Chapter 10

Jeremy was tired.  He felt like he had been fighting for years.  It was hard for him not to feel the bite of his despair although he prayed against it.  Freyja had not come to him for a long time and he wondered what would happen when she did.  He wished to see the results of his intercession.  He was impatient for results, but he knew he would not see them while he was still imprisoned in his cell.
    Candlelight spilled into his cell, followed by a young woman.  She was bewitchingly beautiful.  In spite of himself, Jeremy was attracted to her.
    “My name is Conchita,” she spoke with a soft lilt.  “Your name is Jeremy, yes? I am Freyja‘s replacement.  I wish to talk with you Jeremy.  You will tell me what I wish to hear, no?”
    Jeremy had to struggle to keep his senses straight.  Conchita was lovely.  She smiled at him, daring him to defy her.  Her words carried a heavily veiled threat, but a threat none the less.
    “You will tell me everything I need to know,” she repeated.
    “what do you need to know?” Jeremy was finding it rather hard to breathe.  Conchita tossed her lustrous black hair over her shoulder and sat down next to where he lay on the floor.  She began to run her delicate fingers through his hair.
    “It is simple, I want you to betray your family and friends.  You will be rewarded handsomely for your cooperation.  You will cooperate, yes?”  she leaned closer and smiled a dazzling smile of promise into his eyes.  Jeremy had to struggle to refuse.  He silently cried out for El‘s strength.
    “No,” he whispered# and again, almost shouting.  “NO!  I will never betray them.”
    Conchita grew warmer.  Her face grew a little perplexed.  “Not even if I kissed you?  You must want a kiss”  Her voice softened.  Jeremy struggled to pull away but she was stronger than she looked.  She drew closer until her lips were almost touching his.  She threw herself on top of him and kissed him passionately.  Jeremy thrust her away with all his strength.
    “No! You are a beautiful temptress, but I love my wife and I will not betray her for all the pleasures you may offer me.  Leave me now.”  He shouted with El’s strength.
    Conchita uttered a piercing shriek of rage and in an instant the passionate lover was gone, replaced by a poisonous viper.  She pointed her finger at him and he felt the pain return stronger than ever.  She turned to leave, throwing these words at him as she left.  “I am not only Conchita, I am also Cordae, mistress of pain.  In the next little while, you shall discover the truth of this.” She was gone.
    Jeremy’s body seemed to explode.  He thought he would die from the shock.  He expected his mind would be gone, the way it had the other times when Freyja had hurt him, but in the depths of his pain, El reached out and gave him the strength to keep fighting.  Sleep was impossible, although he was exhausted.  El enabled him to keep praying.  He kept the Nameless One from seeing his family.  They were safe.
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    “Oh Powerful One Who Has No Name, why can I not find those who oppose you?  Where is your power that you cannot find them?”  Conchita raved.  “They are too dangerous.  Jeremy is too dangerous.  You must do something.  Come to me.  Counsel me, or are you too weak?”  The room was swept with a dark presence.  The room began to glow.  Conchita‘s hair shone bright blue.
    “You are angry.  That is good, but save your anger for those who deserve it.  Hate your enemies, not me, not the one who gave you a home and a future and a power beyond your imagining.”  It was a voice from the grave that spoke.  Conchita trembled at the death in his words.  “You are right when you say that Jeremy is too dangerous.  I have let him live for far too long.  He even managed to resist you as no man has ever dared.  He must be executed, and soon.  He has known my benevolence and now he will know my wrath.  It is possible he is the reason we cannot find the others#.  Yet he will keep til tomorrow.  At the time of eating, his blood will be spilled.”  At that, the voice and presence fled the room.  Conchita collapsed to the floor and slept deeply.  She looked vulnerable in sleep.  Her dreams troubled her.  She still remembered the strength that Jeremy had displayed and wondered at its source.  Conchita had never decided that she would follow the Nameless One in exclusion to all else.  She had simply never had the choice.  She had never known nor understood who El was or why so many followed him into persecution and death.  She knew she could never look at the Nameless One without a wave of revulsion and fear.  He had never inspired love in her, only terror and self loathing.  She hated the Nameless One; hated how he had stolen her identity and her freedom.  She would leave him if she could find a way to do so, but the hand he held over her might as well have been a cage of iron.
    She woke up and was finally able to be honest with herself and allow the feelings she had shoved down into oblivion within herself to come out.  She longed for escape, more than she longed for wealth or power.  She still didn’t know the way and she knew that if she failed, she would probably be killed instantly by the Nameless One, but she had to satisfy the deepest longing in her heart, the longing for love, not from a man, but from her God.  This longing replaced the emptiness the Nameless One had created to keep her bound.
    She thought of Jeremy and the strength with which he resisted and the lack of fear and wondered if he could possibly give her a way to escape.  She rushed through the halls of the temple, releasing Jeremy from his pain as she went.  She never thought about whether she was doing the right thing or not.  She did not have to wonder.  She knew.
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     Jeremy felt the pain leave him.  He wanted to sleep, but El kept him from dropping off.  The door opened slowly
    “Jeremy?“  He heard a voice.
    “Cordae,” Jeremy gasped from his position on the floor.
    “Call me Conchita.  I never wish to be called by that accursed name again.”  She rushed in through the door and knelt by Jeremy, carefully raising him to a sitting position.  “Tell me of this El.  There are so many things I need to know.  Will you tell me?”
    At first, Jeremy thought it was simply a renewal of her attempt to make him betray those he loved, but he sensed a note of despair in her voice that he hadn‘t heard there before.  “What do you wish to know?”
    “Tell me, does El love you?  I feel like I have been searching for love all my life.  I sought it from my father when I was a child and from men the moment I became beautiful.  I don’t want that anymore.  Is El any different from the people I have known in my past?  Is he different from the Nameless One?  Will he still take me even though I have given the Nameless One so much of my time?”
    “He does, he is and he will.”
    “Are you sure he would love me?  My sins are so many and so terrible.  I have wilfully and knowingly inflicted pain and death on many of his beloved followers.  Will he love me even then?
    Jeremy could now see the desperation that drove her.  He no longer feared that she was gathering information for the Nameless One.  She sought after El’s love the way he had done when he first came, broken and weak, after hitting rock bottom.  “He will,” Jeremy answered.
    Conchita turned from him and stood, continuing her rant.  “I cannot follow the Nameless One any longer.  He does not love me.  I have never known love.  I never had any family but Freyja.  She took me in when my parents died.  Her heart was always cold.  She never had another thought but to serve her master with unswerving devotion.  She did not love me, but saw me as her duty.  When she disappeared, I was grateful.  Thirteen was too young to be on my own.  I could not break away from the Nameless One.  I felt I still needed him.  When he offered to make me his powerful priestess, I accepted, but I will not lead that life.”
    “Why did you not seek these answers before?”  Jeremy asked her gently.  He was rather shocked at her youth, but he did not let it show.
    “I had no one to ask.  I did not even know the Nameless one could be resisted until I met you.  I always thought El was not powerful enough to withstand us, but I sensed the power of El that day when you resisted me.  I was afraid and curious.  Tell me, is it to late for me to leave this life behind?  Will El still accept me, stained as I am?”
    “It is never too late.  Funny thing about stains, El can remove even the toughest of them..  He will love you, Conchita.  You only have to ask.”
    Conchita looked up at him, her eyes shining.  “Thank you!  I know what I have to do now.”  She got up to leave, but before she did so, she turned back to him.  Again, he was struck by her youth.  He would have said she was twenty or older by her sophistication when she came to him before, but now he could see the child in her eyes.  “Go, your work is done here.”  she was gone, leaving the door unlocked.  Jeremy knew that El was telling him to leave the temple.  He walked out of there unchallenged, barely able to believe that he was free.
    He had been walked only a hundred feet when he realized hhe was too worn to go anywhere without a few hours of sleep.  He did not wish to rest so near the Temple, but the waves of exhaustion that flooded his body gave him no choice.
    Almost as if by chance, he stumbled upon a little cave.  As he walked through the mouth, he saw Aidan, sleeping near the doorway.  Sensing a presence, he opened his eyes and smiled up at Jeremy.
    “I wondered when you were going to show up.  Zoe sleeps over there#”
    Jeremy turned to look in the direction Aidan was pointing and his heart was overwhelmed by the love he felt at that moment as he gazed upon his sleeping wife.  She was so beautiful.  Her face was relaxed and she curled around her pregnant belly as if to protect it.  He did not wish to wake her, even though every desire at that moment was to hold her and kiss her as her eyes opened.  Instead, he lay down beside her and was asleep the moment his head hit the ground.  Zoe felt warmth at her side and opened her eyes to see her husband‘s battered body beside her.
    She sat up quickly and pulled his head into the little lap she had left.  “Look my son, your father has returned to us.”  She sat there for a little while, running her fingers through her husband‘s hair and marvelling that El had brought him back to them.  She was so lost in her happiness that she did not notice when Aidan and Samara left the cave.
    Samara walked in the forest, picking up as many branches as her arms could hold.  Aidan sooned joined her.  They carried their branches to the temple courtyard.  It took many trips, but they eventually had a large stack of wood piled on the white stones of the courtyard.  Satisfied, they went back to the cave to wait.
    Zoe looked up as they walked in.  She was all set to worry.
    “Wait,” Aidan said.  Zoe was quiet.  She held Jeremy and she did as Aidan said.