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“Don’t touch me!” She struggled in vain within his grasp. “You can’t do this to me! I am a…a free human being! Please. You can’t just keep me here!”
Kathryn felt hot tears slipping down her face. He was marveling over her like a thing, like a valuable piece of art or an antique…like just another one of the dumbly exquisite treasures she had seen around her. Was that what this was, then? A treasure room, and she the latest curiosity?
“Free, eh? Trapped on that ranch in the Australian wilderness with your father, playing mother to your sister because you know he cannot take care of her for himself? When, in your heart, you want to run to the city and experience a fully different sort of life. So what difference is it from being your father’s captive, when you can just as easily be mine? Accept your fate, Kathryn. Be thankful. There could be worse fates.”
“None that I can imagine could be worse than being a pet to a monster like you!” she cried, wrenching herself madly now in order to be free.
Her words angered him and she felt the claws in his fingers extending as if in response to the emotion roaring through his eyes and growling from his chest.
“You dare much!” he hissed. “I hold your fate in my hands, little creature! How easy it would be to corrupt you! How delightful. It could be my greatest pleasure if I wish it!”
“No!” Rage washed through her and she lunged, reaching up blindly, striking for his face with her own nails.
But something made her catch herself mid-action. Like a tossed coin, she flipped from tails to heads and the world rushed in a mad whirl around her.
Kathryn, this is not you, a quiet inner voice seemed to whisper.
She looked up into his eyes in stunned confusion. She was further troubled by the shock registering in his midnight green pupils. He had expected her to hit him, she realized on a quick, calm level of her brain. He hadn’t expected her to be able to stay the urge that…that he had been feeding into her! It was him! He was making her feel these things, and probably enjoying it! Corrupting her would give him pleasure, he had said. Well, she would not give in to his evil influence. She would not!
Kathryn suddenly had a mad idea.
He had pulled away in agony when she had touched him with kind, gentle hands. It occurred to her that this might be the only means of escape she would find.
It was insane. There was no reason for it to have any foundation in truth. But hadn’t there been endless stories, some stranger than this, where the antithesis of good or of evil could harm each other? If he could hurt her…
Softly, slowly, she quieted her thoughts. She relaxed in his grip and searched her mind for a pleasant memory or thought. One that would not lead her to anger or fear.
She ignored him when his eyes narrowed on her.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice ominous and threatening.
What if, like any wild beast, he was unable to help what he was? she considered. Kathryn reached out and stroked the creature’s chest with all the sympathy in her heart, her thoughts making it easier to touch him with honest caring.
His howl was so sharp, so sudden, that she almost lost her tenuous hold on her concentration. To her surprise, relief and bewilderment, her idea was working. He was in pain once again.
But she refused to take joy in that; it was not in her true nature to take joy in that. It was his presence that had caused those earlier feelings. But now that she was aware of them, blocking them from herself intentionally, she was free to feel honest pity for the thing that he was.
Her thoughts seemed to wrench into him like a hot poker spearing his heart. He jerked his hold from her as if she burned him. Kathryn screamed out in surprised pain as his claws scored the delicate skin on her arms. But she found a mind-clearing strength in her pain. She advanced on him even as he reeled backward.
“Let me help you.” She intoned the words gently, carefully. “You cannot help what you are. I can see that now. But you cannot be all evil. I have always been taught, have always believed that there is some good in everything. Even if just a little.” She did believe that. There must be something in him that was good. It was his fight against it that was probably causing him such agony.
Somehow, she knew this to be the truth of it.
“Sleep!” he screamed suddenly, his voice at a peculiar high pitch as he cast a desperate hand sweeping in her direction. “You will sleep!”
Kathryn staggered suddenly as a stunning wave of exhaustion rushed her. What the hell is this? she wondered, gasping for breath as she tried to balance on her own feet. It was some kind of a spell! She looked at him through hazy vision and saw the utter shock and disbelief in his eyes that his spell had not worked properly. It gave her confidence, and some of her strength began to bleed back into her. She stepped forward again.
“I will not sleep. I will stay awake. I will stay with you forever, remember? You will either have to fight me forever, or give in to what is right! Don’t worry,” she murmured soothingly, “I will care for you.” Just as she had cared for her sick family. Just as she had cared for any living thing in pain or in need all of her twenty-two years on Earth. Because the universe had created her to love all things.
He fell to the floor with a crash, writhing like a tormented demon from the darkest pit in hell.
But Kathryn didn’t know how long it would last. She didn’t know what to do next. She felt honest remorse fill her heart at his plight and his agony. Suddenly, she wanted to leave. If what he was was all he could be, she did not wish to be the cause of his pain for another moment. She wanted to get away so he could be at peace.
The compassionate thought just about killed him.
Then, out of nowhere, a gnomelike little man leapt out at Kathryn, backhanding her fiercely across her face.
Kathryn was flung backward, landing hard on her back so all the air rushed from her body. She was shaking her dizzy head and tasting her own blood as she watched the new intruder. He seemed to back off from her in sudden terror, clutching his hand as if in regret of what he had done and alternatively pulling his gray hair out with anxiety. He cast beady dung-colored eyes between her and the monster lying prone on the floor.
“Oh, Cronos. Oh, Cronos. Oh, Cronos,” he repeated in dismay over and over again.
Kathryn tried to get up, but he screamed like a harpy and ran at her, raising his hand threateningly over her. He laughed in relief when she reflexively cowered from another painful blow.
“You stay! You stay! Bad treasure! Bad, bad treasure! To hurt the Master is bad! Cronos hurt treasure, damaged treasure, but the Master will not mind this time. He damaged you too. Yes, I see. Yes, I do.” He seemed ecstatic with his own thought processes, pacing madly to and fro between the two bodies in the room. One he feared, yet he had found power over her. The other he feared even more, but wanted to help out of mindless devotion.
“Master! Get up! Get away! Flee from the bad treasure! Shall I kill it? Shall I throw it away? It will never hurt you then!”
The Master was suddenly lurching to his feet, still staggered with blinding pain, but strong enough to grab Cronos by the scruff of his neck and lift him up to look into his eyes.
“Do…not…touch!” the Master gasped in agonized stammers. “Do you…hear me? Never touch…her again!”
Then he cast the gray little man aside and staggered unseeingly to a set of doors Kathryn hadn’t even had a chance to notice.
“No!” she screamed. “I won’t let you leave me here!” She was up and running, determined not to lose her last chance at escape. The creature was too weak to fight her and the little man had been ordered not to harm her.