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Chapter Four: The Serpent's Tooth
What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is
Shun the tree-
~ Robert Browning
My eyes spring open. The threads of a vision entangle me. Fear, pain, anger, assault me. Their claws pierce my mind like angry birds of prey. Against my will, my body lets them in. Inhales, devours, and drinks every sinister emotion. Its energy a lifeblood that I can't deny even if I wanted to.
Bound by the being that changed me, I have no other recourse but to accept. My body is a hungry vessel that must be filled, filled with visions.
I throw off my sheets and stumble into my bathroom. A wave of nausea brings me to the floor. Its insistent fingers push harder and harder on my stomach. I rock back and forth silently begging it to stop.
The shrill sound of the H&K's surfaces. Its banshee wail erupts in my head. I place my hands over my ears to block out the sound. It doesn't work.
Sliding into the corner, I wait for the impression to pass. I have to stay calm or he will come. My eyes dart around the titled room. There's no light. I let out a ragged breath.
My head lurches back. Bodies, blood, rubble dance before my eyes. The stench of death surrounds me.
There were no survivors.
There would be no survivors my mind corrects.
But that mere fact isn't the worst part of the vision, it's the fear. The way it seeps from the victims into my own body. Stretching me this way and that, I cannot hold it. .
My heart rate beats erratically. A thin sheen of sweat covers me. Adrenaline surges readying me to move. A prisoner of evolution, it fails to see the threat exists only in my mind.
I cannot fight it.
I cannot run from it.
These are times that I hate my changer the most. Too antarian to be human and too human to be antarian, my body seems forever at war with itself. Created in such a contradiction, it allows me to journey where few can follow.
My breath and heart beat return to normal. The sickening feeling of fear diminishes. With my hands, I pull myself up.
"He's dead. Zan is dead," a voice sounds in my head.
My knees give out. I land with a small thud on the cold floor.
"It can't be," I whisper.
"He's really dead," it repeats opening a huge chasm within me. My voice chokes, and I'm crying again. Hot tears rush down my face. An emptiness fills me that I know no vision will ever satisfy.
I feel sad. Sad for someone I don't even know. Why should his death feel any different? I've seen hundreds die in my visions.
With my mind, I try to reach out for more stimuli, more details, anything to make it clearer. Yet, the harder I try. The more the sensations retreat into mere fragments of knowledge. Tiny slivers that make forming a picture impossible and then they disappear entirely.
I shiver, but it's not because of the loss. I'm no longer alone.
Khivar's tall frame stands over me. I have no idea how long he's been there.
No matter how hard I try to hide it, he always knows when I'm having a vision. Courtesy of some sort of connection that binds us. It makes me sick just thinking about it. .
His slender hand reaches out and pulls me off the floor, "you look like hell."
Way to state the obvious.
He wraps a bathrobe around my shaking shoulders and guides me back into my bedroom.
" I don't know how you do it, see what you see," he says placing me into a chair. "Many Antarian oracles have not had your strength. They normally don't live past the age of twenty."
Whether its the use of Crush or Khivar's more undesirable method of gaining information, few can say. Yet, the results are always the same.
Insanity.
The counsel strips them of their powers, and they die a slow agonizing death. This destined future clings to me, and he knows it.
"It's such a difficult burden. If it weren't for our mutual relationship, I really don't know how you would be able to handle it."
When it comes down to it, the solution is quite simple. An evolutionary flaw to keep oracles in check. I'm supposed to share my visions with the king. Of course, it could be just another one of Khivar's lies. I really don't know anymore. Because if this is something I'm supposed to do, why does it feel so wrong.
His hand reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
The king. I'm supposed to share my visions with the king.
Trust in the King.
I know too much about the king to ever trust him.
My eyes follow as his fingers move up to my temple. His movements are always the same. Violence cloaked in gentleness. It's how he rationalizes what he does. Prying into my head, when he knows it's the last place I want him.
"I don't remember anything," I say trying to delay the inevitable. "It was jumbled."
His fingers press harder on my head. "Let me be the judge of that."
He starts off gentle enough. A slight pinprick serves as the only sign. He peels away memory after memory leafing through them like I'm so damn book.
He pauses momentarily. A slight frown appears on his face. I know that expression.
"I'm not hiding anything," I try because I'm really not. I think of the burns on my arms that he put there. I have no desire to revisit that little experience.
Too late.
His mind rams into mine. All pretext of gentleness dissolves as he rips away any interference.
I try to move away from his grasp.
"STAY STILL," his mind roars.
"YOU'RE HURTING ME," I scream.
He shoves me back into the chair. My arms fall to my side. I couldn't even move them if I tried. Burrowed so far inside of me, he has full control over my body. Yet, it doesn't seem to be enough. His mind keeps thrusting itself deeper and deeper. If he keeps on like this, he'll actually be me.
The sweet smell of the drug Crush still lingers on his clothes. If only he would overdose, I imagine his feet kicking wildly in the air. His final breath comes in one lone gasp. It helps to busy my mind until he gets out of me.
"KHIVAR," Tess and Larek sound in unison.
Immediately, he withdraws.
Dazed, my eyes register them. Backlit from the hall they look like two angels.
"What are you two doing barging into people's room at this time of the night?" Khivar barks.
Larek doesn't even flinch. "I'm sure the counsel would be really interested in you performing unauthorized viewings into the oracle's head. Without the proper supports, you could have irreversibly damaged her."
Damaged. Nice to know, I'm so valued around here. Quietly, I move from the chair.
"Did I tell you to move," Khivar spits.
I stop.
"As for the counsel," Khivar sneers, "they have no control over her. As the Antarian king the oracle belongs to me," his eyes roam down my body, "as well as any gifts she might possess."
I think I'm going to throw up. The floor moves under me. I grab on to a shelf to keep from falling.
"Beside," he adds, "she's hiding something."
Larek narrows his eyes at me.
"My lord I promise I'm not hiding anything. The vision he saw was new, which makes it very jumbled. It takes times for them to form a clear picture."
"And your impulsiveness Khivar might have cost us a very valuable clue," Larek bites. "You stay out of her head or I withdraw my planet's support for this little war you seem hell bent on fighting."
Khivar says something, but I don't really catch it. My mind drifts away as some other presence latches on to me. Impressions become dull, almost non-existent
Vaguely, I feel Tess beside me. "You're bleeding," she whispers. With her robe, she dabs at my head.
"It's not the bad," I reply.
The slight pressure of Tess' hand disappears.
They're all gone, or I'm gone for the matter.
Sand crunches under my feet. The walls of my room collapse. Behind them, a rock of stone rises. Jagged and worn, it points to the sky.
I reach out to touch it. Instantly, two voices surface in my mind.
"You mean this was where you were born. It's beautiful."
"Yeah, we were the original pod people I guess. It's not much but at least we will be safe here."
I shake my head and whatever it is vanishes.
My fear stirs.
The first voice was my own. A slight pain shoots through my head. Someone's here.
"Who ever you are show yourself," I demand. My anger rising. I'm tired of being manipulated.
As if on cue, bits of bright light circle my head. The particles merge into one blue glow. Moments later a face and a body become apparent within the energy. Strands of long blonde hair sprout from the head as two legs stretch down to the ground. Turning her head, she stares at me briefly. Her blue eyes sparkle with an unearthly presence.
And yes, I should probably be trying to break out of this because particles of light coming into one's mind and transforming into a person is actually not an every day occurrence, even in my world of aliens and prophesies, but there's something oddly familiar in the curves of her face.
It's almost like I know her.
The pain in my head grows.
"It would be better if you don't think about the past," she observes, "you're not ready to know."
The old be careful what you look for warning. I love it how it's the thing I want the most that people keep withholding from me. "Who are you? Because if you've come to take a little dip into my head, I have to tell you that I'm all dipped out at the moment."
"You still have your sense of humor. That's good." Her red lips smile. Not a dark sinister smile but an expression of genuine amusement, which rarely appears around this place.
"Who am I?" She begins. "Well that's a rather difficult question. Who are any of us?"
"Three words or less," I insert.
She waves her hands around dramatically. "Think of me as your high exalted spiritual advisor. The Yoda to your Luke, The Oracle to your Neo, The Madame Viviane to your," she stops abruptly. "Anyway I digress."
Obviously, the three word rule doesn't work with her. "And you would be here why?"
"To tell you that the players are coming, but the game has yet to begin. You need to pick a team."
Pick a team. How corny is that?
"Hellllo anyone in there," she waves her hand in front of my eyes.
"Tess and I are a team," I answer annoyed.
"Wrong answer, this is going to be hard for you to accept, but you can't trust her in this."
. "Look I don't know who the hell you are, but I trust Tess more than I trust you so will you please get out of my head."
"All right. Have it your way but here's a little piece of advice. The two of you are on diverging quests and you need to let her go on hers. It's the only way she will learn. The only way she will gain atonement for her sins."
"She didn't do anything," I defend.
"Yes and no," she answers vaguely. "She's is going to a place you cannot follow."
I ignore her. This is all someone's attempt to manipulate me.
Her fingers turn my face towards her. "If you follows her, it will be fatal. Do you catch my drift?"
"You're lying. You want to separate me from the only person I trust."
"No, I'm trying to save you both," her face takes on a wry expression, "and why I'm trying to help her, I have no idea. It's ironic."
For a spiritual advisor, she sure does a good job in revealing nothing.
She reaches for my hand but her fingers pass right through it. "My time is running out. Tess isn't the only you can trust. There is someone coming. Someone who used to be your whole world and you were his. Trust in that.
A wave of blue light surrounds her as her face collapses into a swirl. Her legs shrivel up and her hair vanishes.
My whole world.
I try to grab on to her, but the fragments slip through my hands.
"I don't understand," my tone is urgent.
"You'll know when you see him, really see him. Trust me, it will be a moment for the ages," she replies.
