LITMIR.BIZ

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not. But in any wild and luxurious cloister, his virtuous devotion to the lost Morayma would doubtless be put to sorer tests than he desired enduring. As a secular he could keep his independence—even, wealth allowing, his own household—along with freedom to hold himself forever pure and innocent of fleshly love, in honor of his lady.

      He would be a true knight-errant of Morayma and God: that is, a secular priest.

      Chapter 4

      The Dream of the Martyrs of Baal

      It was on the eve of his ordination that Felipe dreamed his earliest dream of the two women.

      He stood in a parched land: desert behind him, and before, and on his right hand. To his left, distant mountains. Remembering no other goal, he turned and began trudging toward them. His forward foot sank ankle deep in pale sand at every step. His thirst was great.

      As the hind longs for running waters …

      A hind shimmered between him and the mountains—a pure white hind framed by dry golden dust, azure sky, and the deceptive cloudlike blue of the mountains.

      No, not a hind, a woman. A woman clad all in loose and flowing white, like one in mourning, or some sainted virgin. Indeed, the martyr’s palm lay green in an upright line between her left arm and breast, its end resting lightly, even carelessly, in her light brown hand; and while her hair fell long and black to her waist, the sun seemed to strike a pale golden aureole from its crown.

      “Felipe,” she said, holding her right hand out to him. “Grandson.”

      “Señora,” he answered, taking it, aware only vaguely that in order to do so he must have covered several paces in a single stride, this time without sinking to the ankle. “Who are you?”

      “I am numbered among your distant great-grandmothers, and in life I wore the name Raymonde.” Her voice was gentle and musical, yet penetrating.

      “Which would you prefer that I call you: Raymonde or grandmother?”

      “Either or both, great-grandson, as you will.” Still holding his hand, she turned, and he found that they were already in the foothills.

      The hills were almost as dry as the desert. One tiny stream trickled its way through a bed far too wide for it, where a few herbs struggled to stay green. Everywhere else, the dry brown grasses crackled underfoot like the shells of tiny beetles.

      “This land has lain long under drought,” Felipe observed.

      “Too long. Its people have grown too desperate.” Raymonde pointed upslope.

      Felipe became aware of a crowd populating the mountainside, milling about like dusty sheep a little below two high points. For a moment, it seemed to him that all of them stood upon the body of a vast, reclining giantess: himself and Raymonde on one of her knees, the bulk of the crowd girdling her like a broad sash about the waist, with the two high points being her nipples, the ridge beyond and between them her chin. The belt of humanity wound up to cover one of her breasts. The other rose denuded except at the very top.

      Then he saw that her nipples were a pair of stone altars, one with a mass of priests surrounding it, the other attended by a single man.

      A chant rose from the priests encircling the left-hand altar. The sound swelled and intensified until Felipe felt it as a rumbling in the soles of his feet. The solitary attendant of the right-hand altar began to shout, but Felipe could not make out his words.

      “Is it safe to draw nearer?” he asked of Raymonde.

      “It is safe for us,” she replied.

      The multitude of priests were brandishing blades of various sizes, slashing their own bared arms and chests, shaking their blood upon the bloody altar offering. They might have been pelicans opening their breasts to give life to their young. Their chant had grown into a wail. Yet the offering was a mangle of dead and skinless flesh that could almost as well have been human remains as butcher’s meat.

      “Shout louder,” the solitary man at the right-hand altar called across to them. “Your Lord is a God, and He might be sleeping, or eating, or shitting!”

      “Who is that blasphemer?” Felipe demanded of his guide.

      She answered gently, “Do you not recognize the first of all holy inquisitors?”

      Squinting, Felipe could only make out that the solitary man’s altar was heaped with as much anonymous fresh meat as was that of the multitude of priests.

      “Enough!” shouted the solitary man, pointing to the sun. It rested straight overhead; lack of shadows lent the glare a cast of emptiness. The multitude fell silent, staring from their altar to his. Each of their eyes resembled a pearl set with an onyx.

      The solitary man beckoned downslope, and several more men began toiling upward with waterskins and earthen jars. One by one, they emptied their vessels over the heaped altar. Gathering in great, glistering drops, the clear fluid oozed down from fiber to crimson fiber of the raw meat, stone to bloodstained stone, until it filled a trench dug deep around the altar.

      “Where have they found so much water,” Felipe marveled, “in the midst of a desperate drought?”

      “Cannot people always provide for their ceremonials?” Raymonde replied. “Though it may mean robbing themselves and their children of food, water, and even truth.”

      “Now!” cried the solitary man. “Choose, O my people, which you will serve—Lord or the Lord!”

      He threw wide his arms, gesturing toward both altars at once. For an instant, his open palm hovered almost directly above his own offering. Even as he jerked it back, fire sprang out upon the surface of the meat, scorching it until it writhed like something alive, shimmering down the stones, sheathing the whole erection in dancing flame. When it reached the trough, it rose in an eager crimson ring to circle altar, offering, and all.

      “Was it water,” said Felipe, “or was it oil?”

      “Beware, great-great-grandson,” Raymonde murmured. “One must always look upon these things with the eyes of Faith.”

      How he heard her words, Felipe was not sure, for a huge shout had risen from the mob as it surged up the left-hand hill to lay hold on the outermost priests, who offered no resistance.

      The next thing Felipe knew, he stood with his guide on one side of the nearly dry brook they had crossed earlier. On the other side, the defeated priests stood, weary and disheartened but meekly proud, waiting in a long, long line that stretched from horizon to horizon. No; it did not: far to the east, it ended abruptly.

      The trickle of water increased. The streambed began to fill, flowing red. Don Felipe looked again to the east. The end of the line was much nearer now—the solitary man of the consummated altar was progressing westward. Before him, the priests stood still. Behind him, they lay motionless across the streambed. He held a bloody sword in his right hand, and his garments dripped heavy with blood. One by one, he was cutting their throats.

      He reached those almost immediately facing Felipe and Raymonde. So far, none of the defeated priests had offered any protest; but now one, a beardless youth, perhaps an acolyte, raised face and voice to the heavens, crying, “O Lord, O Lord, why have You forsaken us?”

      The solitary man cut the youth down and moved on. At Felipe’s feet, the brown grasses grew lush and green as they greedily lapped the torrent of blood.

      “But what choice was this?” Felipe protested. “The Lord or the Lord?”

      “Heirs of the prophet-inquisitor will translate the one title and not the other,” she explained, “but ‘Baal’ means ‘Lord.’”

      “Then…have I been deceived? How is this possible?”

      “When I was in the flesh,” Raymonde said musingly, “I believed that this Lord of the Old Testament was hard and cruel because He had not yet learned compassion by passing through the Virgin’s womb, by tasting for Himself

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