Maria brought up her right hand, and for the first time saw that she was tightly clenching a ballpoint pen and a piece of wet and crumpled paper. She had apparently been holding on to it the entire time. The pen was broken, the paper useless, coming apart almost as she looked at it. “It’s no good. It’s broken.” She looked at the plastic refill. “Maybe I could write, but there’s nothing to write on.”
Angelique sighed. “Then you sleep. When night come, you go. Bring help. I wait three moons here for help.”
“Go? Where? Get help from who?”
“You—write. Do on skin, Say—Bessel Island. Art Cadell. In white little house looking to water. Speak what happen. All. Come back for me. If not—Greg—or you come, will go. Never see again.”
She wrote down the information, with difficulty, on her arm. “But why just me? I mean—I don’t have a stitch on! Why not both of us?”
“You speak clear tongue. You say, they know. See me, laugh. Dark Man look for me. You bring Dark Man, we die. Bring friend, we may stop Dark Man. Be brave. Use head.”
“I—I’m not very brave. I could never have done this much without your hypnosis or whatever it was.”
“You be now. Dark Man, he catch you, he lie sweet but he mad. He put you in living hell. Believe.”
“But—what if I’m caught? What if I can’t make it in time? What if nobody’s there any more?”
“Then Angelique use power. Get to big land. Live in jungle. Be wild thing but not Dark Man thing.”
“You’re sure? You’ll be on this island—alone. No food or drink. No boat, and you can’t swim.”
“No worry ’bout Angelique. You do?”
“I—I’ll try. But I worry about you, even if I get back.”
“No can stop. Must become like her. Come too far to get power to do this. Had to be price to pay. Angelique know this may be. Not mind. Get arms. Got legs. Am strong.”
Maria was genuinely touched by that. Angelique was paying what was, to Maria, an intolerable price, but was it intolerable to Angelique? She would foil, perhaps stop, the Dark Man. She had traded her attractive Canadian self for the body of a young priestess of a Stone Age culture—and perhaps of the Stone Age itself. A quadriplegic heiress becomes a whole Stone Age person, cut off in communication from the world of today and forced to think in a simple, more basic, and probably long dead Stone Age language with few words and much mysticism. The language would in itself force her to think in those terms, make her inside what she appeared to be outside.
Was it worth the price? Was it a better choice? Maria didn’t know, but certainly Angelique had decided it was.
Maria had no doubts that the Dark Man’s people would be sweet as honey if they caught her, but out for terrible revenge when they recovered Angelique. Being hypnotized or whatever it had been would be no excuse. If they could create a monster out of something or other to do their killing and restore her youth while changing Angelique into—this—they would be very creative when she no longer had value. She’d been too long on the streets of New Orleans with the amoral, the vicious, and the truly evil to think otherwise.
“I will do it. Somehow I will do it,” she said, and kissed Angelique.
“I—I not be same when you come back. Be Hapharsi. Look, act, think Hapharsi, but be Angelique in head. No worry. Not all spirits evil. Find good high priest. Break spell. Angelique be like old but no stiff. You see.”
And, with that, they slept, huddled in each other’s arms.
It was dream-filled, troubled sleep for Angelique, but her dreams were not of anything she could remember. Rather it was something of an inner house cleaning, a rearrangement of her mental furniture. She could fight it while awake, at least slow it down, but asleep she was at its mercy. Still, some corner of her mind held on ferociously, at least until this part was done.
She awoke before it was totally dark, and slipped silently away from Maria’s still form. She went down to check the boat and saw that it was indeed still there. Reassured, she went back up and sat, cross-legged, across from the other woman. She needed to think.
Was she doing the right thing, allowing one who had betrayed her once to go alone? Still, she knew she had to do it that way. She was what the Dark Man’s magic had decreed, and his was the stronger magic. By that magic he had marked her, making her choose this life, but, no matter what, she had not lied to Maria. This life was better than being a living statue. She was whole and strong and she knew how to provide the basics to live, and thanks to the magic she wished for no more than those basics. But they would be looking over a tremendous area for two women, and of the two she was the one they most keenly sought. A warrior priestess is born, anointed by the spirits, and she does not get captured by an enemy. She fights and perhaps she dies, willingly, but she does not fall twice into enemy hands.
The Dark Man had anointed her the Hapharsi Mother for this time, but he did not want the true spirit of the ancient Mother to consume her. He wanted to break down Angelique, to remove all things pf her old people and tribal customs and rituals, to allow her to see the joy of living with power. To tempt her, so that she would be brought to their altar and, to get the highest pleasures and the greatest power, she would willingly wed herself to Dobak or some other great demon and herself perform the sacrifice.
She knew she craved the power and the indescribable bodily pleasures that this would bring, that she had experienced second hand through the ancient Mother’s spirit. But were she not to do his bidding, he could not find her any easier than he could find any other woman, and she could still have some power and some pleasure, for she had no children now to be responsible for.
She didn’t really believe Maria could make it. She understood the odds, and she knew that even if Maria got all the way to the home of friends it might have been long deserted, or discovered by the Dark Man. There was every reason for the friends not to be there.
She would prepare to use the essence of this little island itself. It would take perhaps two days, and it would complete the process, for she would have to willingly undergo the full initiation of a Hapharsi Mother. She was not afraid. It was the only way. Then she could talk directly to the elemental spirits of the world, and then she could bargain for her journey. She knew still that there was a great land to the south, and that it was not unlike the land the Hapharsi had lived in. Beyond the great cities and power of the tribes of the coast there was still a huge, dense jungle, with all that she needed. With no tribe, no children of her own to care for, she could be absorbed into it, communing directly with its spirit and perhaps becoming one with nature. A soul so purified might be so clean as to rise to Heaven itself.
It was such a wondrous possibility that the only thing that kept her from doing it was her hatred of the Dark Man and what he stood for. He was a demon, certainly, and probably a prince of demons, preparing the way for the Father of Evil to come and swallow the world. She would give up all the glories of the spirit world to be a part of the battle against such a thing. Just to wound him, to spit in his eye and laugh, would be worth any sacrifice.
Maria groaned, rolled over and seemed about to wake up. Angelique suddenly realized that if, by some miraculous intervention of the Heavens, the girl succeeded, she, Angelique, would need some way to speak to them and they to her. She sat back again and let her mind flow free, and asked the advice of the spirits of the island and the air.
There was a way, they told her, but only if the girl was willing, and she was of the sort who disbelieved in magic even when it was done to her and in front of her face.
Maria groaned again, awoke, and stretched, and opened her eyes. “Still here,” she moaned. “Still no dream. God! Am I thirsty! And hungry!”
Angelique, sitting Buddha-like, did not move, but she fought back her inclinations and forced the words to come. “I can give.”
Maria stared at her. “Give what?”
“Drink. Food. But only to Hapharsi.”
“Well, that may be, but you’re the only Hapharsi or whatever it is here, or maybe in the whole world.”
“Can make Hapharsi. Can be Hapharsi, you.”
Maria, still waking up and trying not to think of what was ahead, wanted to please the woman she’d felt so sorry for. “Me? You want to make me a member of the tribe?”
“You like? I do.” She was well aware that Maria had no idea of the seriousness of what was going on in so far as Angelique was concerned. If she accepted and the ritual was performed, they would be bound together. It would not cause Maria many problems, but it would place tremendous burdens on Angelique, for she would then have a child and responsibility for it. She would be bound to protect her child, Maria, and to honor her requests.
“Yeah, sure. If it makes you happy. What do I do?”
“Let mind go free. Look at me.”
Thinking it a hypnotic trick again, Maria was uncertain, but she determined that this time she’d keep control.
“Unab sequabab ciemi,” Angelique chanted, and almost immediately there seemed to be a breeze through the trees and Maria heard the rushing of wind. An air disturbance formed, apparently between them, and she stared, fascinated, even though she knew it must be some kind of hypnotic trick.
Then there seemed to be a sparkle in the disturbance, as if a hundred tiny fireflies were loosed there and held captive. It was beautiful in its own way.
Now she found herself getting up, although she was fully awake, and walking towards and then into the whirling, intangible mass. She felt a slight tingling all over her body, and it felt good.
Now she heard Angelique chanting in that strange, dead language, as if from far off and from everywhere around her at once, and she found herself repeating the syllables with the exact same inflection. And the more she chanted, and the more she said the words, the more she seemed to understand them.
“All the spirits hear me, and the gods of heaven and earth, fire and water, Father Sun and Mother Moon, for I will swear my will.” It was fascinating. She knew she could back out at any time, call it off, but it seemed both beautiful and fascinating.
“I renounce all ties to other tribes and other ways,” she continued. “I will call no woman mother but the Mother of Hapharsi, and no man father but the Elder of the Hapharsi. I proclaim myself before all a Hapharsi, and a Hapharsi only, and willingly do I become again a child, a girl, respectful of her mother and father, who are wise and powerful and the only guides to the true ways. I will respect all the ways of the Hapharsi, and keep them. So do I promise and swear, and give my blood as seal.”
Angelique touched Maria’s left breast, making a scratch with her nail that drew blood, but did not hurt, then she did the same to herself, and then, in turn, they took of each other’s blood with their mouths.
And Angelique said, “Girl, I name you First Love, for you are now my flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood, and nothing shall break this bond between us.” She paused a moment. “It is done.”
The mist and breeze and sparkles faded, and Maria found herself standing still, looking at Angelique. She looked at her breast and at Angelique’s and saw that the scratches were real, although hers still didn’t hurt and seemed already to be healing.
“You wish food and drink for your journey,” said Angelique, and Maria started, realizing that she was understanding that crazy gibberish, not English. If this was hypnosis, she’d somehow been taught an entire language in a matter of minutes, maybe? Who knew? “Cup your hands and face me.”
Feeling a bit silly, Maria did as instructed. Suddenly she felt a wetness, and looked down and saw her hands slowly filling with what looked to be clear water. She couldn’t hold it for long, and she was so very thirsty, so she brought it to her lips and drank it. It was, in fact, plain water, and it was not enough.
Angelique let her repeat three more times until finally the strange woman with the power said, “Enough. It will take you where you must go.” She broke off a nearby leaf and gave it to Maria. “Eat of this leaf.”
Uncertain, Maria took a nibble, and was surprised to find that it was soft and somewhat chewy. It was nothing much on taste, but it seemed to have a thickness and consistency that shouldn’t have been there, and it went down well. Angelique let her eat two leaves, then provided one more handful of water, and no matter how much more Maria wanted, that was it.
“You must go now,” Angelique told her. “Be brave and cautious. The waters, winds, and sands will guide you to your destination, but they can do little against the Father of Evil. Beware and bring help, for the great evil is on the rise. No matter what happens to me, you must get the message through.”