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THE DAY HELD ON to life by a thin red thread gashed along the horizon Above it the sky was starless as a lowered blackout curtain

All across the wide encahts of a city perched on the brink of a desert no- of the bell the noise of the assembly, their howls and curses, suddenly ru of the cahton stood cold and transfixed at the an to rise up from the smoke-enshrouded encanity away; Naughton saw the for the tent beyond as if they were a pack ofat each other, s and many entirely nude They called out the na, as they sent a cloud of sand that spun whipping through tents like desert devil spirals Naughton sawa score of others, and then there would be a crush of bodies, all aret free and find rooreat tent ahead The wealthy ones, clad in shining gold robes and dazzling jewelry, ran shrieking with the rabble; their servants, in the lead, struck down people right and left with the butts of rifles And still the bell boo voice and the assembly shrieked the answer Baal Baal Baal until it becahton put his hands to his ears

Wherever the round was littered with the broken bodies of those dead and dying Then cah the thick sand on crutches and crawling on their bellies like snake skeletons while angry-eyed dogs nipped at their heels and, taking hold of ripped clothes, worried the wasted bodies o, Mr Naughton Our place is waiting" He opened a desk drawer and reached inside His hand ehton atching a fight that had broken out at the tent&039;s aperture; ain entrance and finally vanished in a swirl of sand Musallie into a hton sa huge it really was; its appearance had been deceptive Now the wind beat at its billowing sides and the entrance sarhton heard a click! as Musallim eased back the halittering teeth and grasping hands, their voices calling out the naroup of beggars to ery in his eyes, leaped for Naughton Musalli the ed by the shouting hordes, and to Naughton&039;s horror Musalli into the dark clot of bodies until a path was h

Inside more than one thousand people crowded shoulder to shoulder, kneeling in the sand Glittering golden chandeliers hung suspended by cables fro in harsh white a sea of heads and bodies in hton followed Musalliun and shouting threats, but the American kept a careful watch over his shoulder in case of an attack fro hton saw the ih atop a pedestal of gold was a primitive statue of a man The arms were thrown across the chest in an attitude of superiority and the elongated head, alular, showed thin slits of eyes and a cruel slash of lips One of the , aspects of the strange artifact was its sexual organs; the penis jutted forward alhton stood ure; beside hi voice with those of the others The figure had been carved by a tiIts eyes see and reached out to touch the stone

It was then that he al that cried out and scuttled away He looked down and saw an Arab child in rags, its eyes wide and frightened and its body reduced to the ers and the knees were flat pads on rails of legs Naughton decided the child was male and that he had probably fallen and been injured in the rush of the crowd As he looked closer he saw a metal collar around the child&039;s neck, attached to a chain that let out about three feet of slack, then joined to a metal spike driven fire of hysteria; he cringed, holding up his hands for hton stepped back a few paces, realizing with a curious and alien sense of power that, if he had so desired, he could have crushed the child with one well-placed slareat clamor of the bell stopped so abruptly that the sudden silence ures lay prone on the ground or kneeled in deference to the glowering statue Naughton, breaking out in a sweat of absolute fear, looked around for Musallim, but the man had been sucked into the ht as the safety of his revolver Now, standing aain felt coaze rooted him to the spot He heard a roar in his head like soreat distance and he said, No no this cannot be!

He ed by the utter power of the figure as it stood triuht It was the master of them all When they&039;d all died and their flesh had decayed back to the dust it would still be there, haughty and sure, in its stone body that had worn the coats of countless ages He was suddenly ashamed of his frailty He wanted to fall to his knees and hide his face, but he could not He treht between the statue and the hton are of a new sound The wind had risen to a high-pitched wail that ripped past the great tent Around him the walls were beaten by the fists of those who had not found room inside The tent shuddered and rippled Ropes and support beaht for an instant that the entire enclosure and all in it would be ravaged by the force of the gathering sandstorm

From behind him, at the rear of the hton turned to look over the assembly but he couldn&039;t see back as far as the source of the sound He thought another fight had broken out And then a Bedouin very near hi hihton stood as if in a trance, the sweat beading on his face and dripping softly to his collar

He watched as the throes began to spread The wealthy Kuwaitis and Bedouin beggars alike took up the sahts erupted Naughton saw the glea at each other&039;s throats He drew back against the statue, feeling soled to their feet and attacked each other without hesitation the screaht he was going ed, unable to protect hi the clothes fro with them in the churned sand Wos for anyone ould take the altered itself into an endless series of private sexual cohton saw uilt; women used brutally and then thrown aside for the next pair of ready thighs He was sickened but could not turn away; it was beyond his power to turn away A copulating pair rolled against him and he stepped back out of their way So in his ear and leaped for hied down into a heap of struggling bodies He ures plastered with sand and as he did he stuain over the child He said, "Goddarunt as his boot struck flesh A hollow-eyed wo out at her, his stoht her solidly beneath the chin Another wo open his shirt while her teeth tore at his ear Naughton cursed and pushed her off, his chest heaving and blood dripping down froaunt ht the man&039;s ankle and heaved him backward onto a stuporous nude couple

He had no time to think; the blood boiled in his brain Godda to kill both theo on until they were all dead He heard pistol shots and wondered if he could find Musalh Godda to kill ht; one of the ash across his chest and his weak eyes hton and, turning toward him with a foul curse, lifted his arm to strike with his weapon At once his opponent took advantage; his arm flashed as he drove his weapon into the shton picked up the fallen man&039;s knife and backed away as the victor approached like a dark juggernaut Naughton screa din He saw hton shrieked loudly into his ear, and as he spun around to strike he tripped over a body and fell heavily, at the sath to save his own life

And then thein bloody sand stared as if soer The copulating bodies slowed their sexual throes Naughton saw Musalliun still in his hand Their eyes e and confusion His arms and chest were sticky and warm, but he was only dimly aware that he had bitten into his lower Up He felt feverish, on the verge of collapse As the sweet smell of blood reached him he dropped the knife and, like a wounded aniainst the wet sand

He had slashed the throat of the child

With a cry Naughton pushed at the slack body and dragged hih the sand The child&039;s eyes were open above its horrible hton and the wound h blood-caked lips Naughton dragged over bodies that sought to touch him, to clutch at his drawn face and tear strips froed at the kiss of crawling hands

And then the sound grew even louder, they were calling the name over and over He felt as if he were encased in a vault with fleshy walls He reached out and touched a woerly at hisand the name Baal Baal Baal whirled about his head When he took a breath it was the breath of Baal When he clutched at slippery flesh it was the flesh of Baal When he kissed a pair of straining lips they were the lips of Baal

Sweat filled his eyes His vision became cloudily dreamlike He suddenly felt elated and free, caressed intimately by a woman - or more than one woman - he had never even seen before The seneral sensory awareness He ripped at the re to be rid of it, and a wo at his stomach The voices around him reached a fever pitch and he let the fever take him The name throbbed within him It had already filled his h his blurred eyes he saw nize though he couldn&039;t remember from where The multitude shrieked in a frenzy He tried to rise up but was too weak; he remained where he was, his head down And then soan to pull hihton could feel nails biting into his flesh He tried to see who it was but he could not; the er touched his forehead

He felt a sensation like a h hile He opened his ony as his blood turned to liquid fire Then the one in the crush of the assembly

Soed He looked across and through the mist could make out the placid, drained face of Musalliernails and his headdress had been torn away Naughton blinked On the man&039;s forehead, directly between his eyes, was a shton told hierprint

When he reached out to touch it with grasping eers his knees finally buckled