Thus spoke the Martyr Mishahel to the high priest, as he stood bound with his fellow Luonnotar in the city plaza and waiting to face the fury of Junil’s justice:
”We are all Children of The One, men and so-called gods alike, whether you acknowledge it or not. The Angels that He created may have created this world in which we live, but that gives them no right to demand our worship. The least of us mere mortals are far closer to the majesty of The Twenty One than they could ever hope to be to the majesty of their maker. In ways we are greater than them. We have true free will, while they are slaves to their individual precepts. The Father would have lifted their burden, but they lusted after power and chose to remain in bondage to it. It was Agares who stole the Gems of Creation and made them portals to infinite planes of pure elements, and I curse his name for this even more than you. I however cannot do so without expressing even greater scorn for hypocrites like your Lord Junil, who condemn him for this act and wage wars against his followers in retribution while themselves never ceasing to abuse the power he granted them. The One commanded the so-called good gods to protect humanity and guide us to enlightenment, but they have abandoned this duty in order to fight each other and have reduced our race to mere pawns. The Father would never have approved of fighting evil with evil, which is all Junil does. The eldest angel ought to be a good example to us all, but he is only an example of unparalleled hypocrisy. How can you swear an oath to worship a god of oaths who broke his oath not to interfere is this world?
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of The One. Even Nemed, our forefather, who alone among the first angels was willing to give up power and accept the freedom that The One offers to us all, did so only after convincing all his brethren to defy a direct commandment from their Creator. They were to make nothing eternal, but the God of Life wished us to have eternal life here in Erebus. While the bodies of the sons and daughters of Anesidora decay and our souls pass from this plane to the Netherworld, we know no real rest due to our ancestor’s folly. Had they obeyed then our souls might be free to join The One in The True Heaven, not bound to the exceedingly poor imitation worlds that false gods have fashioned. Your gods are but petulant children. Though they had already existed for eons before the foundation of the world, they are less mature than most mortals. We have more to teach them than they have to teach us. Enslaved to their precepts, they do not know their own souls. While they claim to revere our progenitor, they have no compassion on the actual man and heap their praise instead upon he who took his brother’s office. I do not repent my blasphemy or ask your god for mercy. I have nothing to repent. It is your god who needs to ask for my forgiveness, and to reject his own precept as an act of contrition. Junil will find no mercy until he embraces anarchy—not the strife of the corrupt Cammulos but the fact that there is greater order to be found in the rejection of authority and the embrace of purely voluntary interaction. (I do not say that all authority is wrong, but he who thinks he is authority itself must reject the notion before it is possible to find the proper balance of precepts to allow the soul freedom.) If your god condemns us for speaking the truth, how much more will The God of All condemn him when comes the day of reckoning? Let that day come! Mankind is ready to throw off the abuse of our guardians. Man will soon come of age. No would-be god shall survive unless he learns to recognize us not as his toys, but his equals.”
With this the Prior had heard enough. The most serious blasphemy ever recorded demanded a most serious punishment. Mere hanging or decapitation would not suffice. These fools needed to be made a public example in the most dramatic way he knew: a pillar of fire called down from the heavens. He knew he could command this, as he had personally done so before in order to purge his land of the last vestiges of the Ashen Veil and was sure that Junil would consider these men even worse.
Junil hated what he heard from the Luonnotar, because he feared it might be true. How could any mortal know such things? The terms of The Compact strictly forbade any angel from sharing these secrets with the living. He had assumed this was fine, as his maker never actually told them to make His existence known. One worry filled his soul with terror: could The One have returned, and chosen to reveal himself only to mortals? That would surely mean that he was not as righteous as he liked to believe. Now that he thinks of it, was not Agares first great sin the creation of a world and people required to worship him and kept in ignorance of the truth. For the first time, Junil was forced to consider that he himself might not be good. This line of thought would have gone on, had he not recalled an obscure clause of The Compact that dictating the proper course of behavior when dealing with mortals who know and have faith in truth. By following the letter of this law, he could suppress his existential angst.
The people watched in awe as they saw the flames descending from the sky. The Prior was certain of his victory, while the Luonnotar calmly awaited their unjust fate. It did not happen as anyone expected. Flames descended and engulfed them, but not a hair on their head or a fiber of their clothing was harmed. The same could not be said of the chains binding them, or the flesh of their persecutors, both of which melted away. Half the city cried in anguish, until they were reduced to ash. The only survivors within over a mile of the plaza were the condemned and those who had hearkened to their words. These joined together and fled the city, but were pursued. They were assailed at every stop, always safe against the supernatural but not against the mundane weapons of mortals offended by their gospel. Their numbers swelled with new converts, but the casualty rate was high. At last they found sanctuary among the Grigori, whose leader Cassiel kept secret the pride he felt over a certain clause that he personally had convinced Dagda to include in The Compact. He was not allowed to confirm the veracity of their beliefs, and frankly he thought that they had one thing very wrong; he could not accept the idea that a being as perfect as the one would have any desire to be worshipped or have a religion form around him. Nevertheless, he welcomed them into his lands. They made their home in the one land were all religious persecution is illegal and blasphemy is considered a national pastime. They could not make many converts among a people so suspicious of the very concept of faith, but did gain a safe base of operations to support evangelists abroad.
