Dirty Eden (24 page)

“You’ll go with us?” I said.

She put the mirror away. “Sure,” she said, smiling, “I think I can do that, but once you get where you need to go, I’ll be on my way and Vanity’s Mirror will go with me.”

“Great!” I said. “Thank you.”

Sophia, despite being jealous that the woman had features she did not have and, of course, having the mirror she wanted so badly, was smiling now too. As long as the mirror was in reach, she still had a chance to obtain it later. I felt that Sophia’s obsession with Vanity’s Mirror might turn out to be more dangerous than the woman and her strange willingness to help.

We left the boat, entered the forest, and within minutes, arrived at our destination.

“Shhh,” the woman warned.

We crouched quietly behind an enormous piece of stone that appeared to be what was left of a toppled scaling pillar. There were intricate grooves cut into the stone down its length and inside those, pictures of winged beings in combat with horned beings. The pillar was covered in thick green vines and patches of healthy green moss where tiny insects worked diligently. There were other pieces of the toppled pillar lying around, broken from its base and head and scattered about the forest bed.

We were close enough to see everything clearly, but far enough to stay hidden. Out ahead, the sun beamed down like a giant pool of orange and sparkling white. The light reflected particles of dust caught in the sun’s warm beams. Patches of flowers dotted the ground over a thick mound of endless moss. The moss was everywhere. It spilled out over the ground and everything that lay in its path as if a giant had laid it down like a blanket. There were mushrooms; little colonies of them. Everything touched by the light was magnificent, from the landscape to the mystical butterflies that fluttered about serenely.

But nothing was more magnificent than the Serpent and the Angel.

“How long will you hide?” said a silky, deadly voice.

I swallowed and looked to see who had spoken. It became quickly evident that it was the serpent, Samyaza. He was looking right in our direction with a gaze of piercing eyes.

Samyaza was extremely tall; his form perfectly masculine and feminine just the same. His hair was jet-black, flowing unrestricted against his pale white flesh. His chest was bare and he wore a long black leather kilt, straight and heavy down to his ankles. It split on both sides, revealing black pants underneath. Behind him, a large set of black, feathered wings gave Samyaza even more stature.

“Have you come to bring me an offering?” His tone was self-possessed.

Tsaeb grabbed my sleeve and whispered harshly, “Go along with it!”

The four of us stood and stepped carefully away from the pillar and moved toward the light, but Tsaeb and Sophia stopped just shy.

“Y-Yes....” I stuttered.

What was I was supposed to use as an offering? I doubted I had anything on me that would qualify as one.

“We’ve brought you a girl,” said Sophia, indicating with her eyes that the woman who had Vanity’s Mirror was the offering. Sweet revenge.

The woman shot a hateful glare at Sophia, half of her wanting to object, but the other half restraining that desire.

I went along with that as well, glad I was not having to come up with these lies so quickly all on my own. If it were left up to me, the scene would have already turned sour. I took the woman by the arm harshly to make it look as though it was real and I prayed she would not punch me for it.

I hoped I could pull this off.

If only I had some idea of what I was supposed to do, where I was supposed to bury the Devil’s eyes, or even if I needed to bury them both, or bury them at all. What if it had to be precise? What if I only needed the left, or the right eye, and if so how would I know now which was which? I bit down on the inside of my cheek. I started thinking about the boat not far away, mapping out an escape plan in my head.

Everything became very clear to me when the Angel raised her face.

Where her eyes should have been, there were sunken black holes. The dark hollows seemed even darker than they were next to the creamy backdrop of her skin and hair, which was surely as smooth as silk.

She wore practically nothing as every inch of her naked skin could be seen through the thin black nightgown that covered her. She sat at Samyaza’s feet as he towered over her next to a stone altar of sorts, draped in moss and flowers. Her long, beautiful white hair glistened and sparkled in the sunlight as it went through Samyaza’s fingers, stroke after stroke after stroke.

I GAZED UPON THE Angel and a gut-wrenching shudder nearly brought me to my knees. I couldn’t understand how I felt I could cry just by looking at her; it was overwhelming.

“You could have cleaned her up first,” said Samyaza, analyzing the woman discontentedly.

Samyaza was stunning with greenish shimmering scales on his cheeks and temples and around his crystalline sea green eyes. Even the hiss that laced his voice, it too had sex appeal. I admired and resented him, finding myself strangely envious of this being.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Will she not do?”

“No, she will do,” said Samyaza, this time revealing a long, forked tongue. He took one hand from the Angel’s hair and curled a finger toward himself. “Come,” he said and the woman was lifted from her feet and began to float toward him.

I winced. This was not part of the plan. But then there never was a plan to begin with. I was sure though that if there ever had been, the woman would not have ended up as the bait. It wouldn’t have gone this far.

Samyaza set her down upon the ground near the Angel. If she had felt safe enough to speak, all of her words would have been acidic.

“Yes?” Samyaza said looking over at us all, seemingly annoyed by the fact that we were still there.

It took a second for me to realize the reason for Samyaza’s inquiry.

“W-We uhhh,” I stuttered, looking for words fruitlessly at first. “I uhhh, came to ask my three sacred questions. I thought this offering would be enough. Was I wrong?”

No one, not even me knew what I was talking about. The Angel’s statuesque posture shifted subtly; her powder-white chin turned in attention and her face appeared silently inquisitive.

She knew what was going on, though it seemed a struggle for her in some enigmatic way. Other than the fact that she could not see.

“I-I knew it was true,” I continued to perform, “everyone says it, but I didn’t believe it at first.” I turned and scolded Sophia with a dangerous look right before she said something that might have made my lies harder. Thankfully, she understood and remained quiet.

“Everyone says what?” Samyaza inquired with a cautious eye.

I went a step further and walked fully into the light, bowed deeply and put on my best candid face.

“Just that when a follower brings you gifts,” I began, “that you allow them any three questions and you answer them truthfully.”

Samyaza’s head cocked to one side. “Why the hell would I do that?” he said, looking offended and amused. “Someone lied to you.” The laughter in his voice stung me.

“Oh, I see,” I said and then added quickly, “I guess then I should warn all of those people I met on the way who were coming here, too. They had
a lot
of stuff. They say you’re like a god or something, that you know the answers to everything and that they think you’re even more worthy than...than Lilith!”

All of my lies seemed to enrich the color of Samyaza’s eyes, but the last one made the corners of his beautiful, perfect mouth seethe with egotistical delight.

“I do apologize for disturbing you.” My stutter was gone now that I was more confident my ploy was working. I started to walk away, but as expected, Samyaza stopped me.

“I was only testing you,” Samyaza said with a hint of rearrangement in his voice. “Go ahead and ask your two questions. I’m true to the word of my followers.”

“
Three
questions,” I corrected, holding up three wiggling fingers.

Samyaza laughed foolishly. “Oh yes, yes,” he said, nodding and waving, “ask three questions then.” He turned his chin upward and tried to look important.

I knew better than to expect truthful answers, or even halfway truthful answers, but I was only trying to buy myself some time. I needed to give the Angel back her eyes; those that I was certain belonged to her though I couldn’t imagine how they got where they were when I took them. I piddled around, pacing through beams of light, wasting as much time as I could get away with, which wasn’t going to be much, I realized.

“Get on with it, then,” Samyaza demanded, looking bored and irritated.

I stopped and turned to face Samyaza, placing my fingers around my unshaven chin, tapping gently one after the other rhythmically. I looked deeply in thought for a moment, until Samyaza began to speak and I stopped him just as his smooth and flawless lips began to part.

“How long have you been in these woods?” I wanted to be sure not to bring too much, if any, attention to the Angel and my interest in her.

Samyaza’s expression shifted to a more interested one. “Hmmm, I don’t
—
” he began, but changed his course of answer upon realizing he was supposed to know the answers to everything. “Over two billion moons.”

“Two
billion
?” I was taken aback. Lie or not, I had a feeling that was not so very far from the truth.

“Onto the next question,” Samyaza insisted. “I have important things to do on this day.”

“What kind of important things?” Tsaeb said from behind.

All eyes were on Tsaeb, including mine. I was infuriated and stiff, worried that might count as one of my three questions.

And it did.

“That makes question number two,” said Samyaza smugly, hissing.

I looked at Samyaza with protest.

“They’re
your
company,” Samyaza added. “But to answer, I have hair to braid and land to tend.”

I was going to have to play hardball. I needed more time, a lot more time to figure out what I needed to do and how to do it. And so I sat on the plush, green moss-covered ground and made myself comfortable. Samyaza stared upon me with wild, unblinking eyes that simply said, “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” But I did not falter. I was going to have to stand my ground.

And Taurus was right; I noticed offhandedly that Samyaza’s nose
was
a tad crooked.

“What are you doing?” said Samyaza, looking worried.

I looked up. “Oh, well,” I laughed gently, “I’m sorry, but it’s going to take me a little while to figure out my last question. This may be my only chance in a very long time to be graced by your stunning presence. I want to make the most of it, you see.” And I looked over harshly at Tsaeb and Sophia, who were both standing not in the light but just on the border of it and getting closer. I wanted to be sure that they knew to keep their mouths shut and their questions to themselves.

Just then, Samyaza reached out a third arm that had apparently been tucked secretly behind him, and he began to run his fingers through the woman’s hair, just like the Angel. It took a moment for the shock of seeing an extra arm to wear off, only to be shocked again when the fourth arm emerged.

Samyaza began to braid the Angel’s hair, never having to look at it and with so much skill.

An idea occurred to me:
Samyaza seems the type to love talking about himself. I’m sure I can probe for answers without directly asking any questions.
I let my widened lips loosen, as I could not let Samyaza see the sudden clever and excited expression that I felt had slowly crept up on my face. I leaned back upon the moss, my weight held up by my elbows and forearms. My legs relaxed straight out in front of me, crossed at the ankles. The air was pleasant, filled with aromatic flowers and warm sunshine. This place, this very spot, was the most wonderful place I had been since I arrived in Creation. As I sat there, watching a colony of black ants move in and out of a small tree stump, I began to drift. In the back of my consciousness, I heard the ants talking to each other, but could not make out what they were saying. Their voices were like a record being played too fast, thousands of tiny voices all speaking at once.

It was the sound of Sophia’s feet shuffling through the dead leaves behind me that brought me to my senses.

I looked up at Samyaza. “This is such a beautiful place you have here.”

The woman snarled at me. It was plain in her face she thought I could do something other than make small talk with her captor.

“Of course it is,” Samyaza hissed smoothly. “I work very hard to make it perfect. I water the green daily, trim the dead leaves and keep out the vermin...”

The rest of Samyaza’s words grew faint behind the investigation of my surroundings. Every now and then after words like ‘perfection’ and ‘my immortal beauty’ and ‘they love me as they should’, I would nod in agreement, or mumble, “Uh huh,” under my breath. At one almost disastrous moment, I nearly asked my final question with the simple word ‘What?’ when my attempts to pretend to listen had failed me. To my great relief I caught the question in my throat before it escaped and ruined everything.

I noticed Tsaeb and Sophia sitting close to each other upon the ground, now in the lush moss and just barely in the light. They were talking and smiling, which I found unusual, but they were not bothering me, which meant too that they would be less likely to do anything regrettable.

“I didn’t think anything could be perfect,” I said, randomly creating more conversation.

“Oh yes,” said Samyaza, his smile radiant and proud. He seemed to enjoy my company now, delighted that someone was interested in him so much and helping to feed his gargantuan ego. “Perfection exists. I am living proof, you see.” He raised his chin and stuck out his chest strong and proudly.

“I believe you,” I lied, “and I feel more perfect the longer I’m here.”

Samyaza laughed, flinging his black hair away from his shoulders.

“So cute of you to trust that absurdity,” he said. “You truly are far from perfection.”

This one-sided conversation proved more beneficial than the last as Samyaza went on and on relentlessly about perfection, the unachievable mechanics of it and how only he possessed the ability to pull it off. I was able to block him out effortlessly this time and more able to focus on the plan I still had yet to find. The woman appeared more relaxed each time my eyes moved over her. She sat at Samyaza’s feet, her eyes shutting soft and seductively as his fingers ran through her hair. She was intoxicated by it.

Sophia was asleep with her head in Tsaeb’s lap and Tsaeb did not seem to mind.

Wait…What’s going on?
I thought.

“Are you even
listening
to me?”

“Oh...yes, I’m listening,” I stumbled over my words looking for a save. “Sorry, I just felt mesmerized for a second there. You probably don’t know how difficult it is for someone like me to stay focused in a place like this, or in your company for that matter.”

Samyaza’s suspicious gaze held for only a moment.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t understand the petty emotions and actions of lesser beings.”

Samyaza went on talking, and I went back to investigating. I had no clue as to what I was looking for. The only thing I was sure of was that I somehow had to get the eyes to the Angel, Paschar. I knew that just waltzing up there and handing them to her was not how it was going to work. I watched the Angel closely, only distracted when I felt that Samyaza might see me inattentive to his ramblings. The Angel was hauntingly beautiful, like a dream. Everything about her except for the deep blackness where her eyes used to be was exquisite. I could easily believe that God Himself had painted her sitting there. How could anyone believe otherwise?

I looked up then and saw that I was standing in a field, a wonderful green one with delicate grass up to my shins. The sun was rising over the gorgeous blue horizon and the clouds drifting in the endless sky were enormous and pristine white, the kind that usually take on the forms of animals and dragons and the faces of old, wise bearded men. Samyaza was standing there too and with me, Paschar and the woman as they were before, though what was ‘before’ exactly? Had I been anywhere else other than this field? Was I only recalling a memory of sometime long ago when I was in their presence in some other similar place? Tsaeb and Sophia were frolicking through the wind-blown grass.