Descent of Angels Read Free

time.
    For now, though, the stage of my story is set.
    It is the tenth year of Jonson’s campaign against the great beasts. Nearly all the beasts have been killed, and only a few stragglers remain in the less hospitable and more thinly populated regions of the planet.
    Once the last of the great beasts are gone, we will all be able to build new lives. We can found new settlements. We can clear the trees for fuel and lumber, and plant new fields. For the first time, we will have control over our existence in ways we never had before.
    A golden age beckons our people.
    It is before the Emperor came to our planet, and before the time of angels, but the old ways are already dying. The world of our childhood will not be the world of our future. Many are unhappy at the prospect, but it is entirely possible that the world we inhabit tomorrow will be like nothing we could have foreseen.
    Change can bring out the worst and best in us, or something of both qualities at the same time. Some look to the horizon and fear the future, while others look and see it shining in welcome.
    It is the tenth year of Jonson’s campaign and the world turns beneath our feet. Unknowing, we stand on the brink of a bright new age of progress. We stand on the brink of learning of the Emperor, of the Imperium. We stand on the brink of becoming angels, but, as yet, we know nothing of these things.
    On Caliban it is a time of innocence, but already the storm clouds gather. It is said that a man should be wary of weeping angels, for wherever their teardrops fall, men drown.
    This is the shape of our lives. These are the days that made us, that formed our conflicts and decided our future. This is a time of which much will be written, but little understood. The histories created by those who follow after us will be riddled with falsehoods and fabrications.
    They will not know why we turned from the Lion.
    They will know nothing of our motives, but you can know them. You can know it all. Come listen, and you will hear my secrets. Come listen, and we will talk of Luther and Lion El’Jonson. We will talk of schism and civil war.
    We will give voices to the dead.
    Come, listen, hear my secrets.
    Let us talk of the Dark Angels and the beginnings of their fall.

BOOK ONE
    CALIBAN

ONE
    I T BEGAN IN darkness. Zahariel’s eyes snapped open an instant before Lord Cypher’s men came for him. He awoke to find a hand descending to clamp across his mouth. They dragged him from his bed, put a hood over his head and tied his arms behind him. With that, he was hauled blindly down a series of corridors. When at last they came to a halt, he heard one of his captors knock three times on a door.
    The door opened and he was pushed inside.
    ‘Who is brought before us?’ asked a voice in the darkness.
    ‘A stranger,’ Lord Cypher said beside him. ‘He has been brought here bound and blinded. He comes seeking entrance.’
    ‘Bring him closer,’ said the first voice.
    Zahariel felt hands at his arms and shoulders. He was propelled roughly forward and forced to kneel. A shock ran through him as his bare knees met the cold stone floor. Unwilling to let his captors think he was afraid, he tried to suppress a shiver.
    ‘What is your name?’ he heard the first voice again, louder this time. Its tone was rich and deep, a voice accustomed to command. ‘Who are your people?’
    ‘I am Zahariel El’Zurias,’ he replied. In keeping with ancient custom, Zahariel recited his full lineage, wondering if it would be the last time he ever spoke the words. ‘I am the only living son of Zurias El’Kaleal, who in turn was the son of Kaleal El’Gibrael. My people are descended from the line of Sahiel.’
    ‘A nobleman,’ said a third voice. In some ways this voice was more arresting than the others, its tone even more magnetic and compelling than the first. ‘He thinks he should be allowed among us because his father was important. I say he isn’t good enough. He isn’t worthy. We