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open his way in front of the spirits; tahl/dema
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Posted on August 24, 2017 at 08:31:58 PM by anapa

warning: anapa's posts invariably contain strong death themes.


Anapa exhaled and opened his eyes. He was standing, once again, in the grey no-man’s-land between Life and Death. At least this time he wasn’t alone.

“Great Throne.” He acknowledged, dipping his head a fraction at the man standing before him.

He was a man of middling height and mild features, neither especially tall nor broad nor handsome. He wore a pair of spectacles on the tip of his nose which he looked down through at anything closer than a foot, but over the top of it at anything further away. His loose, flowing robes resembled the ones Anapa had worn when he’d first arrived in Shaman, although the rich colours had long since faded away to grey. Nothing about the man was very memorable, except perhaps the way he carried himself: with confidence. His straight shoulders and high chin gave the impression that he was taller than he was.

“Anapa.” King Koseald smiled and reached out a hand to take his nephew’s chin, presumably the better to study him by. His hand was cool to the touch. “I’m glad to see you’re alive, although I can’t say you look well.”

Anapa grimaced. He’d seen his reflection in the mirror that morning: pale, drawn, eyes ringed with weariness. The overwhelming amount of death in the two recent battles lingered over him like a sickness. He’d been signed off work since Mordred’s coronation and had only just stopped throwing up in the night. Even in this state, he couldn’t miss the implication in his uncle’s words.

“They think I’m dead, then?”

Now it was Koseald’s turn to grimace. “In a manner of speaking. They – they couldn’t recover a body, Anapa. They couldn’t perform the sacred rites.”

Anapa studied him for a moment before shaking his head slowly. If a person died and their body was not given the sacred rites, then they could not survive in the next life and they would die the second death. There was no coming back from the second death. Dying again in the afterlife meant being completely obliterated.

“I have to go.” Koseald glanced behind him as though concerned that someone was watching over his shoulder. “The Realm of the Dead is in uproar. They’re saying that the Guide of the Dead has returned.”

Anapa smiled faintly. “That is true.”

“That they’re saying it or what they’re saying?” Koseald’s eyes gleamed. “Death is changing. We’ll speak again soon.”

He vanished. Anapa opened his eyes and blinked away the grey world, trying to focus in on the scene before him. The stale castle air had made his stomach churn that morning, so he’d taken Asper, his thestral, and given him free rein. Asper must have been hungry, because he’d brought Anapa out into an unfamiliar woodland, let him dismount and then wandered off to find something to scavenge. Anapa had sat down with his back against one of the trees, recalled everything he’d learnt about how magic worked in this strange world and tried, for the millionth time, to connect with a spirit he knew. Maybe the fresh air had given his brain a boost, because this was the first time he’d been successful.

Off to his right, he could hear Asper snuffling around. Evidently they would not be returning to the castle any time soon. Anapa placed a hand carefully on the earth, spreading his long, thin fingers, sensing the long-decayed corpses beneath the surface. A few inches from his fingers, the soil erupted and the skeleton of a mouse hopped out, whipping its long, bony tail about. Anapa twitched his hand and watched as it scampered about, performing forward rolls every couple of steps.


A N A P A

image by tinanwang at flickr.com


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