"I did love him," Anya confessed. "When I was in human form, living down there in those wretched tents, he was magnificent. I thought him a god, almost. I think he reminded me somewhat of you."

The Golden One smiled. "Truly?"

"A god," she went on, "a being of great strength, and great goodness. And..." she hesitated.

"And what?"

"Great need." Anya's voice suddenly became almost pleading. "Can't you see how confused, how painful, it is for him? Cast into a strange time and place, commanded to do things that are impossible..."

"He succeeded in his task," the Golden One said. "He has kept the continuum intact."

"At what cost?"

"The cost does not matter, my dear. Only the goal is significant."

"You would sacrifice him-you would sacrifice all of them-to save yourself."

"And you," the Golden One pointed out. "If I am saved, so are you and the others."

"And so is he he, the Dark One. He will be saved also."

"No. He must be destroyed."

"But you cannot destroy him without destroying us."

"That is not true. I will destroy him. This creature that you dote on will do that for us."

Anya looked down on Orion's silent body. "You know he can't achieve that. He is only a creation of yours. The Dark One has powers that he cannot match."

"He will defeat the Dark One."

"He can't."

"And I say he will! We have already stopped him twice. I will keep sending out this creature to defeat the Dark One, no matter how long it takes."

"Haven't you looked around you?" Anya demanded. "Haven't you seen what's happening? Are you so egotistical that you believe you actually are winning this contest?"

"I am am winning," the Golden One replied. "The continuum remains intact, despite the Dark One's pitiful little schemes." winning," the Golden One replied. "The continuum remains intact, despite the Dark One's pitiful little schemes."

Anya raised one hand, and the emptiness in which they stood was suddenly filled with vast swirls of stars, boiling cauldrons of gas that glowed pink and ultraviolet, whirlpools of galaxies sweeping out to infinity.

"Look!" she shouted over the rumble of the expanding, exploding universe. "See what is happening to the continuum."

The Golden One followed her outstretched finger and saw stars collapsing in on themselves, titanic explosions that flung out seething gases and then sucked them back in to an insatiable vortex of energy until what was once a brilliant star became nothing more than a black hole in the fabric of space-time. He saw whole galaxies succumbing to the same forces, winking out of existence, dying even as he watched.

"Do you think you are winning?" Anya demanded. "While the continuum is dying, piece by piece?"

The Golden One snapped his fingers and the starry universe disappeared. Once again they were in the calm nothingness of the void.

"Do not be alarmed by side-effects, my dear," he said. "The battle is taking place on Earth. Of all the planets of the continuum, of all the living intelligences in that universe, it is these creatures of Earth that hold the key to our struggle."

"So you believe," Anya said.

"What I believe is true," answered the Golden One. "What I believe is is the continuum." the continuum."

"For how long?" she taunted. "How long will you be able to maintain your control? He is defeating you, O mighty Ormazd. The forces of darkness are gobbling up the continuum, bit by bit."

"That will all be reversed once the Dark One is destroyed."

With a sad, unbelieving shake of her head, Anya said more softly, "So you will send him back again?"

Glancing at Orion's waiting body, the Golden One replied, "Yes. It is necessary."

"Then I will go also."

"You are very foolish," said the Golden One.

"And stubborn. I know."

"You can't actually want to be with this... this, creature. You can't actually desire him."

She smiled. "He reminds me of you, a little. But where you have arrogance and power, he has doubt-and courage."

The Golden One turned his back on her, and abruptly disappeared. Orion's body began to stir; his eyelids fluttered as his fingers clutched at emptiness.

Anya watched him. coming to life, and slowly she faded into nothingness. But as she dissolve the human form that she had taken, her luminous gray eyes never left the face of the creature she had known, the man she had loved.

PART THREE: FLOOD.

CHAPTER 22.

My eyes opened and showed me a blue sky bright with sunshine and puffy white clouds. The memory of Karakorum, of Ogotai and the Mongols, faded from my mind like a distant, echoing song. All I could think of was Agla, the sound of her voice, the touch of her vibrantly warm skin, her beautiful face. "Ormazd," I thought, "do you understand what suffering is? Do you know how cruel you are?"

Yet, even as I said those words to myself, I had the feeling that I would meet her again. Aretha, Agla, whatever her true name was-she was bound to me, and I to her, through all of time. No matter how many centuries separated us, we would find each other. I knew it with all my soul.

I realized that I was lying on my back. Sitting up, I surveyed my new location. It was a broad open meadow of cool grass that sloped gently down toward a distant river. Trees grew at the water's edge, the first trees I had seen in a long while. The grass itself was long and wild and matted; no blade had ever cut it, from the looks of it. Wild flowers dotted the land with color. Rocks and boulders jutted here and there; no one had ever cleared them away. The trees by the river swayed in a warm wind; they rose up from a tangle of low foliage that hugged the river's bank. There was no sign of civilization, no sign of human beings ever having been here.

A rabbit's brown, lop-eared head popped up from the grass. It eyed me, nose twitching, as I sat there, then hopped up closer, well within arm's reach. It had no fear of me at all. After a few moments of inspection, it bounded away and disappeared into the long grass once again.

I looked down at myself. My garments were a simple kilt made of hide and a leather vest. A braided belt around my waist held a small knife. I drew it from the belt and saw that it was made of a smooth stone handle and a blade of chipped flint, tied to the handle rather clumsily with what looked like dried pieces of vine.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I tried to puzzle out where and when I might be. Obviously I had been sent backward through time again. Ahriman had told me I was moving back toward The War, from the twentieth century to the thirteenth to the...

I looked down at the crude knife in my hand once more. I was in the Stone Age, apparently. This time Ormazd had flung me backward not mere centuries; I had traveled back ten thousand years or more.

From the tortured hell of a blazing nuclear fury to the barbaric splendor of the capital of the Mongol empire, and now to this. A calm, grassy meadow on a sweet, sunlit morning. An Eden where humans were so rare that animals did not fear them. Civilization had not yet begun. Not even the first villages had been started. The pyramids of Egypt were a hundred centuries or more in the future. Glacial ice sheets still covered much of Europe, retreating grudgingly as the Ice Age gave way to a warmer climate.

Here it was springtime. Flowers bloomed everywhere. Insects buzzed and scurried through the grass. Birds swooped and sang overhead. I must be far south of the ice, I reasoned, or in a region where the glaciers had never penetrated.

I got to my feet. It was a beautiful part of the world, serene and untouched by human hands. Yet I knew that if Ormazd had sent me here, it was because there were humans in this time and place. And Ahriman. He would be here, too. Somehow, this spot was a nexus in the space-time continuum, a pivotal location where Ahriman planned to change the course of events. My task was to stop him, at all costs, and kill him if I could.

At all costs. I could feel my face harden into a grimace of anger and frustration. What did death mean to one such as Ahriman? Or to me? Pain, the shock of separation, the grief of loss. But all that was temporary. A moment, a blink of an eye later, and centuries or millennia had melted away and we still lived, still existed, only to begin the cycle anew: hunter and hunted, prey and predator-kill or be killed. Must it go on forever, endlessly? Was there no peace in all of space-time? Was there no place for me to rest and live like a normal man?

You are Orion, a voice within my mind spoke to me. Orion the Hunter. Your task is to find Ahriman and kill him. Through all the eons of time, if need be, you must seek out the Dark One and destroy him before he succeeds in destroying all humankind. For this purpose you were created. Ask nothing more.

I knew it was Ormazd's command, and I had no choice but to obey it. I knew that asking for something more, for rest or love or simply oblivion and an end to all existence, was futile; Ormazd would never grant me any of it. I knew that I would do his bidding because I had no real choice. But I did not have to like it. Nothing that Ormazd could do to me could make me serve him happily, willingly. I did what I did out of necessity, out of a sense of duty to my fellow human beings. But not out of love, or even respect, for the God of Light.

I walked to the river. It was pleasant, at first, strolling easily under the warm morning sun. My feet were bare, and I had to smile to myself to think that now I did not even have the sandals that I had worn in the time of the Mongols-the sandals that had caught Ogotai's notice. But my smile vanished as I remembered Ogotai, his pain, and how I had murdered the man who had befriended a stranger from a distant time.

The going was more difficult along the river's bank; the brush grew thick and tangled here. Thorns scratched at my bare arms and legs as I forced my way through. At last I stood at the water's edge, with the big trees swaying and sighing above me in the gentle breeze.

The river was slow and sluggish, meandering gently through the grassy plain. I knelt down and drank from its clear water. Off to my right I saw a row of stones rippling the water's surface; they had been lined up roughly to form a path across the river. This was the first sign that human beings had been here: a ford.

I made my way across the river and began climbing the gentle slope that led up and away toward a line of low hills. As I reached the crest of the ridge line, I saw that the land became more rugged, serrated into row after row of hills, each line rising slightly higher than the one before it. And off in the distance, floating like a disembodied ghost in the bluish haze, rose a strange double-peaked mountain. One of its cones was covered with snow at the top, but the snow was streaked with dark gray, and a thin wavering line of whitish smoke snaked upward and dissipated in the clean blue sky.

A slumbering volcano. Something about the mountain's double-peaked shape stirred a faint memory within me, but I couldn't pin down exactly what it was.

With a shake of my head, I turned to go back down the hill. The river-watered meadow looked better to me than these ridges.

That's when I saw them, coming over the ridge line about fifty yards to my right. Silhouetted against the bright springtime sky, a string of thirty-some people walked single file, heading in my direction.

I blinked. For a moment I thought they might be Mongols and that I had not traveled through time at all. But they were afoot, not mounted. And they were slender, fair of skin, their hair reddish and wild and long. Their clothes were hides, like mine. They were caked with dirt and I could smell their sweat and grime on the breeze. A few mangy, bone-thin dogs accompanied them. They bared their fangs and snarled at me, but they stayed near their masters.

The red-bearded man leading them carried a pole with the skull of a horned animal fixed to its top. He raised the pole and halted so abruptly that the children, back toward the end of the line, bumped into their elders and jostled them. I almost laughed-until I saw that all of the men, and several of the younger women, carried long, slim spears tipped with blackened, fire-hardened points. Even the pole carrying the groups totem was actually a spear.

For several moments the red-haired people did nothing but gape at me, their expressions ranging from puzzlement to curiosity to fear. Hands fingered stone knives. Several of them shifted their long, knobby-shafted spears to their throwing hands. I saw that all the women were armed, at least with knives, and even the bigger children carried sticks or clubs. The dogs continued to growl menacingly.

A Stone Age hunting clan, out of the dawn of human history. Shaggy-haired, unkempt, gaunt with the tautness of constant hunger, and as wary of a stranger as a bird is wary of a snake. Yet they were human, fully; just as human as I. Perhaps even more so.

The red-bearded leader's upraised arm still hung poised in the air as he looked me over very carefully. A young woman stepped up beside him. My heart leaped inside my chest. She was redheaded, just like the rest of them, and matted with filth. But even from this distance I could see that was Agla/Aretha.

She showed no sign of recognizing me, though. I saw her lips move as she spoke to the leader, but her tones were too low for me to hear her words.

The leader silenced the dogs with a gesture, then turned and gestured to two of the younger men, further down the line. They glanced at each other in the classic Why me? Why me? expression, but they started walking slowly, reluctantly, along the grassy slope toward me, hefting their long spears as they approached. The rest of the clan gathered around their leader in a ragged semicircle, ready to charge at me or run away, back over the crest of the ridge, depending on what happened next. expression, but they started walking slowly, reluctantly, along the grassy slope toward me, hefting their long spears as they approached. The rest of the clan gathered around their leader in a ragged semicircle, ready to charge at me or run away, back over the crest of the ridge, depending on what happened next.

The pair approaching me were teen-agers, the Stone Age equivalent of cannon fodder. They were beardless, but their coppery hair was shoulder-long and matted. I could almost see the vermin living in it. Every muscle and tendon in their arms and torsos was rigid with tension. Their knuckles were white as they gripped their spears and held them pointed at me. They were too skinny, hollow-cheeked, and young to look truly fierce, but they certainly lacked nothing in grim determination.

I raised both my hands, palms outward, in what I hoped they would understand as a sign of peace. At least they could see that I held no weapons. They halted a good ten yards from me close enough to drive a spear clean through me, if I were slow enough to allow that to happen.

"Who are you?" asked the one on the left, in a quavering, cracking adolescent's voice.

I wasn't surprised that I understood their language. Ormazd had programmed it into me, no doubt, during my brief transition from one time era to another. If I could converse with the Mongols, or the twentieth-century Americans, for that matter, why not with these primitives whose language has not been spoken for millennia?

"I am a traveler, from afar," I replied.

"What are you doing here?" asked the other one. His voice was a bit deeper, but equally shaky. He raised his spear as he spoke, ready to throw it at me.

I kept my hands outstretched from my body. I knew that I could snap both their spears and their bones anytime I chose to. But I doubted that I could handle the whole clan if they decided to rush me all at once.

"I come from far away," I said, loud enough for their leader to hear me. "I have traveled a long, long time." No lie, I told myself. "I am a stranger in your land and seek your help and protection."

"Traveled?" asked the second one. "Alone? You travel alone?"

"Yes."

He shook his head vehemently. "You lie! No one can travel alone. The beasts would kill you, or the spirits of the dead. No man walks by himself, without a clan."

"I speak the truth," I said. "I have traveled a great distance, alone."

"You belong to another clan. They are hiding nearby, waiting to ambush us."

So there was warfare here. Killing. I felt a great sadness wash over me. Even in this young Eden human beings murdered one another. But I looked past the two frightened, suspicious youths at the young woman standing by the leader's side. Her eyes met mine. They were as gray and deep as those eyes I knew so well. But there was no spark of recognition in them, no hint of understanding. She was a woman of her time, a Stone Age huntress, as savage and uncouth as the rest of them.

"I am alone," I repeated. "I have no clan. That is why I want to join you. I am weary of being alone. I seek your friendship."

They glanced back over their shoulders at their leader, then turned back to me.

"You cannot be of the Goat Clan," said the deeper-voiced one. "Who is your mother? Who is your father? They are not of the Goat Clan. You You are not of the Goat Clan." are not of the Goat Clan."

It was all very simple in their minds. Either you were born into the clan or you were an outsider, a threat, a danger. Perhaps you could marry into the clan, but more likely a male took his bride to his own clan. Women could be traded back and forth, but not men, I was willing to bet. And the horned skull on the leader's pole had been a goat. I smiled to myself. It was a good totem. The goat is a hardy animal, willing to eat almost anything and as tough as the flint these people used for tools and weapons.

"It is true that I am not of your clan. I have no clan. I would like to stay with you. It is not good for a man to be alone."

They wavered, uncertain, and looked back at the leader again. He was scratching his red beard, frowning in concentration. He had never encountered a problem like this before.

"I can help you," I coaxed. "I am a good hunter. My name is Orion. It means Hunter."

Their jaws fell. All of them. Not merely the two youths, but the leader and the rest of the clan gaped at me. Even the dogs seemed to become more alert.

"Yes," I said. "Orion means Hunter. What are your names? What do they mean?"

Both the lads started yelling and brandishing their spears at me. Their pupils were dilated with rage and fear as sweat broke out on their bodies and the veins in their necks began to throb furiously.

Beyond them, the whole clan surged and roared. Without a visible signal from the leader they hefted their weapons and swarmed down the slope toward me, dogs and all. The two teen-agers were jabbing their spears at me, working up the courage to make a real attack.

I made a very quick, very human decision. I turned and ran. I had no desire to frighten them further or to risk being swarmed under and hacked to bloody pieces by their primitive weapons. So I ran, as fast as I could.

They threw spears at me, but I easily avoided them. There was no organized pattern to their fusillade; over my shoulder I could see the individual shafts wobbling across the sky so slowly that I could have turned and caught them if I had wanted to. Instead, I simply dodged as I ran.

They chased after me, but their speed and endurance were nowhere near mine. Not even the dogs could keep up with me. Besides, they were merely trying to chase me away; you always run better when your goal is to save your own skin. In less than a minute I was beyond the range of their spears. Their leader sent a relay of four men after me, but their endurance was pitifully short. I jogged down toward the river, crashed through the underbrush, and dove into the cold water with a huge, belly-whopping splash.