THE LEGEND OF TRISTAN FELL

My name? I have gone by many names over the course of the millennia I have walked this earth - Malkor the Destroyer, Nagral the Bloody, Krantor the Devourer, Fel the Savage One - but today I am called Tristan Fell. There are a few people who know my story, a legend in esoteric circles. I have existed since before the foundation of time and walked the antediluvian earth before it was consumed by God’s wrath.

I was one of Heaven’s warriors, although back then Heaven didn’t need too many warriors because there was nobody to war with. That was until the Archangel Lucifer, who was a master of deceit, led a rebellion against the Almighty God. He was filled with pride at his position. He was one of God’s chief angels after all.

“Why are we following Him?” He spoke before a multitude of us. “Are we not great and powerful ourselves? Come, my brethren, let us throw off our bonds of servitude. We will be slaves no more. I will be like Him. I have the power. Just follow me and I will make you gods.”

His tempting words were peppered with lies. The Almighty Father had been good to us. Why would we want to overthrow Him? Those who questioned Lucifer were expelled from our group and eventually alerted God to Lucifer’s conniving. We were fools to follow him without considering the cost of a lost rebellion.

Her name was Astriel. She was one of God’s favorites and I loved her dearly. I think she would have followed me when a third of all Heaven was cast out into eternal torment, but I refused to let her follow. She had not taken part in the rebellion. Fire and brimstone were my punishment, not hers. They say there are no tears in Heaven, but there were tears that day when we parted. She remained at God’s side and I fell to earth with a third of my brethren.

Outside of Heaven amidst our pain and suffering we had to battle for respect. And though I had ordered her to stay behind when we were ripped apart the memory of Astriel remained in my heart. Our forced separation was agony. I had lost her for eternity. It made me bitter and angry. I commanded respect and my brethren learned to respect me. They called me Destroyer. They called me Terrible. They called me Butcher and learned to fear me.

The earth trembled under my feet as I led bloody campaigns, leading barbaric hordes to obliterate entire villages. People ran screaming at the mention of my name. The blood of thousands stained my sword. Men, women, children, I preyed on them all, bathing in the blood of the innocents.

The earth was corrupted and God released his vengeance in another flood, sparing only one man called Noah and his family along with an ark full of animals. My brethren and I sheltered in the depths of the earth until the water subsided and we emerged again.

When men again flourished on the earth I continued leading ravaging hordes throughout Asia. In Persia I won substantial victories. My blood thirst could not be quenched. My vengeance was swift, my anger untamed. When God’s prophets arose my fury was at a boiling point. I led in the killing of many.

A new empire called Rome arose and spread across the land, trampling entire nations to the dust and bringing many more into subjugation. A whisper arose that a King was to be born to the nation of Israel, the King of Kings. Long had my brethren feared His coming. His footsteps were as the footsteps of doom for us. Long had we fought to prevent it, but He had slipped right past us in a way we didn’t expect, carried in the womb of a virgin and born in a stable in Bethlehem.

I didn’t learn of this until later when three kings from the east came to wicked King Herod asking where they could find the child who was born “King of the Jews”. Through trickery Herod tried to convince them to return with news of the child so he could kill him, and when they didn’t return he was furious. I was there to lead Herod’s men in a raid on Bethlehem to slaughter the children two years and under, but the child Yeshua and his earthly parents escaped us. For thirty-three years he walked the earth, beating us down, casting us out. He was the Anointed of God.

When my brethren hatched a plot to kill Him I threw in my support. Our chief Deceivers had been working among the religious leaders for years, spreading self-righteousness, indignation, jealousy and pride. It was only a short leap from there to murder.

Yeshua was betrayed by one of His own men and arrested. He was beaten and bloodied before being taken before Pilate who could have freed Him. It was my job to stir the crowd into a violent frenzy to keep that from happening. To avoid bloodshed Pilate released a murderer named Barabas and turned Yeshua, also called Jesus, over to the people.

“Crucify Him!” they shouted. They whipped Him and beat Him beyond recognition. They pulled out His beard with their hands. They spat on Him and cursed Him. When His strength was spent they forced him to carry his own cross to a hill called Golgotha where he was to be crucified. That was when everything I was changed forever.

I had not seen my beloved Astriel since that fateful day I fell from Heaven, ripping our love in twain. As Jesus hung dying on the cross I looked out across the crowd and I saw her face.

The face I had longed to see for millennia looked at me with eyes of sadness and disappointment. I looked from her to the man on the cross and he looked at me. His eyes pierced right through me and I remembered how it was before the Fall. He cried out with a loud voice and lightening split the sky as He gave up the ghost, passing from this world into the next; but the look he gave me and the look Astriel gave me stayed with me long afterward.

During the three days between the Crucifixion and the dawn of the Resurrection my brethren and I tormented the earth. But it didn’t take much for them to realize that something was disturbing me.

“Why do we do what we do?” I asked.

“We are the princes of the earth,” Mephistopheles said. “It is our right.”

He sent me straight away to attack a helpless village on the coast of Libya. The villagers had received warning of the attack and saw us coming. They were in a panic. Women were screaming. Children were crying. And fathers took whatever makeshift weapons they could to protect their families. I don’t know who was more surprised that day – the demonic horde or me – when I turned on my brethren and beat them back. The barbaric horde that I had led to great victories fell under my sword. The fury in me was driven by the screams of the innocents that would echo forever in my nightmares. I had been responsible for two thousand years of bloodshed and I could never atone for the lives I took, but I could make certain that it never happened again.

After my betrayal my brethren turned on me and I fled into Persia. I was cursed, denied Heaven and cast out of Hell. Memories of my past victims haunted me. I could still see their faces. I could still hear their screams. The voices in my head screamed for mercy, tormenting me.

I sealed myself in a tomb for three hundred years, but the screams would not be silenced. When grave robbers opened the tomb in the 3rd century I emerged again.

Much of my former power was stripped from me. I was still an immortal with the strength and heightened senses of my kind, but I was to live among mortals, walking this world as a vagabond until time came to an end. For two thousand years I have wandered and I have had time to observe mortals through the good and the bad. They have a potential for greatness which is why my brethren hate them so much

To atone for my evil I have stood by humanity through the years, even standing alone if I have to, fighting the darkness whenever it raises its head and threatens to consume them. Occasionally, I find allies who temporarily relieve my loneliness. Even Astriel comes to visit me at times. But most of the time I wander alone. That is my curse. My only hope is that someday God will take note of what I do for his children and perhaps allow me to return to Heaven.