7 - your eyes
"It's okay, Cass," he told her, feeling her sudden tension. "It's okay."
With her insides in a hurricane panic, she was proud of how steady her voice was. "Marco. Let me go."
He did. He took a step back, spreading his hands to his sides in a universal gesture of 'I'm unarmed and mean no harm'.
"What happened? What have you done to Iro, and the doctor?"
Marco shook his head. "I'm not to answer questions," he said, chanted, like a child reciting a favourite rhyme. His manner seemed peaceful enough – but Cassie was not fooled. She knew him. And she recognized the way he moved: that precise, collected dignity, eerily like the graceful strength of his gorilla. His footfalls would be very silent if he walked, and when he dropped the charade his face would be cold and hostile. He offered her a hand. "Come on, Cass."
"No," Cassie refused, shaking her head.
"It's for your own good, Cassie. Come along now. I don't want to hurt you."
"That's right," Cassie told him softly. "You don't. You don't want to bring me to them. The Elŷrrics. You don't."
Marco looked pained – and then the waver in his eyes evaporated, and anger streaked onto his face, marring his features like old scars suddenly made visible. "Actually, Cass, I think I do."
"They hurt you, Marco. They've done it before. They'll do it again."
"Not if I serve them," growled Marco, visibly setting her words out of his mind. "Come on. Last chance, Cass. Please. Milord isn't patient."
"You don't want to serve them. You don't want to bring me to them. Just like they've hurt you, they'll hurt me. You don't want me hurt. Not ever. You love me too much to ever want me hurt."
Marco's aggressive stance flickered away. The conflict was clear: he jerked away, lowering his face, both hands flying like claws to the tiara across his forehead. But the lettering on the silver was brilliantly alight, and Marco's hands came away empty. "I don't –" he gasped, a whirl of warring emotions. There was pain his clenched expression, fury and despair twirled in his dark eyes, and fear quivered in his voice. Then that despair and that fear exploded through him and he threw himself at her, crying "But I must!"
Marco was already bulging with increased gorilla mass as he grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her off. His fingers thickened and the grip tightened with the force of newly morphed muscles.
Cassie let him drag her – she made no attempt to break free. She simply morphed.
She chose the flea and focused all her willpower on shrinking. While Marco's hands grew larger and stronger, she shrunk rapidly into near nothingness.
Marco roared something in thought-speech which would have made his mother wash his mouth with soap as she slipped out of his grip, and out of sight for his beady gorilla eyes.
#Remember what we learned as Animorphs, Marco,# Cassie said softly. #Sometimes, it's simply better to go small.#
#Damn it, Cass! You're just making it difficult for yourself! That ship has bioscanners. You can't hide. Just come along peacefully, please… it'll be easier on you that way.# Marco sounded like he believed it himself. Cassie felt a mental shiver.
Still, she let Marco rage on, saying nothing. She turned her attention to her flea senses, powered her tiny body towards the nearby source of heat – Marco, it had to be – and clambered through what had to be gorilla fur, towards skin. She felt the warm body's vibrations and jolts as it moved: the beat of a strong heart and the gorilla's jerky, rolling gait beneath. She resisted the urge to bite with a bit of effort, and began to wait.
She did not know exactly what she waited for. An opportunity. How she planned to recognize an opportunity in flea morph, she did not know. Such things either solved themselves, or became problems, but it was a problem or solution to face when it came.
The alternative was turning around and facing a future without Marco, a future where she would live knowing she had abandoned him to the Elŷrrics. That she could not do.
She soon felt the air change from the fresh outdoor to the metallic, slightly stale indoor air of a space ship. She tensed. Marco must have somehow have escaped Mertil's force field cage, and was about to steal Mertil's ship and return to his Elŷrrian masters. His own Tenkharian shuttle craft was, of course, inferior to a cruiser class Iguarnee ship.
He was leaving Earth, leaving her, leaving Cody. Only she was trapped aboard the same cruiser.
She felt a mental shiver and was glad that fleas were unable to weep. She steeled herself, and made up her mind: she would find an opportunity to thwart him. No: to thwart the tiara. The Elŷrrics.
It was then she heard him speak. With more respect than she had ever heard in his voice: #Lord, close the hatch. She is here with me. In flea morph.#
And it did not take Cassie a moment to figure out who he was speaking to. It felt like someone had just hit her across the head with a sledge hammer. Of course. Of course. Even before the reply, Cassie had understood, had seen the pattern.
#Excellent, Marco,# came the quiet praise. It chilled Cassie into the depths of her soul. There was no mistaking that voice. That light hand which enveloped every strand of thought, ready to squeeze. The mocking caress of every hope and every uncertainty.
The Iguarnee ship. The glowing tiara. The friend never before met face to face.
#Quite excellent.#
It was Mertil. Speaking to Marco like one praised a child, but with less emotion.
She had not seen it in time – now it was too late. Now she was trapped in this cruiser, with a lover she could not trust and his greatest enemy. Yet there was nowhere else she would rather be. She felt courage build like boiling water inside her. The alternative was abandoning Marco. That she would not – could not – do.
#So do come out, my dear,# almost sang Mertil, plucking at cords of thought like a harpist plucked at the strings of a harp.
Cassie felt compelled to obey. The order wound itself around her mind and tugged at her like a leash. Come out.
#Reveal yourself,# suggested Mertil, if a suggestion could grab someone by the neck and steer them and still be called a mere suggestion.
Marco was changing shape, demorphing to human again.
Cassie considered. She was trapped on the ship. If she demorphed, she would reveal herself, and be vulnerable. But they already knew she was there. Unless they were bluffing. If she remained a flea, she would be useless, and… and even if they were bluffing, she would reveal herself as soon as she eventually demorphed. For she would eventually have to demorph. And it would have to be aboard the ship, for she had no way of escaping it.
What of her son, her little boy? Cody, Cody, Cody. She would never see him again, never hold him, never kiss him goodnight, never bring him to his first day of school, never, never, never, never if she was trapped in morph, never if she did not somehow stop Mertil, save Marco, for she could not leave him.
Cassie leapt to the floor. She demorphed. Only as she stood fully human did she raise her eyes.
Mertil, still appearing as an oddly thin Andalite, with long legs and a snakelike tail and incredibly green eyes, returned her gaze with a narrow but warm smile. #Welcome, my dear. I have a gift for you.#
Cassie shut her eyes and turned her face away as he held out a tiara. Another tiara – not the one still adorning Marco's forehead. The glowing lettering burned on the inside of her eyelids. There was no bond to this tiara. It had no hold on her – she had never touched it. Yet it was humming its invitation, and it was beautiful. And every thought lingering on it was dangerous.
"Take it, Cass," Marco urged fervently.
Cassie glanced up at him. "No. I don't want it."
#Trust me, my dear,# Mertil whispered. #You'll want it soon enough. Marco?#
"Milord?"
#Convince her.#
Marco's black eyes glittered with a depth Cassie had never before seen – a bottomless pit. "Think of it this way, Cass," he said, his steps towards her like those of a prowling cat, his shoulders set menacingly and his hands half-raised. She began to back away. "We'll be together. They'll let us be together. And they'll leave Cody alone. The Lords have no use for children."
"You wouldn't dare touch Cody," Cassie snarled. She reached for her wolf morph, touching it – and leaving it be. There was no use. Marco could match her morph for morph. They would only end up hurting each other, demorphing, remorphing, and tiring, weakening.
If she could get to Mertil… past Marco…
Before she had expected it, her back hit the wall. Immediately Marco stopped his advance. A force field shimmered into existence. And the singing, soothing, alluring tiara landed at her feet.
Pick it up. It's beautiful.
Pick it up. You want a closer look.
Pick it up. It'll make the pain go away.
Pick me up. Pick me…
Cassie slammed her hands over her ears and shut her eyes again, trying desperately to escape the mental voice. Cody. Yes, that was it. Think of Cody. Cody needed her.
She built up a picture of her boy in her head. His bright smile, black eyes, crazily curly hair. The too-often scraped knees, the grass- and food-stained shirt. The smell of him, young and innocent, with a wisp of that shampoo from the colourful blue bottle he for some reason favoured. His youthful voice, the sound of him speaking – oh, he spoke constantly now, from when he awoke until when he fell asleep. He was growing – each day he seemed taller. She could not help but smile.
The tiara could do nothing. It could claw at her mind, call on her, beckon her, torment her, whatever it wished – it made no difference. Cody was everything. The tiara meant losing Cody, possibly harming Cody, possibly bringing him along into slavery.
"Pick it up, Cass," encouraged Marco eagerly. "Just pick it up, and –"
"And never see my boy again?" she interrupted with a definite chill in her words. "I think not. Or is it pick it up, and bring Cody to the Elŷrrics? Forget it."
#Ah,# hissed Mertil in disgust. #Mothers. Very well, Animorph. The journey home is long. There is plenty of time for me to change your mind. It might even prove amusing.#
"You're an Elŷrric," Cassie blurted.
#Clever human,# Mertil snickered. #What gave it away? Marco calling me 'lord'?#
"But you look like an Andalite."
#Obviously.#
"Then how do Elŷrrics look? What's your true shape? Your name?"
#I am a shape shifter,# Mertil told her disdainfully. He was watching her with his stalk eyes while his main eyes focused on the computer console at which he had begun working. #Like all of my kin. My true shape is whichever shape I assume. Whichever shape suits me best. As for my true name – I have no reason to trust a slave with such a secret. Now be quiet.#
"Or what?"
Mertil's four eyes focused on her, flashing in ire. #Or I will make you quiet,# he promised softly. An Andalite would have raised his tail – Mertil did not need to. #And trust me, girl… it will not be pleasant.#
Cassie bit her lip and drew back, uncomfortable. Mertil seemed perfectly capable to crush mountains with his mere voice.
#Marco,# said Mertil then. #Prepare us for departure.#
"At once, milord."
If she had thought it would have helped, Cassie would have screamed.
Author's Note:
So some of you already had Mertil's act down. Ah, well,can't fool 'em all. Ever notice how people reading stories are always more perceptive to who the villian is or what (s)he is up to than the characters in the story?
...and I'll be back in August. Until then, have fun.
