Present time...

Behind the sage whose nose was burrowed deep into his books, Gabriel sat upon a dingy bed and chugged the water from his canteen. It was just the two of them. Daniel and the captain had ventured out into the city to tend to their business before departure. And Ezekiel took his leave after explaining his scheme for revitalizing the island. Gabriel was yet unsure of the proposition, however—would Ezekiel's plan really bear fruit within the next six moons, before the Mission gets word of the truth? Will the Archbishop call their bluff before then? He did not know. He did not want to know. He wasn't thrilled to ponder his and his companions' prospects if they were to fail. If worse comes to worst, he thought, he still had that plan under his belt. Regardless, what captured him and truly contorted his soul at the moment was not the politicking at hand, but rather the many dreams that plagued him.

Leaning forward in his seat, he began, "Eleazar. Tell me truthfully—do you believe in angels?"

Eleazar, a renowned skeptic, and proverbial Renaissance man responded, "If God Himself were to show up at my doorstep, Gabby, I'd think him a con-man."

Gabriel sighed. With his elbows resting on his thighs, he pivoted the canteen back and forth in his hands. "Would you believe me if I told you I saw one?"

The alchymyst's ears perked up, and he craned his neck halfway to look towards his liege. "I would attribute it to the stress, Gabby." He resumed his studies. "Although, it would not surprise me if you did see something. Strange things abound on this island."

After a short pause, Gabriel decided on an alternate approach. "Do you know of the meaning of Shemyaz in the Ebreu tongue?"

"The Grigori? Yes." He blabbed nonchalantly, turning a creased folio.

"Grigori...?"

"A Watcher. The leader of the band of angels, the sons of God, who copulated with human women to produce giant—"

"Nephilim."

Eleazar nodded. "Is Shemyaz the angel that visited you? You'd best be careful now," he said jocosely.

Gabriel stared at the floor. "Tell me more."

The old man exhaled from his nose and rose to his feet with great effort. He hobbled over to the modest collection of tomes that sat neatly upon a plank nailed to the brick wall. Scanning through the handful of books in earnest enthusiasm, his eyes finally rested upon the object of his desire. He did not waste a single second to open the poorly bound leather skin book, and without peeling his eyes away, he dragged the chair behind him to face his curious superior. Upon perusing through the contents of the corpus, his eyes lit up as he came upon the page of interest. He sat into his voluminous seat and leaned forward, his aged finger aiding his recital.

"And when the sons of men had multiplied, in those days, beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. And the Watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget for ourselves children.' Then they all swore together and bound one another with a curse. And they were, all of them, two hundred, who descended in the days of Jared onto the peak of Mount Hermon."

Silence befell the musty room as Eleazar turned the page. The word 'Hermon' in particular piqued Gabriel's interest and he made a mental note of it, seeking not to interrupt the spirited orator.

"These and all the others with them took for themselves wives from among them such as they chose. And they began to go into them, and to defile themselves through them, and to teach them sorcery and charms, and to reveal to them the cutting of roots and plants. And they conceived from them and bore to them great giants. And the giants begat Nephilim."

He proceeded to recite the names of the leaders of the Watchers, of Shemyaz and his legion, and of the arcane knowledge they bestowed upon the early humans. He spoke of how the Archangels of Heaven were tasked with destroying the Nephilim and binding the Grigori in the depths of the Earth. Of how the remnants of those primeval men with sinful blood were wiped out in the Great Deluge, with Noah and his family being the sole survivors.

He slammed the tome shut and a cloud of dust scattered into the air.

After a concerted pause to absorb the vast knowledge divulged upon him, Gabriel responded, "And you truly do not believe they ever existed?"

"I believe in reason, Gabby. This is not reason. This is myth, fantasy—mere allegory."

Gabriel continued to pivot his canteen, this time slightly faster. "Mount Hermon... is that not the colloquial name of the great mountain towering above the Island this very moment?"

Eleazar gave him a patronizing smile. He turned around and placed the book back onto the dusty shelf. "Nothing more than pure coincidence."

Gabriel sank his fingertips into his canteen. With a thousand-yard stare, he replied, "Coincidences are facts begging to be understood. Is that not what you taught us, Eleazar?"

The polymath inched closer to the seething man, "Answer me this, Gabriel—what constitutes Man?"

His superior thought deeply for a few seconds, not wishing to be bested in this joust. "A spirit, a soul?"

Eleazar pointed his index finger to his temple. "A mind, Gabriel. If we do not make use of it, we would be no different from a Beast. Do not let fantasies cloud your sight."

Gabriel pocketed his canteen and rose from his seat. His vacant stare burrowed into the eyes of his former tutor. And, without taking his leave, he grabbed his cloak and stormed out of the rickety wooden door.

*

Mattheus turned to the man who slammed the door behind him. "Ah Gáv, ye done with yer lil chit-chat?"

Gabriel nodded. "And I assume you are done with your business."

Mattheus flourished two bottles of Vinho da Roda and flashed his rotten, scurvy-decayed teeth.

Gabriel gave a weak chortle. "Of course." He strode forward and the captain followed suit. "Where's Daniel?"

"Boy's out by the market with his brother, methinks."

"Hmm... I suppose we have some time to kill, then."

They strolled down to the main street that wound through the entire city. There was no preordained schema for their network of streets, instead, they were born purely out of convenience. They tramped down this brick road towards the city gate. The odd soul peeked their heads out of the tiny windows of the limestone houses. According to the census conducted by the Mission, most of those who lived here were of lower Tartessian birth. Yet, quite surprisingly, these men espoused an air of aristocracy here—christening themselves as fidalgos with family names of the true noble gentry.

As soon as the pair exited the gate, a blaring cacophony of sounds emerged from the distance. A multitudinous amalgam of instruments, the chimes of bells and bellowing voices like honey echoed across the realm. The angelic hymns dredged up memories of the previous night, and Gabriel could feel his stomach knot.

"Aye, we haven't seen this in quite a while, have we Gáv?" The captain was enamored by the display. "Reminds me of home."

The sounds crescendoed, and the procession finally came into view, emerging from behind the foot of the cliff atop which the Cathedral lay. First appeared the Holy Crucifix, brandished by the Bishop of Gehenna. Behind it, the monstrance holding the Eucharist was veiled by a canopy whose staves were held by senior clergymen. The man at the front dressed in a violet cope, his head left bare, while the rest of the clergy donned a crimson surplice embroidered with gold. They carried banners of the Lord, and that of their Levantine Order. The great column appeared serpentine as the mass of bodies within it coalesced down the cliffside. Gabriel had not seen anything quite like it back at his home in Conímbriga, which had grown too populous to officiate processions of this scale. Drums thundered in rhythmic succession—filling up the entirety of his surroundings—and he felt enveloped in its melodic embrace.

The laity at the tail end of the column was a medley of fidalgos and natives, segregated on the basis of the shade of their skin. The converted slaves were deemed unworthy of receiving the Blessed Sacrament, and so most of those that walked down the cliffside were the indigenous of higher birth.

The scent of frankincense drifted over to Gabriel as the head of the procession reached a few feet away from him. The sounds had not yet reached their apogee at his ear, and thus he wished to move aside so as to let the parade proceed into the city. A peculiar oddity, however, caught his eye right as he turned away from the magnanimous sight. A goat, its Stygian fur as dark as a starless night, stared straight at him with its amber eyes. As the Eucharist inched closer, the bovid—which stood fixed at the edge of the tall wheat of a nearby field—suddenly pranced and vanished out of sight.

Gabriel did not have the time to linger on this oddity for long, however, as he and the captain had to shuffle out of the way lest they wished to halt the Holy Ceremony.

As the fore of the procession ambled past him, Gabriel's face cringed upon witnessing one of the clergymen that passed by. He held in his arms a banner of the Lord, despite being a sinner destined for no other fate but Hell. It was Samuel.

He turned to look away, wishing not to catch the reprobate's attention. He was in no hurry to converse with this vile excuse for a holy man. The captain could see Gabriel's disgust ever so clearly, however, despite his attempt at maintaining a neutral countenance.

The column proceeded jovially, trumpets blaring—when suddenly, a loud, guttural shriek reverberated a few feet behind where he stood. At first inaudible due to the sheer volume of the cacophony at hand, the screech slowly began to boom as it got closer. Gabriel sidestepped instinctively and pivoted on his heel. A frenzied aboriginal man bounded, unyielding, towards the Grand Procession—his gait rapid; frothing at the mouth, spindly arms outstretched with axe in hand. His shrill cries curdled the blood in Gabriel's veins, however, what truly disgusted him were the streaks of crimson smeared onto the man's forehead and upper body.

The blood-stained man did not hesitate in his course, and before anyone could react, he had made his way to the clergymen at the front. With one fell swoop, he hacked at the holy man before him—the only harrowed soul who gave a semblance of resistance being Samuel.

A clink from his right, the captain was ready to tear down the manic slaughterer and end his reign of terror.

However—an arm blocked his passage. An arm ordering him to stand down. The furious Mattheus glared at his superior who shook his head with an unbridled aura of determination.

"Gáv... these are men of God. Do not be foolish."

The arm did not falter. And, after a hollowed pause, the sword clinked back into its sheath.

The cries of men that, until just a moment prior, sung a ballad to the Lord Almighty, now fractured into disparate wails and screams. The blood-soaked man hacked off the arms and legs of the men of divinity—until he was bound and gagged by a group of fidalgos.

The Bishop, at this point, was exceedingly unnerved and disturbed, and he trembled from head to toe. The fidalgos knew they did not have the authority to take a man's life, nor did they wish to. Thus, one of them strut over to the Bishop for advice on what must be done to the monstrous beast.

"T-T-Throw him into the Aljube!!! G-Go now! T-This devil spawn s-shall be quartered and burned!!! G-Go now!!!" Quivering, the Bishop flourished the Holy Crucifix as if to dispel the evil spirits that still lingered in the air.

The procession dispersed, ending quite a ways short of the trek back to the Cathedral for the final Benediction. A shiver traveled down Gabriel's spine as he gazed at the blood-strewn landscape and the corpses that inhabited it. Indeed, it appeared incongruous in comparison to the vast greenery of its surroundings. Although he was aware of his complicity in the demise of the handful of the holy men, he did not feel even a single pang of remorse for his decision.

After a short while, Daniel arrived at the gates, curiously amused by what he saw. The killer, at the point, had been carried off to the Aljube—the prison of the Holy Inquisition. And now, the fidalgos that bound him were manhandling a person of fairer skin, whose face was covered with a sack.

"P-Please! H-He was a lunatic! I-I played no part in his heresy!"

The man, a native of higher birth, was presumably the owner of the slave who had committed the act. As per the law dictated by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, any act of violence committed by a slave justified the imprisonment and execution of their master. It was a tenuous law, put in place initially to reduce the amount of violence in the colony. But now, it was grossly misused by the general populace to get rid of those they had a seething hatred for.

"I don't want to know what happened here, but I've got all I need for the journey." The vice-general said jovially, pointing to his knapsack.

"Where's Ezekiel?"

"He's still at the markets, said he had some information to gather."

"Alright. You two may take your leave now." Gabriel glanced towards the colossal mountain that scraped the sky. "I have some business to attend to as well."

The captain had remained silent after the entire ordeal. Without a single glance towards his superior, he tramped behind Daniel, following him down the path that led back to the camp.

Gabriel clasped at his chest to calm himself down. Although he felt no remorse, the reeking stench of the decaying corpses was not something he was fond of—not in war, nor in peace. He turned towards the path the Holy Procession had taken, snaking behind the waxing cliff and up to the Cathedral. Based on the maps he had read of the island, the Mountain Pass would begin there. The gargantuan bell atop the Cathedral struck five, this time not for the purpose of endowing its listeners the knowledge of time, but rather to pay respects to the fallen. Gabriel's grip tightened around the hilt of his sword, and he made his way up the trail that led to Mount Hermon.