by T M Caruana
Noah slowed down his step to let me keep up, close enough to brighten up our dark path. His hands warmed my chilly body when he lifted me over a log that had fallen across the path. I was slim and as light as a feather for him to lift with his strength. His grip lasted longer than necessary, and our eyes met. I felt bewildered – had I remembered something in his eyes or was my mind playing up? We continued to walk on an overgrown path, leaping over rocks and thorn bushes.
“Wait! Stand still,” whispered Noah, holding a warning hand up in front of me.
We could hear a rustling noise some distance into the woods. A jittery man suddenly came running towards us. He looked on edge, his eyes wild behind thick glasses, resting on his large nose.
“Are you here to betray me, stab me in the back and take all the credit?” shouted the man angrily and then veered off as if he hadn’t seen us.
“It must be the sin of wrath and that man belongs to Teli, you can tell that by his weak appearance,” commented Noah as he followed the man with his eyes.
“Why do you think he is so wrathful? I mean, maybe we can help him to walk in the Oracle’s train if we knew why he was here,” I suggested, recalling the witch and Noah’s earlier discussion.
“You can’t help everyone Susy, and we are here to help those who are still alive.”
He said this as if it was obvious, but he still kept his eyes on the man who wasn’t yet out of sight. The man came closer again, continuously shouting bitter words.
“Evil thoughts about power and money; injustice against loyal friends who always did everything to help!”
The hostile sentences were said in a brooding chant. He was holding a knife and another was stuck in his puny back.
“I won’t allow you to betray others!” he screamed angrily as he caught sight of us again and rushed towards us with the knife ready to stab.
Noah charged at the man to disarm him, but couldn’t get a grip on the knife as the man carried on cutting through the bushes around him, drawing ever nearer. What is happening? Why couldn’t Noah grip the knife or stop the man? He walked through him like a phantom, yet we saw the knife could cut through the bushes without any problem. He would reach me before Noah could snatch me away. Noah could do nothing but scream at me to run.
His voice was filled with terror, which distracted me and when I refocused my attention, the crazy man was only a metre away.
“Ah!” I cried covering my hands over my face after seeing how Noah tried to grab the man without success.
The tip of the knife stung like a needle on my cheek and a drop of blood trickled down the side of my nose. But I wasn’t dead. Was I? No. I opened my eyes and looked at the man.
“Susy?” he asked questioningly.
He took a deep breath and moved backwards. “You’re still alive. Aha haha, they aren’t geniuses then. They never succeeded with their evil plans,” he mumbled to himself.
“Do you know who I am?” I questioned, startled.
“Do I know who you are?”
The question was rhetorical.
“Everyone knows who you are. Don’t you remember me? I’m Roger. I tried to save you from them when they began making plans for weapons of mass destruction. I often sat with you in your room at CERN. I wanted to warn you when I found out that they used you to research information other than about the moon’s gravity. But they poisoned me and everyone thought I died of a fever. After that, Isaac also stabbed a knife in my back to make sure I was really dead. It’s true. I remember now, you lost your memory because you stayed to long on Earth! But that doesn’t matter. You are here and alive. That means you can save the worlds,” his babbling was difficult to follow and I was only pleased still to be alive.
Suddenly, Roger looked up. He dropped the knife on the ground and started to stride off into the forest. I stood up; my legs were still a little shaky from the shock I had just had, but I recovered quickly. I also had to take some deep breaths. The thin air no longer affected me as it did when I arrived, but I needed to breathe because I had held it in for a long time. I noticed that Noah had trouble breathing too, but didn’t comment on it because I knew how much he tried to stay strong to complete the mission. I only had to look at the wounds in his torso and arm to understand that. His physical condition was poor, but still he didn’t complain. I could see in his eyes that although he was suffering from my betrayal, he was ignoring his pain and doing this only out of his love for me.
We both sneaked after Roger to see where he was off to. It looked like he knew exactly where he was going. Was he finally going to be able to join the train that would deliver his soul to Nirvana? A trail of illuminated souls walked past us at a slow pace. They walked in a straight line, two by two, with their eyes straight ahead and without displaying any expressions in their faces or making sudden movements. They showed neither pain nor joy. At the front of the train, leading the souls was the transparent shape of the Oracle and walking by her side was a soul with a strong resemblance to…myself. What was this supposed to mean? I stared intensely at the woman next to the Oracle; at myself. Why was I in the train? I wasn’t dead! Were there additional issues about myself that I wasn’t aware of? New questions boiled to the surface, demanding an answer.
“Noah…do you see that?” I stumbled over my words and pointed at my illuminating replica. “My soul is walking next to the Oracle’s. Why can I see myself in the train of dead souls?”
I could hear panic in my voice rather than curiosity and I hoped Noah would have a good explanation. I needed to know if I could believe him or if he was still going to lie to protect me.
“I’m as stunned as you are, but you and the Oracle hold more powers than the rest of us can understand. Come on, let’s carry on,” he spoke urgently and made me think back to Eutychia’s warning of being tempted to become a part of the train or even unwillingly being forced into it.
Noah had obviously decided to use diversionary tactics and avoid answering my questions as always, claiming not to be knowledgeable. Maybe it was true. Maybe he didn’t actually know, but that didn’t seem reasonable to me.
“No. I want to know more. Maybe I can ask the Oracle…or myself,” I said hypnotically, as I began to walk slowly towards the train.
“No, Susy! You can’t do it! The train’s peacefulness tempts you to participate. Concentrate your mind on your duty to save the worlds and all the others you have to save. We must continue westward,” Noah pleaded with me to make the decision to stop, but I knew he would intervene if I wasn’t strong enough to resist.
I could no longer hear him though. His voice stopped having an effect on me.
“Think of Tarus,” he whispered.
Thankfully this snapped me out of my paralysed state. I was instantly hit by his feelings of humiliation. I shook my head to clear it and turned to follow him.
We wandered deeper into the forest for hours and I was careful to constantly monitor my watch to calculate the time Tarus had left. It had been just over six hours after I had heard Tarus’s tortured screams on Bomi. Another scream was travelling through the air and could be heard clearly identifiable as a dragon’s. I felt afraid that we were already too late. Was it Tarus who screamed? Was he here? That meant only one thing: he had already died, and his soul was either on the way to peace or walking the overgrown forest in unrest. I hurried, fighting my way between the gold trees to a clearing in the woods to get a glimpse of the open sky and saw it. Although the dragon looked to be a long way off, I felt in danger. It wasn’t Tarus. The dragon resembled Tarus’s shape, but this one was smaller and a little lighter in colour. It looked feminine, moving gracefully and hovering almost stationary above me. The dragon must have smelled our bodily odour, different to that of the souls and didn’t look pleased. She charged down at us headfirst with her wings folded tightly for maximum speed, at the same time as she was spitting fire from a gap between her teeth. Noah threw his muscular body over mine so we both fell to the ground and I felt his sword sheath
press against my hip.
“Ah,” I moaned, but stopped quickly when I re-opened my eyes and saw the dragon’s claws on Noah’s back with her wings poised to lift him in the air.
“You monster!” Noah bellowed and drew his sword with his left hand, the right hand still being used to tightly press down on his stomach wounds.
The sword’s blade was drawn only centimetres away from my face, which thankfully eased the pressure on my hip. He was skilled with the sword, as recognised by all from Pixi, but I had never before seen evidence of it myself. Despite his injury, he was still strong enough to roll over on his back, dislodging the dragon against a tree. The dragon was now incensed at being thwarted and leapt at Noah with her wings raised high and her sharp teeth ready to strike quickly, like a snake. But Noah was faster and swung the sword in the air plunging it into her mouth to knock out her teeth. To his surprise, the sword went right through her as the ghost she was. Again, he would be defenceless. The lost souls were like ghosts when they pleased, and no man alive could touch them. Now we both understood the other reason why Eutychia wouldn’t enter into the forest to fetch magical ingredients herself. Not even Eutychia, would have a chance to survive when the battle was on these unfair terms. The dragon sunk her teeth into Noah’s shoulder and chest, lifting him from the ground and tossing him around like a toy, back and forth in the air. This wasn’t going to end well. How would he escape her bite and get us out of here alive? And what would happen to me? If I died would we all die? Was this why I was already walking in the Oracle’s train? The choices that I had made since I had returned from Teli had been abysmal. Why had Noah let me be so weak? No, this couldn’t be blamed on anyone else; I had made poor decisions and now everything was at stake.
“Run Susy, run!” he shouted and threw the power stone in my direction as his eyes met mine, as if it were the last time.
“Noah! No!” I cried in despair.
I saw his body thrown through the air from between the dragon’s teeth, which had already punctured his skin in several places.
I could smell the stench of blood on the wind and watched as Noah dropped his sword and released his hold on the wounds on his stomach making the blood slowly seep out and drip to the ground. He wouldn’t have the strength to hold out much longer.
“If Tarus survives, tell him ‘Not even over my dead body’, he knows what I mean. Hurry now, you don’t have much time!” he shouted, whilst his body was still stuck in between the dragon’s teeth and now stopped trying to get free.
His courage was evident even in the way he had decided to die. He would at least die with honour so I could remember him as a proud warrior. All at once, the situation turned and the dragon stopped its violent pounding and stayed completely still. She opened her jaw without reducing her height and dropped Noah who hit the ground with a thud.
“Tarus…” the dragon whispered in a low hiss after which Noah and I exchanged a surprised glance.
We were both startled at her reaction and that she had spoken. Now there was no doubt. It was a woman. She turned and began to walk slowly, but still threateningly towards me with her wings high and head low.
“How do you know Tarus? Are you his woman? Do you love him?”
Her questions were so threatening that I almost forgot them. I was searching for an appropriate response, but the fear made me tongue-tied.
“Envy, Susy; the seven sins. She is envious of Tarus’s other women,” Noah exclaimed and he tried to give me a hint as to some sensible answers whilst he tried to get up.
“Yes, we love each other!” I spoke up boldly and looked provokingly into the dragon’s eyes in an effort to bring out her feelings for Tarus.
“No, Susy, what are you doing?”
Noah stumbled to the ground, but tried yet again. His emotions were strong and it must have been the reason I could feel them so clearly. I could feel that he feared for my life. I felt that my words had hurt him more than he had imagined they would. He had known about my love for Tarus for many years, but he had never heard me confirm the words.
“It’s true, he loves me too. He is dying and we must save him. You must choose: to save his life even if it means he wants to be with another woman, or let him die and end up in a soulless limbo forever.”
I gave her the ultimatum and could feel my heart thumping hard inside my chest as she drew nearer.
I did my utmost to not take a frightened step backwards. My plan had been forged sooner than I could have hoped and I felt proud to have created the dilemma, which meant she would have to choose. If she really loved Tarus she surely wouldn’t choose to take his life. The dragon’s face came only centimetres away from mine, to the point that I could both hear and feel her breath. She seemed to be thinking about her choices or had she no soul left thereby making my plan ineffective?
“Coral, is that you?” asked Noah. “I have had a few seconds to think and it struck me it must be you. You are the only one on Bomi who had feelings that seemed to be honest love. Your heart was broken when Tarus had given you false hope by hiding his feelings for Susy, but this was many hundreds of years ago. Because he shared his blood to make you a part of the bloodline, it transformed you into a dragon. Tarus tried to do everything to love you, but he could never forget his feelings for Susy. Have you wandered the overgrown forest since then?”
Coral looked away from me and tumbled onto the golden grass, without looking at or answering Noah. Her shape was transformed into her human form. She was more beautiful than all the other women I had seen on Bomi and I felt almost jealous of what had happened between her and Tarus. When the conversion was over the woman looked into the woods as the mad scientist Roger had done before. It seemed the Oracle’s train of souls had called for her and she turned around, without noticing Noah and I, and disappeared into the woods.
“Envy and wrath completed. I would imagine that the Oracle symbolises apathy and your ghost possibly hubris. Then it’s only desire, gluttony and lust left,” commented Noah after coming to his feet and walking slowly towards me.
He avoided limping or groaning, not wanting to appear weak, but his hands were again pressed over his wounds; one over his stomach and the other over his chest. However, he hadn’t enough hands. There were too many wounds to cover and even more on his back.
“Why would I symbolise hubris? It isn’t like me,” I questioned.
I felt slightly insulted by his speculations and turned the other way so as not to let him see the hurt it had caused me.
“Not now, maybe, but you weren’t so humble before your time on Teli and if any sin characterises your behaviour, that would be it,” answered Noah, only adding to the unwavering sensation of needing to know who I had once been.
I always hated it when others knew more about me than I did. There was no point in trying to argue with Noah though. He was probably right and it wasn’t important now. The important thing was to reach the woman in the forest who could save Tarus and now also Noah’s life. He was very battered and clearly needed care. He had begun to look pale and the thin air didn’t help. Moreover, dusk had settled and we would have to arrange for a safe place for the night.
“We should make a fire and camp here overnight,” I wanted to avoid the previous topic and was feeling exhausted myself.
I was worried that Noah wouldn’t make it through the night with the amount of blood he had lost.
“You see, hubris in your voice; ‘I know the best place’,” Noah teased, imitating my voice.
What was it with men always imitating me? Had I been such a horrible person previously or did they just know me terribly well?
“Do you have any better ideas about where we should make camp?” I asked irritably.
“No, my apologies, I was just kidding. This is the perfect place,” he said and nodded tiredly.
I smiled, realising that he hadn’t meant any harm and began moving some rocks into a round circle where we could make a fire. In my resurfacing memories, I recalled one of hi
s smiles that had actually been quite pleasant.
“This reminds me of a time when you and I started a fire on Angi and we almost burned down the whole village.”
Noah looked amused, but decided not to continue his story.
“What happened?” I pressed, wanting him to go on.
As usual I was very interested in everything that concerned my past.
“The chief’s council had a meeting and we were invited to participate. We were going to discuss the hunting grounds and how many animals would be permitted to be slaughtered in the next one hundred years. We had grown tired of all the discussions and sneaked out to view the stars. It was dark. I tried to impress you and made a fire with two sticks while you tried to get ahead with a fireball. It came up bigger than you had expected and created a flare up to the treetops. You should have seen your face…priceless. But of course it didn’t take long for you to respond and put out the fire with your ability to bend water,” he commented, paying me a smiling compliment.
I noted his beautiful smile again.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t throw fireballs now,” I admitted and felt disappointed looking down at the ring of stones with a few twigs and broken branches in the middle.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve been practicing rubbing the two sticks together,” Noah teased and promptly demonstrated.
His strength created bright sparks, making the twigs catch fire immediately.
Although he achieved the desired effect, it was obviously painful, as his right side had been totally demolished. He quickly returned his hands to his belly and chest.
“Are you in a lot of pain?”
I knew, of course, that he would feel pain, but how much did the adrenaline numb it?
“Everything is relative,” he answered.