“The Angel That Fell On Cloudland”

A Story of the “Passeneden Series”

A Series of Short Stories from another world’s Holy Land

“The Angel That Fell On Cloudland”

by Benjamin Nanke

Henny Weinbaum was standing on the curtain wall of Weisswarden, looking out over the bright tropical blue and white archipelago, when a flaming angel from the heavens struck the big island of Cloudland. He noticed it first halfway down from it’s descent from the sky, streaking like an arrow through the mid-morning blue haze, eking a trail of white steam through the expanse. It glowed like a coal just snatched from a fire. And it went down fast, a flaming dart from the cosmos, into the far edge of the Cloudland. He saw it impact, past the pink rocks and the scrubby beige palm fronds and the white sand beaches, a gush of fire blooming up, there on the horizon, and then vanishing as quickly as it had come. It left nothing but a plume of white dust that settled after a moment. If someone had coughed they might have missed it.

Now, Henny was not a man of the most rugged constitution. A slight man well into his later years with a thinning head of grey hair and a body that seemed to be the white raisin equivalent of a normal man’s body. He was loosely draped in his clothes that made running difficult as he took the flights of stairs downward to the Warden’s office. His knees ached as his complete lack of fat made each step a jarring experience. He stopped at the door to the Warden’s office, hand looming above the knocker, and suddenly wondered whether a falling angel was the business of the city warden.

He concluded it wasn’t and set off again, through the sand-strewn streets of Weisswarden, the pale sidewalks and alleys fading in his periphery as he ran to the Cathedral. Surely, Bischoff Jacob would know what to do about a falling angel. Henny came round the corner and saw it there, looming above Olivia Square, the great Cathedral of Saint-Margredt, with it’s great rose window and it’s carved cherubim in the pillars. He crossed the courtyard, past the green copper fountain, the green holy infants beneath their little wings there with their listless copper watching eyes. He circled around it and came to the rising steps of the Cathedral. Climbing them, with more consternation at the jarring steps, he passed underneath more of the winged infants, now stone, staring down from the column capitals. 

He wondered if the fallen angel had been a child angel such as this or a fully grown angel. He supposed it must have been fully grown to have made an explosion such as it did. He wondered if he was blaspheming by thinking such thoughts, and he steered his mind away from them as best he could. Henny Weinbaum was a bookbinder, and a pious citizen of the Allgemein, and he knew his duty to avoid any inklings of blasphemy, lest the Treasury of Merit be drained of its potency and the paladins lose their divine power. It was the responsibility of all to ensure that Heilig’s divine power persisted, even after the God’s death. He knew it was inadvisable to think of Heilig’s death, as such thoughts might prove ignoble, so he steered his mind away from them as best he could and pushed open the door to the cathedral.

He found himself in the narthex, a dimly lit room with little alcoves in the walls filled with the sacred water. He dipped his finger by rote and drew the little circle of the annuli on his forehead before proceeding further in. There was an unremarkable door tucked away in the nave, visible behind the pews and the columns, and Henny knew this was the door that led to a cramped and narrow stairwell that led to the upper hallways that led to the Bischoff’s private office. He had climbed it many times, as he frequently called on the Bischoff to answer questions about the proper application of the teachings of the Paragon. The Bischoff was always so polite.

Knocking on the door to the Bischoff’s office, he heard the shuffling of papers and the low, resonant call from Bischoff Jacob. Henny pushed open the door and saw him there sitting at the desk, a large man wearing the slate-colored robes of the Bischoff, sitting in his office. His blonde beard was large and hung down over his chest, his searching eyes peering out between his full mustache and the brim of his black felted doctor’s cap. The mica windows let rose colored, alien light in through the windows of the room, casting over the books and articles and mythical objects. Henny leapt into his tale without breathing, telling of the angel that fell from the heavens, striking with full force into the island of Cloudland. He opined that it must have been an adult angel, and then apologized for the conjecture and said that the angel had produced a great gout of fire that had shot up for a moment before dissipating. He said that he had gone to the warden’s office but conceded that such a cataclysmic occurrence of a falling angel was too great a burden to be borne by the City Warden, and that he had rushed to the cathedral as soon as he could to tell Bischoff Jacob, who he hoped would have an answer.

“So I hope I’ve done the right thing!” Henny Weinbaum said in his quavering voice. He wrung his tight-skinned, translucent hands together in a worried clasp.

Bischoff Jacob, in his low timbre, told Henny that he had of course done the right thing, and that it was important to know of such a strange occurrence.

“I would like to search out this place on the island of Cloudland, to discover the truth of what has happened there,” Bischoff Jacob said, stroking his beard.

Henny stepped forward eagerly. “To find out if the angel is all right?” he said.

Bischoff Jacob nodded. He rose from his desk, his grey robes unfurling beneath him, and stood to full height. His head almost touched the ceiling, it seemed, with his felt hat. Bischoff Jacob stepped around his desk and excused himself for a moment, stepping out into the hallway. Henny stood there in the office, shifting his weight in the silence, and after a long time Bischoff Jacob returned with a woman in simple nunnish clothes. Her face was unremarkable, her blonde hair tied back, but she carried herself with a confident credence that was inspiring in spite of her lack of panache. Bischoff Jacob introduced her as Dame Constanze Blacher and said that she was a paladin. 

A paladin! Henny Weinbaum marveled at what strange fortune brought him into the presence of such a person.

“Dame Constanze will search out this fallen angel,” said Bischoff Jacob, “and you will use your witness to lead her to the nadir of its path.”

Henny Weinbaum nodded feverishly, honored to have received such an opportunity to employ his witness of anything.

The pair of them went off from the Cathedral Saint-Margredt into the sandy streets of Weisswarden, down the steps — so many of them — to the docks down below. The whole city of Weisswarden went up to the highest tiers and down to the docks, built along a bluff that gave it prime watch over the Engelkring Archipelago, which formed a halo of islands in the turquoise sea. The further down they went, not saying a word for the time being, Henny felt the rising salty ambiance of the ocean sticking to his thin skin, and the sea air made his joints ache.

Finally, as they reached the docks, Henny started talking.

“It was at the tail end of the island — the furthest end, that is — furthest from the city, that is. The angel, is what I’m talking about, of course. Kind of on the western side, towards the back. It’s probably left a crater, if that’s not to ignoble of me to say,” he said, and trailed off.

They came to the bottom of the stairs and went through the white sandstone arch leading to the docks, lined with painted ceramic tiles in orange and olive and pale yellow. Dame Constanze Blacher was in her armor now, which had taken several minutes to don. She had gone into another room and had been outfitted by her squires, and emerged wearing a suit of bronze regalia and plate that made Henny realize again that she was a paladin. She had an ornate steel mace at her side, but for what purpose Henny was unsure, and carried a shield wrapped in sackcloth, it’s insignia obscured. Her boots made the most daunting step as she descended the stairway. 

She listened to Henny talk of the angel and then, coming down the sun-bleached dock toward a small watercraft, nodded once to signify that she had heard. The rugged stevedore at the docks prepared their vessel, and after perhaps twenty minutes of waiting silently they were off into the surging blue of the Engelkring lagoon. 

The ship travelled deftly, its pilot navigating around hidden reefs and sandbars, Henny imagined, as it swept across the atoll toward the far end of the island of Cloudland. The journey was quiet, save for the sloshing of water against the hull and the croaking of seagulls that circled above their heads. It was quiet, save for one brief conversation, about an hour into the three hour journey.

Henny Weinbaum had just finished throwing up into the turquoise waters and was wiping his mouth with his frail hand. His grey hair was whipped and tousled by the ocean winds as he leaned against the ship railing. Without prompting, Dame Constanze Blacher turned to him, her windswept hair looking heroic above her bronze platemail, and said, “Do you believe that the Divine can die?”

He looked up, glancing at the pilot and his young assistant who were steering the vessel. The lapping of the sails seemed to be keeping them fully occupied as they moved from rope to rope or clasped the tiller near the stern. They seemed not to have heard the question. Henny looked at Constanze Blacher and realized that she was speaking to him. She didn’t repeat the question, but it hung there, unwilling to be blown away by the ocean gales. Henny Weinbaum the bookbinder stood on the deck of the small keelboat, cutting its way through the lapping waves, and considered the question he had been asked.

“Do I?” he stammered, after a long moments consideration. “I can’t say to be sure, I mean,” he hesitated, “certainly I am unqualified to make such a proclamation, one way or the other.” Henny Weinbaum furrowed his brow and combed his windswept hair with his hands. “I suppose the Declaration was made, so surely it must be possible.” He concluded finally with a reluctant nod.

Dame Constanze Blacher looked at him with a blank expression that he read as disappointment, and after barely a moment he began to speak again.

“Yes, the more I consider it, I do conclude that it is possible. The conclave concluded that it was so, and the conclave is inspired by the Heiligian Geist, so their statements must be the truth,” he said decisively.

He was sure that was what she wanted to hear. Perhaps, being on their way to the angel, he thought, Dame Constanze wanted to make sure that he was in sound and right mind and philosophy, lest the barest presence of the angel dissolve his very soul with it’s heavenfire.

Dame Constanze stood and pondered, considering the words he had said, it seemed. He hoped that she deemed them proper and noble. Finally, looking out over the calm blue waters, she replied with a strange tone.

“So you would say that the Living Geist of Heilig inspired the Great Conclave to declare that the Divine had died?” she let the words hang in the air for a moment, resonating, before she continued. “Did it inspire them before or after its own demise?”

Henny Weinbaum’s mouth was open. He wondered if perhaps Dame Constanze Blacher would have her own soul dissolved by heavenfire. Although, he reckoned, she was a paladin, so if she would be dissolved, surely such a lay person, and a worm if he was thinking honestly, such as himself would be along with her, and the Cloudland would be the place of their doom. Henny fantasized in his mind’s eye, recalling the image of the streaking arrow of flame coming down through the morning haze and striking the island with such fearful force. He found himself fearful of daylight itself.

Constanze delivered her third statement, leading with a question.

“Do you see the paradox intrinsic to the problem? That the Great Conclave, its authority drawn from the Living Geist, proclaims the Geist to be no longer living. If the Geist has died, the statement has no authority, yet if the Geist lives, the statement is false.”

Henny fumbled over his words, feeling the welling up of some kind of internal justice and civic responsibility which he hadn’t know was within him. With quavering voice, he said, “would you take this line of thinking to its furthest conclusion, Dame Constanze?” He hoped that his tone was warning, but he worried it wasn’t.

Alas, Dame Constanze Blacher turned her head to the sea, letting the wind whip at her hair. She barely moved for the rest of the journey, until the keelboat found it’s mooring on the small dock there on the western shore of the Cloudland. 

The pilot’s assistant jumped into the clear blue waters of the beach, pulling the ship into it’s place as the tropical waters surged to his waist and darkened his clothes. The two men tied the ship into place for them and Henny Weinbaum and the Paladin stepped onto the white wood dock, looking out towards a sandy path. Here they would discover the truth about the angel, and whether the Divine could die.

Dame Constanze Blacher withdrew her enshrouded shield. Henny had expected to see the Fly-in-Amber, the traditional symbol of the Church of the Ruhe, but instead saw a different insignia. A strange bird wreathed in flames crested the front of her shield, its eyes alight with garnet, and Henny was unfamiliar with it’s meaning.

“What is the symbol on your shield?” he asked.

Dame Constanze looked down at it, almost surprised by it’s presence.

“This is the insignia of the Order of Saint Helmine, and the symbol is the Phoenix. Have you heard of it?” she asked.

“No,” Henny said, for he had not.

“The Phoenix,” she said, “is a bird that is reborn from the flames. Stories say that it was once a grey heron, that lifted off from it’s master’s skiff and flew into the maw of the Lantern Peak, burning to ash. And yet, from those ashes, it resurrected and flies again, wreathed in the fire that killed it. They say Saint Helmine was a seer, who saw it in a dream. However, this was before the declaration of the Conclave.”

“Oh,” Henny said. He stood in silence as Dame Constanze Blacher fastened the shield to her arm. The steel mace still swung at her hip. He wondered if perhaps Dame Constanze had come with nefarious purposes — to slay the angel herself, or perhaps even him, what with her fearful speech and strange insignia. Yet they prepared to go forward, this time seeming predestined now as their strange tale drew towards its apex.

Ahead, a free-standing arch made of driftwood at the dock’s end marked an almost supernatural barrier between the safety of the dock and the untamed wildness of the Cloudland. Small amber stones hung by cords from the arch, swaying in the ocean wind, formed a driftwood annuli there on the beach. As they passed beneath it onto the sandy cobblestone path towards the north shore of the island, they passed beneath what signified the collective preserved memory of saints immemorial, and led them into a land lacking precedent. Henny saw in his mind’s eye the fireball from heaven again, this time as a great gem of amber coming down, alight in the sun.

They navigated the island, passing angular pink rocks surrounded by beige palm fronds and shrubs, following the cobblestone path that wove through the white sand. Here and there there was a little dune or bluff, roughly lined with windblown rattan fences, here with a small hillside shrine, there with a grave, and there with a cairn of rock. The journey took an hour and passed in silence. Henny felt his legs protest at the hike, weary from the uneven cobblestones, and the constant rocking of the ship at sea, and the stone stairs of Weisswarden hours ago. As they neared the north end of the island Henny felt that they were approaching some great precipice. He felt his hands begin to sweat.

They reached the crater as the sun was halfway descended in the afternoon sky. They could identify it from a distance because of a scorched palm nearby, still burning it’s way to the ground like a wild candle, it’s fronds hours ago having burned away to ash, leaving it’s reedy trunk to slowly burn down to cinders. The air felt hot and alive, charged with some kind of ancient magic. As they grew near to the brink they saw that the surrounding white sand had been turned to glass.

“I do not feel the presence of an angel here,” said Dame Constanze, “but I do not know what that could mean.” 

Henny had heard of the strange and fearful abilities possessed by the Paladins, and wondered if he was in the presence of such a wonder now, that Dame Constanze Blacher could sense the presence of angels. She left him behind and stepped off the path, trodding through the loose white sand, her boots crunching through thin plates of new glass that lined the beach. Henny followed after, reluctantly, matching her steps and feeling the broken edges of the glass against his leather shoes. 

They came to the edge and stood in the shadow of the burning palm as they approached the edge of the crater, which was deep. The whole of it was lined with that fearsome new glass, still creaking and hot. With the sun no longer directly above, they peered into the dimness of the crater and saw, if it was an angel, now a smoking black mass, there deeply burrowed into the earth, still glowing orange at spots. Perhaps the angel’s wings and features had burned away, like the palm tree, and turned it to a lump of ore at the heart of the crater.

“It is iron from the sky,” Dame Constanze Blacher said firmly. “I have heard stories of it, told by native tribesmen from this land — tales of the Karya Kaguwa and the Jan Karfe. This, as they would tell it, is the sacred iron that falls from the sky. But we do not believe in such things. It is simply iron, not an angel.”

Henny stared at the smoking iron in silence.

“But it is not worthless,” Dame Constanze said, “I will tell Bischoff Jacob of this. Surely, the Order of Saint Mälmo would be joyful to have such rare iron, to forge into weapons for paladins and leaders of men, and into holy articles for use in the cathedrals.”

Henny wasn’t sure. He had heard tales of the feats of the paladins, that their weapons would erupt with frightful holy fire, or the ringing of thunder, with an intensity that caused armies to rout and cities to fall. He wondered if the secret was that their weapons were forged from the iron of an angel.

“Does the power of the paladin come from such a rare weapon?” Henny asked, curiously. “It had been fire once, perhaps it contains the fire within itself?”

Dame Constanze shook her head, walking away from the crater and the iron from the sky.

“No, the power does not come from the iron,” she said.

Henny Weinbaum, a frail old bookbinder, stayed standing by the smoking glass crater in the Cloudland. 

“Where does the power come from?” he asked, voice shaking.

Dame Constanze turned and looked at him and the crater and the burning palm.

“These are great mysteries of our universe, too high for people like us,” she said, “It is taught that the power comes from the Treasury of Merit and the righteous acts of the people. This is sufficient for many.”

“But the people are not righteous,” he said weakly, “or, at least, I am not. I feared that the angel would dissolve me with heavenfire.” The confession escaped him and he felt afraid at what he had revealed, exposed in the bright sun, there on the white expanse of the Cloudland.

“Nor am I righteous, truly, and I feared the same,” said Dame Constanze, and Henny was shocked at the words. “Perhaps there is one who is righteous and fuels the paladin’s fire, or more than one, or perhaps the residual righteousness from the Paragon is infinite, and our works will always pale. Perhaps it is angels and their heavenfire who fill the reservoir. Or, perhaps, it is like you say, and the power comes from the iron. Yet power persists, nonetheless. I believe that power reveals the presence of life, and I know I do not sustain that life.”

Dame Constanze Blacher looked down at the blazing phoenix insignia on her shield and pondered.

“There is a fire that burns at the heart of the universe. And in what manner of world do we live, in which fire falls from the sky?”

They departed the Cloudland for Weisswarden without another word, for words were cheap and paled in comparison to such heavenfire, fragile like a crust of new glass above sand.