Temple of Cocidius

by Maxx Whittaker

  “You dare…” he rages, and his strikes come faster now, powered by his fury. I move like liquid, around each cut, but I’m tiring, and even with this boon, I don’t know if I can beat him. His point sings past my ear. He’s close enough to fill my nose with cologne and sulphur, but the swipe misses, as his last score have.

  Pentave makes a strangled sound of fury. Heat singes hair above my ear; the blindfold surrenders to my shoulder. Dodging his thrust, I hold the cloth up. A line of char cuts its white silk.

  “You cheated. You–” I keep my eyes closed, not breaking Tindra’s vision, and duck a slice meant to take my head off. “You used magic,” I finish loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “And who is going to do anything about it?” Pentave charges me, form abandoned, and I open my eyes to see destruction flaring in his.

  I won’t run and I can’t hold my ground. So I do the only thing that makes sense: head straight for him, with every ounce of Callista’s gift powering my rush.

  Our bodies collide with the geological force of mountains, an impact that echoes off the walls and smacks away the crowd. Agony screams in me for as Freya’s gift instantly repairs the damage from the impact, and plaster dust and stone crumble in streams from the arches above us.

  We fly, weightless for a second, then heavier than a star. Our bodies shatter a mirror to diamond shards, stardust and blood beneath us when we land. The crowd screams and a small panicked exodus ensues.

  “Cheating, cheating,” he pants over the din, struggling up. “But you cheated to get in here, didn’t you Tamlir? So preoccupied with what’s beneath the water that you didn’t listen to your pretty pet’s warning about what was beneath the bridge, watching.” The ephemeral silhouette of dragon wings billow from his shoulders like smoke and hang like razor-tipped gossamer before evaporating.

  I scrape to my feet and paw for my sword among the glass and chandelier crystals. Shards pop from my flesh and ping off the stone as I heal. But that’s my superficial wounds; Pentave’s strength has torn and twisted me to the core. The time it will take me to heal between hits like this...they’re not fast enough judging by what’s in his eyes.

  I glance at the clock. Twelve minutes to go.

  And then it hits me: I don’t have to match him. There’s probably little hope of it until I defeat the temple. I just have to keep him moving for eleven more minutes.

  I raise my sword, slide into fighting form. “You knew I was coming and I still got in. How humiliating.”

  Pentave lunges. I throw a column flame that sends him writhing back. Only for a breath, but it’s enough time to jump, grip the balustrade and pull myself onto the landing. His boots pound the stairs as I slide into the ballroom. Guests shriek and protest, marking Pentave’s progress in my wake.

  And then something surreal happens: we grow an entourage. Only in the world of bored, meddling, conspiring immortal creatures would what’s happening now be a night’s entertainment. Beings older than my family line flit around us, mercurial, colorful, distractions. I understand the respective flights having a vested interest, but the others...do they know what hangs in the balance? Do they care?

  Pentave catches me passing the fountain. His leg sweeps mine and I plunge into the basin. His grip is immediate, crushing. Slime spills from my mouth and nose, filtering out the water. I struggle for a long minute and pretend to go limp.

  He lets up, dragging me from fountain, jaw unhinged like a snake at its prey.

  My elbow buries in his throat, sudden and violent. Pentave convulses, grabs his neck and thrashes in a tidal wave, fighting to breathe.

  His men have caught us; they slice through the crowd.

  I measure them, time their advance, looking for the quickest way through.

  I don’t need to. Pentave struggles to raise a fist, mouth opening and closing like a fist. His throat is collapsed inward, purpled, and he can’t breathe. He doesn’t knock his men away this time. Instead, power pulses from his hand, and they shrivel and desiccate.

  He’s on his feet and restored about the time I launch from the basin and grab my rapier, spinning in place as his neck rebuilds itself and the bruising fades.

  “You will pay for that,” he grates, his rage incandescent.

  I don’t answer, done with trading insults. I eye the room, weighing. The garden or the stairs? Now or never.

  Moonlight and time. The clock is the key. The clock’s entire movement flashes through my thoughts. It has to end there.

  “Are you mad?” Tindra cries over the crowd as I hit the first landing and slide on wet boots.

  Yes, unquestionably. And it seems like lunacy to lead Pentave to the chamber, but I think…

  The dragon’s jaws open, the world ascends on the hare’s warning, and the dragon plunges down the trunk.

  Pentave jumps the entire staircase and lands on the balustrade ahead. I can’t strike more than his legs; his position gives him the advantage and blocks the top landing. One leap and I’m balanced on wet marble the thickness of my arm, fighting a dragon. Water drips from the quillons onto the grip. My hold is compromised no matter how I strangle the leather. His eyes widen in triumph, and in that moment, I know I’m about to die.

  Flame.

  It wreaths me the second I think the word. Droplets skitter and hiss along the stone. Pentave hisses too, shielding his face. A dragon afraid of fire?

  “The cold flame of the underworld,” he utters, recovering with a slash. “I smell meddling of the gods.”

  We dance a waltz of death upon a ribbon of marble a hundred feet above the ballroom. Crimson tally marks keep score.

  “Warlord of the Svartr flitting around a ballroom for eternity? I smell the displeasure of a king dragon.”

  Pentave doesn’t so much as flinch or break form, but his aura surges with green fury.

  “Ah ha–” I duck a swing, pirouette on an urn at the landing and slide behind him. My blade tip bores the taut muscle of his shoulder blade. “I see. Someone has aspirations of their own. Going to be so awkward if you have to face him again…”

  Pentave flips from the railing, his growl rippling through the ballroom. “That will never happen. I will own Akershus, the Reds, and Heimdallr at midnight. The Æsir will kneel to me by sunrise. And Nidhogg will know his place within our flight!”

  I eye the balcony at the ballroom’s crest. A second ago I was wasting minutes; now I need to make some up. “Be sure you say it just like that, when the two of you are face to face.” I leap from the bannister, grab an apple-sized crystal orb on the chandelier and climb like I was born to it.

  Its swinging stops so abruptly that I half lose my grip. Stone chunks rain from above and gold cables moan in protest.

  Claws.

  A man’s form stands on the landing, Pentave reaching up, but what grips the chandelier is a dragon’s toe the size of my body.

  The ring tears free; I push off with everything Kumiko and Callista have given me. My jump falls short, cresting while I’m beyond reach of the balcony. I drive the rapier forward like a grapple. It skids on the marble rail and loses purchase. Will alone throws my weight forward. I drive the blade down harder, anchor and flip onto the platform as it cracks.

  Pentave’s polished onyx claws arc between the supports.

  I roll through the archway and onto safe ground. Screams and marble dust rise up from an impact that flickers the lamps around me.

  No time to rest.

  Into the throne room. The gates stand abandoned and her chamber is empty, Tindra’s guards nowhere to be found. Maybe she’s called them back; I can smell her on the air. She’s been here and she’s answered the question of trust; the throne passage stands unlocked and open for me.

  The scarlet curtains ripple. Pentave is coming, and fast.

  So is midnight. Air thickens, as I run the steps into the clock room.

  –The Oculus Room–

  Through the Looking Glass

  Pentave strides into the clock chamber, polished
and composed. He licks his lips, eyes fixed on the astrachronograph. “You’ve proved useful after all. It would have taken some time to breach the dome on my own and you’ve showed me right in.”

  “And that doesn’t seem odd to you?”

  “Not in the least.” Pentave zips the air with his rapier. “You’re arrogant and she is desperate. And you both think yourselves clever. So…” he smirks, “Here we are.”

  We circle one another with the giant clock as our axis. “And what will you do when we’re done? Assuming you win.”

  “At midnight my flight will pour into Akershus,” he breaths, eyes lighting to molten gold. “With the Raudr vanquished, crossing the Bifrost is nothing. And I’ll puzzle out the astrachronograph.”

  “You?” I throw a bolt of flame, relishing his flinch.

  “Yes me. I’m a dragon; I have all the time in the world.”

  “You’re not the only one. Some of us have–” An image eviscerates my thought, the astratempus with its delicate arrow fixed upon a miniature cluster of stars gilded to the lapis, a backdrop that exactly matches the blue dome above.

  ‘There was another piece once; it appeared before the dragon falls. A device to keep the seconds, but it was stolen…’

  Astrachronograph. Astratempus; a moon-shaped disc. Gods, I’m slow.

  “Some of us what!” Pentave snaps, rushing me and catching my bicep. He laughs, dancing away. “Some of us have no time at all.”

  Kumiko must be here – a handful of minutes remain. But she’s concealed herself since we parted in the ballroom. Hidden from Pentave, hidden from me. She’s going to need the astratempus, or at least, it will make things easier. In my gut I know it matters to the clock.

  I tear the leather thong from my neck. It’s now or never. I hurl the astratempus over Pentave and into the antechamber.

  “What! What was that?” He spins left, right.

  The little timekeeper arcs high, winking at its zenith like the sun. Nothing.

  Pentave dashes forward, boots skidding over marble.

  I hold my breath. Nothing.

  It hurtles to earth. He swipes.

  I don’t feel a thing, don’t catch so much as a flash, but the astratempus never lands. It disappears midair.

  I can’t help raising my fist in triumph.

  “Whatever that was, it changes nothing.” Pentave snorts, drags breath after breath, pacing. “Where is your lepus companion? Perhaps that’s who should have my full attention.” He leaps forward to strike, and then swears, snapping his hand back. He casts about wildly, looking for something, I don’t know what, until I notice a white hair tied around his finger in a neat bow.

  Oh, Kumiko. Cheeky. I grin. “You can worry about her, or me, but not both.” I draw up and charge.

  Pentave answers with the full strength of his mortal form, ramming me back with a force that jars my brain.

  “You won’t last long enough to be an obstacle!” His rapier flies, dragging dark trails in the fabric of time.

  The clock’s gears sing their first mechanical note. We’re too close; I’m not taking any chances with Kumiko no matter how fast she is.

  I let Pentave repulse me to the door, onto the balcony. His next slash sends me up onto the balustrade, and I fight for balance in a fighting stance that’s become a little too familiar.

  He grins, winded and puffing small clouds into the night air. The astrachronograph plays its first chime. “I’ve won. Cornered the cock and in a moment, the hare.”

  I spare a glance over my shoulder. The full moon has sunk almost behind the fortress tower, but its magnified reflection rests on the water precisely below the balcony, a gold-gossamer pool. On the next chime its smooth ripples grow frantic.

  Kumiko, whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.

  Pentave throws a lazy blow at me, and I hop over it easily. “I’m almost tempted to spare you. Almost, but not quite.”

  I laugh. “I don’t need your charity; I have better, faster allies than the Svartr can boast.” The next chime is different, sonorous and more melodic. The astratempus has been placed.

  Pentave’s face twists to a hideous mask. “What have you done?”

  My body thrums with the gifts of the Artifacts. Fighting, using them with such intensity, over such a long period, has heightened my awareness of them, and the feel charged like electric current inside of me. I almost feel ethereal. In fact, a wild idea, a crazy one, comes to me. And I wonder… “Come find out, you third-rate lackey to a counterfeit god.”

  He lunges.

  All my focus pours into the center of my being, where my gifts move around each other like bodies in the heavens. Will pours out, flows into the tips of my fingers, each hair on my head.

  He meets my aura; the particles of my being disperse, and for the briefest moment, I’m insubstantial. He passes through me like sand between pebbles.

  I rock atop the rail, almost losing my balance before I jump back to the balcony, and whoop. I have no idea how in the hells I did it, but it worked. I’d get to the why of it later.

  Pentave becomes a plunging shadow against shadow. The moon pool has become a black vortex gaped wide for its prey. Lake water pours in with a deafening roar, cold spray painting my face as I watch his descent.

  Tindra stumbles up beside me, shaking her head.

  “So long, bastard.” I throw his rapier after him.

  It should plunge into the cataclysm. Instead it spins off across the frothing lake like a broken-winged bird, tumbling to the silt-clouded water.

  This is when I see the change. Pentave thins, spreads like smoke in a cloud that obscures the vortex. A sparkle signals his density and a flap of wings drowns out the sound of the world.

  The lake has drained to ancient bedrock and the corpses of mountains once greater than the peak where Akershus now stands. Millenia of decay slime their gray domes and render the air pungent and primordial.

  Pentave raises on the cloud, looming over us and eclipsing the moon.

  “I can distract him,” Tindra utters, fingering the red jewel at her throat. “See what you can do about that.”

  That is the war thunder of countless Svartr on this side of the gates of Hel, a drum beat to the flap of Pentave’s wings.

  Where is Kumiko? Tindra taking her dragon form won’t mean a damn thing with the onslaught that’s coming. “There’s nothing I can do that will turn them back.” I stare down at the portal; we’re so close.

  One of the boulders shifts on the lake bed. And shifts again.

  Hafgufa. He’s beached, hungry, and furious. And his thickest tentacles now rest at the portal’s eastern lip.

  I hand Tindra my rapier. “I’ll draw Pentave in; when he’s on us, throw, with all the strength you have. ” I grip her shoulders and turn. “Right...there.”

  “Hafgufa? Madness,” she mutters, but she draws back the blade.

  “Told you I have a few tricks left.”

  Pentave gains height, coming closer, and each beat of his wings feels like the pulse of the world. His throat lights with veins of flame, wings and tail tense with the focus of power. There’s no cover out here on the balcony; I really hope this works.

  He breathes a column of sulphur-stench flame. I answer with all I can muster from outstretched arms, an inferno that pulls every bit of Etain’s gift from me. Tindra throws up a hand and augments it with her own, but it’s not powerful, not in her human form. Heat blisters my hands and forearms. Singed hair fills my nose. But his fire slides away like water.

  Pentave rears, frustrated cry breaking the night. His wings beat, sending a gale across us and filling my eyes with grit.

  He plunges with the screech of air being torn in half.

  “Hold...hold...now!”

  I throw more flame, and Tindra hurls her blade.

  Pentave sinks low, out of sight, poised to come up under the balcony and break it free.

  The beat of his wings changes from measured to a frantic crescendo. His roar is more of a
squawk, the sound of arrogance quashed by fearful patience. I laugh and Hafgufa’s tentacles wrap Pentave’s legs, yanking him downward.

  Pentave flaps in desperation, then lunges with all his strength, black leather stretched taut over his spined skeleton. Hafgufa holds fast but Pentave’s effort finds some success. He cracks the platform, the buttress.

  Tindra and I are too far out on the balcony’s finger to retreat.

  Hafgufa drags Pentave down and we tumble behind.

  And in that moment, the realms align, and Kumiko makes her move.

  The air rips around us, and the entire world ripples. The vortex takes hold, exploding to a thousand times its size an intensity. Pentave tumbles like a falling boulder, and the vortex consumes him and, when Hafgufa won’t release his prey, the portal drags it in with a scrape that shakes the world, spilling trees like matchsticks into the dead lakebed. The creature disappears.

  Wind, water, and the greedy suction of the portal half blind me, tear my limbs slowly from my body. Ahead Tindra’s flailing silhouette changes shape, wings, legs, scales and then skin. Time and magic keep her from transforming and we hurl into the abyss, following Pentave to Hel, to the bottom of the world tree.

  The drag on my limbs magnifies, straining bones from their sockets in hips and shoulders. I scream, and its swallowed by the fury of the storm around us.

  At the next surge of intensity bodies sail past, countless bellowing figures like an endless line of winging crows. Svartr. The vortex, its power increased, is pulling the Svartr from Akershus. They tumble, some human, some dragon, before falling deep into it.

  Dark energy lights the twisting passage, connecting us. I feel the rage and arrogance of Pentave, the primitive hunger of the Hafgufa, and Tindra’s brave resignation.

  And we fall, and fall, and around us, time and space rip, shred. We’re moving, downward, but also to somewhere else, and it shreds me, tears at my soul. How? Kumiko?

  Then something changes. We separate, just the two of us, like a corner torn from a sheet of parchment.