Read Angelslayer: The Winnowing War for Free Online

riveted on Hyacinth, waiting for her command.
    â€œGive me moonlight, silver ones, and I shall reward you with cinnamon.”
    They seemed to have no problem with the offer and scampered up the walls onto the ceiling directly above. There they coiled tightly until they became an image of the moon. Their slivery skins then began to shimmer and soon the chamber was bathed in what seemed perfect moonlight. With a wave of her hand Hyacinth dimmed the braziers and torches.
    Darke watched as her fingers worked locks now visible in a faint blue, much like soft flame.
    She laid the book open. The pages were of gold, thin as foil. They looked fragile, yet were unblemished. The moonlight cast of the salamanders left letterings of soft flame on the smooth pages. Darke could not make out any of it.
    â€œDo not bother trying,” Hyacinth said, guessing his attempt. “The words were inscribed using the pure light of the mothering star—undecipherable without the stones.”
    â€œWhat stones?”
    â€œI will show you.” She turned to the back plate, where she slid open a panel. In a thin hollow lined with velvet rested two stones, one a dark-set ruby, the other a lighter shade of blue sapphire.
    â€œSeer stones,” she said.
    â€œHow do you work them?”
    â€œThey are worn.”
    She lifted them carefully. They had holders on the sides that unfolded, and she was able to slip them over her temples and curl the pliable metal about her ears. There was a crossbar that balanced on her nose. She looked up to Darke, her big brown eyes now magnified in ruby and blue. He had to smile. She smiled back, then turned to the book. She expertly leafed through several of the golden foil pages.
    â€œOnly the stones make the letters plain. Each page holds three layers: the first deals with things of ordinary speaking—the Assiahian World; the second deals with principals and powers of the Earth—the Atziluthic World; and the last lies beneath and can be discerned only by seers and prophets. It is called the Braiatic World. I will read for you from the first layer, which contains the histories. When I am finished perhaps you will understand why you have been such an idiot to have sealed a deadly covenant with this fallen angel and why you should never,
ever
leave me behind again.” She paused at a certain page, running a painted nail over the lettering. “I already know you have no faith in these words, Captain, so I challenge you simply to open your mind. The words of heaven, when spoken correctly, leave a tingle that runs down the back, a testament of their truth. These are the words of a seer, a man once lifted up to heaven, a man who has spoken with Elyon—the Light of Severity—He who cannot be named.”
    â€œThen why is He named? You called Him Elyon.”
    â€œElyon is not a name; it simply means God.”
    â€œThen why not simply say God?”
    â€œSimple people, the unlearned, do.” She took a breath and began to read. “’These are the words of Enoch the son of Yered, the seventh of the first; named of the angels the Scribe; whose words will stand as testament of Aeon’s End before the coming of the age of men.'”
    She turned through more pages, gently but deftly. She had probably studied every letter and word of this book many times over. “I will read only what is useful, but some names must be spoken in their proper order or the words will be offended.”
    â€œA word can be offended?”
    â€œThey will fade until I will no longer be able to decipher them.” She paused. “I will start here, at the point where the first angel stepped from heaven: ‘And in the days of Yered there fell a single star from the sky and all the hosts of heaven wept.'”
    Her finger paused on the word, and she stared at it, affected. “They called him the Beautiful One,” she said, her voice a bit saddened. “He shined so brightly