All summer and fall my leg was getting stronger and straighter and Sarra was consolidating the power that had started to slip away with the death of Bassa. She was now the de facto queen of six villages and I was her champion.
Then the harvest was finished and the army was mustered again. We were ready to march the next morning.
By now the spirit knew my body pretty well. We’d been practicing a new style of fighting where I wielded a sword in my right hand as usual but he controlled a dagger in my left. And he was beginning to master the higher functions—balance, coordination, heartbeat. I wondered how long before my spirit controlled my highest functions.
So far the spirit couldn’t read my mind unless I was silently speaking. I tried not to think about Rissa and Moma Farina and the plan. I worried that it was just a matter of time before he uncovered my thoughts of them, but I didn’t give up hope. And I’d come up with a desperate alternate plan—suicide by drowning, in a part of the river so wild and deep that the spirit couldn’t find a new host before dying. I vowed that it wouldn’t outlive me as it had Bassa.
<<<<*>>>>
We had a great feast to celebrate the beginning of the campaign. Most of the village was there. We roasted two cows over a bonfire in the middle of the square. The village leaders, including Sarra and me, sat on one side of the fire. On the other side were the warriors in front and the rest of the village behind them. Rissa and the other young serving maids wandered among the celebrators on both sides of the fire, serving breads, fruits, wines, and other tasty food.
Normally I didn’t drink much any more; the spirit didn’t like it. But I’d convinced it that, for appearance’s sake, it was important to drink at this celebration. As soon as he agreed I immediately felt like drinking myself under the table, and in half an hour I was close to succeeding. The desire he’d given me intensified my own; I’d already wanted to drink enough to drown my qualms about having to go to war with him inside me. Over the months I’d found him to be quite rash, and I now suspected it wasn’t Bassa who’d decided to take on twenty men single-handed.
I sat eating a little and mostly drinking. I was starting into the warm, sleepy glow of total soddenness. All of a sudden I jerked. Me, not the spirit. I saw Moma Farina in the crowd and she was nodding in my direction. Tonight! She’d done something tonight! Something was poisoned, but what?
“Poisoned?” It was my spirit speaking. I’d slipped. Damn that demon drink! I’d thought openly of the plot, perhaps even murmured about it, and he’d picked it up. Damn!
All of a sudden there was a struggle. The spirit was trying to control my body to warn Sarra and I was trying to stop and contain it. He and I were both hindered by the alcohol coursing through our mutual body.
For a few moments nothing happened. Suddenly, I felt hot, cold, nauseous, badly frightened, and sleepy. The spirit was trying its most basic controls.
Then a chill would’ve run up my spine—except the spirit was controlling that sort of thing—because I saw my left hand reaching across in front of me toward Sarra. I grabbed the wrist with my right hand, held it tightly, and stumbled to my feet. It wasn’t easy. The spirit was trying to make me pass out, make my legs buckle, and pull my left hand free. Fortunately coordination was my strong point and not his. The more the two of us tried to do the smaller percentage he could control or interfere with.
I mumbled some quick excuse and stumbled away from my seat, headed for the darkness of the huts behind the feast.
The further I got the worse I felt. The spirit was now concentrating all his effort on trying to drop me in my tracks by stopping my heart, and he was near succeeding. My left hand was limp again but my stomach was up in my throat, I was light-headed, and my throbbing headache stopped throbbing. It just hurt steadily and I couldn’t breathe. As I reached the first line of huts my head started spinning and I felt myself go to my knees.
All of a sudden there were hands on me. Someone lifted my head back and someone else squirted a drink into my mouth. I gagged but I managed to choke down a swallow. It burned all the way down. The spirit stopped fighting me; I felt my heart start again. I took a moment to look. I saw Rissa. I tried to smile. She said nothing and looked at me in such a distant way.
Arms lifted me up and carried me further into the darkness, then into a dimly-lit hut. Inside I saw Moma Farina looking at me as I was thrown roughly down and then tied to some stakes that had already been pounded into the hut’s hard earthen floor.
I started crying. I was half out of my mind with pain, cramps, and nausea, but I was saved. Wasn’t I?
I looked up through bleary eyes. Moma spoke to me gently.
“Yes, you’re dying, Mikal. But the creature is dying with you. Rissa administered the final dose herself. She loves you, Mikal, but she can’t love a spirit. Especially not a spirit that is in fact a creature, a demon. A demon that will destroy our village by bringing down the wrath of others upon us.
“We found a crypt at Devil’s Rock, Mikal, with creatures in it. All of them like the shadow-snake that you saw crawl into Sarra. Most were long dead but a few were still alive.
“I tried many things and most worked. But I couldn’t tell which would work on a creature inside a human. They’re very adaptable. I’ve given you my best choice. We’ll have to see if you can outlive the creature, Mikal. If not then we’ll burn you both.”
With that she motioned to the men who’d brought me in and they proceeded to pour oil over me from head to foot. One stood ready with a torch.
Suddenly I panicked. The creature in me had faced poison before and it knew what being burned alive meant, too. I heaved hard at the stakes; the creature squeezed every last ounce of effort out of my nerves and fear. The ropes holding me started crackling with stress. The loops around my limbs tightened down to the bone and the stakes started loosening. A few more heaves and I’d be free!
Then the men around me grabbed the stakes and held them in place. Another rested a sharp stake on my sternum and jabbed me to break my concentration. I saw Rissa watching quietly from the doorway. I would free myself and take her! My head whirled. I heaved at the ropes again.
Even with the spirit boosting me I couldn’t keep up the struggle.
I’d failed; I was doomed. Suddenly the thrill was gone. I shivered. I was sweating. I was sick. But I thought I could feel the creature’s grip loosening. I suspect the poison was getting to him as well.
Then I yelled. I screamed. It felt like the spirit was eating out half my insides. Then just as suddenly I felt him start to move. It took a moment to realize he was heading out the way he must have come in—through the mark.
I shouted, “Look at my left side! Stop him!”
They all looked but they apparently didn’t see anything.
I couldn’t see him either, but suddenly I could feel him moving around under me, all wiggles and slime.
I jerked so hard I nearly dislocated my shoulder. I screamed, “He’s moving around under me. Let me up!”
Moma hesitated for a moment, then motioned for the men to cut the ropes to my wrists. I sat up and felt an oozy thing slide away.
There in the torch-light it was, an eely-looking black thing about two inches wide and four feet long. I started crawling away as best I could with my feet still pegged down. I was still oil-covered and I didn’t want to mess with either the creature or the torch.
The spirit squirmed around and coiled up on itself up for a few moments, then headed for cover under the hut’s bed—the opposite way I was going.
“Torch it!” ordered Moma calmly. The men did, and I screamed again. I understood its dying voice.
Rissa rushed forward. She kneeled in front of me, took my shaking face in her hands, and gently kissed me. In that moment I forgot the creature and the pain. This was Rissa, my love, in front of me. The Rissa I couldn’t think about for months. I kissed back.
“It is Mikal,” she stated firmly. Then with a sigh she hugged me and kissed me again in spite of the oil, sweat, and dirt. She sobbed once. I brought my arms around her but I couldn’t hold her. The ropes were still clamped around my wrists so tightly I couldn’t move my fingers. Quickly and gently she and the men finished removing the straps while I struggled to stay conscious.