In a flash, the bull is back-lit by lightning, causing the beads of water on its bronze body to glisten and the metal to shine, while casting its menacing face in shadow. Its feet strike the stone landing more rapidly as it picks up speed. The clanking grows more staccato, and the horde behind it goes dark when the lightning fades. A thunderclap follows, echoing throughout the gorge and shaking the houses. I realize I need to get away from the doors.
I am backpedaling onto the interior of the temple, focused on the increasing tempo of the metal steps of the bronze idol picking up speed as it charges, when I detect motion from my rear left. I duck reflexively, and something whips past my head. The follow up is a punch launched straight at the center of my chest, which I parry with my manacle. My arms are short, but they are good at close range defense. Now that I've pivoted into a turn, I can see that I've been attacked by an acolyte of Baal, whose head is shaved, and that the “punch” launched at my chest was actually a pearl-handled dagger.
A sacred prostitute—oh, boy, talk about an oxymoron—has drawn her own knife and wants to get in on the action. She approaches from one of the curtained booths, and even with her heavily painted eyes, she is obviously consumed by rage.
Am I the only one who can hear the metallic steps racing furiously toward the double doors? The bald acolyte raises the cudgel in his right hand in preparation to strike me.
The beam securing the double doors splinters as it is blown open by the charging bronze bull, and the impact is strong enough that it rips the hinges free from the wall. The doors fly inward and upward as the bull thrusts its horns toward the ceiling. The acolyte is caught by the ironwood door, which strikes him in the chest, crushing him as he is flung backward. In that instant I have jumped upward, so that I am riding the door as it flies off of its hinges and goes sailing over the top of the pews.
For a moment I'm riding an ironwood surfboard, until I jump and the door continues on its path, smashing through pews until it smacks the base of the Baal idol, the image of the seated man-bull. I've already sworn that shit has got to go, and my resolve is heightened now.
With its bronze hooves screeching across the marble floor, the bull image slides to a halt. It sniffs the air, then snorts.
I've recovered from lying on my belly to rise up onto two feet. Acolytes, who form a temple guard, armed with a cudgel and a dagger in each hand, converge on the scene, while temple prostitutes watch from the curtained alcoves of the foyer. I charge at the bronze bull, who in turn charges at me, lowering its head and keeping its horns pointed upward.
The metal bull clanks down the aisle, while I'm scampering forward on two legs. I drop to all fours just prior to leaping. I open my snout and spray a stream of acid into the bull's face as I pass over its back. It throws up its head, missing with its horns, but slamming its head into my belly and flipping me over so that I have done a 180, and I am about to land on my back in the foyer, where the acolytes will descend on me. To my surprise, though, I can whip my tail in mid flight to reorient myself, so that I roll in the air and land on all fours. My pads grip the marble fiercely, so I don't skid.
The temple guard with their shaved heads converge on me, when I catch the closest one with a tail across the face. I charge forward at the bull, who is turning to confront me. We run at each other, racing down the aisle, but I veer to the right and throw a manacled hand at the bull as it passes. The blow from my wrist iron clanks harmlessly off of the bronze hull of the hollow beast, and the reverberation up my arm and into my shoulder socket is agonizing. Even worse, the demon possessed idol is unfazed.
I've got a huge problem: nothing I've done or can do is affecting the bronze bull, which must weigh a ton. The double doors have been blown wide open so that the army and the mob are about to come pouring in.
I'm breaking for the Baal idol in front of the altar when another acolyte comes running out of the sacristy. Like the others, he has a cudgel in his right hand and a dagger in his left. Without slowing down I feint high at his overhand right swing, but then go low, sinking my jaws onto his thigh and spinning. Like an athlete throwing the discus, I release him on the whipping turn, flinging him into the bull galloping down the aisle.
The bald acolyte strikes the bull with the sound of dry branches being broken into kindling. He rides inertly, lifeless atop the bull, until he slides off and slaps the floor of the cathedral. The bull strikes the statue I am resting on, but I've jumped a fraction of a second early, so that I am now clinging to the wall, watching the bronze bull collide with the marble image of the bull-headed man/god.
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A sound echoes through the temple of a ringing gong, and for a moment the bull is still, but its metal hide vibrates. A crack becomes visible in the idol, then widens until the upper half of the image slides off and shatters when it hits the floor. The idol is destroyed, but the demon-possessed bull quickly recovers.
I've got to climb to higher ground. I scramble along the wall, skittering perpendicular to the floor, up high enough that the acolytes and the temple prostitutes can't reach me. Lightning flashes, sending kaleidoscopic light in through the stained glass windows, and for a second the temple looks like a rave filled with drug-addled party-goers in the form of the soldiers and the mob that have poured through the massive opening. A thunderclap booms outside, sounding like a bomb has burst in mid-air over the mountain gorge containing the city. Spears and daggers are thrown off of me, a hail of projectiles that fills the air, mostly bouncing off the wall behind me, even though at least one person shrieks because he is a victim of friendly fire, having caught an errant projectile. Geckos are fast, and I am getting the hell out. An ale bottle hits the wall behind me with a pop, but I have rounded the corner toward the central spire and bell tower.
The bull follows, thundering behind me. The demon driving it plows through the crowd, and you're crazy if you think a demon gives a tinker's damn about any human life. I am winding my way among the stained glass mosaic windows, and the rain is drumming them fiercely. I am now on the stairs, or on the wall above and perpendicular to them.
The bronze bull follows, smashing steps with its metal hooves so that chunks of marble rain down on the mob below. The sound of being chased by the metal bull as I scramble up the spiral staircase is the sound of several ten pound sledges whacking the stone. A plan is going to come to me, I'm sure of it, but as of this moment I have no idea how I'm going to stop this demon-possessed juggernaut.
We climb at a furious pace, winding upward, but the bull has an advantage in that it doesn't have muscles or lungs that get tired or short of oxygen. Still, I scramble over the walls in a winding arc like a moth spiraling toward the flame, until I reach the belfry.
The bull is practically snorting on the end of my tail, and charges. I leap and turn in midair, so that momentum sends the bull into the brass bell, which peals, reverberating throughout the city. The lightning flashes, illuminating the two of us, followed by a clap of thunder that shakes the tower. The bull charges again, but twists its head as I pass. I suck in my belly and arch my flexible spine, so rather than rip my belly with its horns, the bull's neck catches my lower legs and sends me cartwheeling in midair.
The bell clangs softly when I strike its thick metal side and flop to the stone floor.
The bull closes in on me, rising up and coming down to stomp me. My effort is tired and feeble, but I manage to roll. My instinct is to crawl toward the base of the wall where it meets the floor, like a cockroach would do to keep from getting stomped. The bull tries to trample me, whacking the stone and sending little chips flying, but I am wriggling, crawling at the base of the wall while making myself as small as possible.
When I reach the corner I am forced to climb upward. The bull catches me with an upward thrust of its head, but by the grace of God the Protector its horns miss, and I am butted upward. I climb a few steps up further until I reach the top of the spire.
The clanking of the metal hooves coming up the steps is slow, as if to build up my growing fear, but I'm confident. The bull emerges from the staircase to stand at the very top of the spire, which is nothing more than a flat square with a base at its center, where a statue or some kind of fixture has been torn out.
I rise up onto my hind legs as the bull stands to confront me. The heavy rain splatters the stone and pings off the hollow body of the bull that has its head raised in a gesture of dominance, with its horns pointed skyward. Water runs in rivulets down its red-orange sides, and its bronze eyes inexplicably reflect life and a cruel intelligence.
“This is the temple of God the Empowerer, and right here in the center of this tower stood the lightning rod, the symbol of Lord Riyel, but you had that torn down.” I drop down to all fours, and crawl around the torn base where the lightning rod once stood. “I'm just a lowly gecko, but Lord Riyel has taught me that humbling yourself has its advantages. You tore down the lightning rod, so now you're the tallest metal object in the valley.”
The metal eyes of the demon-possessed Baal image widen. Lightning pours out of the inky void above us, striking the bull and consuming it in a glaring white light. The energy is so great that currents leak out, zigzag over the roof and envelop the base of the former lightning rod as well as my body. I am encased in a halo, watching the bull grow red hot, so that the raindrops pelting it sizzle and steam. The metallic bull staggers with its legs grown soft and wobbly from the heat, but they stiffen as the rain cools them. When the bronze bull starts to topple, I race across the roof and kick into its side with both lower legs.
The metal bull flops over the edge of the roof, plummeting through the dark air filled with rain. For long moments the bull falls, but now it's just a deformed lump of metal. I'm hoping to hear a clank as it strikes the stone landing of the steps, but its fall is muffled by the throng jammed into the doorway. The wailing of alarmed worshipers soon follows.
I still have an aura, an angelic glow of other-worldly power suffusing my body. With a leap I contact the wall behind the temple and descend in the darkness as the first gasping humans reach the top of the stairs.