by Kyle West
“What’s too much?”
“Everything just froze, and it was me all alone,” I said. “I think...I think whoever brought us here wanted me to see something. Something by myself.”
“You saw something?”
“The woman that went into the Sea,” I said. “She said her name was Anna. I think...she was Annara. I think this happened four hundred years ago.”
Fiona and Isaru exchanged a glance; it was Fiona who spoke. “You talked to her?”
I shook my head. “She spoke with the dragon, and the dragon called her Anna. The dragon’s name was Quietus.”
“I remember her saying that much,” Fiona said. “Quietus is the patron dragon of the Makai, and Queen of the Elder Dragons.”
“I remember that much, too,” Isaru said. “The last thing I remember was her talking about her mapping out everything according to the things she saw. And then...nothing.”
“Me, too,” Fiona said. “Shanti...you’re saying she continued talking, after? And that she revealed herself to be Anna?”
“Yes. She didn’t call herself that, but the dragon did.”
“If this is something that happened in the past,” Isaru said. “A vision...Anna might have been a common name, back then. Need it really have been Annara?”
“It was her,” I said. “All the things she said point to that fact. But this still can’t be real. It can’t be.”
“Why do you say that?” Fiona asked. “A vision of Annara herself during her time on Earth...it’s unprecedented. It’s the greatest revelation of the century. No, ever, in the history of the Elekai, aside from the Prophecy of Annara. Unlike the Prophecy, though, you have seen this.”
“What did she say after?” Isaru asked.
“They...talked about a lot of things that didn’t make sense.” Though I was rattled to the core, just having them both there made it easier. “They talked about Colonia. About the Ragnarok War. About Anna’s writings, and how she had to return to the Xenofold to save humanity...you really don’t remember hearing any of that?”
Isaru shook his head. “No.”
“Me neither,” Fiona said, “though it sounds like something Annara would have said...or perhaps we should call her Anna, if that’s her true name. All those pieces fit into who she was. She had fought in the Ragnarok War. She wrote the Prophecy of Annara. And in the end, she did return to the Xenofold.” Fiona’s blue eyes looked at the Sea. “Perhaps...perhaps that is what you witnessed, Shanti. Her return.”
Isaru’s gray eyes suddenly lit. “The Prophecy! Did she say where it was?”
“No,” I said. “She was only worried that it wouldn’t be remembered. That people would forget about it.”
“Well...” Isaru shook his head. “That’s happened.”
“If this is Annara,” I said, “truly her...”
The worst part I still kept to myself. They probably wouldn’t even believe me if I told them. Perhaps the fact that Anna looked like me was mere coincidence. But the likeness was so uncanny that it couldn’t be a coincidence. I knew that deep down, and I knew that was what I was being shown.
There had been my dream from before, telling me to remember. Was I supposed to remember that I was Anna? For one moment, I entertained the thought. It would explain how my parents, their parents, and any of my ancestors never had a drop of Elekai blood. It explained how I was not only Elekai, but one of amazing potential.
Fiona’s voice brought me back to reality...or at least, what counted for reality.
“Shanti...what are you thinking? What else did she say?”
“This doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“What doesn’t?” Fiona asked.
“She said the people believed she was a goddess. But she said she really wasn’t.”
“I don’t remember hearing that, either,” Fiona said.
“She mentioned someone called the Nameless One...this Nameless One said that she would have to come back alone.”
“I remember them mentioning that person,” Isaru said. “Or perhaps it’s not a person at all.”
“It sounds like a power she’s beholden to,” Fiona said. “What could the gods be beholden to?”
“What about Elekim?” Isaru asked. “Was he ever mentioned?”
“I think,” I said. “Only in the sense that Anna would be returning to him. She said she would be going home.”
That thought filled me with unease. If I truly were Anna, did that mean Elekim was my husband? But mixed in with that unease was a strange sense of comfort, as if I knew I was being protected.
No! You are not Anna.
“Maybe they weren’t gods before, but they became such when they returned to the Xenofold,” Fiona said. “We’ve forgotten the past, just as she feared. We no longer have her words to guide us, her Prophecy. She wanted us to know that a Second Darkness was coming...this Xenofall, whatever it was. We’ve remembered that much, at least, but we have forgotten everything else.”
“Quietus said that the dragons would remember if humanity didn’t, and Anna wanted Quietus to forgive humanity.”
“Quietus,” Fiona said. “The only way we can be sure is by asking her.”
Isaru and I both looked at Fiona, but it was Isaru who spoke. “Is such a thing possible? No one has spoken to an Elder Dragon since the Sundering.”
“They are still alive, though,” Fiona said. “They have to be. No dragon can die unless they are mortally injured in some way.”
“And how do we find Quietus?” Isaru asked.
Everyone was silent on that point. In the ensuing quiet, I knew I couldn’t keep back the most important part. The longer this went on, the more it would become obvious that I was holding something back. They both had to know. I was just afraid of what they would make of it.
“What is it, Shanti?” Fiona asked. “What else did you hear that we didn’t?”
I looked away, trying to gather myself for what I was about to say. Why was I shown this part alone? Did the being who brought me here want me to keep it secret? If that was the case, I didn’t completely trust it.
It was for that reason that I decided to talk and let Fiona and Isaru make sense of it.
“There was something about Anna I was keeping to myself,” I said. “It was why I was so upset when you found me.” I paused. “Why I’m still so upset. I didn’t want to say at first, because I can’t believe it myself. And yes, it happened when I was alone.”
As I paused to collect myself, Isaru and Fiona waited for me to go on.
“The voice came to me and told me to look at Anna’s face. I walked forward to look at her, but when I saw her face...” I shook my head, not wanting to go on. “She looked just like me.”
It was a long moment before either of them said anything.
“What do you mean?” Fiona asked.
“I mean just that,” I said. “It was like looking in a mirror, only she was older, by twenty years or so.”
Fiona frowned, while Isaru merely looked contemplative. “Shanti, you could just be descended from the Annajen. Maybe that’s where the resemblance comes from.”
“Almost four hundred years doesn’t explain why Shanti would look just like her,” Isaru said. “I was walking through the xen fields north of Haven once, and there was a farmer who looked just like my uncle. Same height, same face, although his was a little more worn. These things happen, sometimes. Doppelgangers.”
“You’re saying that Shanti is a doppelganger of Anna?” Fiona asked. “Doesn’t this all seem a bit unbelievable?”
“I want nothing more than to believe that what I saw was false,” I said. “Unless it was some elaborate trick, then I know what I saw. I looked just like her.”
“The Xenofold would not trick us like this,” Fiona said, after a moment. “If you saw it...you saw it.”
“Is it really so unbelievable?” Isaru asked.
Both Fiona and I looked at him. From the surprise on Fiona’s face, I could only imagine what mine loo
ked like.
“Annara...Anna...said she had to return to the Xenofold. And she talked about returning. Remember what she said about not knowing the nature of her return, whether it would be as she was at that point, or as she was twenty years before, or even as she was born? Perhaps it was that last option. Perhaps Anna has already returned. Perhaps she is standing here, right now.”
“No...” Fiona said. “It can’t be. If Shanti is Anna, there are still so many questions left unanswered. How did she end up in Colonia? How did her parents come to possess her? Why would she return as a child without her memories?” Fiona looked at me again. “I mean...are you sure it was you?”
“I looked the very same. Just older.”
“If everything Anna said was true,” Isaru said, “or unless all this is a false vision, I don’t see any alternative. I believe we have found our revelation. Anna...Annara...has returned. And what’s more...Quietus, if she exists, can confirm everything.”
Despite everything Isaru was saying, I still didn’t want to believe that. I found myself oscillating between everything making sense, and everything being completely impossible. In short, I had no idea what to think.
“Finding an Elder dragon with whom humanity has had no contact for over two hundred years...” Fiona looked at Isaru. “Should be simple, right?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Isaru asked.
“We’re not going to find a dragon,” I said. “We can’t do anything until we’re allowed out of this memory.” I looked from one to the other. “Somehow, I get the feeling we’re stuck here until we figure out exactly what’s going on. There’s another thing I haven’t said yet...the voice in my dreams told me to remember. I didn’t know what it was talking about at the time. Maybe...maybe this is what I was supposed to remember.”
“Can you remember anything from back then?” Fiona asked. “From a former life?”
I started to shake my head, but then I remembered a dream I’d had, the one where I was walking across a field of xen with a group of people, with that desperation to stop something from happening. The one with the boy and eating fruit in the grove. I had felt as if I was part of another person’s life. Anna’s life? Who was the boy, then?
“I think I might have,” I said. “At least once. In my other dream I seemed to be Anna. A vision of the past.”
“There are still a lot of missing links,” Fiona said. “You said that Anna walked into the Sea of Creation to return to the Xenofold. It would have made sense if Anna had returned from this point as well.” She frowned. “Shanti, what’s your earliest memory?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. At home in Colonia with my mother.”
“You couldn’t have been more than a young child, then,” Isaru said. “So how did you end up in Colonia?”
“That’s the great mystery,” Fiona said. “It’s impossible to figure out with the information we have now.”
“What’s more,” I said, “Isandru mentioned that Hyperborea emptied the Sea of Creation. That means it would no longer exist, unless it’s somehow been refilled between the time I was born and now.”
“Maybe you arrived out of another place,” Fiona said. “The point is, we need more information.”
“Just...stop.” I shook my head. “How do we know this isn’t some insane hallucination? Aren’t reversions supposed to be dangerous? Maybe it’s not just monsters we need to be afraid of.”
“Isandru might know,” Fiona said. “He could even believe us, and I’ll tell you why. He himself has foretold that Annara would return before the last Prince of Hyperborea passed from the Earth.”
I remembered Deanna and Aela telling me about that not ten hours ago. The thought of the outer world seemed a distant thing, almost as unreal as this reality we were facing.
“Except that prince had to have died years ago,” Isaru said.
“It’s one piece of the prophecy, at least,” Fiona said. “And it may be that the last part was metaphorical. We won’t know unless we ask him.”
“We need not find only Quietus, either,” Isaru said. “We could find the Prophecy of Annara itself. If we recovered it, wherever it is, it would provide more answers.”
“Maybe Anna could just be my ancestor,” I said. I knew I was fishing for any alternative. “Maybe it’s just taken generations for her power to manifest itself.”
“That’s highly unlikely,” Isaru said. “All of the trueborn Annajen look nothing like you. In fact, if you truly are Anna come back, that would make me your direct descendent.”
I didn’t know quite what to say to that. The thought was more than a bit startling.
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “I mean...”
“It’s shocking,” Fiona said. “If it’s this shocking for me, then I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you. We’ll hold off on conclusions for now and see what Isandru has to say.”
“It’s a commonly held belief that Annara will return,” Isaru said. “It is written in the Commentaries of Annara that her Prophecy says as much. My guess is that you were born somewhere in the Red Wild. Perhaps from the Sea of Creation itself, but not necessarily so. The challenge would be tracing your journey from the Red Wild to Colonia.”
“Born to whom?” I asked. “Did I just sprout out of the ground like a tree? I had to have had parents.”
Just saying those words made me think of my parents back in Colonia. I supposed they weren’t my true parents, but it was hard not to think of them as such.
“I need to get back to Colonia. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize, but my parents could tell me where I came from. Why I am the way I am. Perhaps they even found me, or perhaps they met my true mother...for all I know, Anna is my true mother, and I’m her daughter.”
As Fiona looked at me, I realized then that she knew nothing about my parents, or even about me. I’d just met her tonight, and for some reason that thought was alarming. It felt as if I had known her much longer.
“I’m afraid my parents might have been taken by the Covenant. Or worse.”
“Isandru, Quietus, and the Prophecy of Annara,” Isaru said. “Along with Shanti’s parents. If we find these four things, we can better complete the picture. At least, one would hope.”
I walked away from the both of them, and I could feel them watch me as I walked toward the Sea, right where Anna had been. I looked all around, but we were the only ones here.
“Show me something else, whoever you are,” I said. “If you can only communicate with memories...show me something to convince me. I need more than this.”
Nothing happened – just as I had expected. I tried to remember what Fiona had told me about Calling and symbols, but I didn’t know the symbol of the one who had summoned us.
I turned my head back. “Who do you think it was...?”
I stopped short when I saw that both of them were gone.
“No!”
I wasn’t gone so long that they could have gone far, so they must have exited the memory somehow. As I looked madly about, I saw a lone, robed figure standing by the Sea, watching me with the cowl of his hood raised.
“Isandru!”
I ran forward, but quickly I saw that this wasn’t Isandru. For one, he was shorter, smaller of frame, and if anything, older. Though it was dark beneath his cowl, his eyes were blazing orbs, brighter than even a dragon’s.
I stopped short. I wanted to ask who he was, but no words could come.
“Your friends are safe,” he said, his voice quiet but carrying. “They are outside the lake, waiting for your return.”
I found my voice. “Who are you? Are you the one who brought me here?”
The old man nodded.
I felt a sense of dread, because I suspected I knew who this was. “You are Elekim.”
“No,” he said. “But I was, once.”
He stared at me with those white orbs, as if seeing something I couldn’t.
“In another time...they called me
the Wanderer.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
THE WANDERER TALKED TO ME for what seemed hours. We stood, watching the Sea, as he revealed the secrets of the Ragnarok War which had been shrouded in mystery for hundreds of years. He talked to me the way he would have spoken with an old friend.
When he finished at last, I was surprised to see that I already knew one part of the story, except for perhaps the finer details. Elekim – a man named Alex – gave his life to bind the Radaskim Xenomind, Askala, inside the Point of Origin, which rested at the merging of the Seas of Creation and Destruction.
This Point of Origin served as the main entrance to the Xenofold, and it was the draining of the Sea of Creation by Hyperborea – the great evil Anna had predicted in her conversations with the Xenofold – that caused the Red Wild’s ecology to become imbalanced. The Point of Origin weakened, allowing entrances to the Xenofold to manifest at seemingly random points in the Red Wild, wherever enough creative ichor – the pink kind – had been gathered. Black ichor, which composed the Sea of Destruction, was volatile, and the Hyperboreans never discovered a use for it.
And so it was that the Wanderer told me of things hidden for hundreds of years, such as he had seen watching the outside world from within the Xenofold. The other gods – or, rather, the other people Anna had been friends with – Alex, Samuel, Ruth, Makara, Michael, Julian – among many others – all existed within the Xenofold, as their memories had been preserved within its network.
“He’s still alive, then?” I asked. “Alex?”
The Wanderer nodded. “Yes. He remembers you, though he fears you never will. It was my voice you heard in your dreams, only made possible because of this reversion. He spoke to you through me, hoping to show you past visions to help your memory. He...and I...still believe that those memories might be unlocked, that your promise to humanity might be fulfilled.”
“I’m not...” I shook my head. “I won’t even bother. I can’t remember anything, and I don’t want to be Anna. I am my own person, with my own memories. There’s no room for anyone else.”
“All the same,” the Wanderer said, “you cannot run from who you are. All of us here in the Xenofold...all whom I’ve told you about...Makara, Michael, Samuel...have remained, ready to lend our power when Xenofall comes again. You left us to fulfill your promise to the world seventeen years ago. We’d have joined you, but we were barred.”