It was a capacity crowd. But then, it always was.
The War Circle rocked with anticipation, for those in attendance had been told that, on that day, their Prime Lord was going to show them the new world they were about to enter. It was a special, unscheduled show, one that had been made available to the public at no cost. Everyone gazed out into the immense circular arena in the pale pink light of midday, waiting, watching, wondering. Listening for any word from their leader.
Their messiah. Their god.
No renewals were present. They did not need to be. Those in attendance were already utterly dedicated to the exaltation of the Prime Lord. To the Dark.
Dozens of simulight cameras, stationed all throughout the Circle, came to life and began to broadcast their signals to the world. All of Noron—not just those who had obtained a coveted seat—would witness the triumph of the Prime Lord.
The murmur of the crowd grew louder as the waiting continued. The anticipation was tangible. No one among the throng was quite sure what to expect. All had heard of the spectacle of the War Circle, but this—never had such a monumental event taken place.
God incarnate on Noron!
But one man, sitting alone in a private box above them all, knew exactly what to expect. Barthos sipped his icy drink, looking out upon the empty grassy plain, mentally counting down to the moment when it would happen. Let them wait. Create the mood, the anticipation, the hunger!
It angered him that the display was necessary at all. That the Prime Lord should have to stoop to theatrics to get the attention of the people galled him to no end. But the accursed Voice had transmitted dozens of messages to all of Noron over the months since that first interrupted broadcast, creating hesitancy and doubt in the minds of many of those who heard him.
Thousands had been arrested and killed as the government’s continuing suppression of the Truth went on, but none of those taken into custody had provided leads as to the location of the Twelve or of the Voice himself. Despite the efforts of the Watchers and Barthos’ handpicked best, no clue had turned up concerning the location of the underground’s new base of operations. That meant they were being hidden spiritually as well as physically. The Light was rising, and Barthos worried. The Awakening—
As Barthos surveyed the vast circular plain of the arena, he knew that the entire world should have been Paull’s long before now—but absurd words of salvation and Truth had mired much of the planet in a thick, disgusting hope that Barthos had labored long to destroy. The Prime Lord deserved better than to be paraded like a mere politician before the pathetic cattle of Noron!
Music rose throughout the War Circle, signaling that the moment had arrived. All of the coverage cameras finished their sweeps of the spectators and swung to take in the arena before them. It began.
The crowd of millions hushed as a huge swirl of color grew in the center of the arena, a rising column of rainbow mist or light or something that seemed to take on increasing corporeality with each passing heartbeat. Hundreds of feet into the air it grew, gaining stature as it attained its own reality, taking on a form known to all those who stared in wide-eyed wonder at the vision before them. They were infants in its shadow, insects to be crushed or spared at its whim, yet they leaned closer, gazing in adoration, anxious for what was to come.
The image soared higher, finally reaching a height of half a mile before settling into a form that stood triumphantly and towered above the people, arms spread wide, eyes sparkling as they swept the crowd. Its hair moved as if in a rising, caressing breeze, a phantom wind that stirred its robes and added false drama to the vision.
“Prosperity, my family,” it welcomed them. At once, like a single organism, the gathered multitudes broke into wild applause and thunderous cheers, honoring the likeness of their Prime Lord.
“This day is not like any other, for I have come before you to show you what paradise truly is. Drosha has chosen me, and I in turn have chosen you. I will lead you into the wondrous new world I will create for you, and together we shall embrace a totality of life of which this planet has never dared to dream.”
More applause, deafening this time. The millions peered up into the smiling visage of Shass, loving him, wanting him.
Glorifying him. Barthos smiled.
Sparkles appeared beneath the outstretched arms of the god-image, coalescing into a dimensional, panoramic vision of breathtaking beauty. Crystalline mountains twinkled in the distance, and rivers of flowing gold spread to a pseudohorizon dotted with dense forests of glittering jeweled foliage. Millions of people were shown resting in meadows of silken grasses, their clothes a symphony of precious stones and shimmering fabrics. All were happy, all were content. None had to labor, none had to want. All got anything they desired.
“Follow me, my children,” the Shass-image implored with a fatherly gentleness rarely seen on Noron. “Follow me into this land of dreams, where all of you will know peace in your hearts and a joy you have never imagined. Turn away from the lies of confusion and deceit you have been hearing. This so-called Voice in the Dark would lead you into a bottomless chasm of despair and heartache. Come, my children, come with me.”
The masses adored him. Barthos applauded, laughing at the sheer idiocy of it all. The rivers of gold had been his idea. He looked down into the faces of the cheering crowds beneath him, delighting in the ease with which they allowed themselves to be led.
Then a movement caught his eye, something out on the arena floor. Something minute, something barely discernible, a good half mile away.
Someone was out there, walking calmly, patiently, toward the towering display at the center of the arena. Bartho’s mind raced—there was only one who could be so suicidally bold, so fatally disrespectful, so unafraid of death as to try such a stunt—
No!
He lunged for his binoculars, knocking his drink to the floor with the motion, shattering the glass. Ignoring the cold splattered liquid upon his legs, he put the optics to his eyes and hurriedly trained them upon the laughingly tiny, still-advancing figure. It was an ant challenging a colossus, daring to defy one who would surely crush it.
With a flip of a switch, the magnified image within his field of view became larger. Barthos made out a figure with robes of blue, hair of black, and flesh too pale to have been born of Noron. It carried something.
The chancellor was surprised, yet prepared. He had known the Voice would surface somewhere, somehow. He had hoped it would not be this day in this place.
Yet he was ready.
Anger flooded him, and he reached aside for a communications panel. “Now!” he ordered, as frantically as his Chief Watcher had ever heard him speak. “He’s out there! Release them now!”
T. G. walked closer to the incredible image hovering above him. He was not even half as high as the soles of its sandals. The crowd began to murmur as more and more of the spectators became aware of the man on the arena floor, pointing as they watched him draw near their new god. The vast image soundlessly took a step back, turning to look down at the mere insect approaching from its right.
“Ah, my children,” it boomed. “Look upon he who has spoken to you these last few months, he who has woven a pitfall of lies in an attempt to keep you from the paradise you deserve! But do not look upon him in fear, for this Voice is hollow. His threats are empty. Fear not, I have been sent unto you, and I shall protect you.”
With that the vast likeness swept a hand in a summoning gesture, and gates all around the arena swung open. The colossal image then morphed into a gargantuan purple joylight a half mile in diameter and withdrew into the air high above the arena. There it pulsed and watched and spoke.
“Now, my children, you shall see this false Voice in the Dark fall silent, and the path to eternal joy will be laid wide for all.”
A new round of applause and adoration swelled and soared outward from the crowd. Then, with millions of expectant eyes upon them, two dozen tormented and starved tyrannosaurs, separated from each other by almost a quarter mile, suddenly burst onto the grassy plain. They scanned their surroundings, bellowing into the air as they sought the scent of food. Almost as one, their golden eyes trained on the sole occupant of the arena, who cast them a sideward glance and continued walking toward the center of the coliseum.
The great beasts charged at a dead run while the bloodthirsty crowd cheered. They were less than one-quarter mile away from T. G. when he reached the center of the arena, where he stopped, stood, and raised his arms. He knew that every eye, every pair of binoculars was trained upon him. Perfect.
“People of Noron,” he spoke in a voice that boomed from above as if coming from everywhere. “Your salvation shall not come from him who has deceived you, the false god you have begun to worship. I am the Voice in the Dark. My coming was foretold thousands of years ago, yet the news of this has been kept from you until now.” He looked down at the artifact he carried. “Once again, the Truth is known throughout Noron, and you shall this day see firsthand the power of He Who has sent me to you—your Creator.”
Barthos burned with anger as he listened to the speech. Glancing upward at the glistening, hovering shape, he was sorely tempted to call it down, to bring his own forces against the Voice. But those had to be held back until the time for them had come. Perhaps the Voice was not as powerful as he feared.
The carnosaurs descended upon T. G. with fury, their tails fully extended as a balance as they leaned forward, jaws snapping as they ran. Their great weight came down hard with each lunging step, their eyes trained upon the lone figure who stood ahead, only seconds away. The prey remained motionless, watching the nightmarish monsters rapidly close the last few hundred feet that separated them from their first meal in weeks. The crowd roared at a fever pitch, cheering for the massive beasts, their only regret being that there were not more victims out there to be devoured.
Then the crowd fell quiet.
The hulking tyrannosaurs, their combined bulk shaking the ground beneath T. G., suddenly struggled to a stop and halted in their tracks a mere thirty feet from their target. Nostrils flared and snorted, and the loudly panting monsters considered him. The man only stood there, looking into the eyes of the great carnivores that surrounded him, watching as their animal minds heard commands they had never known before, words beyond mere language, words their ancestors had once heard and understood and obeyed each day—before those words fell silent.
Words spoken by the One Who had given them life.
T. G. lowered his arms and held a hand out toward the leviathan directly before him, the largest of the pack. The huge creature stepped forward and came to a stop an arm’s length from the tiny robed figure, then lowered its head and allowed T. G. to reach out and gently stroke its reddish snout. He felt its rough, warm hide against his fingertips, scratching the massive head as he would a dog’s. The beast closed its eyes, seemingly enjoying the attention. The prophet broke into a huge grin, knowing that not since Adam had any man been able to do what he was doing.
After nuzzling its newfound master, the huge beast stepped back and spun toward the others, roaring a guttural bellow to which they all responded in kind. Then, in unison, like some impossible, antediluvian drill team, the beasts turned their backs to T. G. and faced the audience, roaring a prolonged warning, surrounding their Creator’s chosen prophet with a toothy, physically impregnable ring of protection. The beasts were his.
“These majestic creatures know me,” T. G. spoke to the gathered millions. “They also know their true Creator, and their true place in this world. Look upon them … and remember.”
Barthos screamed in anger, throwing his binoculars against the wall. He slammed his fist against a jeweled plate, which then flashed red. Immediately, the roar of massive engines was heard and the most powerful armored battlewagons Noron had to offer moved onto the plain. First dozens, then hundreds of them advanced, their armored hulls gleaming pearlescent in the light of midday, their bristling weapons primed and ready as they hovered toward their target. T. G. looked upon the dinosaurs surrounding him, knowing they had served their purpose, and knowing also that mere flesh, however fierce, could not stand up to heavy artillery. With a kind sweep of his hand the tyrannosaurs vanished, shifted into the jungles and forests of Noron where they belonged.
Again the Voice stood his ground alone. The war machines grew closer.
Let’s not do this again, shall we? T. G. mused, shaking his head. He had seen enough of this tactic with the hoversteeds and had no desire to repeat the performance. Yet the people had to see, had to know Who was calling them back to life again.
He looked up into the colossal joylight hovering above, not knowing whether it remained up there out of fear or overconfidence. No matter. The day was his, and T. G. knew it.
He dropped his head back and closed his eyes, arms upstretched. He had been given control of the natural realm of Noron and was about to push that power to its limits in order to do that which was desired of him.
He felt something he had not felt in a very long time, and it caressed his cheeks like an old friend. His robes fluttered, his hair was tossed.
Wind.
The gale built in the arena, in gusts that grew colder by the minute as they swept through the vast ring of spectators. The people looked up, never having known wind or weather, and saw something dark begin to swirl high above. The gray mass grew, billowing into a greater threat each second as it churned and spread across the entirety of the sky. Its shadow blanketed the War Circle, and those below began to fear as it grew darker still. Small, scattered drops of cold water, carried in the cool wind, struck their faces.
“Stop him!” Barthos screamed into the arena. They could not lose it all now, all of that which they had gained—the Prime Lord must triumph! “Destroy the Voice!”
The war machines all opened fire sooner than they might have, still far from their target. From all directions, blue-hot bolts shot out at T. G., searing the air, only to halt short of their mark. Like water against glass, they splattered into suspended dishes of spectacular, brilliant color, denied the target they sought.
The black swirling storm above descended. Lightning lanced out, striking the ground with searing heat and painful, sharp claps of thunder. Rain began to fall in earnest, for the first time in the history of this world. T. G. looked up into the storm, not fearing this tempest as he had the one that had threatened David and him in Colorado. Torrents began to spiral out of the center of the storm, sending sheets of hard rain against the war machines that still advanced upon him, and as he watched they slowed, losing visibility. Hail fell, smacking the ground and the vehicles like hammers, a barrage of milky ice.
The hovertanks took aim once more. As one, hundreds of missiles streaked into the air in a barrage that should have leveled whole cities, aimed at the solitary man in the center of the arena. Leaving tracers of white in their wake, they soared in flattened arcs at almost the speed of sound, locked hard upon the unmoving figure that stood waiting for them.
Thundering shock waves slammed against the spectators as the warheads, like the energy weapons before them, struck a solid, invisible wall that would not allow them to pass. At first, the crowd cheered as huge balls of flame and dense smoke concealed the result of the attack. Quickly the smoke trailed off into the building winds of the storm, revealing that the untouched Voice was alive and well. The masses gasped, stunned by the impossible impotence of the mighty government forces in the arena before them.
The lightning increased in both frequency and intensity, striking war machine after war machine yet never nearing the gathered audience, which looked on, terrified by the roaring maelstrom before them. The sharp, unceasing thunder was jarring and relentless as it struck the crowd. Some turned and tried to flee, but most peered upward to see a trio of huge, evenly spaced bulges appear at the base of the storm, swellings that dropped silently downward as they spread wider. Then a deep howl built in the arena, an odd sound that engulfed all others and was felt as much as heard. Three vortices dropped from the wall clouds that gave them birth, moving with the total storm in a huge clockwise rotation centered within, and limited to, the arena. They roared like living things, malevolent mountains of mindless and total destruction, cutting violent, half-mile-wide swirls into the grass of the arena plain.
Tornadoes. Brutal black winds devastating everything they touched, traveling in a tight circular path around a common axis—the Voice.
As rain pelted his face, Barthos gestured wildly at the hanging joylight, screaming in an attempt to be heard above the din. His spoken words were swallowed up, yet his thoughts were heard.
They cannot be allowed to see us fail! We cannot falter in their eyes!
Yet to make a direct attack was to risk utter defeat in the view of all—
The joylight acted. Reassuming its previous form, it walked past the sweeping cyclones and out to the very edge of the arena, where it towered over the throng. Barthos spun and fled the presidential box, twisting his knee in the process, desperate to get out of the War Circle.
The simulight cameras failed, showering sparks on their operators as their intricate crystalline arrays burned and melted. The people held their arms up to their Prime Lord, looking into his smiling countenance, pleading with him to save them. The image held its hands out over the drenched multitudes and swept past them as it walked the full circle of the coliseum. Loud, panicked cries of confusion ensued in its wake, but with the torrential rain and the chaos of the surrounding storm, T. G. could not see or hear the distant spectators well enough to understand why.
Then the tornadoes intensified further still and swallowed the attacking vehicles, mangling them with screams of tortured metal, sending debris and the bodies of their operators flying. The image of Shass whirled in the midst of this and advanced on the Voice, its eyes flaring with the terrifying red light the prophet knew so well. Being immaterial, the colossus was not affected by the storm and effortlessly slipped through one of the rushing tornadoes as it roared past.
“Come on, pal,” T. G. challenged the ponderous figure. “Let’s do it.”
The Shass-image threw a massive, searing energy bolt at the Voice, who momentarily vanished within the flaring incandescence as it struck. As the glare faded, the colossus saw that its hated target had stood his ground as the soil was violently shredded and burned to a crisp all around him. Peering up from the midst of the steaming, smoldering turf, T. G. shook his head.
“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that,” he shouted, bringing his right arm up in a wide arc to point at the skyscraper image towering over him. “Like this.”
An immense, blinding orb instantly sang out and struck the image, engulfing it, searing the wind with a crackling roar that would have vaporized any mere man as near to it as was the Voice. It was the very essence of infinite power, a pre-elemental force that knew only one source but many conduits. Tens of thousands of separate screams burst from the Shass-image as it flew apart with the intensity of the impact, disintegrating into the smaller spectral beings that had comprised it. Some of them were consumed utterly by the blinding fireball, while others, seared and crippled, fled into the storm above.
“Welcome to the Awakening,” T. G. said, watching the retreating phantoms. His spent, tired body ached badly, every muscle, every hair.
But it was a good tired.
The Shass-image had vanished utterly, leaving the Voice alone upon the storm-soaked plain. T. G. motioned and the cyclones lifted, unraveling into scattered wisps of darkness, disappearing into their parent storm more quickly than they had appeared. With another sweep of his hand the clouds parted and cleared away altogether, dissipating as if they had never formed at all, leaving the rain-drenched War Circle, the white mottling of melting hail, and scattered piles of tangled wreckage as evidences of their existence. Bodies were strewn everywhere, silent and awful, saddening T. G. as he walked between them and across the littered plain. There were hundreds of them. They wore uniforms. They had families. They had names.
Now they were lost forever.
The winds vanished. The scents of fresh rain and wet grass hung heavy in the air. Only a light stirring of breeze moved within the arena. The quiet was overpowering. T. G. looked up into the pink sky, which shone once more with the gentle radiance of the sun above. Calm had returned.
Yet only he was aware of it.
The millions of gathered followers in the seating ring, groping in silent panic as they sightlessly trampled each other, had been struck forever blind, deaf, and dumb by their god. There would be no witnesses to the events of that day.
“He is not like the other Guardians, Cordan!”
Paull Shass threw a book at Barthos, striking him squarely in the chest with a sharp corner of the hardened leather binding. His anger burned deep and unquenchable. The booming words echoed within the cold, polished walls of his palatial office, magnifying the wrath being directed at his second-in-command.
“You said we could handle him!” Shass went on, spinning in his chair to peer upward through the expansive window of his office and into the night sky. “You said history showed that his powers would be limited! If that is what limited is, we may as well leave the planet right now!”
Barthos angrily threw the book to the ground, leaped from his chair near the massive hand-carved desk where his leader sat, and limped toward Shass. “You do that again and—”
“And what? What will you do?” the Prime Lord demanded, his eyes wild with rage.
Barthos backed down, turning away, trying hard to contain the seething fury within him. Too soon …
“Nowhere do the ancient scriptures say that the Voice was to be so powerful,” Barthos slowly said, as calmly as his restrained anger would allow. “All of the power is attributed to the Truth itself, to its spiritual awakening of those fools out there. There are no specifics concerning the level of power granted to the Voice in the Dark … just prophecies that have been interpreted dozens of ways.”
“Well, now we know!” Shass grumbled. “How could we have been caught so unaware?” His voice became heavy with sarcasm. “I thought you knew all there was to know about this ‘Awakening.’ ”
“I do,” Barthos said through gritted teeth. “And I know that the Truth is not as truthful as that sanctimonious, egomaniacal Ish would have everyone believe … most of its prophecies are nothing but wishful thinking on His part.”
“Well, true or not, right now, out there, that Truth of His is being circulated. It is giving the people a solid hope, not just the trappings of wealth or the creature comforts that we offer. People are starting to listen, Cordan, and every day I can feel thousands of them slipping away, slipping through my fingers, diminishing me! I will not have it! What the Voice did to my men … hundreds of my best men! And not just today, but before … when we had him … when he was surrounded out in the wilderness … wiped from the planet as if they had never existed!”
Barthos looked away. “We weren’t ready then.”
“And we are now? The power of one man … as if the entire clearing had simply vanished! And that was nothing next to what we saw today!”
“Today’s display was unprecedented. Not even the most powerful sorcerers of history were capable of such things. No past Guardian was ever given power like that. Never! They preached and ran and hid from us, and then sometimes, sometimes they were granted special power for personal defense. But this Voice in the Dark is something new altogether. I’ve never seen direct empowerment of this magnitude. What happened out in the wilderness was unparalleled, and I had hoped it had shown the very limits of his power. We could have handled that, had it occurred again today We were ready. But his authority has passed beyond that of a mere Guardian or prophet now, almost as if he’s the direct embodiment of Him.”
“They do not work that way,” the Prime Lord corrected. “You know that.”
“I said ‘almost.’ This Voice is something new—a manifestation we haven’t seen before.”
“I was humiliated out there,” Shass shouted in an accusing tone. “That ‘Voice’ handed us our heads before we knew what hit us! And if not for that deaf-and-blind solution your ‘friends’ brought to bear, the whole world would have seen it!”
“We controlled the situation.”
“Did we? Even though we stopped all of Noron from seeing the outcome of today’s little adventure and blamed the Voice for what happened to the spectators out there, I have lost credibility! They want to know why I let a false prophet permanently obliterate the senses of millions of my children! The people are doubting me!”
“They mean nothing! They’re cattle!”
“If the cattle keep dying at this rate, I will be the ruler of an empty ranch, Cordan! Or worse, they will turn to the Voice and I will rule nothing! They may be worthless, but without them I go down … and so do you!”
“We could not have known that he—”
Shass screamed, cutting him off. “I am the Prime Lord of Noron! I will not be embarrassed by the likes of that prophet or by anyone else! This planet will bow down before me, and I will hold the lives of the people in my hands, and they will be mine to do with as I please … and no power known to man will be greater than mine!”
“You are the Prime Lord,” Barthos placated him. “Yours is the ultimate authority in all the world.”
“It did not look like it out there today! Just what would you suggest as our next plan of action? What will guarantee that nothing even remotely like this ever happens again? How do we kill the Voice?!”
“We can’t.”
Shass glared at him, disbelieving, surprised by the admission. “What?”
“I’d say he’d be given any authority, any reinforcements, any amount of power it would take to keep him safe from direct attack.”
Shass rose from his desk and walked closer to the vista-window behind him. Angrily, he surveyed the glittering city lights thousands of feet below. “So we concede? We pack up and flee in the night and hide out there in the jungle?”
Barthos stared at the man’s reflection in the window glass. “No. He will be ours nonetheless.”
Shass, puzzled, turned and walked back toward Barthos, waiting for him to continue. “Well? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“We can’t kill him, but we can make him come to us, and we can force him to die willingly.”
“How? If you know something, some way to get rid of him, why have we not done so before? Why did we let him live this long? For that matter, why did we not simply kill him when he served us, while he was here within easy reach?”
“His death would have served no purpose then. He was not yet recognized by the world as the Voice, and eliminating him then would only have forced the selection of another. The Gift would have gone to someone else.”
“We had him, Cordan …”
“It is not enough simply to silence the Voice!” Barthos shouted, losing patience with Shass’ scolding, questioning barrage. “We must destroy the Truth along with him! The only way to do that was to utterly discredit him before the entire world after he had declared himself to be the chosen one. And that is still the way! By corrupting him while he was serving under me, we could have exposed him whenever he came forward … even if he had endorsed you, as we hoped. But something wised him up before it all came together … before the hypocrisy we had built in him could fall into place.”
“I want his head, Cordan!”
“You’ll have it. And once he and the Truth are both dead, once there is nothing left in our way, the ancient prophecies will unravel and disintegrate like the lies they are—just so much moldy parchment. The people who have listened to him will come back to Drosha and to you.”
“I certainly hope you know what you are doing this time,” Shass said mockingly. “You let the Elesh woman slip away when I wanted her dead. And now, when we are dealing with a man who holds the power of the universe in his hands, you dare to insist he will come to us? And that he will just lay down and die? What do we do, Cordan, ask nicely?”
All of Barthos’ remaining patience barely kept a fingertip grip on the boiling anger he felt toward the Prime Lord. “Your wife freed Elesh,” he reminded Shass with some satisfaction, speaking slowly and deliberately. “We figured that out, remember? And as for the Voice … he holds great power, but there are weaknesses in him, and I know them. I hold the key to his death. He will come to me.”