the focus. One could not be in Heaven and forget about Earth because everybody in Heaven was watching Earth and singing about it. That’s all. No, Heaven was as fascinating and blissful as ever; in fact, the sombre note which had been introduced, the solemn acknowledgment of decay and death had added to the infinite variation of things which might be said and sung and dwelt upon in Heaven.”

“I see. Heaven expanded with these revelations.”

“Always! And remember the music, never, never think that that is a cliché of religion. The music was reaching new heights all the time in its celebration of wonder. It would be millennia before physical instruments would reach a level where they could make even a pale imitation of the sounds of the music of
the angels—their voices, mingling with the beat of their wings, and some interplay with the winds that rose from Earth.”

I nodded.

“What is it?” he asked. “What do you want to say?”

“I can’t put it in words! Only that our understanding of Heaven fails again and again because we are not taught this, that Heaven is focused upon the earth. Why, all my life, I’ve heard nothing but the contrary, the denigration of matter, and that it is a prison for the soul.”

“Well, you saw Heaven for yourself,” he said. “But let me continue:

“The Seventh Revelation was that the animals came out of the sea. That they came into the forests which now covered the land and they found ways to live in it. The Reptiles were born. They became great lizards, monsters, things of such size that even the strength of angels couldn’t have stopped them. And these things had heads and faces, and now they not only swam with their legs—legs like ours—but they walked upon them, and some walked on two legs instead of four, holding against their chests two tiny legs like our arms.

“I watched this happen as someone watches a fire grow. From the tiny blaze, giving warmth, I now saw a conflagration!

“Insects in all forms developed. Some took to the air with a form of flight very different and monstrous compared to our own. The world swarmed with all these new species of the living and mobile and the hungry, for creature fed upon creature just as it had always been, but now with the animals, the feasting and killing was far more obvious and happened not merely in minuscule but with giant skirmishes amongst lizards who tore each other to pieces, and great reptilian birds who could glide down upon the lesser crawling things and carry them away to their nests.

“The form of propagation began to change. Things were born in eggs. Then some spawn came live from the mother.

“For millions of years I studied these things, talking to God about them, more or less absently, singing when I was overwhelmed
with beauty, going up to the heavens, and generally finding my questions disturbing to everyone as before. Great debates happened. Should we question nothing? Look, the spark of life flares monstrous and hot from the giant lizard as he dies! And again and again into the womb of God I was taken, just when I thought my agitation would give me no peace.

“ ‘Look at the scheme more closely. You are deliberately seeing only parts of it,’ He said to me. He pointed out as He had from the beginning that waste was unheard of in the universe, that decay became food for others, that the means of interchange was now Kill and Devour, Digest and Excrete.

“ ‘When I’m with you,’ I told Him, ‘I see the beauty of it. But when I go down there, when I roll in the high grass, I see differently.’

“ ‘You are my angel and my Watcher. Overcome that contradiction,’ He said.

“I went back down to the Earth. And then came the Eighth Revelation of Evolution: the appearance of warm-blooded birds
with feathered wings!
”

I smiled. It was partly the expression on his face, the knowing, patient expression, and the emphasis with which he had described the wings.

“Feathered wings!” he said. “First we see our faces on the heads of insects, of lizards and monsters! And now behold, there is a warm-blooded creature, a creature completely more fragile and pulsing with precarious life and it has feathered wings! It flies as we fly. It rises, it spreads its wings, it soars.

“Well, for once mine was not the only outcry in heaven. Angels by the thousands were astonished to discover that little beings of matter had wings so like our own. Feathers, such as the feathers that covered ours, made them soft and made them move through the wind … all this now had its corollary in the material world!

“Heaven was stormy with songs, exclamations, outcries. Angels took flight after birds, surrounding them in the air, and
then following them and imitating them and following them to their nests and watching as chicks were born from these eggs and grew to full size.