by Ted Dekker
He grinned, faced the roiling black bats, and cried to the sky. “Take me home, Marsuuv! Fill me once again with your glory. Take this firstborn son as an offering to ease your wrath.”
“Louder!” Thomas cried.
“It is written,” Ba’al cried. “I am your chosen one, and the books will be yours. By blood you will enter the secret place and reclaim all that was once yours!”
“Louder, you pathetic worm! More blood. Drain yourself!”
Tears were now streaming down Ba’al’s face as he screamed his petition to his god and his lover, Teeleh, and this Shataiki named Marsuuv.
“Save me!” The high priest gulped at the night air. His eyes were closed and his body shook from head to foot, like a boy trapped in a dungeon, crying out for mercy. “Save me. Save me, please save me!”
“Dear Elyon,” Jamous muttered under his breath. “He’s a tortured beast.”
For the briefest of moments, Thomas felt pity for the dark priest. If he was a half-breed, then he’d once known the truth and rejected it to become Horde. But if Qurong guessed his high priest was a halfbreed, the leader would surely execute him outright. Any possible connection between the priest and his enemy Eram was far too great a risk to be tolerated.
Then again, Qurong was easily deceived by Teeleh. And whatever else Ba’al might be, he was a handmaiden of the beast. Or of Marsuuv, who was likely some queen who supped at Teeleh’s bloody table.
The two hundred priests had all cut themselves and deposited their blood on Samuel once. Now they were halfway through the second round. Their swaying had yielded to jerking as they joined Ba’al and cried with greater frenzy. They didn’t merely dribble their blood on their sacrifice now; they leaned over his body or leaped onto the altar to express streams of blood from their veins before staggering off in a weakened state.
How long could they keep this up? The cuts merely seeped when the priests weren’t wringing their arms over Samuel’s body, but it was only a matter of time before they collapsed. For now they lurched on, accompanying Ba’al’s flagrant call for salvation.
“He can’t hear you!” Thomas screamed.
Ba’al flung his arm toward Thomas and pointed an accusing finger.
“My lord has shown himself through his servants, but there is no sign of your feeble God. The dragon from the sky will devour the child. The tribulation you have suffered all these years, running from the ruler of this world, has now come to an end. You will bow or be consumed!”
The authority with which Ba’al thundered his announcement made Thomas’s gut turn. His last reserve of patience melted like ice under a flame. But rather than shout over the cacophony, he chose his words carefully and bit each off so there could be no misunderstanding.
“Elyon shows himself now, to all who have the eyes to see. He lives through me and through the one you seek to kill on your bloody altar. The dragon tried to kill the Creator once, but Elyon lives still, in his servants, free of disease. You’ve made a mistake, half-breed. You’re serving the wrong god.”
Ba’al whirled back to his priests. “More! Empty yourselves. Die for your master, you unclean worms. Shed your blood on this son before Teeleh consumes you himself.”
Thomas watched with dread as the priests each leaped on the altar a third time, slashing their arms and chests in a frenzy. Blood poured from their wounds, spilled over Samuel, and ran into a three-foot-wide trough at the base.
Samuel lay still, breathing steadily. His hair and his loincloth were both soaked red. If one didn’t know better, he would surely assume Samuel’s skin had been stripped off his muscles.
Jamous and Mikil had turned away and clung to each other, muttering protests or prayers or both.
But Thomas could not turn from his son. He could only stare through his teary eyes and beg Elyon for mercy.
The first priest to die collapsed while he was still on the altar, trying to bleed on Samuel. Nothing would come; he hadn’t practiced enough restraint earlier. Grunting, he milked his left arm with his right hand, but failed to produce more blood.
Ba’al shrieked and swung his sword. The blade severed the man’s arm cleanly at his elbow. Blood dribbled out.
The man stared at his arm silently, tried to stand, then toppled sideways, bounced off the corner of the altar, and lay still on the ground.
“Bleed!” Ba’al screamed. “Bleed or I will bleed you all!”
The priests clambered onto the altar and gave their blood to satiate the beast.
Yes, this was his son, but he could no longer stand to watch. The Circle’s code demanded that no man, woman, or child who suffered should be left to suffer alone. They would mourn with those who mourned, weep with those who wept, and above all, they would never hide their eyes to protect their own hearts when another suffered pain or death.
Yet this . . . Elyon, dear Elyon . . .
Thomas settled to one knee and steadied himself. He no longer had words for Elyon.
Thomas lowered his head. With the first flood of tears, his resolve vanished and he felt himself slumping to the earth. Pain spread from his heart, robbed him of breath. He pulled his knees closer and lay on his side, and he wept.
The priests’ wails cut through the night as they stood upon the altar, offering themselves to Teeleh. Then Thomas pressed his face into the dirt and cut himself off from the world.
If he could retreat as he once had, he would. He’d sleep here and wake in another world where he’d changed history. New York. Bangkok. France.
He’d never been able to confirm with certainty that the world of his dreams was real, but it had served him well when all seemed utterly lost here.
But now, dreaming only delivered him into a world filled with imaginations. There was another way, he was sure of it. Another path into history. If he could only leap onto the altar, take up his son, and vanish there now . . .
Thomas stopped himself. He was here in the real world, in Ba’al Bek with the dark priest and two hundred of his pagan worshippers. His son was strapped to an altar, waiting to see if Teeleh would swoop out from the sea of swarming Shataiki and consume him.
This was the world that Thomas of Hunter was in, and it was a world totally beyond his control. He pushed his face against the sand, clenched his watering eyes, and pushed everything but Elyon from his mind.
13
“HOW FAR?” Chelise cried, slapping her horse as they thundered over the canyon’s lip. The steed slid down the steep incline, snorting in protest. But their mounts were no strangers to the roughest terrain, and she let it have its head, leaning back so that her shoulders rested on its rear quarters.
The horse took to the air ten paces from the bottom, launching itself parallel to the ground to ease their landing. Marie rode three strides ahead, whipping her mare with a short strap of leather.
The Shataiki had to be blind not to notice the two albinos racing through the canyons that rose to Ba’al Bek, where Thomas was either dead or about to be dead. The black beasts had settled over the plateau like a hovering lid, so close and low that Chelise could see their red, empty eyes.
“How long?” she demanded.
“Have I been here before? Just ride.”
Just ride. Straight into the pit. What two lone albinos with nothing but fruit could hope to accomplish against a throng of Shataiki and Throaters was still a mystery to her. But there was zero chance of changing course.
This challenge Thomas had cast was about more than the fracturing Circle. It was about each of them. About her. About her father. Here, in Ba’al Bek, her worlds past and present were converging. Her father must join her and the Circle before it was too late!
If she could accomplish this, her life would be complete.
Every bone in her body betrayed her single-minded focus as she slashed her mare on, ignoring the threat circling above them. Her fingers latched onto the reigns, her muscles strained her toned arms, her neck stretched forward as her hair whipped behind her head. There was no d
enying her obsession now.
“Chelise—”
“Ride, Marie! Keep your mouth shut and ride.”
THE WAILS were fading.
Thomas snapped his eyes wide and stared at the sand, listening.
This was not his mind playing tricks on him; the cries had nearly ceased. Conspicuously absent was Ba’al’s cry. Had he given up and retreated into his pain? How long had it been?
Thomas jerked his head up and pushed himself off the dirt. The scene robbed him of breath. Bodies were strewn about the ground, still. Only Ba’al and four priests still stood. The rest had bled to death.
His son lay on his back, facing the Shataiki who still circled, silent except for the rush of wind on their wings. Blood covered the stone altar and filled the trough that ran around its base.
Ba’al stood with both arms elevated, eyes closed, lips moving.
One of the priests sank to his knees beside the altar, held his hand over an open wound on his chest, then fell sideways with a hard crash. Ba’al didn’t react. He was waiting for them all to die. This was the price that he believed Teeleh required.
Two more of the priests settled to the earth to die. Then the last sat back on his rump and watched Ba’al.
Thomas stood, surrounded by the two hundred priests who’d died for their dark priest and his demon, Teeleh. An eerie stillness settled over Ba’al Bek. He scanned the lip of the depression. No sign of Elyon, but neither was there any sign that Teeleh had accepted Ba’al’s sacrifice.
Qurong and his general were approaching from the southern lip on their mounts as if they, too, understood that a turning point had been reached. Soon it would be Qurong’s turn to meet Thomas’s demands.
The challenge had come down to this moment. It was Thomas’s turn. The hair on his neck bristled. And if Elyon did not show himself?
He faced Ba’al, who was still moving his lips inaudibly. “You’ve failed,” Thomas called in a strong voice.
The dark priest opened his eyes and stared at Samuel’s bloody body. The sight of his son lying there . . . Thomas pushed back a wave of nausea.
“You’ve offered your priests as a blood sacrifice, but your dragon isn’t impressed.”
Ba’al was still fixated on Samuel. He took three steps, sprang into the air with an agility that surprised Thomas, and straddled Samuel.
“You have lost!” Thomas cried, stepping forward.
Ba’al lifted his right arm to the sky and pressed his clawed blade to his wrist. “Now!” he cried. “Now accept the fullness of what you demand, my lord and savior, Marsuuv.” He jerked his blade across his wrist.
Ba’al’s blood flowed from the cut, wetting Samuel’s belly. He was adding his own blood to his priests’. To what end? This was what this Shataiki queen named Marsuuv demanded?
Ba’al’s naked body began to tremble. He gripped the dagger, the tendons of his hand drawn tight like bowstrings. His lips peeled back over clenched teeth, fighting not to cry out.
He leaned his head back, yawned wide at the sky, and let loose a toecurling scream that started higher than was humanly possible. His cry hung high, then fell through the register, lower, lower, until it was a throaty roar that shook the ground.
The Shataiki above began to shriek.
“It’s him!” Mikil gasped. “It’s Teeleh! We have to get out!”
“Father!” Samuel cried. “Father?”
“Hold still, Samuel. Hold!”
Ba’al’s mouth snapped shut. He lowered his head and looked at Thomas with haunting eyes, one purple, the other blue, possessed. His voice came in a low guttural growl that couldn’t possibly be human.
“Hello, Thomasssssss . . . Such a treat to finally make your acquaintance. I’ve heard so much about you.” A wicked grin slowly distorted his mouth. “Welcome to Paradise. It’s time for black to come out of its box”—his head jerked spastically once—“and for Samuel to go into his.”
This was Teeleh who’d possessed Ba’al? No, not Teeleh, but the queen Ba’al had spoken about. Marsuuv.
“We loathe boys named Samuel,” Ba’al said, looking down at the bloody body under him. “I accept this offering.”
Samuel looked like he was hyperventilating. His resolve had finally shattered. “Father?”
Ba’al, who was possessed by Marsuuv, slashed so quickly that Thomas hardly knew he was moving before the blade cut through Samuel’s chest, through the muscle, through the bone, into the lung chambers.
Samuel’s back arched and he cried out. It had taken a moment for the full pain of the sudden cut to reach his mind, but now that it had, his son could not hold back his screams.
Thomas could not move. Through Ba’al, Teeleh had answered the challenge and taken Samuel. This could not be! Elyon would not allow his son to be ravaged and mocked. Samuel . . .
What if Samuel is no longer Elyon’s son? What if he betrayed Elyon and is no longer his son?
The world seemed to spin, and Thomas fell to one knee. Beside him, Mikil and Jamous were immobilized.
But where reason failed Thomas, passion raged. “Elyon.” It was barely more than a whimper, because his throat was frozen, but Thomas was screaming.
Ba’al threw back his head, straddling his victim, and roared to the sky. “Come! Come and feed!”
“Elyon . . .”
A section of the Shataiki swarm broke from the main flock and dove. Several hundred fell like rocks, the privileged few, shrieking, ravenous vampire bats with bloodlust in their hearts. Thomas watched in horror as the black, mangy beasts slammed into the bleeding bodies of two hundred priests and began clawing open their flesh. They bared their fangs like dogs and tore at the skin, sucking at the exposed blood, too consumed by their feast to pay Thomas any mind.
Ba’al stood above them all, arms spread wide, gloating.
“Elyon!” Thomas shoved himself up, numb.
“Elyon . . . Elyon!” He stepped forward and screamed. Begging, protesting, raging. “Elyon!”
“Elyon is dead,” Ba’al snarled, stabbing Thomas with his blue and purple glare. “I killed him.”
Surrounded by a thousand Shataiki fighting over the remains of the fallen priests, Thomas considered this possibility for the first time in a decade. What if it were true? What if everything he’d fought to preserve— the Great Romance, the love of Horde, the embrace of peace, the drowning—what if it were all wrong?
Panic battered him as the thoughts glanced off his mind. And there, because of his own stubbornness, lay Samuel. Dead.
Thomas stumbled forward, succumbing to panic. He had to get to his son, to hold him, to take him away before these animals tore at his body.
A dozen Shataiki spun and snarled, blocking his path.
Thomas pulled up, panting. Samuel lay still. Ba’al stood gloating.
He’d lost? He’d lost both the challenge and his son.
He sank to both knees and sat back on his heels, blinded by hopelessness. Sense fell away, like shackles. He clenched his eyes, sobbing. When he screamed out, his heart, not his mind, hurled the words from his mouth.
“Elyon . . . Elyon, do not turn your back on me! Save us.” He held his fist in the air and wept at the sky. “Do not allow them to take your son into hell! Save us!”
Thomas was hauling in breath, mind shot, when he noticed that his eyes were red. Or the lids that protected his eyes were red.
He snapped them open, saw the blinding light above, and threw himself back on his seat. As one, the Shataiki recognized the imminent danger. Shrieking, they scattered in every direction, like a flock of black birds reacting to a predator. Those on the ground clawed at the air for purchase, shrieking with each flap of their wings. Those circling above streaked for every horizon.
The light descended from the night sky like a shaft of sunlight, but thick and cloudy and fluorescent green.
Water. Water? This was a shaft of luminescent mist descending from the sky?
An image of a lake filled with Elyon’s green wate
r flooded Thomas’s mind. Before Teeleh had brought the scabbing disease, when the Gathering had taken place on the shores of a green lake. No words could approximate the intoxication of those beautiful waters.
The color of Elyon, green. It was why all albinos had green eyes. Why the lakes had once been green. Why the forests broke the harsh desert landscape with this beautiful color. The color of life.
Green.
The radiant, green light descended toward the altar. Ba’al cowered with his neck arched back, gawking at the sudden shift in power.
This . . . this was Elyon. Not Elyon himself, not any more than Ba’al was Teeleh, but this was his power. And Thomas could feel the power on his own skin because all of the air in Ba’al Bek was charged by it.
Ba’al whirled and leaped off the altar like a cat. He bounded over the stripped carcasses of his priests toward Qurong, whose horse was rearing. The Throaters who’d circled the high place were having difficulty controlling their mounts. Some of the assassins were racing back to protect Qurong at the south side of the plateau.
Thomas spun back to the watery green light. The shaft settled over the altar and stopped, silent, but the air was heavy and charged. Fingers of light and a shade of darker green curled and twisted inside the shaft.
He heard the soft song of a child, faint, as if it were buried deep in the water. He knew this song. And his need to be in the water again brought a quake to his bones.
The coaxing fingers of light coiled around Samuel and slowly lifted him off the stone surface so that his back arched, and his heels and head draped down. He hung suspended about two feet in the air, surrounded by the translucent green presence, this raw power of Elyon holding his son.
Thomas wanted to run up to the light, which he knew couldn’t be anything as simple as water, and push his hand inside. He wanted to feel the power he’d known when Elyon revealed himself to them like this every day.
