The first angel, an ancient being of Dust who told those who came after him that he was the Creator of all things. Over millennia the Authority grew old and feeble, eventually retreating into a crystal litter carried by his forces, while the angel Metatron ruled as Regent in his name. The Authority is not God but the first conscious being to emerge from Dust, who used his primacy to establish a heavenly kingdom built on a lie. His exposure and the end of his reign is the culmination of the cosmic rebellion at the heart of the trilogy.