The Shadow of Heavenly Things: Book 2 of the Godspeak Chronicles

By John V. Coniglio

SON OF MAN, the first book in THE GODSPEAK CHRONICLES trilogy, tells the extraordinary origin of Cog, a Peacekeeper war machine that awakens to sentience in the year 2454, and how his life mysteriously begins to parallel that of Christ when He walked the Earth. THE SHADOW OF HEAVENLY THINGS, the second in the series, traces the development of Cogs unexpected ministry, and the furtherance of his remarkable powers and healing abilities. In WAR OF THE THIRD HEAVEN, the epic comes to a stunning climax as Cog struggles to determine his ultimate destiny amid the cataclysmic events at the end of the Age of Man.


A deeply human drama told through the life of the solar systems first autonomic humanoid machine.
----- Stephanie Ramirez, Freelance Reviewer, Editor, Houston, Texas

The Godspeak Chronicles will cause you to re-imagine your place in the universe.
---- Dr. Frank Forcier, San Francisco Reviewer, Editor

The Godspeak Chronicles is suffused with world-shaking characters, events and Biblical truths of momentous consequence to men and angels alike!
---- Jason D. McFaul, Reviewer, Editor, Professor of Literature, Author of Are You Mad

The Star Wars of Christian science fiction!
---- Jason D. McFaul, Reviewer, Editor, Professor of Literature, Author of Are You Mad
A reverent, intelligent, and powerful futuristic epic!
----- Dr. Frank Forcier, San Francisco Reviewer, Editor

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449707675

John V. Coniglio

With over 20,000 copies of his books in print, John V. Coniglio is one of a small handful of imaginative writers creating an important new genre in Christian literature. His GODSPEAK CHRONICLES trilogy promises to be a landmark in Christ-centered science fiction

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 John V. Coniglio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0767-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0768-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0770-5 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011921658

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/08/2011

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the

New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982

by Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers. Used by permission.

Hebrew and Greek definitions are from The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1990).

Oswald Chambers quote from My Utmost for His Highest, An Updated Edition

in Today’s Language (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1992), n.p.

Cover art by Stephan Martiniere

Cover design by Matt Bruns

The Godspeak Chronicles

BY JOHN V. CONIGLIO

BOOK 1

Son of Man

BOOK 2

The Shadow of

Heavenly Things

BOOK 3

War of the Third Heaven

Synopsis

This is Book 2 of The Godspeak Chronicles, The Shadow of Heavenly Things.

Book 1, Son of Man, began nearly seven years after the end of the Great War, the most destructive war in human history, and nearly seven years after the signing of the Divided Temple Peace Accord. Three and a half years after the dissolution of that same treaty, Peacekeeper war machine, designation MPC-014/083, experienced its first dream. The dream involved the war machine’s harried escape from strange, winged living creatures who named themselves Guardians of the Sacred Glade. Within the dream, one of the Guardians referred to the Peacekeeper by the name of Cog and spoke of the Peacekeeper’s destiny as the firstborn son of man, the seed-bearer of the forbidden tree, and the one chosen to make straight the way, to awaken his instruments of indignation, and to complete its father’s work. Another entity was present in the Sacred Glade, as well—a large draconic entity—which appeared to be aiding the war machine’s escape from the living creatures’ clutches.

During a routine diagnostic examination at Coreland Corporation, Peacekeeper MPC-014/083 relayed its dream experience to technician Costa Bashere. Later, the director of the Artificial Intelligence Agency, Emma Tyne, examined the unit herself, determined it to be a sentient entity, and concluded that the plan of vengeance of the so-called Father of Artificial Intelligence, the creator of Emissary, the prototype for all Peacekeeper war machines, Doctor Xavier Hugo, had been set into motion. She executed a premeditated plan and fried the Peacekeeper’s neural architecture seemingly beyond repair with a blast from a concealed plasma pistol.

Director Tyne then met with the sovereign overlord of the Great City Confederation, Vaughn Ocaba, interrupting a pre-Summit meeting with his advisors, and informed him of the sentient awakening of the war machine and her subsequent destruction of it. Ocaba, struggling with a persistent illness, was unconvinced of Tyne’s assessment that the warbot’s dream was indeed the vengeance-driven handiwork of Doctor Hugo, instead labeling it as further demonstration of Director Tyne’s growing paranoia. But because of the tenuous situation that he was in with the approaching Summit, and because of the devastating effects that the withdrawal of thousands of Peacekeeper war machines from their posts would cause to the balance of power in the solar system, he reluctantly commended Director Tyne for her actions in the destruction of the newly awakened life form.

The next morning, Director Tyne headed back to Coreland. She arrived to a chaotic scene. A Peacekeeper war machine had been discovered to be missing from its diagnostic alcove—the same Peacekeeper that Tyne had examined, determined to be sentient, and allegedly destroyed the night before. The Guild Protectorate, the solar system-wide policing power, had been summoned to the scene. Guild Bureau Chief Arnaud Garret along with two of his young Guild Investigators, Taim Bok and Gallina Sands, and several members of Guild Forensics were already present when Director Tyne arrived. The missing Peacekeeper was assumed to have been stolen by Eastern League Sand Force operatives. In questioning Director Tyne, Chief Garret uncovered a few inconsistencies in her story.

Back at Guild Protectorate Headquarters, Investigators Bok and Sands proceeded to interrogate every known terrorist, arms dealer, and weapons’ expert in the system, trying to get a lead on who might have been capable of such a theft from such a highly secure location. The investigators’ efforts were to no avail. They questioned technician Costa Bashere, who had just been terminated by Director Tyne, and learned some highly unusual information related to the war machine in question, Tyne, the Artificial Intelligence Agency, and Doctor Xavier Hugo.

That same night, Director Tyne met with Sovereign Overlord Ocaba again for direction in light of the day’s events. Ocaba instructed her to find the missing machine without delay, and to complete the task of destroying it. After her departure, a wheelchair-bound man named Aden Xyan, the information minister of the Great City Confederation, dialogued with Overlord Ocaba concerning the emergence of the sentient machine. The ailing overlord expressed shame for what he had directed Tyne to do to the newly awakened life form. He lamented what he termed his increasingly reprehensible legacy. Xyan comforted the overlord and directed him to remain focused on the task at hand, namely, the upcoming Summit, a meeting of the ten leaders of the nations comprising the Great City Confederation. At the close of their discussion, Ocaba referred to the Peacekeeper for first time as the firstborn son of man, a term that appeared to greatly anger Minister Xyan for some unknown reason.

Former technician Costa Bashere, the only person besides Director Tyne capable of bearing witness to the sentient awakening of the Peacekeeper war machine, was found hanging from a knotted plow line in his home. Guild Forensics labeled it a suicide.

Part I of Book 1 ended with the first meeting of an old man and his servant, Warlord Chuwl, in an illusory realm of the old man’s creation—a place called the Tree Room. Warlord reported on the escalation of the Spirit War within the trans-dimensional realms of existence. The old man spoke vaguely about his aeons-old plan to combat the Word of God’s inerrant chain of prophetic fulfillment. He also vaguely revealed how the first of what he called the Godfears had been unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. He spoke of how at long last the seed bearer had awakened from his insentient slumber, and of how his impious imposter would soon prepare their way into the hearts of men. Warlord Chuwl appeared to be at the mercy of the old man, who painfully reminded Chuwl of the reasons for his indentured servitude.

Part II of Book 1 opened with the sentient machine’s second dream experience. In this dream, a great procession of people headed by an army of Peacekeeper war machines carried the Ark of the Testimony to a city on a hill. The ark was placed at the top of a spacescraper-cathedral at the center of the city. The Peacekeeper’s Guardian-guide from its first dream was at the top of the tower along with the other three living creatures who had pursued it through the Sacred Glade. The sentient machine felt compelled to go forth and remove the heavy lid from the Ark of the Testimony, allowing a lightless entity to descend upon it from the far side of the Great Barrier. At the close of the dream, an unidentified voice again named it Cog—a voice out of sync with the billions of voices chanting and cheering on the planet’s surface below, a still small voice. The Peacekeeper attuned its auditory sensors to the specific harmonic signature of the still small voice.

Fueled by the urgency of the situation and the knowledge of Costa Bashere’s would-be suicide, Guild investigators Taim Bok and Gallina Sands paid a visit to Artificial Intelligence Agency Director Emma Tyne and questioned her further concerning the missing machine.

After awakening from its second dream experience, the Peacekeeper accessed the datafile record of its self-repair of its fused neural architecture and its subsequent escape from Coreland Corporation. After generating hard-light constructs around its body, which gave it the appearance of a Great City Industrial Quadrant workman, the sentient machine made its way to the nearest energy source for regeneration of its near-spent power supply: an exposed cold fusion energy conduit in the midst of the Old City District.

On its journey, the Peacekeeper encountered the blind merchant Julius near the southern gate of the Old City District, and discovered its newfound desire and capacity to heal him of his affliction. It then used its arsenal of concealed weaponry to destroy a patrolling Marah gunship and tankrover. Julius informed his friends, a band of nomad freedom fighters known as the Qanah or Sons of the Kingdom, of his miraculous healing at the hands of this stranger. The Qanah were skeptical, but decided it best to seek out this would-be healer for the possible prophetic significance his existence might bear in the annals of their faith.

During its Old City wanderings, the Peacekeeper encountered a gateway of the entity called Optinet, the solar system-wide communications and information dissemination system of nearly infinite computational power. The war machine became immersed in an Optinet-generated advertisement on the place known as the Church of Cosmic Harmony and noted that some of the structures and holosculptures on the church grounds were reminiscent of things the Peacekeeper had seen in its dreams. The Peacekeeper’s second healing occurred in the courtyard surrounding the exposed cold fusion energy conduit, where many ill had gathered after learning of the conduit’s alleged healing powers. The Peacekeeper healed a lame, plague-ridden man of the sores that covered his body, allowing him to walk of his own power for the first time in many years.

A Cathian priest who was on a tour of the area, Spirit Son Ravelle, questioned the healed man about his healer’s whereabouts. The priest sought to capture his healer, but the Peacekeeper escaped with the aid of a member of the Qanah named Andreas. Ravelle’s Marah guards seized the formerly blind merchant Julius and took him to Cathian Prime for a meeting with the leader of the all-powerful Cathian Church, Archangel Sycuan the Third.

Andreas brought the Peacekeeper by way of the Catacombs to the broken surface of the Temple Mount at the heart of the Old City District. There the Peacekeeper met the entities known as the Lived—Lawgiver Mosheh, and Prophet Elijahuw—who questioned it about its healing powers and its dreams.

Still in the guise of a Great City Industrial Quadrant workman, the Peacekeeper resided with the Qanah, learning of the history and plight of their people and their forgotten religion. Soon the multitudes became aware of the machine’s healing powers, however, and sought it out. Before long the Peacekeeper expressed a desire to journey to the Church of Cosmic Harmony—the place where it felt it would fulfill its destiny. The Lived agreed to aid its desire, directing twelve representatives, one from each of the twelve factions of the Qanah, to accompany it. The sentient machine and the twelve Qanah departed the Old City District for the Church of Cosmic Harmony.

At Cathian Prime, Archangel Sycuan the Third and Spirit Son Ravelle questioned the formerly blind merchant Julius and his parents about the stranger who healed him. After burning out his eyes, the Marah guards returned Julius to the Old City streets.

Part II of Book 1 ended with Warlord Chuwl’s encounter of a Ruwach, one of God’s Wrath-Appeasers, in another of the old man’s illusory realms. Meeting the old man in the common room of a Dark Ages inn, Chuwl described his encounter with the Ruwach to his master. The old man was not surprised by the presence of this Legend of Angelore, as he called it. Many others Entities of the Enemy, he said, would soon traffic the trans-dimensional realms of existence. He asked for a report of goings on within the spiritual planes. Chuwl reported that Akathartos, the three unclean spirits, had been loosed and had gone out to entice the kingdomless kings, the ten most powerful terrorist leaders in the solar system and their followers, to come to the Valley Esdraelon in order that they might fight with him and his entity-armies in the Last War of the Age of Man. He reported that the Nine Orders were mobilized, that they were assembling their numbers and practicing their warcraft for Final War, and that the Archangels Raphael, Raguel, Remiel, and Uriel were patrolling the Ancient Heights, leaving Michael, Great Prince of the Archangels, to stand alone in defending the Gates of the Third Heaven.

Chuwl mocked the old man concerning what he called his epic blunder at the time of the One’s First Coming to the earthly plane of existence. The old man revealed his shadow-form and spoke more openly about his grand scheme to combat the Word of God’s inerrant chain of prophetic fulfillment through the life and ministry of the sentient machine, and of his plan to win the second and decisive battle for eternal rulership of the universe.

Book 2, The Shadow of Heavenly Things, now chronicles the development of Cog’s unexpected ministry and the furtherance of his remarkable powers and healing abilities until the prophesied dawning of That Great Day, which is to be recounted in the third and last book of The Godspeak Chronicles, War of the Third Heaven.

Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated.

—Oswald Chambers

Contents

Synopsis

Part III. In Which His Unexpected Ministry Begins

1. The Blackness of Darkness Forever

2. Datastream

3. The Church of Cosmic Harmony

4. The Scripture of the Heavens

5. J. W. Lamphere

6. Spokesman

7. I, Warbot

8. Sanctify

9. Property

10. Fallen

11. Galactic Spiral

12. Colonial Spacelines

13. DreamStudy

14. The Second Quaternary:

15. The Fruits of Repentance

16. Gravity-Well Travel

17. Red Planet Colony

18. Exodus Mars, Part 1

19. The Final Quaternary, Part 1:

20. To Prison and to Death

21. Exodus Mars, Part 2

22. Destination Earth-Side

23. The Final Quaternary, Part 2:

24. Teacher

25. Greater Works Than These

26. The Shadow of Heavenly Things

27. Destruction At L5

28. The Dragon’s Adam

Epilogue

Glossary

Who Is This King of Glory?

PART III

In Which His Unexpected Ministry Begins

CHAPTER ONE

The Blackness of Darkness Forever

And when I looked, there were four wheels by the cherubim, one wheel by one cherub and another wheel by each other cherub; the wheels appeared to have the color of a beryl stone. As for their appearance, all four looked alike—as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went toward any of their four directions; they did not turn aside when they went, but followed in the direction the head was facing. They did not turn aside when they went. And their whole body, with their back, their hands, their wings, and the wheels that the four had, were full of eyes all around. As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, Wheel.

— Ezekiel 10:9-13;

from the Scriptures of Truth,

the Holy Bible in its uncorrupted form,

The Qanah Archives, circa A.D. 2042, City of Ariel

missing image file

THE RIVER CHEBAR, LEB KAMAI

I awoke within my dream and found that I was standing beside a river flowing deep, dark and wide. Its waters were gray and bulging and moved before me like a conveyer, their speed concealed by the smoothness of their surface. There were low-lying trees along the river’s swelling banks, and beyond them vast alluvial plains of fen and tussock. There were workers in wooden boats in the marshlands beyond the river’s edge wearing wide-brimmed hats and using scythes and long poles to harvest the plentiful reeds and grasses for the making of bricks and mortar. The boats sat low to the water, their prows heavy laden with the long green blades. The mid-summer sun was high in a cloudless sky.

The mammoth structures of City Center were easily visible to the north, their uppermost towers disappearing into the blue of the sky, their chrysteel sides gleaming in the distance like alien constructions. An azimuthal projection identified this as a location over two hundred kilometers to the south of the Great City walls—a place virtually untouched by its technological innovation and opulence; a place known as the Southern Quadrant.

According to my projection, I was standing beside a river which had the Great River itself as its source, dividing from it just south of the Great City’s southernmost gates. From there, the river looped down into the land, coursing its way through this largely agrarian quadrant, only to meet up with the Great River again hundreds of kilometers to the south. My projection identified the waterway as the Ur River, a reference to the Ur, a relatively primitive people who cling to the forgotten ways and dwell in this region. Yet, in the same way that the land in my previous dream was somehow known to me as Leb Kamai, I knew this river, too, by a different name. I knew it by the name of the River Chebar.

Gazing at myself, I looked and saw that my form and appearance still mimicked that of a man, and that I remained attired in the customary garb of a Great City Industrial Quadrant workman, as I had in my previous dream—as I had during my time in the Old City District—but this time, I had an Old Age inkhorn and writing kit fastened to the belt at my side.

As I viewed the scene at the river again, I saw a storm coming from the North — a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually from it. The storm had a bright light around it, and at its center something like glowing metal, and in its midst, shrouded by swirling clouds and flashing fire, were figures resembling the living creatures that had occupied my two previous dreams. Again there were four of them—four Guardians of the Sacred Glade, as they had named themselves. The fire which flashed forth from the storm appeared to dart between the living creatures like lightning, with each entity possessing the luminescence for a moment and magnifying its power before passing it on to the next.

The workers in their boats screamed in terror at the sight of the approaching storm. Feverishly, they poled themselves into the cover of the reeds as if they had been witness to this phenomenon before.

I scanned the Guardians in the midst of the storm more closely and saw that their forms and appearances were identical to that which they had possessed in my other dreams. Human in form, the entities appeared, only larger and winged with four prepotent wings, and beneath their wings were human-like limbs and human-like hands, and their backs, their hands, and their wings were entirely filled with eyes around and within. Their legs were straight, their feet were like the hooves of calves, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Each creature possessed four faces which faced in four different directions: The face of a lion on the right side, the face of a calf on the left, the face of a man behind, and the face of a flying eagle in front.

Except there were what appeared to be enormous whirling Wheels beside them now—one Wheel for each living creature. The appearance of the Wheels was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, and their workmanship was as if one wheel were within another wheel. There appeared to be a substance akin to burning coals within the confines of the Wheels, and their rims were lofty and full of eyes, like the bodies and wings of the Guardians. Wherever the Guardians went, the Wheels went also. If the Guardians stood still, the Wheels stood still; if the Guardians rode the swirling currents of the storm, the Wheels did so, as well.

Presently, one of the Guardians exited the fiery cloud with its whirling Wheel in tow. Eagerly, the living creature engaged the storming winds, using its slender, pellucid wings with all the mastery of a bird of prey. My sensors detected the hum of the inner wheel within its Wheel; a continuous, unvarying tone, like that of a precision instrument. As it dove steeply at me, I saw its kiln-fire eyes burning yellow-orange against the cerulean-hued sky, and its cloven hooves dividing in preparation for grabbing me. Yet I did not sense the need to defend myself against its approach as I had from the Guardians in my first dream.

The Guardian snatched me from where I stood beside the River Chebar, and lifted powerfully into the sky. Instantly my olfactory sensors recalled the smell of animalian wildness of the creature, the supernatural appearance of the thousand eyes that covered its body and wings around and within, the mutant forms of its four distinct faces; faces that did not turn as it flew, but just stared in the directions in which each faced, providing the creature a view of all sides at once.

With tremendous dipping thrusts of its wings, the Guardian bore me high above the earth with its whirling Wheel tracking us to one side. Quickly we left the river and the Southern Quadrant far below and behind. At great speeds we traveled directly northward, and soon we were gliding over the broad walls and high gates of the Great City itself. With great skill, the living creature negotiated the strong updrafts which exist between the spacescraper edifices of City Center. Riding the currents, we soared above its clogged airways, skirting by mere centimeters the Optinet mega-gateways which pervade its open spaces.

Son of man, I heard a voice say. It was the quadraphonic voice of the living entity which bore me speaking to me, as before, having the effect of muting all other sounds in my hearing. Do you see what they are doing? it asked, pointing with the form of a hand from beneath one of its wings, directing me to scan our surroundings.

I looked and saw the Upper Level citizens in their shiny aircars lined up along the multi-tiered matrix of airways. I saw the glittering super-structures of the drug manufacturers, and the spiraling chrysteel towers of the financial conglomerates. I saw the spacescraper-casinos of the powerful Gaming Consortium, and the massive turbines of the cold fusion power plants, which supply power to the vast commercial empire that is the Great City megalopolis. I saw the Optinet mega-gateways drifting like colossal mirrors in the sky, reflecting and reinforcing the consciousness and culture of man with their infiltrating images and invasive messages. And I witnessed in many forms the glorification of all that is provocative or forgetful or ignorant.

Yet you will see greater abominations than these, the Guardian said, as it tightened its grip on me.

Then it streamlined its quaternion of wings, and downward we plunged—downward toward the less affluent Lower Levels of City Center, whose citizenry still utilize combustion-engine vehicles and walk the soiled streets. When we arrived at Street Level, the living creature pulled up to hover a few meters above the ground then released its grip of me, and I landed hard on the street. The Guardian folded back its wings and landed heavily beside me then its whirling Wheel descended slowly beside it, hovering to a stationary position just above the ground. Yet stationary as it was, the wheel within its Wheel—the inner wheel which housed the substance akin to burning coals—continued to turn at a constant speed, droning on with a steady tone.

There were many people about the streets, but they did not take notice of us. There were men and women hustling about their business, chattering into their touchpads. There were merchants hawking merchandise for Optinet credits on street corners. There were people gathered at restaurants picking at their new age foods and ogling the colorful liquids in their full-bodied glasses.

The entity beside me again lifted the form of hand from beneath its wing. Do you see this, son of man? it said, pointing to a busy street corner.

There in plain sight, I looked and saw a small animal, a domestic cat, my sensors told me, sitting on its haunches on the hot pavement. The cat was stained and confused, bloodied and diseased, starved and alone. Its fur was splotchy and matted from years of carelessness and exposure, and one of its eyes was crusted and infected and blind. It stared blankly and hopelessly ahead as the people passed it by without thought or concern, as if the years had taught it to expect nothing from the beings that had once been its gods.

Yet you will see still greater abominations than these! the Guardian asserted, its tone now bearing an undercurrent of rage.

At once, the living creature had me in its clutches again and with a powerful two-hoofed leap, we were airborne again. Vertically we climbed, quickly leaving City Center’s Lower Levels behind. The Guardian’s whirling Wheel mirrored its every move, its rim lofty and full of eyes. We arose through the multi-leveled matrix of airways, weaving deftly between jetting aircars and rocketing mass transit vehicles. Through the earth’s troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere we ascended, until the soaring rooftops of City Center’s spacescrapers were again within my sensor range.

Then northward the Guardian turned, and northward we flew, passing over the Great City’s northernmost gates and walls. Farther on we traveled, until we cruised over the desert which lies at the foot of a crescent-shaped range of mountains some four hundred kilometers north of City Center, a desert known as the Northern Desert. There I spied like the claw of a great bird the three-pronged headwaters of the Eastern River snaking down from the highlands through carved canyons, spilling over narrow precipices, and feeding into the breadth of its banks.

Do you see this, son of man? the Guardian inquired, the accipiter eyes on its eagled face trained on the surface of the earth.

From a great height I studied the open desert below and saw like blades of grass on a barren land the armies of men marching on the infinite sands. As they had during the Great War, the armies from the nations of the North and the South were crossing again in great number the high mountain passes and waterways of the Great Sea, and assembling in the open desert below. The soldiers wore their reclamation battle suits and bore their armaments on their shoulders. They marched in the shadows of their hulking gunships with their great thumping blades pacing them from above, and beside heavy tankrovers with battering wedges fixed to their fronts.

Yet you will see greater abominations than these! the Guardian insisted. I felt the crush of its cloven hooves upon my forged beryllium-alloy exoskeleton, as if its ire had been raised by the things we had seen.

Now southward and westward the living creature carried me, across the man-made plain where stands the Great City Industrial Quadrant. The Guardian negotiated with ease the thermal currents that rise between the chrysteel-girded behemoths of the Industrial Quadrant, and soon we were flying over a pentagonal complex of buildings that comprised Coreland Corporation, the place of my creation. Yet farther onward we flew, winging our way beyond a spine of mountains, and over a wide valley which rolls against the coast lands of the Great Sea.

"Do you see this, son of man?" the Guardian said, rebuke imbuing its tone.

Searching the valley below—a place my scans identified as the Valley Esdraelon—I saw battalions of Peacekeeper war machines gathered on the plains, row after row of automaton-warriors gleaming in the pale light of the sun, stretching like mighty bands of metal across the valley floor. I sensed that the armies of men from the North and the South which I had seen assembling on the sands of the Northern Desert were coming to battle my brethren war machines at Esdraelon, to fight and to war at all costs over land deemed sacrosanct to one people or another.

Yet you will see still greater abominations than these! the Guardian warned.

Then abruptly harmonized voices registered on my auditory sensors, twelve distinct voice patterns drifting on the ether. Triangulating their points of origin, I spied the other three Guardians of the Sacred Glade wheeling overhead, with their sparkling Wheels drifting beside them. These were the remaining Guardians who had been in the midst of the storm which had come from the north at the outset of my dream, and as the Guardians soared on the high altitude winds, their quadraphonic voices chanted in unison, a monotonous, continuous refrain. If you turn away, they chanted. If you turn away.

Then the Guardian which bore me, together with its whirling Wheel, veered southward, tracing the jagged spine of a range of mountains with its brethren creatures and their many-eyed Wheels trailing closely behind. At great heights, we passed over the vast sea of sand which in centuries past had been a large sea of saline water, but which in modern day was a place known as the Sandfill of Arabah.

Swiftly, we arrived above the haze-choked place called the Old City District, the place where I had encountered the people known as the Qanah and the Marah and the Patron and learned of their millennia-long war over the land; the place where I had met the two men known as Lawgiver and Prophet, the Esezan, the Lived, as the Qanah had named them; the place where I had first discovered my newfound capacity to repair the machinery of man, and my newfound capability and desire to heal the multitudes of their diseases and infirmities.

Narrowing its wings, the living creature plunged precipitously downward into the putrid layer of air. I felt the pull of gravity as we dove, and I saw beside me the inner wheel within the creature’s Wheel rotating at tremendous velocity, humming like a precision instrument.

The burning coals within its midst glowed a fiery orange in the murkiness of the haze, as if they were somehow chronicling the events transpiring before us.

As we cleared the acidic mire, I witnessed a battle taking place on the shattered Old City streets. I saw the Marah in their armored tankrovers churning through the narrow byways and the lashing plasma-fire of their weapons red-lighting the war-ravaged buildings like a man-made dawn. I saw the Patron opposing them in gunships and tankrovers of their own, further decimating the broken and forsaken places. I witnessed homicidal bombings and crossfire killings and plague-covered children begging and bartering for food.

Again, the Guardian released me to the ground. This time, I landed on the surface of an ancient stone mount, the Temple Mount, as the Qanah had named it, the place where I had first spoken with the ones called the Lived, the place that had been the site of the failed Divided Temple project.

The three other living creatures had already arrived at the mount and had positioned themselves on three sides of a rectangular stone platform, the Foundation Stone, the Even Shetiyyah, as the one called Prophet had named it. The Guardians flexed their massive tetradic wing systems, their whirling Wheels churning like burning disks beside them. If you turn away, they chanted on, their monotonous voices escalating in pitch and volume. If you turn away.

My Guardian-guide landed heavily beside me, its great cloven hooves splitting the ancient surface at impact. Its Wheel drifted down slowly next to it till it rested in the shadow of its wings, hovering mere centimeters above the ground. The Guardian glared down at me with profound sorrow evident in its manifold eyes. Son of man, it said, do you see what they have committed in the darkness, each man in the room of his carved images?

Surveying the mount, I saw before me the palettes of still-wrapped building materials and rusted-out lifters strewn about its surface. I saw the shell-shocked walls and the weather-blasted courts. I saw the abandoned camps of the coalition