The Nightmare Game (17 page)

“What?” I didn’t quite fancy the idea of being
“merged with”.

“Don’t worry, it’s completely to your advantage.
You see, over time, the amulet actually gets to know you, so it is able to
impart greater and greater amounts of its own energy to you. The longer you
wear it, the more it will be able to help you.”

“For how long?” I asked.

“It is bound to protect the wearer until the task
is fulfilled, the wearer abandons the task or the wearer is dead. It will give
you the strength, courage and stamina that you’ll need in order to finish this
task. We’re experiencing one of its benefits right now, in that I was able to
bring you here, into my sanctuary. I could never have brought you here before
the attack. It’s been made possible only because the talisman has now imprinted
itself upon you.”

“Does this mean her poisons won’t work as well on
me now?” I asked hopefully, because not having to go through a hell like I’d
just been through again would make being “merged with” well worth it to me.

“I’m sorry to say that you’re immune only to the
class of poison that she used on you last night. She also uses one more type of
potion and she will still attempt to poison you again, of that I am most
certain. That’s why you can drink no liquid that comes from her or hers.”

“Doesn’t she control this apartment?” I asked.

“More than I would like,” he answered.

“Then why was I able to drink the water here? Why
didn’t I have to be concerned about that?” I asked.

“A good question,” he answered. “Tampering with
the water here would not work, so she doesn’t bother with it.”

“Why not?”

“The only way that she can make a potion to work
against those that wear the amulet is to use black magic. Magic works very well
in her realm, because the amulet’s powers are diminished by the dampening field
that the evil one weaves into her dimension. Her sorcery will not work against
you as well in the outside world, although it doesn’t stop her from trying. In
the real world, the necklace amulet protects you from her schemes, especially
within the walls of this apartment.”

“I was in the real world last night,” I said.

“No, you weren’t. You had stepped into the doorway
of her realm where you were vulnerable. She can still get to you, but not
through the same class of poison you were given last night again, for it will
not work a second time.

“If she used merely ordinary poisons, the amulet
could block them from the onset and protect you from them completely, because
they work basically the same way in every person. But her poisons are
different, more insidious, more sophisticated. With each class of her potions,
the amulet can only protect you from it after you’ve been exposed once, because
they work differently on every person, taking a different path in each one in
order to do their malice. They are what you might call ‘designer toxins’, interacting
with your own particular DNA, a sample of which she attained from her attack on
you yesterday in her office.”

“How could you possibly know about such things?
DNA wasn’t even discovered until the twentieth century.”

“I know about many things I’ve never seen or
personally experienced. In the long years that I’ve been held prisoner, I’ve
called upon so very many people to help me escape. They’ve come from all walks
of life; some have been scientists. Whenever I connected with their minds, they
helped me better to understand the things that I have seen, even though they
could not explain fully, for the evil one’s science was far beyond even them.

“You are now immune to the poison you were exposed
to yesterday. It can no longer be used against you since it can work no more.
The amulet knows now how it affects you and will easily be able to neutralize
it. But she has one more substance at her disposal. It’s in a completely
different class and can still work on you all too well. It is much more pleasant
but in a way, it is even more dangerous. She will try to tempt you, to make you
think you need it to survive, but don’t give in. This warning should be moot,
however, for everyone I’ve called to champion me has been wary enough by this
point in the game to stay away from her poisons. The amulet will sustain you
and should allow you to resist almost indefinitely.

“It is here your path becomes even harder because
now she will try to trick you or seduce you into giving up the talisman. Up
until now, she’s only been trying to kill you. In the beginning of each game,
it’s the path of least resistance for her, because while she could decimate a
city without blinking an eyelash, it takes an enormous amount of power for her
to fight the one that wears the amulet, the only thing that has an energy in it
as strong as hers, the only thing that can destroy her. That’s why she wants to
control it, that’s why, in all of these years, she’s been looking for other,
easier ways to get it. She’s overplayed her hand this time, though, for you’ve
just survived what should have killed you. Because of that, the necklace you
wear has bonded with you so strongly that, out here in the real world, she
would have to expend enormous amounts of energy to murder you. If she wants to
kill you now, it will have to be in her realm.”

“I still don’t get it. I mean, why try to kill me
at all? If I understand this right, I have to give this thing up willingly,
correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not just try to buy it from me? I mean,
I know it’s not mine to sell, but hey, for the right price, people have been
known to sell things they don’t own.”

“For two reasons. First, the only people that are
allowed to wear it are those I’ve chosen, those I’ve called to help me. I’d
never call on anyone that would have such low moral character, not even for the
‘right price’.”

“Fair enough. And what’s the second reason?”

“It wouldn’t work. It’s such a cheap, obvious ploy
that the amulet would see right through it. The talisman’s inhibiting factors
make the wearer not bribable by conventional methods. Also, she cannot use
torture to get it from you either.”

“That’s good to know,” I said, relieved. “How
come?”

“Torture won’t work because the necklace will
disappear in a few seconds back into its box if she tries to obtain it that
way. She’s tried that before and it didn’t work. It has to be given willingly
and the only way to do that is to trick it out of the wearer. She can only
procure it if the wearer thoroughly believes that handing it over is the just
and right thing to do in order to serve some greater good. I can’t stress
strongly enough that for the witch to procure the amulet, the wearer must give
it willingly to those that serve her, those that are in league with her.”

“Okay, I get it. Sort of. But I still don’t understand
why, if it’s so hard, that she went to all the effort of trying to kill me
herself? I mean, why not just hire a hit man and get it over with?”

“Yes, that path would be infinitely easier for
her, more practical as well, but she will never do it. Remember that Virginia
told you that the witch has her weaknesses, that she is not infallible?”

“Yes.”

“One of her failings is that she is truly mad. She
would never have anyone else murder you because it would deprive her of the
pleasure. She enjoys the kill too much.”

“So what do I have to look forward to now?” I
asked, knowing it was a question to which I really did not want an answer.

“She’ll pull you into her domain and seduce you
into relinquishing the amulet. You’ll be leaving the real world very soon and
you’ll have to go into hers. As I said, it’s a realm in which she rules
completely and has total control. Let me emphasis that I cannot go in there
with you, cannot be with you or help you at all. I wish I could, but she does
not allow it. You will be alone. You must be brave, and, I must remind you, you
must never let down your guard. It’s the only way you can escape without losing
both yourself and the amulet to her.”

“Is she going to try to kill me again at some
point?” I asked, hoping I’d at least be safe from that for the duration of this
nightmare.

“Not until she’s sure that she’s lost this next
round. The power of the talisman has now grown so strong within you that she
prefers to have you in the bargain. Possession of the amulet that you wear around
your neck will give her the unlimited power and freedom she once had and now
longs to regain; she needs it. To procure you in the deal, one of my own
converted to her side, would be a great prize. She wants possession of you,
body, mind and spirit now. It is only if she can’t have that, if, despite her
trickery, she has lost, that she will want to see you dead again.

“Oh, my darling, I wish there were more that I
could tell you about where you’re going, but I can’t. Just always beware and
remember that, like the devil, the witch will be at her most dangerous when she
is at her most charming.”

“Will I get any help at all in this?” Already I
was beginning to feel forsaken.

“Very little, I’m sad to say. You won’t be seeing
Virginia again because she can no longer appear to you. She’s done all she can.
You will see Marcus, but only once more. There is one additional helper of mine
that you have not yet met. His purpose is to guide you out of her realm and
back into the real world through the mirror in her temple. If he does not have
opportunity to make visual contact with you, he may come to you first as only a
voice you hear. Heed his voice and go to it, because without him, you will be
lost there.”

“Will it be the same voice I heard when I landed
on the bathroom floor? If it is, it was mean and hateful and I really don’t
want to hear it again.”

“No, the one you heard before was the witch when
she had control of your mind. My friend that will help you is a very kind man,
his voice is gentle and there is nothing at all frightening about him.”

Edmond suddenly seemed exhausted.

“Are you alright?” I asked him.

“We have to leave this place now because the
strain is growing too much for me. Besides, there is nothing more I can tell
you here. However, there is something I need to show you. I waited to take you
there only because where we go is not nearly as protected as where we presently
are.”

He held my hand and the white space that
surrounded us began to fade, a landscape slowly taking shape where before there
had been nothing. Without having moved an inch, we now stood upon a tall hill
of dirt, overlooking a scene of total ruin and desolation. The sky was black
with smoke; the earth around us below, or rather what was left of it, was
mortally wounded.

Clutching Edmond’s arm, I asked, horrified, “I
don’t like this place. What is it?”

“It’s our world, the Earth, or rather, what it is
most likely to become. This is not only a possible future, it is the probable
future should the witch win. Now you see why I call this conflict a war. It
goes beyond your freeing me, it goes beyond your life or mine. So much is at
stake. Everything is at stake.”

“I still don’t understand it, though. What
happened here? How?”

“The inevitable. If she wins and gains control of
your amulet, there will be nothing holding her back. She’ll have nothing to
fear and there will be no stopping her.”

“So she does this? She destroys the world?”

“No, we do. She will eventually take the Earth and
make it hers, but there will most likely be almost nothing left of it when she
does. At first she will try to use religious seduction to gain control, and it
will work well. But she lacks patience and her seduction will soon turn to
aggression. World powers won’t be passive in the face of her hostility, though;
they will fight back, tooth and nail. There is no method by which they can win
because she is far more powerful than they are, but they will try, using every
weapon in their arsenals to resist her. This will be the result.

“I know this is a hard, terrible thing that I’ve
asked of you. I hated having to bring you into this. There’s absolutely nothing
fair about it and you deserved far better than to be dragged into this
horrible, sick game of hers. But now that you understand how high the stakes
are, you know why I had no choice.”

“You’re saying that if I don’t win, the world
ends?” I was completely overwhelmed.

“It is not absolute, but it is by far the
strongest probability. There is only one other possible outcome. There is a
very slim chance that the evil one will succeed in ruling the world without
resistance. Either way, however, the world will be plunged into darkness and
mankind will be enslaved for eons.”

“No, this can’t be on my shoulders alone.” I
protested. “It can’t be just up to me. I mean, this ‘game’ or whatever is
started a long time before I was born, right?”

“We’ve been battling her for over almost two
centuries.”

“And nobody’s won against her yet, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So if no one has won in all that time, what hope
do I have? What happens if I don’t win?”

“You can’t think that way.”

“With these odds, that seems like a very logical
question to ask. I mean, so many people have failed before I ever came along.
So what happens if I’m one of the losers? What makes my work any more important
than all of theirs?”

“You’re right in that there would still be a
little hope left. It would be, however, only a very little. It’s true that I’ll
call on others to help me stop her and perhaps one of them will win. Time is
running short, though. She has to be stopped now. In the past, she’s enslaved
entire nations for eons at a time. One of the flaws that makes her fallible is
that she is fickle and bores easily. Immortality is one thing that has made her
that way. She’s given up absolute power for hundreds and even thousands of
years at a time in search of other pursuits. It is only these flaws that have
protected our species from her up until now. However, things are different in
this day and age. The human race has developed technology, so she is very, very
interested in us once again, more interested in a way she has never been
before. She feels that we are on the verge of being capable of learning the
science behind all the machines she uses. Many are on the verge of breaking
down. She feels that using backward technology, we could repair anything that
needed repairing. She’s hopeful we can create more machines to make her even
stronger. She’s looking forward to being the ultimate dictator of the entire
world.”