“You’re sure? You’ll be on this island—alone. No food or drink. No boat, and you can’t swim.”
“No worry ’bout Angelique. You do?”
“I—I’ll try. But I worry about you, even if I get back.”
“No can stop. Must become like her. Come too far to get power to do this. Had to be price to pay. Angelique know this may be. Not mind. Get arms. Got legs. Am strong.”
Maria was genuinely touched by that. Angelique was paying what was, to Maria, an intolerable price, but was it intolerable to Angelique? She would foil, perhaps stop, the Dark Man. She had traded her attractive Canadian self for the body of a young priestess of a Stone Age culture—and perhaps of the Stone Age itself. A quadriplegic heiress becomes a whole Stone Age person, cut off in communication from the world of today and forced to think in a simple, more basic, and probably long dead Stone Age language with few words and much mysticism. The language would in itself force her to think in those terms, make her inside what she appeared to be outside.
Was it worth the price? Was it a better choice? Maria didn’t know, but certainly Angelique had decided it was.
Maria had no doubts that the Dark Man’s people would be sweet as honey if they caught her, but out for terrible revenge when they recovered Angelique. Being hypnotized or whatever it had been would be no excuse. If they could create a monster out of something or other to do their killing and restore her youth while changing Angelique into—this—they would be very creative when she no longer had value. She’d been too long on the streets of New Orleans with the amoral, the vicious, and the truly evil to think otherwise.
“I will do it. Somehow I will do it,” she said, and kissed Angelique.
“I—I not be same when you come back. Be Hapharsi. Look, act, think Hapharsi, but be Angelique in head. No worry. Not all spirits evil. Find good high priest. Break spell. Angelique be like old but no stiff. You see.”
And, with that, they slept, huddled in each other’s arms.
It was dream-filled, troubled sleep for Angelique, but her dreams were not of anything she could remember. Rather it was something of an inner house cleaning, a rearrangement of her mental furniture. She could fight it while awake, at least slow it down, but asleep she was at its mercy. Still, some corner of her mind held on ferociously, at least until this part was done.
She awoke before it was totally dark, and slipped silently away from Maria’s still form. She went down to check the boat and saw that it was indeed still there. Reassured, she went back up and sat, cross-legged, across from the other woman. She needed to think.
Was she doing the right thing, allowing one who had betrayed her once to go alone? Still, she knew she had to do it that way. She was what the Dark Man’s magic had decreed, and his was the stronger magic. By that magic he had marked her, making her choose this life, but, no matter what, she had not lied to Maria. This life was better than being a living statue. She was whole and strong and she knew how to provide the basics to live, and thanks to the magic she wished for no more than those basics. But they would be looking over a tremendous area for two women, and of the two she was the one they most keenly sought. A warrior priestess is born, anointed by the spirits, and she does not get captured by an enemy. She fights and perhaps she dies, willingly, but she does not fall twice into enemy hands.
The Dark Man had anointed her the Hapharsi Mother for this time, but he did not want the true spirit of the ancient Mother to consume her. He wanted to break down Angelique, to remove all things pf her old people and tribal customs and rituals, to allow her to see the joy of living with power. To tempt her, so that she would be brought to their altar and, to get the highest pleasures and the greatest power, she would willingly wed herself to Dobak or some other great demon and herself perform the sacrifice.
She knew she craved the power and the indescribable bodily pleasures that this would bring, that she had experienced second hand through the ancient Mother’s spirit. But were she not to do his bidding, he could not find her any easier than he could find any other woman, and she could still have some power and some pleasure, for she had no children now to be responsible for.
She didn’t really believe Maria could make it. She understood the odds, and she knew that even if Maria got all the way to the home of friends it might have been long deserted, or discovered by the Dark Man. There was every reason for the friends not to be there.
She would prepare to use the essence of this little island itself. It would take perhaps two days, and it would complete the process, for she would have to willingly undergo the full initiation of a Hapharsi Mother. She was not afraid. It was the only way. Then she could talk directly to the elemental spirits of the world, and then she could bargain for her journey. She knew still that there was a great land to the south, and that it was not unlike the land the Hapharsi had lived in. Beyond the great cities and power of the tribes of the coast there was still a huge, dense jungle, with all that she needed. With no tribe, no children of her own to care for, she could be absorbed into it, communing directly with its spirit and perhaps becoming one with nature. A soul so purified might be so clean as to rise to Heaven itself.
It was such a wondrous possibility that the only thing that kept her from doing it was her hatred of the Dark Man and what he stood for. He was a demon, certainly, and probably a prince of demons, preparing the way for the Father of Evil to come and swallow the world. She would give up all the glories of the spirit world to be a part of the battle against such a thing. Just to wound him, to spit in his eye and laugh, would be worth any sacrifice.
Maria groaned, rolled over and seemed about to wake up. Angelique suddenly realized that if, by some miraculous intervention of the Heavens, the girl succeeded, she, Angelique, would need some way to speak to them and they to her. She sat back again and let her mind flow free, and asked the advice of the spirits of the island and the air.
There was a way, they told her, but only if the girl was willing, and she was of the sort who disbelieved in magic even when it was done to her and in front of her face.
Maria groaned again, awoke, and stretched, and opened her eyes. “Still here,” she moaned. “Still no dream. God! Am I thirsty! And hungry!”
Angelique, sitting Buddha-like, did not move, but she fought back her inclinations and forced the words to come. “I can give.”
Maria stared at her. “Give what?”
“Drink. Food. But only to Hapharsi.”
“Well, that may be, but you’re the only Hapharsi or whatever it is here, or maybe in the whole world.”
“Can make Hapharsi. Can be Hapharsi, you.”
Maria, still waking up and trying not to think of what was ahead, wanted to please the woman she’d felt so sorry for. “Me? You want to make me a member of the tribe?”
“You like? I do.” She was well aware that Maria had no idea of the seriousness of what was going on in so far as Angelique was concerned. If she accepted and the ritual was performed, they would be bound together. It would not cause Maria many problems, but it would place tremendous burdens on Angelique, for she would then have a child and responsibility for it. She would be bound to protect her child, Maria, and to honor her requests.
“Yeah, sure. If it makes you happy. What do I do?”
“Let mind go free. Look at me.”
Thinking it a hypnotic trick again, Maria was uncertain, but she determined that this time she’d keep control.
“Unab sequabab ciemi,” Angelique chanted, and almost immediately there seemed to be a breeze through the trees and Maria heard the rushing of wind. An air disturbance formed, apparently between them, and she stared, fascinated, even though she knew it must be some kind of hypnotic trick.
Then there seemed to be a sparkle in the disturbance, as if a hundred tiny fireflies were loosed there and held captive. It was beautiful in its own way.
Now she found herself getting up, although she was fully awake, and walking towards and then into the whirling, intang
ible mass. She felt a slight tingling all over her body, and it felt good.
Now she heard Angelique chanting in that strange, dead language, as if from far off and from everywhere around her at once, and she found herself repeating the syllables with the exact same inflection. And the more she chanted, and the more she said the words, the more she seemed to understand them.
“All the spirits hear me, and the gods of heaven and earth, fire and water, Father Sun and Mother Moon, for I will swear my will.” It was fascinating. She knew she could back out at any time, call it off, but it seemed both beautiful and fascinating.
“I renounce all ties to other tribes and other ways,” she continued. “I will call no woman mother but the Mother of Hapharsi, and no man father but the Elder of the Hapharsi. I proclaim myself before all a Hapharsi, and a Hapharsi only, and willingly do I become again a child, a girl, respectful of her mother and father, who are wise and powerful and the only guides to the true ways. I will respect all the ways of the Hapharsi, and keep them. So do I promise and swear, and give my blood as seal.”
Angelique touched Maria’s left breast, making a scratch with her nail that drew blood, but did not hurt, then she did the same to herself, and then, in turn, they took of each other’s blood with their mouths.
And Angelique said, “Girl, I name you First Love, for you are now my flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood, and nothing shall break this bond between us.” She paused a moment. “It is done.”
The mist and breeze and sparkles faded, and Maria found herself standing still, looking at Angelique. She looked at her breast and at Angelique’s and saw that the scratches were real, although hers still didn’t hurt and seemed already to be healing.
“You wish food and drink for your journey,” said Angelique, and Maria started, realizing that she was understanding that crazy gibberish, not English. If this was hypnosis, she’d somehow been taught an entire language in a matter of minutes, maybe? Who knew? “Cup your hands and face me.”
Feeling a bit silly, Maria did as instructed. Suddenly she felt a wetness, and looked down and saw her hands slowly filling with what looked to be clear water. She couldn’t hold it for long, and she was so very thirsty, so she brought it to her lips and drank it. It was, in fact, plain water, and it was not enough.
Angelique let her repeat three more times until finally the strange woman with the power said, “Enough. It will take you where you must go.” She broke off a nearby leaf and gave it to Maria. “Eat of this leaf.”
Uncertain, Maria took a nibble, and was surprised to find that it was soft and somewhat chewy. It was nothing much on taste, but it seemed to have a thickness and consistency that shouldn’t have been there, and it went down well. Angelique let her eat two leaves, then provided one more handful of water, and no matter how much more Maria wanted, that was it.
“You must go now,” Angelique told her. “Be brave and cautious. The waters, winds, and sands will guide you to your destination, but they can do little against the Father of Evil. Beware and bring help, for the great evil is on the rise. No matter what happens to me, you must get the message through.”
Maria didn’t know what to say, so they kissed and hugged and Angelique saw her down to the boat. There was some water in it, but it was still more than serviceable.
“Which way do I go?” Maria asked her in that strange tongue.
Angelique pointed. “Just below the setting of the sun. Trust your feelings, for they are the wind and water helping you. Goodbye, and may the spirits favor our side.”
Maria was uncertain, scared to leave and make a go of it, unhappy to be leaving this strange girl with her even stranger series of tragedies and afflictions, but more than happy to get out of there and toward civilization. She started the engine, surprised that it caught the first time, and Angelique untied the vines, and watched the small craft back up out of the tiny inlet. It was out of sight when she could hear the engines reverse, and the sound grew loud, then slowly vanished in the night.
Angelique stood there until the last remnants of that noise were gone, then turned and walked back into the miniature jungle. She knew she couldn’t stay, half in this world, half in another. It was pulling her apart, and madness served only the Dark Man’s ends. But the Dark Man had underestimated her strength, courage, and determination, and he had the modern man’s contempt for ancient and more primitive cultures.
Primitive, though, now as ever before, was a relative term, one used by modern man, modern civilization, to judge on the basis of the way a culture looked and what a culture used in relation to their own digital watches and jet planes and computers. It did not measure the soul, nor admit that a different value system might be no less sophisticated than their own.
She removed the belt and the two hanging straw flaps that formed the breech clout, and the headband, and let them drop to the ground. She went to the center of the tiny island, which itself was barely a thousand feet across, then sat, assuming her cross-legged posture. She directed her own power inward, inducing in herself a trance-like state, slowing heartbeat and respiration, clearing her mind of all thoughts, all hopes, all fears. Time, and place, had no more meaning to her.
For a while she existed in this peaceful state, but then she began to float, like a spirit of the wind. She floated upward, out of her body, toward the heavens.
And a great presence came to her, without shape or form, and touched her. It had great power, greater than she had ever known, but it was not stained or tainted and was pure.
“I have had a long sleep,” said the presence, “yet I did not think that I would wake until judgment called, for none were left to my authority. The great, rich plains full of game have turned to sand as humans cut the timbers that preserved it; even the great jungle forests are mostly gone, and what remains is being ravaged by humans or eaten by the encroaching sands. Who is this who calls me from my slumbers?”
“I am called Angelique, and the evil has forced me to this, yet I do not mind.’’
“I know you now, Angelique, better than you know yourself. Know me, then. Once I had charge of the tribes of the Earth, those who lived in harmony and peace with nature and were a part of it. The Sioux, the Cherokee, the Delaware, the Iroquois and a thousand more knew me once. So, too, did the tribes of the south, and of Africa and Asia, and the Pacific know me, and lived full lives in harmony with me. They were human, and I had my opponent, but their sins were against one another, not me, and the balance was preserved. Together we built trade routes that spanned continents; together we created great art of the Earth against the canvas nature provided. Together we built civilizations deep in the jungles and along the mighty, free river systems. War, famine, and disease were my enemies and theirs, yet so, too, did we have honor and respect.
“But then the kings and princes of the world lost their honor and respect, bending to the will of evil. They believed that their civilization was so high that many proclaimed themselves gods and had their people worship them. The altars ran red with human blood as the demons ascended, and they traded honor and respect for power, and went to conquer and enslave the lesser peoples. They descended into the deepest pit of depravity, and mocked nature itself, setting themselves up above the heavens. They fell upon one another and destroyed one another, and so great was my pain and anguish that I destroyed what was left. I reduced their numbers so that they could no longer maintain their civilizations, and confused their minds, and sent their children back to the wild once more.’’
“Are you, then, the greatest of spirits, the Father of the Universe?”
“No. I am but a pale reflection of that greatness, a servant. No more. I was a guardian, and an inadequate one. So corrupted were the souls of humanity that in the forests and the jungles they still remembered what they had once been and hungered for it. It is humanity’s lot not just to suffer what fate brings, but to triumph over that suffering.
“The Hapharsi are a microcosm of the whole. Once they were a small part o
f a great civilization that ruled central Africa and built great cities and temples and discovered great things. Then evil corrupted the leaders, and they fell upon one another and ripped their civilization to shreds. Only scattered remnants and no structures remain. The Hapharsi, who followed one of those leaders, were reduced to hunting and gathering in a jungle that could support and sustain them only by their constant working, their constant search for food and the basics. They might have reached for harmony, and so lifted themselves out, but instead they cursed their toil and their lot. They let their groves grow wild, and they depleted their game rather than managing it; they brought themselves to the brink of extinction. And when by their own foolishness they brought this upon themselves, they blamed not themselves and their impulses but Heaven, and cursed it, and took the easy path that Hell always offers.”
“I am saddened for them, but why must all the choices be so terrible?”
“What is is not what seems to be,” it answered. “Life is choices, and most are choices of evil, or misery, or sacrifice. Misery can be a learning experience, as can joy. Evil promises immediate rewards, but an eternity of misery followed by oblivion. Sacrifice promises immediate suffering, but an eternity of joy and reward. Consider the Hapharsi. They prospered for a time in evil’s service, but eventually one of the newer civilizations, one from the north, swept in and cut them down, recognizing evil for what it was. Not a man, woman, or child was spared, and the demon who they served did not intervene, but rather rode with the conquerors and ate the souls of the Hapharsi as they fell. The demon now rode with the conqueror, which promised greater rewards for it, abandoning its charges.”
She went for the Hapharsi, and for the souls of the conquerors as well.
“But what of today? Evil rules much of the world and wants it all. It prepares for the final battle against Heaven.”
“Evil is always with humanity, for without it how can good be determined? Today is no different than yesterday. Humanity is ruled in the main by oppressors who may not even know that they are evil. The demons can whisper words in the ears of people that are so sweet that they can believe that black is white, blue is red, and evil is good. Today there is power greater than that of the rulers of nations. Mighty companies sell weapons to rulers filled with fear of their enemies, and sell the same weapons to their enemies. They build great things for the rulers of nations, yet those things are at the expense of the people who are suffering and oppressed. Such companies take on a life of their own and thrive only in a world of evil.’’
The Messiah Choice Page 18