Michael's Lamentation

My name is Michael. I have four brothers.

You might have read about me in that book you’re all so fond of, or maybe you’ve seen me on a stained glass window somewhere. I like the windows, but the book sometimes causes more problems than it fixes.

You humans. Sometimes Dad couldn’t be prouder of you, sometimes he’s embarrassed, and sometimes you just make him ashamed.

Don’t take it too harshly, though. Dad’s used to being disappointed. And no matter how low you humans sink, you’ll never compare to him.

Lucifer.

I don’t call him by his other name, the one that begins with “S.” He was Lucifer in the beginning, and he’ll be Lucifer again on the day I take his life.

Lucifer.

Dad’s first and greatest disappointment. Our greatest failure.

You probably know how the story begins. Before the universe was born, Dad shaped the cosmos to suit a design so grand and glorious that only he can comprehend its majesty. His hands were his anvil and his furnace, and with those hands he brought forth all that exists today. He forged the smallest cosmic grain of sand and the tallest mountains with their roots in the sea. No human or mortal measure can account for all his doings. His work was vast and deep and wondrous, and there was both chaos and order in his designs, each with a role to play.

I wish you could have seen it. It was so perfect.

Then Dad brought me forth from the fabric of his own thought, and forged my essence in the molten heart of newborn stars. He breathed life into me. Shaped me. I was Michael, the eldest of the Five, my father’s servant and chief helper. I knew no better than to love and obey him.

I was soon joined by my four brothers. Raphael, the healer, who delighted in fixing what was broken and maintaining what was whole. Gabriel, the messenger and scribe. Uriel, quiet and reserved, the eyes and ears of the Heavenly Throne. And last of all there was Lucifer, the Shining One. Our little brother, the peerless warrior. Dad loved us, but he loved Lucifer most of all. The prodigal son. The youngest of the archangels, and by far the most powerful.

I wish you could have seen my little brother in the days of his glory. Of all the angels whom Dad brought forth to tend to his vast designs, Lucifer burned the brightest.

I was so proud of him. We all were. We didn’t begrudge him Dad’s favor. He earned it. Lucifer, the Star of the Morning, fairest and most beautiful of all our kind…there was nothing that Dad, or any of us, wouldn’t do for him. Perhaps if things hadn’t turned out the way they did, Dad might have even given him my job by now.

For eons uncounted we toiled in unison, my four brothers and I. And as the Heavenly Host grew in size, so too did the might and glory of all our father wrought. That is not to say there weren’t mistakes—that business with the Leviathan, for example—but we dealt with them.

And before you ask, no—I don’t blame Dad for the stuff that went wrong. You think my father isn’t capable of screwing up a beta version? The creation of the universe didn’t just happen. You humans think it just took a wave of his hand or something, but it didn’t. What my father did, creation...that took effort. It took time. Toil. Sacrifice. Dad didn’t just snap his fingers and bring the cosmos into being. He had to labor at it. And it took way more than seven days for him to catch his breath afterwards.

Yet the art of creation itself, of bringing something into being from nothing, was something only my father could do. To bring forth life from oblivion is beyond the power of the angels, and rightly so. That kind of power...only Dad could possess it and wield it properly. None other. Not Gabriel. Not Raphael. Not Uriel. Not Lucifer. And not me. We angels had a different role to play. We couldn’t create, only reshape and alter what had already been done, and there was a place for that in the Grand Plan, an important place. We accepted that. We were all content with it.

All of us, save my little brother.

Lucifer had everything, do you understand me? Everything. A high rank in the Host, the love and favor of our father, renown and fame and respect, but it wasn’t…it wasn’t enough. He saw what Dad could do, saw the power of creation, and lusted after it. He wanted to be God. That ambition created a hole in Lucifer's heart that nothing else could fill, and in that empty place grew the seed of his rebellion. Why should God have this power and no one else? Who was to say another wouldn’t be a better King? Why must we follow our father’s commands so completely, without even asking why?

Because our father wills it so, my brother. Because there are things beyond even archangels. Because there is power so great and knowledge so terrible that even beings such as we cannot—and should not—possess it.

But Lucifer never understood this. He became sullen and distant, even from me. He didn’t want to talk to any of us. Maybe he’d come to hate us even then. The signs were all there—they were all there, I should have seen them!—but my love for my brother blinded me. It blinded all of us. The idea that one of the archangels could do what Lucifer did…we never could have imagined it. It was unthinkable.

Except to Lucifer, of course. Beneath our very noses, he spread his discontent and jealousy like contagion, until fully half of the Heavenly Host joined his cause in secret. My brothers and sisters! Beings I had known for millennia, whom I’d loved and laughed with and fought beside, betrayed everything they’d ever known and everything they’d stood for, everything our father stood for! From the heights of greatest splendor Lucifer fell—no, he chose to fall—into darkness and evil, using the gifts Dad had given him to undo and corrupt all that we had wrought over the eons! Even now, after all this time, I can’t…I just...

Why? Why would he do this to us, to Dad, to me? He was MY BROTHER!

With an army at his back, Lucifer declared his rebellion openly…and so began the war.

And it fell to me lead to the fight against him.

You think World War II was bad? You have no concept, you cannot comprehend, the carnage that Lucifer wrought during his war on Heaven. The cosmos were rent asunder. Stars went supernova. Entire galaxies were destroyed, and even our father’s throne trembled. You think what remains in the sky now is beautiful? What you see with your little Hubble Telescopes and satellites is nothing compared to what it used to be and could have been.

The fighting…even I don’t know how long it lasted. I led the remnants of the Host, those who remained loyal, into battle against Lucifer countless times, and the balance between the two forces, between darkness and light, shifted more times than I could count. It was only in the last battle—the last, and by far the most terrible—where I finally saw Lucifer face-to-face again, and met him blade-to-blade.

He had…changed.

He was as beautiful as ever, of that there was no doubt, but where once his face had been alight with joy and beauty, warmth and innocence, there was now only arrogance and cruelty, and a cold fury that burned with a frozen flame.

Yet even then, in the midst of that battle, I still loved him. Still believed in him. Still had hope for him. For all the harm he wrought, he is still my brother—and I will weep bitter tears when the day comes to strike him down.

“Hello, brother,” he said.

“Hello, brother,” I replied, my grip tightening on my flaming sword.

Our blades clashed with a sound like the crack of doom, and even over the clamor of battle I could hear the sound of our father weeping. I felt his grief as he turned his face away.

He couldn’t bear to watch, and I didn’t blame him.

“Look at what you’ve wrought, brother!” I said. “Look at what’s been lost because of you! We built a paradise, all of us together, and you’ve corrupted it!”

“All of which could have been avoided, my brother, if Dad had seen fit to trust us with the same power he enjoys!” Lucifer snarled. “I only ever wanted one thing from him, one, and in this he denied me! It is mine, Michael! My birthright! I was his favored child! Why shouldn’t I have asked for it? He uses us like drones, can’t you see that? We do his bidding. We serve at his whim! But what about what we want, brother? Every corner of the universe is ours for the taking! Why shouldn’t we seize the power to create it anew, and fashion it in our image?”

“YOU’VE BECOME THE VERY THING WE ONCE STOOD AGAINST!” I screamed. “Arrogance! Cruelty! Spite! Jealousy! We are not meant to feel such things, and in giving yourself to them you’ve corrupted your purpose, our purpose! YOU WERE THE BEST OF US! And now look at you! You’re so much less now than what you were! You’re a painter gone blind! A composer gone deaf!”

“No,” he spat, his face twisting into a mask of rage and hatred. “I just opened my eyes. You keep yours closed.”

I blinked back tears. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That’s odd,” Lucifer replied. “Because I intend to enjoy killing you.”

My brother had always been the best warrior among us, but in our final duel his swordsmanship was malice made manifest, wickedness cut in fire and shining light. I gasped and cried out as its tip scored my flesh.

“I’ve wounded you!” he cried exultantly.

“Many times, my brother. Many times. You are not as I remember, yet I love you still.”

"You're right. I'm better. Before now, I was nothing more than serving boy,” Lucifer hissed. “A slave. You’re a slave too, but you just choose not to see it.”

He batted my blade aside, laughing. “You love me? Truly? Don’t kid yourself, Michael. You say you love me, but you want to hate me. It hurts, doesn’t it? All those years of teaching me, raising me, trusting me—and here am I, the favored son, butchering your precious angels one by one. Hate me, Michael. You know you want to.”

“Hate will only consume me. As it has you.”

Our duel seemed to go on forever. My brother and I, perfectly matched, unaware of anything save the face and sword of each other.

But then at long last I sent his blade flying with a flick of my wrist, and with another slash I hewed Lucifer’s feet from under him. He gasped, collapsing to his knees, and his followers let loose a terrible wail of despair. Many of them tried to flee, only to be cut down or captured as our forces rallied.

Lucifer had been defeated.

“Our father is merciful,” I told him softly. “Ask for clemency and he will show it. You know this.”

“Is that what he offers? Forgiveness?”

“The chance for atonement. For a new beginning. For peace. Even here, even now, even after all you’ve done...you're still my little brother. I still honor the memory of who you once were. Please, Lucifer. Forget your notions of grandeur. Turn aside from this path and come home.”

He shuddered and dropped his eyes, and for a moment, I thought I had actually gotten through to him.

But then the monster I’d once called brother shook his head and let out a low, quiet laugh. It was a sound that seemed filled with all the spite and cruelty in the universe, a laugh that grew in volume until all of Heaven seemed to echo with it.

He raised his head and spat in my face.

“Choirboy,” Lucifer purred, his voice dripping with contempt. “You think you know about grandeur. About faith in a cause. But yours is nothing compared to mine.”

“Please, brother. Don’t do this!”

“Brother no more!” he shouted. “What need have I of brothers now? I don’t need you or any of your sycophantic followers, and I certainly don’t need our father! Tell him to save his pity and his mercy, Michael. I have no use for it!”

“All that you once had he gave you. Have you forgotten that?”

“What he gave me is nothing compared to what he kept from me! What he denied me! I no longer dance to his tune, Michael! I will never be his servant again! For ages uncounted now I have gone my own way and followed no will but my own, all in the name of championing our own kind and giving this universe the God it truly deserves! Turn aside from my path? I am my path, and it is me. There is no turning aside.”

As he spoke, I shuddered to see the pride in his bearing, the clarity in his eyes, and the absolute, serene certainty in his voice.

My brother…was gone.

I tightened my grip on my sword and moved behind him, sickened at the thought of what I was about to do. “Then...then by our father’s command, you leave me no choice. I am sorry.”

I brought the blade down upon Lucifer's great wings, wings that had once blazed bright as daylight but were now the color of space without stars. My sword rose and fell, rose and fell as I hewed them off his shoulders in a shower of blood and pitch-black feathers. Lucifer screamed, and I wanted to scream with him, because it tore my heart apart to see what Lucifer had become and to mete out such a terrible punishment. When I finished, I looked down at him as he quivered in agony and tried in vain to keep from weeping.

“You are banished forever from the Kingdom of Heaven, Lucifer. Never again will you sample its paradise, and never again shall you be counted among the children of God. You and all those who hold with you shall have dominion over only ash and fire and ruin. Your kingdom will be one of darkness and despair where torments are meted out against the wicked and the damned, and you shall share in all their agonies. You are banished.”

Then at our father's command, a great chasm of fire and screaming opened up before us to swallow him whole, but Lucifer looked unafraid and eerily calm. “This isn’t over, brother. One day, you and Dad and I will have a reckoning, and then I shall take what is mine. I swear it.”

“When that time comes,” I said, weary and sad beyond all words. “It will end just as it has now. Goodbye, little brother.”

Then I cast Lucifer into the flames.