Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver)

by Hiatt, Bill

  “David, the Lord forgave you long ago,” I said in a fairly neutral tone, though my emotions were profoundly mixed.

  David looked stunned.

  “David, son of Jesse, we knew each before, long ago.” And so we had. Ever since my awakening, I had possessed really specific knowledge of the original Taliesin and all my lives subsequent to that one, but much more vague recall of the lives preceding the first Taliesin. I recalled my interaction with King David as if it were a half-remembered dream. Yet now, with David once again before me, my relationship with David suddenly seemed as if it were yesterday. I wasn’t as used to playing my past self from that time period as I was to playing Taliesin, but I needed to make the best effort I could. Everything might depend on it.

  “Surely you have not forgotten Heman, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel? I was one of your musicians, and I was a prophet of the Lord as well.”

  “You lie!” hissed David. “You are nothing like Heman.” Once again, he was making menacing moves with his sword.

  “And you are nothing like David, as you well know. Yet you are David. I am nothing like Heman, yet I am Heman. Both of us have been reborn long, long after we first knew each other. Neither one of us has ever heard of such a thing, yet here we are. The Lord has the power to do as he wills. It is not our place to question.”

  “How do I know you speak the truth?”

  I could understand David’s unwillingness to believe me. Nothing in his world view could prepare him for what I was trying to get him to believe. Having recovered my memories of that life, however, it was easy enough for me to give him the proof he needed. I could remember every single detail of our lives together—and, being roughly the same age and having been thrown together early in life, there were thousands of details I could easily use.

  As I tried to undermine his skepticism, I realized what the problem was, why he was so tortured by guilt. When I had first awakened, many of my previous selves were thrown into a state of shock in which they kept reliving their own deaths. The David I was dealing with was not the too-young boy who had been the only one brave enough to face Goliath, nor the somewhat older general who won the hearts of all the Israelites with his unmatched record against the Philistines, and certainly not the much older and wiser king who finally came to be at peace with himself. David was not reliving his relatively untraumatic death over and over; he was reliving the most traumatic events in his life: his adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband to prevent the adultery from being discovered.

  Just as I thought I was getting a handle on the situation, someone knocked on my bedroom door.

  “Tal, is everything all right?”

  Oh, good, just what I needed—my newly psychic mother joining the party!

  David looked around suspiciously, his sword ready.

  “Yeah. I was just showing Stan a few fencing moves. I hope we weren’t too loud.”

  “No, I just…oh, it’s nothing really. I just had the strangest feeling. I’m sorry I bothered you.” I held my breath until I could no longer hear her receding footsteps. It was odd that she didn’t say hello to Stan, but I wasn’t about to complain about that. I was just happy her “feelings” hadn’t become more specific.

  The interruption wasn’t the catastrophe it might have been, but it did put David in a less communicative mood for a while. I looked nervously at the clock. My parents were so used to Stan hanging out that Mom hadn’t even questioned his presence in my room. However, if he were still there at two o’clock in the morning, that might be much harder to explain. Yet all I had accomplished so far was keeping him from disemboweling me with his sword. Well, perhaps a little bit more; he was willing to believe that I could somehow be Heman, but he remained unconvinced that I was, despite my knowledge of every detail Heman would know.

  Part of the problem was that I was really too weak at this point to do much without his cooperation. Well rested, I could have easily just put him to sleep and gone to work reconnecting him with Stan, but as it was, my subtle efforts to get him to sleep or even to calm down were only making him more suspicious. He sensed something was happening, but the magic never quite established a strong enough connection with his mind to actually work. I cursed myself for having expended so much energy on testing the reversal spell earlier, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

  Finally I asked, “What can I possibly do to persuade you of the truth of my words?”

  David considered. “You cannot. Only the Lord can do that. If what you say is true, the Lord will provide a sign that you speak the truth.”

  Want me to part the Pacific Ocean for you?

  Since David had already accused me of witchcraft, I didn’t know what made him think he could tell a divine sign from a fake one, but I wasn’t about to question what might be my only chance to fix this problem.

  “Nurse Florence? Our Israelite king wants a miracle to convince him I’m not a witch.” I knew my message was very weak, and I prayed earnestly that she would hear and respond.

  “WHAT?” I heard in a few seconds.

  “Yeah, Stan’s really David, and he wants a miracle, but I’m just too tired. We’ll be in my backyard. I need you to create a convincing display for him.”

  “Well, that’s a new one. All right; I’ll do what I can.”

  “David, let us go behind my house and pray. In due course the Lord will provide what you seek. We must sheathe our swords first, as is only fitting for an act of worship.” David looked profoundly uneasy, but when I sheathed White Hilt, he followed my example.

  I led him down the stairs and out the back door as quietly as I could. My parents were preoccupied with a fairly intense conversation and didn’t pay any attention. Just as well, since I doubted David was in any mood to pretend to be Stan—nor able to, judging from the way he was acting.

  The backyard’s lush greenness normally calmed me, but tonight my nerves were so on edge it had little effect. David and I knelt in the grass, he for illumination from the Lord, and I for a timely rescue by Nurse Florence. I knew that traveling in Annwn was a dangerous proposition with Morgan around, but I hoped Nurse Florence would do it safely this time. Traveling here from her apartment by car would take at least half an hour, and who knew how long David’s patience would last?

  Just as he seemed to be getting fidgety, I felt Nurse Florence’s presence nearby.

  “Will an illusion only you two can see do? I don’t want to alarm the neighbors.”

  “Whatever. Just do it quickly!”

  As soon as she received my reply, I was suddenly blinded by a ray of pure white light lancing down from the sky and piercing the growing darkness. David jumped up and blinked, trying to see what was happening.

  “Get up and raise your hands to the sky!” commanded Nurse Florence. I was a little wobbly on my feet by this time from having knelt, but I did the best I could, knowing that David could see me silhouetted against the “heavenly” light.

  “’God’ is about to speak to David, but I need you to broadcast to me what to say—I don’t know Biblical Hebrew.”

  “OK,” I replied, sending her a simple message to broadcast to David. I was afraid giving Nurse Florence too much Hebrew at once would make it more likely she might make a mistake and cause David to doubt that he was really hearing God.

  Even knowing what to expect, I almost jumped when the voice of “God” started booming in my ears and, no doubt, David’s as well. Nurse Florence had more expertise with special effects than I had realized.

  “David!”

  “Yes, Lord,” replied David in an awestruck tone.

  “Taliesin, whom you once knew as Heman, is my loyal servant. Do not doubt what he tells you. Rather, embrace him as a true friend and comrade. Jonathan himself could not have been any more true.”

  “Lord, it shall be as you have commanded!” declared David loudly. I was thankful our house was so big, and my parents were near the front of it. I don’t know what they would
have made of David’s part of that conversation.

  Abruptly, the blinding light vanished. David, visibly shaken, took the “Lord’s” command rather literally and gave me a rib-cracking hug.

  “Heman, forgive me for doubting you. It is just that everything is so…different from the way it once was.”

  “Some things have not changed, my king,” I replied as formally as I could. “Our friendship and our loyalty to the Lord, for example.”

  “No, I see now that they have not. What would you have me do?”

  “David, you were meant to…watch over Stanford, not to take over his body. You must permit him to take command of it again.”

  David looked puzzled. “Gladly, but I know not how to do that.”

  “Lie down on the grass here. I am going to put you to sleep. Do not resist. While you sleep, I will bring back Stanford.”

  David lay down without a second thought. “It shall be as you have said. Heman, will I still know what is happening once Stanford is back?”

  Not if I can help it!

  “Yes,” I lied. “You will be with him, and with me, till the end of his days.”

  David smiled, and I caught a glimpse of the younger David, with his infinite hope for the future. “I will watch over him well.”

  “Farewell, David,” I replied, and then I began to sing. I almost started in Welsh, but I switched to Hebrew just in time. Now that David was cooperating, I had him asleep in seconds.

  I used to think our backyard was over-landscaped, in the same way that Santa Brígida in general was artificial, but tonight I was thankful for the ornamental pond, from which Nurse Florence suddenly emerged, making a typical lady-of-the-lake style entrance.

  “So he really is David?” asked Nurse Florence as soon as she had walked over to where David/Stan was lying in the grass. “King David?”

  “I knew King David in an earlier life,” I reminded her. “There is no doubt.”

  “Well, I guess the Order will have to rethink some of its assumptions. What’s wrong, Tal?” Even without the ability to read minds as I could, Nurse Florence was getting to be able to read me like a book.

  “I don’t know,” I thought, shuffling my feet nervously, afraid to say too much aloud, even in front of a sleeping David. “I had to lie to David. I told him I was Heman, without explaining that I had been Heman in the past but was really someone else now.”

  Nurse Florence understood and followed my lead. “A distinction he probably could not have comprehended,” she pointed out.

  “And then we fooled him into thinking he was talking to God. I think I’m feeling a little guilty about that.”

  “You called for my help to do that very thing. It was your idea,” replied Nurse Florence in mild exasperation.

  “I’m not trying to blame you. I know it was my idea. That doesn’t mean I can’t have second thoughts.”

  “Yes it does!” she shot back with considerable intensity. “Look, Tal, we are facing some pretty serious problems, not the least of which is keeping Stan from falling apart. You don’t have the luxury of self-doubt right now, understand?”

  I nodded, but without much conviction.

  “Listen, I would rather not have lied to him either,” she continued more softly, “but from the message you sent to me, I assume he wasn’t going to cooperate unless we manipulated him a little.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” I admitted. “And I’m exhausted right now, way too weak to overpower him by magic.”

  Nurse Florence looked puzzled. “The attempt to capture Khalid was that strenuous?”

  “That didn’t help, but I had a few other…adventures. We’ll talk about them later.” I knew she would not approve of my efforts to test the reversal spell, so that was one conversation I was not looking forward to, but she didn’t press me for further explanation anyway.

  “If you are that tired, how are you going to heal Stan?” I don’t know how to put this kind of fractured persona together the way you do.”

  “Honestly, events have been moving so fast, I haven’t really thought about that problem,” I admitted. “Perhaps I can guide you through the process.”

  “Too cumbersome!” thought Nurse Florence immediately. “I know enough about your approach to know I couldn’t execute it well without practice. Let me lend you my strength; that’ll get the job done more efficiently.”

  “It may not be that much of a struggle now that David is willing, but you’re probably correct about strategy. We’ll do it your way.”

  Nurse Florence and I sat down in the grass next to each other. She took my left hand, and I put my right hand on David/Stan’s forehead. As soon as we had gotten settled, I could feel the warmth of her strength surging within me, revitalizing me. I relaxed, started to sing, (this time in Welsh), and let my mind flow into Stan’s.

  Just as I suspected, the David persona had broken almost completely loose from Stan’s mind. I could see the jagged edges on each where the connection between them had shattered. I reached out to David, who sensed me and flowed toward Stan in harmony with my thoughts. I reached into Stan and found him almost impossible to return to consciousness, so stunned by David’s utter breakaway that at first I could hardly tell he was still there. The sensation was so eerily like probing Carla that for one horrifying second I thought perhaps he was beyond my reach. Then I felt him, dimly at first, then more strongly. I took hold of him and steered him toward David. The two of met, flowed together, and almost joined.

  Yeah, almost joined. Those jagged edges should have fit together perfectly, but they did not. It was as if there were little pieces of the old Stan still missing, pieces that would have completed the connection between the two. But if there were such pieces, I couldn’t find them, and those jagged edges kept resisting my best efforts to create a seamless reunion.

  Could Nurse Florence have been right? Was I so different from other people that only I could manage to keep my mind from shattering, despite the pressure from all of those other lives?

  And if she was right, what was to become of Stan?

  I forced myself not to think of that. Instead, I visualized both David and Stan surrounded by the warmth of my friendship. I took that friendship, focused it like a laser, and tried melting the edges of each persona to fuse them together.

  I struggled for what seemed like hours, but the best I could do, despite burning through most of Nurse Florence’s energy, was a temporary fix. Stan would be in charge of his body again, but David was still not fully re-integrated. Enough pressure, and the connections which I had crudely re-welded would snap apart again. Since David was now an ally rather than a wary stranger, the odds were good he would not deliberately rip away from Stan and try to take over the body again, but if something happened to weaken Stan, like a magic attack or even a more mundane problem, David might suddenly end up back in control, or at least in a position to overwhelm Stan with emotions.

  When I finally re-emerged in the physical world, Stan was conscious again, Nurse Florence was looking as drained as she was, and I had a hard time getting to my feet.

  Stan rose more slowly. “It didn’t work, did it?”

  “It worked to an extent,” I said tiredly. “We have to do more work sometime soon, but for right now, at least you’re you again.”

  “I seem to be,” Stan admitted, though his tone still betrayed worry. “I can still feel David, but…something’s different. I’m still feeling guilt, but he isn’t as intense about it as he was before.”

  “Perhaps being able to talk to God made him wonder if he had been forgiven after all,” I suggested.

  Stan raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Later, dude,” I continued, knowing it wasn’t really safe to discuss that subject if David wasn’t completely merged with Stan yet. “Right now let’s get you home. It must be late.”

  Nurse Florence glanced down at her watch. “It feels like three in the morning, but it’s really only ten at night.”

  “Th
at’s late enough for me!” I said. “Nurse Florence, thanks again. Can I—” I was about to say something like, “walk you to your car?” before I realized how ridiculous that would be.

  “No, thank you, I’ll…see myself out,” replied Nurse Florence with a grin as she stepped toward the pond.

  “Well, good night then,” I said, matching her grin. “Could you perhaps manage a burning bush the next time we do this?”

  “It’ll be on my to-do list,” replied Nurse Florence as she stepped into the pond and then vanished into it. I had seen her do that several times, but I still couldn’t quite get used to it, even though the original Taliesin had certainly grown accustomed to it.

  “OK, Stan, your mom probably has the bloodhounds out by now,” I said, sounding much cheerier than I felt.

  “I planned ahead,” said Stan quickly. “I told her I might be spending the night. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.”

  “It’s always good to plan ahead. You want to stay over? I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind.”

  Stan considered for a minute. “You look like you need your sleep. I’d probably better go home.”

  “OK, but in that case, I should walk you home.”

  Stan started to protest but then thought better of it. He only lived three doors down, and he was far more capable of taking care of himself than he had been a year ago, so I’m not sure exactly why I insisted on walking him home. Maybe I was being overprotective. On the other hand, Stan had been close to getting killed more than once in the last few weeks, and Morgan Le Fay was on the loose, so perhaps my caution was warranted.

  The walk turned out to be uneventful, and I was home before I knew it, and in bed almost before I knew it. In minutes I was so deep in sleep that I might have slept through a major earthquake—or at least until my alarm went off. Sadly, that was not to be.

  It started with a dream. In this dream I woke up—you’ve dreamed of waking up at least once, right? Anyway, when I awoke, I realized someone was in bed with me. Illogically for real life but consistent with many of my recent dreams, I thought it was Carla. Then a chill passed through me and I stiffened. No, not like that—get your minds out of the gutter! I stiffened with fear, because I realized the other person was not Carla, despite the black hair. No, it was Morgan, staring at me by the moonlight that filtered in through my window and smiling invitingly.