The Legend of the Winterking: The Crown of Nandur

by J. Kent Holloway

  They had been at sea for three and a half weeks, making it a little over a month since Krin had been forced from Myra by Alexandrius’ soldiers, as well as the Nicholas’s strange exhortation to seek out the Magi of Thana Pel. A few days ago, they had rounded Italy and sailed north, past Britannia—past his homeland of Hibernia—and were on the final stretch to their destination; an unknown land which, according to Garhet, was filled with beings that defied the imagination. Dwarves, known in their own tongue as the Glalelim, which Garhet counted among his kinsmen, had supposedly inhabited the lands there since the dawn of time. So too had the Go’oblidin or goblins. Krin had laughed when he had heard Garhet's version of them.

  Such creatures supposedly hid under the beds of imaginative children. They couldn’t possibly exist in the real world—Could they?

  But Garhet had insisted they did. And not just goblins, but a variety of other creatures as well. Beings known as the Dhuna—nymphs, pixies, ogres, trolls, and greatest of them all…the Faefolk known as elves.

  “Aye, elves are real enough too,” the dwarf had told him while they meandered down a dreary stretch of road in the cool dusk a few weeks earlier. “They are the children of the Dhunarolc, which is the Dwarven word for what the Hebrew Scriptures called ‘Nephilim.”

  Unlike the Nephilim, who were the offspring of blasphemous union between fallen angels and humans, and who retained all the evil of their demonic progenitors, the elves were creatures associated with both light and dark, neither moral nor immoral. They lived for merrymaking, lovemaking, and occasionally, war-making. They had been beings of legend as far back as mankind could remember, and their reputations—both good and bad—were equally deserving. Once the Nephilim had begun to dwindle in number, the elves had slowly risen to take their place as the heathen gods of men.

  This, of course, led to the Great Divide—or the No’Pel, in the language of the dwarves—which was the simultaneous destruction of two worlds by the Creator. A fantastic worldwide flood that wiped all but a handful of beings from the earth, and another, far stranger phenomenon, a separation of the creatures of the Dhuna into their own world known as the Dhunarheme. The Magi, according to Garhet, preferred to call this place Wyndter.

  The whole thing was as perplexing to Krin today as it had been when Garhet had first told him, and it only became more confusing as he continued to learn. Along the journey, Garhet had discussed more with Krin about his strange blackouts, and had confirmed his own growing suspicions that they had been no fugue state at all. Whatever was happening to Krin, had something to do with these two worlds, but beyond that, the dwarf remained tight-lipped. When Garhet had told him about this, Krin had recalled the strange vision he had seen when trying to break into Nicholas’ office, and the arctic alien world that had rushed up to greet him while vicious-looking creatures had clawed at his leg. He had shivered involuntarily at the memory, though he had kept the experience secret from his new friend.

  For much of their ocean voyage, in between his long hours of laborious chores, Krin had pondered the strange tales told him by his new friend, as well as the enigmatic letter Nicholas had secreted away under the mosaic of his study. No matter how many times he turned all the new information he had obtained from Garhet’s verbose, if not enthusiastic, lessons, he still couldn’t make heads or tails of his place in it all. Couldn’t begin to imagine how an orphaned slave boy could somehow be connected to anything related to goblins or elves or other worlds. Or the great Magi order, who was said to be the very same wise men who had journeyed to meet the Christ child nearly four centuries before.

  The distant thunder rumbling from the west brought Krin back to the here and now. The rower’s drums were now silent as the crew and row-slaves began the arduous task of securing themselves to anything bolted down in preparation for the on-coming storm. Garhet and Krin, not being given proper quarters with the rest of the crew, had splayed a weather-worn sail out from the mast to the gunwale to use as a shelter when the rain finally came.

  Garhet, having expunged the rest of his breakfast, finally pulled himself away from the gunwale, and wiped his mouth off with the inside of his cloak. His good eye appeared bloodshot, and Krin wondered how the poor dwarf would be able to endure the approaching storm.

  “My people aren’t much for sailing, lad,” Garhet said, guessing at Krin’s unspoken question. “Not much for the water at all, really. We’re not overly fond of boats, and we swim about as well as bricks. I don’t think my legs will ever stop wobblin' even if I ever step back on solid ground again.”

  Krin smiled at his new friend. It was the first genuine smile he had offered in days. In the short time he had known Garhet, he had grown quite fond of him. The two had been through a great deal since their first rather violent encounter outside Nicholas’ house a month ago. Despite his affection for the man, however, he couldn’t help but find a certain humorous satisfaction in the dwarf’s uncharacteristic discomfort.

  From what Krin had seen, dwarves were survivors. Rugged to their very core. Nothing had phased the man during their trek from Myra to Andriaki, and the little man had labored like a work horse without complaint their entire time aboard the vessel. Yet, a slight chop and light roll of the ship had turned the great dwarfish warrior to a sniveling bowl of jelly.

  Krin chuckled quietly and shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m not sure what can be done to make you any more comfortable. And things are going to get worse long before they get better.”

  Of course, a bed in the crew quarters would have been a nice start, but the captain had insisted things below deck were cramped enough on the small ship without the addition of two more. They had even asked about possibly using the one cabin reserved for paying customers, but it had already been booked. Though seeing as how Krin had not seen the slightest sign of a third passenger on board, made him seriously doubt the captain had been telling the truth about that. More likely, he merely saw the two friends as vagabonds—little more than sanctioned stowaways—to be used for cheap labor, and nothing else.

  “Well, there ain’t much that can be done, I suspect.” Garhet smiled back at the youth, then nodded to the mast-crutch near the prow. “Now, lad. Let’s get ye lashed up before the wee rain comes.”

  He waited for Krin to sit down, resting his back against the crutch, then bent down, rifled through his pack, and extracted a coil of rope. As he began wrapping the rope around the lad’s torso, Krin spoke. “Tell me more about Thana Pel, Garhet.” He knew better than to ask about the Magi or Nicholas’ association with them. Questions about ‘rifting’, as Garhet called it, were also off limits to the little man. A general discussion about where they were going was all Krin could expect to discuss with the dwarf. He hoped Garhet might accidentally reveal some forbidden tidbit in the process. “It might take your mind off your discomfort, and I’m sure it’ll be useful to me somehow. Might help me to piece together this puzzle that’s ripping my life apart.”

  Garhet finished weaving the rope around him, looked out into the western sea, then handed Krin the free end. “No point securin’ it just yet. Wait ‘til the rain comes, then draw the rope taut. It’ll automatically cinch the knot together, and ye’ll be tied down safe and sound.” He winked, then strode over to the anchor-hitch, and lowered himself slowly to the deck. Crossing his stumpy legs, he searched through his bag once more, retrieved a second rope, and with a few flicks of his thick wrists, managed to whirl it several times around him wide frame, and the hitch. Satisfied with his handiwork, his right hand reached into his cloak pocket, and withdrew his knife, and unblemished block of wood. He then glanced over at Krin, and nodded.

  “Well, lad,” he said, digging the knife’s blade along the block’s grain, and pushing it forward. A sliver of the wood curled away from the knife, and fell to the deck. “What would ye like to hear about tonight?”

  “How about the Glalelim? You’ve not told me much about your own people. Why so tight-lipped about them?”

 
Garhet’s eye glistened at the unexpected request, then after several moments, looked back down at block of wood. He whittled away at it as he pondered the question. Then, a sigh of resignation hissed from his lips, and he set down the wood block—Krin marveled at how quickly the dwarf had shaped it to resemble some kind of warrior-knight—onto the deck, and reached under the neckline of his leather tunic. He withdrew a gleaming gold medallion that hung from a chain around his neck.

  Though the ship’s captain had ordered all torches be extinguished during the storm, they were allowed one small lantern to remain lit until the bad weather struck. Though the lantern light did not present a great deal of illumination, its soft radiance reflecting back from the medallion nearly blinded Krin.

  “The Glalelim, lad?” A solemn, mournful tone echoed with each syllable. “This medallion is almost all that is left of the great heritage that was once my people. It’s the seal of our Fathers, who came down from the north to settle in Thana Pel before the Great Divide, and is very precious to me. To us.”

  The little man removed the necklace, and handed it to Krin who stared in wonder at the intricate details of the etched artwork engraved on its surface. The relief depicted a tall man fighting against a great dragon in the center. A sword flashed in the man’s hand, splitting a dragon in two as its own fire consumed it. Along the rim of the medallion, linked together at the elbows in a complete circle, stood a group of shorter beings dressed in shining chain mail, and staring reverently at the dragonslayer.

  Garhet pointed to the shorter men. “Those, lad, are the Glalalim. In other parts of the world, as I’ve already told ye, we’re best known as dwarves.”

  The ship pitched suddenly, having been struck on its port side with a rolling swell, but Krin’s eyes remained fixed on the carving, oblivious to the increasing turmoil around him. The sword, with the strange runic writing along its blade and jewel imbedded at the top of the hilt, looked exactly like Glalbrirer…the same blade given to him by Nicholas. He glanced up at Garhet, then back down to the medallion. What is this? How does the sword tie in with the dwarves? With me?

  “The man with the sword…who is he?” Krin asked.

  Garhet shrugged. “No one knows for sure. Not even sure when or where it happened. It’s a tale as old as the world itself, from what me pappy told me when I was a wee lad.” The dwarf looked nervously over his shoulder at the black clouds rolling ever closer to them. “But once upon a time—quite a few times throughout history, in fact—dwarves have been enslaved. By the great Garden dragon, Tielsec, no less. A nasty time for my race, I’ll tell ye that with no hesitation. Then, a stranger came to our land, raised up his sword, and slew the foul beast with a single swipe of the blade. My people became indebted to the man for all time after that.”

  “But you don’t even know his name?”

  The dwarf shook his head. “Chronicling our histories was something the dwarfwives did. The men never bothered to write anythin’ down. We immortalized the warrior in the form of that medallion ye now hold in yer hands.”

  “Dwarfwives?”

  “Glalalim means ‘joyful ones’. We still call ourselves that out of tradition.” Garhet seemed to ignore the question, moving onto something he felt more comfortable discussing. “But truth be told, we have had very little to be joyful about, in nearly four thousand years.

  “The Magi were the first ray of hope for my people in generations. Their arrival in Thana Pel gave us a new purpose. A new mission. But before that…well…”

  Krin finally managed to pull his eyes away from the necklace. One glance at Garhet's face and he could tell the history weighed heavily on the smaller man. Krin found himself regretting he had even brought the subject up. Had he known, he would have chosen something different to discuss. Yet, he found the tale captivating. What great tragedy had befallen Garhet's people? How had the Magi helped?

  His curiosity demanded he blurt out these questions, yet his heart cautioned him to let the dwarf tell the story his own way, and in his own time. Instinctively knowing it was essential to let the little man pour out his grief however he saw fit.

  “We used to be simply the merriest race in all the world,” Garhet explained, with a sad smile. “That’s no exaggeration either, lad, just simple truth.

  “No one knows for sure exactly where we came from. The Northmen, the people the Romans call Norse, claim we were formed from the very worms in the ground.” He pulled nervously at the braids of his beard, and laughed. “It makes a certain kind of sense I suppose. We do, after all, prefer to spend most of our time beneath the earth, much like a worm, mining for wondrous jewels and precious metals.”

  A sudden gust, ripped one corner of their shelter from the gunwale rail, sending the sheet flapping madly in the wind. Instantly, Garhet slipped from his protective binding, grabbed hold of the liberated corner, and tied it down once more to the rail. A clap of thunder boomed, almost directly overhead, and the dwarf instinctively ducked at the sound. The rain had not quite arrived, but it would be there in a matter of minutes.

  Moving quickly back to his position at the anchor-hitch, he secured himself once more, blew out the lantern’s flames, and then, his eye glazed over as if his mind had been swept away on an uncontrollable current of memories, and he continued his tale as if there had been no interruption at all. “Keep in mind, lad, our love for jewels and precious metals…it wasn’t greed that drove us. Not greed at all. The value of the gems and ores we mined came from what we did with them, and not in the value of the objects themselves.”

  Krin rubbed his thumb at the etching on the medallion, though his eyes were locked solidly on Garhet. He had to know more.

  “What did you do with them? The jewels, I mean.”

  Garhet’s good eye twinkled in the misting rain now sprinkling down on them. Reaching over, and gently taking the medallion from Krin’s hand, he held it up above his head to stare at it as best he could in the dim light. Krin was certain the carvings had equally been etched into Garhet’s mind so that he could see every carved line, every faceted detail on the piece with crystal clarity even in pitch darkness, if need be.

  “We made music,” he said after a moment of quiet reflection.

  Krin struggled to hide his confusion. He knew very little about music making, but he couldn’t fathom any connection between mining, jewels, and music. Garhet, seeing his expression, burst out in a fit of raucous laughter.

  “Dear boy, music is so much more than tones and sounds and the banging of drums. More than vibrations drifting into the air or rhymes sung in beautiful harmony,” the dwarf said, looking up at the sails as the rain began to beat harder against them. “It’s about the heart and soul radiating outward in sweet melody of creation itself! It’s about the crafting of all things beautiful in honor and tribute to the Ya’Yawarim, Himself!”

  “The Ya’Yawarim?” Krin’s confusion only grew deeper with the dwarf’s explanation. He hoped the storm would ease, so their conversation wouldn’t be cut short.

  “The Ya’Yawarim, lad, means the ‘Crafter of Crafters’. He is the Creator of all things, and lover of all people. He is Lord and God of all there is,” Garhet said, now having to raise his voice over the increasing wind. “We craft our music by the sound our hearts make as we form such exquisite treasures with the callouses of our own hands. Treasures we create in our complete devotion toward Him. We call it the Gheln Ya’menar. The Soul Song.”

  Krin sat speechless, unsure of how to respond. He had seen worship practice take many forms. He had heard of humans sacrificed to pagan deities and witnessed Romans paying tribute to Artemis in her temple in Myra. He had even taken part in the secret meetings of Christians, in the homes of well-to-do followers of Christ. There in clandestine worship, beautiful hymns were sung in hushed voices for fear of being arrested. But not once had he ever heard of worship through art. It made a certain kind of sense to Krin. Is this Ya’Yawarim the same as Yahweh? If so, then—

  “I hate to interrupt
story time,” came a booming voice from behind Krin. It was deep. Heavily accented, yet perfectly articulated Latin. “But before we get washed overboard, I think it’s time we had ourselves a little chat.”

  SEVEN

  A jagged gash of lightning streaked across the darkened sky, blanketing the trio in brilliant white radiance, and heralding the deluge that had been creeping toward them. The rain fell in angled sheets, pelting each of their bodies with bruising rivets of water. In the brief moment of distraction the downpour provided, Garhet slipped from his bonds, flapped open his cloak with a jerk of his shoulders, then released a double-bladed axe from a leather strap tied to his belt. Before the newcomer could react, the dwarf’s right hand grabbed Krin’s head, shoving him down to the deck of the ship, then leapt over his prone form.

  The clash of metal echoed over the now roaring wind, followed by a series of guttural snarls¸ and a few choice curses.

  Krin lifted his head, wiped his face free of water to clear his vision, and turned to see the dwarf grappling with a mountain of man dressed in furs and rudimentary armor made from leather and animal bones. The newcomer, sporting a thick beard of coarse black hair, brandished a large two-handed scythe-like weapon with a curved blade known as a falx. Krin had heard of such weapons before, and it was said to be powerfully effective in fighting against well-armored Romans. The blade, only a hair’s length shorter than the dwarf, swung powerfully at Garhet’s head. But the diminutive warrior tucked his legs in, and rolled out of harm's way with the ease of a jackrabbit outmaneuvering an overweight hound. As he leapt to his feet, he twisted, swinging his axe in a backhanded sweep, and narrowly missed striking his opponent’s back. But the attack had been only a feint. As the giant spun around to counter the blow, Garhet jumped up with a sweeping kick to the man’s midsection. Their assailant lurched forward with a grunt, dropping his immense falx onto the deck. Just then, the ship pitched to one side with a rolling squall. A wall of water splashed across the deck, sending the giant’s weapon dangerously close to the gunwale.