At sunrise the city began to stir. Thin streamers of smoke rose languidly into the cool still air as the cooking fires were kindled, and the tinny rattle of sheep bells could be heard as the flocks were driven from their pens and taken in search of the sparse pasture which sprouted like brown stubble along the course of what had been a river-bed. The spring which bubbled up from the lava-rock served the needs of the people and watered the crops but there wasn’t enough to irrigate pastureland; the flocks had to nibble on whatever scrub and dry thorn they could find.
To all outward appearances it was a day like any other. The market-place was soon busy with traders setting up their stalls and greeting the sleepy-eyed early shoppers; groups of women were taking their wrapped bundles to the communal washhouse with its central groove cut in the stone where the water ran; in the main square, as the sun gained ascendency and the shadows crept closer to the houses, the old men came out to spit in the dust and squat on their haunches against the pink and yellow walls, having nothing better to do than watch the day get under way. Pariah dogs sniffed the morning air and skulked along alleyways, gathering in whining snapping packs on street corners until the children emerged to throw stones and chase them away.
It seemed on the face of it a normal day: but it was a city preparing for war.
At each boundary, several leagues into the desert on every side, men had been posted to watch for the invasion of the Dagonites. The High Priest had told the people of their demands and they had answered as with one mighty voice – that the Ark of the Lord should not be taken from the holy temple of Shiloh. It was their benefactor and protector and had fed them during all those years in the wilderness; and it was the symbol of God. But even so Eli was afraid. He knew the fearsome strength of the Dagonites and had seen in years past a vast multitude of them on the plain. They were spawned of the devil because not one differed from another: their ranks comprised row upon row of faces shaped by the same hand and their stooping bodies formed in the same mould. He had seen them and known them to be unnatural, not the handiwork of the one true God, and when Uzza had described to him the emissary of the Dagonites he had recalled in vivid detail those ranks of faces which were as alike as if reflected in a pool.
He was afraid too because his sons had departed the Tribe and gone with the emissary to the city of Ashdod. He had disowned them and would no longer acknowledge them as his sons, but they knew the city and its defences, the number of men it could call to arms, its strong and its weak points, and those places where a determined force could break through and attack the temple. Eli had done all he could and he knew that the people would defend the city to the last man, yet he felt a great foreboding that nothing on earth could stand against the might of the Dagonites. They were warriors who seemed impervious to pain, who could march for days in the blazing sun without food or drink, and who had no fear for their own lives. No natural force could overcome them because they were without emotion, without fear, inhuman.
With his sons gone and Uzza dead Eli was alone in the temple. He couldn’t manage on his own, being old and infirm and almost totally blind, and so a young boy (a waif whose mother had borne him out of wedlock and been driven into the desert) was sent to administer to his needs and to guide him in the rituals he had to perform in the service of the temple. The boy was called Samuel, a good-hearted child who went cheerfully and willingly about his duties (he was fed three times a day) and whom Eli permitted to sleep in the temple. It was about this time, not long after Hophni and Phinehas had gone, that a strange power became manifest and made itself known to the boy. It happened in this way:
In the early hours of the morning, when Eli and Samuel were still asleep, the boy was woken by a voice calling to him. Assuming it to be the High Priest he went directly to his chamber, but Eli, on waking, said that he hadn’t called him and that he should return to his bed. Samuel did as he was bidden and again he heard a voice calling to him and went to the High Priest, who said that he hadn’t called him and that he should go back to bed. For the third time Samuel heard the voice calling him and ran to Eli, asking what was required of him. Then Eli perceived that the child had been visited by the Word of God and said they must go at once to the silent inner chamber. Samuel took the old man there, leading him by the hand, and they entered the silent inner chamber where the boy had never been before. Eli said, ‘You have been called by the Lord, Samuel, and you must say, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth”.’
The boy spoke as he had been instructed, gazing up fearfully at the sphere of light which illuminated the walls of rock rising to the roughly-hewn dome high above. Hne had never before seen any natural or man-made thing with which to compare this strange object whose separate parts were so shiny and unblemished that they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. Neither could he understand how the globe of light could burn so steadily and unremittingly.
‘Do you see anything, Samuel?’ asked the High Priest, raising his head in that blind searching attitude of someone whose ears have taken over the function of their eyes.
‘There is nothing to see – except the light.’
‘Say again what I told you,’ Eli said, and Samuel repeated it.
‘Is there still nothing?’
‘What am I supposed to see? What am I looking for?’
Eli didn’t answer; he knew that Samuel had heard the Voice of the Lord; this was surely in answer to his prayer that the Tribe be delivered from the hands of the Dagonites. The Lord had heard and the Lord had answered: He would not forsake them.
Samuel said, very quietly, as if in a dream, ‘I do see something. I see it now.’
‘What is it? What do you see?’
Samuel answered dreamily, ‘A giant covered in light: like a burning flame: light comes out of him, from within his body. He glows like the sphere.’
‘Kneel,’ Eli whispered. ‘We must pay homage before Him.’
As he said this he could vaguely see through the grey fog which circumscribed his world a faint radiance, penetrating the enclosed darkness, and he thought, Why did the Lord call to Samuel and not to me? Am I dishonoured in the sight of God?
Samuel was saying in the same faraway voice, ‘He’s made of water. His body is like a clear pool through which the light shines. Is it a spirit? Is He the Lord?’
The figure of light stepped forward, exceedingly tall. The High Priest and the boy shrank away and became like statues in their genuflection.
‘Hear me, Son of man. You call me Lord but I am not the Lord. My name in your language is Qābal and I come to deliver you from the Dagonites.’
*
The news of his coming spread quickly throughout the city and there was great excitement and rejoicing. The boy Samuel was revered as a prophet because it was he who had been chosen as the first of the Tribe to receive the word of the messenger of the Lord. Eli held a service of praise and thanksgiving and preached that now they need have no fear, for the Angel of the Lord was with them and would protect them; though secretly, in his heart, he was dismayed. He sensed that something was wrong and the seed of doubt grew until it plagued him at all hours of the day and night, and he wasn’t able to rest or sleep. He couldn’t understand why it was that Samuel had been called: it seemed to be an omen, a presentiment of ill fortune that he, as High Priest, should have been spurned in this way. He felt that the end of his life was very near, the threat of death like a black shadow looming larger day by day.
The people, when they saw him, were astonished at the sight of the Angel of the Lord. ‘His flesh is like alabaster,’ they said, ‘and he glows from within; the workings of his body are visible, the function of each part and organ clearly to be seen.’
Both the old man and the boy spent many hours in the silent inner chamber conversing with the Lord’s messenger who, to Eli’s surprise and mystification, asked question after question about the Ark. He wanted to know where it had come from and the High Priest told him the story which had been handed down through the generations from the time of Kish, First of the Prophets.
‘Then it was inside the rock when Kish first discovered it?’ Qābal said. It was evidently very important for him to know the exact details. ‘And no one knows how it got there.’
‘It was placed there by the hand of God,’ Eli answered gravely.
‘Yes of course. The hand of God.’ Qābal smiled at Samuel. ‘Kish was about your age when he found the Ark, wasn’t he? Perhaps in years to come you will be regarded as a prophet too, Samuel.’
The boy gazed up at the figure which to him seemed gigantic and awe-inspiring. He had never seen anyone so tall before, nor with flesh that seemed to glow – but then he had never seen an angel. He was frightened and dumbfounded by the vision. He didn’t want to be a prophet, he wanted to remain a normal boy who threw stones at the pariah dogs and chased them down alleyways. It was wrong that people expected so much of him when inside he felt just like all the others; he didn’t want to be different, he wanted to be like everyone else.
‘The Ark provided food for your people,’ Qābal said to Eli.
‘When our Tribe was in the wilderness. For forty years it sustained us. Without the Ark we should have perished.’
‘And all this happened before you were born.’
‘Eight, perhaps nine generations before my lifetime. But the account is written in full in the Scriptures: we have a record which shall be preserved for future generations to see.’
‘And beyond,’ said Qābal.
‘It is so? You know this, Lord?’
‘I can see through all the ages and it is so. Samuel will carry your history forward and write his own account of this place and time.’
‘I can’t write,’ Samuel said, hoping that this might excuse him the arduous task already planned for his adult life.
Qābal laughed and the old man smiled.
‘There will be plenty of time to teach you,’ Qābal said. ‘Destiny has cast you in a role and you must fulfil it; there is no escape.’
The High Priest said, ‘Has destiny also decided whether we shall go to war with the Dagonites? And if so, what the outcome will be?’
‘There will be a battle at a place on the desert plateau called Aphek. So it is written. The Dagonites will triumph and many of the Tribe will perish. After this the people will be in despair and will call for the Ark to be brought forth from Shiloh and set against the Dagonites.’
Eli’s face had lost its colour. ‘The Ark must remain here in the temple, safe from our enemies.’
‘It will be taken from the temple and set against the Dagonites,’ Qābal said quietly and deliberately. ‘This is the way it must be. There will be another battle and again the Dagonites will be victorious and the Ark will be captured and taken to the city of Ashdod.’
Eli swayed back on his seat. His breathing was shallow and quick. His mouth opened and trembled, forming a soundless protest.
Qābal said, ‘You needn’t fear for the safety of the Ark. The Dagonites will capture it and place it before the god Dagon in their temple. This is the way it shall be and must be: nothing you can do will change that which is already written.’
Samuel spoke up. ‘But I heard you say, Lord, that you have come to deliver us from the hands of our enemies.’ His thin young face was hot and flushed. ‘If the Ark is taken from us how will we survive?’
‘You must have faith.’ Qābal put out his hand to touch the boy’s head and he flinched and moved away. A hand that seemed to be without substance – even the hand of an angel – was a terrifying phenomenon. Eli said:
‘We do have faith, Lord, but we are mortal creatures, born in ignorance and at the mercy of Almighty providence. The Ark has been our protection and our salvation for hundreds of years, the symbol of our religion, and it is hard for us to contemplate the possibility that it might fall into the hands of unbelievers. Their god is Dagon, who we know to be an evil and malicious god, intent on the destruction of the Tribe. You must forgive our weakness in doubting the word of the Lord’s messenger.’
‘As your sons doubt the word of God Himself,’ Qābal said.
Eli bowed his head. The opaque discs of his eyes stared blindly at the temple floor. ‘It seems that I’ve lived my life to no purpose. I have sought always to follow the paths of righteousness and now, at the end, it comes to this, to nothing. If it is true that I’ve failed I don’t know how or why or what I could have done; my sons were brought up to fear God and to become His holy ministers. I don’t know where the evil in their hearts has sprung from.’
‘There is always evil in the hearts of men,’ Qābal said. ‘There always will be for all time.’
‘You say that the Ark will be taken from us and yet we musn’t fear for its safety,’ Samuel said. His eyes were bright, alive with an expression that was almost a challenge. ‘But what if the Dagonites turn the Ark against us?’
‘They won’t do that. The god Dagon wants the Ark as a symbol of victory, not a weapon of war. If you truly believe that in the end good will triumph over evil and that the Dagonites will be overcome, then so it shall come to pass. Above all else you must believe.’
‘Do the eyes of all the angels burn as fiercely as yours?’ Samuel asked. He seemed to be in a trance.
Qābal looked at the boy and smiled. His flesh had lost some of its translucent quality, becoming dense and more palpable, though the tracery of arteries and veins and the cords of musculature were still faintly visible. He said, ‘There are many kinds of angels, some with great golden wings who can fly through the heavens. I cannot fly in space but I can traverse the generations which link the past to the future. My eyes burn with the secrets of time and all the things I have seen.’
‘I believe we shall overcome the Dagonites,’ Samuel said.
Eli said nothing. He was alone in his darkness.
On the following day Qābal set out for the city of Ashdod. He took with him a guide and three camels carrying provisions for the nine-day journey to the south-west. The terrain was bleak and inhospitable, a lava-field baking in the heat of the sun, stretching interminably on all sides, sharp underfoot so that the camels had to pick their way through lava piles and outcrops of jagged grey rock. For two days they made slow progress across the plateau and on the third met the descending slopes and cliffs of sand which formed the beginning of the desert basin. Here the heat was more intense but the going was easier, the camels maintaining a steady loping trot which dulled the senses with its constant swaying motion. The leather harness and copper saddle bells, creaking and jingling, were the only sounds in this hushed world of sand and still heat.
Most of the journey would have to be endured under these conditions, with just the solitary respite of a grove of ragged palms marking a dried-out wadi. Here the sand had been baked hard and was split into irregular diamond-shaped cracks where lizards and desert scorpions hid from the sun’s rays, their bodies motionless, held in an attitude of listening, their eyes fixed and unblinking. The camels plodded on heedless, leaving no sign of their passage except for a scuttling lizard.
They passed through the deepest and hottest part of the desert basin, like the centre of a gigantic frying pan, and then on the morning of the eighth day sighted the smooth low line of dun-coloured hills beyond which lay the land of the Dagonites. A day’s travel remained: ascending the gentle slopes to the cooler regions and seeing, on the horizon, a hazy jumble of flat rooftops dominated by a severe perpendicular structure with a triangular roof which was the temple of Dagon.
It was at this time they saw the first of the Dagonites.
Indistinct shapes skulking in the shadows of the rocks. The glint of sunlight on a hard polished tubular surface. The rattle of a stone dislodged followed by the suspicious deadening hush of silence.
Neither Qābal or the guide paid any attention to these signs, having been forewarned to proceed directly towards Ashdod without any show of hesitation or alarm. The Dagonites would watch from hidden places, observing their progress, but would not interfere. Eli had called them ‘a sullen, emotionless people whose behaviour is like that of a graven image; they will not attack unless instructed to do so’. And this proved to be correct. As Qābal and the guide neared the city and came eventually to its boundary the Dagonites appeared and stood openly in view. They were never alone, always in groups of four or five, as indistinguishable as peas out of the same pod. The posture of each one was a parody of all the rest: the left shoulder raised higher than the right and thrust forward so that the entire trunk was twisted into an ungainly semi-stooping crouch. Their hoarse laboured breathing through the tubes which connected mouth to chest was like the dry rustling of dead palm leaves.
The city was walled, and inside its gates a shuffling crowd of Dagonites observed with no visible reaction the arrival of Qābal: a tall spare figure wrapped in a cloak and shrouded in a black head-cloth so that he was hidden from their gaze – even the pale oval of his face lost in shadow.
The guide brought the camels to a halt and at a sharp one-syllable command they sank to their knees, enabling the travellers to dismount. It was at once evident that compared with everyone around Qābal was of immense stature, head and shoulders taller than the same size Dagonites who stood silently watching. Their faces showed nothing except a kind of blank loutish insolence; not even curiosity. Their manner was threatening but only in its dull-eyed shambling indifference, like that of a herd which could unthinkingly trample someone into the ground by sheer weight of numbers.
The guide spoke to one of them and he cocked his head to listen: but after listening merely stood and gazed stupidly ahead. The guide, who was small, lean-faced, with a long pointed chin like a spatula covered in springs of grey hair, turned to Qābal and said, ‘He understands me, Lord, but he doesn’t bother to reply. They are a dull-witted race,’ he added, though taking the precaution of lowering his voice.
As though obeying a silent command four of the Dagonites detached themselves from the crowd, formed an escort round Qābal and marched forward, the rest falling back in sequence, row after row, as if drilled in the manoeuvre. He was led through their ranks and up a long shallow flight of stone steps into the temple itself which was nothing more elaborate than a perfectly erect block of masonry with narrow vaulted archways rising to an apex high up near the roof. Inside it was cool and – he was intrigued by this – although there were no windows there was sufficient illumination from somewhere to light up every corner and recess. The building was disconcerting, unsettling to the senses, for while they seemed to walk some distance – through several doorways, down a number of corridors – he had estimated the ground plan to be not much more than twenty metres square. No doubt it was an architectural sleight-of-hand, the devious use of perspective, but all the same it defied common sense.
In front of him a door of cedarwood inlaid with brass slowly opened and the four guards stood aside: a further group of Dagonites awaited him inside, and beyond them he could see a throne of black polished marble raised up on slabs of black granite. The man seated there was dressed in robes which caught and reflected the light in soft silken gleams so as to give the illusion of shimmering movement when in fact he was quite still; below and to his right there was a woman, similarly attired.
Qābal came forward, unwinding the black head-cloth and letting it fall to his shoulders. His face appeared almost skull-like in its pale transparency and spareness, the bone a millimetre beneath the flesh. He stood before the throne, quite at ease.
‘It’s taken you long enough to get here,’ Dagon said pettishly. ‘We’ve waited ages.’
‘The delay was unavoidable. My apologies.’
‘You’ve had to travel a considerable distance, we understand that. I didn’t mind waiting – what’s a few more weeks after so long? – but my daughter grew impatient. You know how young girls don’t like to be kept waiting for anything. Would you care for some refreshment?’
‘Don’t go out of your way.’
‘No trouble. The local wine is palatable if a trifle immature.’
Without a gesture or word of command a flagon of wine was brought and poured into three glasses of lead crystal. Qābal didn’t make any comment on this incongruity, though Dagon’s expression was amused, acknowledging the unspoken question. After sipping his wine he said:
‘Your presence here is something of a paradox.’
‘Doesn’t that also apply to you? And your daughter?’
‘Not at all,’ Dagon said. He had a broad flat face with small dark eyes like raisins half-concealed in a lump of dough. His mouth was small, thin-lipped; it reminded Qābal of a purse on which the drawstring had been pulled tight. ‘We are here quite legitimately, the scriptures will one day confirm it.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Surely the question we should ask, Qābal, is what are you doing here? Why have you come? You can’t interfere with what is already written.’
‘I thought that was your purpose, not mine. It’s true that the scriptures will speak of the god Dagon dwelling in the temple at Ashdod but they make no reference to what you hope to achieve here – or that you achieved it. Does that mean, I wonder, that the scriptures are false or that you will fail in your schemes?’
‘I cannot fail,’ Dagon said. He lifted his arms so that his silken sleeves rippled like rivers of light. He indicated the Dagonites standing passively all around. ‘My people are invincible. They have been constructed to overcome the people of the city of Shiloh and they will succeed. So it is written!’
‘They are mutants,’ Qābal said softly. ‘They are the products of an experiment that failed. You intended to produce a race of superior human beings and instead you made a species of sub-human creatures without minds or souls. The experiment has failed already, even before it was begun.’
‘You are mistaken in many things, Qābal.’ He glanced round the chamber, his eyes small and furtive. ‘It is my intention to produce’ – he held up his index finger – ‘a single specimen, just one, with superior qualities. He will become the divine leader of men, revered throughout all the world as its spiritual father, placed on earth by the gods. So it will be written.’
‘Then why is it necessary to capture the Ark? The people of Shiloh mean you no harm and yet you threaten to make war.’
‘The Ark is their strength, the symbol of their god. Take it away and they will lose heart, lose faith, become as any other tribe. They have the power to defeat my purpose, Qābal, but they will not do it: the Dagonites will triumph and the Ark brought to the temple – as a symbol of my power. Do you understand? Thereafter the rule of Dagon will be absolute over all the earth and for all time.’
‘Do you know who gave the Ark to the tribe and for what reason?’
Dagon’s eyes seemed to sink deeper into his head, retreating from the light, evading Qābal’s scrutiny. His daughter was more forthright: her eyes were dark too, like her father’s, but brilliantly large and challenging. She had long black hair, luxuriously thick, framing a face that was cool and self-possessed to the point of arrogance.
She said, ‘If we thought the information was necessary to us we should have obtained it long ago. We know that the Ark provided sustenance for the tribe in the wilderness, the sons of Eli have told us that much. How the tribe came by the Ark is of no importance.’
Qābal watched her. He said with a smile, ‘It’s convenient to say that, even to pretend that it’s true.’ He sipped his wine. ‘But the truth is that you fear the Ark because you don’t understand it. You may have been expecting my arrival, Dagon, but there are many things you don’t know and it makes you afraid.’
Dagon said lightly, ‘I know that once I possess the Ark no power on earth can stand in my way, not even you, Qābal, which is why you have come to Ashdod. You think that by hinting at some dreadful secret you can frighten me into calling off the attack; it’s a childish stratagem, I’m surprised you thought it would work.’
‘The purpose of my visit isn’t to threaten you, it’s more in the nature of a warning. The Ark is dangerous and a law unto itself. It can provide food but it can also destroy. I realize that you’re not in the least concerned about losing Dagonites – after all, they are renewable – but you might consider the risk to yourself and your daugher …’
Dagon was amused by this. His small hard mouth parted. His tongue flicked out and he held it lightly between his upper teeth and bottom lip. ‘Meria and I appreciate your concern for our safety, Qābal, but speaking for myself I really had expected a more convincing reason for your visit. We were led to believe,’ he tittered, ‘that the Angel of the Lord would have something more impressive to offer. A miracle perhaps.’ He was smiling openly now as if at some private joke.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you. If I thought that a few magical tricks would have impressed the god Dagon I’d have brought some along.’ He bent his head for a moment. The robes of silk were shimmering in front of his eyes, dazzling him. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to turn the wine into water.’
‘We can all do that.’ Dagon said, and laughed again, his mouth a small dark hole.
‘Now that your experiment has failed how do you intend to produce your superior race of men? Is your magic powerful enough?’
‘Not mine – but my daughter’s.’ Dagon’s eyes were fixed on Qābal with a peculiar intensity. ‘Why do you suppose you are here?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘I said that we were expecting you and now you have come – you have come at my bidding. Meria was growing impatient, having prepared herself, but I told her that you would come … eventually.’
Qābal lifted his head and tried to focus. The chamber had become darker, or it might have been his imagination or the effect of the wine.
Dagon went softly, insistently on, ‘She has waited so long and so patiently for the act of consummation and now that you are here the experiment can begin.’
Qābal shook his head. The robes of Dagon and his daughter were like rivers of molten fire. His senses seemed to slide in a long spiral, dragging his eyes downwards as if they were too heavy to resist the pull of gravity. The crystal glass, still half full, slipped from his fingers and broke on the stone floor, ringing out like a thousand fractured bells.
‘You can’t hope to …’ he tried to say, but the words evaded his tongue and escaped into the air.
‘The supreme act of genesis: the daughter of Dagon and the Angel of the Lord. The divine seed of your loins shall enter into her and bring forth a race of gods to rule over all the earth. The line of Dagon will continue, Qābal, for ever and ever.’
‘Amen,’ Meria said, stepping down in robes of shimmering fire.
*
‘He was surrounded by a veil of mist. Everything was quiet. He thought that he perceived a giant’s head with black-pupilled eyes staring straight at him and then saw they were the distended aureoles of a woman’s breasts and she was bearing down on him with a gentle insistent pressure.
He was alive between the legs, fully in a state of arousal.
She said, ‘You are very big and strong. Come quick inside me,’ and took his hands and placed them on her breasts. The erect nipples protruded through his fingers.
She said, ‘Fondle them. Make them grow. Do anything to them, anything you want. When they are swollen and heavy and my nipples are tingling I want to feel your bigness and strength inside me, stretching me, holding me apart, being bathed in my juice. Then you can empty yourself into my cunt.’
She kneeled up, astride him, and through the mist her hand, like a shadow, came to rest between her legs. She rubbed the place and uttered small sounds like an animal bleating softly, caught in a trap.
‘Taste me,’ she said, offering her hand to him, and pressed her wet hand to his lips, inserting her fingers one by one into his mouth so that he tasted the flavour of her on his tongue.
She said, ‘Now I will taste you,’ moving down and bending forward, holding him firmly with one hand and bringing her face close enough to feel his heat. She extended her tongue and licked him, following the rigid contours and moist smoothness, the tip of her tongue lingering on the folded cleft which opened slightly at her silky explorations.
He murmured something and she smiled in the darkness below, nuzzling him: his heat and smell intoxicated her. She opened her jaws and enclosed him with her mouth, sliding on to him as deeply as she could, the sensation as of a burning shaft filling her mouth so that the skin of her cheeks was taut and shiny, her head burrowing down sightlessly; she was eager and greedy, savouring him, herself aroused by the bigness she had created.
Withdrawing her wet open mouth she said, ‘Feel what you’ve done to me,’ and rubbed herself on his thigh, sliding along it until they were both saturated and his leg, from hip to knee, was slippery with her.
She said, ‘Sucking you made me come. I love the feel of it in my mouth. When it’s in my mouth I want to keep it there always, big and hard, filling my mouth, and feel you—’
She said, ‘But not yet. We must save your sperm, your precious and divine seed. It has important work to do, my Lord.’
Once again she took firm hold and leaned over him, arching her back so that he fitted snugly between her breasts; then placing her hands on either side of her breasts, where the fullness overlapped, she pressed them together until he was enclosed, just the dark bruised head visible amidst the enveloping softness. She began to move to and fro, working him gently, watching first the head rising and expanding beneath her chin and then looking at his face and listening to the noises he was making in his delirium.
He felt huge between her breasts, a rigid monster which scalded her flesh and seemed to grow with each downward stroke. Fluid seeped from him and annointed the insides of her breasts, making the sound of sucking flesh, and she had no choice but to work him faster, sliding up and down in a regular frictionless glide which so excited her that she became wetter and it ran down her open legs and sprinkled his thighs.
She said, her breathing broken and quick. ‘Beautiful. Beautiful. It’s so big I can’t imagine what it will be like inside me. It will split me. I’m sure it will split me, such a huge monster of a thing. And when I think of it inside me, all this inside me, I want to die. I want to die with it right up inside me.’
She released him and her breasts swung apart, the inner curves shining wetly in the misty light, her blunt nipples so stiffly aroused that they ached.
She said, ‘I can’t wait, I want it now,’ and kneeling up, straddling his legs, took hold on him and used just the end to explore the hairy slipperiness between her legs, teasing herself but not allowing anything more: greedy and desperate and yet wanting to sustain the agony of waiting until the anticipation had been wrung dry and there was nothing to be done but the act itself. The act of divine consummation.
‘We are nearly there, my Lord … nearly there … oh nearly there …’
She was now jerking him fiercely and could feel the energy gathering beneath her fingers. Her legs were spread apart, her cunt open and ready, working him with her hand so that she was touched and titillated by the solid hotness rubbing against her.
‘Come into me, my Lord, right up into me. I want to feel you here’ – sinking slowly upon him until she was impaled and he was held fast, the two of them joined one unto the other.
She said, ‘Fill me with your seed, let me bear your child. Let it spurt up from within you and into my belly. Fill me with your sperm, I want every drop … oh yes, I can feel it, I can feel you coming inside me …’
She began to writhe, her movements became frenzied and uncontrolled, she took everything until he was empty and she was full, and after a while they were still. The mist swirled about him and the giant’s eyes were sad and weary. He had had a pleasant dream and all he wanted to do now was sleep. Dreams can be very exhausting.
Meria, daughter of Dagon, stood at the side of the bed and pressed the palms of her hands flat to her belly and closed her eyes in satisfied fecund contemplation; the corners of her mouth curved up in a little saintly smile.
Thus it is that the children of the gods are born of mortal beings.
*
As was prophesied and would one day be written, the battle took place and the Dagonites were triumphant.
The two armies met on the edge of the desert plateau, at a place called Aphek, which was bordered on three sides by a low undulating range of stony foothills where in days gone by brigands had waited for merchants to pass by and in-between times had subsisted on the lone traveller. But the merchants had grown wise and chosen another route and the brigands had moved on. The place had been decided upon by the elders of Shiloh because it was some distance away and they hoped that this would save the city from direct attack.
It was a mistake. Whilst it was true that the city would not be immediately endangered, the choice of battleground was too far away to maintain an adequate supply-line or to call up reinforcements. Everything they required had to be taken with them on a trek of two days which sapped the strength of both men and animals; and at Aphek, they discovered too late, the oasis was dry as a bone. The consensus of opinion amongst the five patriarchs who were the military leaders was to strike camp and return quickly to the oasis at Eben-ezer, but already it was too late. On agreeing to this they made the error of deciding to rest overnight and set off on the following day; at dawn of that day the Dagonites attacked.
They had infiltrated the foothills overnight and as the first ray of sunlight touched the banner of the Tribe (a black seven-pointed star on a white ground) they came stealthily and swiftly from out of the rocks, moving with that ungainly twist of the hips which was made necessary by their malformed bodies. They scuttled rather than ran, but the grotesque awkwardness of their movements made no difference: they had slain the guards and set upon the sleeping men before any alarm could be given, and they were merciless, cold, inhuman in their slaughter. There was no blood-lust in their eyes, they didn’t yell or screech or make any sound, but set about the task of killing with calm unhurried deliberation. And they killed each man in exactly the same way: three thrusts of the sword through the neck, the heart, and the genitals. They were methodical in massacre and so efficient that only a bare handful of the Tribe managed to escape, leaping on to the tethered camels, hacking at the ropes with wild hopeless strokes and clinging on as the beasts lurched into panic-stricken flight.
There was one group of men – twenty or so – led by the patriarch Abiel who stood their ground and fought. They were the only ones to see how the Dagonites could be beaten, though the knowledge was useless because it went with them to the grave. It happened that one of the group, more by mischance than a calculated attack, struck the tube which connected the mouth and chest of a Dagonite and as it fell away, severed in two, the colour of his face changed in that instant from white to black. It happened so suddenly, this choking fit of death, that the young soldier stood transfixed in astonishment and was cut from behind through the neck, the heart, and the rectum.
Another of the Tribe managed to do the same, slicing the tube with a frantic sweep of his sword and the Dagonite’s hoarse breathing ceased at once and he fell to the ground with the black gaping hole of his mouth screaming soundlessly at the sky. The few Dagonites who were killed died without shedding a drop of blood – for no blood came from their chests when the tubes were plucked loose, just the sudden cessation of hollow gasping breath. Yet all those who witnessed this instantaneous black death never survived to relate the manner or the means of killing. They were hacked down as they stood, in perplexed wonder, stabbed in three vital places which left not the slightest margin of error.
Abiel himself, tall and broad-chested with a mat of black curly beard which grew all the way down to his Adam’s apple, lived just long enough to hook the tubes from two Dagonites and see them die in spasms of silent choking before he was engulfed and received nine thrusts in throat, heart and groin. He took the secret with him, the last of those who chose to fight and die, and after he was gone nothing remained but a few disconsolate camels, a rocky wasteland of drifting smoke and feebly flapping tents, and the littered and hacked remnants of several hundred bodies.
Again it happened – according to the prophesy given to Eli by Qābal – that when the few survivors stumbled into Shiloh the elders were aghast at the carnage wrought by the Dagonites and gave instructions that another, larger force should be sent into the field. This time they were told to take the Ark of God, and Eli, as High Priest, was asked to give his blessing to this enterprise; reluctantly, recalling Qābal’s promise that in the end the god Dagon and his followers would be defeated, he consented.
This time the army numbered upwards of twenty thousand men: an invincible force, the elders believed, which with the Ark of God as its glorious centrepiece would sweep the Dagonites from the plain at Aphek and send them fleeing back to Ashdod, never again to threaten the Tribe’s existence. Everyone was in high spirits, singing a battle hymn as they set out from the city on the two-day march: now the Dagonites would receive double what they had handed out as the vengeance of the Lord fell upon them, as inescapable as thunder rolling across the heavens. The Ark was drawn on a cart by six oxen and hidden from sight by a structure of timber draped with cloth; when it was revealed and the Dagonites beheld the handiwork of God they would drop their weapons and flee – so it was confidently predicted – for they would be too afraid to engage in battle with the chosen people of the Lord.
On the morning of the third day, having made camp and rested from their journey, the Tribe prepared for the attack. The Ark was placed on a high platform in the centre of the camp so that every man could see it – and so that the Dagonites would know at once that God was there to defend the Tribe from its enemies. All that day they waited and nothing happened. After nightfall huge fires were lit and the soldiers stayed alert, in a state of constant readiness, watching the shifting light of the fires darting and flickering on the burnished spheres and rods of the Ark’s body. To them it was a living thing, the symbol of their faith, and thus inconceivable that they could be defeated by a people who worshipped an evil and malicious god.
At dawn the Dagonites attacked.
They came down from the hills as before, just as silently, with their awkward lurching run and their breath rasping in the tubes, but this time were unable to reach the perimeter of the camp before the alarm had been raised and the soldiers were armed and on their feet. They advanced to meet them, several ranks deep, pointing their swords at the rising sun, and the Dagonites cut through them like a scythe through ripened corn: it was as if they had no fear for their own lives, thrusting calmly and unhurriedly at the three vital places and stepping over the fallen bodies to get at those behind. The men of the Tribe, even while outnumbering the Dagonites three to one, fell back and formed a defensive position round the platform on which the Ark rested. Their only hope now lay in the Ark’s swift and terrible retribution for this wholesale slaughter; they fought and prayed and nothing happened; no retribution came.
Some of the soldiers flung down their weapons and tried to escape but the Dagonites were on every side, cutting and hacking their way inwards to the circle of men, hundreds deep, pressed against the rough wooden platform on which stood the silent Ark, impassive to what was happening, its dome of light expired to a dull even glow. The blood ran down in streams so that the desert floor became a bloody quagmire and men drowned in it, swamped to their knees and engulfed by a rising red tide which lapped at the timber supports. The Dagonites spared no one, even thrusting at dead drowned bodies to ensure each received its three regulation stabs in the appointed places, only ceasing when nothing moved or whimpered in the sargasso sea of corpses.
Out of all the twenty thousand who perished one man survived. He had been one of the first to fall on the outer perimeter, stabbed through the side of the neck, and lay buried under his companions, crushed by their weight and unable to move until towards nightfall he managed to crawl out and survey what had been done. His name was Benjamin. He looked about him, sickened by the sight and stench, and then looked towards the platform where the Ark of God had rested; now it was empty and heaped all around to the height of a man.
The first faint stars were winking on overhead and guided by them he went away from that dreadful place and without food or water, not pausing to rest, began to return across the desert plain. His head was filled with images, too many to encompass, which seemed at the same time to be nightmarish and yet to be part of a horrible, inescapable reality. He had seen hordes of lurching, grunting creatures, like monsters, wielding swords effortlessly and unceasingly as if they were an extension of themselves; he had seen their black crinkled faces as the tubes were split or hooked away from their sucking mouths; and he had witnessed the deaths of the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, who while following in the wake of the Dagonite attack had themselves been struck down, stabbed in three places by the creatures they thought were their allies.
All these things and many more Benjamin had seen that day on the plain at Aphek, which he would relate to Eli, including the most terrible thing of all: that the Ark of God had been taken from them.
*
While the people of Shiloh lamented, the god Dagon in his temple at Ashdod rejoiced in his great and glorious victory. The Dagonites bore the Ark in triumph through the streets and brought it to the temple and set it before him. Though he still didn’t understand its purpose (and was uncertain of its power) the vision of the Ark standing there was the fulfilment of all his dreams. He possessed the symbol of their god and would use its magic to rule over all the desert world. Nothing was beyond his grasp now that they had been vanquished. Everything was as he had wished and planned—
From her womb Meria would bring forth a child to extend his line: a mating of the gods with woman to produce the newly-created man: the Protoplast. ‘He will bear the name Dagon and my descendants will be blessed for all time with the absolute power of divinity. In this way I too will become divine.’
He sat through the night, musing pleasurably over these thoughts, at peace with himself, and in the morning when the temple was opened was found prostrate before the Ark of God, his head and hands cut off so that only the stump of Dagon was left.
*
The Ark was once again in the silent inner chamber of the temple at Shiloh. The Dagonites had hastily returned it along with gifts of appeasement for the great and powerful god who could smite his enemies in the dead of night even in their own dwelling-places. The gifts comprised five golden emerods and five golden mice, representing the plagues which had afflicted the Dagonites after the death of their god: Ashdod had been overrun with vermin and each and every Dagonite had been sorely afflicted between the legs in his most secret part. So it was decided that the Ark should be returned and only then would the plagues of mice and emerods vanish from the city, and so it proved.
Qābal studied the markings on the body of the Ark, recognizing them as symbols of an advanced civilization, but still not able to identify them or say where the machine had come from. The paradox was simply that a civilization of the far-distant future had visited this planet in the remote past and chosen a particular tribe, out of all those wandering in the desert, upon whom to bestow the gift of sophisticated technology.
He called the boy Samuel and pointed out the inscription.
‘The Ark has written upon it the sacred Word of God. It is your preordained duty, Samuel, to rule over your people, to be as a father to the Tribe. These holy words must be set down in the Scriptures and preserved for all the generations which are to follow.’
‘I understand, Lord, but I don’t know what is written on the Ark. What does it say?’
Qābal cleared his throat and glanced away. ‘Never mind that now – one day it will become clear to you. It’s enough that you set down a faithful copy and keep it safe within the temple.’ He looked keenly at the boy. ‘The ways of God are mysterious, Samuel, beyond the comprehension of mortal men,’ and added, ‘Even angels have difficulty sometimes.’
‘Surely you know its meaning, Lord?’ Samuel’s eyes were bright and inquisitive and yet it seemed to Qābal that they contained a child’s innate shrewdness.
‘The symbols represent a concept of reasoning which would be meaningless to you. I can’t explain them, you wouldn’t understand.’
‘But what do the marks stand for?’ Samuel insisted.
Qābal traced them with his pale hand and read them out:
L. I. F. F. E. (∑).
‘Do they mean anything?’ Samuel asked, his eyes following the configuration of symbols.
‘One day it will be revealed to you,’ Qābal said, frowning slightly. He began to descend the steps of the catafalque and Samuel skipped quickly after him: he didn’t like to be left alone with the Ark, especially if the rumours of what it had done to the god Dagon were true. The boy stumbled, Qābal turned, and quite effortlessly and without hesitation saved him from falling. He picked him up and held him in his arms.
Cradled there, terrified and yet thrilled at being carried by an angel, Samuel said impetuously, ‘Do you sometimes forget who you are?’
Qābal was amused. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘The mark on your shoulder. I thought perhaps God had put it there to remind you who you are. Does He put the names of all His angels on their shoulders so they won’t forget?’
‘Not all of them,’ Qābal said, setting the boy down on the floor of the temple. ‘Only the chosen ones.’