This name refers to different figures in 2 worlds; the versions are not merged.
Angels are winged beings of light who in Antiterra guard posts and persons and close the world’s doors near the end of times, and in Vala descend in light and violence, detect lies and oppose the dragons.
In Antiterra
A warning circulates: “be careful, the angels may come”.
Appearance
They are “beings of pure light” with “white feathered wings”; when they fly, “feathers fly”. Configurations include the triad (three flying together), those joined at the back, wing to wing, the net of angels “embraced to one another, facing the position”, and the statue-angels of an arch, which look ever more real as one approaches.
Light is not required: at least one angel acted as an “invisible spirit” on the air and “opened his throat”.
Posts
Assigned posts and persons:
- At Castel Sant’Angelo an Archangel and the angels of the bridge stand guard, “impassable”.
- Inside the Temple flies the triad.
- A Hall of the Angel holds those joined at the back; an arch holds the statue-angels.
- Zoé had a guard of angels and lost it.
Queen Theodora said: “I will consult it with the angels.” At world scale, “demons and angels” are known to be interested in current events.
Summoning and command
Invoked “by prayer or ritual”, “the angels come when they are called and asked. They come to command”. Their nature is of the highest order, lawful and good; they obey orders without hesitation.
Two offices are recorded: custody (bridges, halls, arches, persons), in which they are impassable and non-negotiable; and closing the world: “we know they tried to defend the world”, and they close the doors if someone comes too near the end of times.
They guard by being structure (hall, net, threshold, statue); a net of angels can be attacked from several directions at once. The records show formations, rarely a single angel.
Fall and reintegration
“Some can be corrupted.” “Angels, when they fall, often fall dragged by demons, their very surrender — that is, there is always a surrender.” The fall is not final: “it is not that it fell, but matrizado (‘matrixed’), it reintegrates into its cosmos.” Demons watch the same events and drag angels down.
”Double angels”
“Double angels” are not a category of the world. The term was a companion’s conjecture about four-armed humanoid creatures, immediately denied: it “does not quite have a solid make”, “you do not know what this is”.
Open questions
- Whether they are corporeal, spirits or symbols; how pure light fits the invisible spirit and its hinted link with the air.
- Their number, any hierarchy around the Archangel, and whether the various posted angels are one kind.
- Which prayer or ritual summons them, who may say it, at what cost.
- What and where “the doors” are; why Zoé lost her guard, and who gave it.
- What matrizado means and how reintegration works.
In Vala
News of them arrives as “Luz, violencia, plumas” (“Light, violence, feathers”), in that order. They descend from above without asking permission.
Faces
Of their several faces, one is “the wheels of the wheels with the eyes”: wheels with many concentric eyes. This form is set in stone at the center of the cathedral of Salé.
Guaranteed truth
An angel detects lies. With mortals they are “somewhat fundamentalist”: they accuse of impurity and corruption, classify and dictate purity. From below their intervention is felt as coercion, and avoiding it is a goal: “we can save ourselves from needing these angels to come bully us”.
Plural and partisan
Some angels defend mortals and others attack, fallen or malign. At least one encounter between two opposed angels is recorded, in infernal Paris; of one it was said only that it was “an angel you know very well”. They take sides in battle. They appeared seven or eight hundred years ago, and there are angels “in the genesis”. In the present age they are active.
The rule of no death
In the present age: “any devil or demon, you take it down and it comes back. Obviously. Angels too.” Killing an angel only delays it; they can be lived with or negotiated with, not eliminated.
The seven who descend
The prophecy counts seven stars, comparable to the Shards, that “those good ones should have had” and that the Wordbreakers now hold, “who come to redeem this cosmos”. Hence seven angels descend to deliver the divine reward, “the due desert”. The words read as both reward and sentence.
The axis of the cosmos
“Ángeles y dragones, señor… Republicanos y demócratas” (“Angels and dragons, sir… Republicans and Democrats”). The cosmological partition sets angels and dragons as two halves of a structural, permanent rivalry.
Open questions
- What angels and dragons dispute, and whether they ever dealt or allied.
- Who the “angel you know very well” is; what the other faces are.
- Whether the rule of return held before the present age.
- What authority sends them, and their criteria of “impure and corrupt”.