Serpent's Pawn to Black Queen

 

I found myself back in the cave. All of the tentacles withdrew suddenly, slamming back inside me with extreme pain. The "man" in the trenchcoat was standing there in front of me.

"Did you have fun?" his voice came to me. "So, now is the time when you tell us what you thought". The trenchcoat started changing, wrapping around and lengthening, becoming part of Him, getting leathery. It extended down to the floor, then back and into a side tunnel. He looked much more Serpent-like now.

"So what did you learn from this?" he asked, then after a pause, "Quickly!"

I was uncertain as the the proper answers here. "The first thing I learned is that I'm not qualified to judge it. However" I went on, "everyone keeps speaking of things beginning again, and it would appear that . . ."

He interrupted me, "Do you want them to?"

My response was again hesitant, "You want my opinion? Unqualified though it is? No."

His eyes, staring out at me, faded becoming somewhat cowled within the hood-like image. "Spare us the humility" he said dryly. I protested, "It's not humility, it's a fact . . . I don't" Again, he cut me off. "Queen, what do you want?"

Queen? So this is the will of the Serpent? Queen of what? Oh my head, not politics! "No" I replied, "I don't want things to begin again. I feel that we're being used as pawns in a struggle. I disapprove" I concluded, shelving the obviously false humility. I shrugged at him, "You asked my opinion. You have it."

"So tell us what is to be" he said sibilantly. "Do you wish to be more than a pawn?"

Without any hesitation this time, I answered, "Yes. I wish to be more than a pawn!"

"You wish to be a mover, someone to whom mere pawns are nothing? Someone to whom pawns can never be promoted? More than a Queen, more than a King?" He shrugged, "Your own analogy."

I considered, feeling myself grow bolder, "Would that someone be like you?"

He seemed amused, "There's nothing like me. Well, there is something like me, but, no."

Sink or swim, Corvina, I thought. "Then yes, I would wish to be more than that."

I got the impression that he was laughing. "More than me?" he asked.

I smiled. "No, more than a pawn. More than something to which a pawn can aspire."

"Then look into my eyes" he instructed. So I did.
"Step closer" he told me, and I did that as well. I moved closer to him, so we were face to face. Inwardly, I felt myself shaking. There was nothing behind the cowl now.

"Is this your way of telling me that I'm not qualified?" I asked him.

"Stare into my eyes" he repeated.

I looked into the cowl, but there was still nothing there. "A riddle" I asked.

"A test, a riddle, a possible answer. Choose" he answered.

"I must find your eyes to stare into them?" I asked.

"You have said" he replied, "that you didn't want to be a pawn. What is it you want to be? And don't say not a pawn" he ammended.

I cocked my head, curiously. "I won't. What are my options?"

"I told you one of the options, if you pass. Is that what you choose to be? My Emissary?" he asked.

I considered. "I wish greater understanding of what you are, before I choose to be your Emissary. I won't choose blindly, and I won't choose stupidly."

He nodded. "Stare into my eyes", he repeated. Now under the cowl I could see a face, with two black eye sockets. I stared into them as a response.

"You choose willingly to do this, without further knowledge?" he asked. "As you have so expressed your desire?"

"Will you give me further knowledge should I ask for it?" I countered.

"Stare into the eyes" was his answer.

"That's what I thought. Will that give me the knowledge or will that make my choice for me?" I asked again.

"Stare."

"You didn't answer" I pointed out.

"That was the answer" he responded.

And so I decided and stared, deeply. The eyes grew deeper, larger and got blacker. There were even blacker things within. One seemed a little different, a little more intense. The things looked like crumpled metallic screens, with a sort of protoplasm writhing within them. One of those screen things seemed blacker, newer than the others. I shuddered, but continued to stare into both eyes, which continued to expand. My attention, my focus, was drawn into both eyes. I felt like a chameleon, as each of my eyes was individually drawn to each of his. I felt myself being drawn toward them, the essence of myself changing to match those things. Suddenly frightened, I looked away, dropping my eyes. It was excrutiatingly painful to do, but somehow I managed.

"You chose against it" he commented.

"I . . . I'm not sure what I'm choosing" I answered slowly.

"Is anyone, ever?" he asked.

"Probably not" I acknowledged, "but I have a lot of questions."

There was a brief pause. "What do you think this is all about?" he asked me. "Everything combined, from what you have seen, what do you thing all this is all about? You think it's just child's play?"

"Oh no" I said quickly, "no, I think it's very serious."

"Well then answer me" he demanded.

"Um, I'm not sure" I hesitated.

"And you have to be sure before you actually make a choice?" His voice was caustic and sarcastic. "You know, I didn't ask you to be correct, I asked what you thought"

I was getting more nervous. "I think it's a . . . power struggle, to determine the nature of things starting over, to determine what gets the upper hand, to determine how the Universe is reinscribed."

"Indeed" he said.

"Well" I said defensively, "that's what I think it is."

"You're wrong" he said flatly.

"I didn't say I was right" I said defensively, "you asked my opinion."

"It's not to choose how it's reinscribed" he stated.

"When?" I asked.

"Whether" he corrected.

I swallowed hard. "Ok. Is it nearly time for it to happen, or are things out of balance and pushing it to happen? Or are the pawns being played in a game to determine whether or not it happens?"

"Yes" he said, unhelpfully.

"It's time for the game to be played, then?" I asked.

"No" he corrected, "nothing is ever set. Did you think yourself just a pawn? A part of the greater power, like myself, like the others? But pawns advance. Do you want to advance, Queen?"

I swallowed once more. There's that Queen word, he's using it again . . . "Yes" I decided.

"Then" he concluded, "stare into my eyes."

"That is, ultimately, my only answer then?" I checked with him.

"No" he said suddenly, "you can refuse, and turn around and walk away."

"And what will happen if I walk away?" I asked, curiously.

"If you walk away, you should not know what will happen" he told me. "If you choose to stay, and stare, you will not know what would have happened."

PING

"Oh for the god's sake, WHAT?!" I said into the contact. There was a faint contact, like someone who couldn't quite make the connection. It faded before I could grab it. I started to turn my attention back to the Serpent.

PING

"Yes??" I said. The contact was weak. I reached out to help it. Something splashed down my face. I recognized the sticky sweet smell of brandy. Brandy?! Again it faded.

PING

The brandy smell faded out. "Yes?" I asked, tiredly. This time there was a contact.
"Are you going to choose or not?" I heard them ask. There was a shadowy figure, with glints of red hair from beneath a red cowl.
"Who are you?" I asked.
The figure responded, "I asked the first question."
"Yeah, I'm going to choose, now you have an answer, so who are you?" I shot back. The contact faded.

The Serpent addressed me again, "You answered you're going to choose. Make your choice", he said. "You have no further time and I have no further time for this."

Aw, to the hells with this, I thought, and stepped up and stared into his eyes. The sensations were the same as before, as were the images, but it was much more intense. I concentrated and stared deeply into those black pits. It got darker, one eye far darker than the other again. I felt my nostrals splitting, one side going one way, the other going the opposite. Ok, I'm a shapeshifter, I can cope, but this hurt beyond any shifting I'd ever done. The I felt my brainstem splitting. I was NOT comfortable with this. The writhing things in his eyes intensified, getting closer and closer, heading toward my eye, toward impact. It looked fiery, like it meant to burn into my eyes. I winced but still stared. It was hard to look at, it had millions upon millions of different shades of black within it. Mentally I cringed, but concentrated on the staring. My brain and spinal cord ached and with intense pain I felt them split. I wanted to turn away, but I realized that at this point it might kill me. I was NOT ok with this, but I stared continuously. As the split continued down my body, I felt something deep inside, some core holding me together. I felt an impulse to look down into myself, and so I did. There I saw two screaming, squealing, squirming eyes looking up at me. I believed this was the answer to the riddles, so I stared down down into those rather, lothsome eyes. I stared down into those eyes in my center, and the eyes stared back. I felt every DNA in this realm splitting down the middle. It was intensely painful, but I summoned up the same concentration and determination that made me push Brand's trump. I saw images of patterns. Dozens and hundreds of them, splitting down the middle and reproducing in some way my mind couldn not grasp. Then it faded. At the height of the most excruciating pain, at the edge of intense complexity beyond which I felt I could not understand, it faded. The memory of it faded too. I grasped at the memory, feeling it to be important until I realized that I could, but only if I gave up the memory of my own self. I let it go, keeping hold of some identity of myself. The memory of the patterns faded, except for a distant image of mirror images, funhouse mirror images of them fading off into the distance.

When I woke up, in the cave, the only thing left of those images was that they reminded me of Timtallegay. Inside my stomach I felt a pressure. "Oh no", I thought, "here we go again". It grew more intense. Something felt as if it was writhing, changing, but no tentacles came out this time, nothing protruded. I tried to get a grasp on what it was, to analyze it. The sensation, I realized was familiar, but I'd never felt it so strongly before. It was the strongest, purist form of the Logrus I'd ever felt. And it was inside me. I reached out a hand - it seemed every sense, every nerve tingled with intense sensitivity. I'd never felt anything this strong. I reached out, and thousands of images of what I touched swam before me, and I saw thousands of my own cells reach out to grab and control the Logrus. 'Gee Merlin' I thought, 'checkmate. Heh.' As I reached it I felt like the energy inside extended through me, through my arm to reach out. I reached out through a Logrus tendril, naturally, but without having to call up the Sign. Neat. 'Oh boy' I thought. I didn't know what to reach for, so I tried to pull the tendril back. It didn't want to pull back, stretching out felt so good. The Sign was wrapped around me, enveloping me, and all of me felt like little tendrils reaching. It was powerful, better then the most intense drug I'd ever felt. All my limbs and digits felt like they each wanted to split off, become tendrils, reach out. Frakir constricted intensely, almost cutting off blood flowing in my wrist, preventing my other arm from extending into the Logrus as well. I looked at my arm, at the fine hairs, and each hair looked like an individual tendril, trying to envelop Frakir. I decided, I wasn't quite ready to cope, and poured my concentration into pulling back inside myself. It was actually painful, and it required the strongest concentration I'd ever mustered. I sweated profusely with the effort, but finally I managed it.

"Are you done yet?" I heard someone ask. It was a contact, but I was far too confused to find the person or any picture.

"Am I done yet?" I asked aloud, not sure who I was asking. "Am I done what? Who are you? Where are you? What do you want?" I asked through a haze of pain and confusion.

I got an image of a chime and heard it go bong. 'Oh boy' I said. I tried to hang up the connection. My hair slashed wildly across my head, and the contact broke. While I stared at this, shocked, I felt a wierd sensation in the middle of my back, like it was moving somehow. I felt myself starting to laugh, and realized hysteria wasn't far. I tried to focus on my back, and felt part of my leg trying to creep away. I pulled out my trumps, and shuffled out Suhuy's trump. When I contacted him, it sounded like the voice I'd just heard asking if I was done yet. But . . . I thought . .

"Yes?" he answered. "Ah, Corvina"

"Hi" I smiled weakly. "Can I come there?"

"Yes, what's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know" I answered.

"Are you sure you want to come here?" he asked. That struck me as odd. Where was he that I didn't want to go? I was too confused to figure that out at the moment.

"Would you like to come here, then?" I asked in return.

"Open" he instructed, and after a pause I realized that he wasnted to see through me where I was. I did so, letting him view the cave.

"Ah" he said decidedly, "no", upon seeing my location.

I was more confused then ever. "Where am I?" I asked him.

" "I don't know" he started to answer, then paused. "Well, I do know but it didn't look like that the last time. No, I don't want to go there."

My voice became slightly hysterical again, "Where am I?!"

"Don't ask" he advised.

"I'm asking because I'm here! Don't be vague, this is not a good time for vague. Will you pull me through?"

"Um . . ." he said, "the best person to pull you through is . . ."

"Dworkin?" I asked sarcastically.

"Well, no" he answered, "actually, um, Calerkell."

"Who?" I asked, totally confused.

"Calerkell is the best person to pull you through" he said unhelpfully.

"Well who's Calerkell?" I asked, getting exasperated.

"An old, old, old friend of mine" he explained.

"So do you have a trump for this old, old, old friend?" I asked rather forlornly.

"No, I don't" he answered. "He refused to let any be made of him. He will be able to help you through" he added.

"How do I contact somebody I don't have a trump for?" I asked him, bewildered.

"I think once you get out of that cave, you'll probably find a way" he said, rather enigmatically.

"But I thought we were looking for him to pull me out . . . you're not going to tell me where I am, are you?" I pushed.

"You don't want to know" he insisted.

"Yes, I really do want to know" I retorted.

"No, you don't" Suhuy decided, looking bothered.

"Please Uncle, I want to know" I begged. Suddenly, there was an interference in the contact, and a man in red robes appeared, with stringy hair, his image overlapping Suhuy's in the trump. Lothos.

"Damn!" Suhuy swore, "NO! GO AWAY!" Suhuy's image got stronger. "Fight!" he said. The image of Lothos expanded, got larger. Suhuy's image stayed the same size, but got crooked. The picture of Lothos in the larger picture in a picture started laughing. Suhuy swore again. Lothos reached out his hands to the smaller image and started compressing it, but he was struggling to do it. I tried to feed more power into Suhuy's image and push Lothos back. The card was vibrating, back and forth. Suhuy's image looked up at the Lothos image. By this I mean his head extended out of the trump, craning up to look at Lothos. My jaw hung open, watching this.

"NOT NOW!" Suhuy said, and he faded out. I stood in horror, looking at Lothos and his mocking grin. The figure in the trenchcoat, the Serpent Himself, came up behind me, looking at the image. I hadn't realized he was still there, or came back, or whatever. He looked at the card. Lothos looked taken aback and lost his grin. He did gather himself quickly together and recovered. He leaned back.

"NO" said the figure behind me. "NO!!" he said, pointing the empty sleeve at the card. "No." he said a third time.

"Enjoy your . . ." Lothos started to say.

"NO!" my patron cut him off.

"Enjoy your fifteen minutes in the sun!" Lothos shouted quickly. He was cut off and the trump faded out as the Serpent ordered him away. He turned then to me.

"Go." I turned and went, fully wanting to get out of there and realized that it wasn't a suggestion, I had to go. When he demanded 'Go' at me, I felt as if every hair launched out simultaneously in different directions, with a strong yank. Everything went black and I felt myself falling . . .

Go on to Chapter Twenty, Part Eight

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