by Scott Toney
The Seventh Fruit
Thomas stood in his gardens, his eyes searing with pain as he clutched a ruby cane, bracing himself to stand. The sun… It was so hot. He felt as if his body would burst into flames at any moment. The poison from the snake in Cush remained in his blood. He knew it. His blood burned and pulsed within him. “I thought this fruit was supposed to heal me,” he spoke to Dora as she followed close behind him.
Pan Dora clutched the oaken box that contained the final fig. “They will, sire,” she spoke in a scratched voice. “You must complete what you have begun. Once you have eaten the final fruit then all your aches will be healed.” She was silent for a moment and crushed a caterpillar beneath her shoe. “You will live forever.”
Thomas bent over and touched the hot stone table of a fountain near him. “I’m not sure I believe you any longer.” A sharp pain swam up his spine. “Ahh…” he moaned. “But what choice do I have?”
“Do not worry, sire.” Dora placed her boney hand on his shoulder and he felt pain leave the spot beneath her touch. “You can trust me. You will be healed.”
Something in Thomas’s gut clenched. His head pulsed and he could barely operate his mind. His eyes were forced shut.
When he opened them, forced through searing pain, he found he was curled on the ground before the fountain and shivering with sweat.
“Take thisss,” Dora said as she lifted the final fig from the oaken box and held it out to him. The thing pulsed in her hand.
“No…” Thomas fought for clarity but could barely keep his body from collapsing completely on the ground. He tried to crawl away from her.
“Eat it.” Some strange possession entered her voice as she clasped his hand and held it to the fig’s flesh. “Eat it. Do as I say.”
The fig’s life pulsed through him and was combined with something he had never felt before. His veins throbbed with the fruit’s heartbeat. What was that feeling? Would eating this last fruit cause him to live forever? “I will never die,” he spoke as the pain in his body numbed.
Thomas was losing his grasp on something but he couldn’t tell what. Oh well, he thought. Nothing is more important than life. He brought the fruit up to his lips as he leaned against the fountain’s base. As he bit into it he tasted the succulent juices of the thing and longed to chew its flesh, to feel it within him. Soon he was savoring the chewy meat of its body in his jaws and swallowed it down, embracing the healing life that flowed back through his body.
Warmth flowed through his chest as he stood. The pain was gone. “Finally I am healed,” he said. But some emotion was growing within him, something deeper and more powerful than anything he had felt before. His heart raced. He felt the blood vessels in his eyes pulse and expand.
“You are healed, my lord,” Dora said as she came and placed a hand on his. She dropped the oaken box onto the walkway and brought his hand to her lips to kiss. “What do you feel?”
“Something is wrong,” Thomas replied as hate grew in him, hate for his people, for Lilya and for all the wrongs the people around him had dealt him. “How dare they hide their riches from me? How dare she deny the King of Havilah her love? They will all pay. No one will stand against me again.” He clenched his hand on Dora’s, almost breaking her bones with the anger in his clutch.
The Pan pulled her hand from his and staggered back. “You see clearly now,” she spoke. “I hear rumors that the people of Cush and Assyria assemble against us.”
“Let them.” Thomas glared through red sight. His muscles expanded as he clenched them all over his body. “They will die at my hands and I will force Lilya to be my own.”
“You deserve her,” Dora said. “They all deserve to pay.”
Thomas walked through the garden and into Castle Ah, full of bitterness and rage.
In the garden where Dora had been all that remained was a snake curling on a cobblestone path.
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