Mindsinger

I have been working on book six of the Windfallow Chronicles and would like to share the pivotal moment in Angari’s life.  An immortal Alari, or angel, Angari has been the protector of Windfallow as she has been attacked by demons seeking to wound her as they did Earth.  Now Windfallow seems to be secure and Angari has become restless.  Why?

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Angari took a sighting along the spear of amethyst.  Yes, it should go across the third row of chrysolite. Holding the twenty-foot long gemstone, the Alari flew to the top of the crystalline structure he was building.  He fitted the piece into an intricate network of spires and shafts soaring into the Windfallow sky.  No human would dare look directly at the structure for it was fashioned from raw gemstone straight from the quarries in Ravensrille.  Sunlight blazed from a myriad of colors until the whole took on a white hot brilliance. No entrance gave access from the ground.   The monolith was meant to be entered only from above.

The Windfallow angel had been working on his wind tower for several months.  Whenever he could be spared for a few days, or could time warp a few, he would come here to this uninhabited valley.  Closed in by high hills and a loop of the Great River which circled Lower Windfallow, it was called Ramon’s Valley and had once been used as a makeshift holding pen.  A handful of humans had tried to kidnap the King and Queen of Lower Windfallow many centuries past and, when caught, had been brought here until arrangements could be made to neutralize their influence.  A huge wall of sapphire blocks still closed the valley’s opening and the fallowfolk simply left it and built elsewhere.

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Soon, an enormous set of chimes would be hung in the topmost area of the tower.  Not only would every passing breeze create a crystal symphony, but the reflection of the sun on gemstone would create a huge, shimmering rainbow.  “Perhaps a festival will be held here someday!” the thought came unbidden to the tall angel.  He shrugged it aside and kept working.

Taking a break, Angari leaned back against a soft hillock and admired his creation.  “Almost done,” he thought.  “All that’s needed are the wind chimes.”  He brought to mind the memory of Queen Rose’s gift to Sara Thomas and remembered the shape and construction of the musical gems.  He spent an hour or two working out in his mind how the chimes would be shaped and what support would keep them safely in place as the wind provided life and sound.

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The Barrier Wood was near, just beyond the wide loop of the Great River.  He walked in it now and then, to feel its shade and wonder at what went on in the tunnels below it.  The centuries stretched back to the dim reaches of his mind.  Alari – Angel, the humans called him – Angari, the name that meant messenger when spoken in an ancient language of humans.  “Why were we created differently, Great Maker?” He mused.  “Why were we not given the gift of children, of descendants?  Why do we live forever?”

The Alari shook his head as though physically shaking out the buzzing thoughts.  He stood up, taking measure of his majestic tower and determining the gemstone he would need for the chimes.  He would report to the castle and if no duties were waiting, would visit the quarries at Ravensrille to pick up the stones.

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Just beyond Angari’s comprehension there lurked in the Barrier Wood a being more dangerous to the Alari than anything he had met in the millennia he had been alive. Word had finally come to Lucifer, the great deceiver, the great dragon of Revelation, that an innocent world still existed – a shining light in the galaxies.  A world not his.  And protecting that world, an angel, an Alari he was called.  Angari was his name.  And Lucifer had it.

Now, he prowled the Barrier Wood.   Abiding furiously until the day he brought the Alari under his control.   Words would be his weapon.  Words more subtle than those he used to drive those two from Eden.  Always in the Alari’s thoughts as he rested in the shade of the Barrier Wood – as though they were his own; as though he alone had thought of them; the questions, the resentment for being made eternal.   Subtle.  “Your Maker has given you free will, Angari!  Just as he gave it to Eve and Adam!  Your downfall, Alari!”  Had Angari been watching the Wood he would have seen it tremble as though a mighty wind sent ripples over its surface.

(Later in the book)

Angari stood before the completed tower.  Rising a thousand feet into the blue/green sky of Windfallow, it dazzled even the eternal eyes of the Alari.  Gemstone left undressed, used just as it came from the quarries, rivaled Windfallow’s sun.  Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Diamond reflected and refracted the light until a million rainbows fused into one and created a new horizon.

Angari stood before the tower.  The marvelous tower.  The tower he had designed and built with his own skill and craftsmanship.  His tower.  The Tower of the Angels.  No Great Bell hung here – “Though it should” he thought.  No, rather a huge wind chime, suspended from the topmost spire, caught the breeze and the light together and sent echoes of music across the valley.

Suddenly he was not alone.  Standing beside him, bathed in light unapproachable, was Michael.  “What have you done, Angari?”  The words came to the Alari like icy flames in his heart.  “What have you done?”

The Alari fell to his knees, head bowed, hands turned palms up in reverence.

“RISE! DO NOT COMPOUND YOUR FOLLY BY WORSHIPPING ME!”