His name was Ethan, and I loved him. His name…is Ravi, and he bought me a gift, a card. She hugged the bear, burying her face in the musky fur. Sobs wracked her body, and she cried helplessly into the musky fur. She felt safe in his warmth, hearing his heart’s steady thump-tump.
“Conscience,” she wailed, “I miss my dad so much.”
It’s all right, Lucy, he purred, patting the back of her head with his huge, rough paws. It’ll be okay. Just because you tell people you miss him, doesn’t make him gone. You can’t keep him alive by not acknowledging his death. You have to let him go. Keep him alive in your memories, but remember that he is gone. You can’t bottle things up like this.
Let’s see the faun top this, Conscience thought to himself.
Talbot may have saved Lucy’s body, but Conscience had saved her soul. Now who was the best friend?
Come on, he said out loud to her. I think it’s time we left this place and got back to the real world. I’m sure the faun will have finished.
“Conscience?”
Yes?
“Thank you, for being here with me.”
Don’t mention it. I think I understand you better now.
~
Lucy opened her eyes. The world was lit by firelight. It flickered and danced across the inside of the dead tree. It played with the knot holes and made such shadows on the walls that would inspire Neanderthals to paint.
A rabbit’s carcass hung, spit roasted, over the fire’s licking flames. Fat dripped from its split belly and sizzled on the blazing wood. Lucy’s mouth began to salivate almost instantly.
“Ah, you’re awake,” said Talbot’s familiar voice.
He sat on the campfire’s far side, the light burning his squashed apple face to a golden brown as the quarter moon rose in nonchalance over his shoulder.
“Ye…yes I’m awake,” Lucy croaked.
“That’s good,” said Talbot with a pleased smile, “the stitches have worked quite nicely. You might have a bit of a scar, but it should be all right. Just, try not to play with them.”
She sheepishly dropped her hand to her side. The scar itched terribly, but there was no pain.
Odd, she thought, that really should hurt a lot.
I got back too, huffed Conscience, though, nobody seems to care. What about the Ega. Has the faun seen him?
“The Ega?” Lucy asked the question.
“I haven’t seen or heard the Ega since I stitched you together. I think we’ve lost him for the time being, but he’ll soon pick up our trail again.”
Talbot handed her a wooden bowl and spoon from his waistcoat pocket. He pulled a leg from the roasting rabbit, and ladled some broth to cover it, then handed the bowl to Lucy. Lucy wondered where he’d found the time to fix supper, but her stomach growled, and she decided to eat first.
The rabbit tasted wonderful, like gamey chicken, grass and something unique unto itself. Talbot had found some herbs, which she guessed might be akin to rosemary and thyme, and had skewered the meat with sprigs of them.
She tore chunks of the meat with her teeth, all the while avoiding the idea that this could have been Thumper at some point. It was the best meal she’d ever eaten.
“Talbot, you’re the best person to ask. What’s going on? I have no idea what I’m doing or why. The Elder told me this key brings back magic, but I don’t know how or why or even where to start with those questions. Can you help?”
“I’m not qualified to tell you of such matters. It’s a very important quest.”
“Come on, Talbot. What is going on?” Lucy asked.
“It is not my place,” said the faun.
“Oh, this is so frustrating,” she huffed, and crossed her arms.
Was she ever going to get an explanation of what was going on? What was she doing? Why was she doing it? For whom was she doing it? How the lump of amethyst was a key?
Was she ever going to get a choice in it?
Talbot saw her fallen expression and beamed a smile at her. “Like I said, I may not be able to tell you because it’s not my place. However, I think he might claim that place.”
The faun gestured over his shoulder towards the moon as it peaked through the fallen tree’s branches.
Lucy focused and saw it was covered in jagged segments, which criss-crossed like Martian canals splitting the surface into triangular sections. Incongruously, there were no stars visible in the night sky. In fact, it appeared to be a cloudy night. Then why could she see the moon at all?
Well, that is curious, said Conscience.
What is?
I’ve seen a cat without a smile, but I’ve never seen a smile without a cat.
What do you… Wait a minute. It can’t be. But it was.
Around the moon appeared the outline of a face turned to one side, so that the crescent became its mouth.
The head was broad and shaped like a rugby ball. Its ears were pointed like a bat, and a large hooped earring dangled from the right one. Thin, spindle-like whiskers protruded from either side of the beaming smile. Its eyes were small, beady and faintly yellow as if each pupil had contracted jaundice. His teeth were sharp and pointed, and they glinted in the firelight like jewels in a midnight cave. A light purr emanated from the feline as he dropped into the firelight’s circle.
“This,” said Talbot, with great reverence, “is one of our world’s most holy beings. He has come to visit you. It was his power that stopped you bleeding to death, and he watched over you when I stitched you. He is one of the six Bestia Sancta.”
“I know what he is,” snapped Lucy. “He’s the bloody Cheshire Cat!”
Chapter 11 Bestia Sanctus
Alice, an ignoble knight,
crushed a queen within her hive,
with the March Hare dead,
the Caterpillar fled,
to try and stay alive.
Found engraved, anachronistically, on the inside of a suit of armour belonging to Lord Falcrum after his victory, and his death, at the Battle of Cantab,
Year After Ice 15099
“It is amazing how an avalanche starts. It is just one tiny pebble not being able to hold on. Towns are crushed, people are killed, and mountain faces are scarred, all by one stone falling. To end this war, we must find the right stone and dislodge it.”
The Cheshire Cat, Year After Ice 17095
“Hello, Alice,” said the Cat.
Alice? Alice? Who the heck is Alice?
“You are Alice, aren’t you?” it purred as the rest of its body finished defining itself.
The cat was three feet tall, and it sat in the forthright way cats do. Its body looked mangy as if there wasn’t enough fur to cover the whole of its pus coloured skin. The sporadic fur was the mottled green colour of gangrene.
It was skinny, almost to the point of emaciation. Ribs poked out of its chest, like a pathologist’s xylophone, and its hips protruded like a bone bow tie. The eyes were yellow and malicious, twinkling with the same amount of starlight as a hungry black hole. It was the kind of tabby that, when bored, would go outside and molest innocent wildlife.
Lucy did not like it. She didn’t trust cats at all really. That was why she didn’t have one at home. Something tingled at the back of her brain, something about cats and doors, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Quite a lot of things had happened in the last few minutes, and she didn’t have time to wonder about doors, cats and their relationships to each other.
She’s not Alice. She’s Lucy, protested Conscience.
“Yes, I am Alice,” Lucy said, addressing both questions.
Talbot and the cat nodded. Talbot with great reverence, the cat with quiet smugness.
No, you’re not, insisted Conscience. You are Lucy Gayle.
I am Lucy, Alice, Zara, Gayle. Don’t you understand? Alice is my middle name. I am Alice, and this is the Cheshire Cat.
No, he said. I don’t understand. What has that got to do with anything?
I think I’ve worked this all out.
I think it means I’m in a story.
“You must have questions, Childe. I will answer what I can whilst obeying the rules of prophecy.” The cat beamed a smile that made Lucy feel like a field mouse.
“What’s going on? What is this lump of amethyst? Why is it so important? What am I supposed to do with it?” As an opening barrage of queries, they were some of the important ones.
“To answer, I shall tell you a story. The year, as we reckon it, is now 21020. That is 21020 cycles of time since the world’s birth. In the beginning, the Grand Being fashioned the world out of the clay from the riverbed in the sky. The Grand Being viewed his work and saw it as neither good nor bad, but that it had potential, and so he named it Mieha.” The cat smiled. “That means potential in the ancient tongue. The Grand Being taught us how to speak, the ways of tongues, limbs, right, wrong and magic.
“There has always been strife in the world. Dragons and man constantly fought in an ongoing feud. It was in the year—”
“Hold on,” interrupted Lucy, “don’t go so fast. This is all new information. Dragons?”
The cat nodded.
“Big, scaly lizards? Breathe fire? Those sort of dragons?”
What’s your problem with dragons?
It’s like magic. They don’t exist. How on earth could they breathe fire? It’s just not sensible.
Not sensible? You’re talking to a cat and a man-goat, and you want things to be realistic?
“Indeed,” continued the cat, “dragons, by their nature, are creatures that thieve. They steal gold and jewels, farm stock and people to eat. Man, on the other hand, hunted them using their skin as armour and their teeth as currency.”
Lucy turned to Talbot. “You said that flint was the currency of this world.”
“It is,” answered the cat, “their teeth are made of flint. They click them together to light their breath and so breathe fire.”
Lucy was fairly lost, but she wasn’t going to admit it.
Ah, there you go. A sensible solution to a silly problem, said Conscience.
“In the year 15050, the dragons, led by a mighty beast named Wraunt, attacked the lands of men as a whole force. Before, they had acted as solitary creatures but Wraunt fashioned them into an effective army. A flight of scaly lizards as you put it. In response, the king of men asked for aid from the insect colonies of the north.”
This is boring. What’s it got to do with anything?
“The queen of the insects, Queen Redd, sent her most decorated warrior, General Thrax, and over a thousand insect footmen. Man and insect stood together against the dragon horde on the grass plains of Athane.”
Firelight flicked at the cat’s face from below, lending it an eerie quality which suited the tale of kings, dragons and war.
Lucy couldn’t quite see the point of telling her all this information. It didn’t make much sense, and it didn’t have anything to do with her.
“The insects led by General Thrax and the men captained by Lord Hattar sent the beasts mewling and twisting into the Southlands from which they have never returned. It was a glorious day—a day when civilization stood tall over barbarism. Then, the treachery came.
“The king of men, King Ragus…”
Oh good, another useless name to learn, said Conscience.
“…knew that, although men and insects were friends, the peace could not last. Soon, men would want to expand and the only place to go would be into the mountains and into the insect territories. He, rightly, feared that the insects, always numerous, would be able to raise another army mightier in strength. There was only one way to crush such an army, and that was to strike at it whilst it was weak.” The cat’s tail flicked from side to side like an adder about to strike.
“However, he knew his troops were grateful to the insects who bore the brunt of the dragon attacks, and it was General Thrax’s battle strategies that won the day.
“The king decided that the only way to get his army to fight the insects was to demonise them. So, he ordered that the insects be framed. The murder of Lord Hattar in his tent whilst he slept, with an insect harpy knife, was an open and shut case.
“The leadership of the Army of Men fell to Lord Falcrum…”
How many more people are going to be involved in this long-winded story? What’s it got to do with anything?
“…who accused General Thrax of a coup. The insects, smelling treachery, turned to their leader.
“General Thrax was a mighty leader with great personal ambition. He too saw the treachery, but greed got the better of him, and defiantly he claimed lordship of the lands he and his comrades had defended. It was just what the king had hoped for and so the second war was declared.
“The humans were outnumbered and outclassed as warriors but were reinforced by a great army kept in secret by the king. It was this secondary host who broke the insects. The insect army was far from its homeland and so, after several pyrrhic skirmishes, Thrax fought a guerrilla retreat. His main aim was to reach the northern mountains where he too could be reinforced.”
Lucy had never liked history, and this seemed like an awful lot of history to be absorbing in one sitting. This was just a huge information dump and not a very relevant information dump at that. Her bum was turning numb after sitting on a cold log for so long and Conscience was getting fractious in her head. Talbot, on the other hand, seemed to be absorbed by the whole tale. Even though to him, it must have been a familiar story.
“What has all this got to do with me?” she asked, exasperated by the never-ending tale of times gone by.
“I’m coming to that,” snapped the cat. “Can you not see? All this I have told you interrelates to everything around you?”
She stared at him blankly, not seeing it at all.
“Well it does,” said the cat, in agitation, flicking his tail to either side like a snake with its head cut off. “Now, where was I?”
“The insects were retreating to Cantab,” said Talbot, almost whispering as if not embarrass the forgetful deity.
Lucy prepared herself for another onslaught of people she didn’t know, doing things she didn’t care about, in places she’d never heard of, for reasons she couldn’t fathom. She hoped it would all make sense eventually. She doubted it would, but there was always a chance.
Don’t worry, I can’t make head or tail of it either. It’s all rubbish, really. Conscience said.
“Ah yes, General Thrax was in retreat,” continued the Cheshire Cat. “The insect host broke up into small units. Most fled up the River Wash to a place called Cantab not far from the Falls of Wanda.”
The Falls of Wanda? That’s where we’re going. Maybe this information dump does have a point.
“None of the insects that went to the plains ever left them. They were ambushed by Lord Falcrum. On the plains of Cantab, Lord Falcrum and General Thrax met face to face. From all accounts, it was a titanic battle.
“Lord Falcrum was an impressive figure of a man and a cunning warrior. He wore shining gold armour with a great hare emblem embossed on the front. At his side, he carried his mighty iron sword. The heartland men called him the “hare” because of the emblem on his shining gold armour and his cunning on the battlefield.”
I was wrong. Maybe it doesn’t have a point after all.
“General Thrax by comparison was seven feet tall when he stood erect. His numerous arms and legs all highly armoured finished in barbed hooks. His chitinous hide was Gorgon green. His mandibles dripped with poison, and he carried the dangerous harpy knife used by the northern insects.” The cat paused.
Talbot coughed and shifted position.
“General Thrax, although grievously wounded, won the day. Lord Falcrum, with a mighty strike, pierced the armour on Thrax’s left flank. Alas, his sword stuck in the insect’s side. Whilst in close proximity, General Thrax bit Lord Falcrum, and the fast-acting poison killed him.
“Thrax fled the battlefield. He ran upriver to the Falls of Wanda. There he climbed the
waterfall and found the Crystal Cave behind it.”
To the Falls of Wanda—climb the falls—use the key in the cave, chanted the coercion spell in her chest.
“You see, Lucy, magic in this world used to flow as one within the River Wash and so throughout the waters of the world. It pervaded everything, the rocks, the trees, the people and the clouds. All of this magic came from the cave. Or, more precisely, from the crystal within the cave.
“It was to this cave that Thrax fled as he was dying. Even so, the men of the heartlands pursued him even to his death. Having seen their leader killed, they wanted revenge. They chased him up the falls and to the Crystal Cave, and there they executed him.” The cat paused for a second and lowered its head in a mark of respect.
Lucy couldn’t quite sum up empathy for a bug that had been killed many years ago; nevertheless, she remained silent.
“As the crossbow bolts pierced the General,” continued the cat, “he fell and shattered the crystal in the cave. That, you remember, was the source of all magic in this world. He broke it with his fall. When we discovered what had happened, we tried to repair it using some of the remaining magic in this world. We partially healed it, but there was one piece missing—a shard. It is that shard you wear around your neck. Without it, magic cannot enter this world properly. The magic we have is faint and weak—a shadow of its former self.”
“Why do you need magic?” Lucy asked, “Magic doesn’t happen in my world, and we seem to get on just fine. And, what does all this have to do with me? Why am I the one to do this?”
“If you were quiet and listened, I was just coming to that,” scolded the cat. “At the same time as General Thrax was leading his guerrilla retreat, another army set forth from the king’s halls. This army was going to squash the insect queen in her stone towers of the north. It succeeded in this. Queen Redd escaped, but the northern insects were defeated and are now extinct. A woman led this army. Alice. You. You are her. She is you. You are one and the same,” the Cat said, peering at Lucy with his glowing yellow eyes, almost daring her to contradict him.
What? That doesn’t make any sense? You are the reincarnation of someone who lived over a thousand years ago in a different world?
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 12
