Chapter 43 Anassa
We fly to our dusty death, like the Fates whispered, or ordered, using these words as compass.
Dusty death, dusty death, dusty death. We fly blind, frantic, half burning – and then our flight is finished.
A destination has been reached, unwittingly, like an unseen wall cutting up the unseen sky, forcing us to retreat.
Regroup. Become less than we are, so that we can do more.
It’s disorienting, the re-becoming of oneself.
My flock converges into shape, my shape, shackling itself into two hands, two feet, and two entirely unimpressive points of sight.
We blink, we settle. We are me again, though I can feel them, just beneath the skin, feathers itching to burst out.
I stumble on two feet and someone catches me.
Will.
‘You’re here!’ Is that relief or disbelief in his voice? ‘We thought we lost you in that wretched world of yore.’
I look around, trying to understand where we are.
This is the sitting room Shepherd first confined me in, with its ink-black mortar on the walls and its views to the rose garden – but the whole wall in front of me, the one that used to hold the fireplace, has collapsed.
And through the ruins I see other structures, other people.
They seem frazzled. Their skin and hair and clothes are caked with clay, as if a cannon has bombarded them with brick dust. Some have cuts on their arms, their legs, their faces, blood flowing almost onyx underneath the grime.
The way to dusty death … Isn’t that what the Fates said?
‘What happened here?’ I croak, my human throat struggling to contain corvid multitudes.
‘Well …’ Will’s face looks different, and it takes me a second to understand why.
His wounds have nearly healed, only the smallest scar blooming by his mouth, where Lulach’s signet ring hit him.
‘I’m not entirely certain, but I think you happened,’ Will says, touching the broken wall in front of us.
‘Don’t be absurd. I can’t have caused any explosions, this clearly looks like cannons –’
He sighs. ‘Shepherd’s kingdom is a precarious place, only safe for as long as she stays in power.
And what is power but perception? Perception that you smashed, may I add, as surely as that wall, when you showed it’s possible to move across this world’s proverbial spine, find its index, flip to the chapter of your preference.
You weakened the material foundations of this realm with your rebellion. ’
‘And you followed suit to fetch us, feeling responsible.’
‘Yes, well, I know better now. To stop you would be trying to tame a tempest. You are your own, majestic creature, more akin to her than me.’ He points ahead.
In an opening amid the ruins, like a dais made of rubble, sits Shepherd on a giant pillow.
Human, but oozing feline grace, legs tucked underneath her, gold pendants sparkling – though I see some darker spots here and there.
She seems to be narrating something, a sweet story of survival for all the people gathered round her.
They look at her, rapt, grateful. And by her feet, on stairs that once led somewhere, sits Gruoch.
It all comes back to me: the cell, the subterfuge, the almost sacrifice.
‘What is she doing here?’ I demand, raven claws prickling from beneath my skin like thorns, eager to gouge her eyes out.
‘Who? Ah,’ Will spots her, nodding sagely.
‘Yes, I suppose Gruoch isn’t a story character per se – although who’s to say if Holinshed’s recounting of the era didn’t embellish facts just enough for fiction to seep through?
And who’s to say whether our great Shepherd doesn’t offer shelter to historical figures as well, even if they’ve been depicted truthfully in chronicles?
These are written words too, you understand; it’s fascinating really –’
‘Yes, fascinating,’ I agree, only half listening. Because Will’s explanations do not matter. Yes, Gruoch isn’t a story – and neither is he. Yet they’re both here, because Shepherd wanted it so.
Therefore, I ask what matters.
‘Where’s Claret?’
‘Where is Claret …’ Will repeats my question slowly, leaning on the broken wall in front of us. ‘We were travelling together, weren’t we? And we went to that Scottish castle …’ He scratches his chin, fingers lingering next to his mouth, where his new scar is.
His frown unsettles me. ‘You’re asking me? This just happened! How can you not remember? We just discussed Gruoch.’
Will blinks. ‘Apologies, my lady. Time here has a funny habit of stretching like taffy; I’m never sure whether I’ve lingered for a moment, or an eternity.
And that drab castle had all the markings of a nightmare.
I remember being certain I was going to die …
and something about black birds?’ He narrows his eyes at me.
‘No, that can’t be, how preposterous. People transforming into birds …
What’s next, spirits turning into harpies?
Ha ha, not even Marlowe would consider writing such unhinged lunacies …
But no matter, Shepherd saved us, and at a great cost as you can see. ’
I want to scream and grab him by the shoulders, shake his memories loose.
But something tells me it won’t work; the man I travelled with, the man who managed to become my friend, already feels half gone, a dream forgotten upon waking.
He has reverted to calling me ‘lady’, instead of Anassa or ‘villainess’.
So I try a gentler hand. ‘Claret was with you when you crossed over, Will. With you and Shepherd and Gruoch. And Shepherd and Gruoch are right there, see? And you are right here. So where –’
Everything quakes. The wall Will was leaning on shakes, then collapses. A piece of ceiling falls behind me, crushing the table where we once drank aqua vitae. The sudden change in my surroundings stuns me. Could we have really caused all this? All this damage?
Will rushes to me. ‘Are you all right? We must hurry, get closer to Shepherd. She’s trying to mend this world, but while she does her proverbial stitching, we’ll be safer by her side.’ He takes my hand, leading me out of the wreckage, and I let him.
As we exit what I once considered an impenetrable fortress, lined with vindictive spirits in the brickwork ready to strangle me for escaping, it dawns on me that this is better.
Chaos – but also freedom. We step through trampled doors and broken arches, through remnants of architecture both ancient and recent, alien and familiar, and reach a crowd of people gathered in the opening ahead.
So many people! It’s like being back in Elgin, or Tomnavoulin; they’re all huddled together, regardless of attire or looks.
Roman helmets next to fur caps next to beautiful coiled hair, colourful scarves and turbans next to strange conical green hats, beastly antlers, crowns made of ice …
All from different storyworlds, they must be.
If the circumstances were different, I could have enjoyed learning more about them.
Now they’re just obstacles on my way to Claret.
Yet her old place should be somewhere here, too.
I strain my neck, trying to see amid the madding crowd.
There, maybe? Near a half-broken column.
Blonde hair, pinned in elaborate design.
Claret’s supposed sister … What was her name?
I mean to go to her, ask her about Claret, when another earthquake stops me in my tracks.
Will pulls at my hand. ‘We must go to Shepherd for safety,’ he repeats.
He looks feverish, hypnotized. Then I realize he’s not the only one; every single face around me has that same sheen, like their breaths have been caught by religious fervour, like they’re about to experience a rapture.
And the obvious culprit licks her sharp teeth, stretching her crime-coloured mouth in a feline smile. ‘My children, do not worry, you are safe with me,’ Shepherd croons, and I can feel my ravens shifting, demanding to be let out, peck at her lies until there’s nothing left.
‘These are trying times, but we will persevere. Find your people; stay with them. Don’t stray far from –’ She flinches, head twitching.
Interesting. I study her golden-freckled cheeks, scrunched up in unseen annoyance or pain, the way the malar stripes under her eyes quiver, as if she’s also struggling to contain her power.
As if she holds a secret battle, while she speaks, and she’s not winning.
This gives me a demented, desperate hope.
My gaze strays to Gruoch for a bit, her previous bloodthirst now wrapped in the same ecstatic puzzlement as everyone else, drinking in Shepherd’s presence.
I don’t know what to feel about this woman, so like me and yet not.
She tried to kill us, in the most convoluted way possible, because she thought a spirit told her so.
Yet how can I judge her, when I would have done the same?
What chthonic spirits wouldn’t I willingly invoke, what war and death and plague wouldn’t I unleash upon the world, if someone had killed Claret?
If I hoped my actions, villainous as they may be, could bring her back?
I haven’t stopped searching for her even now, cursing her smaller stature that makes it impossible for her to stand out in the pulsing crowd like her sister does.
I see something red further back and my breath catches – but no, it’s neither her cloak nor her hair.
Merely a stain on a ghostly wall, the palm print of some wounded person, most likely.
Shepherd resumes her speech. We are advised to stay calm, to talk only to those we know, to be wary of wraiths. Remain in the square, while she works to rebuild our world. If we’re approached, given a key, take it calmly and walk to our assigned door.
That excites the crowd – but I see trepidation in people’s expressions, too.