Baal spoke in a guttural growl. “It will be mine again.”
“Stand up,” Michael commanded.
Baal remained seated. His black eyes began to take on a tinge of deep red. They glowed in his white skull-like face. Very slowly and carefully he rose from the chair, his gaze flickering between Zark and Virga. “I am in need of amusement,” he said.
Michael stepped forward until his face was only a few inches away from Baal’s. He said grimly, “You will show us the way out of here. You will walk ahead of us.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then the end will come here.”
Baal nodded. “So finally you’ve decided it has come to that? Like the noble pissing martyrs you try to emulate, you would do it that way?”
“If need be.”
“You stinking sonofabitch,” Baal said in a low growl. “You cocksucker, you coward.”
“I said you will move ahead of us. Dr. Virga, step aside and let us pass.”
Virga gave Michael and Baal a wide berth. As Baal passed him he felt a terrible repulsion and, yet, a sudden sharp impulse to reach out and touch the man. Michael stepped beside Baal and Virga felt the impulse fade. Baal had seemingly been aware of the reaction he’d caused. He turned and grinned, his eyes bright and scorching-red, into Virga’s face before moving out into the corridor.
As Michael held the lantern to watch Baal, Virga and Zark followed behind. Zark kept shaking his head, as if struggling from a daze, and muttering to himself.
“Are you all right?” Virga asked him.
“Leave him to me,” he said. “Leave him to me.”
They reached the clean cold air outside the awful death-frozen maze. Passing the radio tower and hangar, they started through the rocks on the path that would lead them back to Zark’s sledge. In the cold Zark’s senses sharpened. He kept his rifle at the ready and watched the rear for another attack. When they reached the sledge the dogs growled a greeting to Zark before they caught Baal’s scent. Instantly they whimpered, backing away from the approaching figures. The dogs cowered, their tails dragging, and even the lead dog trembled.
Zark walked ahead to calm the animals.
“Beasts of burden,” Baal said. “That’s what you are, Michael. And you’ll be a beast of burden until you have the courage not to be.”
Michael retrieved a canvas bag from the load of equipment on the sledge. From it he withdraw a pair of manacles joined together with a short chain. He approached Baal, who watched him incuriously and even thrust out his wrists to be bound. Michael clamped the manacles on and snapped them shut.
“You fool,” Baal said into Michael’s face. “You stupid, pitiful fool.”
Chapter 27
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ZARK COILED HIS WHIP around his hand. He looked over at Michael. “What did you say?”
“I said,” the other man replied, “that we are not going back to Avatik.”
“Where then?”
“The sea. I want you to take us to the frozen sea.”
“What?” Zark asked. “It’ll take us at least two days to reach the coast. I don’t want to travel with that man.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Michael said. “You need not be afraid so long as you do as I ask.”
“Why the sea?” Virga asked.
“Because it suits my purpose. That’s all I’ll say.” Beyond Michael, Baal was watching them, his eyes glaring across the ice.
There was still hesitation on Zark’s frost-crusted face. He shook his head. “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand that man you call Baal, nor do I understand you.”
“You don’t have to understand. Just trust me and do as I ask.”
Michael held Zark’s gaze for a few seconds. Then the hunter nodded and said, “All right, dammit. The sea. But just to the coast and not onto the ice. Why not kill that man here and now?”
Michael didn’t answer. He purposefully turned his back and neared Baal so as to shield the other men from him.
Zark cursed and cracked the whip over the heads of the team. The dogs started, pulling heavily at the sledge with its damaged runner. Virga saw that the sledge was leaving a deep, crooked track.
“I don’t like this,” Zark said to Virga. “We should kill that man here and leave his body. He deserves to die.”
Virga said nothing. He was haunted by confusion and insecurity; now, finally facing Baal, he wasn’t sure that even Michael could control him. The sudden burst of panic he’d felt when Baal had glared at him still gnawed at the pit of his stomach. He would see those terrible red eyes forever. He couldn’t even venture a guess as to why Michael wanted to reach the sea. He had the unshakable feeling that Baal’s power was always on the verge of breaking wildly free, of turning on them all and reducing them to cinders. And at that point even Michael couldn’t help them. He shivered though the sweat of fear burned on his face. He felt alone and helpless, wrenched from his life at the university, destined never to be the same again. And there were so many questions he wanted to ask, things that whirled around his head and left him staggering…
“You sonofabitch!” Baal was shouting at Michael where they walked off to the right of the crawling sledge. “You fucking bastard!”
Virga rested his chin on his chest and grabbed hold of the sledge for support, trying to shut his mind to the awful obscenities that now poured from Baal’s mouth. They did not stop but instead grew in both intensity and vulgarity. Baal was shrieking in Michael’s ear and Virga wondered how the man could stand it. Then Baal’s voice changed in pitch, changed from a low hoarse shout to the piercing scream of a small child: “You cocksucker! You priest-sucking bastard! I’ll kill you! You’ll rot before you destroy me!” And then, incredibly, the voice of a young woman. Virga turned his head and Zark made an effort to keep his attention on the ice plain ahead. “Your eyes will fall from your head, you sonofabitch! I’ll command you to go blind! Goddamn you! Goddamn you!”
Virga put his hands to his ears.
Zark whirled around. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”
And the voices, Baal’s voice, quieted. The laugh that reached them across the ice was low and lazy, gratified and pleased, as if from a man who has just won a game of chess.
The dogs strained, whimpering, on their leads; the sledge was dragging ice. As he walked Virga was aware of the hiss of runners on the snow, the grind against outcropping rock, the hiss, the grind, the hiss, the grind until his head was pounding with those alternating sounds. He could distinguish hard-packed snow and smooth ice plain, rocks the size of a fist and rocks with razor edges that could slash the paws of the team, all without opening his eyes, just listening to the sounds they made underneath the runners. Once, testing his newly developed abilities, he fell asleep while walking. When he jerked his eyes open he was looking to the right, toward Baal. With an effort he looked away, his nerves screaming alarm and new sweat freezing into his eyebrows.
When Virga stumbled and fell Zark halted the team. He helped the man to his feet and called to Michael, “We’ve got to rest. The fatigue will kill us.”
Michael considered the request. After a moment he said, “Very well. We’ll rest here.”
Zark staked down the bearskin tent and crawled through its opening. Virga, his joints throbbing and his face a mask of painful cold, followed him and lay slumped against a wall, his breath coming in harsh gasps. Outside the dogs whined anew as Baal and Michael passed. Michael entered first and waited for Baal to crawl through, then he deliberately sat between Baal and the others.
Zark opened his package of walrus meat and cut a slice for Virga, who tore into it ravenously. He offered a piece to Michael, who refused it, and then cut a piece for himself before wrapping it away. Taking out his pipe and lighting it, Zark leaned back against the tent’s firm wall, closed his eyes, and smoked.
Virga curled up for warmth and laid his head down.
Michael did not attempt to sleep. Baal’s gaze was burning into the back of h
is neck. He sat cross-legged and watched the two exhausted men as they drifted toward a deep, empty sleep.
And suddenly the tent was filled with a terrible rising scream that made even Michael’s flesh crawl. His eyes bloodshot, Virga wrenched himself up because he thought he’d heard Naughton screaming from the shadows of an evil-smelling hall. Zark’s eyes came open and in a blurred instant he had grasped his rifle and hurtled through the opening in a flurry of snow.
Virga shook his head when he realized where he actually was. The tent reeked of rancid breath. Baal laughed quietly from his corner, his teeth bared, his eyes coals.
In another few seconds Zark burst back in, his eyes rimmed with white and his beard ice-caked and dirty, and said, “There was a bear outside! I heard it! Damn me if I didn’t…” He stopped, hearing the mocking laughter, and his face flamed with rage. “You sonofa-bitch!” he shouted, reaching across Michael for Baal. “I’ll kill you!”
Michael grasped Zark’s arm.
The laughter abruptly stopped.
Baal said, “Touch me. Go ahead. Go ahead.”
“Sit down,” Michael said.
“I’ll kill him.” The breath clouds were fumed from Zark’s nostrils and mouth. “I swear I’ll kill him!”
“Sit down,” Michael repeated, his voice sharp. He tightened his grip on the man’s arm and Zark’s eyes slowly cleared. Zark fell back against the wall and sat, motionless and drained.
“You won’t sleep,” Baal whispered. “If you try, the same thing will happen again. And soon your nerves will be shot and you’ll be jumping at my every breath. Go ahead.” He grinned at them. “Close your eyes.”
In Virga’s frost-numbed mind was still the image of Naughton, lying on his back in a littered chamber, whispering something, whispering…
“Kill him now,” Zark muttered. “Now.”
What was it? What had he said? What had he said?
“There is only one way. You! Eskimo! No, don’t turn your face away. I need you. You and I together will leave this place…we’ll leave both of them out here and we’ll get back to Avatik. I’ll let you sleep once we’ve left them behind. Listen to me,” Baal hissed. “Listen to me!”
Michael reached over and clamped his hand firmly about the hunter’s thick shoulder. “Stay where you are,” he said softly.
“You can’t continue without sleep. You’ll never make the sea. You’ll fall dead in your tracks.”
Virga was trembling. He saw Naughton’s mouth opening, opening, opening…
“Let me go,” Baal hissed.
Naughton whispered, “Re…”
“…venge,” Virga said.
Michael looked over at him, his eyes blank and incurious. Baal was silent.
Virga said, “What did you mean by that? It was something both you and Naughton said to me when I asked what Baal’s purpose was. You said the word revenge.”
“Naughton?” Baal whispered from the corner. “You found Naughton? Bastard! Cocksucking traitor! We should have torn out his eyes and tongue before we left him to die!”
“But,” Michael said, “you didn’t.” He said to Virga, “Yes, that was what I said. That is the truth.”
“Your truth, perhaps. But beyond my understanding. And there are things here so far from my understanding that I’m afraid I’m losing my mind.”
Zark said, “We should kill that man here and now.” He lapsed into a low, coarse muttering.
“I told you from the beginning,” Michael said to Virga, “that there would be things beyond your understanding.”
Virga said, “I want to know. I have to know.”
“Then know one thing first. You can never go back; you can never be what you once were. You’ll be hung between life-in-death and death-in-life. If you choose to speak no one will ever listen; you’ll be branded a madman.”
“I can never go back now,” Virga said.
Michael paused for a moment, searching the man’s eyes relentlessly. Behind him Baal breathed like a beast in heat.
Michael said, “You’ll listen to what I’m going to say, but you won’t hear. It will be beyond your comprehension. Do you believe in Jehovah?”
The question startled Virga. He said, “Yes. Of course.”
“And then you also believe in Satan?”
Virga said, somewhat more uncertainly, “Yes…”
“The great powers. The light and the dark. One patient and tolerant, the other reckless and cruel; but both of them warriors. Between them is a mixing of the elements, the All. There is a completeness in the combination of good and evil. Do you see? Without one the other could not exist—that is a Law. And balanced on that Law of All is the cosmos; to tip the balance of power would result in chaos and madness. It would result in what you see taking place at this moment.”
“Dog!” Baal whispered.
“Satan has never been a secondary power; he is the equalizing darkness to Jehovah’s light. At the beginnings the cosmos was created by both Jehovah and Satan. The cosmos was, and is, a combination of celestial and demonic energy. Your ancestors were part of that energy. You are part of that energy. Baal is part of that energy.”
“The pagan god this man has named himself after,” Virga said.
Baal laughed quietly, a rumbling in the throat.
Michael said, “No. What you see is a human body, but the entity itself is a formless mass of energy. He is Baal, within a form to make himself visually acceptable to those he wishes to influence.”
Virga sat motionless. Beside him Zark had closed his eyes and was breathing harshly.
“The light and the dark were not always enemies. As I’ve said, Satan is reckless. He is concerned only with the accumulation of power. If the Law of All is destroyed he is destroyed as well, but like a spittle-mouthed dog he cares only for the moment. At the beginnings the creation recognized only the god of light and the god of darkness, each equal. But Satan saw advantages in increasing his strength through the use of demons as pagan gods. Baal was one of the most successful; he was already strong, with an unreasonable lust for power and grandeur. Under Satan’s influence Baal became a Canaanite deity, urging the sacrifice of children, sodomy and prostitution, the sacrilege of the temple. Satan was pleased with the result: he urged more and more of his demons to claim themselves as gods before a creation now confused and tormented. It was the only way Satan could claim more power than Jehovah. All these things Jehovah endured until Satan began to influence the Hebrews, Jehovah’s chosen own, into darkness and black sorcery. The balance was overthrown. As an example He turned on Baal, the most successful of Satan’s vanguard, and with the aid of the Israelites drove Canaan into the ground. His wrath was furious; He ordered His celestial armies to burn the wicked cities to ash, that the land should be fiery rock and nothing should grow. The idols and temples of Baal were destroyed; those who had worshipped the demon entity were wiped off the face of the earth. Baal was a combination of both powers, the light and the dark, but he’d betrayed one and now sought refuge in the other.”
“Lies,” hissed the figure behind Michael. “Liesssss.”
“The damage was done. Satan had tasted blood. And so began then the battle that would determine the continuation or destruction of the Law of All. It rages here and now. Satan uses Baal to throw havoc into the creation; Baal seeks his own revenge, destruction of the Israelites who destroyed his kingdom of Canaan. He has existed in many physical forms, before this moment. And in each incarnation he’s come a step closer to achieving both his goal and the goal of his master. Baal is a mad god, possessed by the forces of darkness.”
Virga was trembling. He was aware of it but he couldn’t stop it. He tried to concentrate on stopping it. He said in a halting voice, “Baal is a man…he’s only a man…”
“Have it as you will,” Michael said softly. “You asked, I answered.”
“Let me go,” Baal said in the voice of a child.
“We must continue. Can you go on?” Michael gazed at Virga.
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Beside Virga, Zark had opened his eyes and was rubbing his neck and shoulders, working the blood.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m so tired.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Can you go on?”
“They can’t continue, Michael,” Baal said. “Give it up. Let me go. Join me.”
Michael looked over at the hunter. “Can you travel?”
Zark rubbed his hands together. He looked from Michael to Virga and back again. “Yes,” he said.
“Good. Dr. Virga?”
He didn’t know. It seemed difficult to breathe. He said, “I’m so tired.”
“I warned you. Didn’t I warn you?” Michael said. “We must reach the sea as soon as possible. You have two choices. You can continue with us or we will leave you here.”
Virga looked up, startled at the ultimatum. He ran his hands over his face. “That’s not a choice. I’ll go on.”
Michael nodded. “All right. Baal and I will crawl first through the opening. Then you and Zark.”
The bearskin tent was lashed away and the dogs, curled in tight balls against the cold, were urged to their feet by Zark’s insistent whip. The team strained against their leads, the tautening ropes sending ice flying, and the sledge again began to wind its ragged way across the wastes. They walked as they had before, Zark and Virga close to the sledge and Michael shielding Baal far to the right. The cold ripped across Virga’s ravaged face. It didn’t serve to keep him alert but instead aggravated his exhaustion, and soon his chin was lowered to his chest again. He staggered on without knowing where he was.
Moments—or hours—later, someone whispered, “Virga.”
He shook his head. He was dreaming. In the snow his boots sounded a continuous unbroken tattoo. He hung between sleep and wakefulness, fearful of both.
“Virga,” someone whispered.
He opened his eyes.
Zark stood at the front of the sledge, his back broad and bearlike in his furs. The dogs moved at their rhythmic pace, ice whirling beneath their paws. Virga slowly turned his head to the right, toward the two men walking in the gloom beyond. He couldn’t see their faces. He narrowed his eyes.