<
<
Daimon dodges outside, into the sunlight where it is, indeed, bright and glorious.
Daimon has no choice but to Check Stuff Out. There's lots of stuff to see, and it's best to see it
when you have no map, no guide, no clue, and you don't speak the language.
Daimon knows that this may mean an Adventure, and an Adventure will mean Peril. And Peril
may mean Bodily Harm. But this is the chances we take if we want to tell people cool stories filled
with lies and precious little truth later.
Outside the window lies the Big Wide Expanses of Heaven. It's practically begging him to dive
in.
Daimon can't deal with the wings thing yet, so he walks through the Halls of Creation toward the
big city in the sky.
The place is full of noise. Music. Work. The sound of hammer on anvil, paintbrush on wall, chisel
on stone, body on body, spoon on saucepan. However, there are a pair of nearby doors that open
out onto Heaven.
Daimon avoids work like the plague. Work would mean, why, talking to people. He dodges out
the big double doors that go out into Heaven. No one knows me, no one saw me, I wasn't
here....
Outside, the air is dazzling with purity. The Halls of Progress are practically nextdoor, and the
Bazaar and Grove and Glades and Eternal City all glitter in the distance. Oooo.
Daimon blinks. Where to go. Where to go. Who to terrorize. Where to go. So many choices.
Daimon chooses.... the Bazaar. Mostly by just closing his eyes and pointing.
In the far distance, Gabriel's Volcano burns, and Blandine's Tower is visible, pale.
The Bazaar is reached easily. Far too easily. And it is *busy*. There are coffee shops (where a
Seraph is busy playing the harp in one), stalls, bookshops, jewellery, ties...
Daimon wanders around, peering into shops and checking out stalls. The busy hustle of the
Bazaar is like home. The crush of people is almost comforting. On the other hand, at looking at
what is for sale, it is almost completely and totally unlike Shal-Mari.
<
<
Nobody attempts to force Daimon to buy anything. However, some stall owners do flaunt goods
in his general direction. Tshirts, earrings, jewellery, fiction, calculators, weapons...
Daimon prods through books. Books were censored at home, and there were always this weird
underground trade in real copies of things, and then if someone found out there would be raids
and they would torch them on TV, but then someone would say that all the books for sale were
NOT the censored kind and the burnings were of the bad ones because we want liberty and our
minds expanded....
Daimon has a hard time dealing with books, in general. The good thing about LA is that no one
cared enough to kick in your door.
There are all sorts of books. Fiction. Poetry. Hunter Thompson. Foucault's Pendulum. History
of the Templars. Notes upon Ye Princes of ye Demons. Histories of Heaven. Biographies. Codes
used by Sir Francis Walsingham. Antique maps.
Daimon gets sucked into the books. He's such a sucker, he thinks to himself. And sooner or later
someone will come and grab him and shake him because free books for sale is just not _done_,
it's something you pass under the table while everyone is looking at skin mags. This does not stop
him from, tenatively at first, pulling things down off the shelves and flipping through them. Poetry,
man. Real honest to God Poetry.
The poetry is Palgrave's Golden Treasury. "who, minter of medallions / casting or
striking, caused me so / to speak with doubled voice in bronze / I may not help and cannot
know. / But I am Pallas, and I bear / the mask of war by wisdom; you / shall spin my olives
to despair; all my reverse will say is true. // (Turn me, and read that other side; / You must
return: for, mask and coin, / I give no rest unless you ride / the felloe where my faces join.)
/ My face is Aphrodite's - she / that rules by myrtle and by dove; / I loose my zone to let you
see / the end of reasoning by love. / Nothing my obverse tells is true: / turn till you read me
as it was; / turn till you know me, and renew / my helpless paradox - because"
Daimon blinks several times, and slides the book back onto the shelf. He spends some time just
browsing and touching the spines of the books.
The books are old, and clearly well-loved, soft leather and firm paper and hardboard. Chesterton,
Auden, Noyes, Kipling, Eliot...
The Cherub minding the stall looks across mildly. "Anything in particular you have in mind?"
<
<
Daimon starts in surprise, and almost drops the book he was flipping through - a history of
Heaven. "No, no, nothing in mind." This comes out through the still very thick demonic accent:
"No, no, nozzzink in mindt."
The Cherub chuckles, rippling dark wings against his griffon-like body. "No problem. Let me
know if you see anything you want. All those books are a measure of essence each."
Daimon waves his hand around. "All this, for sale?"
The Cherub pulls its lips back in a smile. "Sale or barter. Marc is Archangel of this place, after
all."
Daimon looks around at the place, and looks a shade embarrassed. "Oh."
The Cherub says quickly, "Don't worry. It often takes other people by surprise, the sheer scale
of this place."
Daimon nods, and puts the book back he was looking at. "So, how often do the censors come
through?"
The Cherub blinks. "Censors? Do you mean Judgement? They shop here too."
Daimon nods. "So these are the books which have been approved for general reading?"
The Cherub shakes his head. "They're just books. What is this approved stuff?"
Daimon waves a hand. "You know. Not dangerous for people to read. Approved by those who
are upstairs. All the material is allowed to be given to the consumers this week until the policy
changes."
The Cherub squints golden eyes a little. "I think you've got the wrong idea. I mean, I know
Lightning tries to keep celestial ideas out of Earth, but this is Heaven."
Daimon is starting to look a little embarrassed. There's something here he's missing. "Information
isn't free, it's a commodity."
The Cherub leans on his side of the stall. "Have you seen the Library? It's not as if they're selling
_that_ off."
<
Daimon blinks. He has seen it, yeah. That's true. "I was in there once, for a little bit. So I guess...
I didn't know you could take those."
The Cherub says, "Well, borrowing is a _little_ iffy. But they permit it, sometimes, and you can
always take copies, or make notes."
Daimon is starting to look a little confused. "You mean, people just let you have all this stuff? It's
no big deal?"
The Cherub's eyes narrow a little further. He says, calmingly, "No, no big deal. I mean, why
hoard? Why restrict? Well, okay, some private or important stuff is restricted. But why restrict
generally? What do you expect, Farenheit 451?"
Daimon starts edging out of the store, seeing the Cherub is getting that "go for the lilim" look in
its eyes. "I don't know what I was expecting."
The Cherub says, "Wait a minute. I'm sorry. Are you new here? Do you want to go have some
coffee while we talk?"
Daimon says "I am, um, I think I might have an appointment. With zis Elohite."
<
The Cherub shrugs. "Okay. Drop back this way if you're looking for poetry some other time. I
have a good selection, and the new Chesterton should be out in a few months."
<
<
<
<
Daimon says "New? Oh... Heaven. You mean, you let the souls write?"
<
The Cherub blinks again. "Let? Well, yes. This is Heaven - it's for them. They do as they want.
And Chesterton hasn't ascended into the Higher Heavens yet." He leans forward. "I heard he's
working with CS Lewis on a book about the Millenium."
Daimon looks interested. "Maybe I will come back, later, when I'm a little more used to
things."
The Cherub nods. "I'll watch out for you."
Daimon says "Um, thanks. Thanks really."
<
Daimon leaves out the rest which is mostly "For not chewing on me."
The Cherub smiles in a friendly and not too bloodcurdling manner, and turns to serve another
customer. A Kyriotate looking for some Ted Hughes.
Daimon takes off, and goes off on his jaunt of exploration, happy in his vessel so he doesn't draw,
"My God, it's a LILIM" attention.
Daimon heads toward the Eternal City through the Bazaar. It's all an Adventure, and no one has
eaten him yet.
As he moves through the Bazaar, he starts getting to the more expensive section, where things
like relics and reliquaries are for sale. Various interesting items glint on stalls to either side. The
trading is peaceable and friendly.
Daimon peers at the glittering goodies. He can't afford any, but it's fun to poke around.
The Kyriotate minding that stall manifests some eyes in his direction. Its swirling form is streaked
with gold and blue. "Looking for something? I have a lovely set of matched earrings and pendant
reliquaries."
Daimon says "No, not really. I'm just poking around, mostly. Just seeing what you can score out
in an open market like this."
Daimon eyes stuff with the Lilim eye.
The Kyriotate fusses with a pair of garnet earrings in twisted silver and a matching pendant.
"Wear this little set, and you can store half a dozen measures of Essence. And look good!"
Daimon is a little surprised to see this sort of thing being sold. He looks around for cameras.
No cameras. None. Nada. Zilch.
Daimon looks for men in black jackboots coming to swoop down on people.
There are no men in black jackboots, either. Nor women. Nor celestials. Everyone seems...
relaxed.
<
Daimon is vaguely confused, but continues to look at the reliliquaries. "These are all very
nice."
The Kyriotate considers him. "Then again, if that's what your vessel looks like, I'm not sure
garnets are quite _you_. Would you prefer sapphires? Or something more discreet?"
<
Daimon is indeed thinking that.
Daimon says "Um, actually, I'm just looking, thanks."
Daimon says "I don't think I can afford any of this."
The Kyriotate says, "Okay, no problem. But remember - you have to pay if you want good
quality. Sad fact of life."
<
<
<
Daimon knows this all too well. So he nods in that sage way. "I know what you mean."
The Kyriotate nods in an equally sage way. "That's life."
Daimon says "Yes it is."
Daimon says that with the conviction of someone who knows all about payments.
Daimon lives a life of one who is eternally on monthly payments to the credit card company in the
sky.
The Kyriotate says, cheerfully, "If you change your mind, I can handle delayed payments."
Daimon says "Can't we all."
<
<
<
The Kyriotate looks thoughtful. "Perhaps you'd be happier with a nice silver bracelet I have?
Holds three measures of essence, and it's distinctly cheaper."
Daimon waves a hand. "Actually, I think I'll just go exploring. Thanks for your time."
The Kyriotate waves in a gesture familiar from Sephar and Hitherby. "No problem. Good
shopping."
Daimon waves, and goes wandering off toward the Eternal City, where there is CERTAIN to be
Peril.
The Heavenly City is walled in precious stones and shines bright with gold. Distant hymns drift
across it, careless flung harmony that reaches to the skies. Above, a flight of Seraphim descend
like jewels.
Daimon watches the Seraphim fly overhead, marvels that there are no checkpoints at all, and finds
the gate to enter the city.
The city is all gold and crystal and ivory, but not vulgar or garish or tacky. Merely... beautiful.
Souls and angels walk in the streets or fly above.
Daimon wanders around, gawking like a tourist.
As Daimon prowls, he realises that the whole place is laid out like the ancient Jerusalem. Other
beings, both human souls and celestial spirits, give him the occasional friendly nod in passing.
Daimon is totally... lost mostly, as he's never been to Jerusalam in his life. But there's cool stuff
to see and people to gawk at and a definite lack of peril.
He passes the small door marked _Library_ that he has been through before. Near it, there are
three great buildings. A glorious archetypal church, a great Gothic Catholic church, and a
beautiful high mosque.
Daimon is a total church junky. He's weak. He also was Catholic, then an Atheist, and now
swinging back to Catholic again. He ducks into the Gothic Catholic church.
As he passes through the small vestibule to enter the main hall of the church, two silver-shining
Seraphim incline their heads to him.
Daimon realizes that he is _so_ underdressed for this. Maybe he can get thrown out!
Daimon goes into the main hall of the church, checking stuff out.
Within, high stained glass windows of shimmering beauty throw rainbow shards of light down the
aisle. The air is cool and scented with incense, and a Bach piece is drifting from the organ. There
is a great cruciform sword of steel behind the altar. Souls and angels move quietly down the
aisles, murmuring or kneeling in prayer. Small chapels run down the length of the church, and
corridors lie at various points to left and right.
Daimon just wows. This is just... wow. He's very very impressed. But he's not really ready to start
praying again yet, it's all happened too fast, too soon, too much. But he does want to poke his
nose around in things.
Two small children are curled up in a pew near the front. One, half awake, is busy playing
jacks.
Daimon sits down next to the children. "Hi."
The sleeping child murmurs something and curls up. The awake boy looks up from his jacks,
scooping them into a pocket. "Hi."
Daimon says "Been here long?"
The boy says, "Three months now."
The boy tries to rub some chalk marks off the pew. "Are you one of the angels?"
Daimon says "I'm not too sure. That's what they tell me, and right now I'm believing them."
The boy laughs.
Daimon says "The dubious They always has all the answers, you know. Or else they wouldn't be
them."
The boy says, "Are they the Seraphim? Or the Archangels? Or just people?"
The boy finishes guiltily scrubbing off the chalk marks.
Daimon wrinkles his brow. "You know, I don't know."
The boy says, "Are they big faceless people with dark robes and loads of red eyes? If they are, I
know who that is!"
<
<
Daimon nods. "Yes! That's it, precisely!" He grins. "You're much better at this heaven stuff then
I am."
<
The boy grins back. "Well, I _have_ been here three months. Are you new?"
Daimon nods. "I'm new. I've only been here a few days. This is my first Adventure out into the
great wild crazy Heaven. I was hoping it would be frought with peril, but so far it's not been real
perilous."
The boy says, "You want peril?" He sounds dubious.
Daimon leans over, confiding in the boy. "Well, not much peril, to tell you the truth. Just enough
peril so I can get out completely unscathed and I can make it much more perilous when I tell
people about it later."
The boy giggles. His sister wakes up a little. She wriggles along, curls up against Daimon, and
falls asleep again.
Daimon says "That's the whole trick, you know. You go on little adventures so you can blow
them up into full blown stories later. I believe that Hemingway didn't really run with the bulls, just
midgets in bull suits."
Daimon absentmindedly puts his arm around the little girl.
The boy thinks deeply. "Why don't you go to the Groves? Then you can see everyone fighting,
and you can tell people you were really brave." He blinks. "Who's Hemingway?"
The little girl makes a happy noise, and snuggles up.
Daimon says "He's an American writer who wrote great, yet terribly sexist novels about Christ
and being a Man and Man against the World and stuff. Me, I'm not into the whole actual fighting
thing. I'm thinking more along the lines of peril where someone pushes a piano out a window and
it just misses you, or you almost get gnawed on by a horse."
The boy says, "I think they have horses on the Savannah. Lots and lots and lots and lots of horses.
And jellyfish. And butterflies. And stuff."
Daimon says "Now jellyfish can be perilous. Extremely perilous. You know, you can't go
swimming in the Atlantic in Florida after a certain date because of the jellyfish, they're everywhere
and they'll sting ya."
The child blinks. "Do they sting you all over?"
Daimon says "If there's a whole school of them. And then you have to wear salve and it gets all
over everything and you can't wear your leather pants for a week."
The boy says, "Why do you want to wear _leather_ pants? They'd get all messy."
Daimon says "Leather is very cool. It shows off... the stuff you want to show off to
everyone."
The boy says, "Oh. Like Good Views. Ezeka said that Malakim like leather because they have
Good Views." He obviously doesn't quite grasp what he's saying.
Daimon gets this goofy grin. "Malakim do indeed have good views." He leans down. "But that's
for grown ups who are into that sort of thing."
The boy says, "Oh. Grown up stuff."
Daimon nods. "Yup. I'm Daimon."
The boy says, "I'm Jacob. That's Louise." He nods to the sleeping girl. "She's my sister."
Daimon says "Hi Jacob. Do you know alot of people here?"
Jacob looks thoughtful. "I know some of the people, yes. And I met some other people who come
and then go away again. And I met Laurence once." He looks guilty. "He asked me not to draw
on the pews."
Jacob says, "Please don't tell him?"
Daimon crosses his heart. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
Jacob grins. "Thanks."
Daimon says down to Jacob, in a whisper, "_I_ would draw on the pews, too, if I had chalk."
Jacob looks to left and to right.
Daimon says "It wipes right off!"
Jacob produces a small red chalk stub from his jeans pocket. "It's okay. Nobody asked you not
to."
Daimon scootches around, trying not to wake up Louise, and draws on the pew a stick figure of
a man being gnawed on by a horse.
Jacob giggles, looking at it. "Why's the horse eating him? Is it a man-eating horse?"
Daimon says "It's very hungry, and the man's hair is straw flavored."
Louise wakes up slowly. She tries to wriggle across Daimon's lap to get a better look.
Jacob says, "_I'd_ feed my horses."
Daimon helps the little girl onto his lap. Scootch scootch.
Daimon says "Me too, or else they get mean, and they bite you on the head. Chomp!"
Louise says, "What does your hair taste like?"
Daimon says "I don't know. I think it's mostly hair-flavored."
Louise looks disappointed. She says, gravely, "Can you draw a dog too?"
Daimon hands Louise the chalk. "Go for it. Draw your masterpiece."
Louise sucks her thumb. "Laurence asked me not to either."
Daimon looks around for the authorities, and then whispers, "I got your back."
Louise looks thoughtful. Then guilty. Then she reaches for the chalk and begins to scribble.
Daimon watches her back, as it were, mostly by making covert glances around every once in a
while.
Nobody in particular seems to be paying attention. One reliever, folding gold-scaled wings against
a foxlike body, gives him an approving nod.
Louise scribbles something. Well, it has four legs. She points at it triumphantly.
Daimon says "Wow. That's quite a dog! It's very doglike."
Jacob says, "I can do a better dog!" He grabs the chalk, scoots along, and begins to scribble.
Daimon watches with interest.
Louise smiles up at Daimon. "You're nice. What sort of angel are you?"
Daimon says "I'm a bit of a mutant."
Louise says, "Like one of the X-men?"
Jacob looks up from his dog. "Do you fly around and have blue fur?"
Daimon blinks. "Nope. No X-Men. But boy, would that be _cool_."
Louise says, "Why can't angels be superheroes?" The idea evidently appeals.
Daimon says "I bet they can be. Angels can do all kinds of cool stuff, and they're always fighting
bad guys."
The two children look at each other. Jacob says, "Our daddy's fighting bad guys too."
Daimon says "Really? Who is he?"
Jacob says, "He's called Paul Venter. He works for Laurence too."
<
<
Daimon says "Cool. What does he do?"
Louise says, "He's a - a - "
Jacob says, "Soldier, silly."
Louise gives Jacob a look, then says, proudly, "He's a soldier. He has a greengrocer's."
Daimon says "Oh! Cool. I find fresh vegatables a very powerful force for the workings of God.
There is much to be said about a fresh head of lettuce and some capers."
<
<
<
Jacob says, "He's a very _good_ greengrocer."
Daimon says "I bet, especially if he works for Laurence. I bet all his carrots are honorable."
Louise says, loyally, "He works very hard."
Daimon looks very impressed. "I believe you. I'm sure he does."
Louise grins, and snuggles into him, hugging him round the waist. "You're nice."
Jacob, tongue between his teeth, adds more dogs to the picture, apparently on the principle that
you can't have too many dogs.
Daimon hugs Louise, and comments that Jacob should make the dogs more fierce. Let loose the
dogs of war on the pew!
Jacob says, "I don't want them to be fierce. I want them to stop the horse eating the man."
Daimon says "Maybe they should just offer the horse a carrot. I hear horses like carrots."
Jacob passes Daimon the chalk, his fingers all red and dusty. "You draw the carrot?"
Daimon takes the chalk. "Sure." He draws on the dogs some little baskets, in which there are
veggies, and he draws a dog that is offering the horse a carrot.
Louise says, "Now draw the horse going away!"
Daimon wipes the horse away from chewing on the man's head, and he redraws the horse going
away happily munching on a carrot.
The children both hug him.
Daimon hugs them back. For a moment, he's pretty happy.
Jacob asks, from somewhere in the area of his stomach, "Do you work for Laurence too?"
Daimon says "Nope. I've never seen Laurence."
Louise says, "He's nice."
<
<
Daimon says "Really? I've heard all sorts of things. I've never heard nice before, but I'll believe
you that he's nice."
<
Both the children nod. Jacob says, "He told us that nobody could send us away unless he said
so."
Daimon says "Wow! That's something. I bet no one WILL send you away to anywhere, now."
Jacob nods. "We're waiting for daddy."
Louise chimes in. "So he said that nobody would send us away and we could wait as long as we
wanted to."
Daimon says "He'll be here before you know it, I bet."
Both the children nod.
There is a cough from the end of the pew. A dark-haired Mercurian with a sword belted at his side
carefully puts a square of plain cloth down, then nods and walks towards the altar.
Daimon finds this a naggingly depressing concept, but on the other hand, this happens to be
Heaven.
Daimon looks up at the Mercurian and says, "Hi."
The Mercurian pauses. "Hello."
Daimon says "Erm, that's it. Just hi."
The Mercurian smiles, a brief flash of amusement in his face. "Hi. Can I help you?"
Daimon says "I don't know, actually. I'm just trying out this being randomly friendly to people
thing."
Daimon says "It's an experiment in peril."
<
The Mercurian says, "Practice random acts of friendship and astonish the world. I love it." He
leans forward. "Jacob, Louise, how are you both?"
Daimon says "When it's from me, yeah."
The children giggle. Jacob points at Daimon. "He's nice. He's been helping us draw pictures."
The Mercurian asks, "Creation?"
Daimon says "There was a man who wasn't feeding his horse, and his horse thought his man's hair
smelled like hay, and you know what happens then. Chomp. So Jacob had to let loose the dogs
to feed the horse so it would stop chewing on the man. A terrible situation, really, but we fixed
it up right quickly."
<
<
<
<
The Mercurian smiles briefly again. "Cute. Do the dogs get patted afterwards?"
<
Daimon says "Clearly. But the man is slightly traumatized, he'll have to see a Therapist for years
after this incident."
The Mercurian says, "I like it. Will you tell me the rest of the story later, kids?"
<
Jacob and Louise nod, and giggle again.
Daimon says "The story, like all really good stories, is just beginning."
The Mercurian says, "Excellent. I look forward to hearing it."
Daimon leans back in the pew, and stretches his arms out across the top of it.
<
<
---