by Tim LaHaye
Mac was certain Nicolae would execute his right-hand man for such a breach of etiquette, but he appeared to have hardly noticed. Carpathia was in trouble. Viv Ivins finally got a glass of water in front of him, but by now his hands were at his sides and his usually ruddy countenance had paled.
Leon grabbed the water and held it to Carpathia’s lips as the fez began to tumble yet again. This time Leon angrily batted it away with his free hand and it toppled to the floor behind them. Carpathia could barely manage to open his mouth, water sloshing down his chin.
“Get paramedics in here!” Leon squealed. “Someone, please! Hurry!”
CHAPTER 5
Sweat trickled down Mac’s back. The temperature was rising, almost as if there was a fire below the Temple Mount. With Carpathia having his own problems, Unity Army sentries fell out of attention and wiped their brows, tugged at their shirts and jackets, and traded looks as if to ask what was going on.
Mac turned and leaned out the arched opening at the sound of shouts. Whatever this was, it was widespread. And suddenly, the stables were in chaos. Unfettered horses broke free from their handlers, neighing, spooking each other into a stampede that had nowhere to go. Stablemen tossed lassos but found themselves pulled off the ground when the steeds reared, and then thrown to the ground when they took off, horses jostling horses, fighting for space to get through the arches.
Men and women were trampled, some to death, but when a shortsighted soldier fired into the air, things only got worse. More than a thousand full-size Thoroughbreds were manic and terrified. Following their instincts, they tried to flee, crushing anything in their path, including each other.
Mac saw great equine shoulders ripped open as horses were crushed against the stone walls. He heard legs snapping, saw horses nipping and biting each other, and soon it was a free-for-all.
“Where’s the fire?” someone shouted. Many must have heard only “fire,” for it was repeated and repeated, soldiers screaming it all over the underground. Mac saw no flame, smelled no smoke. But he heard “Fire!” “Fire!” “Fire!” and like the rest, his instinct was to head for the surface.
But a commander nudged him back into the room with the barrel of a nuclear submachine gun. “There is no fire!” he announced. “Every soldier in this room has a job, and that is to protect the potentate. That is what we shall do. No one enters; no one leaves.”
“Permission to speak, Commander,” came from a corner.
“Granted.”
“What is causing the heat?”
“No idea, but let everyone else kill themselves trying to escape a fire that doesn’t exist. You’re not going to best a twelve-hundred-pound horse that wants your space anyway, so stay here and do your job.”
“What’s wrong with the potentate?”
“How should I know?”
“Are the paramedics coming?”
“I don’t know how they’d get here. But you can bet no one else will get in. If this is a plot against His Excellency, it stops right here. Now come to attention! Weapons at the ready!”
Mac had never liked being underground, but up till now this foray had not brought on claustrophobia. The sheer size of the area had given him room to move and breathe. But now, outside the only room where everyone remained still, pandemonium reigned. There would be no escape, no freedom, no daylight, no air, no lessening of the heat, even if he opened fire and killed everyone around him and made a break for the surface. What was happening on the dirt ramp and the wood stairs dwarfed mass tragedies due to fire in crowded buildings. Even without an actual fire, this was going to be catastrophic.
With his safety turned off and his firing finger on the trigger, Mac fought to maintain his composure, remaining at attention, staring straight at Carpathia, sweat running freely now inside his uniform.
Nicolae looked wasted. His formerly full head of hair appeared somehow sparse now. His clear, piercing eyes were bloodshot and droopy. His face was sallow, and though it made no sense, Mac believed he could see veins spidering across the man’s face, framing his hollow eyes.
Carpathia’s fingers looked thin, his skin papery, his shoulders bony. It was as if he had lost fifty pounds in minutes. His pale, bluish lips were parted, and his teeth and gums showed . . . the mouth of a dead man.
“You must drink, Excellency!” Fortunato whined.
“I am spent,” Carpathia said, and though Mac could barely hear him, his was clearly not the voice Mac had come to recognize. His words seemed hollow, faint, echoey, as if he spoke from a dungeon far away. “Hungry,” Carpathia said flatly. “Exhausted. Dead.”
No doubt he meant that last as a figure of speech, but to Mac he did look dead. Were his skin any worse he could have passed for a decomposing corpse. Even his ears had lost color and appeared translucent.
In the next instant, Mac found himself on his knees, shielding his eyes from the brightest light he had ever experienced. It reminded him of a science experiment in junior high more than fifty years before when he and his classmates wore heavily tinted goggles as they ignited magnesium strips.
Mac peeked to find that he was not the only soldier on the ground. Most had pitched forward onto their stomachs, weapons rattling to the floor. Whatever the source radiating from the middle of the table, it lit the room like the noon sun.
“Beautiful! Beautiful!” people whispered, interlaced with the oohs and aahs associated with fireworks displays. All the dignitaries had thrust their chairs back from the table and covered their eyes, peeking through fingers to gaze on this magnificent appearance, whatever it was.
Mac pushed himself up and rocked back on his haunches, his eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the initially blinding radiance. As he squatted there, hands on his weapon again, it was clear why so many thought this . . . this apparition was so striking. It seemed to hover inches above the table, directly in the center, such a bright gold-tinged white that you could not take your eyes from it. It shone with such brilliance that no detail was clear, from the bottom to the top of what appeared to be a roughly six-foot human form. There was no way to tell whether it—if it was a humanoid being—wore shoes or clothes or was naked.
Gradually Mac realized he was looking at the back of a being that faced Carpathia and Fortunato. Flowing blond hair came into view, but it appeared that the rest of the body would remain a mystery to the human eye. Clearly, this was not the Glorious Appearing of Christ, as Mac knew He was to return on the clouds with His faithful behind Him.
Viv Ivins’s chair was empty, but Mac could hear her moaning in ecstasy on the floor.
Leon was also on the floor, head buried in his hands, rocking, weeping.
Carpathia had fallen forward in his borrowed chair, his cheek on the table, arms outstretched, palms flat. “Oh, my lord, my god, and my king,” his death-rattle voice repeated over and over.
From outside the room Mac heard the awful, terrifying sounds of death. Panic, screams and screeches, pleading, bones being crushed, air pushed from lungs, horses snuffling and caterwauling as other, smaller creatures might do.
Pitiful, lonely cries could be heard from grown men and women. “Save me! Oh, God, save me! I don’t want to die!”
And yet die they did. Without even being able to see, it was clear to Mac that the carnage between him and the exit would be unlike anything he had ever encountered. Shooting began, and he could only guess it was the few remaining soldiers putting horses or comrades out of their misery and trying to pave themselves some macabre exit route over dead bodies.
Carpathia raised his pathetic head, his Zorro getup hanging as if on a cadaver. “Lucifer,” he managed in that rasping, hollow voice, appearing to squint into the eyes of the being. “My lord king, why have you forsaken me? Why have you withdrawn your spirit from me? Have I not given myself wholly to you, to serve you with my entire heart and being?”
“Silence!” came the response in a voice so phantasmagorically piercing and awful that it made Mac recoil and want to cover
his ears. “You disgust me! Look at you! You dare suggest you have anything to offer me besides your pathetic frame?! You are drunk with a power whose source is far beyond your own! You are merely a vessel, a tool, a jar of clay for my purposes, and yet you parade yourself as if you had a shred of value!”
“Oh, my king!” Carpathia gasped. “No! I—”
“You do not even understand the meaning of the word silence! You are nothing! Nothing! You had no power to rise from the dead! You were a carcass, stiff and decaying. Look at you now. Aside from my grace, you would return to the earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”
“Spare me, oh, my lord! I love you and long to serve you! I will do anything for—”
“Oh, spirit of nothingness, mere speck of my imagination. I will borrow your otherwise worthless skeleton yet again. But you must know, and if you cannot fathom it, I must myself remind you who you are and who you are not. You are not me! I am not you! You are mere inventory, goods and services. You are a piece of equipment, and you must never dare imagine otherwise.”
“I have never, divine one! Never! I am humbly at your serv—”
“I am the lord your god, and I will not share my glory!”
“Absolutely,” Carpathia said, panting. “O king of heaven and earth.”
“Do not think it was by accident that my Adversary, in His own words, acknowledged that I originated in heaven and called me the son of the morning! Do you not know, as He knows, that it is I who have weakened the nations?”
“I know,” Carpathia sobbed. “I know!”
“I, not you, not anyone else in all of the evolved world, am the one who shall ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.”
“Yes, precious master. Yes!”
“Yet my Enemy claims I shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit.”
“No, lord, no!”
“He claims that those who see me will gaze at me and consider me, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?’”
“May it never be so, my sovereign!”
“Oh yes, my Enemy derides me! He claims all the kings of the nations, all of them, die in glory, every one in his own grand tomb, but that I—I—shall be cast out of my grave like an abominable branch, like the garment of those who are slain, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trodden underfoot. I will be buried like a common soldier killed in battle?”
“Never!” Carpathia sobbed. “Never! Not as long as I have breath!”
“Are you so thick you do not understand? It is I who give you breath!”
“I know! Yes, I know!”
“And what shall be your contribution, knave, when the Enemy attempts to make good on His promise that no monument will be given me, for I have destroyed my nation Babylon and slain my people? He taunts me that my son will not succeed me as king.”
“Oh, let me be your son,” Carpathia blubbered. “And you shall be my father!”
“But no! The Enemy derides me. He says, ‘Slay the children of this sinner. Do not let them rise and conquer the land nor rebuild the cities of the world. I, myself, have risen against him,’ and He has the audacity to call Himself the Lord of heaven’s armies.”
“But that is you, O beautiful star! It is you alone!”
“He has already destroyed my beloved Babylon, but He will not be content until He makes her into ‘a desolate land of porcupines, full of swamps and marshes.’ He promises to ‘sweep the land with the broom of destruction,’ this so-called Lord of the armies of heaven.”
“We shall never let that happen, Your Grace.”
“But He has taken an oath to do it! He says this is His purpose and plan. He has decided to break the Assyrian army when they are in Israel and to crush them on His mountains, saying, ‘My people shall no longer be their slaves. This is My plan for the whole earth—I will do it by My mighty power that reaches everywhere around the world.’”
“But His power is nothing compared to yours, conquering king! We will prove it even today, will we not?”
“We? We?”
“You! You, exalted one!”
“Who are you to speak? What have you to offer me when the Enemy, who calls Himself the Lord, the God of battle, has spoken—who can change His plans? When His hand moves, who can stop Him?”
“You can, all-powerful one. I believe in you.”
“I can. And do not forget it. Who does He think stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel, when clearly his God had forbidden it?”
“He knows. I know He knows!”
“Of course He knows! It is I who have gone to and fro in the earth, walking up and down in it. It was I who tested and tempted Job to nearly abandon and curse his God. When Joshua the high priest stood before the Angel of the Lord, it was I who stood at his right hand to oppose him. It was I who tempted the Enemy’s own Son in the wilderness.”
“And you nearly succeeded.”
“Success comes today.”
“I believe it, my lord.”
“I am the one who took the Enemy’s Son up into the Holy City and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple. I said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over You” and “In their hands they shall bear You up, lest you dash Your foot against a stone.”’ But He would not! He Himself did not believe! He countered as a coward, with mere words. He tried to tell me, as if I did not know, that ‘It is written again, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”’ Well, He is not my Lord or God!”
“Nor mine, prince of the power of the air.”
“It was I who took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. I offered Him all of these if He would but fall down and worship me. But He would not.”
“He was a fool.”
“But I did not bow to Him either.”
“And you never will.”
“I never shall. He spoke the truth and told it well when He called his own disciple Satan. I had hold of Peter for a time then. The Enemy’s Son rightly accused him of not being mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men.”
“May it ever be so!” Carpathia gushed.
“Oh, the Son knew well that when men heard His message, it was I who came immediately and took away the word that was sown in their hearts.”
“That has always been your strength.”
“It was I who entered Judas, who was numbered among the Son’s disciples. And it was I who asked for Simon Peter yet again, that I might sift him as wheat. He was so weak that night.”
“I will not be weak in your hour of need, master.”
“I do not need you! I will not be weak! You, sad one, are unteachable.”
“Forgive me, lord.”
“It was I who filled Ananias’s heart to lie and keep back part of the price of his land for himself.”
“A masterpiece!”
“Silence! I am wearying of you. I am preparing for battle with the One who calls Himself the God of peace and claims He will crush me under His feet. I, the one who takes advantage when men are ignorant of my devices. I am the god of this age, able to blind the minds of those who do not believe—as I do not—in what my Enemy calls the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. I am more than His image. I am His superior and shall be His conqueror. I was crafty enough to deceive Eve, His second creation. Am I not up to this task?”
“You are, and the universe shall sing your praises and call you blessed.”
“You have well said that I am the prince of the power of the air. I am the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience toward the Enemy. I
work among them to fulfill the lusts of their flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. None shall stand against my wiles. They do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against my principalities, against my powers, against my rulers of this age, against spiritual hosts in the heavenly places.”
“That is you, O blessed one.”
“I have fiery darts that cannot be quenched.”
“Amen and amen!”
“I hindered even the Enemy’s favored servant, Paul, thwarting his plans time and again. And in his absence from his followers, I tempted them from their faith. I was their adversary, and they referred to me as akin to a roaring lion, seeking whom I might devour.”
“Today shall be a feast for you.”
“The Enemy who calls Himself God has decreed that His Son was manifested, that He might destroy my works.”
“Blasphemy!”
“He called me the great dragon, called me that serpent of old, called me the devil and Satan, and acknowledged that it is I who deceives the whole world. But He erred when He cast me to the earth and my angels with me.”
“He made an eternal blunder, lord. How excellent is your name in all the earth! Be exalted above the heavens. Let your glory be above all the earth. You, my lord, are high above all nations, and your glory above the heavens. Who is like unto you who dwells on high?”
“I have need of your shell again for a brief season.”
“I am yours,” Carpathia said.
And with that the light disappeared and Nicolae stood, chin lifted, arrogance restored. His color returned as he buttoned his shirt and straightened his clothes. It was as if he had come back to life, his voice again crisp and sure.
“Return to your seats, ladies and gentlemen, please. Ms. Ivins, please. Reverend Fortunato.” He deliberately moved the chair Leon had provided for him and held it as the holy man awkwardly disentangled himself from his garments and stood, then sat.
“Sub-potentates, generals, assistants, sit, please. Soldiers, return to attention.”
