strewn in the streets. He saw soldiers in crimson and black torturing the living inhabitants of Nod, husbands taken from their families, children torn from their mother’s arms.
He heard a faceless voice echoing softly in the room. “Such needless violence. Why should this continue? If not for the Deliverer, written about in ancient texts, this suffering could stop. The people could live at peace again.”
Gideon grew angry, watching the suffering. “No! It’s Mordred who has caused this oppression and death.”
“Is it?” the voice asked. The image changed to show Ethan sitting upon the throne in Emmanuel. He had grown older, wore a beard on his face and a crown upon his brow. “Who will reign when Mordred is defeated?” The image showed Gideon’s friend launching attacks on villages, extending his own power, even beginning a war in Wayland to the north. “Will a boy with so much power acquiesce to the role of servant when his prophesied task is completed? Who would be able to stop his ascension to the throne, his insatiable lust for power? The Order of Shaddai?”
The images changed again, showing Ethan and his would-be troops coming into the Temple, bypassing the security measures held secretly for so long. “Would such a conqueror, with so much power, allow an organization to exist that could threaten his dominion? Of course, he would not-could not.”
Gideon gazed in horror at the scenes unfolding before him. The voice, with its poisonous words, struck his soul like an adder. For the first time, Gideon doubted his young friend and his noble intentions. Could it be possible? Could it happen as the voice had said? He felt suffocated. Tears fell on his cheeks. Even if he had been freed right then, the damage had been done.
The images faded to be replaced by the stone walls of his prison. It grew colder still in his cell. The light dwindled until he could barely perceive his hand before his face. He shivered, but it was more than cold. Evil had come.
Gideon heard panting-not human. He smelled something in the stale air reminding him of the bear he and Ethan had killed in the forest shortly after they met. Panting turned to snarling.
Gideon looked around in the cell, desperately trying to find the source of the noises. It multiplied. He couldn’t see them, but he felt like prey for a starved pack of wolves. He smelled them-felt their breath hot upon his flesh. He tried to focus upon shadowy figures moving along the walls. They remained elusive, indistinct, figures among fog.
Then the eyes glowed red before him. They gazed upon him from every side. He had nowhere to run within his stone prison. They struck at him. Teeth gnashed. The scent of blood filled the air. Gideon struggled against the pain. He felt his flesh ripped from his bones. Teeth, as has hot as irons in a fire-as sharp as knives, pierced him over and over again.
Gideon wilted under the brutality of the attack. Had he been able to see his attackers, he still would not have had the strength to stop them. Even in the midst of a slaughter his belly groaned for food.
When he thought he could not stand the pain anymore, Gideon cried out, “Shaddai! My Lord in Heaven, please help me!”
The room fell suddenly silent. Nothing moved. The snarling had ceased altogether along with the inflicted carnage. Gideon lay there in the middle of his cell. The pain subsided very quickly. He wanted to look, but he knew what he would find.
Finally, Gideon opened his eyes and beheld what was left of his torn body after the attack. To his astonishment, he remained very nearly the way he had been before. The ground had no stains from his blood. His flesh remained whole, except for extensive bruising and what appeared to be large bite marks.
Gideon examined himself closer now-glad for his condition. The damage that had been done still told him one thing. Something real had attacked him-the puncture wounds certainly weren’t an illusion.
What had happened? In his confusion, he’d not considered why the attack had stopped. “The prayer!” Shaddai had stopped the attack.
Gideon sighed as he sat on the cold stone floor. His faith was not in vain. He tried to get into a more comfortable position. His body still felt like it had been mauled by wild beasts even if the damage wasn’t as severe as it had seemed at the time.
There was no way to tell if it was day or night, or how much time had passed. Gideon settled in and sought further refuge in prayer.
DESPAIR
Days might have passed and Gideon would not have known it. He only knew he was starving and beaten half to death by repeated demonic attacks. Each time they had come to him, he had driven them away through prayer, but not before taking a beating. He began to hope for a quick death.
Gideon heard a noise-creaking. He opened his eyes and saw the door opening in the wall as it had when he’d been thrust into this maddening prison cell. He lay on his side with no pillow but the cobblestone floor.
His face had been bruised and small lacerations streaked his complexion. Puncture wounds and purple mottling were found scattered across his entire body. Gideon had seen food again on several occasions, but he’d not been able to get the thought of the first meal in this place out of his mind.
Several guards came into the room, carrying manacles. Gideon laid on the floor, lacking the strength to even get up. They shackled his wrists and ankles. Then a longer chain was connected between those, so that his movements were now very restricted.
The guards picked him up off of the ground and took him from the stone cell. When Gideon passed through the door he smiled. The air outside smelled far fresher, and he hoped what he was experiencing now was actually real. Inside the room, he had lost the ability to tell truth from illusion.
The guards dragged him down several long corridors and he caught glimpses of the white stone walls normally seen in the palace. The walls had mold clinging to them in places. Gideon smelled food coming from somewhere and his belly groaned to be fed.
Two guards waited at a set of large wooden doors. When Gideon and his escorts reached them, the guards opened to them, revealing a throne room beyond. He recognized the place. This had been the chamber where he and Levi had come through the grate in the floor, only to find Ethan under assault by demonized soldiers.
The chamber had been a complete mess by the time they’d finished rescuing the boy: a room flooded with wine, bodies, and tumbled furnishings. Today, it stood clean, at least cleaner than other places he’d passed along the way here. The guards carried him inside, and the doors were shut after them.
Two rows of guards stood at attention on either side of the room. They appeared unthreatened by Gideon’s presence. He wondered what he must look like after his internment in the stone cell. He felt as though he were on the brink of death. The looks from the guards ranged from pity to disgust.
At the far end of the massive room, Mordred sat upon the throne of Emmanuel. A servant girl sat next to him, feeding him grapes and other kinds of fruit from a silver platter. When Mordred saw Gideon dragged into the room and brought before him, he smiled and waved the girl away.
Mordred took a drink from a golden goblet, his eyes never leaving the emaciated priest before him. Gideon noticed General Rommil standing obediently at Mordred’s right side. Both men were great in size and Gideon suddenly felt very small and frail before them.
“My dear, Gideon,” Mordred said pleasantly. “I’m so very glad to see you.” Mordred whispered to the servant girl. She stepped down from the platform, carrying her tray of fruit and stopped in front of Gideon.
His eyes flashed with desire for the bananas, grapes, pineapple, and apple slices sitting on the silver tray. The girl offered the tray to Gideon. He didn’t care anymore if suddenly the food turned into something horrible. He had to have something to eat.
Gideon reached for the pieces of fruit with his manacled hands. He sank his teeth into the food and nearly fainted from the overload of flavor flooding his parched senses. He savored it only a moment and then greedily took more-as much as he could hold-then shoved it into his mouth.
“My poor, Gideon. I’m so very sorry for the way you have been treated,” Mordred said. “I had not realized you were not eating all this time.”
