I'm back!!!!! Sorry for leaving. My muse told me that I had to write a story about virus. She can be pretty pushy.
ParkerEvans Thanks so much. Max and Zan are the same person. The Antarians call Max Zan because they don't know his human name. As for Tess, she is playing some games but the trick is to figure out who she's really after. Isabel is currently still residing at the Case de Khivar. However, Maria has made and will make future appearance of course you have to look for her.
The One You Seek Thank you so much for what you said. It made my day, because sometimes I worry that my story is going to jump the shark at any moment.
Dreaming Nik Max knows Liz, but he's sort of taking things slow since the last time he tried to push the issue she blanked out and it scared him.
Sweet Like Chocolate, Sam-Me, Kiyoos, sorry about not updating. Sometimes I just get stuck.
Hashra Thanks so much for your review. I hope that you like this chapter. It's rather weird.
This chapter is really weird. I hope it doesn't completely cause you to abandon this story. Of course, if it does. I just want to thank you for reading this far. I'm just thrilled that you all found the first chapters entertaining.
Standing on the bare ground,-- my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, --- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all."
Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature"
Chapter Ten: I Am Nothing
The sun's last rays stretch over the ocean. Its magenta streams turns the blue water into burst of red and orange. Taking a deep breath of the salt air, I frown. I have no idea where I am."You have to stop living by human morality. It doesn't work in this world anymore."
"So your suggesting I live by the Antarian code and go around stabbing everyone in the back then Tess?"
"You shoot blasts and tell the future. You haven't been human in a very long time."
I rub my temples. Think. I was talking with Tess about something. A plan.
"How is doing this any different from Khivar mind rapping me?"
"Why are you going out of your way to protect Max? If you had something in your head Max wanted, he would stop at nothing to get it."
"It will never work anyway. Max is too smart to fall for it anyway."
"I'm not so sure. He's a healer. You need some help and that's enough to attract him to you."
"I'm most certainly do not need help."
Two young girls race pass me. The blonde one stops suddenly at the water's edge.
"What is it?" the other asks.
"What if there are sharks in there? Jaws could be in there waiting to eat me. Sean says sharks like girls the best."
"He was just trying to scare you Maria."
She doesn't budge.
"We'll stay in the shallow part."
Hesitantly, the girl takes a step forward, "ok."
"If only it could be that easy."
I turn around sharply.
"I'm losing my mind. I can't even tell when I'm having a vision anymore."
"I would call this more of an intervention," my spiritual advisor explains.
"An intervention from what?"
"Your own fears. You have to stop running."
Bending down, I pick up a broken shell. "I do not run."
She puts her hands on her hips, "who was the woman in your vision then?"
"How am I supposed to know?"
"Really," she answer dryly. "You're the most powerful oracle in three hundred years, yet you don't know."
"She wasn't me if that's what you're thinking."
"Why?"
"She was screaming. I don't scream. You never let them hear you scream." I throw the shell back. The force causes a slight tremor in the water. Throwing my legs over the side of a rock, I watch the girls heads bob up and down in the water.
"He could help you if you would let him."
"He who?"
"Playing stupid will get you nowhere with me. You should know I'm ten time more stubborn that you can ever be."
I roll of the rock and sink my toes into the moist sand, " and this concerns me why?"
"You know if you weren't suffering from amnesia on top of a host load of other problems I'd try beating some sense into you."
"Aren't spiritual advisors supposed to be nice to their advisees?"
"Tough love. I'm giving you Dr. Phil for the moment. Behave yourself and you might get Oprah," her face grows serious, " You know one of the most admirable things about you is the lengths that you will go to protect the people you love. Don't let Tess use that against you."
A wave deposits a jelly fish at my feet. I dodge a tentacle that reaches out to sting me.
"Leave Tess out of this. Despite everything, she looks out for me."
"Do I sense trouble in paradise?" She regards me intently for a moment, "her plan bothers you doesn't it?"
"Great risks reap great rewards."
"That's Tess talking not you."
"I don't like using people. She thinks if I get close to Max I'll be able to force a connection and read his mind."
"To find Zan?"
"Yes."
"Here's a novel idea. Why don't you take the human approach and ask him who Zan is?"
"Who's the crazy one now? Like he'd tell me."
"You'd be surprised what he would tell you if you'd give him the chance."
"Save it. I don't want to hear it."
"Then hear this. Tess wants Max dead."
No, I can't let that happen. And as if I'm watching a time lapsed movie the liquid pours out of the jellyfish's center. Leaking into the sand, its body dries up.
Zan is dead.
"Why should I care? He means nothing to me."
Her eyebrows arch upwards, "Care to explain your little kiss in the woods then? It definitely looked like you'd be more than willingly to give him a little something something. By the way, that's a nice hickey you've got there."
I flip up the collar of my shirt, "it was a moment of insanity."
"You could use more insane moment and so could he."
"Is that your way of giving me permission to jump him?"
"Trust me you jump him, and he'll probably go into cardiac arrest. He nearly did when he figured out who you were. It's not every day you pull the love of your life out of a freezing lake especially when she supposed to be dead."
"If I'm the love of his life why did he think I was dead?" I sneer. As on cue, the sun crashes down on the horizon leaving an inky blackness in its wake. The once calm waves begin jump into the air, and a misty haze spreads out along the sand.
"Maria, where are you? I can't find you," the girl calls out in a panic.
"You want to calm down," my spiritual advisor scans the waters looking for her.
"I'm perfectly calm."
"Is that why you've transformed this pleasant little beach into a scene from Dracula? I see a bat flapping here around, and I'm leaving. I hate bats almost as much as I hate bunnies and don't get me started about clowns. "
"Sorry," the mist vanishes, and the girls resume their playing.
"The reason he thought you were dead because he saw you die or thought he did. Then he got to relieve it for months afterwards in brilliant Technicolor displays. The nightmares are so bad he's practically never sleeps now."
"How do you know all this anyway? Visions know the future not the past. "
"Time is rather irrelevant in the scheme of things," she retreats into her blue shimmering cloak so only the outline of her face remains visible.
"Stop being so cryptic."
"Isn't that the purpose of the oracle to figure out the cryptic?"
"Did you come here to fight with me?"
"I came here to give you something to think about. This whole thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. You can't keep shoving things away that you don't want to deal with."
I sit down on the sand, and she follows.
"Have you chosen a team yet?"
Staring up into the sky, Venus twinkles back at me. "Tess is my friend. Don't ask me to turn my back on her. I won't. I can't."
"Max needs you. Do you think Tess wants to find Zan so badly so she can give him a nice little fruit basket and catch up on old times? There's very few people he can trust right now."
"Are you talking about Max or Zan?"
She responds only with a smile that could rival Mona Lisa.
"Why does it always come back to Zan? He's like this force I can't escape from. Sometimes I think he haunting me."
"Believe me it's the same way for him."
"What?"
"Maybe Karma is trying to tell you something," she adds quickly.
"You're really bad in the information department."
"I'm here to guide you not make your decisions for you."
I sigh.
"What?"
"You know I used to dream of this beach every night. I have no idea why it's in my head, but I always felt free here. I don't remember a time when there hasn't been someone pulling my strings."
"Why did you stop dreaming about it?"
"It's pointless spending so much energy on things that aren't going to happen. There's always going to be someone standing in the wings waiting to use me. I'm like this toy that just get passed around from Antarian to Antarian."
"You have to come to terms with the fact that you may be the oracle, but it doesn't define who you are. There are people out there who love you for you. Max is one of them. You want out of this prison. He can help you, but you have to take the first step on your own. I know it's scary, but there's no other way."
"Why can't it be you that helps me?"
"Certain circumstances prevent that from happening."
"You're not a vision."
"No."
"Then what are you?"
"I'm your friend and that's all you need to know." Looking up at the sky, a shadow passes over her features, " I have to go."
"Please don't. I'm so scared right now. I can't do what you want me to do."
"You can and you will. You're the strongest person I know."
I look down at my sandy toes, "I wasn't strong enough to keep Khivar out. All those people died because of me."
"What happened wasn't you fault, besides, I'm not talking about a Xena warrior princess strength. I'm talking about heart, moxie, an inner Natalie Portman. Whatever you want to call it, you have it, but you need to remember that it's ok to depend on others. It doesn't make you weak."
"I'll try," I answer, but she's already gone.
The sand shift as Maria collapses beside me. "A jellyfish got me. They're going to have to cut my toes off aren't they? I'll never be able to wear jellies again, and I just got some blue glittery ones from Kmart."
"You just need some..."
"Rubbing alcohol," the brunette finishes. She pulls a plastic bottle out of a bag. Carefully, she drips the liquid on the welt.
"Thanks Lizzie."
Lizzie's studies me, "you look lost."
"She should trust the king," Maria adds.
Not this again, "Khivar only wants to hurt me."
A know it all look shines in both their faces. "Khivar isn't the real king," they say in unison.
"I've never met Zan."
"Maybe you have," Lizzie answers, "and you just don't know it."
"Then who is he?"
Lizzie shakes her head. "It's a secret I can never tell. Even when the bad man and woman were hurting me, I never said a word." She scoops up some sand, and it lets it pour through her fingers.
"I hope he was worth all that trouble."
Maria hugs Lizzie to her. "You shouldn't talk about this with her. She can't understand."
Her face darkens, "she needs to understand."
"Honey bear, Maria, it's time to go," a familiar voice calls out.
I turn sharply, but can see nothing. Spinning back around, only Lizzie remains.
"Where did Maria go?"
"With Michael of course, don't you know anything?" Leaning forward, her face hovers inches from mine. "Look at me," she demands.
A slight crescent scar stretches over one eye.
I start.
"Now you're really seeing," she sits back on her hunches. "He loves you and you love him," her voice deepens as she changes from a little girl into me, "and if you can't believe yourself I don't know whom you're going to believe."
I get up quickly.
"You may have no trouble in choosing that murderer over Max, but I do. There's a lot more going on here than your fears."
"Go away," a dark wave swishes over my feet while stands of seaweed wrap around my ankles. "Tess is my friend."
Angrily, she advances. "If Tess was to figure out who you really are how long do you think this little friendship of yours would last. She burry you in a second."
"No she wouldn't."
Her features turn grim. "I'll just have to accept that with Tess we are at an impasse, but it's going to cost you a concession." She grabs my arm. A yellow light travels up my arm turning my skin transparent.
I try to snatch my arm back.
"Hold still or you won't have a body to come back to." Her knife like fingers reach into my chest and pull out shimmering ball of green. Throwing into the air, I watch it drift away no knowing exactly what she took but feeling more naked and exposed than ever.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"To the Ancient Antarians wind was sacred. They believed it could carry messages that the mouth may find impossible to say."
"I don't have anything to say to Max," I scoff.
She levels me with her molten eyes, "you have six years of things to say to him now get out of here."
A wind steals me away from the beach. Carrying me up over the water and through the forest, I listen to the zephyr's mournful wail. Appealing to the trees and animals, she begs for someone to listen, but there is no one. In her anger, she clangs branches together and tries to knock down a black-cloaked figure, because it is better to be feared than forgotten. Yet, she still feels empty. She stills needs to hurt someone. Hiding behind a tree, she parts the wispy pine needles, and spies her next victim.
"Are you sure you're ok Max?"
He studies the tops of the trees. "I'd be even better if the threader would show up."
"You have to remember that in Liz's head you've just met."
"I said I was fine Kyle."
The wind swoops down on him.
She tells him about Khivar ripping through her mind, and all the other little things he did that she has never shared with anyone before. She whispers over and over that he means nothing to her now. She wants to hurt him, but she wants even more to spare him. She can't give him what he wants, and he needs to leave her before she hurts him all over again. In the end, she begins to cry. She can do that now, because he can't possibly understand her. No one has before. Suddenly, she feels foolish and weak so she halts her confession.
He cocks his head as if straining to find her voice again.
Her intensity turns to confusion. Can he hear her?
"Where's Liz?"
Kyle points to a clearing. "She's meditating or something. Tess says she's transcending whatever that means."
"Can you handle this?" he asks, but he's already begun to walk away.
"Max, the Depositors are going to be here in any moment. I'd rather not be the one to tell them that we've chucked the master plan."
"I'll be back."
His steps tremor through the ground or maybe it's just her shaking.
He spies her sitting underneath a tree. Crouching down beside her, he wants nothing more than just to hold her and take her pain away, but that was something he did before. Not something he can do now. Instead, he tucks a strand of her soft hair behind her ear and waits for the dazed look in her eyes to pass. He doesn't know how she did it, but she called him and that will have to be enough for now. So intent in his study, he never sees two blue eyes following his every movement with a barely contained fury.
