Legends of Amacia The Caverias Rebellion

Selina then turned her attention to Hanna, asking, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hanna sighed, saying, “I did it for your own protection and theirs. I figured that the Emperor would try to extract from your mind where I went. I didn’t want them to know where I was or of the existence of the people I found here in Antilla. When I contacted you after your movement from the Harem to the Tower, I was here in this very room. I sat on the edge of the bed right there, just thinking about you when I found myself reaching out, initiating contact with you. Surely, you know how incensed they were and how much they wanted my location.”

Selina nodded, saying, “Yes. I suffered a great deal because of that. But I don’t blame you for it.”

Relieved to hear that, Hanna continued, “There’s something you need to understand about this place. This tower we’re in is a giant piece of ancient machinery like Tiamat. In ways, it is as potent and powerful as Tiamat. Something about this place keeps the Emperor from seeing it. Otherwise, he would have already hit it and mined its technology. It may be something about the machinery or, as I tend to believe, the Lord has put a bubble of protection around this place. He has His angels guarding this place, blocking it from the view of the Emperor and his minions. Do you know how I found out about this place?”

Selina shook her head as Hanna moved around, sitting down cross-legged in front of Selina. “I could tell you but it would take days to tell it. So I will show you, as I promised,” Hanna stated. “Come, my beloved, and see my trial by fire for the last month.” Selina hesitated and Hanna took her by the hands gently, looking deep into her eyes, saying, “Trust me. See what the Lord wrought in me during your absence.” Hanna leaned forward as she held Selina’s hands, touching her forehead to Selina’s forehead. In the blink of an eye, Hanna invaded Selina’s mind with the ease that Argus had invaded their minds when they first came to Arionath. “Let’s go back to our capture while I was still Hannibal,” Hanna said as they sat there. Instantly, they were reliving the events of the capture through Hannibal’s eyes. “Do not be afraid of what you see for the Lord has shown His might and mercy in these memories,” she instructed Selina as she saw fear rising in her. Hanna carried Selina through her memories like the Roc that spirited her and Muriel away from Acheron when she destroyed the citadel.

It was hard on Selina to see the capture and she moaned and cried, “No more, please, no more!”

“I’m here. Draw on my strength,” Hanna told Selina, embracing her both physically and telepathically. “You have to see it.” She led Selina through her captivity, tortures, mutation, and into the Arena to her escape from the Arena, especially the wounds she received at the hands of Hades. Selina saw and felt the tortures on the sex floor and the sheer horror of Hell’s Kitchen Hanna felt while trapped in the cross-avatar clone. She also saw Hannibal’s mutation and the terror and despair he felt as he found his manhood ripped from him in a literal sense. Tears flowed freely down Selina’s cheeks as she bawled in horror at the hell that Hanna withstood. Tears poured out of Hanna’s eyes as she relived everything she showed Selina. Soft sobs bubbled out of Hanna, showing Selina the emotional wounds of her captivity remained fresh.

Selina saw the escape from the Black Fortress and the city, especially how Magnus and Nemesis were intimately involved with it. She wept as Hanna showed her when she and Magnus met up with Amelia, and the rescue team along with her return to Acheron. Selina saw every nightmare Hanna had, until she woke in Acheron fourteen days after her rescue from the Blister Fields. Finally, she choked and cried, “Stop! Please stop! No more, Hanna; you’re overpowering me! I can’t stand it!” Hanna pulled Selina back out of her memories into the place in her mind where her love resided. She wrapped herself around Selina telepathically, letting her love for God and Selina flow freely through her. Selina wept uncontrollably.

“Shhh; it’s all right, my love,” Hanna cooed in her ear in a choked emotional tone. “I’m here.”

“Why do you show me such horrors?” Selina sobbed, greatly distressed by what Hanna had shown her. “How could the Lord be in such evil?”

Hanna rocked her gently physically and telepathically. “You have seen only a portion,” she cooed in Selina’s ear. “The Lord is there as surely as I live and breathe. Surely, the events of my escape show it. But there is more to see.”

Selina looked up in Hanna’s face with tears flowing, asking in a pleading voice, “Is it like what I just saw?” She instantly noticed Hanna’s tears and troubled emotional state.

Hanna kissed her on the forehead, saying, “Not all of it. What happened after I woke in Acheron is different from that which you’ve seen. Understand; we are soul mates. I must share all of it in order for us to be strong. Together we are strong. Separately we are weak and easy prey.” Selina hugged Hanna tightly, placing her head on Hanna’s shoulder as they sat there. Hanna stroked her hair gently, saying in a deeply stressed tone, “I know it is hard. Just think how I feel, having to relive that horror again. It rattles me to the bone every time I remember it.”

“I know!” Selina cried. “Oh, Lord, please have mercy, I know. In your convalescence I was deathly ill, feeling everything you did.”

Selina’s words hit Hanna like a dagger in the heart. “Oh, no!” she cried softly. “I’m so sorry! I should have remembered.”

Selina initiated telepathic contact, saying, “See what I have endured!” Selina showed Hanna everything that she remembered happening up to her rescue.

Hanna was angered and appalled by what she saw, especially what she saw toward the ends of it. She wept over Selina’s terrible mistreatment, crying, “Oh, you poor angel. Why would they do such things to you?”

Selina shook her head slowly, saying, “I don’t know. But the Lord seems to have watched over me, even to the point where He had the Emperor protecting me from the snake.”

“So I saw,” Hanna replied, wiping her nose. “You see, the Lord has been merciful and watched over you and me. But you need to see the rest of what has happened to me.”

Selina whimpered a little, and then said, “All right, but not so fast this time. You were overpowering me with the speed and power you used showing it to me.”

Hanna looked her in the eye with tears, saying, “I’m so sorry that I was going too fast for you. I’m still learning how to properly use this thing. I have got to exercise better control over it.”

Selina put her hand on Hanna’s cheek, saying, “You’re still learning. That’s good. You’re not letting the power go to your head and inflating your ego. Don’t ever let that happen.”

Hanna nodded, saying, “I hope I never let it do that. I came too close to that point in your rescue.”

“I know,” Selina said softly. “I saw it. You nearly lost control of yourself. I would like to understand how that could have happened so that we could keep it from happening again.”

Hanna grieved as she remembered that day. “Come then. Let’s explore it fully,” she said and once again, they surfed her memories, this time much slower and with much more caution. Hanna warned Selina that the next memory was a particularly nasty one. Selina saw and felt the full force of what the shebat did to Hanna and saw how Amelia and Magnus saved her life. She was astonished and revolted by what the nasty little cybernetic parasite did to Hanna. She clung tightly to Hanna as she flinched at the memory. “That little monstrosity nearly killed me,” Hanna told her. “And worse than that, the little thing was traceable. The Cadre traced me to Acheron with it. But again, the Lord was merciful. He saved me from it. That gave me an advantage because I was told that the shebats have never failed to kill a victim once introduced.” They moved on through his memories to the dreams of Antilla, Enoch, and Kida.

The dreams were strange to Selina, not like the other memories. “These are the dreams that caused me to come here,” Hanna declared as they moved on to her enlisting Argus to taking her and Nathanael to Antilla. She saw the flight, the taking of the sword of Ezra Karac, and the initial contact with Enoch in Antilla. Selina’s astonishment was filling up as she saw all the events while he was there, including the reuniting of Nathanael with Electra and Kida. She saw everything that happened to Hanna from her arrival on Acheron to Hanna’s rescue of her. Those memories included the joining of Xavier’s people to the people of Arionath and Corso’s people, along with their subsequent evacuation to Antilla.

As the memories dove into the citadel at Acheron, Hanna warned Selina and held her close as she showed her the terrible and wonderful events inside the citadel. Selina saw their first contact with the prisoners of Acheron: Morpheus, Aeolus and those with them imprisoned in the citadel. Then she saw the terrors of the abyss as Hanna grappled with and bested the demoniac Lord Baal the Belrock, the Devourer, and Dagos in the chasm of Acheron and her subsequent escape by the power and mercy of the Lord. Selina shook in terror as she witnessed the incredible power and horrors of the chasm of Acheron. She calmed down a bit as she saw the rescue and the reunion with the team Hanna went into the citadel with.

In silence with tears, Selina saw the salvation of God in the hell of Acheron. Then the memories unveiled the trek to Muriel’s prison and the subsequent hardships and terrors they went through rescuing Muriel. The basilisks terrified her more than Baal or the Devourers. She watched through Hanna’s eyes as she killed three of them, and then convinced the fourth to back off. What was even more astonishing to her was the bizarre appearance of Muriel, Morpheus, and his people. She saw their evacuation to Antilla and the events around the destruction of the citadel.

After revealing the truth of Acheron to Selina, Hanna moved on to the raid that rescued her. Those memories included the finding of the strange cylinders in the ruins of Antillia to the preparations for the raid. Finally, their trip through Hanna’s memories revealed in brutal detail the raid to free Selina and everyone else who wished to be free of the Emperor. Hanna showed Selina the meetings with the rebellious Captain of the Guards Marvin, his men, and the human gladiator stock of the Emperor’s gladiator school. Selina saw how Hanna utilized Josephine and ultimately freed her of her mechanized prison. Next, Hanna revealed the raid into the sex floor and Hell’s Kitchen, followed by her encounter with the Emperor in the throne room. Selina gawked in astonishment as she saw Hanna once again using those strange powers to combat the Emperor. Eventually, Hanna took Selina through the raid on the Harem and then finally to her cell where she killed Ahriaman. Selina trembled in fear and astonishment at the terrors and wonders she saw.

It took Hanna some time to show Selina everything that had happened since their separation: almost five hours to do so. By time Hanna finished showing her all that had happened, they both were worn out physically and emotionally. But Selina finally had the understanding that she longed for ever since Hanna’s cryptic contact with her in the Tower. She started to see how the Lord was working, using and building Hanna up with every incident, but keeping her humble by showing that it was nothing that she did to save her life every time she faced lethal threats.

They laid there on the bed, with Selina lying on Hanna’s shoulder, trying to come to terms with what she’d seen. She marveled that each time that Hanna faced a threat to her very existence, each one was more potent and more lethal than the previous, she’d overcome it, culminating with the events of her rescue. Hanna lay there, exhausted, having relived a month’s worth of horrors and adventure in five hours. She stroked Selina back softly as she said wearily, “That’s it. You’ve seen everything. Now you know what has happened to me. The only event that I do not have firsthand knowledge of is the taking of Nicodemus, but I somehow knew it had happened.”

Selina looked Hanna in the eye with her eyes still wet from crying. “Truly you are a living, breathing miracle,” she whimpered, clinging to Hanna like a frightened child. “To have faced down so many powerful entities successfully, the Lord had to have been with you. I had no idea that you were in that kind of peril. I’m now glad that I didn’t know exactly where you were for having to experience that terror with a wide open link would have destroyed me.”

“As Nathanael said, the Lord has indeed been merciful,” Hanna replied softly in her ear. “I am starting to understand why He kept you a prisoner for as long as you were. He knew that I wouldn’t be able to get the job done and face the perils that I had to face with you beside me. I believe He kept you there as a goad to keep me moving as quickly as possible. I must say, it surely worked. I could have never faced Baal or the Basilisks with you around. You would have been a distraction. Having you kept prisoner of the enemy not only helped me to focus, it also helped to identify the remnant inside the Emperor’s own house.”

“So it seems,” Selina replied with a yawn. “Is there anything else that you want me to see?”

Hanna thought for a moment, saying afterwards, “As a matter of fact, yes. You know that we all have guardian angels, right?”

Selina nodded, saying, “Yes. I do. When we cast Zramicar from Gulez that day, I saw them. It was eerie. I didn’t hardly know what I was doing or seeing that day. When the time came to purge the demon from him, it was as if someone else was doing it. But I saw them as clearly as I see you. I have a guardian called Guildo. I told him to get the devil and that is when I saw him. No one else saw what was going on. Nemesis was holding on to Gulez at the time and I saw something come out of him and help Guildo drag Zramicar from Gulez’s body. The one that came out of Nemesis then cleaved the demon in two with a great sword. He then put his finger to his lips and disappeared back into Nemesis. I have never encountered anything like that before. Once that one returned to Nemesis, I lost sight of Guildo and the guardians of my sisters in the Harem. Their guardian angels had set up a shield around us so that the demons that were guarding us couldn’t see what was going on. In a way, it still troubles me.”

“Do not let it trouble you, sis,” Hanna whispered in her ear. “You just got a taste of what I’ve had to deal with all my life. The Lord used you powerfully that day and allowed you to see that for a purpose. That angel you saw come out of Nemesis is very special. He is one of the Lord’s elite warring angels under Michael. Just call him Special Forces if you like. His name is Tsang. He was the guardian angel of Tsang Chi, King of Atlantis, of which this island we sit upon is part of.”

Selina’s eyes lit up with amazement. “How do you know that?” she asked.

“It wasn’t too long ago that I had that dream of the angel Caverias saving my butt on that tower from the Black Prince and the Old Ones,” Hanna stated. “Do you remember seeing that dream?”

Selina shuddered from the memory she saw and Hanna said, “Well, it was shortly after that I discovered that the Lord has given me a very special guardian, one I didn’t know about until then. Do you remember the entity that tried to take me when I found the scepter of Shadizar Kahn?” Selina nodded and Hanna said bluntly, “It’s the same entity. His name is Caverias and has been a special guardian for me since I was placed on this Earth. But for some reason, he was not allowed to act until we got to this place. Caverias was the guardian angel for Thoth and Ariel Caverias, my ancestors. Caverias is in that same group as Tsang. Both of them tangled with the Black Prince at the time of the Flood.” Selina was dumbstruck, not knowing what to make of it and Hanna noticed it. “He is at my command. Caverias, can you come out for a moment?” she called out.

In a flash, Caverias’ presence filled the room. He stood before them in all the glory of the Ancient of Days. The power of his appearance made Hanna and Selina collapse on the bed. “Please tone it down a bit, Caverias. We’re still weak,” Hanna begged and the blazing light surrounding Caverias faded showing a twelve-foot warrior angel donned in heavenly armor and a great sword hanging at his side. He had his helmet in his hand has he looked down at them.

“You call, Hanna?” Caverias asked with a smile.

“Yes,” Hanna replied weakly for the appearance of Caverias had drained both her and Selina. Hanna managed to roll Selina over so she could see the angel. Her mouth fell open at the sight of Caverias. She was petrified with fear as Hanna said, “Don’t be afraid, sis. He is the guardian I spoke of.”

Caverias knelt down and reached out gently, touching first Selina, and then Hanna, strengthening them. At his touch, all fear fled away and Selina marveled at the mighty angel as he knelt beside their bed. She also realized at his touch that he was indeed the entity she had helped Hannibal deal with when he took the scepter. “You!” Selina breathed softly in amazement. “I know you somehow.”

Caverias sat his helmet on the bed and said, “That you do, Selina. You and Hanna are knit together at the very core of your being. You know me because she knows me. Fear not, milady. The Lord is good, and has given you a mighty angel to guard you as well. Guildo is a very powerful friend in the Lord. He has done very well keeping you safe.”

Selina reached out to touch Caverias for herself. He let her touch his hand and the glory of the Ancient of Days filled her, chasing away all the shadows and doubts in her soul. She broke under it and sobbed, “Oh, I am undone! How can I stand in the face of such holiness?” She withdrew her hand as if she had touched a hot stove. “I am unclean! My sin is exposed and I am naked before the Lord!” she cried out. The selfsame instant she said that, Hanna was overwhelmed too. She embraced Selina from behind, saying emotionally, “We both are. We are undone in the face of such holiness. Oh, the bloodshed and hate that has come out of my heart! Oh, Father, forgive us! Forgive our violence and unbelief!”

At that point, Caverias realized something else was going on, something wonderfully profound. The Holy Spirit had fallen on them hard and it humbled him to see it. He remained kneeling at the bedside as he watched them sob in repentance. The Holy Spirit was so thick in the room that His Holy Presence was felt physically. “Oh, merciful Father, you are truly merciful and wonderful,” Caverias cried out in praise. “Oh, what an honor and privilege it is to be allowed to stand with your chosen ones in this day. They do thee great worship and honor, o Father.”

Hanna and Selina wailed and cried in repentance of not only their sin, but of the sin of the people. The Holy Spirit had moved them in that direction, and they responded without hesitation, immediately praying and repenting of the sins of the people, which happened to be many of the same sins they themselves had committed. The Holy Spirit abruptly ordered Caverias to touch them both, to strengthen them and he did. The power of the Almighty Ancient of Days flowed from the great angel into them, giving them peace beyond all understanding and the knowledge and belief that they were forgiven. Suddenly, at the order of the Almighty, Caverias vanished from their sight and the Holy Spirit put them into a deep sleep, giving them a slumber that was most beneficial.

Three hours later, Harry and Kida paid them a visit. When there was no answer to their call, they carefully entered. The residue of the Holy Spirit lingered in the room, giving them both a feeling of peace. “What is this?” Kida asked as they entered the room.

“I don’t know, Kida,” Harry replied. “But I like it.”

Kida nodded, saying, “Me too.” They went to the bed, seeing Hanna and Selina laying sound sleep in each other’s arms cross ways of the bed without any blankets on them.

Harry looked at them and noticed how peaceful they looked. “I don’t think we should move them,” he said.

“Yes. It looks like they are really getting some good rest now.” Kida agreed. She and Harry covered Hanna and Selina with a blanket. They also gently putting pillows under their heads, and then left quietly.