Chapter 10, The wolf road
It was a forced sleep. I was in shutdown. I know not for how long. While I was there I remained numb. And I met a ghost again.
“You told me not to fear him.”
“He did you no harm.”
“He knew what was going to happen.”
“But I did not, I'm so sorry Annabel.”
“I don't trust you.” And then I threw her out of the dream. I fell at terminal velocity through a thousand worlds, I developed every super power imaginable and then I lost them. I cured every ill and replaced them with more, when I landed it was upon broken glass, the ground was slick beneath my feet, out of which I could feel the shards protruding. I look up at the planetary graveyard above me, my mind explodes as the worlds fall like old grey rain.
I am in a cage. Of old wood, built for an animal. Tight leather straps hold my prison in place, it hangs from long bars which two of my captors are carrying, one in front and one behind. The dogs pad along next to me, they pay me the occasional snarl, they smile at me, pieces of my friend still linger in their mouths, sinews lodged between canine cutters, the parts that did not wash out with the blood.
Things look no better, this is a new kind of light, this is the start of the day which I can no longer separate from the night. This is the part where I realise, when a part of me grows up. This is hopelessness.
Each and every footstep thunders in a slow motion machine, lumbering through the forest the demon-giant-humans laugh and taunt. Now I can see their features more clearly, now I can see the colours of their eyes, now I can see their scars and the thickness of their hair. Now I can see all of the facets which should have made them more human to me, but they are not, they are dogs among dogs.
It is an uncomfortable ride, carried by reluctant slaves inches above the dirt. Every now and then I catch the gaze of one of my captors, every time I regret doing so. Though a part of me wants to squeeze my eyes shut forever, another part realises that the number of waking moments I posses may be rapidly diminishing. These may be the last things I ever see, I should watch for the sake of watching.
They stop at times to take on water or feast on meat from their backpacks. I do not know what it is they eat, but I refuse every morsel scornfully offered through the bars. I am cold, the steadily marching spring does not heat the land in the way I have come to expect, this will be a cold year.
The day is half dead when an argument ensues up ahead. It stops short our passage. I am dumped to the floor with a bang, a few more tiny bruises to add to my collection.
There are over a dozen of them in total. Most of them mill about, not wanting to walk into the epicentre of the debate up ahead. I can see the man with the boils on his face, he has a knife out, he gestures with it in the air, he angles it in my direction many times. I can see army man shaking his head, but each shake seems slightly less convincing, as if his enthusiasm for the disagreement is waning.
Then a breeze touches the forest. It winds its way down from the two men at the front of the party. It carries no scents that I can tell. What it carries are words, snippets of their conversation which up until now eluded me.
“Didn't say anything...enjoying her...punishment”
“If he...out...worse than...”
“Her fate...death...matter the state....when she dies...”
“On...head...it”
“Gladly...Sutton...she'll....squeal...” finished the man with the boils. He looks at me then. I tremble and force myself as far back against the bars of the cage as possible, as if the few extra inches it gives me will make a difference.
He stalks towards me down the straight forest path. He licks his lips, the tip of his pale tongue brushes against the boils and pockmarks about his mouth. Oh god no, please, please no.
He reaches the cage, the knife goes down towards the leather straps.
“Stop.”
Cold air ripples across everything. After it has passed, after the word, it all stops, the heartbeats, the rushing blood, the sounds and the movements. It is a voice; that must be obeyed. It does not command, it simply speaks and alters reality.
Once the cold passes, once I regain some semblance of motion, I look beyond the man with the boils. I look to the front of the pack, beyond the army man. And I see him, for the first time. A statue, black of cloak, skin so pale it makes a mockery of the winter snow. His long flowing hair is black as the shadows ore, seven feet he stands, or maybe more. Here is a true giant, a true colossus, a true arbiter.
He says nothing more. He is patience personified. His hands are lost within the many folds of the long dark cloak. He stands and stares, he does dare forth from them a response that he is more than willing to wait for. Eventually they draw breath again, eventually they summon the ability to posture, to speak back. Though they must know, every word spoken after hearing the voice of the raven, is a lowly sound that's just not worth saying.
“Begone, begone raven” shouts the army man. The statue moves slightly, only ever so slightly, just one eyebrow, raised in curiosity more than anything else.
“This is a wolf road” squeaks the man with the boils moving to the front of the pack, “You know this, you know the rules.”
Again the eyebrow lifts, and again he blesses us with the voice, the cold, metallic relentless voice which exudes such raw, uncompromising power.
“It intrigues me, to hear you speak so, you have been under his sway for such a short time, you know so little of the dynamics that govern us. You seek to quote rules to me, even as you break them yourselves, you have been poorly schooled my lost children, and I think that a lesson is in order.”
“You couldn't raise a hand against us last time, and you won't do so now” shouts the army man. The rest of the pack have been moving. Getting themselves into positions behind trees, whips have been traded for guns, I feel the fear that had been banished by the voice return, there are too many of them.
“Last time was long ago as far as today is concerned, you've drunk from his cup now, you've felt the taint, and now you must be cleansed” spoke the raven.
“You wouldn't dare” shouted army man. At this the raven smiled, and it was a beautiful thing to behold. “Let us see” he said. Like a snake a silver cannon snapped from beneath his cloak, it spoke in a booming voice, the man with the boils exploded. His head, boils and all, erupted in a bloody spray.
The guns of the dark men answer, but by then the dance is joined, and I am about to discover that my colossus is a rare and sublime talent.
Army man dives off into the bushes as the raven runs forward. He jumps, ten, twenty, thirty feet through the air. Their guns are shooting at empty space, they take aim at nothing. As he flies over the top of the cage he looks down at me, I am lost in in those eyes, they are the night sky without the stars, but no less mesmerising, no less absorbing and daunting.
Another silver cannon flashes from the cloak. In unison they boom even as he sails over the top of me. Bark splinters, trees shatter and spray across the path. Then he is in amongst them. The cannons club and lash, faces cave in under the force of his headbutts, ribcages shatter as his knees arc into them. He is the weapon. Their guns fire uselessly. Some of them try to run in, to punch and kick at their assailant, they are fools.
Then a dead man falls against the cage, illusions shatter. I grab a knife from his belt, I ignore the stench of him as I cut at the leather thongs, the cage falls apart. I am free, and then I do what I have done best this whole time, I run, I run like the last wind flees the world ending.
Behind me the battle continues, behind me evil men die as the raven cleanses them, I cannot call him good, I can but call him death incarnate, I can but name him justice.
Through trees that are similar by the dozen, I run up on to a high ridge. The gunfire is less frequent behind me now. I come upon a rocky outcrop. There is graffiti on it. Slang and slogans, the tags of teenage whimsy, the children of the old world played here once. They painted their imagined names
on the rocks, thinking that the name along with the youth it personified would last forever. How wrong they were, for every generation ends, and each new one begins as if they were the pioneers of humanity, of emotion, of need. There would be no more pioneers, no more adventurers, no more children of mankind would see this rock again.
A hand grabs me from behind, a knife touches my throat. I look up. It is the army man. He has spared himself through cowardice. I do not blame him. I would not want to fight the raven either.
He starts to pull me up towards a cave in the rock face. His knife is cold, but I know it's felt heat before, it has felt life rush over it. He stops as he sees the raven.
Hearts beat slowly.
Predictions will not rescue me. But they are all I have.
I expect cannons. Long barrelled silver blessings.
I expect the silence to be broken by them and them alone. But he does not move, my raven has become a statue again, he stares, with the calm curiosity that only one such as he can can muster. Army man tenses, the knife pushes ever so slightly against my throat, the tiniest trickle of blood seeps forth, I know it, I am in it, I can feel it as it coils down the serrated edge of the blade.
Then he speaks again.
“Annabel” says the raven. Coarse fingers grip my hair. I am the rocks and the dirt beneath my feet, I am the world, I am alive as he says my name.
“Yes,” says I, feeling liberated at throwing my voice out there into the same arena as his. He smiles again.
“Kill him.”
Echoes. The words echo. Peace, peace I feel. I see myself, I see my mind, I see the me I never get to see. I am in a wide clearing, there is snow all around me. I can see my parents, they smile, I can see Raj and Lucy, I can see all the people of the old world beyond the clearing, beyond the snow. But in front of them, standing in the snow before me is the raven, my calm colossus, my protector.
Finally the words stop rolling around inside my head. Finally all the veils are blown away, finally I understand. I close my eyes to everything except my will. I imagine tiny orange particles, glowing within my blood.
They float up out of me, the float along my hair, from the pores of my skin, they tumble and weave out of my blood. They snake their way around the knife and the hands of the army man, they climb ponderously up his arm. They reach his neck, his cursed neck. Still they move, they curl through the air until they reach his head, they push through his skin and into his mind, that is what I am interested in.
I show him, I show him all that I have seen, I allow my fear to roll into him a thousand fold, I read to him the words of the book of Atticus Faraday, my mind sits down with his mind, I make him understand before the end. And then my thoughts, turn to fire, hotter than the sun, than all the stars combined, the kind of heat that comes only from the heart. The kind of fire that leaves no ash. I let them wash over us both, I let the flames do their work.
I open my eyes and walk down to the raven. I do not look back, but I see it all the same, the smouldering remains in the cave behind me.
Lucello takes my hand in his, we walk down through the forest, into the future, together.
Of the Shadows Own Accord (The Green and Pleasant Land, Volume 3) Page 10