HA SATAN (THE ADVERSARY): An Elena Duran/Corazon Negro Story 12/12
Vi Moreau (vmoreau@directvinternet.com)
Tue, 17 Sep 2002 14:00:56 -0400
HA SATAN (THE ADVERSARY)
An Elena Duran-Corazon Negro Story 12/12
vmoreau@directvinternet.com & divad72@prodigy.net.mx
"What's wrong, my love?" Corazon Negro asked her, giving a little
self-deprecating grin. "I know you, so please, tell me."
Elena closed her eye, trying to understand her inner feelings. She seemed to
give in, and then she said with low voice, almost a whisper. "What am I
doing here? Why did I think I could make a difference? You have the Egyptian
God Heru-sa-aset and Myrddin from Camelot! And the others! What am I
supposed to do, cheer them on? And I don't want them to think you're weak
because you have to have a woman by your side. And I don't want to distract
you. It's better that I leave now."
Corazon Negro could tell by the shadow that had come over her face that her
thoughts had somehow struck a chord deep within her. "What are you saying?
What-?"
"I think it's better if I leave," she interrupted him, giving him a
blistering smile.
He took her hands in his, facing her. "Didn't you hear Myrddin talking about
Quetzalcohuatl's prophecy?" he asked, gazing into her gray eye. "We are one
being. Maybe together we can defeat Lilitu. You and me." Squeezing her
hands, he asked, "Are you afraid?"
Elena's gray eye grew darker; her voice took on a note of pain. "Afraid? Of
course I'm afraid, but not of dying. I said I would fight with you and die
with you, my love. But I want my death to count for something, to have 'some
' meaning. I don't want to die the moment I set foot on the battlefield!
I've been hiding for four years. I'm out of practice-"
"You didn't seem out of practice against those Berserkers," he interrupted.
But she continued, despairing. "I feel hopeless, helpless, useless.
Cowardly."
Corazon Negro knew better than that and could tell she did, too. "You are
not helpless or useless, my love. Nor a coward. Quetzalcohuatl told me
centuries before you were born to watch out for the Black Flower and protect
her with my life. He was a seer-he KNEW you would make a difference!"
Elena smiled sadly. The light in her eye was positively wicked. "He knew I
would save you from Lilitu's minions when you were helpless, in that coma.
It was you Quetzalcohuatl wanted to save, you who were important-not me."
Her words cut him to the bone. "Lilitu tried to destroy you in Argentina by
sending-"
"No, she was coming for 'you'," Elena interrupted. "I was just in the way."
Corazon Negro sighed. "You're wrong, my love. Lilitu knows you're a danger
to her-that's why she sent Claude Bethel to torture you, to break you, then
behead you," He consoled.
She stared at him openmouthed, and the light glinted from a tear in the
corner of her eye. She started to speak, then stopped, at a loss for words.
"What? B-Bethel... she sent him after me?"
Corazon Negro held her strongly. "Of course! Bethel was her creature. Lilitu
is afraid of you, my love. Don't you see? You can hurt her-that's why you're
here!"
The Aztec's words sounded brittle in her ears. She tried to pull away from
him. But she knew Corazon Negro wouldn't let her go, giving her a calm,
steady look that placidly let her know he would patiently wait until she was
ready to share her pain with him. She tried halfheartedly to pull away
again, then acquiesced with a sign. "Really? You think so?"
Corazon Negro could hear the weight of centuries in her voice. It wouldn't
help her to know that more centuries didn't bring answers. They only brought
more pain. "I know it! Quetzalcohuatl knew it too. And so does Lilitu. The
whole purpose of our entire life, the intention of our meeting five hundred
years ago. Everything for this moment, vida mia. I need you besides me,"
Corazon Negro whispered in her ear.
Elena shook his head in wonder as she stared at him and touched his hand.
"Are you sure?"
As an answer, he kissed her, deeply. When she was free from his mouth, she
smiled. "Well. OK. Count me in."
========
Zarach turned and saw what he already knew, that only Duncan remained with
him in the room. The younger Highlander stood quite still looking at him as
he had earlier, as though he were seeing a myth made real.
Then Duncan put the question that was obsessing him, the question he could
not lose sight of, no matter how great his faith. "The Game is a lie, isn't
it?" he asked. It had a simple disbelief tone to it, a poignant tone, yet
his voice was so reserved.
Zarach nodded. "It is." He smiled at Duncan. Something in the manner of this
one made Zarach happy, though he wasn't sure why. He beckoned for Duncan to
come to him and they met at the foot of the table and walked together out of
the room. Zarach put his arm around Duncan's shoulder and they went out the
corridor, Zarach walking slowly and heavily.
"And you're sure of it?" Duncan asked respectfully.
Zarach stopped. "Oh, yes, quite sure." They looked at one another for a
moment, and again Zarach smiled. This one was so gifted yet not gifted at
the same time; he wondered if the human heart would go out of Duncan's eyes
if he ever gained more power, if he ever had, for instance, Zarach's
Quickening.
"Let me tell you something," Zarach said now, agreeably. "I was born in a
time long gone, when the Game didn't exist." But why was he saying this? Did
he believe it again as he had before these trials had begun?
"Then there is no real Prize, and hundreds of Immortals have died in vain
over millennia," Duncan said, trying to smile, but his grin was without
humor.
And I myself have killed so many for the sake of a false Game, was what
Duncan was thinking. "Too many," Zarach said quietly, haunted. "But the real
Prize is to save the world from Lilitu, forever, and if we don't stop her,
our brothers' deaths wouldn't be just tragic, but pointless," he added,
glancing at Duncan, with just the trace of a smile.
"And we will, no matter the odds," Duncan said.
Zarach gazed at him. Same old Duncan, always the white knight, rushing to
assist. "And maybe we will die, my friend," he added.
Duncan looked a little shocked, his eyes purposefully dark, and then gave a
little shake of the dead. "Forgive me," he said, "but you remind me of the
things they talk about back when I was born in my clan. You, just like the
others in the Ancient Gathering, are a terror from the past," he commented,
anything but apologetic.
"I know," Zarach answered. "But I am not. You can trust me." He laughed
softly. Yes, he did believe it. Then he embraced Duncan warmly. "Come, the
others are outside the house. Soon, it will be daylight."
They both walked outside Connor's house, and Duncan walked toward his
kinsman. Slowly, Zarach realized what he was seeing before him-the
Highlands, the cold glen. The slow rhythm of his life came back to him with
the faint shimmer of all the images his words had conveyed through his long
life. So immediate was that soon-to-be sun-drenched clearing, and how
different it seemed now from his memories. Never had his dreams made him
feel so close to the Ancient Gathering in front of him.
It was such a mystery, this mixture of feelings, where sorrow touched
something that was undeniably positive and good. The soul of the Immortals
before him attracted him; he loved the particular complexity of them, and he
wished he could somehow tell them so.
Then it was as if he caught himself; he realized that he had forgotten for a
while to be bitter, to be in pain. Maybe his soul was healing faster than he
had ever supposed it could. Or perhaps it was only that he had been thinking
about these others, about Methos, and before that about Corazon Negro, and
what they needed to believe. Well, hell, Corazon Negro was the new Dreamer.
In fact, the sharp and bitter fact occurred to him that the Aztec might
survive all this even when he, Zarach, did not.
But that was a little supposition that he could do without. The others were
waiting for him.
"Lilitu is looking for us," Corazon Negro announced, his eyes closed as he
concentrated himself. "Yet, she is miles to the south."
"But it's very far south of here," Elena said hopefully. How fragile she
looked in the translucent first rays of the sun, her long thin fingers
hugging the backs of her slender arms.
"Not so far," Corazon Negro spoke again. "And she is plotting as always.
Other Headless Children are with her right now, and they want to destroy the
world."
"Not the old wipe-out-the-world ploy again," Methos said, but his gallows
humor rang hollow in the dawn.
"Where is she?" Heru-sa-aset asked.
But Corazon Negro didn't answer. The Aztec lifted his hand to cover his eyes
as if the pain there was now intolerable. The new Dreamer was feeling Lilitu
's power on earth.
Zarach realized that he was sensing the same presence now, under the sky. He
closed his eyes; he tried to see again Lilitu's figure inside his mind. He
tried to see more but he could not. What he had felt was power, illimitable
power and unstoppable momentum, nothing more.
When Zarach opened his eyes again the morning shimmered in the garden around
him. He watched the surroundings grow lighter; he watched the light fill the
creation, and he gazed at the beautiful colors brightening in the vast
network of life in front of him.
At that instant, Corazon Negro's voice grew louder. "The Dream is open
again! I feel it! This is our time! Lilitu's powers are fading away!" He
took a step forward and took out his Maquahuitl, raising it to the sky. "Can
you see us, hag! We are the Ancient Gathering! Your tricks won't matter now,
we are going to destroy you!"
Beside Corazon Negro, Elena took out her sword too, and Cassandra, and
Duncan. Then Connor, Myrddin, Heru-sa-aset and even Methos took out their
weapons, together forming a circle of power in the middle of the Highland
garden.
Slowly, invaded by a new force, an almost forgotten hope, Zarach grabbed the
hilts of both his sai and joined them.
All of them raised their weapons toward heaven. Thunder rumbled overhead and
a qualm went through their swords. Roar was on the far side of the valley,
followed by a crash of rumbling. A few seconds later, lighting forked out of
the sky and found their blades. Evanescent colors snaked before their eyes,
but they held fast. Transient white flares exploded around them. They could
see the hill breathing, hear the earth suck wind into its lungs. The valley
pulsed below them, the mighty hearts of the mountains pounded out a beat
that timed with the rhythm of the blood in their bodies.
Zarach smiled. Maybe there was hope. Maybe they were ready to fight against
Lilitu after all. A last fight against their adversary. Very soon they would
know.
The sky expanded and lanced, and sliced open again.
THE END
January 3- February 14, 2002
Florida-Mexico
This story concludes in EHYEH-ASHER-EHYEH (I AM THAT I AM)