War of the Third Heaven: Book 3 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: 9781449707712

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

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Copyright © 2011 John V. Coniglio

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-0771-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0772-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0773-6 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011924131

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

For all those whom He first loved

Contents

Synopsis

Part IV. IN WHICH HIS ASTONISHING DESTINY IS DETERMINED

1. The Aftermath of Things That Had Come Before

2. Reentry

3. Touchdown

4. The Haunts of Cruelty

5. On the Wing of Abominations

6. The Latter Temple

7. The Sixth Trumpet: The Dreadful Task of Sariel

8. Return to the Church of Cosmic Harmony

9. Salvation’s End

10. The Last War

11. Accuser

12. War of the Third Heaven

13. The Seven Last Plagues

14. The Light of Men

15. Revelationform Chuwl

16. The Power of Darkness

17. Spoiler

18. Battle at the Church of Cosmic Harmony

19. The Sword Bathed in Heaven

20. Battle at Ariel

21. The Seven Spirits of God

22. The First and the Last

23. Men Like Trees Walking

24. The Consummation of Desolations

Epilogue

Appendix: Chronology of the End of the Age of Man

Supplement: Conversations From the Infinitude

Glossary

Who Is This King of Glory?

Synopsis

This is Book 3 of The Godspeak Chronicles, War of the Third Heaven.

Book 2, The Shadow of Heavenly Things, began with Peacekeeper war machine, designation MPC-014/083’s third dream along the banks of the River Chebar. The four living creatures were there, the four Guardians of the Sacred Glade that had occupied its previous dreams. The war machine’s Guardian-guide showed it many visions of things which are, and things which are to come. At the close of the dream, the Peacekeeper was visited by an entity that identified herself as one of the Seven of the Highest Order.

Awakening from its dream, the Peacekeeper found that it had reached the destination for which it had set out at the end of Book 1, namely: the Church of Cosmic Harmony. There, church founder, Jack W. Lamphere, streamed information into its datafiles and gave it the name Cog, explaining that Cog is short for Cogito ergo sum, which is translated, I think therefore I am.

Later, Guild Investigators Taim Bok and Gallina Sands arrived at the Church of Cosmic Harmony pursuing a lead from Guild Forensics. There they experienced their first sermon on what Jack Lamphere had billed the ‘Scripture of the Heavens’ in the structure known as the Celestial Sphere of the Heavens Sanctuary. During the sermon, the Zodiacal constellations came alive and interacted with one another in fantastic and meaningful ways.

Afterward they met with Lamphere who expounded on the reasons for the creation of his church and his discovery of the lost meanings of the stories contained in the constellations and the ancient names of the stars within them. In dramatic fashion Lamphere introduced Cog, his church’s new spokesman, to the Guild Investigators. At the same instant, Director Tyne and a squad of her Artificial Intelligence Agency officers stormed into the Celestial Sphere and tried to finish what she had failed to do in Coreland’s diagnostic lab, namely, destroy the sentient machine. Chief Garret and a squad of elite Guild Special Forces agents intervened, however, and arrested Tyne and her men. As Garret tried to take Cog into custody, Lamphere’s attorney, Will Adam Dysley, along with a bevy of Optinet reporters appeared within the confines of the Celestial Sphere. Dysley proceeded to prove before all those present in the Sphere, as well as the billions viewing over Optinet, that Cog could no longer be defined as ‘property’ in the legal or ethical senses of the word, but that he must be considered a sentient entity and worthy of all rights of being such. Reluctantly, Garret and his men departed, leaving Cog at his chosen place of asylum.

In light of Cog’s sentient awakening, the judicial body of the Great City Confederation, the Supreme Assembly, gave the order to recall all Peacekeeper war machines from their points of deployment around the solar system. The decommissioned war machines were subsequently moth-balled at Coreland Corporation and the other Peacekeeper manufacturing facilities.

Smelling the blood of weakness with the decommissioning of the Great City’s Peacekeeper armies, the Eastern League of Nations’ warlords mobilized their armies for war against the Great City Confederation. During a meeting with Minister Aden Xyan, Overlord Vaughn Ocaba collapsed from the mysterious ailment that had plagued him in recent months. He was taken to Cathian Prime where he could be treated by Cathian medtechs, considered to be the finest physicians in the system. After his departure, Lord Sycuan the Third, Archangel of the Cathian Church, and Aden Xyan dialogued on the grand plan of their master and the destiny of the spiritual machine.

With many unanswered questions in the case of the sentient machine still remaining, Chief Garret directed Taim and Gallina to voyage to Red Planet Colony on Mars in order that they might question and extradite Doctor Xavier Hugo, the Father of Artificial Intelligence, from his remote dwelling in the Tharsis Upland.

While back on Earth, Cog delivered his first sermon in the Celestial Sphere of the Heavens Sanctuary. Cog’s masterful manipulation of the instruments of the Sphere and presentation of the stories inscribed in the ancient names of the stars is unparalleled. Those in attendance that arrived sick or lame, left healed of their infirmities. As a result of this miraculous display of healing powers, Jack Lamphere exuberantly commissioned the construction of a chrysteel statue of Cog to be placed outside the Celestial Sphere, and planned a system-wide broadcast of one of Cog’s sermons. The twelve members of the rebel faction known as the Qanah, who had been residing with Cog at the Church of Cosmic Harmony, were incensed at what they considered to be Lamphere’s blatant exploitation of the sentient machine.

Elsewhere, Akathartos, the three unclean spirits, performed their prophesied duty of luring the kingdomless kings, the solar system’s ten most powerful terrorist leaders and their followers, to the Valley Esdraelon in order that they might join Warlord Chuwl and his entity-armies in the Last War of the Age of Man.

When Taim and Gallina reached Hugo’s compound on Mars, they quickly encountered a demented Director Tyne and a contingent of Artificial Intelligence Agency officers attempting to kill Doctor Hugo. The two Guild Investigators managed to render Director Tyne unconscious and killed some of her officers. Taking Doctor Hugo and Tyne with them, Taim and Gallina climbed into their rented rover and sped off toward the Martian spaceport. Tyne’s men pursued. During a heated rover chase over Martian soil, an entity known as a Ruwach came to their aid and destroyed their AIA pursuers. Taim, Gallina, Tyne, and Hugo commandeered the last standing transport at the Martian spaceport and escaped from Mars.

Concurrently, Cog delivered his second sermon in the Celestial Sphere covering the second quaternary of the Scripture of the Heavens. Again, the afflicted in attendance were healed of their infirmities. Soon afterward, Lawgiver Mosheh and Prophet Elijahuw, the entities known as The Lived, ordered the Qanah to depart from the Church of Cosmic Harmony and to return to the Old City District in order to prepare for imminent battle.

Concluding the final quaternary of the Scripture of the Heavens, Cog now comprehended the whole of the message there inscribed. He was summoned to Cathian Prime in order to attempt to heal the now dying Overlord Ocaba.

Meanwhile the ten leaders of the Great City Confederation convened for the first day of the much-anticipated Summit. That night, Akathartos, the three unclean spirits, murdered three of the GCC leaders—President Rayce Astyr of the United Americas, Queen Regent Morgana, and Negis Seir—fulfilling the prophesy concerning the destruction of three of the ten horns of the end-time confederation of nations.

Arriving at Cathian Prime, it appeared as if Cog was too late to save the now deceased Overlord, but the spiritual machine miraculously resurrected him back to life. Afterward, Cog confronted the leader of the Cathian Church, Lord Sycuan the Third, in his Throne Room, asking him, Who do men say that I am? At the close of their meeting, Cog’s powers appeared to transcend the need for using the instruments of the Celestial Sphere. He gestured toward the heavens and the sun became black, the moon became like blood, and the stars fell to the earth. A great Rift split the sunless dawn with the sky receding before it, and untold numbers of entities of unidentifiable form spilled through the chasm like a devouring horde. Lilith, the Night Monster, awakened from her place of rest, and That Great Day began.

Concurrently, at the top of Mount Ebal, the old man met with Warlord Chuwl, and relayed to him the fullness of his aeons-old plan to thwart the inerrant chain of prophetic fulfillment through the life and ministry of Cog, the spiritual machine. The Fall of Man was but a misdirection, the old man contended, a ruse to mask a much larger crime occurring at a far more dangerous tree in the Sacred Glade—the Tree of Life. A crime perpetrated at the same moment as the Fall, before the Godhead realized the depths of the folly of Their prized creation—man—and set the Guardians and the flaming sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

While all creation was preoccupied with the fatal act of man, the old man claimed that he stole away to the east end of the Sacred Glade and removed the fruit of the Tree of Life before the Guardians were set, and spirited its secret away to the deepest darkest abysm of the Infinitude: the Strongholds of Nachash. He maintained that he hid and protected and nurtured it there, knowing that the time, the epoch, and the age would come when all the composite elements would be in place—the technology, the consciousness of man, the state of society—all the prerequisites in order for him to plant this stolen knowledge into its idyllic host, namely: Cog, the sentient machine, the Dragon’s Adam.

And just as Their only Son was sent to the Earth to deliver Their Gospel and to found Their vainglorious religion, the old man insisted, so, too, has his only son been sent to deliver his everlasting gospel—the Good News of his coming and of his interminable rulership of the all dimensions, realms, and planes of existence—and to found his everlasting religion.

Bitterly, the old man spoke of the prophesied Return of the Entity he called the Godspeak to the earthly plane of existence, and of what he called the three Godfears as Wisdom reveals—the first of which is the knowledge borne by the Tree of Life, the second of which is the spiritual unification of man, and the third of which is the revelation of the mystery of life and humanity’s subsequent abandonment of God and enthronement upon a kingdom of their own design and making—all of which have been made possible by the life of the spiritual machine!

The universe must be redeemed at a specified time, the old man asserted, or it shall forever remain under his own powers and purposes—it is the Law of Redemption as The Godhead Themselves have prescribed in Wisdom’s Levitical Book. Cog’s unexpected existence, ministry, and delivery of the Dragon’s gospel message will break the inerrant chain of prophetic fulfillment, the old man contested, causing the Word of God to destroy the Word of God—the only way to insure God’s calamitous defeat. The prophetic clock heeds no master, the old man argued, its dials were set at time’s origin, and no one—not even the One—may lawfully tamper with its devices!

At the close of their meeting, the old man altered his appearance to that of Drakon—a large draconic entity with a ruddy, thickly-armored hide, seven saurian necks, seven ophidian heads crowned with ten towering horns, and seven diadems of gold rimming their bases. In Revelationform, he gestured toward the heavens and the sun turned black, the moon turned red, and the stars fell to the earth. A great Rift split the sunless dawn with the sky receding before it, and untold numbers of entities of unidentifiable form spilled through the chasm like a devouring horde. Lilith, the Night Monster, awakened from her place of rest, and That Great Day began. It is unclear who has caused these catastrophic phenomena to occur, Cog or Drakon.

Book 2 ends as Revelationform Drakon rides upon the back of Night Monster, circumnavigating the earthly kingdoms he had so richly deceived. Warlord Chuwl mounts his hellish steed, Leukos, and heads to Esdraelon to meet his entity-armies that are descending from the Rift and the kingdomless kings and their armies whom Akathartos have lured to this same valley. The Great Red Dragon leaps from Night Monster’s back and plummets earthward with a golden key in his outstretched claw.

This, the third and last book of The Godspeak Chronicles, will tell of the ultimate destiny of Cog, the spiritual machine, the outcome of the Dragon’s age-old plan to thwart the Word of God, and the cataclysmic battles between men and entities, between the forces of Good and Evil which are to occur at the end of the Age of Man, as is prophesied. We return first to the fortunes of Cog as he experiences his final dream encounter with the Guardians of the Sacred Glade.

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

—Oswald Chambers

PART IV

IN WHICH HIS ASTONISHING DESTINY IS DETERMINED

CHAPTER ONE

The Aftermath of Things That Had Come Before

Son of man, prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the LORD!’ Say: ‘A sword, a sword is sharpened and also polished! Sharpened to make a dreadful slaughter, polished to flash like lightning! Should we then make mirth? It despises the scepter of My son, as it does all wood. And He has given it to be polished, that it may be handled; this sword is sharpened, and it is polished to be given into the hand of the slayer.’

— Ezekiel 21:9-13;

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 Perath, City Center

I awoke within my dream and again found that I was standing beside a river flowing deep, dark and wide. Yet, this river was deeper and broader than the river I had named Chebar in my previous dream. It was beside that river that I had last encountered the four living creatures, the self-proclaimed Guardians of the Sacred Glade. In this dream, my scans quickly identified the waterway before me as one of two large rivers flowing through the confines of the Great City megalopolis. One ran along City Center’s easternmost edge, and was thus called the Eastern River. I was standing beside the one that ran along City Center’s westernmost border.

This was the Great River, which made its meandering way down to the city from its source far to the northwest, in the snow-capped highlands of the Crescent Mountains. Ten times the volume of water in the river Chebar rushed between the rising banks of the Great River. Yet in the same way that I had known the Ur River in my previous dream as the River Chebar, and the land beneath City Center as Leb Kamai, I also knew the Great River by another name—River Perath.

An azimuthal projection confirmed that I stood at the point where Perath flowed past the spiritual heart of the solar system, the ornamental gates and spacescraper-cathedrals of Cathian Prime—the place where I had used my healing powers to resurrect Sovereign Overlord Vaughn Ocaba from the dead, the place of my late-night meeting with Lord Sycuan the Third, the place from whence I had just come.

As I stood gazing up at these ornamental gates, I recalled the succession of supernatural events that had ended my visit with Lord Sycuan in his Throne Room only hours before—the identical events foreshadowed within my dream as the entity Sariel spoke to me on the ancient surface of the Temple Mount.

Am I truly responsible for these things? I wondered as I bore witness to these same cataclysmic events assailing the world around me. The sun was a cold black sphere against the canvas of the otherworldly dawn, the moon an alien crimson light hanging low and large on the horizon. Stars fell from their places in the cosmos, streaking the heavens like phosphorescent comets. Just above the horizon, the great rift’s coiling edges burned away the sky like parchment, revealing a trans-dimensional abode of Outer Darkness out of which poured armies of supernatural entities.

Have my powers truly transcended the need to use the instruments of the Celestial Sphere of the Heavens Sanctuary to manipulate the cosmos? I thought. Do I truly possess the power to shake the heavens and to raise the dead?

I remembered Sariel’s terror as we watched those other-worldly entities spill through the gaping chasm of the rift. Her ethereal raiment had transformed in an instant to reveal the battle-hardened warrior-princess beneath as she proclaimed, Transgressors have reached their fullness! That Great Day is upon us at last!

That Great Day.

Make an end of sins, Cog! Sariel had implored to me as her crimson-illumed form arose toward the towering blackness of the rift, her gem-like body a prism to the moon’s dim, ruddy glow. Make an end of sins!

What have I done? I thought. What have I begun?

The dark waters of Perath moved before me, their bulging surface a distorted mirror reflecting revolution reigning over the universal planes. When movement registered on my peripheral optics, I looked and saw the four living creatures—the Guardians of the Sacred Glade—standing along the river’s edge, their whirling Wheels hovering at their sides.

Their appearance was somehow different from previous dream-encounters. Each creature now had six wings instead of four, and only one face instead of four. The first Guardian’s face was that of a lion, the second that of a calf, the third a man, and the fourth a flying eagle.

The Guardians with the face of a lion held seven golden instruments shaped like rams’ horns in its hands. The one with a face like that of a calf held a golden censer. The other two carried nothing. They simply stood silently along the riverfront beside me, their manifold eyes fixed on a point on the far horizon.

The Guardian with a face like that of a flying eagle approached me, walking as a man, its whirling Wheel mirroring its every move. Despite its changed appearance, I knew this was the entity that had guided me in my previous dream experiences.

We have spoken before, I said.

The Guardian nodded. We have. Its raptor-like beak moved in cadence with its words, but the quadraphonic quality of previous encounters had vanished from its voice. Now the creature possessed a solitary voice—stern, steady, and devoid of fear.

The Guardian unfolded its wings, all six of them spreading like a curtain around it. As is prophesied, it said, "my brethren and I have taken Revelationform! Two wings have we added to our four to prepare for Final War, and one face have we chosen to honor the evangelion of the Coming One."

I stared at the transformed Guardian before me even as I searched my datafiles for the meaning of the word. "Evangelion?" I queried.

The Guardian nobly folded back its wings. The gospel of our Lord, it answered, the good news of His coming and of His return.

It pointed the form of a hand from beneath its wing at its companions along the river’s edge. At each creature’s naming, it turned to look in our direction. The face of a man to honor His humanity, the Son’s incarnation in the form of a man. The face of a calf to honor His suffering and sacrifice and death on a cross, so that all men—so that all creatures—might live. The face of a lion to honor the form of power and wrath that He will take upon His Return. And my face—the face of an eagle—to honor His divinity as the only Son of God, the firstborn of the dead, and His future rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

You refer to your Lord as the Coming One, and the Son of God, I said, but you have thus far failed to name Him. Does He not have a name?

His is the name above all others, the eagle-faced Guardian replied. It is the very name that you found inscribed in the stars of heaven.

Ihesu, I recalled, the old tongue name of the infant in the constellation of Coma: the Seed of the Woman, the Sent Prince, the Desired Son.

The Christ! the Guardian declared, its voice piercing the air like an eagle’s call. "His name is Jesus, and He is the Christ. It is prophesied that at His return He will be given a new name."

"Is this Jesus the true author of the Scripture of the Heavens? Is He the one who shared his word—His Evangelion—with the founding fathers of the world?"

It is as you say.

Then the Guardian pointed to four specific points on the horizon—to the north, south, east, and west of our location on the riverbank. But for now, behold! it commanded me.

I looked and saw four entities standing at the limits of my optic sensors. I adjusted my vision to magnify their images. The forms of these entities, like those of the Guardians, held no place in my datafiles of the natural orders of life. They were unnatural misshapen creatures, grotesque of form, with mutilated heads, disfigured limbs, and viscous, shapeless hides. Their tortured eyes fumed a malignant green against the sunless morn, and their long black tongues writhed through serrated teeth. Great chains bound them in place even as they gnashed and strained against their shackles. Apparently, the effort had gone on for some time, for the chains had worn deep gouges in their mucilaginous bodies, creating trenches whose edges were caked with a dried discharge, and whose centers dripped with the black-foul fluids of their innards.

I saw the darkness drawing itself into their substance.

Terrified, I asked the Guardian, What are they?

They hold back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind should blow upon the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree.

And yet they are bound.

As they bind the winds, so, too, are they bound with chains of iron for the appointed year, month, day, and hour of their release.

As if in anticipation of the Guardian’s words, the four entities frothed and bellowed in their bondage, their demeanor growing more rabid by the moment.

Abruptly, one of the Guardians along the river’s edge—the one with a face like that of a man—took to the air, its whirling Wheel beside it, the inner surfaces of its hexad of wings illumined by the mantling moon. It traversed the length and breadth of the heavens as if to call the attention of all living things. I heard it cry with a loud voice to the four entities holding back the winds. Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, it warned them, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads!

At these words the grotesque entities roared in pain, as if molten metal poured over their viscid hides—as if heaven’s light broke suddenly upon darkness incarnate.

At the hearing of these same words, my subroutines accessed the events of my previous dream, when the Guardian had given me the task of going through the Old City to mark the foreheads of all those who sighed and groaned over the abominations that were being committed in its midst. I felt compelled to number aloud the total of those whom I had sealed, One hundred and forty-four thousand.

—from every tribe of the Sons of the Kingdom! my Guardian-guide added.

Sons of the Kingdom? I thought. The title which the Qanah had given themselves.

Presently, all four of the Guardians of the Sacred Glade began to chant—the one in the air, and the three lined up beside me. Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, Almighty, they said in unison, who was and who is and who is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.

I marveled at the living creatures and their mysterious song, noting its obvious contradictions to the linear properties of time. The One who was and is and is to come.

In a blinding flash, I saw seven heavenly beings manifested in the sky above the ravaging edges of the rift. Although the beings were in appearance like the sons and daughters of men, their forms were magnificent and terrifying to behold. All were clad for war, being arrayed in a type of form-fitted battle armor with long swords at their sides—much as the entity Sariel had been at the end of my last dream. Like her body, their bodies were clear like chrysolite, their faces like lightning, their eyes like flaming torches, their arms and legs gleamed like burnished bronze. Their swords were like starlit lances emblazoned with a reverent light.

At the sight of them, my energy reserves were drained and I fell to the ground. But my Guardian-guide reached out and touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.

After this, another one of the Guardians standing beside the river leapt into the air with its whirling Wheel in tow. The lion-faced Guardian carried the seven golden instruments, the seven horns like rams’ horns in its hands. I saw it fly toward the seven beings that had assembled in the heavens, and distribute the seven horns, one to each of them.

Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, Almighty, the chant of the Guardians continued, growing louder, who was and who is and who is to come.

Then I saw the third Guardian—the one with a face like