by Gabriel Hunt
He ran his index fingers along the length of the channels on the altar and at the far end of each, near the wall, he felt a pea-sized hole. This surprised him—it put him in mind of drainage and implied that the altar itself was hollow. He leaned forward and blew into one of the holes. A puff of dust rose and slowly settled.
He looked around. There had to be more here. Lambert’s telegram had referred to a temple—an altar in a cave was not a temple. If there was a temple in this cave, it was somewhere deeper inside, but how were you supposed to get there from here? He tried to put himself in the place of the men who had built and used this altar. If there was another area, what would they have done to gain access to it?
What, indeed. Ettouati’s words came back to him. The Ammonites were a sacrificing people. They missed no opportunity to provide their gods with a tribute.
He lit another match, watched the ground as a handful of jirds scattered. They were not large animals, about the size of rats, but—
Three or four, he imagined, might be equal in size to a small kid. Goat, that is. A small goat.
He dug through his shoulder pouch until he found his pocketknife and unfolded the longer of its blades. Then he took a few pieces of fruit—two dates, a wild fig—and cut them each in half. He pocketed the knife, placed half a fig on the ground and stood as close to perfectly still as he could. After a few seconds, he saw the dim shape of a jird nosing up to it.
He dropped his hat over the animal and scooped it up, pinning the sides of the brim between his fingers to trap it. It struggled violently and he almost lost his grip, but with his other fist he bunched the hat closed and smashed it twice against the cave wall. The jird went limp inside the hat.
He poured the body out onto the altar. It wasn’t dead, he didn’t think, but it was out cold and would stay where he left it. He put the other half of the fig on the ground and stepped back to wait.
In all, he managed to catch four. After that, though he still heard tiny claws clattering in the shadows, he wasn’t able to lure any more into the trap. He looked over the bodies arranged in a row on the altar. They were smaller than he’d thought. Would four be enough?
There was only one way to know. He picked up one of the animals, held it firmly by its hindquarters above the left channel, and with one stroke of his knife sliced its head off. Its blood flowed freely, if not for long. He held it upside down directly over the hole at the end of the channel, watched as the flow drained off into the body of the altar. He pushed against the wall, but there was no movement. He tried using the posts for leverage, gripping one in each fist and straining. Nothing.
He decapitated the second jird, holding this one over the right-hand channel. Then he did the third and fourth. His hands were greasy from their fur and sticky with their blood. He wiped his hands roughly against the seat of his pants and took hold of the posts again. This time he thought he could feel something as he strained, some small shifting of the stone. But no more than that.
He cast about for something else he could use. Could he catch more jirds? It didn’t seem likely, and even if he could, the blood from the first four would have dried up by the time he did, so he’d be starting over from scratch. There had to be another way.
He hefted the canteen. It was better than half full. He hated the idea of using any of his water this way, but—
He uncapped the canteen and carefully poured a thin stream into each channel. This time, when he pushed, he could hear the stones shift, some heavy internal counterweight slowly turning. He poured in some more, closed the canteen, took hold of the posts and pushed with all his strength.
The wall moved—slowly, with a grinding of stone against stone, but it moved, the altar and the section of the wall behind it both turning on some invisible, freshly lubricated axis.
There was light behind the wall, first a narrow orange crack and then an expanding glow like the flames of a thousand candles. And as the wall continued to turn, more smoothly now, more easily, Malcolm saw that there was also a man there, a man in a gold skullcap and patterned robe, standing with one arm crossed over his chest. The other arm was extended toward Malcolm, and held a gun.
III
Malcolm now regretted having holstered his own revolver, but there was nothing to be done for it. He couldn’t outdraw a man who already had the drop on him, never mind doing so when his hands were sticky with blood.
His mind raced. The man hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, but neither had he lowered the gun. He seemed to be weighing which would be more appropriate.
Malcolm dropped to his knees, held his bloody palms out. “Molekh sh’ar liyot bein tekhem,” he said.
Slowly, the gun lowered. “Molekh sh’ar,” the man said.
The room behind the altar stretched on for some distance and the ground sloped steeply downward. By the time Malcolm had followed the man to the far end, he suspected they were past the edge of the outcropping entirely and standing beneath the desert floor. The man slipped the gun inside the pocket of his robe and took out a ring of keys, one of which fit the lock set into the wrought-iron gate that barred their way. He swung the gate open and passed through without speaking a word.
Which was just as well, since Malcolm had used up all the words he knew in the man’s language. If he’d tried to start a conversation, Malcolm would have had to make an attempt for the gun, however hopeless it might have been.
The room on the other side of the gate was several times the size of the entryway, a hollowed-out octagon with shallow alcoves carved into the walls, each containing a dish of tallow and a dancing flame. The center of the room held a freestanding stone altar in the shape of a giant hand, palm pointing toward the ceiling, fingers slightly curled.
There was one man kneeling in front of the altar and one standing behind it; on the altar itself was a pile of stones that looked as if they might have been chipped from the walls, only glowing, like the embers of a fire. It wasn’t clear what the source of heat was, if indeed there was one—maybe it was just a source of light. The man behind the altar was short and wore the same sort of robe and skullcap the other man had on, while the one on his knees wore only a breechclout, a twisted strip of cloth knotted around his waist and between his legs. He swayed from side to side in time with a wordless chant, sometimes bowing forward to touch his head to the ground.
The robed men stood in silence, waiting, and Malcolm stood silently as well, but he used the time to steal glances around the room. There were openings in several of the walls leading off to dark corridors. Was the idol down one of them? If so, which one? And for how much longer could he maintain the charade of being a fellow worshipper? If he hadn’t walked in on a ceremony in progress, surely they would have spoken to him already, and would instantly have found him out.
The kneeling man was swaying faster now as his chant grew louder. He reached out toward the altar, toward the stones, and jammed his hands in among them. Malcolm recoiled as the air filled with the stink of burning flesh. The man was howling now, screaming, in transports of pain and ecstasy.
Perhaps there would be a better opportunity later—perhaps. But it didn’t seem likely.
Malcolm stepped up close to the man who had let him in, darted his hand into the pocket of the robe and grabbed the pistol. It was a German gun, heavy and cold to the touch. He whipped an arm around the man’s neck and held the gun to his temple. The other robed man started forward.
“Take one more step and he dies,” Malcolm said. “Do you understand me?”
The kneeling man rose to his feet. Malcolm saw that he still held a hot stone in each of his hands. His cheeks were covered with tears. His chest was scarred, long welts running haphazardly across his breastbone and along his ribs. Even barefoot as he was, he stood well over six feet tall, and his frame was formidable. But when he spoke, his voice was soft, calm.
“No, he doesn’t understand you. Neither of them speaks English.”
Malcolm found the man’s voice unnerving. It wa
s the furthest thing imaginable from the wordless howl it had been just moments before.
“He understands this,” Malcolm said, gesturing with the pistol.
“You may shoot him if you want,” he said. “It is what he deserves for letting you in.”
Malcolm unwound his arm from around the robed man’s throat and shoved him away. He reoriented the Luger’s sight so that it pointed squarely at the giant’s naked chest. “And what about you, brother? Are you as ready to throw your own life away?”
Slowly and with a casual stride he came forward. “I am not afraid of pain. If it is Molekh’s will that I die, I shall die.”
“It’s my will you need to be concerned about right now,” Malcolm said. “The good news is I’m just here to do a job and leave—”
“You will never leave.”
“We’ll see. Why don’t you back up against the wall, and tell the other two to do the same thing.” The man paid no attention. Malcolm cocked the gun. “Now, or I swear to god I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
A voice spoke from behind him, a reverberant voice that rang from the stones. “You swear to god?”
Malcolm spun to find its source, but there was no one there.
“And which god is it that you swear to? When you are in my temple, do you swear to me?”
Malcolm saw movement in the corner of his eye and turned back, but the giant was suddenly beside him, and then the stones, still hot, were pressed against his gun hand, one on either side. He strained to pull the trigger, but the man had his hand firmly pinned. He felt his skin starting to sear.
Malcolm reached under his jacket left-handed, drew his own gun from its holster, jammed it into the man’s gut and fired. The force of the gunshot sent the man stumbling back, freeing Malcolm’s hand. He leveled the Luger at the man’s head and pulled the trigger. A bloody spray stained the chamber floor.
The other two men were fleeing awkwardly in their cumbersome robes, heading for corridors on opposite sides of the room. To raise an alarm? To get reinforcements? He couldn’t take the chance. One bullet apiece—left hand, right hand—and they were down.
Malcolm’s heart was hammering, his head reeling. He heard the sound of laughter all around him, echoing louder as the thunder of gunfire died down. “Blood!” The voice was exultant. “You do swear to me—you swear in blood, the blessed offering.”
“Who’s talking?” Malcolm said, turning in a circle, scanning the shadows, a gun in each fist. “Where are you?”
“I am the Lord of this place and this people. I am brothergod to the Lord you worship, and have been since men first spoke of gods. I am many-named: men call me Melech, and Molekh, and Moloch; I have been called Legion, and Horror, and Beast, in fifty tongues and fifty times fifty, but men also call me Father, and Master, and Beloved. There is no end to the names men have given me.”
“Enough,” Malcolm said. “Save the booga-booga for the natives. Come out and face me.”
“No man may look upon me and live.”
Malcolm worked his way along one wall of the room, scanning the rock for a concealed loudspeaker, or some other mechanism that might explain where the voice was coming from. “Let’s get one thing straight, Charley,” he said. “I’m not here for the sermon. I’m not here for your fifty tongues or any of the rest of it. A man sent me here to collect a statue—either you have it or you don’t. You leave me in peace and I’ll leave you in peace.”
“Peace!” The laughter was explosive. “You talk of peace? Look about you. The blood of my servants stains my altar and you speak to me of peace?”
Malcolm completed his circuit of the room. There was nothing—just rock and flame and the voice, shouting in his ear. The entrance to one of the dark corridors was next to him, and he stepped into it, but the voice followed him, chasing him along its length until he came out into a room much like the first. Only this one’s altar was shaped like a pedestal, and where the other had held stones, this one held—
He couldn’t see clearly what it held. There was a shape, but Malcolm could only see it through a haze, as though of smoke. Could it be the outline of a calf? It could be anything, he realized. And as he watched, the smoke closed up around the altar, obscuring the figure.
“You say you seek a statue. If so, your quest is doomed, for the statue you mean was destroyed a hundred generations ago.”
“But—”
“But a man told you he saw it. You are not the first he has sent to me, this blind man. And you, so quick to believe, you take the word of a blind man over that of your own Scripture?”
“He wasn’t blind when he saw it.”
“You are all blind.” The voice was now a guttural whisper, cold and insinuating. “You see only what you wish to see. Each man who faces my altar sees that which he most desires and, addressing it with impure heart, gains only what he most dreads.”
The smoke began to thin, as though blown by a breeze.
“Your blind man spent a lifetime searching for my mount, the figure they made for me at the foot of Sinai, so when he came before me, that is what he saw.
“Look closely, child. What do you see? Like your ancestors before you, you have wandered in the desert and climbed the mountain’s slopes. You did not bear this burden in pursuit of another man’s quest.”
Malcolm could make out the altar again, and upon it he saw a form, a human shape, but it was still indistinct.
“Do you even know what you are searching for?”
And the smoke vanished, in an instant, leaving the figure behind it bare. She was naked and pale and trembling, and Malcolm fell to his knees before her.
“Each man worships at the idol of his choosing.”
“No,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “She’s dead. I buried her.” He turned to the woman seated on the altar. “You’re dead, three years dead.”
Lydia stepped down, came toward him, one arm outstretched. “My love, my poor love,” she said.
He shrank from her. “It’s impossible,” he said. He shouted it: “It’s impossible! This is a lie!”
“Why impossible? Do you doubt my power?” From the corridor, Malcolm heard the echo of footsteps approaching, and then one by one the men he’d killed entered the room, the two in robes and the third in his loincloth, his bloody trunk and head still bearing their horrible, fatal wounds. “Over certain among the living I have influence, but over the dead—over the dead, I have utter command.”
“No,” Malcolm said. But he couldn’t deny the evidence of his eyes. These men—they had died, he had struck them down himself, had seen them fall. Yet here they were. And here she was, looking exactly as he remembered. His mind recoiled at the thought. And yet—
She reached out for him again, but the dead men in priestly robes each took one of her arms and between them they pulled her back toward the altar. The third man followed, his naked back gleaming in the candlelight, bloody and torn where the first bullet had emerged above his hip.
Malcolm launched himself to his feet, threw himself at the three men, but while the priests secured Lydia to the altar, the giant swatted him away, sent him reeling to the floor with one swipe of his scarred palm. Malcolm drew his gun and fired, twice, three times, till the chambers were all empty, but this time the bullets had no effect.
The priests stood back, and he saw that they had shackled Lydia to the stone, ankles and wrists encircled with iron bands. From the folds of his robe, one of them drew a knife with a curved and scalloped blade and handed it to the third man, the barebacked giant who had so casually fended off Malcolm’s charge. The second priest positioned himself behind Lydia’s head and placed one hand firmly on either side of her face.
“Close your eyes,” the giant said. His voice was soft and calm and Malcolm’s blood froze at the sound of it.
“Malcolm!” Lydia’s cry took him back in an instant to her bedside at the hospital. “Help me.”
“It’s not real,” Malcolm said. He shouted it to the ceiling of th
e cavernous room. “It’s not real!”
“Your arrogance is awesome,” the voice intoned, “if you presume to state what is and is not real.”
“My wife is dead. You cannot change that. No one can.”
“Perhaps. But can the dead not also suffer?”
And from the altar came a shriek of purest terror, of anguish beyond measure. He saw only the giant’s broad back, stooped over the bound figure, saw the hugely muscled arms, streaked with sweat, rock as he gently worked the knife.
“Stop it,” Malcolm said. “Please stop.”
“Why, if it is not real?”
Malcolm had to struggle to keep his voice under control. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can, child, and because it is my pleasure. It is my pleasure that my power be revealed, that men may know a god of might still walks among them, that they may bend their knees in supplication.”
“You want me to kneel?” He dropped to his knees, spread his arms out. “Please.”
“Kneeling is more than a matter of being on your knees. I will spare her for you—and then you will kneel to me in earnest, you will bow to me and do my bidding, as your blind man does in spite of himself. And in time you will speak my name with true reverence rather than with deceit in your heart.”
The men surrounding the altar stepped away, and Malcolm saw that Lydia was still bound to it, her face smeared with blood. He ran to the altar. She was shaking and pale, her torso covered with sweat, and he took her hand gently. One of the priests held a square of silk out to him. He took it and carefully wiped the blood around her eyes.
“My darling,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.”