Weaveworld

4

The screams began suddenly, and mounted. Cries of disbelief, then shouts of horror the like of which Suzanna had never heard.

Ahead of her, Nimrod was already running towards the source of the din. She followed; and stepped into a scene of the bloodiest chaos.

‘We’re attacked!’ Nimrod yelled at her, as rebels ran in all directions, many bearing fresh wounds. The ground was already littered with bodies; more were falling with every moment.

Before Nimrod could plunge into the fray, however, Suzanna took hold of his jacket.

‘They’re fighting each other!’ she shouted to him, above the bedlam.

‘What?’

‘Look!’ she said.

It took him only a few seconds to confirm what she’d seen. There was no sign of any outside attack. The rebels were at each others’ throats. No quarter was being given on any side. Men were murdering men they’d moments ago been sharing a cigarette with. Some had even risen from their death-beds and were beating at the heads of those who’d nursed them.

Nimrod stepped on to the battlefield and dragged one of these sudden lunatics from the throat of another.

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ he demanded. The man was still struggling to reach his victim.

‘That bastard!’ the man shrieked. ‘He raped my wife.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I saw him! Right there!’ He jabbed his finger at the ground.

‘There!’

‘Your wife’s not here!’ Nimrod yelled, shaking the man violently. ‘She’s not here!’

Suzanna scanned the battlefield. The same delusion, or something similar, had seized hold of all of these people. Even as they fought, they wept, and howled their accusations at each other. They’d seen their parents trampled underfoot, their wives abused and their children slaughtered: now they wanted to kill the culprits. Hearing this collective delusion voiced, she looked for its maker, and there – standing on a high rock, surveying the atrocities, was Immacolata. Her hair remained unbraided. Her breasts were still bare. But she was obviously no longer a stranger to her history. She’d remembered herself.

Suzanna began to move towards her, trusting that the menstruum would keep this terrible rapture from curdling her brains. It did so. Though she had to be nimble to avoid the brutalities on every side, she reached the vicinity of the rock without harm.

Immacolata seemed not to see her. Head back, teeth bared in a grin of appalling ferocity, her attention was entirely upon the mayhem she’d given birth to.

‘Forget them.’ Suzanna called up to her.

At these words the head dropped a fraction, and Suzanna felt the Incantatrix’s gaze come to rest on her.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she said. ‘They’ve done you no harm.’

‘You should have left me to my emptiness,’ the Incantatrix replied. ‘You made me remember.’

‘Then for my sake,’ Suzanna said, ‘leave them be.’

Behind her, the shouts had begun to wane, only to be replaced by the moans of the dying and the sobs of those who’d woken from this delusion to find their knives buried in the hearts of their friends.

Whether the rapture had faltered because Immacolata had done her worst, or because she’d responded to Suzanna’s appeal, was neither here nor there. At least the death-dealing had stopped.

There was a moment’s respite only, however, before a shot punctuated the sobs. The bullet struck the rock between Immacolata’s bare feet. Suzanna turned to see Yolande Dor striding through the mortuary that had once been her little army, taking fresh aim at the Incantatrix as she did so.

Immacolata was not prepared to play target. As the second of the shots pealed against the rock, the Incantatrix rose into the air, and floated towards Yolande. Her shadow, passing over the battlefield like that of a carrion-bird, was fatal. At its touch the wounded, unable to run before it, turned their faces to the blood-sodden ground and breathed their last. Yolande didn’t wait for the shadow to reach her, but fired at the creature over and over again. The same power that held Immacolata aloft simply threw the bullets aside.

Suzanna yelled for Yolande to retreat, but her warning went unheard or ignored. The Incantatrix swept down upon the woman and snatched her up – the menstruum wrapping them both in light – then threw her across the field. Her body hit the face of the rock upon which Immacolata had been standing, with a sickening thud, and dropped, broken, to the ground.

None of the surviving rebels made a move to go to their commander’s aid. They stayed – frozen in terror – as the Incantatrix floated, a yard above the ground, across the arena of bodies, her shadow claiming those failing few who’d not been silenced by it on its outward journey.

Suzanna knew that what slim chance of mercy she’d won from the Incantatrix had been forfeited by Yolande’s attack: she would now leave none living amongst her sometime captors. Without any time to formulate a defence, she threw the menstruum’s living glance towards the woman. Its power was minuscule beside that of Immacolata, but she’d dropped her guard after killing Yolande, and the blow found her vulnerable. Struck in the small of the back she was flung forward. It took her seconds only to regain her equilibrium however, and turn, still hovering like some perverse saint, towards her attacker. There was no fury in her face; only mild amusement.

‘Do you want to die?’ she asked.

‘No. Of course not.’

‘Didn’t I warn you how it would be, sister? Didn’t I tell you? All grief, I said. All loss. Is that how it is?’

Suzanna wasn’t entirely humouring the woman when she nodded her head. The Incantatrix made a long, soft sigh.

‘You made me remember,’ she said. ‘I thank you for that. And in return –’ She opened her hand, as if presenting some invisible gift ‘– your life.’ The hand became a fist. ‘And now, the debt’s paid.’

As she spoke she began to descend once more, until her feet were on solid ground.

‘There will come a time,’ she said, looking at the bodies in whose midst they stood, ‘when you will take comfort in the company of such as these. As I have. As I do.’

Then she turned her back on Suzanna and started to walk away. Nobody made any move to challenge her as she climbed the rocks and disappeared from sight. The survivors just watched, and gave up a prayer to whichever deities they held dear that the woman from the wilderness had passed them by.