Chapter Text
Fifth of Lunasadth 1287
I have to put those memories on paper or else they will drive me mad. Today, the fifth day of Lunasadth marks a year since the death of my very sick brother, his death was a relief for me and for all of humanity and for the angelic host alike. Malthael was sick with madness. A madness that was dangerous, a madness that pushed him to raise his weapons against the angelic host and against the innocent humans who had never been a part in the Eternal Conflict. I still can not believe how Malthael, the embodiment of the wisdom of Anu, the leader of the Heavenly Host and the Archangel of Wisdom could fall so deep into delusions and lies.
I still can not accept that my brother was so easily deceived by hatred to destroy and terrorize two worlds, Sanctuary and the Heavens. Even though the angels do not admit it, I can see how Malthael’s madness has made them scared and wary.
They have locked the gates of Heavens, no one can get in or out. I can’t reach them, even though I desperately want to.
There are so many events I need to discuss with my enlightened brothers and sisters, there are so many worries and fears that press on me. But I have to make peace with the thought that they are safe, even though I can’t protect them, they are safe.
I can’t forget the day I and my nephalem allies went to put Malthael out of his misery. It was a gloomy day the sky was filled with dark clouds. I remember this, because I looked up at the sky before I entered the portal to the High Heavens.
There, I discovered Malthael has sent his reapers to destroy the gates to the Pandemonium Fortress, to keep us away from reaching him. His reapers killed the angels who were guarding the portal to the Battlefield of Eternity.
That was a desperate attempt to keep us all out of reach. I understand that killing humans was a must, but why angels? This doesn’t sit right with me, why Malthael killed angels, the ones who he started this mass murder for? Why he chose to become a threat to those he was struggling to protect?
Those are questions I ask in vain, I will never gain any answers to those doubts that scratch the depths of my mind.
In that moment, when we looked how the soldiers that belonged to Malthael butcher our angelic brothers and sisters I and Imperius understood Malthael fell into madness and couldn’t discern right from wrong.
He became the enemy of all creation, not the protector of the High Heavens that he thought himself to be. With the help of my estranged brother, Imperius the Archangel of Valor and the current leader of the High Heavens, I and my allies reached the fortress in time.
Even now when I close my eyes, I can see the fortress before me. A ruin, a deceiving labyrinth filled with horrors beyond comprehension for both angels and mortals. It somehow reflected the broken state Malthael fell into. It was a vacant ruin haunted by shadows, filled with dread.
All roads seemed to be deceiving paths that led to nowhere. Empty carcasses of angels lied stretched on the cracked stone floors, human spirits wailed and screamed.
Even though it was only me and my companions in the labyrinth, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watched, that my robes were pulled by unseen icy hands. I heard whispers, laments at every corner.
Now that I think about it, I realize no demon had the courage to walk through the Pandemonium Fortress.
Was it because of the constant wailing of the spirits? Or was it because Malthael’s armies have been successful in wiping out any demon from it’s vicinity? It matters not. Those are other questions that would never find answers.
I took some time to explore the fortress, I was naive enough to believe that I could find my way through it with an old map drew by my old friend, Deckard Cain. Anu, rest his brave soul! I prey, Malthel’s monsters couldn’t reach your spirit, wise friend.
I was running in circles for what felt like an eternity, the stone crumbled under my feet, the cold dry wind howled through the cracks in the walls.
With each step I took, I feared I might fall into the abyss if I wasn’t careful enough.
I found scribbled words etched in the stone walls, written in the angelic runes. It was Malthael’s last pieces of sanity that succumbed to madness, his plans were chiseled by his own hands in the decaying walls of the ancient citadel. His words are still engraved inside my mind.
"The humans cannot be trusted. They are born of angel and demon, but demons pervert whatever they touch. The humans are corrupt, and are not worthy of the choice between good and evil. Angels and demons do not choose, as it should be."
"The souls swirl and writhe. I now know the truth of mortals. All paths lead to death. Whatever their struggles, whatever their triumphs, they die. That is wisdom.”
“A nephalem trapped the Prime Evil in the Black Soulstone. This is the perfect moment to end the Eternal Conflict. The demons are easy prey ; but the humans must be eliminated before they grow too strong. The Soulstone is the perfect weapon. The Eternal Conflict will end.” “Death is the only way to victory!”
Malthael wrote that he was a martyr of the Heavens, the angel who could comprehend the one and only true way of victory for the angelic host in the Eternal Conflict and therefore he had to carry it’s burden alone. He saw himself as the key to absolute peace, he saw himself as a savior.
Malthael perceived himself as being guided by Anu’s remnants to achieve the glory the Creator could not. Malthael could have been saved from his succumb to madness if he had come to us for aid, if we had seen his slow degradation.
Truth be told, the disappearance of the Worldstone, the last holy relic left from Anu, was the event that pushed him to become that monster. He was the most affected by the disappearance of the Worldstone, but nor I, nor any angel in the Heavens could see his evident sorrow.
Malthael got so absorbed in his search for the Worldstone he wandered through the cradle, he thought he could find clues there. But he found something eerie, something dark and otherworldly that drew him in.
He contemplated over the nature of this strange energy, but couldn’t grasp it’s nature, until the world of humans was discovered.
I suspect trying to understand the strange matter with his limited knowledge pushed Malthael into madness.
We couldn’t see how his prolonged absence and his secretive demeanor were signs of illness.
We naively assumed he was just meditating, putting up a brave front because he was our wise ruler who couldn’t be consumed by delusion or driven by rage.
His lack in action, his absence, his withdraw were clear signs that he was not well, yet we all chose to focus on petty squabbles instead of helping one another.
We chose to act from rage and selfishness, like the demons. How lowly we were in those times, I fear this cycle of ignorance will repeat again creating another age of misery.
All the Heavens were shocked and angered by the disappearance of the Worldstone, we all expressed our emotions, but he, he closed off.
When we made plans to wage strategic attacks on the Hells, Malthael remained silent, when we dragged demons for interrogations, Malthael wasn’t curious to learn from them of the whereabouts of the Hells.
When I asked Malthael why he lost interest in the search, he simply told me that I and all of the angelic host and demonic hordes aren’t looking where we should. He confessed to me that he believed the Hells couldn’t hide the Worldstone, because they too were crazed by it’s disappearance, they were killing each other in search for it.
Now that the truth has been revealed, I see the clarity of his vision.
He was right, if the demons had planned to trick us to think the Worldstone disappeared they wouldn’t butcher one another, they wouldn’t start a civil war.
Mephisto, their usually cunning and resourceful leader, wouldn’t have been looking absolutely crazed for his missing daughter. I don’t know if it was desperation that arose from genuine care or from feeling cornered, but the Lord of Hatred waged an army by himself and almost reached the Heavenly gates. He demanded we hand him back his missing daughter or else he would take her himself.
I, Imperius and the Heavenly Army managed to push him back, but the demon lord didn’t forget this and made us suffer a humiliating defeat the next time our armies came to a blow.
The disappearance of Lilith made him grew more suspicious.
Rumors told that he tortured his own son in a fit of paranoia, Baal stepped in and saved the prince of Hatred from a slow and painful death at the hands of his own sire, a shameful death for a demon. But Lucion would have accepted this humiliation, he has always been an obedient and loyal spawn to his creator, unlike Lilith.
Even Mephisto’s own brothers were on edge around the Lord of Hatred during those unnerving times.
If we all would have sat down to think logically for a moment, we wouldn’t have lost Malthael. Because it was during those times of anguish and confusion my brother became saturnine, his demeanor changed from collected and contemplative to secretive and cunning.
Now when I think back, I can remember how he put a distance between himself and the other angelic factions, he became very strict with his followers and forced them to go through rigorous trainings and painful acts of worship to the Arch. He had his followers to kneel in front of the Arch for long periods of time, even till their backs shriveled and their legs went numb, if they used their wings to support themselves, they were punished with the clipping of the tips of their wings.
We were shocked but couldn’t bring ourselves to rebuke him because we were too busy to chase rumors.
We let ourselves be deceived by our own imagination.
When we learned Mephisto was searching desperate for his daughter we also went to look after her, thinking Lilith, the princess of Hatred, might hold key information about the plans of her father. We wanted to immobilize her and learn from her the moves of the Hells.
We couldn’t have been more wrong. We were so focused on the drama of the demons we neglected to see how Malthael disappeared for longer and longer periods of time. Taking with him angelic relics of important value.
We brushed away so easily the disappearance of numerous angels, lying to ourselves that they might have fallen valiantly against the demonic hordes in some long distant battles or have been kidnapped as hostages of war.
Outside Mephisto, the demons weren’t that moved by the disappearance of numerous numbers of their kind. I dare say if Baal wouldn’t have mocked Mephisto openly about his wayward spawn, they wouldn’t have observed that demons were missing too. For that crude joke, Baal had to pay with his armies and realm at the ire of his infuriated older brother. Diablo stepped in and put Mephisto into his place. What strange times were those when demons were capable of mercy and protection of one another.
Time went by and both sides seemed to have made peace with the reality, we continued on with the Eternal Conflict, secretly hoping the demons would reveal where they hid the Worldstone. Fate proved to us how wrong we were in our calculations.
The resting place of the Worldstone was discovered, a new world well concealed in the universe.
We learned that Baal’s sassy remarks about Lilith running away with angels were very close to the truth. The angels and demons who disappeared created their own secret oasis and a new race of beings superior to both angels and demons.
It would take me whole tomes to narrate the complicated creation and history of Sanctuary and also how hard both sides came to accept the existence of this world that meant only one thing “sacrilege”.
I feel I am straying from the point. I will keep it short and simple for you scholar who would look in the future over my writings in hopes to discover what went on, in this strange times when the world of mortals is on the brink of total resurrection or self destruction after a fatal tragedy.
We and the demon lord Mephisto, the father of Lilith who was the co-creator of your world, decided the future of Sanctuary, the creation of our betrayers. Surprisingly for me and everyone there, the demon lord voted to spare you, he claimed there was no justice in murder and the children shouldn’t suffer for the sins of their parents, very compassionate words for a being of hatred. I suspect he was partially convinced by the persuasive talk of the nephalem who was related to him through blood, Rathma the son of his daughter who, is also by human relations standards my nephew for he is the son of my brother Inarius the creator of your world.
Back then I wasn’t moved by his skilled words but by the selfless sacrifice of another.
Auriel saw the hope for a new age of light in mortals, Itherael had the same optimistic opinion as her. The archangels of Hope and Fate spared you without any secondary thought. Imperius was enraged by the sacrilege of our brothers and sisters and wished to destroy it before Inarius’ eyes.
I am ashamed to admit I was on the same opinion as my brother Imperius, but the heroic and selfless sacrifice of the human Uldyssian made me ponder on the nature of those I considered, back then, strange savages.
Malthael, our leader was also pondering, he chose to abstain because he couldn’t cast judgement on something that is more complex that anything he had ever known.
He allowed humanity to exist because he was studying them, trying to understand if they were the same as the strange amalgam of apparitions he found in the cradle.
After the discovery of Sanctuary the Eternal Conflict went as usual, with mild demonic interferences in Sanctuary. That I and many nephalem allies could stop successfully. Malthael became distraught and angry after Sanctuary was discovered, but we were still oblivious.
We were again busy with the Eternal Conflict and with the newfound world of abominations many angels and demons were secretly studying.
Malthael noted that when he saw the humans he finally understood that the essence he found nested where the Worldstone once lied was an amalgam of human spirits. Somehow, in his attempts to grasp the nature of the connection between the strange species and the Worldstone, he got to the conclusion that the spirits were sent there by the Worldstone itself to show him the way of victory.
Malthael realized death was the way out of the Eternal Conflict, that it was the way to restore the Law of Anu over the Universe. The eradication of humanity and the demonic race alike became Malthael’s obsession. We learned of Malthael’s insidious plans too late. When he was almost winning.
But luck was on our side and with the help of the Angelic Army we could defeat the herald of death. My throat seizes when I think of that battle. I feel I almost died then and there, but something put my soul back into my body and forced me to fight.
During that battle it felt like time was not existing anymore, I felt like I was not real, like my movements were the extent of the will of a being beyond me.
Malthael convinced us during that battle that he was completely lost beyond redemption. Even as the aspect of Death, he was terrified of his own mortality, so much that he broke the soulstone that hosted the spirits of all the seven demon lords and many other unlucky humans and lesser demons. He consumed them in an attempt to reach immortal strengths.
I remember the bewildered scream of Imperius who threw Solarion right into Malthael’s chest, impaling him. Something so unreal happened then, flocks of flies escaped from the gushing wound. The smell was sickly sweet it made all of us mortals to puke.
He wasn’t bleeding light like angels do, but a black slimy substance, akin to tar. Like the blood of a demon, this makes me think only of the blood of Mephisto.
But it can’t be that Malthael was possessed by the Lord of Hatred. During those times, Mephisto was imprisoned in the Soulstone and his essence was slowly reforming in the Black Abyss – the place of horrors that creates all demons.
It wasn’t Imperius who delivered the final blow, but the nephalem who sliced Malthael’s wings off. When he died, Maltael didn’t shrivel and turn to dust like all angels do, he exploded in a puff so blinding we had to shield our eyes. He left behind only a swarm of flies and ragged robes.
It was as if he was swallowed by the nothingness, like he was taken out of existence.
Facing and defeating death left all of us with scars we will never be able to heal, I know the angels were marred by this fight too, but they are too proud and mighty to admit any vulnerability. The angels, no doubt, were left with the scar of betrayal, the nephalem were left with the scar of rage and mistrust, while I was left with the scar of doubt.
I question so often now if that was actually my brother, or if it was just a demon wearing Matlhael’s disguise as a well-fitting coat.
I wonder if we were all played by a power that is beyond our comprehension for now, just as back then when the rouge angels and demons made us to believe the Worldstone was hidden by the opposing faction. I raised those suspicions to Imperius who sent his scouts to look for Malthael on the whole battlefield of Eternity, I too went by foot to look for Malthael, but I found nothing. The angels also found nothing.
I spoke with an angelic general who took part in the battle, she was also shocked by the transformation of Malthael, but she thought it is normal for corrupted angels to lose their angelic nature and turn impure.
This reasoning consoled me for a while, but still… something doesn’t feel right to me.
Something is off and I can not pin point exactly what it is.
Sometimes I think it was Lilith who pretended to be Malthael just to turn the angels on each other, and reawake the spark in humans. After Zayl gave me the chronicles of Rathma I realized the foolishness of my idea. Lilith was vehemently on the side of humanity she wouldn’t have killed her… children just for the sake of it.
If she were here, she would have sought a way to make the humans as strong as their mythical forebearers, after she empowered them, she would have united them under her command.
That is how Rathma describes Lilith’s ways.
I once toyed with the idea that it was Inarius who was looking for revenge. I am sure Inarius hates his fellow angels and the race he spawned. But if it were Inarius, why play the role of Malthael?
I am sure Inarius would come as himself and rain hell on us all, if he would ever escape his punishment. I, in my heart of hearts, stand by the conviction that Malthael wouldn’t have turned to a monster.
But existence is unpredictable, fate can turn everything upside down, fate can turn enemies to friends, friends to enemies, stability into chaos and chaos into opportunity.
That is what I learned in my long life.
It couldn’t have been anybody else in creation, all demons were either locked in the Soulstone or fighting to take control over the hells. Malthael’s death still makes me think something wasn’t right. I have a suspicion that he wasn’t my brother. I can’t shake off that feeling.
I must accept that who I slayed was Malthael, but I can’t.`