LiTTLE CHERiNE Book 03 - post011

arthur.grafo (69)in #sfandf-fiction • 5 years ago

^{“So my young friend, you have seen through me!” She laughed, delighted at my game playing. . . .}

1432

They were both courteous to her, not quite knowing what to make of this emerald gigantic woman. I saw his eyes light up with interest when introduced to our Adam. They talked for a time, even walking off by themselves. The girls seemed a teeny bit anxious about this, but did not say anything when they saw I was smiling.

“Don’t worry, he is probably telling Edward what an arsehole I am.”

My protector warned me that the others have reached close to the end of their endurance, that it is time for us to return to our bodies. I called to everyone and they gathered around.

“It is time to return home. I have the feeling that our guests would like to spend more time here. Edward, Hettie, would my promise to bring you again tomorrow suffice for now?”

“I would like to have a moment to look at the Sparklers before we return. I was too overcome by all that was happening to notice them properly.”

“If they can come, would you like to meet Solomon and Ordinx?”

“It is not necessary for you to call them, I am certain they have more important things to do.”

I looked at my girls in dismay. “God, but I must be so callous at times! It never crossed my mind that they could be busy, I just called them whenever I wanted. Surely one of you should have pointed this out to me long ago?”

As I’d expected, Sam had called them and they came to meet our guests. After the words of introduction, I asked them.

“Would you mind if I change the energy levels so that you can all come closer again? I miss the sight of your people and Worlds filling our sky.” They agreed and I called the protector to me, melding with it we blazed forth and then vanished as I became the void. I adjusted the energy patterns (streams) and we returned. Having suitably impressed our guests we were now able to return home.

“Edward, a large number of these people you see are actually infants. They need to go to sleep. Tomorrow we can talk and we would also like to take you to visit the world of Meli.”

“I was interested in that. It sounded almost like a fairy story.”

“It is, for the time being. Cherine love, do you recall something I told you about myself in our early days? Do they qualify as friends?”

She gave me her naughty grin. “Then you will be forced to tell them the truth?” She was doing a good job of hiding the fact that she did not know what lie I had told.

“Do any of you recall what I said when I decided to burn out all those thousands of people when we fought the first Doris?”

“You said so many things Roberto, are we supposed to recall all your words of wisdom?” Socrati was teasing and he got his laughs.

“I spoke about amputation and the suffering?”

As they began to understand, the worry that spread could almost be felt as a physical thing. I turned to Edward and Hettie B.

“What I told Cherine long ago was, ‘I never lie to friends and only sometimes lie to the others.’ The truth is that I love a good lie now and then. It is unfortunately not possible for one Cherinian to lie to another, so I do not get many opportunities to do so. It was one of the reasons I loved the fight with you, it gave me so many opportunities to lie or bluff.

The second point was about the guilt I felt at taking away the powers of others. I know that for me to lose my gifts would be worse than losing my eyesight.

1433

Hettie, both of you, Edward, I never burnt out your powers, I only blocked them. I am now removing the blocks. We are all going to sleep. You may either accept my invitation freely and stay, we have prepared a bedroom for you, or you may leave. I hope you stay.”

My Cherinians could not help letting their fears inundate me, only my girls and Alki not doing so. I do not doubt that the two of them felt it, but they were too stunned at feeling their powers return to them to really pay it much attention. Edward sat down suddenly and put his face in his hands.

“Why?”

“Why did I lie or why did I return them?”

“Why return them? This is crazy!”

“Granted. Tell me Edward, how do you like me more, sane or crazy?”

Our Eddie has never roared with his sudden burst of laughter. It was infectious and soon had them all laughing too. “As an enemy or a friend Robert? As an enemy it is scary - I can never guess in which direction you are going to jump. If you are a friend, then maybe it is scarier!”

I felt with his laughter he’d warmed a lot of hearts to him. I had been right, he is the same as our Eddie. My loved ones, all my Cherinians felt the glee in my heart.

“I was never an enemy Edward, never!”

“Is that why we lost?”

“You had to so that you could win.”

“There he goes again!” That got another round of laughs.

“I give up, Hettie love, there is no point in trying to fight him.”

“It took you so long to understand that love? I realised we had lost the battle the moment I saw what he had done for the other Hettie.”

I quickly explained about the effects of dancing, helped adjust their appearances and age so that they became their original selves of the time they met and without giving them time to react said goodnight and disappeared into our bedroom.

“Now that that is over, who feels like a bit of loving?”

It was perhaps indicative of the inability of my beloved Cherinians to truly believe our hostilities were over so soon, with such ease, so they all appeared at our home the next day - as soon as their kids told them we are up and about. It was not long before our guests also came out to join us for a late breakfast.

Edward sat buttering his toast deep in thought. As I passed him the honeycomb he waved his hand at me and chose instead some cheese. I had a feeling he was going to upset my girls and all the others, but I hid my amusement and waited for him.

“Eddie, does he really believe everything he told us yesterday?”

“Something in particular is puzzling you?”

“Yes. You claimed he was grieving because he had to use force to stop us, that he expected love to be his only weapon.”

“That is true.”

“Ach! Even you do not see he is only deceiving himself?”

“We all deceive ourselves brother. In which particular way are you speaking of?”

1434

“Love! Pah! Utter English sentimental nonsense. He never tried to win us over with love.” He was waving his toast about as he got excited. “I am sorry Robert, but if we are to accept defeat at your hands, then it should at least be with honesty.”

“I will answer part of that later, I would rather you first make your point.”

“You would never have dared to come expecting victory if you did not have power. Power to fight us and the power to offer us a bribe we could not refuse.”

I nodded my agreement. “Correct Edward. I am not that far gone that I do not realise it.” I felt my loves getting upset and decided to rub a bit of salt in while I had the chance. “You saw some of my gifts and powers, in accordance with your outlook, would you say I should have displayed the full strength of my abilities so as to thoroughly dissuade you from harbouring any thoughts of trying to overthrow me at some later date?”

“You are bluffing, what further powers could you have shown me that would so terrify us?”

“The human mind is a terrible thing Edward. All it needs is to know that a thing is possible and it finds the way to do it. My claim will have to remain a bluff, I cannot chance having others acquire such powers of total devastation.”

I don’t know why, but he was suddenly angry. “I demand you show me at least one or else brand yourself a liar.”

“I thought I admitted last night that I was a liar?” At this there were distraught calls of ‘Robert’. I waved my hand at them. “Concede the man what is due to him loves. May I ask you something Edward? Your wife grabbed me from space where you had left me, and threw me into the sun. Do either of you have the ability to survive something like that?”

“I thought you somehow managed to evade it! You mean she succeeded!!?”

“See Hettie, now he doubts you too. He is just as sceptical, a cynic, as our Eddie is - not to mention a few of our Cherinians.” Jonathan blushed so I smiled at him. “Edward, it is not a bad trait, I wish I could be a little more like you, unfortunately I tend to take everything at face value. It leads to heart-breaking disappointments. For instance, if we agree a truce and I am attacked, that betrayal hurts more than the attack itself. That may explain why I reacted so strongly yesterday.”

“There was no truce agreed. You imposed one upon us, it is not the same.”

“May I revert to an earlier point you made, perhaps even without being aware of it? You said I did not defeat you with love. You are in a sense wrong. Edward, if there was no good in either of you, I assure you we would not be sitting here talking. I would have either really disabled you permanently or else killed you. You talk of bribery. How did I bribe you?”

“You offered to return us to our original bodies and give those bodies almost eternal life.”

“I see. That is all you saw?”

“What else was there?”

I leant forward and stared deeply into his eyes. “If you had accepted for the sake of having your own body, of eternal youth, I would have killed you.”

“What are you saying! I do not understand.”

“I am glad you do not for then it means your love was so strong you are not able to see how it influenced you. It is too much a part of you and you do not notice when it forces you to take certain decisions. Edward, you accepted the bribe of my giving your wife her original body. To see her as she originally was, that was a dream you could barely believe in, but you wanted it at any cost. You have managed to continue loving her in all her other bodies because you love the person she is, but for your love to feel complete…you needed to look into those eyes you had originally fallen in love with. Am I wrong?”

He did not answer me.

1435

“You too Hettie, you were caught up in the dream of seeing him as he was. With you it was slightly different. You felt the need for your original body, but it was also because you knew how it would please him. Would you claim I misunderstood?”

She shook her head.

I sat back, glancing over at Aganthi. She read me correctly and brought me a cigarette, lighting it first and taking a few puffs. I grinned at her.

“Even with our healers they are still damn addictive aren’t they?”

She only smiled and answered in Greek, “You been busy selling them flowers, I think you need a cigarette eh?” I was not expecting her answer and broke out in a loud laugh.

“Don’t get so prickly Edward, I was not laughing at you, she made a comment making fun of me and I was not expecting it, so I laughed.”

“I have been wondering about that. You speak of love and love and love, yet during all the time of our hostilities I never saw you consult with the others. Even when they did not approve of what you said or did, they did not dare to oppose you. Their silence spoke loudly of your dictatorial ways.”

Perhaps my own fears made me susceptible, but for the first time his needling got to me. I did not answer and he took that as an admittance of my guilt.

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