The pain of the touch of Vapula's Messiah occupies all the senses: one sees it as a wave of blackness, hears it as a scream of Discord, smells it as the stench of rotten flesh, tastes it as living worms poured down one's throat, and feels it as the most intense of rough-edged agonies. It is fortunate that it endures only a moment before there is Gabriel's scream of rage and fire comes down. The sensation of fiery pain that fills the Habbalite as she is carried away is no doubt intended to be unpleasant, but it is instead -- a relief.

Then sanity and sensation return, and Anaharath stands on a dusty street in warm sunlight, with Gabriel beside her; the Archangel's fires have quieted, and the madness in her eyes has dimmed. A palace stands behind the two, and stately if primitive buildings along the street; no humans or celestials are visible, although there is a slight smell of human decay. Gabriel is studying the horizon.

Anaharath's mind is almost blank for a moment. She is near Fire. Burning Fire. She sinks to her knees, trying to simultaneously figure out what's WRONG with this picture and shut her mind away from the wrongness. She's near Fire. This cannot be wrong...

Gabriel murmurs, "The Habbalah are an interesting case, I have always felt. If you should ask an angel, she will say, 'They are demons, deluded fiends, all the more hollow for that they think they are good.' If you ask a demon, the demon will laugh; but the opinions of demons are to be disregarded. And you ask the Habbalah themselves, they say that they are angels, and how can one who serves God in their heart be wrong?"

Anaharath raises her head and stares at the Archangel with eyes that see only Fire. "I serve, Burning Lady," she whispers, desperate and devout.

Gabriel says, "The question was, of course, never pressing. A Habbalite serves a Demon Prince, or roams Renegade through the Earth; we have therefore slain them, or repelled them, or destroyed them, or punished them - punished them, quite often, for they are above all things cruel."

Gabriel whispers, "Unfortunately, we are no longer permitted the luxury of making such practical distinctions. The dividing lines -" She is silent for a short time.

Anaharath raises her hands a little, palms up. Still whispering, she says, "I was made to punish, my Lady. The unworthy, those whose weaknesses led them to cruelty." She probably does not know if it is pleading or defiance. "I was made..."

Gabriel allows the faintest trace of a smile to creep up one side of her face. "The War is over, Anaharath. Now we must make hard choices."

Anaharath lets her hands drop to her knees and looks up with her eyes wide. "Anything you ask, Burning Lady."

Gabriel says, softly, "Heaven has elected to acknowledge what has always been true; that the Habbalah are a Choir of angels, the most vulnerable and the darkest servants of His Light, those placed in Hell and on Earth to bring punishment to men. Yet, oh, Anaharath, they are cruel!"

Anaharath looks almost as if she would try to explain herself -- but subsides meekly. One does not speak so to Fire.

Gabriel says, "Heaven has, therefore, also chosen that the Habbalah be culled - that those who, surrounded by the darkness, have lost their way - that those should suffer as do the demons and the damned."

Anaharath swallows. She murmurs, "It is only fitting, if they have lost their way and no longer serve God's will."

Gabriel murmurs, "It is for me to render judgment, for the cruel are mine to do with as I please." She looks about. "It amuses me, Anaharath, to allow none to leave this judgment truly unscathed; and it amuses me, for you were faithful, to allow you the choice of judgments. We will walk - for fire must move to live, as your Dark Lord knows - and I will show you your alternatives."

Anaharath climbs to her feet, frowing momentarily. Dark Lord? How can she have a Dark Lord? She serves Fire, ever and always... She pushes the words from her mind, forgetting them.

Gabriel begins walking down the street.

Anaharath follows, half a breath behind.

Gabriel says, "When Heaven makes a blade, Anaharath, we use the purest metals, of course. But it is tradition that we should place a small amount of clay into the mix. For it is a presumption to seek to make a thing without flaw, when only the Lord is flawless."

Anaharath listens, rapt.

Gabriel says, "In like manner, your nature will be tempered; I shall place a bit of another's soul into your own. It is a step I should have taken in the beginning - what folly, to use pure Forces to make an angel from! How sad it would be, if I should lose you in result."

Anaharath swallows. To become, ever so slightly, other than herSelf? But she is strong. She has not lost her way. Fire wishes it of her, and she shall not fail the Fire.

Gabriel rounds the corner, and you see the first human in this clearly human city; an aged man, moving slowly with his cane, his hair gone, his skin touched with liver spots, his hands wrinkled, and his steps crooked.

Anaharath glances at the human, but it seems no threat.

Gabriel says, pausing a moment to gesture towards the man. "Now here," she says, "is an interesting character. Bul -" (pronounced Bool) "- is his name. He is seventy-two: a respectable age for a mortal, indeed."

Anaharath halts as well. She examines the man a little more closely.

Anaharath . o O (Is he cruel? Weak? Is there something I am not seeing?)

Gabriel says, "You may elect to take from his essence; it offers -" She considers. "Well, no doubt experience. A vast knowledge of the ways of this small city. His weaknesses -" She reflects for a moment. "Well, as you can see. Age has enfeebled him, deformed him, and while his wits are sharp his memory is erratic. He has occasional complaints of the stomach and liver, and is missing most of his teeth."

Gabriel says, "It is, of course, but one of your choices."

Anaharath thinks on this. She hunches her shoulders a little, unconsciously. Quietly, she asks, "My Lady, may I know my other choices, before deciding? Or must I let one path fade behind me forever, to go to the next?"

Gabriel shakes her head gently. "We must never retrace our steps, Anaharath; surely you have learned that by now?"

Anaharath is silent, considering this. Then she murmurs, "But... to be this old, he must have been strong."

Bul looks around uncertainly, as if he is hearing or almost hearing you; then he casts a leer at the air to the side and continues hobbling.

Anaharath scrabbles in her mind for certainty. She's always been certain before. She starts to follow Bul, trying to peer into his face.

Anaharath . o O (Who are you, human? Were you strong? What would it do to me, to share part of you?)

Gabriel inclines her head. "He was a healthy man. If he drank to excess, he had a strong stomach; if his stomach was weak, then he must have been temperate. If he fought too much, he was a warrior; if he was no warrior, then he had discretion. These and many other dualities are inherent in his survival, I think."

Gabriel follows.

Bul's face is sun-darkened, wrinkled, faintly spotted, and shows a watery gaze. There is a sore in his cheek, and he has three teeth. If there is nobility in his spirit, it does not show on his face; of course, it rarely does.

Gabriel murmurs, "Do not mind the sore; medicine is still somewhat primitive at this juncture."

Anaharath's eyebrows are drawn together, and she half-raises her flame-patterned hands as if to touch the human. "It will be the same, with any others. Strangers," she says, mostly to herself. She looks up. "Must I be linked with someone who is a stranger to me, my Lady?"

Gabriel's eyes are expressionless. "No," she says. "There will be some you know, and some you respect. Or respected when I knew you last."

Anaharath shivers with relief, closing her eyes and halting.

Anaharath opens her eyes. Staring after the human, she whispers, "Burning Lady... Would it be weakness, would it be allowed, to ask your guidance?"

Gabriel says, "It is too late, Anaharath, to come to Heaven of your own will. I will not embrace you as my own until the choice is made, and perhaps not then."

Anaharath nods, slowly, looking at her empty, fire-marked hands for a moment.

Gabriel says, "It is an unfair choice, Anaharath, for haste and waste are folly both, but as I have said, it is our time to make hard choices."

Anaharath nods again. "I confess, my Lady, I would not want to lose the edge of my memories as you say Bul has. I do not think it would serve Heaven." She turns, resolutely, away from the old man.

Gabriel nods, and Bul vanishes into mist. "We continue," she says, and walks forward.