CHAPTER ONE

                                      T H E   M A K I N G   O F   T H E   P A T T E R N

There was always life and life always wanted to live. Life became aware of itself and desired to create solid forms. It traced itself into two trees, the one male, the other female. Between them they cradled a child in a circle of light. The child grew. He was taught and clothed by the trees. They were his guardians, though he was eldest and before them. It was he who planted them and caused himself to be as a child, so he could create solid forms.

  He grew tall, straight. All the while, as he grew, he was aware of two tall shapes standing behind him. They were  his guardians, like two trees, that were there, and yet they seemed not to be solid, but could be sensed and touched, nonetheless.

   When he had taught himself to speak with words, the first words of his language, he asked the trees who created them, who planted them. They were silent, but the answer came. He did. He knew he had created them and had given them their pattern. It was he who had created the circle of light to be his cradle, before he had caused himself to be as a child. When he had grown to be his full height, the two trees, the one male, the other female, clothed him in a hooded robe of white cloth.

  The creation was simple, to him  it was, once he knew what needed to be done, what skills he had and what tools.

  He lived at first in the hub of a wheel, inside a rounded chamber, shaped like a bell, walled with a thick, strong, tender substance, like the skin of a grape to his touch, but transparent to his vision. With the strength of his soul, he guided the wheel on a straight path through the air. Around him, outside, there was nothing, only darkness.

  Master of the wheel, he flew on. In a sudden, he was disturbed. Wonder shook him. For he saw, far below him, a vast stretch of water, an immense, calm ocean.

  Gradually, he discerned, at a remote distance, ahead of him, the rocky coast of a great land mass. Over its shores, he glided, then over a region of grassy, blunt headed hills. Finally, he landed in a garden in a clear space in the middle of a forest. It was a garden of green lawns and green leaved trees, bearing golden, green and red fruit, with water flowing through in streams. There he decided he would live and build his first home.

  Out from the wheel, he stepped, and walked over the grass, until he stopped by the edge of a pool. There he stood, still but not stiff, and studied his reflection, which lay upon its surface. Now a mature man, he was amused by the tall, narrow form he had given himself, his long face, deep set, dark eyes, large nose, firmly closed mouth, high, finely etched forehead, whitish grey hair and beard. He looked up. The trees of the forest, which encircled the forest, were ancient, exceedingly tall, coated in dark brown bark. They had wide spreading boughs, heavy with green leaves. Flowers and berry bushes grew at their roots.

  He smiled, for he knew he had created what he saw.

  After he had studied his own image on the water of the pool for a long time, he created his first child. Elu he named him. He watched him grow on the grass, under the blue sky, from child to mature man. He helped him to grow as his guardian, father and friend. He created him to be tall and narrow, straight spined, like him. When he had attained his full height, he noticed that the face of his son had the likeness of his face, though it was as unique to him as his soul. The nose of his son looked sharper edged than his and unlike him, he grew no beard, and the hair on his head remained black.

  From the beginning, he had decided not to give himself a name. Only his children would have names. The Father he would ask them to call him. He gave himself no other name.

  Often, he would go for walks outside the garden with Elu, his son. Both of them dressed in their hooded robes of white cloth, they would explore the forest together. They heard no sounds on their walks, other than the tramp of their feet on the hard forest floor, bumpy with tree roots and rock juts, and wind, at times, rustling through the leaves of the wide spreading boughs above their heads, blowing down from the mountains, far to the north, and water, at times, trickling through slits in the rocks and rushing over boulders.

  Together they once climbed to the peak of a mountain, which lay beyond the northernmost edge of the forest. On that broad peak, they found two low, smooth topped grey rocks, which made natural thrones for them to sit on. The Father sat on his first, and faced towards the south, then Elu sat on his, to his right.

  "Here is a good place to speak," said Elu.

  The Father agreed with a smile.

  "Always you will sit at my right hand as the Son of the Father, for my right hand is my hand of holy power and creator command, " he said.

  Elu acknowledged his words with a deep smile and a slow nod of his head.

  There they sat, on the pinnacle of the stone creation, and they talked about their plans for the future, amongst other things. As they spoke, they enjoyed the task of forming new words for the Father's language. They gave names to the different kinds of trees, plants, ferns, nuts, herbs, berries, fruit and flowers that grew in the forest and on the slopes and in the vales of the mountains and to every colour they knew and to every shape, sound and movement, It was much finer work for them to give names to the varying shades of their thoughts and feelings.

  The mountain they sat on they named Grey Mountain, for it was built of glistening grey rock, as were the mountains which encircled its roots, which they named the Grey Mountains. Far to the east of the Grey Mountains spread chains of mountains built of light silver rock, so they named them the Silver Mountains, the Sacred Silver Mountains of First Heaven, and the chains of mountains which spread far to the west of the Grey Mountains, built of glinting white rock, they named the White Horn Mountains. The mountains built of deep red rock, which lay to the north of the Grey Mountains, they named the Red Tower Mountains. Brownflower Forest they agreed to call their forest home, for its floors were covered most of all with flowers with large, broad, brown petals and long brown stems.

  Down from the mountains in the north, they returned to the garden in the midst of Brownflower Forest. They named the garden Elema, and there they built their first house and their first creation hall. The house was large, with four floors and a flat roof. They built it with logs of wood and shaped blocks of stone, as they did the creation hall, which stood nearby. The house they called Somana and the creation hall they called the Workshop. Inside it, they learned how to be workers in wood, master craftsmen at their benches. It was a high, wide building with rows of windows round its upper walls, to let in the light.

  With the help of Elu, his son, the Father created the first order of his children. They were a circle of twelve men and twelve women. He filled them with the god seed, so that the men were gods and the women were goddesses. He created them to be his high helpers in his creation work. When they had attained their full height and were mature of age, the men stood tall and broad shouldered, with light grey hair on their heads and whitish grey beards on their chins and they wore white hooded robes. The women grew to be as tall as the men. They wore long white dresses, white sandals on their feet, silver necklaces round their necks and silver bracelets round their wrists, and the fine, silvery strands of their hair streamed almost down to their ankles.

  The Father taught the first circle of his creator sons and daughters how to use their minds, hands and skills and the power of their souls inside his Workshop, and he helped them to design and build their own houses to stand on the lawns of the garden.

  In the middle of the garden, he helped them to build the first temple. It was a place for prayer, study, worship, ceremony and contemplation. Inside, he wrote his first book, 'Works and Laws'. Among the laws, he included those concerned with marriage and the bringing up of children. He was the priest in the temple at the first wedding ceremonies, when his first sons married his first daughters.

  The forest was vast and the mountains were vaster, the streams ran with clear water and the rivers and lakes were deep, but they were silent and empty, so he planned to fill them with new races of his children. With the help of his circle of creator sons and daughters, he created the first orders of his fish, bird, animal, mammal and reptile children, to fill the land, the air and the waters with life.

  Fur coated animals and scale coated reptiles he created to live in Brownflower Forest and in the hills and mountains. When they were full grown, the birds flew in flocks from the Workshop. They took wing through the high windows, to make their nests in the great trees and the forest was silent no more. Out to the vales, the slopes and the peaks of the hills and the mountains flew the greater birds, like the falcon, the owl and the eagle.

  To be the king and queen of his animal children of the forest, he created the brown lion and the brown lioness, and to be the king and queen of his animal children of the mountains, he created the black lion and the black lioness. The clear waters of the streams, the pools, the lakes and the rivers, he filled with his first fish children. Some were small, like the orange roach and the yellow perch, others were large, like the black trout, the grey carp and the silver salmon. 

  When he saw that there was now life in the waters, in the air and on the land, the Father knew it was time to create a new people. Alone in the Workshop, he traced their forms on transparent screens. Angels he called them. His first circle of angel men and angel women he named the Angels of Brownflower Forest, for that place was to be their home and they were to be its guardians.

  When they were full grown, the angel men wore hooded robes and the angel women wore long dresses of the same dark brown cloth. They built their tall, many floored tower homes in a deep vale in the northern region of the forest. There they lived in joy, in love with their home, its birds, beasts, trees and waters.

  The Father once stood alone in the garden, outside the door of the Workshop, looking towards the line of trees which formed the eastern edge of the forest. For a long time, he looked. Then out from the shade of the trees came a woman. Her beauty mature, she touched the bark of each tree she walked by. She smiled, close to laughter. Words she mouthed, gently. What she said, he could not hear. She seemed in awe, full of gratitude, worship, love. Her face shone, her dark hair streamed over her shoulders, to down below her waist. She wore a long brown dress. Closer and closer, she came towards him. Almost, she danced, as she stepped over grassy humps, tree roots and stones. A few paces before him, she came to a halt. Her eyes sparkled. She closed her mouth, her smile deepened. Slowly, she opened her arms wide, as if they were wings. For a long time, she looked into his face, in silence. At last, unafraid, she spoke.

  "Did you think I was going to leave you alone?" she asked him. "I was alone once. Now we will never be alone again."

  "Wonder you wake in me, yet in my soul, you are expected," answered the Father, smiling. "Know that I have waited, since first I was full grown, my dearest, for you to come."

  "I am a woman, that is what I know," she said, stepping closer. "I grew among the trees. I drank water from falls and streams, ate nuts from trees, berries from bushes. I am part of the pattern you weave, as you are part of mine. I named myself Ruesta, for it sounds like the name of a wind that blows through the trees."

  "Of the pattern I weave, you are its root, its pinnacle," he told her. "I name you my queen, ever to work beside me."

  Smiling, he opened his arms and embraced her, in bliss to see and feel her dark haired head at rest on his chest.

  Queen of the Angels of Brownflower Forest was the title he gave Ruesta. She and her angel helpers created and planted new kinds of trees, plants, bushes, herbs, flowers, ferns and grasses in the forest and thereby increased its beauty and borders.

  The second order of angels created by the Father were the White Angels. When they were full grown, he clothed the men in white hooded robes and the women in long white dresses. Dark eyed and dark haired, they stood before him in the garden. Smiling upon them, he gave them the White Horn Mountains, which lay far to the north of Brownflower Forest and west of the Grey Mountains, to be their home, and to rule over them as their king, he gave them his son, Elu. It was Elu who led them away from the forest to the land of white stone mountains, long, winding rivers, high waterfalls, green valleys and plains that the Father had given them. There they built their large, flat roofed, white stone houses in the mountain vales.

  Once it was built for him by his angel craftsmen, Elu went up to live in a great castle, perched on the uppermost shelf of White Crown Mountain, the midmost and highest mountain of their homeland. With its high walls and broad, rounded towers, built of clear white stone, all who saw it agreed that it was a fair sight to see. White Crown Castle it was named. In the temple of the castle, Elu married Lillan, a White Angel woman. King Elu and Queen Lillan they were titled, the king and queen of the White Angels of the White Horn Mountains.

  On the peaks of the White Horn Mountains nested a race of white eagles and on the slopes and in the vales wandered herds of red deer, black elk, grey goats and white sheep. Across the vast plains at their feet roamed herds of white horses. They roamed free, but Elu and his angels tamed some families of them and taught them to be their servants, so they could learn to ride upon them. To learn how to ride a white horse and to make the horse your friend became part of the physical, mental and spiritual growth of a White Angel. The White Angels became horse angels, angel horse riders, who loved to ride their horses alone, in groups and in companies, for pleasure, relaxation, far travel and ceremony.

   A white hooded, white robed White Angel, mounted on a white horse, became a symbol of harmony and kingship. Elu took a long time to learn how to ride his white horse, but when he had mastered the art, he loved to go for long trots through the woods and vales of his land, and sometimes, for a race over its plains. During ceremonies in the castle courtyard, he sat on his white horse as the White Horse King, the King on the white horse.

  The Father continued to live in his house in Brownflower Forest with Ruesta as his wife and queen. He carried on with his creation work in the Workshop and was glad to be not alone anymore.

  That was the beginning, the beginning when everything was new. There was just the Father and his first children then. It was long after that he thought of his winged angel creation, then created his first winged angel children. It was long ago. It was good when it started. It was a great joy to him when he first thought of creating orders of angels with wings, like those of his bird children. Wings would give them more than the freedom of flight, he thought. They would need them for the work he intended them to do for him. So he created the first winged angels and gave them their own houses, kings and queens, lands and skills.

  The idea to create his winged angel children came to him when he once stood behind one of his creator sons at work at his bench in the Workshop. Fascinated, he watched his son, Nebu, sat in his chair, drawing with fine, light grey lines his plans for the wings of the greater birds who were to live on the cliffs of the coast, on remote islands and solitary rocks, out on the ocean, and those who were to nest on the high hills and mountains, to soar over the vales, from peak to peak.

  The Father was amazed by Nebu's drawings and told him so. His skill and fresh ideas astounded him. An idea came to him then. It was a simple idea and he knew it was the next stage in his creation. He would create a new order of angels and they would have wings. They would be like his first angel children, but when they were full grown, they would fledge wings on their backs.

  Inside the Workshop, he stood before his screens, and traced the forms of the first order of winged angels upon them. The holy souls he gave them were clear lamps of light grey light, so that their eyes, skin, hair and wings would beam and sparkle with that same colour. When they were mature enough to fledge them on their backs, the broad top tips of their wings rose just above their shoulders and the narrow bottom tips rested just above their ankles. The Angels of the Grey Wing, he named them. He clothed the men in light grey robes and the women in long light grey dresses. From a distance, they looked more as if they were composed of glimmering grey light, rather than flesh and bone.

  The Father named their king, Uriel, and their queen, Haranna. When they were old and wise enough to rule themselves and build their own culture, he led Uriel and Haranna and their angel folk away from Brownflower Forest on a straight path north, to the land of green hills and lakes that lay before the feet of the Grey Mountains. He gave them the Grey Mountains to be their home and there they established their kingdom. Grey stone towers, mansions and walled cities, they built in the long, wide mountain valleys. They tamed and ploughed the green wilderness that spread from the roots of the mountains, to create ordered farmlands, fruit fields and orchards. They built grey boats with tall masts and white sails to sail on the great lake which lay at the foot of Grey Mountain. The lake they named Lake Ebe.

  Between the north shore of the lake and the foot of the mountain stood a low green hill with a wide, flat summit. And there Uriel built his palace. When at last it was completed, it rose to a great height and it shone with a clear grey light. Seen from a distance, it seemed that it had not been built of a solid substance, but of a chance conglomeration of clouds, shaped by many hands, to form a permanent structure. Uriel had indeed taken inspiration for its design from the massing of the greater clouds on the ocean horizon. Cloud Palace, he named his home. Stable though it looked, with its gates, windows, walls, archways, balconies, rooftops and towers, it still appeared that it could shift and drift as vapour over the grass.

  The tale of Uriel and his works is long, ever growing. At work in his halls, Uriel and his angels began to turn the wheels of the machine creation. It was they who built the first flying craft, the first computers, for the storage of information and for working on fine, abstract tasks, and they also invented the long distance communication system, with the use of screens and time mirrors. And it was there in his halls that Uriel drew plans for a great castle he intended to build on the uppermost shelf of Grey Mountain. When it was completed, he named it the Black Castle, and he led the Father into its central courtyard.

  "The Black Castle we built to be your home and as a meeting place for all your children. It is our gift to you, to reveal our love for you and your creation," said Uriel, speaking to the Father. "It is our hymn of praise to you in stone, to show our thankfulness to you for creating us. It is your home above the clouds, near the mountain peaks and the nest of eagles."

  The Black Castle was a massive building, built of blocks of shiny black stone. It was the tallest, widest, most complex building yet built by the Father's children. Inside it had many halls, rooms, chapels, archways, stairways, aisles and cloisters. Being built by an order of winged angels, there were vast spaces inside its high, wide central halls for them to fly about in and to hover in the air above the ground. The pillars of the great central hall, sculptured to be Father's Throne Hall, were tremendously high. They towered high enough, it seemed, to support the dome of the sky, never mind the roof.

  In the middle of the central courtyard of the castle stood the Wheel Tower. It was a rounded, grey stone tower, which rose to a great height, and was capped by a wide wheel, which could revolve and also lift from its base, to mount the air as a flying vehicle. The hub of the Wheel was egg shaped. Inside there were rooms. One was the Captain's Cabin, the others were the Flight Control Room, the Central Power Room and the Observation  Dome. Inside the twenty four spokes of the Wheel there were many rooms. Most of them were cabins for its crew and passengers.

  The Father was astonished by all of his children, from the smallest bird to the tallest angel, but it was only when he saw Uriel stood before him in the castle courtyard, in the glory of his grey wings, that he fully grasped how vast a task he had set himself, how serious it was and how high.

  "You amuse me, Father, " said Uriel, smiling. "You created my angels and I to grow far taller than you. I am now full grown. I feel splendid, strong spined and winged. I look upon you now and I find the more I concentrate upon you the more you seem the perfect height, truly the correct height to be, and I begin to wonder if I have misjudged and you are really taller than my angels and I, for the longer I look, the harder I concentrate, the taller you seem."

  "I am glad I amuse you, my son," said the Father. "Perhaps it is that you can sense what cannot be measured, that is, my soul strength. I am the correct height for the one I created myself to be. I could have structured for myself a body to house my soul that was as tall as a tree, but that would not have been wise or necessary. I am tall enough for the work I plan to do and small enough to visit my children, wherever they might live. I can enter their rooms, walk through their doors, if they live in a house, mansion or palace. You need to be the height you are for the work I want you to do for me and my children. Believe me, all my children grow to be the perfect height."

  Uriel smiled. He seemed satisfied by the Father's words.

  "Where did solid mass and water come from?" he asked.

  ""It is hard, is it not, to imagine the infinite, to understand that space has no walls, roof or floor? In the same way, it is hard to imagine something that always was, that had no beginning, just as it will have no end," answered the Father. "Solid mass always was, was always in existence, the same can be said of water. I had no beginning, as I will have no end. They are not just fine words, composed to move, like the lines of high poetry. They are the truth. In the beginning, when I was only a soul, a single, amazed, unattached eye, I stretched out my force to uplift and mould the mountains and cup the oceans and seas. When I decided to create solid forms, I knew I had to become a solid form myself, and thereby restrict myself by housing my soul in one body, limit myself to one height and weight, the being you see before you now. What always was, always is, will never end, and never did begin. I am afraid that is the only answer I can give."

  Uriel thought for a while in silence.

  "It will do," he said, at last, quietly.

  Now that the Black Castle was completed, the Father left his house in Brownflower Forest and settled in his new home. He still visited and used the Workshop in Brownflower Forest, but lived mostly now in his castle with Ruesta, his wife and queen. He left the Workshop in the hands of those of his creator sons and daughters who wished to remain with the Angels of Brownflower Forest.

  In the creation halls inside his castle, the Father created new orders of his winged angel children. Some of them to live and work with him in his castle, others to build their own homes among the Grey Mountains and beyond their borders. To live with him inside his castle, he created the Angels of the Grey Star Circle, the Angels of the Blue Rose, the Angels of the Black Wing, the Angels of the Gold Wing and the Angels of the Amethyst Wing. To live in the Silver Mountains, the Sacred Silver Mountains of First Heaven, to the east of the Grey Mountains, he created the Angels of the Silver Wing, and to live in the Red Tower Mountains, to the north of the Grey Mountains, he created the Angels of the Red Wing. To be the shepherds of the seas and the guardians of the ocean coast, he created the Angels of the Scarlet Wing and the Angels of Albatross Archway. To them he gave the great task of being the guides and friends of his children of Angel Kingdom Ocean, which lay far to the west of the Grey Mountains. With their help, he filled the waters of the vast deep with whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, crabs, lobsters and fishes of many kinds. He also created orders of wingless angels to help him rule his castle and his Kingdom, and they were named the Angels of the Throne of the Father. Some of them became horse angels, like the White Angels, ruled by King Elu and Queen Lillan. They learned how to tame and ride horses from among the herds of horses that roamed the vales  of the Grey Mountains.

  Phanuel, the Lord of the White Rose, Raguel, the Lord of the Red Rose, Tamiel, the Lord of the Black Rose, and Ramiel, the Lord of the Grey Rose, were the four first and highest of the angel lords of the Father's Throne Hall, and they were the high captains of the angel horsemen of the Grey Mountains. Out from the stable yard, they rode, Phanuel on his white horse, Raguel on his red horse, Tamiel on his black horse, and Ramiel on his grey horse. Down the mountain valleys and across the plains, they raced, their faces bright, their voices loud, full as they were with the joy of first freedom.

                                               CHAPTER TWO

                                   THE ARCHANGEL BROTHERS

The Father stood alone, dressed in his black hooded robe, by a window in the Throne Hall of his castle. He was well pleased. All was well. The first kingdoms of his children were now established and were a joy to his soul, both those on the land and those in the waters. Though still within the early scrolls of his story, he knew the beginning was over. There was no way back. He had now to venture into wild, untamed, unknown fields. Strong, unflinching, he had to board the Wheel on the top of his tower and mount to the stars. He looked up and thought of the vastness of space. His mind moved over the yet uninhabited, uncultivated lands. An idea came to him then, which disturbed him and made him clench his fist in an attempt to calm the stirrings of his soul.

  It was then that he decided that he would create orders of higher, mighty winged angels, who would have the physical massiveness, strength and gifts to do great works for him and his children and extend widely the borders of his Kingdom. He thought of creating three angel men, who would be as brothers. He would be their fourth brother, as their creator and king. They would be called the Archangel Brothers, the Archangel Three. When he had created them, he would name them the Archangel Michael, the Archangel Gabriel and the Archangel Raphael.

  He would be the fourth Archangel, to stand in his corner of the sacred square, facing Michael, stood in his corner. To his right would stand Gabriel in his corner and to his left, Raphael would stand in his corner. With him his Archangel sons would complete a square, without him they would only complete a triangle. He would create the Archangel Three, but there would be a fourth. He would be the fourth Archangel, for he would be the creator of the Archangel Three.

  Each land in his Kingdom he made to be ruled by a king and queen, sat on their thrones, but he sat upon a throne on a step above them, for he created them and gave them their kingdoms to rule. Such was the pattern of   rulership he made for his Kingdom.

  "I woke Michael up in the mountains, I woke Gabriel up in a golden wood, I woke Raphael up by a shining silver river, " he wrote of his Archangel creation in his book, 'The Kingdom Pattern'. "In the beginning, they were small, my three Archangel sons, far smaller than I, their father, but I told them in time they would be vast, far taller than I, their father, but they would always remember that it was I who created them and they would always work for me and obey my commands and keep my laws.

  "Michael I moulded with the strength and the backbone of a mountain. Tough, thick, dark brown skin I gave him, the same colour as his eyes and his hair, which grew short and smooth, like fur, on his head, his chest, his arms, his legs and his feet. His hands and his feet were large and gnarled, like those of a bear and indeed, he had the look, might and playfulness of a mountain bear king. The Mountain Archangel I named him.

  "Gabriel I lifted from a stone bath of golden berry juice. His skin was like that of a fish, with broad edged scales that glowed with a clear yellow golden colour. He grew no hair on his head and his eyes were grey. The Air Archangel I named him.

  "Raphael I nested by a shining river. He had clear white skin and dark eyes and dark hair. He had a long, sharp edged nose and his mouth was ever creased in a serene smile. The Water Archangel I named him.

  "I taught them how to use their hands, how to use their skills. They amused me, my three Archangel sons, in the beginning, the way they followed me around my Workshop in Brownflower Forest. Gabriel would laugh when he lifted a log from the floor or saw a bird fly in through a high window, then Michael, Raphael and I would laugh with him. My face would grow warm and wet with tears of laughter, I smile to remember now. They were ever eager, cheerful and wanting to learn and make things, my three Archangel sons, when they worked with me, still in their youth. It amused me to look down and see them, below the end of my beard, looking up at me, knowing how vast they would be when they were full grown and had fledged their mighty wings.

  "When they were first full grown, I looked up at my three Archangel sons, as I stood on the summit of a green hill, to the north of Brownflower Forest. Gabriel stood on a broad hill top in the west, his golden wings glowing against the blue sky, his head held high in triumph and joy, for he had mastered his flight skills and was now mature enough to begin his great works. Michael stood on a hill in the east, testing the might of his broad brown wings, while Raphael hovered over a hill in the north, his silver wings glimmering, bewildering to look upon.

  "When they were mature and masters of their skills, my three Archangel sons worked with me in my creation halls in my castle. Michael in his dark brown cloak, Gabriel in his golden scaled coat, and Raphael in his purple hooded robe, helped me create the first circles of their own angel orders."

  Now that they had their own angels to rule, the Father gave each of his three Archangel sons their own land to make into their kingdom. To Gabriel he gave the vast land beyond the south western borders of Brownflower Forest. It was a land of green hills, woods and forests of golden pines, lakes and long, narrow rivers, green plains and moors, encircled by high, jagged peaked mountains. To Michael he gave the great stone wilderness beyond the western borders of Gabriel's Land. It was a land dominated by the broad peaks of its massive brown stone mountains. Its moors were covered in brown fern as were the floors of its oak forests and its rivers were long, deep and winding and its waterfalls high. To Raphael he gave the land beyond the south western borders of Michael's Land. It was a land of rounded, flat topped hills, sharp peaked mountains, long, broad rivers, high, many shelved waterfalls, deep, oval lakes, boulder strewn moors and forests of tall, thin firs.

 To explore the lands the Father had given them from the air, each of his three Archangel sons built a flying craft. Michael called his the Dome. He built it large enough to contain himself and a small company of his angels. Stood in the middle of the wheel in the centre of its floor, as its pilot, he steered it through the sky. Over his land, he glided. With its light grey, glassy walls, it was a fair sight to see, as if it belonged on a temple roof. Above the peak of the highest mountain in his land, he brought the Dome to a halt in its flight path. He then spread his wings and flew out from its door. In slow spirals, he fell through the air, until he settled his bear like feet upon the broad peak of the mountain, glad to stand firm and strong on the hard rock of his kingdom. With his wings outstretched, at rest, he lent back on the wind, and turned his head in every direction, to survey the land the Father had given him, as a gift, to be his home. He smiled, deeply, and his eyes gleamed with wonder and gratitude.

  Gabriel called his flying craft the Air Raft. It was indeed a long, wide golden rod raft, enclosed by high walls and a roof, which seemed to be made of a silver grey, transparent cloth. Stood in the middle of its floor, at his control panel, he glided over the land the Father had given him to mould into his kingdom. As he cruised his way over a vast green plain, encircled by mountains, he suspended the flight of his Air Raft, and flew down from its floor. In the middle of the plain, he landed, to test his balance and to look around, well pleased with what he saw.

  Raphael called his flying craft the Silver Barge. It was indeed bright silver and it did look like a barge that could float down a river. Along with flight control instruments, it contained pattern weaving machinery and other delicate devices. Slowly, he sailed across the sky inside it, high above the mountains, forests, hills, lakes, rivers and waterfalls of the land the Father had given to him, in bliss to know that it was his own kingdom that he was discovering.

  "One of the first great tasks I asked them to do for me, when they were full grown, my three Archangel sons, was to build me something, something that would surprise me, so that they could amaze and astound I, their father. It was up to them what they built, I told them. I would have nothing to do with what they decided to build. It was up to them," wrote the Father, looking back on the early life of his three Archangel sons, in his book, 'The Kingdom Pattern'. "And so it was that Michael built a brown castle on the peak of his mountain, Gabriel built a golden pyramid in the midst of his plain, saying it was both a holy temple in my praise and an edifice that would guide him on his pattern for his future works, though I knew that only he would ever understand it, to my amusement, and Raphael built a silver palace to sparkle above the trees of his forests, as his home and celestial workshop, and I was well pleased with their work, as ever it was better than what I had hoped for.

  "That was the First Age, the Archangel Age, long over. I can speak in much detail about each stage in my creation, and my scribes have written all my words on each stage in the books I gave to the angel courts, for study and meditation and for prayer, but such details are for my sons and daughters most interested them, when they are of an age, with the understanding, to comprehend such things."

  Gabriel built his Golden Pyramid in the middle of the great green plain which lay in the centre circle of his land. Stone by stone, level by level, it was built, under his guidance and command, by a company of his higher craftsmen, with the help of cranes, aircraft and wheeled transporter machines. Once it was completed, he ordained a circle of pyramid priests and priestesses to be its guardians. There it stood, for all to see, mounting to a great height from the middle of the green plain, the Golden Pyramid of the Archangel Gabriel, the centre of the Gabriel pattern and its microcosm. All who saw it, and even those who lived and worked inside it, and learned long about it, called it a holy enigma. Only Gabriel, they concluded, understood its full purpose.

  Gabriel did say that his Golden Pyramid was a temple in praise of the Father's name and creation, a story in stone, which told of the journey up the Angel Path, from the first step to the lofty peak, a hall of initiation for novices, training to be priests and priestesses, a college for the study of the Archangel kingdoms, and more fundamentally, a microcosm of his pattern for past, present and future works. That is what he said, but always, in its mystical simplicity, it would look more than that.

  Before the main door of the Golden Pyramid, at the root of its western face, Gabriel and his craftsmen sculptured two golden stone monuments, one like a lion, the other like a lioness. The lion reclined to the right of the door, the lioness to the left, both of them gazing with great curiosity and serenity towards the western horizon. They were built to be the stone guardians of the Golden Pyramid.

  "They will amuse my children, my stone lion and my stone lioness," said Gabriel, speaking to the Father, as they stood before the two monuments. "Serene, silent, they recline upon the plain, their heads held high, their hind paws at rest under their stomachs, their fore paws stretched long before their broad chests, as they guard the door of my pyramid, with the pyramid behind them, for that is the past, yet it stands in the present, and ponders the future. It is still, yet it moves through time. They gaze with clear, keen eyes to the western horizon, and the works yet to be built in the distance of land, water, air, space and time. They are aware of the infinite and the history of which they are part. They rest from a journey and contemplate another. I chose to sculpt them because the golden lion and the golden lioness are the king and queen of the animals of my land, as all my children know. The Golden Lion and the Golden Lioness are the guardians of the door of my pyramid and the guides to the lines of my pattern."

  Raphael built his Silver Palace to be his home and main creation hall. With the help of his angels, he built it on the rounded, flat summit of Sarakquil Mountain, the middlemost and the highest mountain of his land. From its long, wide foundation floor, it rose, level by level, wall by wall, balcony by balcony, to its topmost circle of tall, slender, conical topped towers. Built of blocks of smooth, dark purple stone, encrusted with tiny jewels, from the windows of the topmost towers could be seen the creation halls of the clouds above the peaks of the encircling mountains. In some of the rooms of its myriad towers, Raphael lodged silver orbs on black tables, which sparkled with a clear, silver light. From the windows of the rooms, the silver light rayed outwards, to mingle with and heighten and vary the natural light and colours on the water, leaves, bark, rock, fern, reeds and grasses of the surrounding land. The silver light from its tower windows made the Silver Palace look magical indeed, as if it were not truly a solid structure, but more like a fair vision traced in the air by the wand of an enchanter.

  "The Silver Palace is no more than my family home and my prime creation hall, for work and contemplation, but it was also built for the delight of my beloved angel children," explained Raphael, once, speaking to the Father, who was there on a visit to his land. "It is a many towered, many levelled maze, woven in a pattern to reveal wisdom's industry and pleasure. As regards angel architecture, if my great brother Gabriel is pleased to be famed for his pyramid and my great brother Michael for his castle, I am pleased to be famed for my palace."

  When Michael and his angels first settled in the vast mountain wilderness the Father gave them to be their home, they were content to live in caves, wooden mansions and stone towers. It was when the Father asked his three Archangel sons to build him something to impress him, without any help or guidance from him, that Michael flew down from the sky to the summit of Brown Mountain, the pinnacle of the stone creation in his land, and upon it he decided to build the central hall, towers and walls of his home. When it was completed, he named it the Brown Castle. He wanted it to look like a natural rock formation, as if it had grown by itself from the ground and had been moulded by the wind. Its broad, rounded, flat roofed towers were inspired in their shape by the mountains of his land. The main castle building, with its central hall, towers, archways, gardens, courtyards and walls, dominated the peak and the upper slopes of Brown Mountain. The central hall was built high and wide enough to contain Michael, even with his wings outspread in their mature magnificence. Before its main doorway lay a great stone courtyard, with green lawns, gardens and clumps of oak trees, called Michael's Court.

  When Michael flew down from his Dome in his heaven or from his wanderings above the mountains and forests of his land, he stood in his courtyard, his wings at rest, and the angels of his castle, who were at home, gathered round him, to listen to him speak of his adventures and his works, and they would tell him their news. And sometimes Michael would sing to them with his great voice, which was rich and deep, and the songs he sang were in praise of the Father and his creation, and he also sang comic songs and ballads of travel and the ways of birds and beasts. When he spoke to them of his past, he loved most to speak of when he was but a boy in the Father's Workshop, learning how to work with his hands, his mind and his soul, sharing the time of first findings and early adventures with his two great Archangel brothers, Gabriel and Raphael. The angels of his castle smiled and laughed to think of him as a boy, learning how to lift a hammer, sitting on a stool, eating a bowl of berries with a wooden spoon.

  "Yes, I was a boy once and I was a happy boy," he told them. "I was small once, just as you were and your children are now. I was a wild and merry boy."

  On some of his visits, finding that he had enough time, he would leave the courtyard and enter the central hall of his castle, and fill it with the roars and bawls of his laughter, and his angels would laugh with him, until they felt they could never stop, for his was a merry court, especially when he was at home. The merry court of Michael it came to be known in the angel lands.

  It was in the temple of his castle that Michael married his wife, Kerena, and named her the Queen of Brown Mountain, while Gabriel married his wife, Orlir, inside his pyramid, and named her the Queen of the Golden Tree, and Raphael married his wife, Saril, inside the temple of his palace, and named her the Queen of the Purple Flower Garden.

  It was Michael who the Father elected to be the Archangel shepherd of his higher animal children. The iorquare, he called them. He created them in his creation dome, built for him by Michael and some of his wing lords, to his design, in a hollow at the roots of the Red Tower Mountains, the home of the Angels of the Red Wing, to the north of the Grey Mountains. The first seed circle of his iorquare children, he created with a company of the high ones of his court. Scaled, he made them, like some of his lizard and some of his fish children, and enormous, when they were full grown, like his whale children. On four stout legs, they moved about, and their scales and skin were a shiny, light grey. They had large heads, deep set eyes, under high, thickly folded brows, broad snouts and short, blunt ended tails. The Father created them to be the kings and queens of his higher animal children.

  Then afterwards, he created his beloved dinosaur children, who were less in height and strength than his iorquare children. The iorquare lived on the peaks and the upper slopes of the mountains, gazing through the gaps in the clouds at the lands below, while the dinosaurs lived in the valleys and on the plains. The Father loved his dinosaur children. They roused his awe and wonder and they amused him. The long necked leaf eaters, the thick scaled root chewers, the smooth skinned, graceful amphibians, he created, and he loved to see them live. He elected Michael to be the shepherd king of his higher animal children because he was the mighty Mountain Archangel and he knew how to care for great animals, for many strange beasts lived in his land.

  One of the first great tasks Gabriel did for the Father was the sculpting of the White Mountain, to make it a home for new races of his children. The White Mountain was a great tumble of white rocks which stood alone on a green plain, south of Brownflower Forest and east of Gabriel's Land. He wanted him to sculpt its shape into that of a step pyramid. Each step would be a separate land, a unique kingdom, ruled by a king and queen, but the entire mountain would be under the guardianship of one man, who would be known as the Child of the White Mountain.

  Gabriel and a company of his craftsmen sang as they worked with hammer and chisel, as they sculptured the White Mountain, stone by stone, circle by ever decreasing circle, upward, from its base steps, to its conical peak. It took a long time to refashion, but when the work was completed, the White Mountain looked magnificent. It was a stupendous step pyramid, built of blocks of glinting, clear white stone. Each step was a land, a kingdom on its own, leading up from the Root Kingdoms to the Lower Kingdoms, up to the Middle Kingdoms, on to the Higher Kingdoms, up to the Peak Kingdoms.

  Once the work on the White Mountain was complete, the Father went to live there with Ruesta, his wife and queen, and a company of his creator sons and daughters. They lived in a great cave on a middle step. It became their home and creation hall. Inside, the Father and his helpers created the first seed circle of his White Mountain children.

  Before he began his new work, the Father went down from the cave to a grassy basin, not far below its mouth, and there he planted the seed of a tree. The tree grew, its trunk tall, its branches long, its bark and leaves flickering with jewel bright colours. The Jewel Tree, he named it, the Holy One Tree, the guardian tree of the trees of the White Mountain, and it grew to be the highest and the most beautiful.

  Near the peak of the White Mountain, outside the mouth of a cave, at the foot of a waterfall, in a stone cradle, he created a child. The child had a gold seed in the hub of the jewel wheel that was his soul, for his mystical father was the Archangel Gabriel. His soul had its root in the rock and  water of the White Mountain and in the leaves and the bark of the Jewel Tree. Khem, the Father named him, as he lifted him from the stone cradle. He then carried him down to his cave, where he brought him up with the help of Ruesta and some of the angel women of her court.

  Ruesta looked upon Khem, the Child of the White Mountain, and was pleased to be his guardian. When he had grown to be his full height, he was a little shorter than an angel youth of her own angel order, the Angels of Brownflower Forest, but he looked like a true Gabriel man, with his blue eyes and the gold hair on his head, and his mouth was often creased in a deep, warm smile of goodwill and cheerfulness. The jacket, trousers, boots and the long cloak he wore were brown, like the berries that grew on the White Mountain slopes.

  When he was old enough to live alone, he went up to the cave outside which he had been born in the stone cradle. He found that its rounded floor, walls and arched roof glittered, here and there, with clusters of clear, bright stones, some ruby, others sapphire, green, red, blue, gold, silver. The Jewel Cave, he then decided to call it, and the pool outside its mouth, he named Pebble Pool, and the waterfall that fell into it, Thousand Tumble Falls. He lived inside his cave in bliss, like the Child of the Sacred Silver Mountains of First Heaven, who spent much of his time in ecstatic dance upon the peaks of his home.

  As well as building his own furniture for his cave, he fashioned his own strange looking lute, which he called his Jewel Box. For like a true Gabriel man, he was quiet, but he liked to sing, and most of the songs he sang, as he plucked and strummed the strings of his lute, he wrote himself. To explore the White Mountain from the air, his father, Gabriel, built for him a white flying craft, which he called the White Circle Spaceship. He loved to explore the eagle kingdoms which lay below his Jewel Cave inside his spaceship and the angel lands beyond the roots of the  White Mountain.

  Inside the cave which he had made his home and creation hall on the White Mountain, the Father created a new people. They were to be the guardians of the White Mountain, and they were like wingless angels. The men grew to be broad, strong, bear like, with black hair and white skin, and like angels, they grew no beards. They wore white coats, grey trousers and black boots, and they devoted themselves to their families and their work as builders, gardeners and guardians. The women grew to be as tall as the men and they were fair to see. For the long, fine strands of their hair flickered with the jewel bright colours of the leaves and the bark of the Jewel Tree and shimmered with the white spray of the waterfalls of their White Mountain home. They wore long dresses and shawls woven with Jewel Tree patterns and colours, and bracelets, necklaces, rings and brooches, studded with red, blue, green, gold, white and jade jewels.

  The Father created many different peoples, birds and beasts to live upon the White Mountain. It was considered a strange place by those who did not live there, a merry, magical world, unique, separate from and unlike the angel lands, as the Father intended. Those that did live there thought it was the fairest of all the realms within the circles of the Father's Kingdom.

  When his work upon the White Mountain was done, the Father planted trees around its root lands, with the help of Ruesta and a company of her angels. The trees were of the seed of the Jewel Tree and so their bark and leaves shone with jewel bright colours. The Jewel Jungle, as the Father named it, was thus born. Passing by tree by tree, the Father walked, deeper and deeper into the red jewel light, which glowed in the heart of the jungle, with Ruesta by his side and the company of her angels following behind them. To live under the leaves and among the plants and bushes of the jungle, he created a new people, to be its guardians. They grew to be tall and slender, with black hair and light brown skin and they built their first stone settlements by the banks of the River Duenna, which ran through the middle of the jungle, down from its source in the Silver Mountains. To live in the jungle, the Father created apes, monkeys, lions, bears, tigers, lizards, deer, pelicans, storks, flamingoes, doves and other birds and beasts of many kinds. The Jewel Jungle was called a paradise by those who travelled through it and by those who lived there.

  After his task among the trees of the Jewel Jungle was over, the Father returned with Ruesta to his castle on Grey Mountain. There he held a meeting with his three Archangel sons in his Throne Hall. Stood on a step above the floor, his throne behind him, he looked up at the face of Raphael, who stood not far off, directly before him, fascinated by the contrast between the purple of the cloth of his hooded robe and the silver of his wings. To the left of Raphael, stood Gabriel, his wings at rest on his back, glowing like cornfields at harvest time in the angel lands. In his face could be seen his desire for more stone work and far travel. Michael stood to the right of Raphael, in a quiet, serious mood, his wings rising above his shoulders like brown clouds.

  "I have had an idea in my halls," announced Raphael. "It is to create what I have named planets. They are rounded stones, of great size, built to balance and revolve alone in space. Each planet I plan to be a complete world, a microcosm of the first solid lands, with its own seas and oceans, islands and land masses. I propose that there will be groups of planets, called planet wheels, set in space. Some of the planets would be chosen to be seeded with souls. Each populated planet would have a guardian race of higher souls, with the gift of language and the skills to create their own unique culture and it would have its own peculiar races of birds and animals. I have been called the master of mystical science, the craft of number and line. Through the drawings, working models and calculations I have made in my halls, I am convinced that the planet creation will work and be worthwhile to build. Besides all those things my plan inspires, it will give us something to do, particularly the eldest, most gifted and advanced of your children, I suggest to you, Father. Such a task would increase their wonder and make them even more glad that they live and they have such skills and power. My idea is to extend life into space."

  "I am in  awe at Raphael's idea, " said the Father.

  "I am cautiously impressed," said Michael, with a smile, as he gazed up at a patch of sky, framed by a high window. "Now we know that Raphael does more than think in his Silver Palace. All praise to my brother Raphael for his idea."

  "All praise indeed, Raphael. It is the next move, the next stage, "said Gabriel. "Raphael's idea fills me with joy. We will build it."

  "How pleased I am once more that I created you, my Archangel sons, " said the Father. "Mighty sons will do mighty deeds. Vast sons will have vast ideas and do vast works. That was my thought. I am only small compared to you. With theses two hands and the reach of them, I would never have thought of such a work, but with your hands and your skills and your strength, it will be achieved. We will build Raphael's solid worlds, these planets, as he calls them, and set them to spin in space, to be homes for new races of my children."

  "It is your idea, Raphael. What do we do first?" asked Gabriel.

  "First we must build planet creation machines, bigger than the motherships we have built," answered Raphael. "Then we must send them out into space to certain planned points. Around them the planet wheels will be established."

  "That is a task worthy of us, " said Michael.

  "Yes, it is good. We will do it, make it be," said Gabriel.

  "Because it is the beginning of an entire new work, the creation of planets in planet wheels and new children to populate them, let it be the mark of a new age," suggested Raphael. "Let the beginning and the creation of the angel kingdoms be the First Age and the creation of the planet wheels the dawn of the Second Age."

  "My brother Raphael thinks much of time. Let this be so," said Gabriel.

  "Yes, the First Age is over. The Second Age begins," agreed Michael.

  "Let this be so, and let it be known throughout the angel kingdoms, the Second Age begins, and tell them why," said the Father. "Here is work for eternity. Such is what my children need and will enjoy. Each child of mine is immortal, as I am, and ever I work to increase the delight and wonder of my children, to prove to them that it is worthwhile to live forever. Nothing is too beautiful for my children. Raphael's plan will please them all."

  "This is what my golden children needed, this is the task never ending we have been seeking for," said Gabriel. "I am an architect, a craftsman, there is work for me and my angels for eternity here, as the Father says. All praise to our brother Raphael for his idea."

  "All praise indeed, Raphael," said Michael. "I am reminded now of how Raphael used to try to keep twelve silver orbs in the air at once with his two hands, showing his skills as a juggler, when he was but a boy in the Father's Workshop, and seldom did he not succeed. I smile upon the memory now. There is an example that inspires a matter for debate. Was the pattern always there for us to find or do we create it entirely by ourselves from nothing?"

  "That is indeed a matter for debate, long and deep," said the Father.

  "Meanwhile, I am glad you approve of my plan, my brothers," said Raphael.

  When the work began, it was Raphael and his angels who became most involved with the planet creation and the seeding of fertile planets with souls, but they had great help from Gabriel and his angels, Michael and his angels, Uriel and his angels and companies of angels from the Father's court. The first planet wheels were established in space, high above the angel lands. In time others were established in the deeps of space, far beyond their borders.

  Once the guardian race of a populated planet had grown from the cradle of its infancy and was mature, at the peak of its powers, enough to have established its own unique culture, and had built its own spacecraft and space stations, it began work on the planet creation  pattern, working with and guided mostly by the Angels of the Archangel Gabriel, who became known as the Shepherds of the Stars.

  In space there was work for eternity, as the Father had promised. His planet children who voyaged out from their planet wheels on board their spacecraft amused him. They lived in the state of first wonder. Not long left their cradle, the cosmos was to them their nursery and playground. Some of them seldom returned to their home planet, delighting most of all in space travel, planet creation work, the laying of star paths and the illumination of the heavens with jewels of sparkling light. The cosmos now existed and it had a map.

  Some of the races of his planet children looked like wingless angels. Others looked strange indeed, unlike any of the races of his children who lived in the angel lands. He loved his planet children. Many of the planet kingdoms he visited on board the Wheel. His praise of Raphael was everlasting for his idea to create the planet creation.