Archangels

Archangels Michael and Digby are linked at the novel’s close through a handover of work and a brief exchange of recognition. Foster departs on an assignment lasting eons, leaving Michael to continue his work with Digby, newly identified as Michael’s assistant and supervisor on the ground. Their meeting gives the title’s plural force a concrete form: one archangel assumes the work, while another helps carry it forward.

Identity and Role

Michael is presented in this scene as Archangel Michael, while Digby is introduced as Archangel Digby. Foster calls Digby his assistant, says that he knows the studio and can serve as a steady foreman for whatever Michael devises, then names Michael as Digby’s new supervisor. The arrangement is practical as well as ceremonial: Digby brings familiarity with the workplace; Michael inherits the authority and responsibility to direct its future work.

The novel also places Michael’s religious role in the context of organized faith. Foster’s New Revelation has an outer church for seekers, a middle church of saved members, and an unnamed Inner Church whose dedicated members hold leadership and policy-making roles. Later, Patty says that she and Dawn are High Priestesses in the Church of All Worlds and explain to other Fosterites that the newer church need not conflict with their existing faith. The two archangels’ final encounter therefore follows a narrative in which religious authority has been organized through ranks, teaching, and succession, not simply through a leader’s title.

Foster’s Departure and the Handover

Foster announces that he will be away for eons on a special assignment and introduces Michael to Digby as his replacement supervisor. His casual manner makes the transition sound almost like a workplace change, even as its immense time scale and religious titles place it beyond ordinary administration. The scene closes the novel by transferring Foster’s work to Michael rather than by showing the institution dissolve with its founder’s departure.

Michael accepts the arrangement confidently and tells Digby that they will get along. He asks whether they have met before; Digby cannot remember such a meeting, though he allows for the possibility given the many times and places involved. The exchange leaves their prior connection unresolved, but neither character treats that uncertainty as an obstacle to working together.

Shared Belief and Distinct Temperaments

Michael and Digby exchange the affirmation that each is God. Their mutual recognition is immediately widened by Foster, who asks them to skip the formalities and observes that the affirmation applies to everyone. The moment makes a private greeting into a statement of the book’s spiritual principle: divine identity is not reserved for the two figures bearing archangelic titles.

The exchange also sets their temperaments side by side. Michael speaks with assurance about getting along and turns at once toward the work ahead. Digby responds with reserve, shrugging over what he can remember of their possible earlier meetings. The scene does not explain how either acquired the title of archangel; instead, it makes their relationship legible through the tasks, confidence, uncertainty, and shared creed that structure their first encounter.

Significance at the Ending

After Foster leaves, Michael pushes back his halo and gets to work, already seeing changes he wants to make. That final gesture gives the handover an immediate consequence: Michael does not merely inherit a title but begins to act on the institution he has inherited. Digby’s presence supplies continuity, while Michael’s plans point toward revision rather than simple preservation.

The ending brings the novel’s recurring forms of spiritual organization into a compact scene. Foster’s church uses nested levels and carefully selected leadership; Michael’s church likewise teaches, ordains, and advances members through circles. Yet the final exchange refuses to make sacred authority exclusive: Foster’s reminder that everyone is God undercuts any assumption that the archangels’ titles place them beyond the principle they affirm. The archangels thus embody both an institutional succession and a faith whose central claim extends beyond its leaders.