Chapter 12 Claret
Bleeding … bleeding … bleeding …
Anassa’s warning echoes off the walls. Holding the light of the torch near the wall’s surface, I take a closer look at what I first thought was rock, licked sleek by ocean winds.
‘Yes. The walls are bleeding,’ I confirm.
Oozing like an open wound that never heals, fresh rivulets of blood mixing with the black stones underneath our naked feet.
A carnage of a cave – and we’re walking on it.
The poetry is not lost on me. But Anassa sounds uncharacteristically upset, so I decide to keep that further horror to myself. For now.
Maybe she won’t look down.
I should be reacting more to this, to all of this.
Yet I find it hard to care. What difference does it make if the walls are oozing blood, or gold, or naiads’ tears?
I’m still the mother of my killer, as Clotho said.
Which means my vengeance was for nothing; that my remaining children chose their father over me, even in death.
Of all the noxious things I’ve seen and heard and smelled these days, all the threats to undo me, explicit or implicit, that knowledge might just be the thing that makes me throw my knife away. Quit fighting.
I sigh, my cloak weighing heavily on my shoulders.
I can’t quit fighting yet. Not with Clotho’s admonitions that we must keep going lest this world abort us, and with Anassa looking so pale amid these bloody walls.
‘Don’t fret,’ I tell my partner in penance, my tone as even as I can make it.
‘It’s like Clotho said: this place doesn’t want us here.
Stay away from the walls. We’ll be fine,’ I add, to reassure her. It seems to work.
Torch in one hand and knife in the other, I lead the way.
Anassa’s steps, light and uncertain, are the only sound I hear as we venture deeper in.
She glances behind us every now and then, towards the cave’s entrance, but when I ask her why, she simply shakes her head, offering nothing.
Part of me wonders if she wants to run back out there – and if I’ll need to stop her, to fulfil Clotho’s directives.
But as we head further and further from the entrance, she regains her composure.
We walk in silence for a long time, the endless tunnel twisting like a bowel.
A breeze surprises us now and then, dusting spatters of scarlet dew upon our skin.
I know Anassa hates that; I know she believes I must enjoy it.
The truth is, I don’t revel in bloodshed – I revel in revenge, in righteous wrath.
And I had filled my cup of wrath to its coagulating brim before the Moirai twisted my life’s thread into this never-ending nightmare.
Now all I can do is follow that thread, hoping that it won’t lead to my unravelling.
‘It’s cold in here,’ Anassa observes. ‘You never hear of hell being cold … You’d think that all this blood would keep the tunnel warm, at least, like your room was.’
I slow my pace. ‘My room?’ Oh. ‘You mean my palace’s bath chamber.’
‘It felt like an apt comparison,’ she says, ‘given the amount of blood.’
I know she aims to goad me, but I find my mood subdued, scraped raw by all we’ve endured. Sniping at each other is not nearly as satisfying as it was a few disasters ago. So I grunt non-committally. Yes, the cave is colder, bloodier, and sadly lacking in dead husbands.
Anassa huffs, then tries a different tactic. ‘We’ve walked a long time. Hours, perhaps. Shouldn’t we rest for a bit?’
If you don’t mind lying down in cold blood. ‘The Spinner said we should keep going. Stopping to rest could put us in danger.’
Anassa doesn’t argue, which tells me all there is to know about how tired she is.
‘Why do you call her that?’ she asks after a bit. ‘The Spinner? Isn’t her name Clotho?’
‘Because that’s what it means; that’s what she does. The youngest of the Moirai, the one who spins the thread of human lives.’ Anassa has gone silent. ‘Why? What do you call her?’
‘I called her wicked witch, up until yesterday. One of the weird sisters three.’
‘That doesn’t sound respectful. Are your people so unafraid of Fate?’
We reach a crossroads of sorts before Anassa can answer. The tunnel splits in two: one side more spacious, brimming with something I can only call ‘blood stalactites’, the other dark, uninviting, and looking like it could barely fit us if we crawled.
‘Which way?’ she asks.
‘The left looks less dismal.’ Not that I think the easier, prettier path is the correct one.
Yet I can’t help but marvel at the sight.
The dripping, frozen blood is strangely shaped, like giant snake fangs gently caressing maidens’ heads in various poses immortalized in red.
I take a step in that direction without realizing.
The urge to go inside, touch the stalactite fangs, explore that frozen claret forest …
An eerie sound, akin to swathes of crystals chiming in the wind, akin to singing, wraps around my heart. An invitation.
Come. Your throne awaits, sculpted from stalagmites of blood, fit for the Queen of –
‘Claret, perhaps we should …’ Anassa starts, but I can barely hear her.
The chiming sound grows louder, ushering me further ahead, until I’m close enough to admire the artistry of these statues – because they must be statues.
The details are exquisite. Gorgons, giants, Hecatoncheires, all kinds of chthonic monsters crystallized in mid-movement, glittering under torchlight.
I stop short in front of a particularly life-like statue, with snakes for hair circling her head like a diadem, wings tucked around her in a gesture of protection.
She seems asleep, as peaceful as horrors like her can be.
‘What is this thing?’ Anassa asks, and I’m surprised to find her right behind me, tugging at my cloak.
‘This is an Erinya; a ruin-demon of Fate, sent to punish humans for their crimes.’
What sculptor’s hand, or god’s, would carve her likeness in a cave of blood, unseen for all eternity? Was she created just for us to gaze upon? I feel compelled to get closer. The chiming sound emanates from her, I’m sure of it, and if I could just –
Anassa’s hand finds mine, cold, small and ghostlike.
I don’t know why her touch takes me by surprise; it shouldn’t.
But when I do my best to squeeze it without letting go of my knife, the terrain changes.
The shining tunnel with the statues disappears.
So does the chiming sound. Only the smaller tunnel now remains, its dark entrance ready to devour us.
‘That settles it, then.’ How silly of me to think this world would ever throw a bone to us.
I must be losing my edge. Right before Anassa touched me, I could have sworn I saw the snakes adorning the Erinya statue’s head moving.
Another false vision, like that cat on the boulder by the beach.
I peer into our only way forward. The cursed cave’s ceiling gets much lower up ahead, its walls closing in.
I purse my lips. ‘It might be safer to continue on our hands and knees.’
With a grimace, Anassa nods. We sink to our knees, our cloaks sagging and squelching as we crawl.
I’ve half a mind to throw the thing away, but I can’t.
Tucked in the cloak’s inner lining, the key Clotho gave me grows heavier by the second, a reminder of all the things I’m not supposed to do.
The darkness of my thoughts only rivals that of the walls around us, and what with having to crawl on my elbows so that I can hold both torch and knife, I’m making slow progress.
But I don’t hear Anassa complaining … Come to think of it, I don’t hear Anassa at all.
I turn. She’s a few feet behind me, but she has stopped moving. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask, immediately regretting it. ‘Do you need help?’ I amend. Because that, at least, is feasible.
‘I … I can’t breathe.’ Her shoulders move frantically up and down, like a bird trapped in a cage that’s too small, trying in vain to make more space for its ribs and lungs. ‘I’ll drown here in the dirt, like a mole, burrowing deep and deep and deep into my own demise, won’t I? Won’t I?’
I resist the urge to sigh. Now she chooses to lose her composure?
Over a narrow tunnel? ‘Moles don’t drown in dirt, Anassa.
They find their way forward. They’re resilient creatures.
’ I wait a few breaths, trying to discern whether my words have any effect on her at all.
She seems to hear me, at least. She’s not completely lost to panic. ‘And so are we,’ I add.
Anassa nods – or maybe she trembles. It’s hard to tell; the torch’s light flickers.
‘Do you need me to come and get you?’ I can’t fully turn around or extend my hands like this, but if I shuffle back a bit, she could grab on to my cloak. Maybe that would be some small measure of comfort; a red thread to grasp, to survive this labyrinth.
Isn’t that how my ancestors did it?
‘No, I … Just stay where you are, will you? I’ll catch up, and then we can keep going.’
It takes her several shoulder-wrenching breaths, but Anassa finally reaches me.
So we keep moving, every inch forward earned with grit and sweat.
My torch-holding hand has become numb from putting all this pressure on my elbow, my fingers frozen despite their proximity to the flame.
I’ve given birth too many times to baulk under discomfort, but this continuous strain on both my muscles and my mind weighs on me.
‘Will this wretched tunnel never end!’ Anassa exclaims, echoing my thoughts.
‘Calm yourself,’ I say, turning around to look at her, to ensure she’s not consumed by panic once again. But in doing so, I miscalculate. I’m not as agile as I was even a short while ago.
My elbow slips on a slab of rock. Out of instinct, I spread my fingers open to brace myself from falling face-down in blood – but in doing so, I drop the torch. It fizzles horribly, a smell like fumes from sacrifice filling my nostrils; the smell of burning blood.
Finally, the torch goes out.
And the darkness starts to whisper.