CHAPTER 27

Dal was not happy with us when Ava and I returned from our long walk. And he grew increasingly unhappy over the next few days as the two of us spent more and more time together.

At night I took Ava away from the lights of the clan's fires—each family had its own small cooking fire in front of its hut now, instead of one single campfire. Off in the darkness I showed her the stars and began to teach her how the constellations formed a vast celestial clock and calendar.

She grasped the concept quickly, and even noted, after a few nights, that at least one of the stars seemed to have moved slightly out of place.

"That's Mars," I told her. "It is not a star like all the others you see. It is a world, something like our own world here, but incredibly far away."

"It is red, like blood," Ava murmured in the darkness.

"Yes," I agreed. "Its soil is red sand. Even its sky is pink with reddish dust, almost the color of your hair."

"The people there must be angry and warlike," she said, "to have made their whole world the color of blood."

My heart sank at the thought that I was helping to invent astrology. But I consoled myself with the notion that such ideas did not occur only once, in a single time and place. Concepts as obvious as astrology would be invented time and again, no matter how ludicrously wrong they may be.

That night we stayed up until dawn, watching the stars wheel across heaven in their majestic cosmic clockwork. And when Venus arose, the Morning Star shining as brilliantly beautiful as anything human eyes could ever see, I heard Ava's sigh of pleasure in the predawn darkness.

I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. But she must have sensed what was in my mind, and she moved slightly away from me.

"I am Dal's woman," she whispered. "I wish it was not true, but it is."

I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but with a shock I realized there was no word for such a concept in their language. Romance was yet to be invented. She was Dal's woman, and women did not change mates in this early era.

We walked back to the huts and the embers of the cook fires. Dal sat on the ground in front of his hut, looking miserable, angry, worried and sleepy, all at the same time. He scrambled to his feet when he saw us, and Ava smiled at him and took his arm. They ducked through the low entrance to their hut without either of them saying a word to me.

I stood there alone for a few moments more, then turned and went off to my own dugout, which Dal had insisted the clan build for me—a good hundred yards away from the nearest hut of a clan family.

When I stepped down to the entrance and ducked through it into the shadowy interior of the single room, I immediately sensed that someone else was already inside. Dawn was just beginning to tint the eastern sky, and there were no windows in the hut—nothing but the open doorway to let in light or air. But I knew that I was not alone in the inky shadows of the dugout. I could feel a presence, dark and menacing. I could hear a slow, deep, labored breathing.

"Ahriman," I whispered.

Something moved slightly in the darkest corner of the room. My hand went to the stone knife at my waist. A silly, useless gesture, I knew, but my hand moved of its own accord.

"You expected me to be here, didn't you?" His harsh, tortured voice sent a chill along my spine.

Stepping to one side of the doorway, so that I would not be silhouetted against the growing light outside, I replied, "You've been trailing us for many weeks."

"Yes."

I could barely make out his form, bulking darkly in the shadows. "You plan to bring harm to these people?" I probed.

He moved slightly. "What harm can I do? I am only one man, against your entire race..."

"Don't call yourself a man," I snapped.

He gave out a wheezing, gasping sound that almost sounded like laughter. "Orion, you fool! Don't call yourself a man."

"I am a human being," I said, "not one of your kind."

"You are not one of my kind, true enough," Ahriman said, each word labored and grim. "I am the only one of my kind left. Your cohorts killed all the others."

"And you seek vengeance."

"I seek justice."

"Even if it means destroying the continuum of space-time."

"That is the only way to obtain the justice I seek. To tear down the pillars that support the world. To bring it all to an end. To destroy the one who fashions himself as the Golden God."

"Ormazd."

"Yes, Ormazd. The master slaughterer. Your master, Orion. Your creator."

"You can't touch him; he's too powerful for you, so you take out your spite on these poor ignorant savages." I could feel hatred boiling inside me.

He countered, "You call yourselves humans. You think you own this planet."

"We do! This is our world."

"Temporarily," Ahriman's voice rumbled darkly. "Only temporarily. He built you to conquer this planet, but I will see to it that you are destroyed—utterly and forever."

"No," I said. "I have already stopped you twice. I will stop you here, as well."

He paused, as if gathering his forces before speaking again. "Twice, you say? We have met twice before?"

"Yes."

"Then it's true," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "You are moving back toward The War."

I kept silent.

"The Golden One is very clever. He is moving you backward through the continuum. You have not seen The War yet. You don't know what took place then."

"I know that my task is to hunt you down and kill you, finally, for all time."

I sensed a ponderous shaking of his head. "For all time. I wonder if you realize what that means. None of us, not even Ormazd, can grasp all of time in his hands."

"That is my task," I said.

He made that ghastly chuckling sound again. "Then why don't you do your duty, here and now? Kill me."

I hesitated.

"You are afraid."

"No," I answered honestly. Fear never touched me. I was calculating how to get to him. I knew that he was far stronger than I. With nothing but the pitiful stone knife in my hand, how could I hope to attack him?

"I grow weary of waiting," Ahriman said.

The shadows exploded. His vast bulk suddenly leaped at me and I was smashed against the mud wall of the dugout, Ahriman's powerful fingers at my throat. We crashed through the flimsy wall and the makeshift root of leafy branches fell in on us as we struggled in the dust. I slashed wildly at him with the knife, to no avail.

I saw his face inches from mine, a wide leering grin pulling his lips apart, his teeth gleaming wickedly, a brutal snarl growling up from his throat, his eyes blazing with triumphant fury. The strength was seeping out of my muscles. My arms grew weak, my attempts to fend him off feeble. Darkness started to cloud my vision, and I knew that I was about to die.

Something thudded into the ground close to me. Then I felt a muffled shock, as if a hard object had hit Ahriman's body, atop me. His fingers around my throat slackened and I heard him growl. His weight rolled off my body. My vision cleared slightly as I drew in a deep, welcome breath of cool air and I saw him standing above me, a spear dangling from his side, blood oozing from the wound, snarling defiance.

Another spear hurtled through the morning air and he caught it with one hand. Turning, I saw that Dal had thrown it. The other men of the clan were running up toward where he was standing, more spears in their hands. Their faces showed more surprise than fear; as long as their leader was willing to stand up to this strange intruder, they would too—at a distance.

Ahriman flipped the spear around in his hand and pulled his arm back to throw it at Dal. I kicked at his legs and toppled him. The men gave a blood-curdling screech and charged at us.

I scrambled to get on top of the Dark One, but he cuffed me to my knees with a tremendous backhand blow, yanked the spear out of his bleeding side and threw it at the attacking clansmen. Even so haphazardly thrown, it had the force to go right through one of the men, chest to back, lift him off his feet and throw him cruelly to the ground.

That stopped the men of the clan dead in their tracks. All except Dal, who rushed in barehanded except for his puny knife and leaped at Ahriman. The Dark One knocked him away, lumbered to his feet, and staggered off toward the cliffs.

For several moments no one moved. I pulled myself painfully up onto my hands and knees. Dal sat up slowly, shaking his woozy head. A bruise was welling up along his jaw, where Ahriman had hit him.

The other men stood as if transfixed, staring now at the two of us, now at the body of their slain comrade. Ahriman had disappeared into the shadows of the cliffs, where the dawning light had not yet reached.

"Who was that?" Dal asked, at last. He ran two fingers over the lump on his jaw and winced.

"An enemy," I said.

The other men came up to us, all of them chattering at once. Ava pushed her way through them and knelt at Dal's side. She inspected him in the brightening sunlight and concluded that no bones were broken. Then she turned to me.

"I'm all right," I said, getting to my feet. My throat burned, though, and my voice was hoarse.

The others were staring at me.

"Your throat bears the marks of the enemy," Ava said, examining me. "I can see the print of each of his fingers." She put her hands to my throat. "His hands are enormous!"

"Who is he?" Dal wanted to know.

"The enemy of all men," I replied. "The enemy of every human being. He is the Dark One, an enemy whose only desire is to kill us all."

They had all seen Ahriman, but I described him as closely as I could. I did not want them to begin thinking of the Dark One as a spirit or a demon who was beyond human resistance. I praised them for driving him away, for wounding him and saving me from his choking hands.

"We can follow his spoor and track him to his lair," Ava said, pointing to the bloodstains Ahriman had left on the grass.

The men showed a distinct aversion to the idea. Even Dal, so fearless a few moments earlier, backed away.

"No," I said. "He will have gone deep into the caves by now. We wouldn't be able to find him. He might even have set traps for us. Better to stay here in the sunlight. He won't come back." Not for a while, at least, I added silently.

The rest of the men gathered around their fallen comrade and lifted him tenderly from the ground to carry him back to his hut. I could hear Ahriman's size and ferocity growing as they talked among themselves, and their own courage and strength increasing to keep pace.

Dal lingered near me, Ava at his side.

"You saved my life," I said to him. "I thank you."

He shook his head, troubled. "You are one of us. I did what had to be done."

"It was more than any of the others did."

"I am their leader."

I remembered an aphorism: From those to whom much is given, much is expected. Dal was a true leader, and a good one. But still he looked troubled.

"Ahriman is no more of a spirit or a demon than I am," I said. "He is a man, like me."

"He took a spear in his side and pulled it loose as if it was nothing more than a burr annoying him."

"He has great strength," I admitted.

Reflexively Dal touched the bluish bruise on his jaw. "That is true. He drove that spear through Radon even while he was on his back."

"But he ran away." I didn't want Dal to fear Ahriman more than was necessary.

His troubled eyes locked on mine. "You did not tell me that you were being pursued by an enemy."

"I didn't know he was here," I half-lied. "I thought I had left him far away from here."

Sensing the beginning of an argument, Ava stepped between us. "Come and eat with us. The sun has already climbed over the hills. It will be a beautiful day."

But now Dal eyed me with new suspicion, even though I felt a bond of respect and admiration for the man who had attacked the Dark One with reckless courage, and thereby saved my life.