Anna von Wessen (26 page)

So weary and weak did Anna feel, in that moment, she could hardly work to fix fast the barrier which shielded her thoughts. Vaya felled it all in an instant, and viewed everything there; much as if we ourselves were able to touch our fingers to the cover of a book, and thereby ingest all of its information into our brains, without ever once even opening to the first page.

Anna was made almost frantic by the loss of her guard. But as her eyes began to widen, and she thought very much of shifting away, Vaya only smiled, and moved the hand which lay against her cheek, to take her whole face into its gentle grasp.

“You think I would betray you?” she asked softly.

“I know not, Vaya, what you will do.”

“Then you know much less than I had hoped.”

It seemed so very like . . .

“It’s so cold,” Anna whispered, as she turned her face away.

“The night is very mild,” Vaya answered. “But then, you are very ill. Wait for me a moment.”

In an instant she disappeared; and the pillow which had been her thigh, was lost to Anna’s throbbing head. It was a very small number of minutes, though, before she returned.

“I am thinking of the place I wish to take you,” she said. “Follow me there.”

They shifted together from the lonely heath, and into a spot of moonlit earth, just past the boundary of the forest. Anna noticed an assortment of articles scattered about, the lot of which Vaya had no doubt deposited there, before she came back to Anna.

“But what do we do in this place?” Anna asked, as the thick boles of the trees swam like dancing blades of grass before her eyes, and spun up and away into the blackness of the sky.

“Here,” said Vaya, “I will do what I can to mend you. Then I will take you home.”

“Home!” Anna cried, her voice drifting broken and mournful through a ghostly mist, which was coming slowly to settle down in the in-between place: the sublunary nothingness that lies above the earth, and below the sky. Anna took a moment to ponder this place; and understood it very well, she thought, all in a moment. First came the ground; then the air, which consists of earthly sky; and then the heavens, which spread in a vast vault to consume all that lies without. Once one had managed to reach Heaven, however, it was conceivable that they could contrive to reach directly above their head; and thence dig their fingers into the soil of their mother planet, as if it were only one large circle, cycling itself round and round again, so that everything was a part of everything else, and nothing was meaningless.

The buried dead could be said to ascend; but also they could be said to sink, down and down till they fell into the very lap of God Himself. If the sinking souls were not damned, then certainly they had nothing to fear of the Black Prince, and his own desolate wasteland, which lay beneath all else which existed in the universe. Pure and shining souls might fall from their graves, and never concern themselves with tumbling down into his nether regions. They would pass them over as if they were invisible. Black souls,
on the other hand – well, surely those would fall only a very little distance, till they dropped into the raging fire.

Anna snapped up suddenly, as if coming awake. She began to scream, there beneath Vaya’s hand, and in the midst of the dark and silent forest. She imagined that she could feel the flames, searing her very skin.

But whence came such terrible and inexplicable thoughts? Surely she had never entertained them before – at the very least not consciously. Perhaps she had dreamt them; we
know
she had dreamt them. Perhaps they had been there just as long as she herself had been, waiting patiently in a shadowed corner, and looking to the day when they would finally be freed. 

Came there freedom, then, from such thoughts – or merely misery?

“Anna!” Vaya exclaimed. “Anna – what is it?”

“Do you see it?” Anna cried, clinging fearfully to Vaya’s hand. “Do you see the flames?”

“The flames! Whatever are you talking about?”

All in a moment the horror vanished; and the waking nightmare was ended. Anna forgot instantly about the Heaven she had never pondered, and lost sight entirely of the underworld she had never believed, so that only the earth remained. Even that faint white mist above her head, even that was beginning to separate – like a great translucent curtain, between the panels of which she could view the sparkling stars.

XXVI:

The Shadow Curtain

I
n the light of the high quarter moon, Vaya worked tirelessly to facilitate, just as best she could, Anna’s repair. Soon, at any rate, she was cleaned of blood, dressed in fresh garments, and in a goodly amount less of pain than she had been.

When Vaya had done all she was able, she helped Anna back to the castle, and propped her up carefully in her bed. Anna watched her helplessly, as she lingered by her side, with no apparent intent to depart. She was at the same time terrified and angry, as she thought of how Vaya had pierced with such little heed through the sacred veil which covered her mind. By now, of course, she had recovered full use of her faculties, and was striving with all her might to keep Vaya from her thoughts. But the mere idea of such a deed done in the first place, soon brought the anger out of proportion with the terror, by threefold at the very least. She trembled with rage, and screamed for Vaya to go.

But Vaya did not obey. Rather she leant only closer to Anna, and smoothed the damp hair back from her brow. “Do you really wish me to go?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Truly?”

“Yes!”

Hard as she tried, however, Anna could not keep the tremor from her voice. “Even more than I hate what I’ve become,” she said softly, with a persistent hiccough in her chest which rendered her speech rather uncomfortable, “I hate that you’ve seen.”

“Would you hate it so much, if I offered you something in return?”

Anna averted her eyes, and shook her head miserably.

“If I swore I would aid you, in any way I could?”

Reluctantly, Anna looked back to her. “And how could you do that?” she asked sullenly.

“I rather think,” said Vaya, “that I understand what is happening to you.”

“By all means, then – enlighten me!”

“Certainly I will. I swear you a solemn oath. But tonight you are not well – and tonight you are too unhappy. Tonight let us talk of something else.”

“Something else!” Anna exclaimed, with a laugh which was tinged half with scorn, and choked half with grief. “What else could there possibly be?”

Vaya bent still nearer to Anna, but took her up also into the strength of her arms, to hold her for a moment to her breast. Her cheek pressed against Anna’s, and her soft hair fell a little into Anna’s face, so that the motion was infinitely comforting, as Anna laid her head down upon her shoulder.

But she was quick to pull away. “No,” she said, as she fought just a little to disentangle herself from Vaya’s embrace.

“Why, Anna?”

“I can’t.”

“
Why?
”

With her face torn half away, and her palms pressed defensively against Vaya’s shoulders, Anna simply shook her head. “How do I know?” she whispered. “How do I know you are not making the same mistake – making the same mistake again?”

Vaya smiled gently, and looked very earnestly into Anna’s eyes; and though they no longer served as portals into the depths of Anna’s being, still they seemed to show Vaya something, so that she laughed softly, and with almost a note of bitter pain.

“Little as I begrudged Krestyin his happiness,” she began (with what seemed a mountain of weight fallen upon each and every word, so that they came from her lips fiercely ardent, and soaked with a kind of fragrant truth, as if her own dead heart were indeed quite as moist as a human one; and the words had been wrung sharply through it, before they were given leave to fly), “little as I regretted all I gave him – still I would not make the same mistake twice. It begs a price too dear.”

“Then keep it!” Anna shouted. “Oh, why won’t you just keep it? I never asked so much of you!”

“If you won’t take it,” said Vaya, very firmly and matter-of-factly, “then I
will
keep it here for you – and when in time you change your mind, you need only reach for it.”

Anna sighed heavily, and let her head fall to Vaya’s chest. “But I need you now,” she murmured, with a multitude of tears dripping down from her eyes.

“Then you shall have me now,” said Vaya.

She laid Anna down against the pillows, and followed so that their two foreheads pressed together, and each of their faces seemed to mirror the precise sentiments of the other. Anna closed her eyes, and gripped Vaya’s hands in her own.

For a little all was quiet – quiet as the midnight embrace which is sneaked in the gloom of the graveyard. But soon Anna heard something like a buzz of chatter, voices all mixed up together, and for that reason entirely unintelligible. It drew nearer and nearer, however, till there came something of sense into the whole of it; and with a start, and an accompaniment of images to the sound, she began to realise what she bore witness to.

“It is only fair,” said Vaya, “that you should see of me, exactly what I saw of you. Look for yourself, Anna. See that I speak the truth.”

Fairly overwhelming was the magnitude of thoughts which passed in procession, then, before Anna’s closed eyes. In less than a moment, she viewed the struggle and complexity of centuries past; and was so very wearied by the activity, that she fell back even farther, and required that Vaya move continually nearer to her, so that they should not fall apart.

All of Vaya’s years flew past in a dizzying whirl – but very soon there came the collection of the recent past, much of which Anna could recognise, as having seen it already with her very own eyes. But then there were sounds, and the shifting, floating spectres of late-night thoughts, the majority of which had passed like a screaming caravan through Vaya’s mind in the depths of the darkness. Some of these thoughts were varied, and had to do with the great bitterness of buried years, which she was never entirely able to rid herself of; but the greater part of them, Anna noted (with, as you can imagine, a significant amount of shock), only concerned her own self. There were questions, whispers and shrieks; half-composed answers, doubts and sureties. There were many questions, and many doubts – but only one surety, it seemed.

Linked now with the stream of Anna’s consciousness, Vaya stood by as a spectator, all the time these observations were being made. “Do you see now?” she asked. “Do you see?”

The curtains of shadow had fallen away from their minds, and lay by fluttering as if in the remnants of a passing breeze, while Anna’s and Vaya’s souls came closer together (if, as we asked of ourselves before, souls the Lumaria do indeed possess) with every moment that passed. The mingled tide of two beings, rushing down like a mighty river, caused Anna to struggle for breath, as her heart pounded powerfully and painfully in her chest. Vaya moved to lay a hand upon it; and very soon it began to be still.

Anna looked wonderingly into Vaya’s face. They held one another’s eyes for a long while, much as they held in their arms each the other, with every atom and fibre flowing fast between.

“Do you wish you had not seen?” Vaya asked, very seriously; and a little fearfully.

“On the contrary,” Anna whispered with a smile. “I only wish there was more.”

“You will be mine, Anna?”

She paused; and seemed, in that moment, utterly stricken with terror. “If you won’t,” she went on, “then I cannot live anymore.”

“Hush now,” said Anna, as she brought Vaya down to lie beside her. She watched her face, for a little, in the pale moonlight; and then moved to kiss her mouth. “It will all be different now – you’ll see.”

With Vaya lying so near, her lips pressed fast to her own, and her hands clutching fervidly at the cloth of her raiment, she felt no more fear. She forgot her troubles, and all the pain she had known that night. There was no pain, now – and it all seemed, indeed, as if it would never ache again.

But that is the normal mode of thinking, when we are joyful. We must needs understand that the pain will come, that it will come much worse than its last; and then we need only ask ourselves, if the joy will outweigh the sorrow.   

Part the Third

Episode V

XXVII:

The Spider-Web

A
nna woke to the press of Vaya’s lips against her forehead; but was immediately thereafter startled by a knock at the door. Before she could so much as rise to answer it, the door flew forward in a burst, as if forced by some violent wind.

The wind, however, was quick to show itself. Anna was very surprised to see no less than Ephram, standing at the foot of her bed, and gazing at her with eyes very clear and intent. Why he looked at her this way, she could not fathom; for Vaya had vanished, and there was naught left in her place but rumpled, tangled sheets. Neither was there a flush upon Anna’s cheeks, or even a beat in her heart. Her breath had ceased once more; there was not a shiver of movement in the hollow behind her breastbone; her hard skin was just as cold – and just as white – as an Arctic cloud. All evidence of her many lacerations was erased as though by magic. So why did Ephram stare as he did? Anna merely watched him curiously, waiting for him to speak.

“There seems something of a mystery taking place today,” he said finally. “A mystery in which you play the central part. I come to discuss it with you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you not? Well, I shall explain it to you. Early this morning one of Filipovic’s comrades came to me. It seemed he wished to lodge a complaint against you. But when I demanded details of your offence against
him
– well, he would not answer me honestly. Therefore I went to the servants, thinking that, by some chance, one of them might have seen or heard what passed. Surely the Lumaria would have no desire to tell me; so I thought, perhaps the Narken would. And indeed, I did find one who claimed to have witnessed the event. He told me that you met with Filipovic, and a small band of his companions, while you walked with Greyson Menuch. He said that you stopped, only after Filipovic had spoken offensive words towards your back; that you turned round, and offered him a chance for reparation. They only spoke further, the Narkul told me, in the direction whither they had already begun. You moved nearer; and he who is called Severyk moved to strike you. You returned blows, and departed after your enemies had surrendered.” He paused, and looked into Anna’s face. “Is this the way things fell?”

“Yes,” Anna answered slowly.

“Then why did you not come to me directly?”

“I wanted not to trouble you.”

“Ah! Probably that is so. But you need understand, Anna, that you must always come to me – always, when there is anything at all that I should know. You see?”

“Yes, Ephram.”

He gave a soft sigh, and sat down at the edge of the bed, from which position he proceeded to look only harder into Anna’s face. “Most likely it is nothing,” he said, “but you should know that Severyk tells me different. It was he who came to me this morn.”

“I thought you said he told you nothing.”

“He did not tell me everything. But he did say, that it was you who dealt the first blow towards Filipovic.”

“That is a lie.”

“Ah! Of course I thought so. After I returned from the servants, however, to speak once more to Severyk – I could not find him anywhere. I daresay you have not seen him since last night?”

“Not at all.”

“Ah. Of course I thought so.”

He looked towards the grey window, and added, “But it does not seem very well for you, Anna, to have exercised your superior strength over them so injudiciously. You meant to teach them something of a lesson, that I understand – but to go so far as nearly to remove Filipovic’s head! It seemed hanging by the thinnest thread, when Teo went to him. The castle shall receive that information as a strike against your honour, surely you must know that.”

“I only got a little carried away,” Anna replied confusedly.

“You are developing something of an unfortunate reputation for yourself, my darling girl,” Ephram continued. “Do you know that?”

“I’m sure I didn’t.”

“Your name seems now to be uttered in company with naught but painfully remembered events. Though not one of them could plausibly be considered as offences within themselves – seeing as I myself did pardon you for them – still they mix a bitter brew with all these other misdemeanours. None have forgotten that it was you who had to do with Vaya’s awakening –”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Anna interrupted.

“Ah! But Greyson Menuch did! They all laugh behind your back, because you pledge allegiance to Greyson the Fool.”

“I care nothing at all for their laughter.”

Without hesitation, and without pause for thought, Ephram went on again, as though he had not heard her.

“Again,” he said, “it is not something which is anything, while standing on its own – but atop everything else! Everyone has learnt, by now, of the precise nature of Captain Nim’s disappearance; and it serves only to make fouler what taste you have left in their mouths.”

“Probably it does.”

“And you have made, as you are doubtless aware, a fierce enemy of Ari. Though I do not hesitate to inform you that I’ve no respect for her opinions, still you must know that there are many who do. Always she has worked tirelessly to poison others against you. Now she will have the aid of Filipovic!”

“But can you not with a single word end her aspersion?”

“How can I?”

“You are my father,” Anna said simply. “You are the King! Put an end to it. Make an end of them both!”

“You know very well I cannot! Surely you above all others understand – above all others save Vaya Eleria – the terrible measures I have been forced to take, on account of the bad behaviour of my children. You understand what these hands have done!”

He held them towards her, with something of a cruel smile upon his mouth. “And when Valo steps wrong,” he added, “I must correct him! How, Anna, can I do different with you?”

“You hardly love Valo as you love me.”

“That is beside the point!”

He was quiet for a long moment, seeming to think.

“Valo tells me that you have been quarrelling again,” he said finally.

“A quarrel?” Anna repeated, almost amused. “Is that what he calls it?”

Ephram said no more as to that; but he leapt like a shot to his feet, and bounded to the door in a single stride. “I come to you,” he said, “only as a father does come to his child, when he worries for her safety. And I warn you, Anna, because I love you so. If you continue on in this way – for whatever reason you do it, whether to aggrieve Valo or no, I know not – you must understand the full truth of what will become of you. When this looming war draws nigh, perhaps I will be slain, by no less than Wolach himself. Then Valo will be King. Wolach would have it that way. By himself he would lose everything; and if you only go on to destroy what you have already spoilt – well, Ari herself will be Queen, and very probably you and Vaya shall be banished to the wild lands. Then all hope is gone!”

He quit the chamber without another word. Anna sat long looking after him, as though she could still see him there in the empty space beside the door, with his face changing rapidly from grief to fury, and back again.

~

She sat thinking long into the afternoon, wondering at the mismatched clusters of information which Ephram had brought to her. None of it seemed to make a jot of sense. So she simply sat, thinking and thinking; till finally she realised that she would gain nothing by it, and that she must go and seek the answers for herself.

She shifted into the corridor where Filipovic’s chamber stood, and knocked without hesitation at his door. She was beckoned forth by a harsh, croaking voice.

She pushed open the door and stepped into the room. The place was bathed in full darkness, with the heavy drapes drawn across every window; and in the midst of all Filipovic lay upon his bed, moaning softly. Anna threw open a single pair of curtains, and stood looking without pity at his writhing form. Ever and anon he put a hand to his throat, which was all sewn together with thick black thread.

“Since I did not give you that wound,” Anna said to him, “I am very curious to know how it was put there.”

Filipovic glared at her, his ice-blue eyes glittering viciously. But at present it seemed he could only lie silent. Anna looked scathingly into his ugly face, so much more detestable now, with its skin blanched white as bismuth, and what appeared as thin, dark, spindle-like cracks zigzagging upwards from the tear in his throat. They were like the splits which are formed in the earth, when an earthquake begins to rent it apart. They would look as they did for a long while, till the wound at the neck was healed, and there was no more risk of its separating from the body. Even now Anna was horribly tempted to step forward, and to tug apart the stitches so that the head rolled away.

“You were wiser than we,” Filipovic murmured finally, with a hand ever held to the moving skin at his neck. “To have left the fight so soon. Probably I should be grateful – for there is little doubt that you would have killed us all. But still, your efforts were placed in vain, it seems – for Ephram thinks you responsible for my present condition.”

Anna had no desire to talk in circles with him; so she asked abruptly, “What has become of Severyk?”

“I took his head myself – and buried it in the depths of the forest.”

“Why?”

“He went to Ephram. I wanted this matter kept quiet, you see –” (he tightened his grip upon his throat, and groaned) “– because I intended to blackmail you.”

“Well! I suppose it’s too late for that now.”

“Of course it isn’t.” He flashed a malicious grin, which more than compensated for the volume and rage which his broken voice could not hold. “Ephram knows nothing of the Narkul. He knows not that
you
began our little disagreement – merely for the benefit of a flea-bitten wolf! What do you think he would do, if he knew?”

“He would not believe you.”

“He wouldn’t? Well, perhaps not. But the seed of doubt should be enough to satisfy me – the seed of doubt which I planted, to make him suspect that history was repeating itself once more.”

Anna watched him hatefully. “Then what is it you want of me?”

He struggled to sit up against his pillows, propped himself on a shaking elbow, and looked almost delightedly into Anna’s face. “My demands are small enough,” he said. “I doubt you will judge them as excessively unjust.”

“Speak, then!”

“There is a place we go sometimes,” Filipovic went on, “where the Narken cross to and fro, on their journeys between this land and the Weld.” He paused, and looked at her carefully. “You know the Weld?”

“I know it.”

“Well, then. Always the wolves are running hither and thither, on some errand or other. They must take care, of course, where they tread; for to the East they would encounter the people of Night House, and to the West they fear the wild Lumaria, which dwell round about Stonehenge. There is a narrow path which they follow, leading directly betwixt these two areas, and wending this way and that to avoid established Lumarian houses. There is a makeshift gate which lies in the middle, called Magen’s Pass, where Narken wait to interview their brethren who wish to cross. Wolves in opposition of the Weld sometimes try to do so, in an attempt to reach the stronghold itself, and wage an attack upon it. But these are always blocked, and killed upon the spot. In this way the dirty dogs reduce their own numbers!”

Filipovic laughed joyously, but was stricken with pain as he did so, and forced to lie back. “We know these things,” he said, “because we spied upon the gate for a long while, my fellows and I. We gathered ample intelligence, you may be sure, before we ventured our first trial upon the pass.”

“Your trial?”

“Every day after sunset, the gate is manned. Even Narken with mischievous ideas wait till then to begin their travel; for their deaths would be otherwise certain, when they were descried in broad daylight by Lumarian eyes. One day, then, after perhaps a month
of watching, we waited under the cover of the trees for the sentinels to arrive. We surrounded the gate on all sides, and picked off the wolves one by one, as they approached to take up their posts. Then we took their places behind the gate, and decked ourselves out in the hoods which they wear, to protect themselves against the cold and the rain. This helped, too, to mask our scents. It took longer, then, to identify us as the travelling wolves drew near. Sometimes they came almost as far as the gate itself, before they realised that it was not as it should be. But by then we had the advantage. We are faster and stronger; and we took them all down.” He smiled malignantly. “We were fortunate that first night. We intercepted a party of nearly fifty.”

“How many times have you done this?” Anna asked with disgust.

“Nearly a dozen by now, I should say.”

“You’re despicable!”

“Oh, am I? Well, if I am then it is very sweet to be thus.”

Anna fixed her eyes upon his loathsome face, wishing him dead. But very quickly her anger abated; and she began to wonder just why he had told her this.