| Chapter 7 | Chapter 9 |
Part I
8 Xavier
Los Haitises, Hispaniola province, New Zion, November 1st, 2036As Xavier heard the sound of cracking wood, he realized the colossal size of his mistake. This was not good. Merde! Xavier slowly and carefully laid down the massive wooden canoe he had been carrying on his shoulders, on top of the intricate root system of mangrove trees he had been attempting to carry his boat across. A huge crack was visible stretching for more than half a metre from the rear side of the canoe to the place where Xavier had been sitting.
The old dark brown, almost black solid wooden canoes clearly weren't meant to be lifted. And to be fair, the boat from solid wood, partially saturated by decades of use, was so heavy that it would be quite a challenge for a two-men crew to even lift it out of the water. Xavier was a big guy. The biggest and strongest of his regiment and possibly of the whole New Zion army. The Haitian Ogre was what they called him. A nom du guerre that Xavier carried with pride.
Xavier took a piece of rope and started weaving a type of huge tight sock around the back of his boat in an attempt to repair the damage. Well, this would have to do. Let's hope it will still get me home after this thing is over. Who would have thought that mama's reed hat-making skills would come in handy after all these years?
Xavier tied the boat to the trunk of the tree and climbed off on the other side, where he ended up standing waist deep in the water.
As Xavier started wading through the water towards a small patch of land, he tried to mentally prepare for what lied ahead. A conduit! Xavier knew it is unprecedented for an army soldier like himself to get a chance at a shortcut to becoming an agent, but now it was up to him to prove the General's confidence in his Haitian Ogre is justified.
While Xavier's accomplishments at the front had been enough to win him every military medal that the New Zion military system had to offer, and while next to these, it had won him a place in song and legend among his own people, Xavier had spent only three months of high-intensity Agent training compared to the two years regular program. A regular program that has a ninety-two percent drop-out rate during the program. And of the eight percent who did make it to the conduit test, this conduit test, over sixty percent of those remaining candidates ended up being sent back to regular duty after all.
Xavier felt he might be ill-prepared for this, but then was anyone ever prepared for a confrontation with a conduit.
'He is close' Xavier thought.
Xavier felt someone or something was watching him. Was it him right now? Was it the conduit?
Xavier noticed a movement in the reeds to his right. He quickly crouched while pulling out one of his two machetes from above his shoulder with his right hand while grabbing a hunter knife from his belt with his left.
Then he saw it. 'Ah, just a water snake. Calm down Xavier, calm down.' Xavier's eyes quickly scanned the shoreline. He still felt there were eyes watching him. He felt it so strong that he almost felt the eyes burning in his…. In his back!
It had been these instincts that had kept Xavier alive at the front on many an occasion.
Xavier turned around quickly and as he turned, in the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a dark shadow in the canopy of the very tree where Xavier had tied his canoe just minutes ago. Xavier looked up. Nothing! Then a movement in the canopy. Another snake.
'Embrace the Jaguar', Xavier remembered from his training. 'Let the spirit command your body' Xavier remembered from his younger days and his family tradition. As Xavier let the whole predatory aspect of his newly adopted totem wash over him a feeling of recognition came over Xavier.
'The conduit is with the spirit!' Xavier realized. Our spirit! She is one of our queens!
'She?'
Yes, Xavier was sure of it now, the conduit wasn't a mythical warrior after all. Not the super soldier with superior fighting skills that the rumors at the Academy spoke of. No, the conduit was a queen. A sister!
"Ah, they sent me a petit sorcier this time. Isn't that fun."
All of a sudden a woman was standing on top of the tree's roots, leaning nonchalantly against the trunk of the tree. A frail light skin woman. In her early sixties probably.
Something was off. Yes, the conduit was a woman, but not the type of woman Xavier had felt she would be.
"Very good soldier boy, very good, you are starting to sense already. Your senses are good my friend, but can the Ogre's brain keep up?"
The female stepped behind the tree, sliding her hand over the tree till only the tips of her fingers were visible. Xavier moved forwards and to the right to see where she was going. What first had been the tips of her fingers, now were small wooden protrusions part of the tree itself. She was playing with his mind, playing with his senses. But what was she? What in heaven's name was a conduit?
Suddenly a stick came out of the canopy of the tree swinging towards Xavier's face. Only at the very last moment did Xavier manage to block it.
"Zut!" Xavier exclaimed.
Then in a flash, it dawned on Xavier, the witch was a mirror that blinded his senses with a reflection of his own spiritual self. He had to ignore his senses and his instincts, as here neither could be trusted.
Xavier closed his eyes and remembered his training. Taking hold of the stick at the highest point he could reach, Xavier pulled hard and the woman came dropping out of the tree, falling into the water with a splash.
As Xavier reached into the dark water, he got hold of her leg, but before he could pull her up from underneath the water, he remembered the huge white python he had seen up in the tree before. Was it? Was it her, or had the witch thrown the python out of the tree to trick him? Suddenly what he was holding didn't feel like a leg anymore. It was the python, Xavier was sure of it. Damn! Where was its head? As Xavier instinctively threw the woman away from him, sending her hurtling towards the reeds, he realized she had tricked him again.
The nonchalance though, the almost arrogant look in her eyes that had been there before had now gone. Xavier recognized a glimmer of fear in her eyes and as he did the doubt and confusion that had been in his heart completely washed away. Xavier ran after her while she struggled to get up and made her way out of the water and started running towards a tree.
As Xavier was about to catch up with her, she started climbing a strange tree that had huge hand-sized wooden thorns all over it, allowing her climbing to go too fast for Xavier to catch up with. The tree though, had a trunk that was just seventeen or eighteen centimetres in diameter. No match for the Haitian Ogre! Xavier jumped through the air in a powerful and agile kick, and as his foot forcefully hit the thorny three, the proud tree broke as if it had been nothing but a thin reed. As Xavier landed on the solid ground again, his hand took hold of a thin tree that he used to reverse his direction. Then he jumped up into the air again with one fluent agile and feline move and snatched the falling witch out of the air, landing on top of her.
A small knife launched out at him, but Xavier quickly grabbed the witch's wrist between his thumb and his index finger. Xavier looked at her old face. A huge smile now formed on her withered face.
"Promising, mon petit sorcier. Really promising. I do believe I might be able to turn you into an Agent yet, trooper."
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