The special place Mordred had prepared for Gideon turned out to be nothing more than a room of cold stone. They had not descended into the dungeons of the palace, but it bore resemblance. The guards had thrust him in without any chains to bind him whatsoever.
Curious, he thought. Looking around the twenty foot square room, it held nothing at all in the way of furnishings, not even a bed. When the door had closed however, things had changed. As Gideon’s eyes wandered over every inch of the walls, looking for anything that might aid an escape, he happened to look back at the door. It had disappeared.
He blinked. Only stone remained where the guards had been standing moments before. He turned round and round, supposing he’d become disoriented and simply looked for the door in the wrong part of the room. But he had not. The door had vanished completely, as though it had never existed, yet here he was inside the room. No wonder they removed my chains, he thought. I can’t escape without a way.
Gideon fought back the panic welling up inside. Claustrophobia fell on him like a weight. He stopped himself from allowing his emotions to have their way. Reason told him that there must be a way in and out. He’d just come through. Realizing the alternative helped to bolster his confidence. It’s a trick-even if you don’t know how-remember it’s only illusion.
Gideon closed his eyes, then searched the walls inch by inch with his hands. Still he couldn’t find anything to suggest a door. He gave up and sat down in the middle of the floor, trying to relax. The air seemed to grow thin around him. He tried to control his breathing. The feeling of suffocation grew-panic attacked at the fringe of his consciousness again. And again, he had to reason through. “They’re not trying to kill you,” he told himself. “This is an illusion. Demons are involved here-that’s how they can do this to you. Mordred made it clear that you would come before him in his throne room, that you would live to regret it. A dead man can’t do those things.”
It was then that Gideon noticed something he had not before. He could see, despite the fact that the room had no windows, no discernable source of light at all. Still, there was some form of light in the room-dim, as though light particles had simply been suspended somehow. He smiled. “They’re trying to break me.”
Gideon closed his eyes again and made himself believe that there was plenty of air. He thought of the room as a safe haven instead of a tomb. He felt better, calm, hungry.
He opened his eyes and saw a bowl of steaming soup sitting on a plate with a piece of bread. Gideon looked around the room. Had he fallen asleep? Certainly there hadn’t been anyone to come into the room without him realizing it. But there sat the food.
Gideon reached out and pulled the plate across the stone floor to him. The aroma was wonderful. The bread smelled of butter and honey, and the soup looked like a chowder of some kind with a creamy white sauce. His belly groaned and complained, wanting to be satisfied. It seemed so long since he’d tasted food worth tasting.
Gideon took the small loaf of bread in his dry hands. It felt moist and warm to the touch. He broke it open and sniffed at the vapors rising through the crust. His mouth watered, and he sank his teeth into it. The sweet flavor rolled across his taste buds like high tide upon the shore. He moaned with satisfaction as he chewed and swallowed the first bite.
Next, Gideon took the bowl of soup and brought it to his mouth. It smelled wonderful. He greedily tipped the rim to his lips, slurping the creamy broth. He let the flavor fill his mouth, then he looked curiously inside the bowl.
Something round rolled over in the broth until the sauce revealed a pigmented ring and pupil within. Gideon forced the soup through his lips, spewing it out. The broth splattered across the stones before him. It had been an eyeball. He dropped the bowl. It scattered its contents across the floor-blood intermingled with the creamy white sauce.
Gideon spit the remnants out over and over again. He caught a glance at the bread broken open on the plate. Maggots festered within. Gideon coughed in spasms, horrified that he’d eaten any of the foul food he’d been delivered. He heaved upon his hands and knees, but he had nothing in his stomach to bring up.
When he finally felt some settling, Gideon looked up again. The spilt food, along with the bowl and plate, had disappeared. Examining the stone floor closely, he found no evidence there had ever been any food at all.
The room suddenly grew cold-so much so, that his breath hung suspended in the air. Gideon’s clothes were little more than rags after the fighting on Macedon and the voyage across the Azure Sea. His teeth chattered, while gooseflesh sprung up all over his arms.
A light shone behind him. Gideon turned to see it and found the stone walls had given way to images. He blinked, but the images remained, unfolding before him. He saw entire cities burned to the ground, the inhabitants 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.