Baal
Page 29THE DOGS WERE HUNGRY. Zark could only lash his whip into the midst of the swirling pack as they turned on one of their number that had slashed a paw on jagged rocks. Fur flying and teeth bared, they bore the injured dog to the ground, while Zark shouted curses at them. The lead animal, now powerless to control against hunger, stood apart from the pack as if disdaining their cannibalism. The weaker animal fell beneath their combined weight but still guarded its throat with snapping teeth. The pack, their leads tangled around legs and throats, stood in a tight circle, waiting for an opening. And then a stout gray-flecked dog leaped in for the kill, followed by two more, and together they bore down with jaws straining for the jugular.
"Damn you!" shrieked Zark, laying in with his whip. "Back off!"
But they were hungry beyond the comprehension of pain. There was a final cry from the dying dog.
Baal was laughing. "The law of the world," he said.
Zark could do nothing. He lowered his whip and shook his head from side to side, sickened. "That was a good dog," he muttered. "A damned good dog."
"How far to the sea?" Michael asked.
Zark shrugged. "A couple of hours. Maybe more. If I lose any more dogs we'll never make it. Hell, I'm not so certain we can even make it back ourselves. Our food is gone; there won't be another refill for the lantern. We'll be moving in total darkness - very dangerous."
Virga braced himself against the sledge, fighting off another wave of numbing exhaustion. His beard stubble was laced with ice and he had difficulty breathing, so sharp was the cold. Hours before, Zark had told him he had the first white patches of frostbite across his cheeks and, feeling his battered flesh, Virga felt them growing there like cold cancers. But there was nothing he could do. His feet, even in the sturdy dog-skin socks and kamiks, were rapidly growing numb. His fingers had frozen the day before. Now he kept walking only by a reserve of sheer willpower.
Nor had Zark escaped frostbite. It pocked his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Ice matted his beard, the weight of it making him stoop over, as if he were aging with every step. Virga had tried to keep a conversation going with the man in order to stay awake, but Zark seemed not to want to talk. He preferred silence, answering Virga in a low mutter that disdained communication.
Beyond them, far to the right and behind the lantern's yellow track, were the two dark figures of Michael and Baal. They would walk in silence for what seemed like hours, then Baal would suddenly spray a string of terrible oaths directly into Michael's face. And always, always, Baal would taunt Virga and Zark, reminding them that soon they would be his, that after he'd finished with Michael he would rip them to pieces, that after Michael could no longer give them protection they could never run far enough to hide.
"Virga," Baal called suddenly over the growling of the dogs, "you stumbling sack of shit, you're going to die out here, do you know that? You think I don't know you're slowly freezing to death? What good will you do your precious God when your body is a solid lump of ice? Answer me that."
"Shut up, you bastard," Virga said weakly, not knowing if Baal heard him or not. He raised his voice. "Shut up."
"Virga," Baal said through the dark curtain that separated them. "Virga, pray to your precious God that He freezes you to death before I can have my revenge. Come over here to me, Virga. I'll keep you warm."
"God help us all," Zark muttered. "We should have killed that man a long time ago."
"Zark," Michael called out. "Do you need help with the dogs?"
"No. I can take care of them." He saw that they'd almost finished with the carcass. He took his rifle from the sledge and with the butt began to shove the animals back from the dead dog. He reached down and pulled the torn mass of flesh away. He waded among them, watching for any bared teeth or upraised tails, and calmly straightened the leads. The one-eyed black brute turned to face the rest of the team, ready if need be to protect his master. In a few moments Zark had disentangled the leads and they were free to continue.
As they neared the coastal shelf the land began to rise up in winding hulks of rock and ice. Forbidding masses of stone, all agonized edges, suddenly materialized out of the gloom to bar their path. Zark corrected their course, taking a smoother but longer route to avoid any more injuries to his animals. A strong wind whined in from the sea; it began high above their heads, where they could hear it screaming, turning upon itself in blasting convolutions, and then dropped directly into their faces. Virga huddled for warmth but it was no use; he was slowly, as Baal had said, freezing to death.
They crawled against the wind through a wide black band of scabbish rocks to face a sight that froze the breath in Virga's lungs.
Balanced on the precipice of the ice-bound horizon was the moon, huge and blood-red, a bullet hole in ebon flesh. The ice reflected its brilliant crimson back onto the faces of the fur-clad men. For miles and miles the ground was smooth and bloody, bright and distant as a foreign desert.
Zark said over his shoulder, "Melville Bay," and Michael nodded.
There was no sea noise, no sound of breakers over rock; the thick layer of ice acted as a muffler. The only noise was that of the fierce wind, wailing now from the Pole, as it lashed across the bay and whirled through coastal rock on toward Greenland's interior.
Michael said, "I want to find a place to cut through the ice."
"What?" Zark twisted around. "Now you want to go chopping holes? Christ!"
"How thick is it?"
"Several meters. This coastal ice is like iron except during summer thaw."
"It's thinner ice further out?"
"Hell!" Zark said. "My agreement was to bring you to the sea and no further. Not onto the ice."
Michael ignored him. "I seek a place of great depth. I presume that would be a kilometer or more out?"
Beside him Baal's eyes were burning slits. He looked from Michael to the hunter and back again.
"Maybe it would be," Zark said. He swore. "Maybe a kilometer or so."
"Will you take us?"
Zark laughed harshly. "Hell," he said, "do I have a choice?" He called to the dogs over the rush of wind and they pushed ahead, dragging the crippled sledge over a last fringe of rock-dappled land before reaching the bay's bleak smoothness.
"What are you going to do?" Baal asked.
Michael was silent.
"Doesn't the condemned man deserve to know?"
Michael fixed his gaze on the red-streaked horizon. The moon hung before him like a frozen sun.
"You bastard," Baal said, barely loud enough to be heard. "I warn you. Soon you can't turn back. Let me go while you still can."
Michael turned his head slightly. "You cannot save yourself."
Baal's lips curled back in a travesty of a grin. He thrust his face forward, spittle shining on his mouth. "And who will save you, Michael?"
The wind howled into their faces. Virga could hardly walk against its blast. The team was extremely irritable now that they'd left land behind. Zark's whip cracked continually over their heads; the lead animal, snapping and growling, bullied the others to keep them moving.
The sea ice beneath the men's feet was treacherous. It was worse than glass, blue- and white-veined with deep threads of green. Virga, one hand always on the sledge for support, could feel a vibration through the soles of his boots. It was the sea thrashing beneath him, its tidal currents wrenching back and forth on the underside of the ice. He wondered at its depth, at its fury. He was gripped with a sudden fear of plunging through a weak spot to freeze almost instantly in the waters. His legs were shaking and uncertain. Go on, he told himself. Another step. Another. Another.
Walking on the other side of the sledge, Zark halted the team every few moments to chop at the ice with his axe. Then he would straighten and they would continue on a few more yards into the wind before he again knelt to test the thickness.
Beyond Michael, Baal burst into a wild scream that echoed around Virga's head like the whirl of wind. His scream grew in intensity and volume until Virga cringed to escape its terrible rage. It bore off into the distance; it vibrated against the far ice mountains. The dogs churned, whining.
Baal said in a low growl, "I'll kill all of you slowly. So slowly, so slowly, so very very slowly. You'll cry out for death but it will be on my side. I promise you a century of pain."
Zark stood up, his axe dangling at his side. "This is as far as I go," he said. "I can feel the sea just beneath my feet. Further on, the ice won't support my sledge."
Michael walked toward him, taking the axe and bending down beside the sledge. He chopped for a moment and then rose to his feet. "How deep is the sea here?"
"Damned if I know. Deep enough."
"And we cannot go on?"
"No. Too dangerous."
Michael turned, contemplating the crated object still lashed to Zark's sledge. With an air of resignation he gave the axe back to the other man and said, "The hole should be large enough for the contents of that crate to slide through. You begin it; I'll finish."
Zark motioned at the canvas. "What is that thing?"
Michael silently walked back and began working at the lashings, glancing up occasionally into Baal's gleaming eyes. Zark and Virga helped him slide it from the bindings and then Virga stepped back, breathing heavily from the exertion, to let Zark tear away the canvas covering. He began breaking it open with the axe. When he'd cut part of it away he tore feverishly at the wood and Michael helped him break open the sides to expose an oblong object inside.
A coffin.
But not so much a coffin as a simple chamber. It was dark and austere, plated with undecorated metal. There were no inscriptions, no flowing scrollwork, only a great dark bulk designed to hold a terrible, raging power.
Baal's laughter cut them to the bone. His mouth grinned below derelict eyes; his tongue flashed along the lips. "You play games with me, Michael."
"No games," said the other. "To destroy you totally would be my destruction as well. There are still your disciples with which to deal. They are demon entities within human bodies, carriers of your disease. You will be lowered into the sea and covered with ice. There your hideous soul will be trapped, unable to return in another Satan-seeded incarnation. No man will find you, no man will free you."
Baal drooled saliva like an enraged animal. "Nothing can hold me! You're a fool to think otherwise!"
"This can hold you," Michael said. "And this will hold you." Taking off his mitten, he held his right hand motionless, fingers together, over the coffin's lid. Very slowly he moved his arm downward. Virga felt the hair at the back of his neck tingle, rise, rise, rise. Zark breathed a curse, his eyes wide and protuberant.
The man's hand was leaving a trail that melded, electric-blue and seemingly solid, with the metal. It glowed with enough energy to cause Virga to thrust a hand before his eyes and stagger back a few paces. Michael's hand continued downward in a straight, thick blue line the length of the coffin. Then he brought the hand up to the middle of the line and crossed it with another. There, pulsating on the coffin's metal lid, was an electric-blue crucifix, drawn from Michael's bodily energy.
Baal held both hands before his face, his chains clattering. He growled through gritted teeth, "You sonofabitch! I'll kill you!"
But something was wrong; Virga sensed it. Baal's eyes glittered behind the hands. Michael let his arm drop and turned slowly, his eyes narrowed.
Baal backed away from the glowing blue crucifix. "I'll kill you for this!" he shouted. "All of you!"
"God in Heaven," Zark whispered. His face, bathed in blue light, was tired and haggard. There were dark circles beneath the eyes. "God in Heaven. You're not a man."
Michael took the ice axe from Zark's hand. He bent down and, with tremendous force, steadily chopped at the sea ice. Over to the right Baal cursed slowly, his voice intermittently rising and falling.
Slabs of ice scattered out around the sledge. Virga, watching Michael work, felt writhing within him a new fear from being so close to something awesome and intangible. His mind reeled at the recognition of the only possible link between Michael and Baal. The answer was in the form of a glowing blue crucifix shaped by a hand of flesh. Virga felt he had so much to ask, so much to learn. And so little time. He thought for a sudden terrifying instant that here, in this land of ice and barren plains, he stood poised on the brink of insanity.
The axe rose and fell, rose and fell. Zark stood dazed, his mouth moving but making no sound. And beyond the men Baal's eyes shined for a fraction of a second, bright and hideously red.
Michael, water-spattered from the sea that churned black and fathomless in the wide hole before him, rose to his full height. He threw open the latches on the coffin lid and opened it to expose a bare metal interior. He looked toward Baal. "Come here," he commanded.
Baal growled. "You bastard!"
"Come here!" The voice shook Zark and Virga. Its power, like the report of a gun or the explosion of a cannon, echoed off across the frozen bay.
Even Baal seemed to tremble, but still he refused to obey.
And suddenly Michael's eyes began to change, to lighten through brown to hazel to hazel-flecked gold. In another instant, only time enough for Virga to draw a ragged breath, Michael's eyes were whirling gold, freezing and burning. Zark cried out and threw his arm over his face, staggering back into the cringing dogs. Virga's knees sagged. Something pounded at his temples. Again. Again. Again.
"Come here!" Michael said.
Shielding his eyes, Baal roared like an enraged animal. He took a step back, confused and wary.
"Crawl," Michael said. "Crawl back to the pit, you thing of slime. Crawl!"
Baal staggered to his feet, hissing and cursing, and Michael flung him down again, forcing him to remain on his stomach. Michael said, "By the power granted me I force you to crawl as you have forced others, innocent ones, weaker ones. The brute blind force in both yourself and your master sickens me. You've murdered and burned, raped and ravaged..."
Baal reached up to grasp at Michael and the other man thrust his groping hand away.
"... you attack the weak, the mindless, the helpless. Never the strong." Michael's eyes blazed. "By the will of Jehovah your black soul will be confined for eternity." They had almost reached the open coffin. He grasped the wrist chains and dragged Baal up.
Baal's own eyes were fierce and red. It was an unbearable sight. Zark cried out again and Virga put his hands to his face.
Michael struck Baal across the cheek, a backhanded blow, and bore him down into the coffin.
Baal whispered harshly, "My master will win yet. On the Megiddo plain. Sweet lost Megiddo." And Michael slammed shut the lid. As he carefully latched it he seemed weakened by the confrontation. The blue glow illuminated dark hollows under his eyes. He staggered when he motioned for the two men to help him.
The three men heaved until they thought their spines would break. Slowly, slowly, the coffin inched over the edge of the hole and tilted toward the sea. Finally the sound of metal grinding over ice was no more, and it slipped from their grasp and sank down into the black water. The crucifix remained visible for a time, shrinking until it had been swallowed in the maw of Melville Bay.
"Finis," Michael said tonelessly. He ran a hand over his face. "I'm tired. I'm so tired."
"He's gone," Virga whispered. "Thank God."
Zark stood peering down into the hole as if uncertain that all of it had ever taken place. "Who was he?" he asked in a weak, listless voice.
"Someone who will never die," Michael said, "but will only wait."
Zark looked toward Michael, the ice in his beard glittering red from the bullet-hole moon. With an effort he walked away from the other men and began to calm his dogs, checking to see that all the leads were untangled. "We should be on our way," he said after a moment. "We've got a long journey."
"Yes," Michael said. "We do."
Zark cracked his whip over the team and the dogs, still nervous, began to stir. The sledge inched forward. Virga clasped his arms beneath his furs for enough warmth to get himself moving.
His eyes afire again, Michael twisted around toward the hole where dark water churned.
The dogs stumbled into each other, tangling themselves in the leads. The huge one-eyed black howled in fear.
Virga looked around, every breath a knife tearing his lungs. What had it been? That sound that sound that sound. What had it been? Beside him Zark stood motionless, his fisted hands white-knuckled at his sides.
And there it was again, that sound.
The sound of foot-thick ice cracking with pistol-shot intensity.
And then the crack that had begun at the lip of the hole widened, widened, veining out in blue and green, streaking across the ice plain beside them, behind them, in front of them, crisscrossing like jigsaw puzzle pieces.
The sea thrashed. Steam rose up, ghostly blood-red wraiths. Melville Bay, maddened black fury, overflowed the edges of the hole and sloshed around the men's boots. Virga felt its rage underneath the ice on which he stood. He struggled to keep his balance against a force thrusting against the frozen surface, threatening to burst through.
"What the hell is it?" shouted Zark, one hand on the sledge and his feet wide for balance.
But Michael would not, or could not, answer.
A great slab of ice cracked in half with a tremendous splitting sound and the coffin shot up from the water and bobbed once, twice. Its lid had been ripped away. The coffin turned on its side, filled with water, and sank again.
And then the ice at their feet exploded.
It lifted up around them, groaning with the sea's power. Black waves burst free. The veiny cracks widened into fissures, widened into gaps, widened into chasms. The men struggled for balance on pitching ice platforms, the sea crashing on every side. Virga, his arms flailing for some kind of support, staggered back and fell to his knees. The rifle around his shoulder slipped away, spun on the ice. Virga grabbed for it and saw it vanish through a fissure. Michael stood where he was on a wide slab, his fists clenched at his sides. Zark, hanging onto his sledge, muttered a continuous guttural cry.
They saw the fingers first.
Reaching from the hole where the coffin had gone down.
Grasping at ice, curling, the naked fingers thawed a hold, pulled from the black water forearms, shoulders, the top of a head. And Virga, on his knees, saw Baal's face break the surface, saw the red reflections of the moon in the eyes, saw the mouth grin wide and soundlessly in grim revenge.
And Virga knew. Hearing Michael cry out, he knew. And in knowing he knew the first seconds of death.
Michael was too late. Baal's power had doubled, tripled; he could overpower the Cross. He'd allowed himself to be brought to this place knowing that here there was no escape for them. Here he was the Messiah, and they disloyal.
Baal, steam swirling from his body, stepped free of the pitching waves onto solid ice.
Zark's footing gave way. Great fissures opened around him, the ice dividing with the noise of splitting timber. The dogs, scrambling for safety, wrenched at their leads. The sledge overturned, scattering equipment. Much of it, including Zark's weapon, went spinning by Baal's legs and into the sea.
Baal opened his mouth and emitted a high piercing shriek that threatened to burst Virga's eardrums. He clasped his hands to the sides of his head and cringed.
The huge one-eyed black, within range of Baal, leaped for the man's throat. Bound by the lead, the animal fell short, his slavering jaws gripping only empty air. But Baal, his mouth wide in the terrible shriek of vengeance, caught the animal around the neck and squeezed with both hands. The dog kicked and clawed. Virga smelled something burning. The one-eyed black burst into flame. It cried out once in agony and then Baal let the mass of fire drop. The other animals, with no leader now, pitched forward in the flight of terror, dragging the overturned sledge. The ice beneath them split open and, with a single terrible moan, the team fell through, borne down by the weight.
Michael started for Baal, weaving from platform to platform.
Zark struck Baal full in the face with the same sound as the blow of an ice-axe. Baal fell back only two steps before regaining himself, and this time he came up beneath another blow and caught the hunter around the throat. He lifted Zark bodily and held him at arm's length. Zark screamed, his eyes imploring Virga, before his furs caught fire. Then his hair. His body caught in a mass of yellow fire, the smoke of burning flesh mingling with steam from Baal's body. But Michael had almost reached them and, with the abrupt unconcern of a child turning to another plaything, Baal tossed the body to one side. Grinning, he whirled to face his adversary.
The two clashed with the sound of crunching bone. Michael drove his elbow into Baal's chin, knocking him back across the writhing plain. Baal's knee came up into Michael's stomach as the other man advanced. Then Baal struck a downward blow on Michael's head that resounded across to Virga, still huddled on his knees some yards away. Michael fell onto his hands and knees, and Baal struck him in the face before he could regain his feet. Michael shook his head from side to side, stunned, and as Virga watched in mind-reeling fear Baal's claw-fingered hands reached Michael's throat.
A red mist had fallen before Virga's vision. MOVE! He couldn't move. YOU OLD MAN! YOU WEAK PITIFUL OLD MAN, MOVE!
When he did it was with agonizing slowness. His muscles screamed. He searched about for a weapon. Something, anything, a jagged clump of ice, anything. Dear God, he shrieked, help me help me help me! Beyond him Baal's hands burned at Michael's throat. Michael clutched at him weakly, his eyes lost and defeated.
And then Virga saw the flare gun and cartridges that had scattered with the overturning of the sledge. They lay on the other side of Baal and to reach them Virga must pass him. He had no choice. He leaped up, moving low to keep his balance, and ran toward the two figures ahead.
Baal's head wrenched up.
His eyes blazed. He dropped his gaze around to where the flare gun lay. Virga knew that Baal already realized what he was going to attempt. Baal released Michael and spun around, his hands outstretched to destroy Virga as he had Zark.
At the last second, inches beyond Baal's grasping fingers, Virga dropped to his belly, He slid beneath the grip of the thing that walked as a man, slid with the ice spinning into his face, slid with his good hand groping for the flare gun. He reached it and grasped a cartridge, whirling to guard against an attack from behind.
Already Baal was almost on him, his teeth bared and his eyes bottomless pools of holocaustic energy. Steam swirled from his reddened fingertips.
Virga, in desperation, slammed the gun against the ice to open its breach.
Baal reached, reached.
Virga rammed in the cartridge.
Baal growled, thrusting out his arms.
Virga whirled, a finger on the trigger, and saw Baal's fingertips inches away. A blood-lust cry vibrated in Baal's throat.
And Virga fired point-blank into Baal's face.
The flare exploded in a mass of red and yellow incandescence, streaking across Baal's flesh into his hair. His clothes caught fire and he towered over Virga, his arms outspread, a single burst of flame in the form of a man. Baal grinned.
Fire leaping out of his black-scorched lips, he bellowed in expectation of what was to come. Still he reached for Virga's throat. Virga opened his mouth to cry out in helplessness, knowing he could never reload in time.
But there was a blur of motion to Baal's left and fingers entwined around the man's throat. Michael had recovered himself. They struggled in silence, like animals, and Baal gripped Michael's neck as they staggered back and forth over the ravaged field.
Something like electricity, white rimmed with blue, seemed to spark between the combatants. The two figures, still engrossed in fierce battle, were outlined by a glow that built in intensity, pulsating, pulsating, pulsating like the beat of a huge heart.
And then there was an explosion that seemed like the end of the world.
It lifted Virga up and threw him more than thirty yards over the ice. He grasped onto fragments, the terrible blast-thunder ripping at his eardrums, the sea crashing against him again and again. He gripped the ice until his fingers were bloody. Around him there was nothing but the white of plunging ice, the black of rising water. The sound of the blast would not die away; it echoed off to the distant coast and came back full force. He cried out against it. Great chunks of ice, raining back from where they'd been thrown into the sky, clattered down around him, some striking him and glancing off. He strained to hold on to his senses.
Slowly the sound of the blast died away. The sea fell back within its limits. Across the broken field huge fragments groaned as they crushed others. Then there was only the noise of the high wind and the sea as its tides churned about far below the surface.
After a while Virga, wet and freezing, struggled up. The ice was broken all the way to the horizon. Jagged holes gaped. A greater hole, the center of the blast, was devoid of ice. He felt with dead fingers the burns on his face and realized, with a sudden strange humor, that he'd lost his eyebrows and stubble of beard. There were no corpses. It had seemed to Virga that, an instant before the explosion, he'd seen Baal and Michael simply swept away. Zark's body had probably been blown into the bay. No matter, Virga thought as he shivered with the piercing cold, I shall soon be dead as well.
He fell back and waited, his eyes closed. What did they say about freezing to death? That it is only like falling asleep, that one is indeed very warm when just about to die? Perhaps. He felt the folds closing about him. There were so many questions he'd wanted to ask. Now, very soon, he hoped to have those questions answered. The wind swept over him, whistling past his head, and he welcomed the first signs of death.
Baal's disciples.
Virga waited, poised with his last strength before slipping away. Someone had spoken, whispering close to his ear, but he didn't recognize the voice.
Baal's disciples.
There are more, Virga said. Baal is gone but they remain to walk as men, to spread contamination and brutality, blasphemy and war. They hope to deny man his mind, rob him of his thinking processes and in so doing rob him of his final chance. Baal is gone but they remain.
Something burned in his brain. He envisioned murders, gang warfare in the streets, jet fighters shrieking over flat plains where armies battled face to face, the high columns of mushroom explosions, the blasted bodies, the roar of wind through cracked city towers. Very slowly, very slowly, he climbed from the warm depths back toward the cold rim of life. He was aware, finally, of a noise over the screech of the wind. Something hovering above him. Thock thock thock thock thock thock.
He opened his eyes and they filled with tears.
It was a helicopter. A Danish flag was painted on the gray metal underbelly. Two men in heavy furs bent from the open cargo doors, staring down at him, and one of them lifted a bullhorn to his lips and spoke in Danish.
When Virga had neither stirred nor replied the man spoke again, in English. "This is the Ice Patrol. Lift your hand as a signal. We will lower a lifeline,"
Virga blinked his eyes and lay still. His body felt old and useless, something that had been drained and discarded. He was afraid he would not be able to move and, realizing his fear, he realized also that he desperately wanted to signal. He wanted to cling to life.
Someone, whispering very close to his ear, said, Baal's disciples.
And Virga raised his arm.