If he’d come here at all, he was either hiding from King’s watchful gaze or he’d entered the temple proper. As King looked up at the marvel of masonry engineering, he scratched his head, wondering where the architects would have constructed an entrance. He supposed the most reasonable place would be at the very top, at the apex of the structure. If he remembered his prior studies correctly, the uppermost structure of the ziggurats were typically reserved for shrines to the gods to whom they were dedicated. If Belshazzar had indeed come to pay his respects to the wind god, he most certainly would have headed there.
Looking up at the daunting climb before him, King couldn’t help wonder about the stark differences between the religious zeal of history versus the cushy comforts of modern religion. King knew people sometimes had a hard enough time convincing their loved ones to attend services every Sunday...and modern churches had easy access wheelchair ramps and elevators. He could hardly imagine the state of affairs if the world-weary church goers of the 21st century had to climb the two-and-a-half-foot high steps of a ziggurat each week. Then again, King supposed that was probably why the pilgrims only came annually to pay their respect.
Taking a resigned breath, he passed through the gate and began climbing the steep incline, which jutted nearly one hundred feet into the air. Hand over foot, he slowly crawled his way toward the apex, praying the boy would be there, while simultaneously hoping, for Belshazzar’s sake, he wouldn’t be there, to avoid any temptation to throttle the boy for worrying him like this.
The climb, however, hardly winded him, and by the time he reached the temple’s entrance he had already recuperated most of his strength. Having the metabolic regenerative powers of a demigod did, King had to confess, have certain advantages.
He ducked through the open entrance and rushed into an open chamber, lit by twelve torches.
The prince stood in the center of the room, surrounded by six armed killers wielding swords, knives and clubs.
11
At that moment, King knew where the gate security team had gone. Four of the six rough-looking men wore the bright, colorful raiment of the temple guards. The other two were the Russian, wielding a rather large wooden club, and the thinner man in leather King had seen at the tavern. Thin Man’s skeletal hands clutched two lethal looking daggers. As he spun around to see King, his right hand instantly released its blade and hurled it directly at King’s chest.
King had been ready for it. He couldn’t afford to die right now. Every second he was down would make it that much easier for the bad guys to kill the kid. Darting to his right, the knife whizzed harmlessly past his head to embed itself into the mortar of the wall behind him.
“I’m going to let that slide,” he said, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “But the next man to move on me, or my friend, is going to have his head separated from his shoulders.”
“Achelous, do not antagonize them,” Belshazzar pled. His brow furrowed with deep concern. “The large one is called Balyah, and he is one of my grandfather’s most favored warriors.” Balyah snarled at King, as the boy continued. “You may or may not be a god, but in Balyah’s native land, his godhood is unquestioned and Death is his domain.”
King looked the man up and down, then shrugged. “Death is every man’s domain. Some of us just arrive sooner than others.”
Balyah growled something unintelligible and his men leapt into action. The Thin Man instantly hurled his remaining daggers in King’s direction, just as the four temple guards turned their swords on him. Drawing his own blade from its scabbard, King parried each of the thrown knives with three deft flicks of the wrist. He then met the maelstrom of the guards’ flashing swords with a flurry of well-time deflections, followed immediately by a kick to one assailant’s groin. The man doubled over, dropped his sword and fell to the floor in agony.
When King looked up from the writhing guard, he saw Belshazzar grasped firmly in Thin Man’s serpentine arms. The man cast King a wild, toothless grin before placing one of his knives to the prince’s throat.
Seeing this, King doubled his efforts, using fighting techniques that wouldn’t be developed for thousands of years. Two swings and a single stab of his sword brought the remaining three temple guards to the floor. Blood oozed into pools beneath their still bodies. Leaping over them, he lunged toward Thin Man only to be blindsided in mid-air by the telephone pole of a club swung by Balyah. The blow brought him crashing to the floor in a heap, with at least three broken ribs and a shattered rotator cuff. He wheezed for breath, struggling to remain conscious. Fighting to stay alive. If he lost it now, the boy was as good as dead.
“Not bad,” he said between a coughing fit of blood and bile. Add internal bleeding to the diagnoses.
With his one good arm, King pushed himself off the ground to face the bear of a man with the club. Balyah’s furs seemed to bristle, as if there was still life in them, as they draped over his massive frame.
“You are strong. Good,” Balyah said in broken Aramaic. His accent was thick. Strange. King couldn’t place it from all his travels, but he was certain of his original assessment that the barbarian was from a region near Russia. “Will be more pleasurable to crush you this way.”
King glanced from Balyah to Thin Man, the latter’s blade drawing dangerously close to the prince’s throat, as he watched the exchange with gleeful malice. King hoped that the boy would be safe as long as the knife-wielding assassin was kept entertained. Of course, that meant King would have to make this fight with a would-be god of death interesting. Considering the inhuman strength the proto-Russian displayed with that club swing, King didn’t think it would be a simple task. The guards had been easy enough to kill. Thin Man wouldn’t be much of a challenge, once it came down to it. But Balyah was another thing entirely.
The big man hefted the club just before lunging with a powerful swing. King ducked left, spun and brought his sword up to sweep toward Balyah’s trunk-like legs. But the big man’s size belied his speed. Before the blade could connect, Balyah leapt into the air to sail harmlessly over the blade. As gravity pulled him down, his cudgel flew directly at King’s head. King managed to swat the blow away with a sweep of his sword, but the impact shattered the weapon in two, leaving King defenseless. He leapt back from another swing, unable to counter it.
The one living guard, now apparently recovered from the groin kick, hobbled to his feet, picked up his fallen sword, and ran from the chamber. King wasn’t sure whether the man would stay clear of the fracas now or if he’d run to gather reinforcements. Either way, King was running out of time. He needed to wrap this up quickly, and he wasn’t sure how to do that without a weapon.
Balyah laughed. It was a deep, rumbling guffaw that nearly shook the foundation of the temple and sent spittle dripping through his thick black beard.
King glanced around for anything he might use as a weapon. Bare-fisted, he wasn’t sure he could take Balyah. The man’s strength was astounding. His speed and agility were equally inhuman. His physical similarities to King’s friend Alexander, the historical Hercules, was so striking, King wondered whether there might be something to the whole ‘god of death’ thing after all.
“Why you not give up?” Balyah asked after his laughter subsided. “You no match for my might. Let Balyah take little pup of prince, and you might live to see the dawn.”
Still searching the chamber for a weapon, King’s eyes locked on the perfect choice. “Because,” he said, inching back toward the wall behind him, “I’m not big on backing down from fights with cocky trolls.” At that, King swept his arm up, grabbed a torch from a sconce on the wall and leapt forward. The flame flared from excess oxygen, as it swept through the air at Balyah. The big man’s eyes widened as the torch’s burning light rushed at his face.
Unable to counter the attack, the torch struck the big man directly across his face, sending him reeling back. The torch’s tip, wrapped in linen and soaked in pitch, gave the new weapon the heft needed to make a decent m
ace. Throw in the implied threat of incineration and King now had himself a very effective psychological weapon. After all, what bearded man was not afraid of having his face catch on fire from drawing too close to a flame? King knew, of course, that there was nowhere near enough fuel on the torch’s head to do anything like that. But then, the torch was only phase one of his plan.
Now on the offensive, King put every ounce of energy he had into blow after blow with his improvised mace. Balyah, unable to recover, stumbled back even further, nearly slipping on the pool of blood left from the temple guards. The Russian recovered his balance at the last minute and remained standing, just as King dove forward and slammed his foot down hard against the side of the man’s knee. A loud crack echoed through the chamber, followed by a wailing, unearthly howl.
Balyah crashed to the stone floor. His club forgotten, both of his meaty hands clutched at the shattered joint as he writhed on the floor. King pointed to Thin Man as a warning not to move, as he strode casually to the other side of the room, picked up a wooden pail and dumped its oozing contents all over the giant’s battered body.
“You know what I just dumped all over you?”
Balyah, growling with pain, nodded once.
“It’s pitch,” King said, as if his opponent hadn’t answered. “And you know what I’ll do to you if you move?”
The Russian nodded once more.
King looked over at Thin Man and raised the torch over Balyah. “Let the boy go.”
Thin Man hissed at the threat. Come to think of it, King hadn’t heard him speak since their encounter had begun, and he wondered whether the man might be mute.
“What makes you think I care about that oaf?” he finally said with a toothless sneer, obliterating King’s speculation about the man’s ability to speak. Still, his voice was a grinding abomination of a sound, like a garbage disposal filled to the brim with clockwork gears and ball-bearings. “Who is to say I am not a god in my own right?” A long, fork-like tongue flickered past Thin Man’s lips as he grinned. King had seen something similar before—on a trip to Seattle during a bar brawl he’d gotten into with a handful of tattooed, body-altering aficionados. He wasn’t impressed then. Nothing had changed about his attitude now.
King tensed, visualizing a sequence of events he believed could free the boy, but not without considerable risk.
“Enough!” a strong, baritone voice shouted from the temple’s doorway. King turned to see a weathered old man, stooped low at the shoulders, striding boldly into the chamber. Though he’d been unable to see much more than the man’s eyes earlier, King knew that this was the same elderly man who’d been skulking about the tavern.
The old man’s eyes blazed with fury. As the newcomer glared at Thin Man, then down at the fallen Balyah, he stood up straight. The bend in his back was now a straight line of determination.
“Gramel and Balyah, you know who I am, I presume,” the old man said. His voice was rich, deep and commanding.
The two men nodded sheepishly. Their eyes glanced down, avoiding the elder’s gaze, as if he might consume their very souls with nothing more than a wink.
“Then know this,” the newcomer continued. “The prince and his guardian are under my protection now. The king’s bounty might be great, but you know for whom I speak...and his wrath is not worth ten thousand such bounties.”
Like scolded children, the two nodded silently again.
“Gramel, help your brother to his feet and leave this place now.” The old man seemed to grow in stature to loom over the pair. “I will not ask again.”
With trembling hands, Thin Man—Gramel—hustled over to the pitch-covered giant and helped haul him to his feet. Though Balyah’s injured knee must have been shattered by King’s blow, the giant managed to bear much of his own weight while his brother worked his way under the big man’s arm for support. Without a word, the two limped from the chamber, leaving the wooden club and several discarded knives in their wake.
A smile cracked the dour expression on the old man’s face, as the two scrambled through the door and onto the steep steps of the ziggurat. Then, after satisfying himself they would not return, the old man wheeled around to face the bewildered King and Belshazzar.
The old man clapped his hands together. “Oh my,” he said, suddenly laughing. “I cannot believe that worked. I thought for certain the big one might have just as easily ripped my arms from their sockets than relent to my authority.” He clapped his hands together again with obvious amusement. “Oh, glory be to Yahweh-Yireh...the Lord Who Provides, eh King?”
King started at the casual use of his callsign.
“What did you just call me?”
“I called you ‘King,’” the old man said, a look of confusion plastering his face. “That’s what you are called where you are from, is it not? Or do you prefer...” He lifted his eyes to the sky as if in thought, then rolled his tongue around his lips, as if tasting his next words before uttering them. “J-Jack, is it?”
King’s heart slammed against his chest. For the second time in recent weeks, his real identity—an identity he would not possess again for another twenty-five hundred years or so—had come up out of thin air. First it was the scorpion creature. Now, this old man.
“How...how do you know that? No one should know those names.”
“But, Achelous, this man knows everything,” Belshazzar said. “There is nothing under the stars of heaven or the earth beneath that he is not privy to.”
“A wizard? Is that what you’re saying?” King didn’t take his eyes off the old man.
The elderly man laughed at this and shook his head. “Oh no. Nothing quite so crass,” he said. His smile was genuine. Warm. Not an ounce of deceit or contempt behind it. “I’m just a humble servant of the great Yahweh, Creator of all that is.”
King looked away from the old man to search for Balyah’s abandoned club. “Right.”
“He’s telling the truth, Achelous,” Belshazzar said, sidling up to King. “He is the wisest man in all of Babylon. A seer. An interpreter of dreams and a mighty prophet of God.”
“Which god? Marduk?”
The prince shook his head. “There are some gods even greater than my Lord Marduk. This man serves a god, Yahweh, who seems greater than all others.”
Sudden recognition hit King like a truck full of anvils in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. This time, however, the recognition hadn’t come from the hours of study he’d spent as a Delta operator or with Chess Team, but rather from a place much more mundane. Sunday School as a child.
“Wait a minute... What’s your name?”
Belshazzar looked at him puzzled, as if everyone in the world should know the answer to such a simple question.
“This is the chief magistrate of all of Babylon. Third in command of the entire empire,” the boy said quietly. “Daniy-yel. His name is Daniy-yel.”
12
“This is the Daniel?” King couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Years of unwanted childhood Sunday School lessons flooded through his mind. “As in Daniel and the Lion’s Den? The Writing on the Wall? All that stuff?”
Daniel laughed. “Oh yes. But my banishment into the den was years ago. Seems a lifetime ago, now.” He stopped for a second and cocked his head to one side, as if puzzled about something. “But this ‘writing’ you speak of… I do not recollect anything like that. Perhaps it is something that is still to come in my future.” He paused again, then let out a single bark of a laugh and clapped his hands again. “Ha! I have a future. That is good to know, certainly. Sometimes, I am not certain I have much time left...especially after disobeying his Highness’s orders regarding the boy’s assassination. His Highness will be most displeased about that, I am sure.”
If Daniel was concerned, King couldn’t read it in the man’s face. It practically beamed with its own luminosity.
Despite coming face-to-face with a bona fide historical figure, King’s thoughts remained on a single question. “You still haven�
��t explained to me how you know my name. My real name.”
“That is quite simple,” Daniel said. His face grew suddenly sober as he ducked under the temple entrance to look out. “I have been having dreams of your coming for some time. Dreams of the prince’s danger. Of the possible—but not inevitable—destruction of the world. And, of course, of the warrior from a different world that would serve as Belshazzar’s protector. Yahweh-Yireh always provides. And he has provided me with many visions of a man who was both a king and not a king.”
“So, you’ve had visions of me? Is that how the Girtablilu knew my name as well? Did your God give them dreams as well?”
Daniel’s face whipped around from the doorway to look at King, his eyes wide. “The Girtablilu? You’ve encountered them?”
“Yes, Ba’al Daniy-yel,” Belshazzar said. “Nearly a fortnight ago now. The Blasphemer has released them from Shamash’s Gate. He intended to use me as a sacrifice for them. It was there that Achelous rescued me and agreed to accompany me to the forbidden tomb, before Sereb-Meloch’s forces can release the great Tiamat.”
“And when I fought them, one of them called me King. How do you suppose that is?”
“How indeed,” the old man said, almost mumbling to himself in deep thought. His eyes developed a far-away look. His mind apparently contemplating the news’s implications. “But perhaps that is something for us to discover another time.” He glanced outside the entrance once more, then waved to King and the prince. “For now, I say we best be on our way. The temple guard who escaped your blade will likely return with reinforcements. And I would not put it past Balyah and his brother to regain their nerve and return to finish what they started.”
Although he still had questions, King agreed with the prophet’s reasoning. Scooping up Balyah’s club, he moved over to the door and peered out. Not seeing anything of significance, he turned to Belshazzar and jabbed a single finger into the prince’s chest. “If you ever...ever...take off on me again like that again, I’ll hand you over to the first set of slave traders we come across. You got that?”
Jack Sigler Continuum 1: Guardian Page 6