Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are mostly from the Bible and do not belong to me.
The True Account of Events in the Book of Tobit (4)
Sypnosis: In which a camel race yielded Results, and Sarah's amorous advances were thwarted...
Diary of Tobias (3)
You would have thought that after that scenario in which I publicly defied Raguel and Azarias, I would end up buoyed by a special courage that pretty much encouraged me to face anything else. Well, if you thought so, you were right. When I woke up next morning, I was filled with a deep desire to impress all by sneering at Raguel, if I could find the man. Even with this hot blood bubbling inside me, for some reason I was unable to do the same to Azarias when he came looking for me. I'm quite ashamed to say that the only thing I did was gape dumbly when he informed me of the next suicidal mission.
"Dash it, Tobias, I am quite disappointed with your performance last night."
"There are times, friend, when one just has to speak one's mind. And by the way, congratulations!"
"To Hell with it, you know I'm doing it all for you. She's legally your inheritance, you know."
"You're not going to propose again, surely?"
"No, but I need you to do something else."
I forgot what I said back then, but it was something on the lines of "Well, what could be worse than tackling that Raguel again". It just goes to show that I had rather overrated my relative. There were, in fact, quite a lot of things worse than Raguel. Take wild camels, for example. Azarias had just led me to a pair of them lounging around in the sandy semi-desert area a stone's throw from the house. Sarah and Nathaniel trailed along. That blasted female was regarding her two suitors carefully, as if she would be putting down notes on a scoreboard pretty soon.
Domestic camels were pretty bad. I mean, they spat, bit people when they felt like it, and all that, but let me tell you, they're neutered pussies compared to the two monsters standing some paces before me. These looked as if they could spend the day chewing broken glass and spitting bent nails. They positively bristled, and breathed steam, as if someone had filled their insides with magma. At the sight of them Nathaniel turned ashen and nearly sat on the ground.
"Dear Sarah," Said Azarias to the staring girl. "I hope you are not bothered by this. It's just that my friend Tobias has just told me that he has great prowess in taming animals. Doubtlessly it would provide you with some amusement."
"But---" I stated weakly.
"Tobias is most modest about it, though." My friend added cunningly.
"But they look rather dangerous, don't you think?" Said Sarah sensibly. "I wish you wouldn't go near them."
I couldn't describe the gratitude I felt towards this member of the gentler sex. Before I could voice my opinions, I was drawn aside by Azarias.
"Tobias, you said you would do anything!"
"Yes, but these beasts could eat Samson for a snack!"
"They are completely harmless. Just stare them in the eye and get on--- what could be simpler?"
I looked at one of the animals hurriedly. It was shooting me a disapproving glance, as if I was a hero in the wrong shape.
"I won't try anything of the sort unless you do the same." I said.
"Very well. Watch this!" There wasn't a twitch in the fellow's face that implied joking. He just--- walked up to one and slung himself up as if it was some kind of shrub, if that was the phrase. Sarah stared breathlessly. The animal gave a snort but remained rooted to the spot like a wall. Azarias pulled out a handy coil of rope and loped it around the creature's neck.
The whole thing was definitely anti-climatic.
D'you know, when someone laid down his life to do something stupid for you, the first reaction you'd get was to do the same thing for him. Funny, but true. What I did was, therefore, get on to the other camel, a feat that young King David himself would pass on. Sarah was politely applauding and saying something like "You ought to get down now" when the realization suddenly hit me that I didn't know how to get off a camel. My fear of heights was already sounding the alarm bell.
I would have asked Azarias how the deuce I could hop off the frightful beast. Unfortunately, the animal he was sitting on suddenly snapped out of hypnotism, and leapt like a gazelle on steroids, throwing Azarias off--- but not completely, because they were still connected by a length of rope. Reality seeped back into the previous vacuum in a rush, as Sarah started screaming, and my camel also stirred back to life, and started galloping ahead purposefully after the other camel, which was already kicking up dust in the distance, dragging poor Azarias behind. And let me tell you, his scream was the most mind-shattering racket I had heard in a long while, like some wildcat that was being flayed alive.
Somehow my camel caught up with the confounded animal (and somehow I stayed on with a merely passive effort, or should I say, in a trance) as it swept round to the same spot, frothing. For a moment the two beasts were, miraculously, running side-by-side. Some voice in my mind was telling me that now was a good time to jump on the back of the murderous brute and thus overpower it. But how? I watched the target for some thirty seconds without coming to a conclusion, when I suddenly remembered that Azarias was still being murdered. Panic surged within me. I had reached out to grab the adjacent camel's mane when it suddenly, um, swerved aside, and swerved aside again. It was totally unexpected. I mean, we had been travelling in parallel lines for what, half a minute?
I'm afraid the heroing material that had been spurring me on for the last 15 seconds now lost its sense of direction. I say, I'm no hero, how was I supposed to deal with this--- change in bearings? Thankfully, at the moment a buzz like locust flight sounded, and the camel that was dragging Azarias (who had stopped screaming on account of being unconscious, or better, dead) suddenly reared and emitted a shriek of agony like a fingernail scraping a tin. The camel bearing me skidded to a stunned halt, and when I dared to open my eyes again, I saw that the former animal's leg had been crippled by a bolt, which came from Nathaniel, who, for some reason, was now brandishing a menacing crossbow with a coy look. The injured animal staggered a few steps, and shot Nathaniel such a baleful look that the latter recoiled and dropped the weapon.
Sarah had stopped screaming to catch a deep breath. Now she resumed in an even more piercing soprano. "Azarias!" She screamed, and, disregarding the deranged animal, she ran forward towards my friend's prone body. Probably not much use, I thought dimly. Azarias would have preferred an undertaker.
At this point I was convinced that the two animals were possessed by evil spirits. I was at a state of heightened awareness (or, to put it more simply, I was fainting). You know, that moment when the head throbbed as if hit repeatedly by a blunt hammer, the sun showed up in the wrong color, and all sensation below the neck stopped. It was then when I heard foul, ghostly voices in my head. They were strained, as if yelling:
"What the… the wretched, miserable little demon shot me!"
"Wait a moment, Michael, Raphael said we're not supposed to wring the neck of this wretched, miserable little demon!"
"There's no need to remind me, he'll have that plus the interest once everything's over!"
"Did you hear that, Asmodeus?"
"By the way, what are we supposed to do now?"
"I don't think we should continue. You might drag Raphael past repair."
"Good point. Time to bail, then."
This was too much. Somehow I managed to roll off like a sack of flour, groped my way back to the house and hit the tiles like a dead man.
Raphael's quest log (4)
If in future I had to plan a scheme like that again, I would ensure that a dummy should be used instead of me. As schemes go the one I had just taken part in wasn't perfectly humanitarian, and thankfully after something like 15 seconds, all senses shut down, and I was only aware of a great sense of peace.
That was, until someone brutally shook me awake. "Raphael!" A voice shouted. I opened my eyes, moved my limbs to trigger an orchestra of pain, and instantly a tidal wave of aromatic smell hit me.
"Good Lord!" I cried feebly. I was on my bed, with an unfamiliar female bent over me in a concerned way. However, when I looked into her eyes I recognized her as good old Gabriel in spirit.
"How do you feel?" She asked.
"Absolutely raped. By the way, can you tell me which merchant you bought this perfume from? I would avoid him in the future."
"You don't really feel any pain. You're immortal, remember?"
"Tell that to my body." I groaned again. But Gabriel was right. At a thought, bones fused and flesh mended, and an instant later I was my bright-eyed self again. "What happened?"
"Well, first of all the plan went bust."
"Ah, speaking of that, would you mind telling me why so many swerves were involved? I could distinctly remember the number of turnings you did by counting the no. of my broken ribs."
"I'm tremendously sorry." Said Michael's voice out of thin air.
"Hey," Said Gabriel. "There's got to be swerves. It can't be very heroic if the animal doesn't swerve."
"Indeed." Agreed Michael. "No problem for the average hero, they just give a shout and leap the gap."
"I don't think Tobias is your average hero, Michael." I spoke rather icily to this being who regarded banishing demons as a form of light exercise. "I don't think he's experienced enough to anticipate the swerve. He won't leap the gap even if a plank is placed across it."
"I mean, how can one go about heroing if one isn't expecting the animal to swerve?" Insisted Gabriel. I decided to bring this to a close.
"Enough of that. What happened next?"
"Then things turned ugly pretty quickly. Michael was sniped by Asmodeus, and Tobias stumbled off me vowing to hide if he ever saw a quadruped ever again."
"Certainly a disheartening turn of events." I sighed.
"And, to make matters worse, that Sarah pestilence instantly plastered herself all over you, screaming disgraceful phrases like "Don't you leave me! I love you!", etc."
I gulped. "Good gracious! How did that happen? She never told me!"
"I suppose the sight of you heaped there like a spanked child stirred up all the maternal instincts in women." Said Gabriel. "After we had reached this conclusion, we decided to take action immediately. As you know things happen at a stunning pace down here. Before you could realize what's going on, you would be towed down the aisle by this female to say your marriage vows, while Uriel storms in with his Abyss cronies. Damned silly you'd look by then."
"Correct, safety being the priority." I shot them an appraising look. "And so---"
"I came here, masquerading as the female Valerie, your closest and dearest." Explained Gabriel.
"By claiming that I had some medical expertise and that you couldn't be disturbed--- on account of being on the brink of death, if you may excuse me--- I managed to evict everyone, including Sarah."
"Brilliant! A rival for Sarah, then. What did she say to that?"
"Nothing. She appeared extremely distraught. I last observed her running towards the backyard with her face buried in her hands."
"Unfortunately, I have just observed some complications." Spoke Michael, who seemed to have been absent for a while. "Now that you are no longer--- how should I put it--- available, the blighted female dropped you like hot coals and made a beeline for Asmodeus. I have just observed her crying on Asmodeus's shoulder in the backyard."
"What?"
"I suppose it had something to do with his "heroic" behavior of trying to assassinate me." Said Michael reproachfully. "And by the way, things were a trifle frosty between Sarah and Tobias, no doubt because the former blamed the latter for not doing anything to rescue you."
"Well then I must stop Asmodeus!" I cried.
"Well, you can't" Said Gabriel. "You're at death's door, remember? And I told them you broke an awful lot of stuff such that you would be rendered immobile for at least a week."
"Dash it!"
"I'm sorry." Said Gabriel.
An idea suddenly hit me. "It was a marvelous plan, though. We can pull it off again."
"How?"
"Conjure up another female who claims to be the closest and dearest of Asmodeus." I supplied.
"Well?" Said Michael skeptically. "Why are you all staring at me?"
"I think you're the man, Michael." Said Gabriel candidly. "Or woman, I assume."
"Your mere presence alone will reduce Asmodeus to quaking jelly, such that he cannot raise objections."
"This is appalling!" Cried Michael, shaking like an aspen.
"Look, once this is over, Asmodeus is all yours." I said, and noted with delight that some hope sparkled in the poor blighter's eyes.
"You don't necessarily have to say that you have any affections for Asmodeus." Said Gabriel helpfully. "In fact, you can even warn Sarah that Asmodeus is mentally and morally negligible."
"Fine, fine." Said Michael sulkily. "I'll deal with the swine."
To be continued…
