As high in the sky, the black star grew brighter, the chant grew louder, and the basalt center of the planet reverberated with its power. Within the hollowed-out ruins of the ancient city of Megiddo, the old man Bugenhagen could feel it, and wept; his scrolls and tablets useless now. And above him on the desert floor outside of Israel, the night shift of archaeological students paused in their work, their dirt-sifters falling silent as the ground beneath them began to tremble.
