“I’m sure of it,” Aurie insisted as she stirred the steaming pot of coffee hanging over the small fire within the circle of stones. The smoke was dissipating long before it reached her, stifled by the cold that had been brought by the night and stayed through the morning.
There was frost on the bricks of the Abbey ruins behind Father Hagen’s tents and awnings, climbing up his shelves and hanging from his many assorted things set upon them. Even the trees themselves were dripping with icy crystals that were only beginning to form tears from the warmth of the flames warming their brew.
“Sophia, you say?” Father Hagen sounded distracted as he tucked his thick fur robe sleeve back to shuffle through a pile of scrolls on one of his many desks beneath an awning. A monk was helping him search, Brother Henry, she remembered, with a belly that bulged tightly into his brown wool robe and made his hanging cross bounce with every movement.
He pointed for the man to search one of the bookshelves, “Symbol with a winged figure, large breasts, scaled feet. Silver seal. Might be a black ribbon.”
“Yes, I remember seeing one recently, father,” The plump man turned toward it.
“The name struck him to death,” Aurie looked over her shoulder to them, still stirring.
Their hands must be freezing, being bare in this cold like that, she imagined. Hers were being kept warm from the steam of the pot. The furs from Draka’s hunts earlier in the season had proven to be warmer than any of her dresses and robes combined. Of all the things that he might provide her, the long fur coat made from the same beasts she ate from never seemed to be one she imagined to be as important as his protection over their home, but here she was. The weather felt like it had become a new enemy.
The coffee was beginning to boil. Aurie filled the cups with the ladle and set them on the small stool next to hers where the cannister of sugar waited. She scooped sugar into each, stirred and handed one to the Father and another to the monk, who thanked her, then filled her own and sat on her stool. The stool's iciness bled through the layers of her pants.
“I saw what he went through and I faced her myself. It was her. The woman in his arms was Lilith. God revealed that to me,” She took a sip of her coffee, glad for the warmth fill her throat and belly.
“Is this it?” Brother Henry held up a scroll wrapped by a silver ribbon with a black ink seal on it Aurie could barely see.
Father Hagen shook his head. “No, no, that’s Homer. Read the seal.”
“It’s in Greek,” Brother Henry winced embarrassingly. “I can’t read Greek.”
“Right, I forgot. Look for Assyrian or Sumerian cuneiform,” Father Hagen motioned, then pointed at his coffee, “Have some coffee first, before it gets cold. We have time.”
“Do we?” Aurie eyed him as he sat on the stool beside hers. “I don’t feel like we do. Actually, I feel like we’re running out of time and are wasting it.”
Father Hagen grinned after taking a long gulp of his steaming cup. “Trust, Paladin. Everything happens precisely when it is meant to. Never when or how we want. It is the first and most difficult lesson we humans must learn. However, you are right about one thing, we must take care not to waste it.” He leaned toward her. “Tell me what the Almighty revealed so Brother Henry might hear.”
“He said to me, ‘I shall give you vengeance,’ then brought me into Draka’s—the King’s,” she looked over her shoulder at Brother Henry, who was rummaging through the scrolls one handed while holding his coffee, “nightmare—memory—where I went into the hut where his wife was waiting for him with their newborn. Except, his newborn, he told me, was named Lasse, whom, he told me, she had killed. But the child I saw her…eating,” she had to swallow down the nausea at the memory and take a drink to wash away the taste it left in her mouth, “wasn’t Lasse. Once I was in there, she recognized me and we fought. The Lord told me to smite her, but she disappeared before I could reach her. The baby, the Lord said, was named Hans, and became ash when I carried it out of the hut, which I burned by the Lord’s command.”
“You released the infant’s soul from her,” Brother Henry called from the table he was shuffling through. “Genesis, Chapter three, verse nineteen: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
“He turned to ash,” Aurie raised a brow toward him.
Father Hagen had a twinkle in his eyes, “I’m sure Moses was there to witness God speaking to Adam in the Garden of Eden with his quill and parchment ready.”
Aurie flicked her brows at that. “It wasn’t just a dream or some story I heard. It was real for me. I felt it, lived it. I even tasted the water when my dead husband baptized me just before.”
“No doubt in my mind,” Father Hagen reached to refill his cup with the ladle that stood from the pot. “There are three levels of demonic occurrence in the world. The first has always been most common,” he said as he filled his cup with a hiss from drops spilling over his fingers. “Demons will hover around people who have particular traits that can be fluctuated into certain directions, influenced by small suggestions without compromising their primary character, until fully transforming them into the monster they want them to be.”
“I have the Gift of Tongues, not the gift of education,” Aurie narrowed her eyes.
Father Hagen nodded, “Sorry. We’ll work on that. They make suggestions, deep in your head, that aren’t necessarily against who you are in your core, in your heart, but are the bad decisions. Over time, these suggestions become—shall we say—monstrous. Evil. And, eventually, they turn you into someone who is unrecognizable from the person you once were. When I first arrived here, the amount of demonic influence among the villagers here was incredible. Your village would never have attacked your family if not for this Abbey and the corruption we are keeping barricaded within it.”
Aurie tried not to let them see how stiff her jaw became at those words or how flared her nostrils were.
“A hundred years of influence, my dear. This place has been influencing these people unchallenged for a hundred years, which is why you may think their hearts are filled with that hatred, but they aren’t. And you will see it as God continues to overtake you and reveal to you His Will,” Father Hagen grinned.
Aurie cocked a brow. She wanted to believe him. A little.
“Now,” Father Hagen continued, “The second, which was rare, but also seen prior to the Great Fires, is possession. A little more…hands on approach. They, in force, would possess a being—human or otherwise—most commonly the unclean animals of the Old Testament like pigs, goats, et cetera—and do whatever they like in that person’s body.” Father Hagen took a long, deep breath, as Aurie swallowed down the thought of what happened to Alden, to Balor, by the boar. “With an exorcism, we can remove the demons—and it is always more than one—from the possessed body, but it is not always successful. Many times, the soul does not return to the body because it is no longer in this world.”
“What does that mean? In this world?” Aurie felt her spine crawl.
Brother Henry handed a scroll to Father Hagen, who nodded at it before taking it. He pulled a stool from behind the desk and brought it closer to the fire, saying, “When we die, our souls rest, awaiting judgment. But when one is possessed, our souls are captured and brought down to the realms of the Enemy. We have our theories of what happens to them there, but none of us know for certain. What we do know is that no soul has ever been recovered once it is fully captured. Those that have been brought back from possession have spoken of being tortured in one way or another.”
“Most of us are torn between two theories,” Father Hagen was unwrapping the scroll. “Either they are fully consumed by the Fallen and devils of the nethers or they become demons themselves. In the end, not a fate I would wish on anyone.” He pulled the scroll open.
“What’s the third?”
“The third?” Father Hagen sounded distracted as he began reading the scroll. “Third what?”
“Third demon thing?” Aurie blinked at him.
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“Oh,” Father Hagen set the open scroll on his lap. “That’s what you’re designed for. Created for. Literally a tool forged by the Heavens and bestowed upon the earth in defense against. Their corporeal forms.”
“I really hate having to ask over and over again the same question,” Aurie shook her head. “Plowing teach me what the bloody word means!”
Brother Henry’s eyes widened.
Father Hagen gulped loudly. “I apologize. Their real bodies that we can touch. That can injure us. That are armies trying to slaughter all of humanity, enslave us to spite God, because they can’t defeat God. They can defeat us. So, you,” he motioned to her, “You’re our only real weapon against them. You’re immune to being possessed by them. You’re commanded by the Holy Spirit in battle when it is needed, and your gifts are specific to what you will be needed for. Which is why,” he hesitated with a long, solemn breath, “Having the Gift of Tongues, for everyone who is of the Paladinate and the Church, is both…miraculous…and terrifying.”
“Everyone keeps saying that, but no one will say why,” Aurie shook her head. She refilled her cup with the ladle and took a drink. The bitter taste made her stick out her tongue. She hacked.
Father Hagen handed her the cannister of sugar, “Because it means you’re not only going to be speaking with humans. Only two other Paladins have had that gift and both were because they had to converse with the Fallen during their exploits.”
Aurie froze. “As in, the fallen angels?”
“Yes,” Father Hagen let out an even longer beleaguered breath. “Which isn’t good, either. So, try not to get too frustrated. I’m trying to ease you into this so that you are prepared and strong before the time comes.”
“How did those two Paladins end up?” Aurie looked between them. “Did they succeed at what God wanted? I mean, I’m sure they died, but did they win?”
The two men met gazes. The expressions on their faces weren’t encouraging. Aurie slumped and took another sip.
“So, back to Lillith,” Father Hagen lifted the scroll. “Bear in mind, none of this is scriptural, so it might be mere speculation. She is only mentioned scripturally in a few places and mostly as a warning or threat. However,” he turned the scroll to unravel one end and wrap the other so that he could see further into it, “she is well known among the Israelite neighbors, the Assyrians and Sumerians, who acknowledged her and, in some cases, worshipped her.”
“Who would worship someone that disgusting?” Aurie scrunched her nose, leaning to see the odd symbols on the scroll. They were tiny blocks of lines and arrows, unlike the swirling scribbles of Maud’s writing or the block letters of the Bible.
“People who didn’t want their children to die in infancy, I imagine,” Father Hagen shrugged at her. “Gnostics have contending views of her and there was a revival of followers just before the Great Fires as well.”
“Good for her,” Aurie grumbled. “What does this say?”
“This talks about her first marriage,” Father Hagen seemed at odds with it by the way he winced. “She was married to Adam. When God made Adam, Lillith was also made.”
“No, Eve was made from his rib,” Brother Henry corrected, standing from his stool to hunch over Father Hagen’s shoulder.
“It’s a common version,” Father Hagen glared at him, “Misunderstanding of the first two chapters of Genesis.” He turned to Aurie, “Before I go further, know that within the Church, we teach that the first chapter of Genesis is the overall story of creation and the second chapter is the details of that creation, specifically about the creation of the first man and woman. Both are about the same events. This, of course, is saying that they are about two different events, which has been a common enough argument. I’m not surprised. But it is considered heresy.”
“Lillith tried to kill me and my daughter,” Aurie thinned her lips. “Do I look like I care what the Church thinks? What does it say?”
Father Hagen shot a quick grin to Brother Henry, “She hasn’t been a Paladin for more than a few months and already sounds like one.” She was pretty sure there was a hint of pride in his tone. He turned back to the scroll, “She and Adam were created together and God separated them and wanted for them to be man and wife. But Adam refused because of their—this word is unclear, I’ve never seen it before…twin or mirror, perhaps—and when she was not present, he asked God to make him another woman and she another man. God agreed and gave them the first divorce, but Lillith ate of a vine within the Garden and grew wings and feathers…”
Father Hagen had to set the scroll down from laughing so hard at that. Aurie crinkled her brow at him. Not only did she find none of that funny, but she had seen the feathered wings. And, the idea of having her husband ask for a divorce in secret like that, for what reason? They were created together? They were literally one half of a whole. And he spurned her.
“I’m sorry,” Father Hagen wiped his eyes, struggling not to laugh more. “Of all the things. Fruit that makes you grow wings in the Garden of Eden. Anyway, looks like she flew—wait,” he shifted the scroll with a pursed brow. “She can’t be…”
“What?”
“She watched Eve be created and convinced the serpent that the forbidden fruit was harmless,” Father Hagen began unrolling the scroll further, his eyes moving across it. “This is…this is…Brother Henry, I need you to look through the inventory from Cardinal Thomas. I think there’s far more to this. Look for the Gnostic texts.”
Aurie huffed with a growl. “Waiting.”
Father Hagen shook his head. “Alright,” He turned to her, “I knew she was central to the Genesis narrative. That’s common knowledge. Explanation of ancient superstitions surrounding infantile deathrates, also common knowledge. I had sent a request for all references to Lillith from the Diocese about the time that you came forward, since I had already found some evidence to her activity here. This,” he held up the scroll, “Is one of those texts. I hadn’t looked at it before now.”
“And it is so surprising, why?”
Father Hagen regarded her for a moment, studying her. He was sizing her, anticipating something. Then, he said, looking deep into her eyes, “We know her as the Mother of Demons. But this text says that when she flew out of the Garden of Eden, she took with her three fruit: one from the Tree of Life, one from the Vine of Fertility, and another that is lost from decay, but I guarantee it is significant.”
“Tree of Life,” Aurie nodded. “Well, makes sense why she’s still around.”
Father Hagen agreed with a heavy heart. Then his eyes pierced even deeper, “She has another name, Aurie.” He put his finger on the symbols.
She didn’t look. Instead, she pressed her eyes closed as she listened to him say the name she already knew was coming.
“Sophia,” She heard Father Hagen’s heavy breath when he said that. “I’m going to let you decide how we approach him about this—learn more, first. But he needs to know.”
Aurie opened her eyes. She wanted to cry. For him. For her. For Balor. For Maud. For Alden. For the village. For how helplessness she suddenly felt. Trapped. “He…is married to…her. He had a child with her.” Her teeth grinded together, “He swore an oath to retrieve her soul to be judged and God accepted that oath!”
“She’s the Enemie’s wife,” Brother Henry leapt to one of the bookshelves. “Or, at least, it is assumed that she is. Being the Mother of Demons.”
“Why would God accept that oath? Why would Draka—? No, I know why.” She bared her teeth with a shake of her head and staring into the boiling pot, “Because he was a teenage father who just saw his wife eating who he thought was his child, so he murdered her, thinking she was possessed and swore to go into hell to get her soul back because,” she felt a tear trickle down her cheek and wiped it away. “He loved her and he was young and stupid and uneducated.”
“Brother Henry,” Father Hagen called without looking away from her, “I want you to take every opportunity to teach Paladin Aurelie while she is training.”
Aurie turned her eyes to him. “Great, as if I’m not exhausted enough. That poor man,” she leaned on her lap. “And God accepted. Why would God accept? Wouldn’t that be deception? Her soul isn’t awaiting judgment, she’s someone else’s wife, she’s evil, and God doesn’t want her, right?”
Father Hagen had the scroll in hand. “No,” he pointed, holding the scroll for her to see the little arrows and slashes, “God sent angels to bring her back to Eden three times. She is human. And, she is Draka’s wife. If I’m understanding everything correctly, she still…is…technically…his wife. Since—you know—she’s not…technically…dead.”
“TO THE RIVERS SHE IS!” Aurie turned a fiery glare on Father Hagen. “There had better be a way to fix that PLOWING problem or we’ll have to make one!”
Father Hagen leaned back from her with widespread eyes and frantic nods. “I will send word to Cardinal Thomas about it.”
It suddenly wasn’t as cold out there anymore.
