Thief

by Greg Curtis

  The others he wasn’t too sure of, but knew them to be powerful. Why didn’t he know? He cursed himself. He should bloody know. It was absolutely bloody essential to any possible plan and yet he hadn’t found out. He hadn’t even tried to find out. He had let bleakness blind him, and was a fool for it. That then was also the purpose of the demon brand. To wrap him up in so much misery and despair that he stopped trying. Stopped even thinking. And it had worked for far too long. He briefly cursed his stupidity and weakness.

  Under ‘power’ he quickly wrote the word ‘love’, for all of them loved angels, some perhaps even unto their own destruction. And all of them too were loved by angels. All of them also bore the marks of angels.

  Under that quickly came ‘duty’, ‘honour’, ‘determination’, ‘courage’ and ‘decency’. For in taking this role on they’d all showed those qualities. Underneath those words another appeared, ‘good’. He hadn’t written it, another had, but instantly he saw it and knew it was the correct word. In a flash he understood. They were all good people, even him. They tried to help their fellows, to be fair and kind.

  Acting on instinct at the two ends of the line, under ‘love’ and ‘hate’ he wrote ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The two correct names for the spectrum extremes. It was like the opening of a window into a whole new world.

  “Ahh Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” He screamed it out loud, as he finally understood the depth of his own idiocy. He screamed it a lot more, heedless of who might have heard. It was only important that he heard it as he cursed himself again and again.

  No wonder their knowledge, their skills their talents had failed. He saw it in the instant he saw the diagram for what it was. A map of the universe and its only true dimension, good and evil. All of their talents, skills, knowledge, in fact everything else, were neutral. What’s the opposite of science? No knowledge? Superstition? Ignorance? What’s the opposite of magic? The same? Dullness? The opposite of psychic was non-psychic, the opposite of strong, weak, the opposite of control of nature was no control of nature.

  None of these things were inherently good or bad. They were just neutral. They might be powerful, but not much else.

  “A magician can curse or bless, a scientist can create a bomb or a vaccine. Lea can control the animals to attack or help, Grould can heal or kill with his mind as can Abrax with his body.” He muttered it aloud, lost in his understanding and his wonder at his own stupidity. Even a thief he realized, can be good or bad. And somewhere along the way he had chosen good. Stealing from those who harmed others, giving to those who needed it.

  “And Sherial can walk through every defence I’ve ever heard of without trouble!” In his mind’s eye he saw her again in his room, gently hovering above him, and without ever having set off an alarm. He saw her in his underground workshop. He saw his empty freezers and missing gargoyles. He remembered her complete lack of knowledge about the very systems she’d overcome. Technology did not compare to goodness. How could he have forgotten that? How could he have been so completely blind?

  As if on cue his final revelation came to him, and along the ends of the line, outside the universe, he wrote ‘God’ and ‘Devil’. For that’s what this game was really all about. The angels were on the side of God and goodness. The demons were simply evil spawn of hell.

  The shock of unearthing the depth of his ignorance was overwhelming. In his arrogance, in his blindness he hadn’t seen something so incredibly basic. He, and as he suddenly realized had the others, hadn’t thought of the power of goodness, or of God much. He had instead believed in the power of the intellect and science. He relied on his wits, and used science and intellect as a crutch to pin his life upon while questions of love and goodness remained untouched.

  Looking around him at last, he suddenly noticed the others, staring at him as though he’d gone mad. They almost looked as though they wanted to run, to leave him in his insanity far behind. It was irrelevant. He looked into their eyes, their very natures, and saw instantly that they too were exactly the same as him, egotistical fools. Each had made the same stupid mistake he had. Each and every one of them had believed their unique ability was what ruled their life, and why they had been chosen by the angels. Every one of them was like him, an arrogant, fat-headed idiot. He screamed it at them while they looked back at him, surely wondering at his sanity.

  Goodness was far more fundamental than talent, based on love and God. Goodness was what allowed them to be who they were. It had motivated them all their lives, forced them and directed them to become everything they were. If they had not been good first, they would not have been driven to become as powerful as they were. Goodness underlay all their strengths.

  And therefore lack of goodness underlay all their weaknesses. – “Or lack of belief in goodness!”

  It was like the opening of another door into his past as he saw exactly why he’d failed. He’d entered a demons’ lair and not taken even the basic precaution of believing that God, that Sherial, that his own goodness would protect him. It had made him weak, vulnerable. It had allowed them to stick this nightmare on his face, something they could never do to an angel, a true believer, - or someone who held the love of an angel inside him. He hadn’t accepted her love to him, and he had paid the price, failure.

  He had been too weak to be with Sherial.

  The memory suddenly screamed out of the deepest graveyards of his mind like a jet, and held him prisoner until he acknowledged it. The other side of the coin.

  The light had finally dawned revealing the full extent of his mistakes. He had made the same blunder with Sherial, and he groaned aloud in his misery. In believing himself a talented thief rather than a good and decent man he had weakened himself with her too. Sherial liked his skills, enjoyed his body, admired his discipline, but above all she loved him. In turn while he desired her form, worshiped her goodness and purity, he also loved her.

  Yet his love was also a lie. He loved her, yes. He’d admitted it to himself, said so and done everything he could to prove it. Everything except the one thing he had to. He hadn’t allowed himself to love her fully, nor believed totally in her love. He hadn’t trusted her.

  He had fallen in love and mistaken it for, no, - for once he had to be truthful, - he had tried to pretend it was only animal lust. He had always known it was far more, and had denied it even to himself. Especially to himself. He had used every single paranoid defence to keep her away, to deny what both of them needed absolutely; each other.

  And why? More truth hit him in the face like a hammer. Because he was afraid.

  It was the simple truth and it hurt. He was utterly terrified of losing himself in another, of losing his identity, his privacy. He had lived in total secrecy for decades, somehow believing himself completely separate from, and if he was honest, above other human beings. Yet Sherial had come into his life and from that instant his world had started crumbling, leaving him naked and vulnerable. A terrified worm, suddenly exposed to the sunlight, and wanting nothing more than to hide away again in the cool dark earth.

  His life had consisted of decades of discipline, of self-control. Everything around him, his home, his world - everything he did he controlled down to the tiniest detail. Sherial was completely beyond his control; worse, she controlled him. That had terrified him.

  Those two strands, secrecy and control, formed the centrepiece of his life. They were his life. He would go - he had gone - to every length to salvage them, to protect himself from what any sane man would welcome as the greatest gift imaginable.

  Looking at those few lines in the dirt, he saw what he should have always known. Love was of the heart and soul not the head or the body. Love was of God. Sherial herself had told him constantly that it was totally right that they be together, and he hadn’t believed her. He kicked himself, finally understanding his weakness, and why Sherial had had to leave him. Why, he screamed silently, had it taken him so long to see the simple truth?

  “Ohh God!” He felt so utterl
y appalled at himself. He had loved Sherial from the first instant he’d set eyes on her. As he had lain on that apartment floor staring up at her in wonder, and all through that long trip back home, he had learned everything he ever needed to know about her. He’d fallen in love in a single day, in a single glance. And then he’d denied it with all his might, from that very same moment. He’d used his mind to lead him down the path of paranoia and distrust, his mental conditioning to shut her out, and his self-pity and anger to raise barriers between them. And yet where had it gotten him? He was alone, bitterly cold and a failure.

  Worst of all he suddenly realised, he had hurt Sherial as well as himself. Denying himself to her. Not trusting her, cutting her off from him. He had denied her that which she had most wanted, and insulted her in the bargain. It was a nightmare exposed. Not only had he hurt himself, he had hurt her, and that was so horrible he wanted to die for his sins. How could he have been so miserable?

  “Sherial.” The pain hit him like a million degree’s of fire, but he managed to hold it at bay for the first time. Its heat did not match the pain of his remorse, or his need.

  “I love you. I trust you. I need you and I want you with me, always. I’m so bloody sorry for hurting you.”

  He finally understood the unbelievable stupidity of his ways. The sheer imbecility and the terrible weakness.

  No wonder he’d nearly killed himself with her. The veil that had clouded his mind opened further and he saw why he’d failed even as a man with her. An hysterical laugh almost escaped his throat. It would have been funny if it weren’t so pitiful.

  He’d held back, desperate to make believe it was purely physical, and trying to satisfy the infinite hunger of his heart and soul, of her heart and soul, with only his meagre human body. Of course it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. It could never satisfy him, or Sherial. And the less it satisfied them the more they both wanted, and the more he ached to give her his everything, yet offered only his mortal flesh to grant it with. Until finally his flesh had collapsed, unable to satisfy the needs of his heart and soul.

  Love he discovered, does not permit holding back. The sheer unbelievable arrogance and stupidity of it all. Mikel cursed himself again and again, while the demon’s brand flared its evil. Yet its pain was only an echo of his own.

  But his self-hatred couldn’t last, for he finally knew that despite his pitiful failings as a man and lover, Sherial would still love him with everything she had to give. She would always love him. And she would forgive him anything. It was who she was and what he loved about her. Even though he had only given her the tiniest fraction of the love he had for her, even though he hadn’t trusted her as he needed to - as he wanted to - Sherial would still love him with everything she had.

  He felt like a heel, as he understood that. Sherial would forgive him always, would love him always, no matter how many times he failed her. That was her nature. And he would always fail her. That was his.

  “No!” The word simply escaped him, a released rocket of emotion. He could not fail her any longer. It simply wasn’t good enough, and he could never allow it to be. He couldn’t stand to see Sherial forgive him one more time, while he backed away from her, only to repeat the cycle later. He couldn’t bear to see her hurt.

  No mere apology could ever be enough and he saw that too. Sherial would accept them all, but it would still not be enough. Sherial deserved far more than an apology. Sherial wanted more and so did he. She didn’t want roses and chocolates and the hundred and one other things that men have given women to apologize over the centuries. Nor did she want him to tell her of his love, to spout poetry, to speak what should be known without words. Sherial only wanted one thing from him, had ever only wanted that single thing. Him. Unworthy as he was, that was what she wanted.

  There was a way. He hadn’t known it until that very moment, but suddenly it lay there before him, calling out to him. There had always been a way, and he had been too stupid to understand, and too distrusting to accept.

  “And the truth shall set us free.”

  He kneeled and bowed his head in sorrow and shame finally knowing what he had to do to free himself, and then the others. What he had always needed to do to be with Sherial. The pain of the brand was almost forgotten in his need to be with her, to love her, to tell her of his love.

  For the first time in more years than he could remember, he bowed his head in prayer, knowing that it was long overdue.

  “Lord, I have sinned against you and failed your servants. I have been ignorant and blind. I have let pride rule me and the devil fool me. Forgive me. Guide me. Use me in any way to fight this evil. And please above everything else let Sherial survive my sins.”

  And then he took a deep breath, knowing for the first time not only what he had to do to win, but also what he had to do to become everything he could be. And that he had wanted it with every fibre of his being since the very beginning, even as he had feared it.

  “Sherial. I love you. I trust you. Everything I am, everything I can be, is yours. Join me. Be with me, always.” The words were only words, there simply to guide his terrified heart on its journey of discovery. But somehow they worked.

  For the first time he opened his mind, heart and soul to her, knowing that it was only what he should have done from the very beginning. From the first instant he’d laid eyes upon her. He had no understanding of what he was doing, not even a single concept of even how to go about it, but he didn’t need to know. He just did it. He knew instant success as the light and warmth of her presence suddenly filled him like firelight in a cold, dark cabin.

  Without eyes he looked for and quickly found the wonder that was Sherial, telling him anew of her love, and still without knowing how somehow accepted her within himself. It was as though he somehow saw her, a vision of absolute beauty and love, and then hugged her close and tight, basked in her warmth and held her to him. As Sherial held him.

  He understood that trust was a central part of love, and that he could trust Sherial, beyond anything, beyond even himself. She would never fail him, as she had told him from the very beginning. She would never stop loving him. And with that trust came acceptance as he welcomed her to him.

  It was as though the sun had suddenly come out of a long, cold, dark, winter day, and he bathed in the soul melting heat. Sherial’s praise was there in his thoughts, her love in his deepest crevices, her wonder in his soul, warming his very core. And echoing through them both was one other thought; that it was about time. And it wasn’t just Sherial’s thought. Somewhere deep down inside he had always known this was his destination and hungered for it. Whatever came out of this, he knew he would never be the same again, and it scared him, even as he ached for it.

  The time for fear had long since passed.

  For the first time in his life his logic and his heart agreed on that single thing. Intellect told him that it was the only way, had always been the only way, and that fear was his enemy. His heart told him he wanted this, needed it, ached for it with everything he had. There could be nothing better in his life. Fear was in the way.

  Without knowing how he did it, he asked Sherial again to be part of him in that language without words. Her answer of love was beyond his ability to even comprehend as it shone through him. But it was everything he could ever have asked for, and far more besides.

  With her love there came understanding, wisdom, as he saw the barriers that he had erected between them. The distrust that ran down to his most ancient of memories, his oldest of pains. He learned that it was more than just the years of discipline and secrecy which had shaped him as the paranoid recluse. It was the small boy buried so long ago in his memories who had been hurt that had started him on this road to nowhere.

  With Sherial’s presence in his soul he could see that terrible first instant, as he had felt betrayed by his family, as he had been shown no forgiveness and sent far from those he loved, from his home and safety. It didn’t matter that he knew why they h
ad done it, or how much pain he had caused them, or how they had thought it the best for him. Because at his very core he was still that frightened and tearful child, eternally unable to understand.

  On that bitterly cold day, as that little boy had left his entire world behind on a railway station so long ago, a thief had been born. A creature that understood only two things. That there could be no trust in this world, that the only person he could ever rely on, was himself. A creature that knew he’d failed because he’d been too stupid; he’d failed to control everything. A cold, hard, calculating creature that vowed he’d never go through that again. On that day his soul had found him a new path in life.

  It should perhaps have ended there, if things had been fairer. The thief should have faded away into a dark memory. But it hadn’t. Throughout the rest of his life, as he had grown, as he had been shown the back of so many hands, those two single lessons had been reinforced, over and over again. Trust no one, and control everything.