Long-haired sheep were grazing among the decaying walls and arches when the distant rumble of a jeep caused them to raise their heads and twitch their ears in the direction of the disturbing sound. Dawn was breaking; the sun rose livid red above the valley, sending long multi-colored shadows streaking across the landscape. When the jeep suddenly emerged over the top of the nearest hill, and began to barrel down in their direction, the sheep stumbled and scattered, their bells clanging discordantly, as if summoning supplicants to a travesty of prayer.

The jeep pulled up close to the ruined castle wall, and Bugenhagen and Morgan got out. It was cold in the early morning air, but only Morgan seemed to notice or to care. Bugenhagen was intent on digging up an extra miner's helmet out of the pile of equipment in the back of the jeep. Where they were going, both of them would need helmets. It was too dark to rely on the light of only one lamp, and too dangerous to attempt without some protection for the head.

What both men failed to notice was a large black raven, which perched on the highest part of the wall and watched them with blank, malevolent eyes.

Bugenhagen and Morgan walked across the vast, dark banquet hall of the castle, past the six fifty-foot pillars that ran the length of the chamber. Sleeping bats hung from the eaves. The old man clutched the leather pouch to his chest, as though he were fearful to be separated from it. Both men switched on their headlamps and began the descent down the time-worn steps into the subterranean recesses of the archaeological dig.

Others had been there not long before. Boards had been laid where the most recent excavations had been dug, to facilitate crossing the mud and the ditches. Modern equipment and ancient discoveries lined the walls, lying incongruously side by side, both covered by the same impersonal plastic.

And then Morgan saw something that nearly made him jump out of his skin—a carving at once so obscene and so seductively beautiful that it made him gasp. It was a statue of a woman sitting upon a scarlet Beast. The Beast had seven hideous heads and ten awful horns and was covered with words carved in languages no one had spoken for thousands of years.

Morgan may have been a skeptic, but he was not a fool. He knew exactly what he was looking at. 'The Whore of Babylon,' he said aloud. The terrible name echoed off the walls.

He looked up only to see Bugenhagen disappear through an opening in the wall. Bugenhagen hadn't heard him. Morgan shuddered involuntarily and went after him. He had no intention of being stranded alone in the dark with the dreadful statue of the Whore of Babylon. He followed Bugenhagen into the next chamber.