Woo . . . been working on this most of the day . . . sometimes the mood just strikes and everything gets pushed aside.
Again, thanks everyone SO MUCH for the comments!
And Lyndsy; yours can to! You're story telling is WONDERFUL.
Part TwelveLarge blue centaur . . . there was a woman with it. Hercules! I needed to warn him about this centaur . . . Don’t get messed up with the woman, it’ll only cause trouble . . . but ultimately true success. Go for it then; but she was working with Hades! Oh Gods, Herc, listen to Phil for once! Pegasus is trapped; she needed to tell him where. No! Don’t give your soul to Hades! What are you doing? Meg’s going to die . . .
A farm boy? That’s all that’s coming after us? But it’s not him whose doing it really, he’s controlled . . . well that’s insane. Hey! He stole my visions . . . he’s behind me! In the tree! I should have stayed with Pegasus . . . What if Icarus and Lysandra die?A mass of mismatched, fast motioned visions attacked Cassandra all at once. Pain exploded through her head and she clutched it with white fingers. She writhed on the floor, her eyes swirling with the green pool that denoted her being lost in a vision. When finally they were all over, she drew in a sharp breath and bolted upright, shaking and gazing around like a lost child. What had just happened . . .? She rubbed her head, though all the pain was gone, she felt like she was in a heavy fog. She could barely think or function-
It just occurred to her that she had a vision! Actually, a whole bunch of visions mixed together . . . and all of them had already come to pass . . . And any sort of lingering headache was gone. Where was she? A hospital? Was she healed? What was-
“Welcome,” a deep voice chortled.
Cassandra glanced up, rather annoyed and found (much to her dismay) a rather strange and ragged man. She looked at him strangely, disliking his mocking, thingyy grin already. He was extremely thin and though he looked like he could have once had an attractive face, it was now scarred and red from an extreme burn. One eye seemed to be almost blind (as it was milky white in color and hardly moved) and the other was dull grey. Salt-and-pepper hair hung in a matted, greasy mess around his burned skin and the tunic that clothed his frail form was thin and tattered.
Even Cassandra had to admit that Icarus looked 110% better than this fellow.
“Who are you?” she asked unkindly.
He came towards her slowly. “Ah, Cassandra . . . you’re such a kind, perky young soul aren’t you? Yes . . . who am I? An excellent question, actually. If you find out, will you please tell me? I’d love to know.”
Without changing expressions, she came unsteadily to her feet. He brought a bent and twisted hand to her cheek and with a sneer; she reached up and grabbed his wrist tightly. “Try and touch me again and you’ll come back with a bloody stump,”
“Aren’t you just pleasant?” he drew his hand back sharply, his face disgusted. He quickly grinned again however, and kept his distance. “I’ve admired you a long time, Cassandra. I’ve watched you through school, adored you’re plain and unique self . . . funny, you never used such an expression on Icarus, before,”
“How do you know me?” she said sternly, watching him carefully.
“Ah! One of three golden questions!” he clapped his twisted hands excitedly, face screwing up in disgusting joy. “How do I know you . . . what better way than to watch you daily? What better way than to listen on your conversations?” he smiled wider at the look he was receiving and slanted his eyes slyly. “What better way than to see you through your visions?”
“My visions?” she suddenly became more alert.
He laughed softly. “You were right all along, sweet Cassandra. Your visions have been tampered with and it is I, who have done the tampering.”
“How?” she hissed, looking like a lioness ready to strike.
He glanced at her with confidence. “You’re asking the wrong questions,
Cassie,”
Sneering, she ignored him and looked around her, noticing now with some slight damper to her spirit where she was. She was standing on top of a gray, damp cliff. Around her were other distant settings, glimmering with thick, silvery mist. She walked slowly to the very edge of the cliff and looked down as far as she could through the mist. Turning he head back towards her new stranger, she crossed her arms as a strange, cold prickle touched her skin.
“Where am I?” she growled.
He grinned maliciously, a twinkle coming into his eyes. “Ah; golden question number two.” He cracked his knuckles and she shivered unwillingly. “Where are you? Are you feeling insecure, Cassie? Not sure what to do without your faithful friends by your side? You were always such a loner, never ran with the big crowd. But then, when you met Hercules and Icarus . . . well, what could you do without them?”
“You haven’t answered my question,” she snapped, trying to move away from him, but coming to the very close to the cliff edge. She froze. “Where am I?”
He came suddenly very close to her, grabbed her shoulders. He brought his lips to her ear and whispered in a brutal voice. “It’s so easy to break the feeble down . . . when so much of their courage is placed in those around them!”
The last word ending in a hiss, he thrust her backwards, stepping back as to avoid her flailing hands and chuckled to himself. In the next instant, she seemed to thrust up from the endless abyss below and landed in flailing heap at his feet. Once she realized that she was no longer falling, she lifted her head. Once she caught sight of him, she leapt away, back on her feet, breathing heavily.
“What did you do?” she fought to keep her calm, for once not certain of the outcome.
Smoothly, he came back towards her and then stopped abruptly. He acted as though he were taking pity on her; for some reason this just fused her anger more. “I’m not sure if you would believe me if I told you were you were . . . what would say if I said Limbo?”
“Limbo?” she repeated, disbelieving.
“Yes,” continued, pacing in front of her. “Why do you think you came back from a surely fatal fall? You can’t leave here; you are neither dead, nor alive at the moment. Your soul, in a rather basic sense, is confused. So, you are stuck here.”
She gazed at him as though he had just told her the world had ended. “Why?” It seemed to be the only thing she could say.
He laughed again. “Oh, so close to the third question! Come, Cassie, let me show you something.”
Like she was going to follow him! She glared and kept her distance. He sighed and flicked his wrist and the next instant, the ground seemed to slip out from under her and she was lurched past him, landing on her hands and knees in front of a glossy pool of water. Strange though, that she couldn’t see her reflection. He was beside her quickly and though she tried to move away, she felt strangely frozen.
“Just watch, sweet Cassandra,” he cooed. Did she really have a choice?
He touched the pool of water with the tip of his finger, whispered her name again and she watched with silent awe as an image appeared . . . and there she was, lying next to a trembling, confused farm boy. She watched with a short breath, confused at the sight. Her body was pale and weak . . . she looked like she could be dead . . .
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” mocked her stranger. “You amuse me, Cassie.”
She lunged at him, now able to move again. He caught her by her wrists, smiling into her contorted face.
“What do you want with me?” she yelled, her voice echoing eerily off the surrounding cliffs. “Why did you bring me here?”
He stood silent for a moment, watching her struggle helplessly. There was no saying how much he was enjoying this.
“And so comes the third, golden question, Cassie. Why did I go through all that trouble to manipulate a troubled boy into thinking killing you would bring him fame? Why did I go for so long to keep tabs on you and intercept your visions? Why did I risk killing your motherly Lysandra or your “beloved” Icy-poo?” his smile was chilling and his face grew darker. “Because you would be in the way and I can’t keep tabs on you while I’m on the mortal plain.”
He thrust her back, letting her go. She did not come after him this time. “Seers are such useful and disrupting people, you understand. Besides,” he hummed. “I needed a willing
sacrifice to take my place,”
“Willing?” she scoffed. “Who says I’m willing?”
He seemed to have been waiting for this moment and Cassandra didn’t miss the look that passed over his features. He motioned his head back to the pool and this time, she complied. He came to the other side, stuck his finger in the pool and whispered incoherently. She saw Lysandra, awake and alert, eating something offered to her.
“Your Seer friend is doing fine,” he murmured.
He moved his finger in a complex set of directions and then she saw Icarus in a rather weak and pathetic position. She showed no emotion and looked up, as though asking why she was being shown this.
“This part of the game is called “leverage”, Cassandra.”
“I’m not sure I’m following,” she said blandly.
He grinned, swirling the pool with his finger. Icarus twitched and turned with agony and he stopped twirling. “You see, the only reason Icky here seems to be doing better is because he knows what he wants in life and he hasn’t lost that little annoying light in his eye. But, I can change that. I can manipulate his thoughts and I can make him change the course of his life . . . I can make him think your dead. I can make this happy-go-lucky, brain fried,
louse of yours want to die. Wouldn’t that be awful?”
He hardly sounded sad, Cassandra noted. When he drew his finger out of the water with a smile, her ire burned into a sudden rage and she swiped her nails across his burned, grotesque face, pushing him back in the process. He caught himself before going over the cliff.
“You leave him alone,” she growled with malice.
This only widened his grin and with the last ounce of energy she possessed, she charged at him again and knocked him down into oblivion, gritting her teeth. In the next instant, he had stumbled to a stop behind her and wrapped one arm around the front of her, holding her tight so she could not get away.
“Leverage, Cassie . . . leverage.” He let her go, a small bit of blood from the mark she had given him dripping off his cheek and onto her forehead. She turned sharply, clenching her fists. And in a cool, calm, brisk way, he winked at her and began to walk away, finally giving her space. “By the way, sweet Cassandra, I am called Apollo. Good night to you, hm?”
“And you have mental issues that should be addressed,” she spat.
He chuckled and walked away, into a thick patch of fog and disappeared from her sight. Sighing angrily, she slunk down again, this time beside the pool and hugged her knees to her chest.
There really was no one to save her this time.
* * *
Adelphos had no idea what he was doing, even as he looked down upon Cassandra’s still form. He could remember that he did something when he found her but he could hardly remember what. It was as though his mind had left him during that time and now, as he gazed at her still, cold body, he feared that he had killed her, when all he wanted to do was keep her barely breathing for torture . . .
Which, for some reason, wasn’t making an extreme amount of sense to him.
He rubbed his temples, shaking from so much anxiety. And then he had Pegasus to worry about; his awe of seeing the famed beast had stunned him for a moment to long and his judgment had faltered. Hercules would certainly come looking for them but Adelphos knew these woods better than most and felt certain that his small hiding spot wouldn’t be easily found. He sighed, looking again at Cassandra. He needed to check her pulse, just to make sure she was still alive. He shuddered at the thought and crawled over to her, her pale face slightly touched by seeping sunlight. His fingers hesitated over her neck for an instant, and then he touched his index and middle finger to where her pulse could be found.
As slow and dull as it was, it was there and she was breathing, so he could judge by the movement of her chest now that he was closer.
But he crawled quickly back over to the other side of the small cave and drew his knees to his chest, unable to look at her any longer. He was going to go insane by the time this was all over! And what if it never got over? What if it never ended? Then what would he do? How would any of this turn out? He felt on the verge of breaking and was already jerking harshly on his hair.
Calm down! Hissed an inner voice. He shakily drew his hands down to is lap and took in a deep breath. There had to be an end to this eventually. He just had to finish up the job and it would be over . . . but what was he waiting for? No, it didn’t matter . . . he would know.
He would know.