OUT OF THE DEPTHS of darkness came a hand that circled his face. Its fingers were poised to rip out his eyes; Virga tried desperately to move his head but he couldn't. It seemed that he was pinned down, helpless to protect himself. He thrashed and moaned, trying to avoid the awful claw that now lowered itself, twitching sporadically toward his open eyes. He could see nothing but the hand as it gradually grew larger and larger, broader and more sinewy, and he saw the shudder through the tendons that foretold the coming pain of plucked-out eyes. He fought against whatever was confining him and cried out "NO!" at the top of his lungs.
The hand suddenly burst into flame. Within seconds it had burned itself out and fallen into ashen pieces. He saw the outline of another hand pressing against his forehead. Its touch soothed him; he felt mercifully released from the pain that tormented his every breath. He tried to see who it was but the palm touched his eyelids and made him forget everything but the softness of rest.
A man said, "The fever is gone. Sleep now."
And Virga slipped away to dream of sailing the Charles with Katherine, smelling of cinnamon, clutching tightly to his arm.
When he opened his eyes again it seemed that he could still smell the warm timber of his sloop, the soft suppleness of the river. But it was still dark and he thought at first he was still dreaming. He lay, his eyes open, and listened.
Insects hummed in the distance; the thought of them made him wince. Something was burning. Virga heard the gentle crackling of wood and smelled smoke. He was lying on a frame cot within a tent of goatskin. He could see a small fire of brush and sticks burning just outside the tent entrance. Night had fallen but he had no idea how long it had been since he found himself lost in the desert. When he tried to struggle up he realized his hand had been splinted with sticks and wrapped in a cloth bandage.
Virga quietly pushed back the blanket and got to his feet. He staggered, drunk with the sudden rush of blood to his head, and waited until he could walk steadily to the tent entrance. Outside there was a battered jeep, its windshield cobwebbed with cracks. On the fire there was a spit impaling the roasting meat of some sort of fowl. He was about to cross through the tent opening when a tall, slender man in a bush suit walked into his field of vision. The man bent down over the fire, adding to it bits of brush and sticks he'd been carrying in his arms. He tended the meat, turning the spit to make certain it wasn't burning.
Virga watched, his eyes narrowed, as the man sat before the flames, crossed his legs beneath him, and stared motionlessly out toward the glittering fires that burned far away across the desert.
The man seemed to be watching for something. His expression, an intense composure, never altered. He seemed to be a young man but in the flicker of the fires it was hard for Virga to tell his exact age. He had light hair and a fair complexion; he wasn't Arabic, there was no doubt about that. But for all this man's fair, even fragile, appearance his eyes were strangely disturbing and Virga was uncertain if he could withstand his direct gaze. They glistened in the firelight; they seemed to absorb the golden hue of the flames before becoming darker, as if they were no fixed color at all. He reached out to turn the spit again and at the same time his head came around a few inches to the left. He looked directly at Virga as if he'd known all along the other man had been standing there. The force and abruptness of his gaze made Virga step back, his heart hammering.
He rose up. The man was well over six feet; his lean frame made him appear even taller. When he saw Virga's apprehension his fierce eyes slowly gave way to a controlled concern. He turned and without speaking sat before the fire again.
Virga stood at the mouth of the tent, aware that his hand was throbbing painfully. The man had seemed not to notice him; he sat staring out, as he had before, at the small dots of fires in the black distance. Hunger was churning in Virga's stomach, enough to make him risk any threat this man might pose. After another moment he said through still swollen lips, "Are you going to eat that or let it burn?"
The man's eyes flickered toward the fire. He took the spit off and, with a knife from his belt, cut a hunk of stringy meat. He said in a very distinct voice, "Be careful. You've been throwing up everything I've fed you."
Virga took the meat and tore into it thankfully. He wiped his greasy hands along the sides of his trousers. He painfully sat down across from the man, shielding his face from the flames because the heat made his blistered flesh feel as if it were puckering.
"Your hand was infected," said the man, not looking at Virga but rather through him. "I cleaned the wound and bound it."
"Thank you."
"I found you a few miles away. What were you doing out here?"
Virga didn't know if he could trust this man or not. He averted his eyes from the man's, but that had little effect. He could feel the man watching him. He said, "Someone left me there."
The man said, "I see."
He looked away from Virga, directing his attention toward the fires. When Virga turned to look he saw a great orange tongue of flame leap up amid the smaller fires. "Is that an explosion?" he asked.
"They're burning books," the man answered softly. "They began yesterday, first raiding the libraries and then the private residences. Soon they'll turn to other things."
Virga gave a tired sigh of frustration. He fearfully touched the healing blisters on his cheeks and forehead. "They've gone too far. There's no stopping them."
"Who are you?"
"My name is James Virga. I'm a professor of theology."
The man raised a brow. "Oh?"
"And you? I'd like to know who saved my life."
"I didn't save your life. I only found you."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
The man paused and then said, "My name is Michael."
"You're an American also?"
"No," he said, "not an American."
Virga chewed at a bone. The heat of the fire made him draw away a few feet. He threw aside the bone and said, "Why are you out here? Why aren't you in the city?"
The man smiled faintly and motioned toward the jeep. "I did go into the city," he said, "but I couldn't get through the crowd without... injuring someone, and that was over two weeks ago. So I decided it might be best to make camp out here. In the city the forces of violence are building too rapidly."
"I never saw anything like it before. Never."
"Then be prepared to see more of it," said the man with a bluntness that made Virga look up from his new piece of meat, "because it's only begun."
Virga stared at him.
"This place is not the worst, only the most well-publicized. There are villages and settlements all over the Middle East that have been burned to the ground by their own inhabitants. After they'd turned on everything in sight they finally, ultimately, turned on themselves and destroyed each other. Al Ahmadi, Al Jahra, Safwan, even Abadan and Basra. Up into Iran and Iraq, crawling toward Turkey. I know because I've seen."
"It's all happened so suddenly," Virga said. "No one had any idea this was going on."
"Suddenly?" Michael asked. "No, not suddenly. This has been building since the beginning of time, this mad last struggle, this legacy of destruction. No, not suddenly."
"What about the Holy Land?"
Michael glanced over at him, through him. "Soon," he said.
"My God," Virga said. "If this insanity ever spread into America..."
The man was quiet for a moment, watching the last embers of a million ideas. Then he said, "You've been in delirium for the last four days. I thought at first you were going to die but you were gradually able to keep down small amounts of water. For that space of time - four days - you hung on the edge of death. Yesterday your fever broke and you regained consciousness for only a moment."
"Four days..." Virga repeated.
"I've met stragglers here and there," Michael said. "Those who have somehow maintained their senses in this onslaught and who are trying to leave the country. But there are not very many. The police force and the military have been severely weakened. Four days can be a very long time; in this place there is not much more time left. Having used all he could here, Baal will go elsewhere."
At the mention of that obscene name, Virga shuddered. He remembered the figure that sat in darkness on the other side of a chessboard. "How do you know all this?" he asked.
"I have my sources."
"What sources?"
The man said, "You ask too many questions."
"Because I want to understand," Virga said. "I have to understand... Dear God, I have to..."
Michael had leaned forward slightly. His eyes cut Virga to the bone. "What you've seen here pains you," he stated matter-of-factly.
"Yes. I've seen murder and savagery. I've met Baal and escaped with my life."
Michael seemed surprised. He narrowed his eyes very slightly. "You've met Baal?"
"He has one of my colleagues, a Dr. Naughton."
"As a disciple?"
"Hell, no!" cried Virga, realizing as soon as he said it that he didn't know for certain. "He's probably a prisoner... I don't know. But Baal told me he had Naughton."
"If he's not dead," Michael said, "he's given his life to Baal. Those were his two alternatives. How was it that you managed to get away?" There was a hint of caution, of distrust, in the man's voice.
"I don't know. I can't understand it. I had a crucifix - "
Michael nodded.
" - and he couldn't touch me as long as I held it where he could see it. Yet above his doorway there was the drawing of a crucifix, in plain view."
"But," Michael said, "wasn't it upside down?"
He remembered. "Yes. It was."
Michael sat back, seemingly satisfied.
"I want to know," Virga said, "how you can know so much about this man."
Virga waited for an answer. From the corner of his eye he saw orange flames explode into the sky again.
Michael said, "I've been following Baal. I have been tracking him across the world. I won't stop, not until I have him. I know his past and present; I will write his future."
"For what purpose? To kill him?"
The other man paused, his eyes still guarded and wary. "No. No, not to kill him. But to stop him before this Godless disease overpowers the centers of humanity. To destroy is enough, justified perhaps, though that is not for me to say. But to strip the creation of all intelligence and dignity, like a cat that slowly strips a wounded mouse, is too much."
"Have you ever met the man?"
"We've met," Michael said.
"Then you believe there are no limits to his power?"
"He has his limits, though they are only temporary. As his power develops he will be able to overcome those limitations."
"My God," Virga breathed, "you mean to say he hasn't fully developed his capabilities?"
The man looked up. "By no means."
"I felt his power even when I was in the same room with him. I still don't know what it was. Some sort of hypnotism or something, some sort of brainwashing technique."
"Yes," Michael said, "that was what it was."
"He almost had me," Virga said. "God only knows what he's done to Naughton."
"Remember that moment. Remember that Baal has no mercy. He exists only to shame the creation in the sight of God."
Virga noted the use of the word creation again. He began to think that this man might be some sort of fanatic. "If you won't kill him," he asked after a moment, "how can you stop him? His disciples would rip you to pieces if you even got near."
Michael seemed to disregard the question. He sat as motionless as if he were part of the desert itself, perhaps a clump of camel's-thorn. Then he said, very quietly, "His influence must be contained."
"It's not quite that simple."
"No. Not quite."
A taut, dry silence stretched between them. Virga expected the man to say more, but he seemed preoccupied with the book-burning miles away. He winced, almost imperceptibly, with every new thrust of fire.
Virga's hand was hurting. He wanted to keep the conversation going so he wouldn't have to be alone with the pain. "You said you've been following Baal. Where from?"
"It's not important. What's important is the here and now."
"I'd like to know."
"No you wouldn't," the man said. Virga said, "Yes. I want to know."
The man's eyes shifted from the fires to Virga and back again. With an effort he said, "I came across his trail in California some years ago. He and his disciples, a small group then, had taken control of a town called Borja, near the Mexican border. The townspeople, the law officers, the ministers, at first everyone thought them only a commune of fanatics; they were affected by the same powers you see working here. Soon they'd turned against each other. Some of them Baal induced into his circle. The others he destroyed. Then it was only a matter of time; the word spread underground to every madman who would listen. The motorcycle gangs, the Satan-worshipers, the drug- and power-obsessed: Baal held sway over all these. When Baal was prepared, the commune, now over five hundred strong, split into four groups, and all of them gained notoriety. They became murderers and terrorists and they neither knew why nor cared. They were tainted. But they were only part of Baal's education."
"His education?" asked Virga, watching the shadows the dying fire scrawled across the man's face.
"His power grew by degrees, as his followers increased. And those he claimed added their forces to the movement to make it possible to influence thousands of people very quietly. He wanted no fanfare nor banners, not yet. He was not prepared for that. His commune left California and in Nevada sought out a group of Satanists financed on a desert estate by a woman named Van Lynn. Within weeks he had taken control of both the group and the money; they worshiped him as their master's prince. Baal remained with Mrs. Van Lynn for several years while his followers quietly made more converts in both America and Europe. From the very beginning he had always known what to do: appeal to man's baser desires, tap the capacity for violence and the lust for power. Make them drunk with illusion. He impressed upon his converts that the God they had been following is dead; His ideas of peace and harmony are no longer valid in this world. Thus, Baal said, the only recourse for the survival of man is a battle of the animals, a survival of the strongest."
"From reason to chaos," Virga said, "is not a very long step."
Michael shook his head. "No, unfortunately not. Baal took the remainder of Mrs. Van Lynn's money and left America. In Europe he began the same procedure of selecting converts and spreading them out to influence others. But he needed more money, more power, and thus he came to the oil fields."
"So in the midst of all this Baal is the manipulator?"
"Yes."
"Leading us toward..." Virga let his voice trail off; the answer was too terrible to consider.
"Yes," Michael said. "A complete breakdown of order. Death and destruction."
"But what is his motive? And why has he named himself after a god of sacrifice?"
Michael did not answer.
"We have our sanity," Virga said, "and while we do we cannot just sit here and let these things happen. There must be someone we can warn... there must be someone we can tell."
"We? We?" Michael looked sharply at him over the last of the fire. "You have no part in this."
Virga leaned forward, defying the man's gaze. He said, "No. I owe Naughton that much. I'm going to do what I can to help him."
"You're a fool. You don't understand what you're dealing with here."
Virga said, "I'm a fool, then."
Michael fixed his gaze firmly on the other man. After a moment Michael's eyes softened only a fraction. "All men are fools," he said. "And fools are dangerous."
"You said you've met Baal before," Virga said. "Where?"
At first he thought the man would refuse to answer. Then he, slowly unbuttoned the collar of his bush jacket and thrust his chin into the dim light of the embers. "Where is not your concern," he said. "It's enough to say we've met."
Virga recoiled.
Splayed across the fair flesh of Michael's throat, two deeply burned handprints sought to strangle him.
