Well, here it is at last, chapter one of book two in my "Chronicles of Adoran" trilogy. Book one can be found here:

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I hope you enjoy!

D*W*Cooper

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The Chronicles of Adoran

The Spire

Part I

Chapter 1 -- The Vision

Everything changed again.

I had seen so much. I had seen Adoran delivered of the evil ones. I had seen the prisoners set free from their centuries of captivity.

I had seen heaven itself and experienced God's love in ways that changed me forever. I had seen into the very throne room of God. I had even seen Adamea taken up in a chariot of fire.

And yet nothing prepared me for what I saw when I went back into the hidden place of Adadore. It was a struggle just to get back in. The whirlwind of God's glory was so strong that time after time I attempted but failed to make it in.

It was not until I sat with Doc looking out through the magnificently carved transparent walls of my bedroom in the palace of Adadore that I realized how I could possibly enter in. I had tried so hard to force my way in, but no amount of effort seemed to work. I had prayed and asked God, but that didn't help me enter in either.

Then Doc asked me a simple question. "Why do you want to go in to the hidden place Princess?" I simply hadn't thought about why I wanted to go in. I thought it was obvious.

I wanted to learn of the Spire. I wanted to see how we might get to it. Was there a secret passageway through the mountains? Were there any dangers around it that I could see?

And, of course, I wanted to see into heaven again. Who wouldn't want to see God sitting on his throne again? Who wouldn't want to hear what he might say?

And then it struck me, all the reasons I had for wanting to go in to the hidden place had to do with what I wanted. Nothing had to do with what God might want. It's as if I didn't care what he thought was important to show me.

I realized I had it all wrong and I told Doc right then that I no longer cared what I saw when I went into the hidden place of Adadore. I only wanted to see what God wanted to show me.

"You are becoming wiser Princess," Doc said. "You have grown in many ways since the day I first met you back in the prison cell."

I smiled at Doc remembering how I had first met him. It was funny to think that what I had seen that day as just a mouse walking into my cell was actually the greatest champion of all Adoran.

"You have grown too, my friend." I answered back. "And I will never forget what you did in the dark city or how you saved my life."

Doc smiled back, which for a mouse looked more like a smirk, but I had gotten used to reading the expressions of many kinds of animals.

"I think you will make it in this time, Princess," Doc said and I knew he was right. I felt it too.

"You want to go with me, don't you Doc?"

"Me? I am not worthy of such an honor!" Doc said feigning mock humility.

"No one is worthy enough Doc, but if one was, surely you would be that one!"

"Do you think I could go in?"

"Why don't we see if God let's us both go in? And this time, I'm going to let him show me whatever he wants to. Okay?"

"I'll be happy just to go in. God can do whatever he wants."

"Then let's go and give it a try!"

Doc and I went down into the palace and went to the place where the cloud formed around the whirlwind of God's glory. This time, when I went up to the whirlwind, I no longer had to struggle. I no longer was fighting against anything. I now went in so easily it was as if a door had been opened and I was gladly welcomed in!

It was such a small thing, but it made all the difference in the world when it came to getting in or not into the hidden place of Adadore. I was no longer demanding what I wanted to see. Now, I was ready to see whatever God would show me.

And when Doc and I went in, God opened the ceiling up and let us see into the throne room of heaven. But this time I saw something very different -- something that changed my life forever once again.

We were standing in the middle of God's swirling glory. He surrounded us with his living love, and he parted the ceiling and let us see himself sitting on his throne. But this time he held something in his outstretched and open hand. It was a book, perfect in every respect but sealed shut with seven seals, and he was offering it for someone to take.

I saw Arcadriel descend from the heavens above the throne and in a voice that was so great it could be heard across the entire expanse of space and time he asked, "Who has merited undoing the seals and releasing the contents of this book?"

It immediately hit me what was contained in that book and why it was so important. It was my very destiny and not just mine but the destinies of all who are the children of God. It contained the full purpose that he had planned for each one of us. It was what he had intended for us all along but had been stolen from us long ago. Now God was offering for it to be fully restored -- if only -- if only one could be found who was equal to that which had sealed it up.

I felt the echoes of Arcadriel's question rippling throughout all of history. I felt it go into every moment of time, every corner of space. I felt its impact upon all beings that had ever lived or ever would live. I felt the cry of the children of God in response, "Who will free us? Who will restore us? Who will redeem us?"

And God waited for an answer.

"Who has merited undoing the seals and releasing the contents of this book?" Arcadriel cried out like a symphony of sound spanning all conceivable spectrums of communications reaching and searching for the one who could accomplish this great task.

And I saw a queue of people form before the throne of God both the living and the dead. All the greatest leaders the world had ever known. All the greatest talents. The greatest minds. The greatest composers. The greatest authors. The greatest conquerors. The greatest champions of peace. The greatest princes. The greatest kings. The greatest saints. The greatest prophets. The richest. The poorest. The most valiant. The most courageous. The bravest. The strongest. The wisest. The most loving.

I saw them all come before the throne of God. One at time they came and offered their credentials stating why they merited releasing the seals of the book. One at a time they came and pleaded their case. One at a time they demonstrated their skills, their talent, their accomplishments. One at a time they spoke with great eloquence, with superb command of language, with deft logic and reason.

They came before him who sat upon the throne and they said, I deserve to open the book because I have done great things, I have been a great person, I have helped many, I have overcome many, I have love many.

One at a time they came, people I've never heard of that did things I never imagined. Others came that I had long heard of and greatly respected. I heard things about them I never knew. Oh how little is written of what they had done, how short is the report given of them!

I heard of people I thought could not possibly be worthy to open up such a book, and yet they made their arguments saying they had defeated many. They had accomplished more and had greater kingdoms than others. They bristled with their confidence. They boasted of their victories.

I saw great kings, emperors, presidents and generals. I saw Napoleon and Nebuchadnezzar, Ramses and Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Genghis Kang, K'ang-Hsi and Quetzalcoatl, Helen of Troy and Cleopatra, Melchizedek and Xerxes, Khufu and Charlemagne, Hammurabi and Abimelekh, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin, Lincoln and Washington, Roosevelt and Churchill, Robert E. Lee and George Patton.

I saw great philosophers and scientists. I saw Archimedes and Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, Pythagoras and Euclid, Galileo and Copernicus, Descartes and Pascal, Freud and Jung, Kant and Nietzsche, Marx and Rousseau, Einstein and Newton, Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, Whitney and Watt, Ford and Edison, Tesla and Graham Bell, Darwin and Pasteur, Maxwell and Kepler, Marconi and Madame Curie, Goddard and Teller, Niels Bohr and Max Planck, Heisenberg, Fermi and Steven Hawking.

I saw great explorers. I saw Marco Polo and Pytheas, Zheng He and Leif Ericsson, Columbus and Magellan, Vasco da Gama and de Soto, Cortes and Coronado, Stanley and Livingstone, Edwin Peary, Jacques Cousteau and Neil Armstrong.

I saw great artists of all kinds. I saw Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare and Beethoven, Mozart and Bach, Chopin and Handel, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, Renoir and Monet, Charles Dickens and Jules Verne, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, Emerson and Thoreau, Hemingway and Faulkner, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein.

I saw great people of all kinds. I saw Confucius and Gautama Buddha, Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi, Muhammed and Nostradamus, Thomas Aquinas and Francis of Assisi, Cyril of Alexandria, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman, Franklin and Jefferson, Carnegie and Rockefeller, Hans Christian Anderson and Walt Disney.

I saw great angels. I saw Michael and Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, Phanuel and Raguel, Saraqael and Zotiel.

I saw all manner of demons. I saw Lucifer and Samael, Mephistopheles and Asmodai, Azazel and Belial.

I saw great evangelists. I saw Philip and Augustine, Martin Luther and Erasmus, Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and John Calvin, John Knox and George Fox, John Wesley and Charles Finney, William Carey and William Booth, John Wyclif and William Tyndale, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William Brannon, Evan Roberts and Smith Wigglesworth, Billy Graham and Bill Bright.

I saw the great prophets. I saw Ezekiel and Elijah, Isaiah and Samuel, Elisha and Daniel, Jeremiah and Jonah, Nehemiah and Zechariah, Joel and John the Baptist.

I saw the disciples and the apostles. I saw James and John, Matthew and Mark, Luke and Timothy, Peter and Paul.

I saw the great men and women of the faith. I saw Abraham and Adam, Isaac and Jacob, David and Solomon, Moses and Aaron, Noah and Enoch, Joshua and Joseph, Job and Josiah, Esther and Ruth, Deborah and Mary mother of Jesus.

One by one, the greatest of all time came forward. One by one they stated their cases or someone argued their cases for them. They laid out before the court of heaven all that they had accomplished, all that they had done, all who they had affected.

Their accomplishments had been great. Their achievements far reaching. Their impact on people incalculable.

They were the proudest the Earth, the Heavens, and Hell had to offer. They were the most powerful, the smartest, the most insightful. They had been more original in their thinking, more unique in their approaches, more novel in their inventions.

They were more skilled in their art, more nuanced in their messages, more sophisticated in their elucidations. Their peers were few, their foes vanquished, their subjects many.

They were more courageous, more noble, more inspiring than any others. They were more committed, more persistent, more rigorous than any others. They were more risk taking, more bold, more brash, more disciplined, more learned, more original than any others.

They were the cream of the all that had ever lived, the height of perfection, stunning in the beauty of their works. They were unparalleled, unrivaled, un-mastered. They were everything that man has striven to be. They saw things no one has seen. They understood what is indecipherable by others.

They led armies, nations and empires. They knew no limits. They overcame all adversities. They put their marks across the long arm of history.

They were the best of the best, and some were better still.

And yet every single one of them failed the test. Every single one of them lacked the sufficient weight that was required. None of them could break the seals and open the book.

Some of them moved God's heart in a amazing ways. David's heart of worship to God was unparalleled. Abraham's faith was far greater than I ever realized and stirred the Father's heart in ways that I had never seen. Esther's simple obedience saved a nation and altered the course of history. Moses -- think of it! When Moses stood there I thought the heavens would part right before me!

Job's righteousness put everyone to shame. Joseph's brilliance and giftings were staggering. Noah's steadfast stand in the day of evil was utterly remarkable. Enoch's closeness to God was downright scary.

Elijah lived at a level seemingly beyond this planet. Daniel heard things from God that haven't been revealed to anyone else. John the Baptist cried in the desert like no one ever has or ever will.

John the beloved saw deeper into God than has ever been seen. Peter was the rock that God himself built his church on. Paul altered the history of the world in more ways than any ten conquerors could, and discovered deeper territory in God then any explorer ever dreamed of discovering anywhere.

And yet all of it was not enough.

No one could break the seals. The angels could not break the seals. The demons could not break the seals. Nor could anyone living or dead, in heaven or in hell.

The weight of the seals was too great for any to undo.

And yet, locked in that book was mankind's destiny. Locked away in that book and sealed tight was all that God had planned to give man, all that belonged to man but had been stolen away. Secured tight so that the book couldn't even be read was the full list of everything man had inherited from God.

It was a title-deep, a note of ownership, a legal document assigning all that God had dreamed to give to man from before the fires of time began.

It had once belonged to man free and clear. He was the rightful heir and owner and had full access to every part of it.

And yet, he traded it all in for a pittance. He had given up all of God's best for sheer emptiness. Conned out of his inheritance, man strived to earn it back, but it was no use. No amount of effort would prove sufficient.

And now God offered it all back -- if only one could be found to merit breaking the seals.

"Who has merited undoing the seals and releasing the contents of this book?" Arcadriel called out once again.

Will no one be found? Has no one ever existed throughout all of time who can do it?

Surely one of disciples must be worthy I thought! Surely one of the saints! Surely one of the prophets!

I could not believe what I was seeing. I had seen men and angels so much greater than I ever imagined that it was hard for me to understand how they had all failed.

Wasn't Moses good enough? Or surely Abraham! No? And what of Paul? This just could not be! This just could not be the end! Somebody must be able to break those seals! Somebody must be found!

Was not Enoch more loved by God than anyone? Then why couldn't he do it? Didn't David move God's heart more than anyone? Didn't Job prove more faithful?

Is no one worthy? Is no one able? Is no one great enough? Is no one powerful enough?

It hit me stronger than anything I have ever felt. All of man was hanging in the balance and nobody could do anything! Who could tip the balance in man's favor? Was man to be forever cursed?

The enormity of what was at stake hit me and I wept and wept. Surely there must be someone strong enough! Surely!

But no one stepped forward.

I noticed that the four living creatures that continually flew around the throne seemed undisturbed. I couldn't begin to imagine what they experienced. They had been so close to God that they saw what no one else had ever seen, and somehow -- somehow! -- they weren't concerned in the least. How could it be?

And then I saw the multitude of angels around the throne. They seemed to know something. They seemed to have been clued in on what the outcome would be. But I couldn't stand it.

"Tell me!" I cried aloud. "Is anyone strong enough to break the seals?"

And then I saw twenty-four elders each with a brilliant crown on their head. They were the elite of all time, the greatest in God's eyes. They stood tall and confident.

And one of them, John the beloved, came down to where I was. He had a smile that told me he couldn't wait to tell me the good news. He had waited so very long for this day and had longed to be the one to tell me.

I waited for him to join me in the whirlwind of God's glory.

"Princess," he said with such love that I knew he had long dwelt in the presence of God. "You do not need to cry as I did. Like you, I did not know. Like you, it seemed like no one had been victorious. But like me, deep down, you know there is one.

"He is like no other. He is the one David's heart sprung up from and throughout all of time no one has triumphed as powerfully as he has. He has utterly defeated the enemy. He has conquered death itself. He is the roaring lion in the direct linage of Judah.

"There has never been one like him before and there never will be one as powerful as he is ever again. He stands alone among the beings of the universe. He is greater than any other!"

And then I heard a sound like none I have ever heard before. It was the sound of a roaring ocean of unparalleled size. The wave came roaring across the expanse of space with nothing to stop it.

I looked up and saw millions upon millions of angels arrayed in fine white garments moving to closely surround the throne. They had waited an unbelievably long amount of time for the book to be opened, and they all wanted to be near to see the great lion take the book and break the seals.

"Wow!" Doc said in awe at the amazing sight.

And then the most amazing thing happened. All at once in perfect unison, the millions of angels turned their heads to focus on one thing. The smiles that erupted across that expanse of angelic beings were like an eternity of joy raining down on me. It flooded my being and washed over me in great waves of joy.

I looked to see what they were looking at expecting to see the great lion. But there was no lion. There was not the powerful king who had defeated his enemy.

Instead, I saw the weakest -- a mere lamb. I saw one who had loved like no one else had in all of time. I saw one who had been perfect, who had been flawless, but now stood there having been marked with the stripes of his executioner.

This one, who no one could ever defeat, had willing turned himself over to be slain.

"That's it!" I shouted. "I see it now!"

"What do you see Princess?" John asked me.

"He didn't merit breaking the seals because of how powerful he was, did he?"

"No, it didn't matter how strong he was..."

"He was the only one that could do it!" I said more to myself than anyone else. "We couldn't unlock our destiny because we were the ones that locked it up in the first place. Our failures were like weights that tipped the balance out of whack. No matter how great we were, we could never undo what we had put on the balance!"

"No one can undo what has already been done," John said.

"But while the weights couldn't be removed from the scale, they could be balanced, couldn't they?"

"Yes Princess, they could be balanced, but only by one who had never put any weights onto the scale himself. You cannot balance out the weight you have put on yourself."

"Then..." Doc said, "then that's why the lamb had to be utterly flawless."

"Yes Doc," John said. "The slightest flaw and he would have needed someone else to balance the scale for him."

"And that's why he can break the seals then!" I said. "He is able to balance out all the things that have sealed the book up. Man piled up a huge weight, an enormous debt, but he was able to balance it and pay off all the debt that bound the book closed."

"Yes," John said. "I think you're understanding now."

"But why did he have to be slain?" Doc asked. "Wasn't being flawless enough?"

"No Doc," John replied. "Being flawless gave him the ability, but he still had to choose to pay the debt off. To pay the debt, to put weight on the other side of the scale and balance it, he had to pay the price required.

"Each weight that man put on the scale required him to be forever separated from God because God is perfect and holy and you cannot be close to him unless you are also perfect.

"Each weight that was put on that scale by man meant that the lamb had to be separated from God himself. Each weight could only be paid for by dying."

"But aren't the angels flawless?" I asked. "Why couldn't one of them have done it?"

"They are flawless, but they haven't been tested as man is tested," John answered. "Only one that was tested the same way as man has could possibly pay the price for failing the test as man did."

"But he did it!" I shouted. "He succeeded and he can now break the seals and unlock our inheritance from the Father."

"That's right Princess," John said. "But God has showed you this for a reason."

"Does this have something to do with the Spire?"

"Yes Princess. You see, the enemy is trying to undo all the weights that have been placed on the scale by another means. He is trying to undo time itself and go back before any weight was placed on that scale."

"But why would he want to do that?" Doc asked.

"Only God knows Princess, and he has not revealed it to me, but Atomea was right. You must destroy the Spire to stop this insidious attempt at undoing all that has been."

"But why can't God just stop it?" I half pleaded not wanting to embark on yet another dangerous mission.

"Why does God use any of us Princess for anything? He uses us because he loves us and he loves to share with us! This is what the book is all about. This is why the lion had to become the lamb. This is why you were brought to the land of Adoran. This is why he has allowed you to enter the whirlwind of his glory.

"It is God's great pleasure to share all that he has with you!"

"So God wants me to destroy the Spire then?" I asked the question whose answer seemed obvious.

"Yes Princess," John answered. "But this will be much more difficult than defeating the evil ones. You must first go to the land of the giants and learn from them. It is with their help that you will be able to destroy the Spire."

"Giants?" I gulped. "I haven't heard anything about any giants in Adoran."

"Don't worry Princess," Doc said confidently. "I can take care of them for you."

"Not this time Doc," John said. "This time you will need their help. You will find them once you cross the mountains. But be careful, not all giants will be friendly."

"Great! Just what I need -- unfriendly giants!" I said groaning.

"Trust in the Lord Princess," John said looking into my eyes with a love I felt and that strengthened me. "Much has already been written in the books about you, but much more remains. All will be lost if you fail to trust in the Lord.

"I must go now. The walls of the whirlwind will show you what you need to do next. Allow the Lord to open your eyes to see what you cannot see by yourself."

I hugged John and thanked him, and then he was gone and the great scene of millions and millions of angels surrounding the lamb that was slain closed up and was gone as well. Doc and I were left alone standing in the whirlwind.

"Well Doc, it looks like were headed across the mountains."

"I hope we don't have to go over them Princess. I might freeze to death up there."

"I don't know Doc, I have a bad feeling about what we may find if we go through those mountains. There's something about them I don't like."

"But that hasn't stopped us before."

"I know Doc. I know."

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