The Snake (Messenger of Fear 1.50)

“The game is this,” said the Master of the Game. “I shall summon twenty-one creatures. You must cut the head completely from each one and fill that bag”—whereupon a large canvas sack appeared—“and complete this gruesome task within five minutes. If you do this, you will have won. If you lack even one head, you will have lost and be subject to punishment.”

“What?” Barton asked pitiably. He looked to me, eyes drowning in tears. “What is happening to me? You have to help me. Can’t you help me? Call my mom. I want my mom!”

I knew to remain silent.

Beside the sack now lay a machete. I looked meaningfully at the machete, hoping Barton would get the clue and ready himself for the game. But he was unprepared when the first of the creatures appeared.

And oh, oh, oh, the cunning creativity, the wicked sadism of the Game Master. For the creatures that ran one by one, screaming from the mist, were very much like pigs, with one essential difference: each had Lisa Bayless’s head.

Barton made no move to attack the first Lisa pig until that monstrosity, that violation of nature’s laws, attacked him, snapping at him with his erstwhile teacher’s teeth and emitting the outraged squeals of a pig.

Only after suffering numerous bites, and only after wasting thirty seconds on the big clock that conveniently hovered in the air just before the chalkboard, did Barton seize the machete and, with a scream of rage and frustration, hack at the animal’s neck.

The first blow was poorly aimed and bit into the pig’s back, eliciting squeals of pain. Barton had risen to weakened legs and seemed already to be at the end of his strength. Yet he drew back the machete and aimed his next blow more carefully.

It took three tries before he managed to hack the head free and drop it into the sack. Whereupon the second creature came rushing at him.

For a while Barton managed. He hacked and swore, hacked and cried, hacked with snot running from his nose to join the blood that soon covered him.

He reached thirteen heads, but for him the end came with a full minute left on the clock. He just stopped, sank to the ground, sitting in a puddle of gore, and dropped the machete.

He sat weeping, dull eyed, destroyed before the game even ended.

Murder is not so easy when it is face-to-face. Murder is not so easy when you must nearly drown in the blood you shed.

“Have I performed my duty, Messenger of Isthil?” the Master of the Game asked.

“You have. You may withdraw.”

The Game Master departed more quickly than he had arrived, perhaps rushing off to test some other wicked person’s courage.

“Now, Barton Jones, you will endure the Piercing,” Messenger said. “Mara.”

I had hoped somehow that it might be Messenger who took on the Piercing, but of course Messenger’s time was drawing slowly to a close, while mine was just beginning. I had to learn, to grow into this hideous duty.

I drew Barton, unresisting, to his feet. I moved behind him, reached around, and placed one hand over his heart and the other against his blood-slicked head.

I could feel his heart beating. I could feel the spasms of silent sobs. I glanced at Messenger as though he might yet spare me, but I saw only calm patience

in those blue eyes.

Thus, I dived deep within Barton’s mind.

It is an almost impossible experience to convey. There is nothing like it in ordinary life, in which the mind is an inviolate sanctuary where others may not intrude. Words fail, because how can you describe what has no counterpart in human experience?

I could say that his fears were like rats fleeing from a flashlight’s beam, perhaps, but that is only an inadequate analogy.

I pursued those fears, sensing them one by one, reading their intensity, dismissing the weaker ones, searching always for the darkest place where the last and greatest rat would hide trembling.

At last, knowing my answer, hating that knowledge, hating what I had seen and learned, and hating most what my duty now required, I rose from his mind and drew my red hands away.

“He has one fear greater than all others,” I said.

“What is that fear?” Messenger asked solemnly.

“He once saw a YouTube video of a monkey being eaten by a python,” I said. “The image has terrified him ever since. The monkey was alive.” I hesitated. “The monkey took a very long time to be slowly, inexorably crushed and finally consumed.”

“What?” This word was a sob. “What? What? WHAT? WHAT?”