Chapter 47 Claret #2
A river of red drips down on Shepherd’s shoulders, as the fabric that so deftly suffocated her now unweaves, expands, errant threads meeting my knife lodged in her chest and wrapping it in place.
More threads cover her hands, her legs, some finding key pendants in her necklace and plucking them out, detaching them from her body.
The golden keys fall on the floor like pollen from a flower, and are immediately snatched by ribbon snakes, who circle them protectively, slithering them away.
My own key also falls in the process, remaining unclaimed for now.
I should pick it up, maybe, but I am mesmerized by this, by this sentient series of events my actions started, the coral reef of my cloak claiming the empty rock of Shepherd’s body inch by inch.
I’m watching something monumental, the catch of a millennium, the ultimate prey for a cosmic spider to wrap a goddess tight in her web, to slowly consume as needed.
I never thought Shepherd would be the fly.
So lost I am, witnessing all this, I miss the other things that happen. It’s the sudden lack of screaming, the lack of fluttering that alerts me.
I turn, and see a scene surprisingly mundane.
The wraith that was once Hercules has disappeared.
On the floor, a battered tome remains, leathery and red, looking exactly like that thing that came out of the wraith I stabbed at sea.
I didn’t know what that object was then, but I can guess now.
This is a story; a book, Shakespeare had called it.
And Anassa, human and whole and mostly unscathed – barring some scratches on her neck and hands, some tufts of hair missing – picks it up and starts reading.
‘The twelve labours of Herakles … Herakles, son of Zeus and Alkmene, a demigod, was the strongest man alive –’ she stops.
Rolls her eyes. ‘This book exaggerates.’ Lost in her own intricate thoughts, she places the book on the table, softly, giving it a small pat.
‘He did put up a good fight. Although I wonder how much of this was his own volition, and how much was Shepherd puppeteering shadows.’
She has been mumbling to herself. ‘Anassa,’ I say, with as much softness I can muster.
My voice startles her. Eyes still on the book, she asks, quiet and hesitant, ‘Is it over? Is it done? Is Shepherd –’ But as she turns around to take in the strange sight of Shepherd, who’s still suspended in the air while my cloak’s threads finish their weaving, Anassa’s rosebud of a mouth purses in concentration.
‘No … There’s something else we need to do, isn’t there? ’
‘Gods, I hope not.’ I’m completely spent, can barely stand.
It’s a good thing I don’t hold my knife any more, because with how my hands are shaking I would only cut myself – this time by accident.
I want to lie down somewhere, anywhere, curl up amid broken earth, shards of stone and singed clay, ignore any remains of horrific slaughter, and have Anassa hold me.
But my love only has eyes for Shepherd’s mummified body, her head tilting in an extremely avian manner. Then, she scowls. ‘You can come out now. There’s no reason to continue this charade, my ravens can sense you.’
‘Anassa, who are you talking to?’
‘Well, them, obviously.’ She points to Shepherd’s head.
I blink, and three more heads emerge behind it.
‘Hand over your cloak, dear!’
‘Never fear!’
‘The end is near!’
The Moirai, humbling to behold, unfold in a triptych of light and shadow. Wizened Aisa steps out from Shepherd’s left side, motherly Lachesis from the right. And in the middle, starry-eyed Clotho lifts up her fingers over Shepherd’s head, the red threads following her obediently.
‘You … All this …’ I’m losing my ability to form coherent thoughts, full sentences.
Tiredness sinks into my shoulders like another metal rod, and I fall on the floor.
In exhaustion, or in a show of respect, who’s to say.
They hardly pay attention to me anyway, all three of them circling Anassa.
‘Your cloak, your cloak, your cloak,’ they keep saying, and I can tell my curious raven needs more time to think, to understand their machinations and use them to her advantage, but for once, I would like her to do less thinking and more obeying.
Just in case we can get out of this alive.
‘Anassa, give them your damn cloak,’ I manage, before my eyelids grow so heavy I must close them for a moment.
I force my eyes open, fighting this uncanny need to fade away. Anassa sits beside me on the floor, fiddling with both our keys, eyebrows furrowed. She doesn’t wear her cloak.
‘Have you noticed –’ she starts, but I drift to sleep again.
Raindrops fall on my closed eyelashes, on my cheeks, my lips. I hope they’re sweet like the rain in that meadow, though I don’t have the strength to taste them.
‘Wake up. And witness what you’ve done to me.’
Shepherd’s voice in my head jolts me awake.
I must have only drowsed for seconds, because the rain still falls and Anassa is still by my side, still playing with our keys, turning them this way and that.
And in front of me, the three Moirai spread out Anassa’s cloak among them.
It stretches, softens, turns pearlescent.
Chthonic night and holy light dance on a fabric that’s no longer fabric but the birthplace of new gods, new stories.
Lovingly, the three Moirai guide it under Shepherd’s bound feet, and her suspended body falls on it with a splash.
I only realize Shepherd was screaming in my head when she stops.
In silence, I sleep again. The rain has stopped.
When I wake up, my head is clear – and the world around me different.
Anassa is still beside me, but the broken floor has sprouted wheat, golden stems high enough to mingle with her hair.
I think I see a raven beak emerge, bite on a few wheat kernels, then withdraw again.
‘They’re hungry,’ she tells me with a smile.
‘Come, sleepyhead. Time to get up and finish this.’ She stands up smoothly, offers me her hand.
One of her fingers has turned black again, proof of her recent fight with that wraith, but she’s all right. Unharmed.
I grasp her hand, find my balance, then lose it again when I wrap her in a hug so tight the force of it almost has us tumbling in stalks of wheat. She laughs but pats me on the back in a way that tells me I should pay attention.
Then, her words hit me. ‘Time to finish what?’
She takes my hand and guides me forward.
We’re still in the same room as before, the remnants of the dining hall, only now nature has taken over.
The head of a broken column to the side is lost amid the golden growth.
Whatever walls are left seem liquid, permeable, like waterfalls made of spring air.
I can see beyond them a crowd gathering, towards where the chasm of the staircase used to be. Is Helene among them?
Anassa tugs on my hand, drawing my attention right in front of me. We’re standing near the spot where Shepherd’s body fell. The pool of darkness that consumed it is no more – in its place, a serene lake sparkles, its waters sky-blue and mirror-still.
And on its other side, the three Moirai stand, prismatic and transparent.
‘Welcome, daughter of Zeus and Leda.’
‘Welcome, morning spawn of The Morrigan.’
‘Behold your new queendom.’
No, I was wrong, my head is not clear. Nothing makes sense. ‘Oh, wise and inescapable three, I do believe you are mistaken. My father was Tyndareos, Anax of Sparta.’
Clotho – or is it Aisa? It’s hard to tell, their features shift quicker than I can catch them – smiles.
‘Denial doesn’t suit you, Klytemnestra. Claret.
Whatever else you choose to call yourself next.
Think on this: the cloaks we gifted you could only have protected you so far.
The rest, your refusal to die, even when death knocked on your door so many times, even when you rushed on it headfirst, comes from that little divine thunder within you.
That anger, flooding your blood, causing the world to shake …
Does that sound like the Anax of Sparta, or the Anax of all skies, the ruler of lightning, the Olympian of the weather?
You, and your sister Helene, both his spawns, both blessed with divinity.
Not a lot. Not by itself. Yet when mixed with chaos magic …
’ She lifts a starry finger towards Anassa. ‘Enough to bring forth change.’
‘That much makes sense,’ Anassa says, startling me. ‘I’ve seen Claret about to catch fire from within, turning metals hot to the touch. But,’ she adds, green eyes inquisitive as always, ‘The Morrigan was an Irish goddess. How could I be the spawn of anything but Shakespeare’s pen?’
‘Ask your ravens, child,’ responds Aisa – or is it Lachesis?
‘They chose you. That man has tapped into so many pantheons, both in his waking life and in his travels here, he often does not know what he knows. What are we in his Scottish play, us three and you yourself, if not a convoluted allegory for The Morrigan? The goddess of war and fate, bringer of death, friend of all corvid creatures?’
Anassa shakes her head but she says nothing, silently considering, consulting birds I cannot see.
I’m cut from more impatient ilk. ‘So you found an obscure spark of divinity and a potential offshoot of fate magic, chaos magic or whatever you may call it. And you bound us together, against our will or knowledge, to do what – dethrone Shepherd?’
I don’t know where my sudden insolence comes from. Perhaps they’re right about who my father was. It would be nice if I’d inherited more than bushy brows and precision with blades. I merely wish that thunderbolt had struck Shepherd sooner.
‘Seshat,’ Lachesis corrects me, ‘strayed from her purpose. She was supposed to guard stories, shepherd the written word, not smother it. Not pick and choose authors to influence, by granting them access to this realm while turning others down. And definitely not hold on to so many keys she had to make a necklace out of them, refusing stories their deserved new doors, driving them mad, eating their essence. No. Seshat held her post for too long; she did great things but also great damage. And when gods do great damage, they must be stopped – even divine threads can be cut, with some effort. Now her death will restore this world, whose marrow had been sucked dry. And thus it’s time for a new regime.
As you may have gleaned by now, this realm needs someone older than the written world to rule it.
Someone unmarred by ink, unfamiliar with books.
Someone who’ll see these stories not as stories, but as people. ’
Her words reverberate within me, settling into the inner crevasses of my mind. ‘Shepherd did struggle to control me. My era was different; we held stories in our hearts instead of on paper.’
‘Your era made the juiciest wraiths for her. She consumed so many of you …’ Aisa says, moonlight eyes gazing at the lake’s waters. ‘We nearly ran out of options.’
Anassa huffs. ‘We were not your first choice, your first attempt to depose her.’
A statement, not a question.
‘Does it matter, when you were our best one in the end? And now –’ Clotho opens her hands and the other two mirror her. ‘Behold your queendom. You can rule this place together, shape it better. Make it a refuge for lost stories, and a way station for the rest.’
‘You’re offering us Shepherd’s job.’
I’m mildly apprehensive. I thought I loved ruling Mycenae, but any joy I felt was fleeting, shallow. I would exchange it all, again, for one more night in a barn with Anassa.
I look at my raven now. She seems frustrated, trying to find the answer to a tricky riddle, her fingers dancing round a key – hers or mine, I cannot tell. ‘Does it have to be us?’ she asks, and at her lukewarm tone, her obvious hesitation, a sudden swarm of hope inhabits me.
If all they need is a spark of divinity and magic …
‘My sister, Helene, would make a great queen in my stead,’ I tell the Moirai.
‘Along with Ophelia; she’s also born from Shakespeare’s words, she also carries her own, strange water magic.
’ Or carried. But I trust the Moirai to unfurl her inner river if they need to.
‘They could be great rulers, together. They care about people more than we do. If you agree, will you let us go?’
‘Where would you rather go, you vile lady villains?’ Aisa’s voice sounds eerily like Shakespeare’s. I ignore the allusion. What she said … it’s not a no. She’s not refused us.
I turn to Anassa, grab her by the elbow, my heart thundering so fast the lake’s waters stir in circles, matching its beat. Will you run away with me, I want to ask her, will you tie your thread to mine forever, forsake all crowns? But I don’t say a single word.
Because Anassa looks at me, eyes forest-green and lips rose-red, carved in a wicked smile. ‘Where shall we go next?’ she asks, holding up a key that’s both coal-black and claret-red, a key that looks like both our keys at once. So that’s what she’d been fidgeting with … But how?
It doesn’t matter. ‘Anywhere,’ I whisper. ‘Everywhere. As long as there’s no snow.’
Anassa kisses me and I hear a click, the sound of a thousand doors unlocking.
I don’t break our kiss for what comes next. Lips still entwined, eyes still closed, her ravens lift us upward, then sink us into the waters of the lake. With her, I’d gladly drown.