The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [35]
Then again, given the well-known Venetian feelings about the Pope, perhaps not.
As the soldiers conferred, Cardinal Bellarmine took up his reading where he had left off: chapter two of the Book of Hosea. "Rebuke your mother, rebuke her," he intoned, "for she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts." He paused for a moment, turning the words over in his mind, searching for meanings within meanings, hidden symbols, links with passages elsewhere in the Bible. Bellarmine firmly believed that the answer to any question was hidden within the Bible, couched in obscure language and poetic imagery. It was the task of theologians such as himself to tease out these answers and apply them to the secular world.
A noise from above made him pause - a great roaring, as if the mother of all lions were showing its wrath. He glanced out of the coach's window, and gasped as he saw a red star falling from the sky to the Earth, casting its fiery light all around. Smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace, and the sky and the stars were blotted out by its passage. A torrent of noise like a trumpet blast blotted out the wild neighing of the horses and the shouts of the soldiers, and made him cover his ears and cower.
His coach suddenly began to shake as the horses jerked in their harnesses. Bellarmine shouted to the driver to calm them down, but the man did not answer. Perhaps he hadn't heard over the roaring. Perhaps he had fled, or fainted. Bellarmine shot a concerned glance out of the window to where the red glare illuminated the hillside and the now deserted beach with the light of hell. If the horses took it into their heads to plunge down that grassy slope then the coach would certainly tip over and smash into firewood. Bellarmine gathered his robes up and, throwing the door open, jumped out just as the coach began to move. The door caught his foot as the horses pulled away, pitching him to the hard ground. As his shoulder and knees hit the earth simultaneously a wave of nausea passed through him. His bible slipped from his grasp and spun away.
The noise and the light ceased. The rasp of crickets in the underbrush gradually began afresh: one at first but soon too many to count.
The coach was receding into the distance and the soldiers had fled; he could see their horses galloping frantically along the path, the riders clinging to the reins. Or perhaps the horses had bolted and the riders were attempting to regain control. Either way, he would receive no help from that direction. Slowly, fearfully, he turned his eyes to the nearby hillside, and a prayer rose unbidden to his lips.
On the hill nearby, on the side away from the beach, sat a glowing wheel, twenty feet across, set around with small hubs that looked like eyes. Bellarmine's legs suddenly gave out, and he sank to his knees. Confusion filled his mind. Surely this was the very object that Ezekiel had written about - the chariot sent by God? What could this mean? Was he being called to Heaven to meet his Maker, or was this one of Satan's tricks?
A section of the great wheel slid aside like a curtain. White light spilled out, so bright that Bellarmine had to shield his eyes. In the midst of the light, four creatures emerged from the wheel. One was taller than Bellarmine, heavily muscled, and had the face of a lion.
Another walked on all fours, with a heavy, anvil-like face that bore two short horns. The third had a face like a man, but was taller and thinner than any man had ever been that walked the Earth. The fourth was feathered and winged like an eagle. They were familiar to him. They were like old friends.