Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

You will make no sacrifice of blood at my altar, boomed the voice in his mind, making him stagger. You will submit yourself to the straight path and you will live a righteous life!

The line of Mohammed's chin tensed, and his eyes narrowed, taking in the scene. There were no graven idols here, no statues crowded together like a forest, but he knew as surely as the voice had spoken to him on the mountaintop that darkness was oozing into the world here, called by blood and iron. He pressed hard with the saber and felt the resistance in the air seize up, testing his strength.

O my Merciful and Compassionate Lord, give me the strength to meet this test!

– |A bright white flash cut the night, throwing the carvings and pillars of the temple in the cliff face into sharp relief. Shadin's head jerked around involuntarily, his saber rising to ward off whatever made the light. The snapping crash of thunder rolled right behind the glare and the men in the little oval valley cried out, clapping hands to their eardrums. In the residue of the brilliant light, Shadin was left with an image of hundreds of the Sahaba pouring out of the narrow Siq into the broader stream bottom before a great tomb. The rattle and boom of thunder echoed again, and the summit of the High Place lit up like a thunder-head.

"That's done it," he howled over the rolling echo. There would be no surprising the city now. "Forward!"

Jalal ran up, his boots splashing water from the streambed. Centuries of current had worn it smooth save for a thin layer of sand. He had his bow in hand and an open-faced helmet tied under his chin. Men in half armor and shields ran past, their banner leaders and lieutenants urging them on. Around the inner gate, the scattered bodies of the Petrans who had been on watch lay in pools of blood. The attack from the hidden stair had taken them completely by surprise.

"What is that?" Jalal shouted over the thunder, pointing up at the mountaintop.

"Lord Mohammed," Shadin cursed as he turned to join his men running into the city. "He left us up there in the pass. He's about his own business."

– |The slim gateway had shattered, cracking lengthwise, when Mohammed had thrust the cold iron of the Palmyran blade through the invisible membrane. The shock of the blast had thrown him down the marble stairway, crashing into the Sahaba behind him. The crowd of men and women on the mountaintop began shrieking in fear. Some had been felled as well by flying debris. The Quraysh, his ears ringing, clawed his way out of the tangle of bodies. A blue light flickered beyond the gate, illuminating the shattered pillars.

Act! Time is fleeting!

The voice that spoke in the empty places roared in his mind. Mohammed hurled himself forward through the gateway, even as the Sahaba behind him were shaking themselves out of their daze. The blue flare surrounded him, and he skidded sideways, avoiding a figure that staggered toward him. One of the worshipers stumbled past, a man with a ruined face covered with blood. Mohammed raised his blade, holding it up against the light.

The pool of water was gone, and in its place was a dreadful radiance. Something had risen from the womb of the mountain, a whirling amorphous thing that crackled and shuddered with lightning. Ultramarine fire washed off of it, spinning out in the night and falling in sheets of flame toward the rocks and buildings far below. All of the worshipers on the mountaintop lay dead or dying, their bodies scattered in windrows. Only one remained, the figure who had raised the stone knife to the sky. That one stood behind the altar, his face raised to the pulsating blue cloud that drifted and buzzed and hummed above the dry pool.

Mohammed scuttled forward, crouching low to the ground, leading with the tip of the saber. Arrows snapped overhead as the Sahaba reached the gate and saw what lay before them. Mohammed's face was grim and set-he had seen such things before, like the monstrosity that had stood above him at the Damascus gate. Wind howled around the mountaintop, and lightning jagged through clear air, dancing on the cliffs. Thunder rolled in an unceasing wave, shaking the stones on the ground, making the world shudder and dance.

The priest behind the altar slashed down his hand, pointing with the stone knife, and the whirling chaotic sphere drifted toward Mohammed. The arrows of the bowmen at the gate flashed into the blue haze and then drifted to a stop before they burst into flames and were consumed. The Quraysh suddenly leapt to his feet and dashed to the right, heading for the precipice over the canyon. Flickering light followed him, reaching out with spiky fingers. Blue radiance strengthened and washed over him. He skidded to a halt at the edge of the cliff, stones flying away from his boots to rattle down into the dark abyss.

Sahaba spearmen dodged in behind the whirling ultramarine blue refulgence. They sprinted toward the priest, their spear points glowing with echoes of the thing that had Mohammed distracted. The Quraysh leapt into the air, slashing out with his saber, and the steel tip sliced into one of the glowing tendrils that had suddenly sprouted from the amorphous center of the blue light.

In his mind, Mohammed could see the white arm of the Queen and her chainmail glove lunging, the saber gleaming in the sun, as it touched the crawling lightning.

Beyond that vision, the priest in red turned too late, and his eyes widened in horror. Three Sahaba spears of cold iron, driven by all the might the soldiers could muster, pierced his torso. Blood suddenly welled in his mouth, and the priest convulsed as one spear point tore through his spinal cord. The others punctured a lung and cut into his heart. The stone knife slipped from nerveless fingers, sliding to the ground and cracking in half with a hollow sound.

Mohammed's sword blazed like the eyes of the angels he saw floating in the air around the mountaintop, trapping the white-hot fire that boiled and howled at the center of the blue light. A vast, colorless radiance flooded the world, and Mohammed felt his kaffiyeh and riding scarf burst into flames. Across the narrow space at the top of the mountain, the Sahaba cried out as the intense burst blinded them or threw them to the ground.

– |A third enormous flash lit the valley of the city, and Jalal turned away from the mountain, his eyes screwed shut, his shield raised to block out the infernal light. But this time there was no mind-shattering crash of thunder or rolling boom that cracked temple doorways and tumbled the stone seats of the theater into a ruined pile. Instead, there was complete silence, without even the sound of running feet. All across the valley of Petra, there was utter quiet. The Sahaba, driven to the ground, lay where they had fallen. None dared raise their eyes up to the sky for fear of what they might see there.

Jalal crouched on the ground, tears streaming from his eyes. Sound slowly filtered into his consciousness, and it was the crackle and snap of burning wood. He raised himself up, blinking furiously, and saw that the nearest building-a stall in the colonnaded street that led into the city-was on fire. The dry canvas and light wood had ignited in the titanic flare of light. Jalal brushed soot from his eyes, and his hand came away covered with curled, burned hair. He held his hand up, seeing it double and triple in his sight.

Cursing, he touched his face and found it raw and sore. His beard came away in his hand, all shriveled and falling to ash. Tears streamed down his face, cutting tracks in the white dust that covered him and every other thing within the valley.

The sky was dark again, free of the strange blue light.

Cries rose from the city as men stirred themselves. Jalal shook his head and tore the ruined kaffiyeh from his helmet. The cloth was burned, too.