Thief (25 page)

It had hurt her to leave him, even as much as it hurt him. He knew it. He had felt it, though he found it almost impossible to accept in his misery. For Sherial wanted to be with him every bit as powerfully as he longed for her. She had told him so with every breath she took, with every beat of her heart. But unlike him, she knew she had to be strong, for he couldn’t be. Even now he felt her message echoing in his soul, knowing that she never wanted to leave, that she wanted to return. But that he needed to heal.

How long would that be? The idea terrified him, the thought that she might not return to him was more than he could stand. Yet worse was the terrible knowledge that she was right. He somehow knew that she was right, he had a problem, and one that he didn’t even understand let alone know how to fix it. It was his fault.

If he couldn’t fix it he might never be with her again. The thought, the very idea was too horrible to contemplate. It was unbearable being apart at all. To have no hope of returning, he was better off dead. He cried out to her, again and again and again, knowing she heard him, she always would. Knowing she wouldn’t come. Knowing it was futile.

He knew she would not come. Not until it was right. She had told him so, was somehow, even here, still telling him. But she couldn’t tell him how to make it right. She couldn’t be with him.

Finally he broke down totally and screamed his terrible loneliness and pain to the entire world. It was a sound that nearly ripped the back of his throat out of his body, a cry that sent animals scurrying in blind panic in all directions, a vibration that was surely heard and felt in both heaven and hell. It was a sound that would not end until nothing remained.

But eventually it did. At the last there was nothing left in him to escape. No energy, no hope, just a great aching loneliness, and a mass of pain that was his lungs and throat. But behind it lay something else, a decision, a resolution. At first it was largely formless, undirected, yet the strength behind it grew like a nuclear mushroom cloud, until it overshadowed everything else.

In time it flowered in his mind, what little remained. A single idea. If she would not come to him, he would go to her. He would recover as fast as he could and return to her. The sudden resolve ran through him like lightening. In an instant he was totally self-possessed, his goal Sherial, his route back to her the only thing in his mind.

He wondered how long it had taken him to come to that decision. There was something in his memories that spoke of days of just lying in this pond, suffering. He looked around and saw he was lying in the warm waters of the shallow brook. His shoulder was pressed deeply into the soft mud bottom, and he was curled up like a baby. Willing his aching muscles to work he started straightening up, only to scream in sudden agony.

Mikel instantly curled into the tightest foetal position he could, knowing nothing but pain. In the distance he heard screaming, but it wasn’t for long minutes that he recognized it as his own. His maleness, his whole body was on fire. There was a nuclear furnace burning out of control somewhere in his groin and dimly he understood he’d given too much. Much more than his mere human anatomy could give. He was drained far more than merely dry.

But the pain at least started clearing away some of the cobwebs that seemed to enmesh his mind. For the first time he started thinking, in between bouts of screaming agony. The pain finally freed him, a little, from his passion. His duty, for so long swept out of his mind like a patch of dust, returned and beat him up.

How long had he been like this? And more importantly how much time had he wasted? He had to save those people, those angels. Did he still have the time, or had he wasted it all? There were no answers. He had no way of knowing, and probably no time to lose.

“I live. I strive. I win.”

Slowly he fought the pain, trying to straighten out his crippled body, the first step to standing and then walking. It wasn’t easy. Every stretch re-awakened the agony that coursed through him in waves of sick-making torment. And yet after each bout he somehow found the will to try again, and slowly, infinitely slowly he continued the process.

Hours later, perhaps many hours later, he found his feet, a triumph of mind over both pain and sanity, and surveyed the land around him, looking for the smoothest path out of the water. For he knew that the task of walking would be an incredibly difficult and painful process, especially as the weight of his tortured privates was no longer borne by the water. Still it had to be done.

Mikel found he couldn’t bring his feet together, just the attempt caused him to scream and collapse back into the water. But by keeping them at least a yard apart he found he could at least attempt a stagger. One foot after the other, swinging his legs around in ridiculously wide arcs he lurched himself towards the shore and the nearest tree.

“Ohh shit – I’m saddle sore!” The words just came out of him and he laughed hysterically, - until he screamed again. Even that slight bouncing caused by his laughter was too much for his manhood to bear.

Reaching down he explored his tenderness and discovered new pain. Even the slightest touch was like that of gently playing a flame-thrower over his most sensitive skin. But at least he finally understood his torment. He was swollen, his balls more like grapefruit while his penis was rubbed raw. The skin of his groin was a mass of red and black, denuded of hair. He was bleeding from places he’d never known a man could bleed, and it scared him, briefly.

How was it possible? How could any man do this to himself? But looking back he knew how it was possible. And he knew that no matter how impossible it had been, no matter how painful it was, he would do it again in an instant if only she would let him.

“Lover. You rode me like a bronco!” But he wasn’t even vaguely upset as he cried out his understanding. He only regretted that it had ended. Sherial’s absence was an open wound somewhere deep within, and all he wanted to do was scream out his pain and suffering. The pain of his weak flesh mattered not against the pain of her absence.

“Please God don’t let it be over”. He cried the words out with everything he had, knowing there would be no answer.

But there was. Sherial was still with him, even though she was far distant, and she told him anew of her love. He could feel her heart somewhere deep inside him, beating her love for him to feel, as his did for her. It scared him as much as he welcomed it. The invasion of privacy, the loss of self, all things that terrified him as nothing else could. Yet still he knew given the choice he’d throw himself upon her fire again and again, until it killed him. Which was the very thing Sherial couldn’t allow.

What was wrong with him?

The question tormented him, for he knew until he found the answer he would be alone. And yet part of him only asked why he even wondered what was wrong. He was human, Sherial was an angel, end of story. How could any man possibly give less than his everything in loving her? It was only Sherial’s own knowledge that told him something was wrong. For she believed - no she knew - that they should be able to be together as man and woman without this pain. Sherial believed he had a problem. Therefore he had a problem.

It wasn’t he knew, simply a physical thing. He knew that only because Sherial had told him so. But that was proof enough. It was, she had told him, a weakness of the soul, and that in turn weakened him on all levels. The body was merely one of those levels she had made him understand. But whatever his problem was he couldn’t seem to find it within himself. A barely suppressed terror rose within him like a monster from the depths, the living horror that he might never find it. That Sherial might have to stay away from him forever because of his failure. Bad as the physical pain was, it meant nothing compared with that horror.

The anguish of his body finally brought him back to the present, allowing his mind to start functioning again.

Free from Sherial’s immediate presence, though not her love, he began examining the situation, using every meditative technique he’d ever learnt. Breathing, concentration, focus he used them all and in time began to master himself. The pain slowly became subsumed in the background of chaos surrounding him. The cries of his flesh, the screams of his emotions, the awareness of his surroundings all joined to become one amorphous mass of unimportance. Only his need was important.

He let the chaos wash through him and around, like an ocean in which he drifted, and slowly it became part of the all. Soon only his self remained, separate from the rest, becoming louder and louder in the cosmos, until there was nothing else he could hear. Finally he was alone, in himself, a single entity, a single thought, a single mind, inquiring about a single problem. All else was irrelevant.

His thoughts, his logic, freed from all that attached them to reality, moved in ever widening circles, examining the problem, unemotionally, unhurriedly. How to return to Sherial. How to become right.

Then like a bolt of lightning it instantly struck him. He still had work to do. So did Sherial. She had asked him to do something, and he had yet to do it. No wonder he couldn’t give himself totally to his desires. People, angels were depending on him, and he had to be there for them. Instead he had dallied, leaving the others in hell while he strived for heaven. But he was not yet ready for that. He had work to do. Being with Sherial he had been ignoring his duties. That was what was wrong.

As suddenly as he understood his problem, the solution became obvious. Do what he had to do, free the prisoners, and he could be free himself. Free them, and he could be with Sherial again. Forever.

Excitement, hope and a burning need pulled him all the way back from his reverie in a split second. He knew what was wrong, he knew what he had to do. There was no more time to waste. A massive blast of determination and energy filled him. He was sore. He was scared that the damage to his body might be permanent. He was hungry and exhausted. But he had work to do. The sooner he did it, the sooner they could be together again. Nothing else could matter against that.

Picking up his jeans, knowing that there was no way he was ever going to be able to wear them - at least for a few days - he slung them with his pack over his shoulder, and staggered off towards the demons’ lair, knowing his destination like a compass.

At first it was a slow torture, as each stagger bounced his private parts in agonizing ways, but slowly he developed a rhythm and moved faster even though the pain never lessened. He managed to swing each leg around faster and faster and eventually reached almost walking speed.

All the while the fear that those imprisoned people, and the even more diabolically trapped angels might have perished while he was dallying with Sherial beat at him even more than the physical pain. How could he have given in to his lust when others depended on him? Yet he knew how. Shame and guilt slowly overwhelmed him, driving him on even when the night began settling in.

The dark could not stop him. He hummed his mantra, using its power to push his legs past their pain, using his shame and guilt to provide all the energy he needed. And when they weren’t enough he used the pain itself as a goad. And pain was growing everywhere. He could feel his back, the traceries of scars from old wounds having opened up again, and knew he was bleeding. Lactic acid building up in his muscles turned his limbs to throbbing lumps of lead. His head ached as though about to explode, and the pain in his feet told him his shoes had finally disintegrated.

These things were irrelevant. Tiredness became a thing of the past, and perversely a constant companion through that night. He pushed it out of his mind and it in turn pushed his thoughts away from his body. But all that matter was that he kept moving.

As he walked Mikel saw things. Yet that was the most inadequate way of describing what slowly unfolded around him. He experienced sights and sounds he’d never imagined, and others that he couldn’t explain. It was as though a man blind from birth had suddenly begun to see, but had no way of understanding what he saw.

Some shapes he thought might be angels or souls, others perhaps trees or stones. But he had no way of knowing, which were which - if either – Atal’s gift allowed him to see but his mind wouldn’t let him understand. Regardless he had no intention of stopping to examine them to find out. They were irrelevant. If he’d been thinking more clearly he would perhaps have worried that he could see perfectly well in the dark, but instead just accepted it as normal. He might also have worried that despite the pain and fatigue he walked through the entire night without resting.

As the next day dawned, he looked at the sun in vague surprise, but he didn’t stop. If anything he walked faster, feeling the vast distance between himself and his destination, and the too short a time. By mid morning he’d found sufficient energy to break into a gentle half jog half trot, and despite the fire in his groin, fell into a rhythm. His legs, once almost spread-eagled as he walked, he had drawn closer and closer together despite the pain. Or perhaps because of it.