When?

A flash of lightning lit the world outside the cave for a brief instant of time, and I saw something that startled me. It happened too quickly to be certain of it, but I closed my eyes for a moment and reviewed the scene in my memory.

Frozen in place by the lightning’s strobe glare, it was the hulking form of Ahriman I saw, not more than a hundred yards beyond the entrance of the cave. And beside him, standing on all four legs, a huge bear that dwarfed Ahriman’s powerful figure. He was facing the bear, one thickly muscled arm raised, a blunt finger pointing, as if he was giving the beast instructions.

Guided by Ahriman’s intelligence, driven by his hatred, that bear could kill us all. I scrambled to my feet and drew two blazing branches from the fire, one for each hand, and hurried to the cave’s entrance.

As I approached, a jagged fork of lightning streaked across the sky and the bear’s massive, fearsome form reared up in the cave’s entrance, blotting out the storm outside, its roar of rage blending with the boom of thunder to shake the ground itself.

It advanced toward me, forepaws raised, claws the size of hunting knives glinting in the light of the fire, gaping jaws armed with fangs that could tear off a limb with ease.

Instead of retreating, I yelled as loudly as I could and jabbed the burning end of one of my torches at it. The bear roared back and swung a mighty swipe that ripped the torch out of my hand. I feinted with the other torch, tossed it from my left hand to my right, and then drove it into the beast’s midsection. It bellowed with pain and anger, staggered back a step.

My body went into overdrive, every sense hyper-alert, every nerve reacting faster than any normal human could move. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the others awakening, getting to their feet as if in slow-motion, taking up firebrands.

They circled to the bear’s left and right, dancing close and then away, jabbing at him with the blazing torches. The bear screamed fury at them but would not back out of the cave. Ahriman’s control was iron-bound.

I saw that we were at a stalemate that could end only with the bear’s killing one or more of us. Then a burning stick whistled over my head and hit the bear on the shoulder.

“Drive him out!” Adena shouted, and I knew it was she who had thrown the stick.

But the bear had other ideas. Instead of retreating it moved straight at me, utterly disregarding the others and the torches they jabbed at it. I could see the poor beast’s coat blackening from the flames, smell seared fur and flesh, yet still the bear forced itself forward, toward me.

It was like a nightmare where everything happens slowly, as if time itself was winding down; yet even so you cannot escape the terror that is relentlessly engulfing you. The torch in my own hand seemed puny as a matchstick as the bear’s eight-foot height towered over me, its bellowing roar blotting out the shouts and cries of the soldiers, its hate-reddened eyes fastened on mine.

I saw the blow coming, but I had backed up so far that I could not retreat any further without stumbling into the fire. I could feel its heat singing the backs of my legs as the bear’s mountainous paw swung slowly, inexorably, at me. I tried to duck under the blow, and almost made it.

The paw cuffed me on the back of the head as I ducked, hitting me like a boulder dropped from a great height. I went sprawling; everything went fuzzy and black spots danced before my eyes.

I don’t know how long I lay stunned, probably only a moment or two. I found myself on my back, my vision blurred. But I could see Adena leaping at the beast, both hands gripping firebrands, and the bear cuffing her away. It knocked down two more of the troop, then loomed over me. I saw those fangs reaching for me, and I was unable to move out of their way.

The first shock of pain went through me like a bolt of electricity. I could hear my bones crunching as the bear bit into my shoulder and roughly jerked me up off the floor. I pawed feebly at its snout with my free hand and saw, vaguely, dimly, the others still jabbing uselessly at it with their torches. The bear swatted another soldier to the ground and shambled out of the cave, into the night and the cold rain, with me dangling like a limp doll from its jaws.

The last glimpse of the cave I got, through eyes blurred by blood and pain, was of Adena clambering to her feet and starting out after us. But Kedar and another soldier restrained her. They held her there, struggling, and watched the bear carry me off.

The beast dropped to all fours as the rain pelted down on us. Lightning danced through the black sky. The fire-lit mouth of the cave became a distant glow, a speck of warmth as remote as the farthest star.

The bear dropped me, at last, unceremoniously, in a muddy puddle and then trundled off to lick its own wounds. I lay there on my back, the cold rain sluicing down my face and torn body. The pain had reached the point where numbness was setting in. I was too far in shock to even think of trying to control it. My right shoulder was useless, the arm dangling by a few ligaments and scraps of torn, bleeding flesh.

I coughed and shivered. So this is how Prometheus was created, I thought, half-delirious. The demigod who gives humankind the gift of fire only, in return, to be horribly punished by the gods. I think I must have laughed as I lay there bleeding to death. Not a dignified way for a demigod to die.

Another stroke of lightning split the darkness and I saw Ahriman’s brooding form hulking over me.

“I’ve beaten you,” he said, in that tortured whisper of his. I could barely hear him over the moaning of the storm wind.

“You’ve killed me,” I agreed.

“And them. They’ll die off soon enough, without their weapons and their energy generators.”

“No,” I said. “They will live. I’ve taught them how to survive. They have fire. They will master this world and populate the Earth.”

In the darkness I could not see the expression on his face, only the anger and hatred radiating from his red-rimmed eyes.

“I will have to strike elsewhere, then,” Ahriman muttered. “Find the weak points in the fabric of the continuum…”

It took all my strength to shake my head as I lay there in the mud. My voice was growing weaker; each breath I drew in was more difficult, more painful.

“Ahriman… it won’t do you any good,” I gasped. “Each time you try… I am there… to stop you.”

For long moments he said nothing, merely standing there, looming over me like a dark, ominous destiny.

Finally: “Then we will go back to the very beginning. I will kill you for all time, Orion. And Ormazd with you.”

I wanted to laugh at him; I wanted to tell him that he was a fool. But I had no more strength left in me. I could do nothing but lie there as my blood mingled with the rain and mud and the life seeped out of my body.

Ahriman raised his powerful arms to the stormy night sky, threw his head back, and gave out a harrowing, blood-chilling, howling cry, like a beast baying at the moon. Twice, three times, he cried out, his thick blunt fingers reaching toward the black clouds that blotted out the stars.

Lightning strokes flickered through those clouds and then began lancing down to the ground all around us. My failing eyes widened as one bolt after another sizzled to the ground, scant yards from us, and stayed there, crackling and blistering the air around us until we were surrounded with a cage of electricity. The rain-sodden ground bubbled where the lightning danced. The sweet, burning smell of ozone filled the air.

Ahriman stood outlined against the blue-white glare of the lightning, his arms still straining upward, reaching, his baying, yowling cry the only sound I could hear over the simmering blaze of electricity.

Then a tremendous stroke of lightning shattered the world, engulfing Ahriman, turning him into a glowing demon of pure energy, overflowing onto me, screaming along every nerve in my body until there was nothing in the universe but pain.