RUNNING. Always running. She didn’t want to stop but she knew she had to. The landscape flashed by in a haze of forest and hills, blurring into one until eventually she found herself in a field. All about her was green. All above her was blue and the fresh crispness of the air filled her nostrils. It was a welcome change from the stink of battle and death.
She laid a hand to her breast, feeling the fluttering of her heart against the thin cavity of her chest. Her flesh felt paper thin, her heart threatening to beat its way through her fragile ribcage.
The hag took a moment to compose herself. Closing her eyes, she listened to the steady thrumming within, the blood pumping in her ears, coursing through her veins. The fear had subsided somewhat, but still she felt the echo of it within her. She remembered those baleful eyes, the burning king staring into her soul.
Reality was beginning to coalesce. Where before this had all seemed like some dream, now the reality of it had hit her. As though waking from a nightmare she tried to breathe deep and even, tried to take solace in the solidity of the real world. But this was no real world. This was something other; something wicked and twisted.
She heard a distant noise… a cawing in the air. She opened her eyes to see a bird, distant, wheeling and spinning in the clear sky. It pitched and swooped, dancing in the air until it was joined by a second bird, then a third. Three eagles, pivoting around one another, calling out, singing their screeching song.
Their aeriform dance caused the harsh memory of the battle she had fled to fade. She watched them for as long as she could before the brightness of the sun began to sting her eyes. When she closed them against the glare, something struck her, sharp and stark. She was being propelled, as though falling into a bottomless well, her stomach lurching all the while.
Until she came to a sudden stop.
She was a young woman. Flush with the bloom of youth, she ran in fields; the open grasslands that surrounded her home, a farm on the edge of the town, on the edge of the county, on the edge of the kingdom.
Her run came to an end as she reached the top of a hill overlooking endless green land. Birds twittered their song. She belonged here. She was safe here. There was nothing to fear.
You will never return to this place.
The voice struck like a knife through her ribs. It was an alien voice, malevolent in its nature. It shook her from the memory but she couldn’t open her eyes, she couldn’t escape it.
All this is gone now. You are gone now. And I am here.
Her memory darkened, the blue sky consumed by black cloud, the green that surrounded her turning to ash grey.
‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’
Another baleful laugh. Want? I have everything I need from you. All you are is but a distant memory, a shade. Soon there will be nothing of you but dust on the breeze.
She looked down to see she was a young girl no longer. The flesh of her arms had withered, her legs little more than skin and bone.
‘What is happening to me? Why are you doing this to me?’
My need is greater, said the voice. You are nothing but a vessel. That’s all you ever were. Your whole life was without meaning other than to fulfil this purpose.
‘But why?’ She was pleading now. Desperate to know the reason she was made to suffer like this.
Because it pleases me, I will show you.
Her memory shifted again. The ashen land that surrounded her turned to desert. Copses of trees shifting and rising into ancient temple walls that might once have been resplendent but now looked to be all but ruins.
She stood in the midst of a vast courtyard. Surrounding her were an array of warriors, some savage, some noble, some heavily armoured, some in resplendent robes. Every one of them had their head bowed in supplication. In front of her, the hag could see a raised platform, ancient stones elevated above the crowd, a makeshift altar at which they worshipped. Upon it stood a woman dressed in red, white hair flowing down past her shoulders. She stood over these warriors like a queen, like a goddess, but there was nothing benevolent about her. Everything in her demeanour spoke malice. Yet still the warriors worshipped her, and in turn she consumed that worship like a leech sucking the blood through their flesh, letting it nourish her.
This vision spurred something in the old hag. She remembered this place, remembered her fear, and even as she closed her eyes against it, the memory would not fade. The goddess stared at her from the platform, lips parting in a dreadful smile. Then she opened her mouth and screeched.
The old woman opened her eyes. She was back on an open field and for a fleeting moment she hoped she was back in her memory of childhood. But no, the eagles flew above her, their screeching growing louder, more frantic. When she looked up she saw that they no longer wheeled in a dance, but instead fought in a frenzy. Beaks tore, talons ripped. Blood and feathers flew in a storm. It was hideous to behold, but as with so many sickening sights she had witnessed, she could not turn her gaze away from it.
Nausea slowly overwhelmed her, dragging her down into the pit. She closed her eyes once more, feeling the ground begin to consume her, this whole place swallowing her. Before she was buried alive in the grass, someone grabbed her hand.
She opened her eyes. There was a farmhouse she recognised in the distance. Her body once more felt full of vigour and she was a girl again. Holding her hand was an old man, his kind face marred by age. She didn’t recognise him but something inside told her not to be afraid, that she could trust this man.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hello back,’ she answered.
His smile grew wider, showing his lack of teeth.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
The old man paused for a moment, raising his eyes to the sky as though the answer might be written there. ‘Now that’s a question,’ he said finally. ‘But perhaps the real question you should be asking, is who are you?’
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Yes, it’s a tough one,’ said the old man. ‘But then again, who are any of us anyway?’
That annoyed her. She had enough questions as it was without this old goat getting philosophical.
‘Do you know who I am?’ she said, not even trying to hide her annoyance.
‘If you don’t know, I can’t tell you,’ he replied. ‘What I do know is that you don’t belong here.’
That much was obvious. ‘So where do I belong? And how do I get back there?’
The old man thought on that for a moment. Then looked straight at her and shook his head.
‘This is pointless,’ she said, feeling her frustration build.
She felt trapped in a cage, surrounded by torturers and fools. There was no way to tell what was real and what was a lie. Or even if this whole place was one big trick. Was she dead? Or merely dreaming?
The girl turned from the old man and sat down on a log. The weight of it all was getting too much. Perhaps she should just sit here and wait for it all to pass. Wait to be awoken from this nightmare. The old man came to sit down beside her, and they both looked out at the countryside surrounding them.
‘I wish I could help you more,’ he said. ‘But I have problems of my own. There’s always work to do around the farm, and with no help I’m scuppered. If I just had a pig or two—’
‘You’re all alone?’ she said.
‘Yep. Have been for a while now. Ever since…’ His brow furrowed as though he were trying to retrieve a distant memory.
‘Why don’t I help you?’ she said. ‘I could stay here and work with you on the farm.’
As she said the words, the feeling that she knew the old man grew within her. He was special to her. She knew him, that much was obvious, but the memory of him was beyond her reach. Nevertheless, she felt that staying here and working on the farm with this old man was the most natural thing in the world. That was her purpose. Not to be a ‘vessel’ for some witch-queen.
‘That would be nice,’ the old man said. ‘But you can’t stay here. You have to go.’
‘No. Why? I don’t want to go, I like it here. I belong here. And where would I go? How do I know where I have to go if I don’t even know where I am?’
‘You have to go,’ he said once more.
‘But go where?’
‘Go!’ he screamed right at her, his face contorting, stretching into a beastly visage.
The old woman opened her eyes in time to see a wide-open beak. One of the eagles was swooping in low, right at her, its screech deafening.
She dived to the ground as the eagle swept over her with a whoosh of feathered wings, talons clacking shut, tearing the cotton of her dress.
The other eagles were wheeling above her, their animosity forgotten now they had a common target.
She scrambled to her feet, running again. Always running, the memory of that old man already fading. The beat of wings rushed through the air behind as her withered legs propelled her. Nearby was the edge of a forest, her only escape.
This time as the eagle plunged in there was no screech of warning. She sensed the attack nonetheless and dived to the ground, hearing the snap of talons that found nothing but air. Again she was on her feet, legs pumping for all they were worth. The tree line was just ahead, the tantalising safety of the wood. With a last burst of effort she rushed into the sanctity of the forest, hearing the frustrated screeches of the eagles above her.
Gasping for air, she clung to the trunk of a tree, gripping it as though it were her rescuer. She was enveloped in the dark cloying safety of the wood, hearing nothing now but the quiet rush of leaves in the wind. She should have felt safe but it was obvious there were yet more dangers ahead.
The hag closed her eyes, desperate to get back to the old man, willing herself to return to that farm, to the land where she knew she was safe, where she was young again. But that place was gone, already drifting away like the memory of a dream fading in the morning light.
With no other choice, she pressed further on into the wood.