Away on the distant horizon there were large gray slabs of stone mountains carved smooth into canyons. I made my way in that direction, for other than Yggdrasil, the surrounding area was mostly a blanket of endless snow. As I walked, there was a vigor and strength driving me forward that I’d hitherto not been blessed with. Even with my feet bare, the snow seemed to part in my stead, the armor emanating a force that was meant to carve through this world with power.
With the mountains still distant and my suspicions lingering, I decided to bring the issue to a head. I could not continue forward with a pretender sucking the marrow from my back bone, my spine yanked about by some distant god of light who was in it for his own machinations. Regardless of whether or not Apollo’s power aided me at the moment, I could not help but question. Hesiod had to know something more.
“What is the truth, Hesiod?” I asked, my eyes on the canyons as I slowed my walk.
“The truth is something that must be lived, and I ask you, have I not lived it at your side thus far into this strange journey?” His voice was farther back and dragged heavily. I looked back and slowed down even more. He was jogging, and panting like a dog.
His robe and bare feet were not meant for this. He looked like he needed my armor more than me. I felt immaculate; the power in this armor had enjoined itself with my own, and in this fusing of valor and might, I was becoming even more—this armor feeling almost as much a part of me as my Hyperborean wounds.
“Have you lived? I seem to recall you mentioning you would not return to the land of the living with me, yet are we not out from underneath the nether worlds? In a land of myth, sure, but a land that dead should not be in.” I gazed out once more at the horizon as Hesiod struggled to catch up.
“This is a land that is dying, if not already dead. But I am speaking true when I say we should not be here, at least not yet. Apollo didn’t mean for this—it was Ra’s invocation. Perhaps he knew something was afoul. We had been aimed at Hyperborea and after, I surely would have faded into a final death, but no... we ended up here, and somehow I persist.” He was still out of breath, but his confusion seemed to energize him the way his voice gained strength as he continued on. “I knew of those ancient weapons and armor because I had thousands of years in the darkness of death. When Apollo spoke, the god of wisdom and light showed me much about other worlds, and gave me even more to read. Of course, I know more about myth than almost all but the gods; I am the foremost poet of it myself.”
“And so, you say the truth is that you do not know why we were sent here. Why then did the gatekeeper speak so strangely and set us on this quest? He feared Apollo and clearly had been punished by the god. Apollo knew we would come here, Hesiod—why else would the gate be arranged as such?”
“Have you forgotten calling me brother? Now you question my whims and wills as if I were your enemy. We are kin through this light in us, and whether Fjolsvith was right in calling you Apollo’s own is beyond me. In my time with the god I was overtaken with reverence and respect, as lowly and clueless as I was. But there was purity there. Much purity. So much purity that Apollo and I both seemed powerless to it. I ask, can purity be pure to the point of powerlessness?” Hesiod at last made it to my side, matching my stride and staring at me with a fixed look of confidence and truth, his brow square and his head leaned towards mine.
I stopped and grabbed Hesiod to hold him still. I embraced the older man, shivering as he was with his arms crossed. Even the warmth the World Tree provided wasn’t enough for him. My attire glowed, the dark blue trousers and red-gold armor uniting in a glowing halo around us as I hugged him tight.
“I have begun to doubt, and I do not know why. It’s as if Fjolsvith’s suspicion fouled me.” My words enjoined the light, my voice whispering in spirals of wispy luminosity as my armor glowed fiercer, the vortex of light increasing.
“You look as though you are pure flame. White light is burning in your stare and it hurts to see,” Hesiod yelled, my light heating up the words with power, his voice cracking as lightning.
I laughed, smiling at my friend. Hesiod was clothed in his own cloud of light, as if he had swallowed the sun and exuded its energy through his pores. White rays of power radiated from him amidst my own as we held each other with our arms extended, staring into our pure flame. I could feel the doubt wash out of me, the mistrust and disdain washed pure in the flame of friendship, the fires of fidelity. This man was my honor! This man was my truth! Those three words, three virtues! They’d shot into my soul as if gifted from the heavens. Was it Wyrd? Had her grating song sifted the seeds into the soul of my spirit? I looked up and heard a whisper.
I serve the Lord and so I serve you. The virtues are already yours. You know.
Wyrd! I looked back down at Hesiod but he seemed not to hear. Still, she acted for us and on behalf of my Lord. The truth! I smiled wide. Even if he hadn’t heard, I knew Hesiod and I had to act together and towards our glory and futures to live that truth. I could see it so suddenly and sharply that it felt as though I’d been blind this entire time. The two of us laughed together, and the light flashed in an upward burst of white flame and then it diffused. I stood still garbed in my powerful attire, but now Hesiod donned worthy cloth too, his old robe gone.
Hesiod wore a mantle over his shoulders that swooped down his back in a fiery cascade of crimson. Yet he now stood unclothed. On the left of his breast there burned a red light that swirled like the galaxy’s tear in the sky. He looked down, following my gaze, and pressed his hand there. He lifted his hand and the red light was gone, and then in a strange burst of bloody light that quickly vanished, he stood completely clothed in that same burning scarlet that had swirled in his breast. The cloth flickered and moved like a sluggish flame, weighed down by a weird viscosity that made the burning look like that of a slow-moving stream. His robe covered his entire torso, with the mantle a sort of cape descending down his back. In his bright red amidst the white backdrop of snow, he looked like the sun bursting free from a cloud-canopied sky.
“The mantle of King Arthur.” Hesiod shook his head as he fingered the shimmering cloth on his shoulders. “This... I do not know what this is.” He stared down in awe at his glowing robe that moved with shifting patterns of fiery light. He held his hand back as if afraid he might burn his skin if he touched it.
“King Arthur?” I asked.
“A noble king worthy of light. If he allowed for this mantle to pass on to me, we must be on a noble path, Rangabes. We must be, for King Arthur’s mantle is one forged in truth and glory.” He smoothed the mantle back on his shoulders, hardly needing to as it glossed back into place, a waterfall of red like plumes of a firebird. “The robe must be of Apollo’s doing then. This had to be the armor Fjolsvith warned us about. I’d assumed it was for you.” He shook his head, holding his hand over his chest. “It feels right, as if meant for me.”
I nodded and said, “But what happened? You asked me that question and it was as if a shroud was lifted from my eyes, a dagger pulled out from my heart.” I shook my head and scratched my chin. “A spell, an inward spell that took me unaware?”
“If the first was a spell requiring the virtue of courage, what was this? A spell requiring truth?”
“It forced my doubt, building on my mistrust. I insulted your honor. But your question of purity sparked something.”
“Can purity be pure to the point of powerlessness?”
“But what did you mean by it? Was it about Apollo?” I said, standing there still in awe at the splendor of Hesiod’s attire.
“I said he appeared pure. But can one who is truly pure be powerful? The word powerful implies having your fill of power, and is there then any room left for the pure? So, I ask again, does purity necessitate powerlessness?”
“Purity from what?” I said, unconvinced.
“Perhaps that is the question.”
I smiled. It was time for one of our philosophical discussions again. We Hellenes couldn’t help ourselves.
I squinted my eyes and focused on my realization as if seeing it in the surrounding snow. “To be pure is to be untouched by nothingness. To be pure is to exist fully in existence. And with that existing in purity, then the question of powerlessness is answered. To be pure is to exist as a relation to the force of eternity that sifts through the essence of our beings. To exist as a perfect relation to power is to be pure, and thus powerless because in this relation we see that we die. With this sight of death, we drink of that cup with pure spirits and without despairing, knowing we are powerless to the nothingness of time. It is the circling in of finitude that spirals back the way it came into infinity. That is it. A perfect surrender. Purity is powerlessness because it is the actualized form of being. In its paradox, such a powerlessness is the most perfect form of power.”
Hesiod shook his head as his eyes widened in amazement. He nodded and said, “And therefore Apollo is not pure, for he rages against the order of being, he rages against honor and truth. Not loyal, he shines his light with a lust for a power that does not exist. He rages against existence by rejecting the cup of divine order. He drinks instead at the sewage-strewn stream of chaos. He is powerless in his pretend play at power; lacking purity, he is steeped in a sea of nothingness. He rages against existence because his pursuit is impure. He does not desire the perfect surrender that is acting in accord with the infinite, acting as a relation to power and thus obtaining it in paradox. Apollo is acting from the finite like an old and mortal man still clinging to life, even as all his meaning, strength, and worth have been squandered from a disordered existence that chose the nothingness.”
I looked at his scarlet robe and said, “Perhaps... this would be true if Apollo was acting as you just said. But maybe he is in line with Wyrd. Maybe he is on our side. Your robe fits very well.”
“Maybe too well.” He sighed and looked away.
After a quiet moment, I said, “And so, we philosophize and find our answer to your initial question. But perhaps a better one might be raised: why did that question awaken my love for you, brother? Why did it bring forth such light and transform us so? Perhaps posing the question released the evils of the spell, drowning the nothingness in meaning. Perhaps that question helped us see in our very natures that we are on the path of purity. Of truth, honor and fidelity. Three virtues. Could those be three virtues packed into one spell? Are we three steps closer?” I knew the answer already; if Wyrd had spoken only to me, perhaps he was not meant to know.
“I hope so,” he said, smiling and extending his arm. “Thank you.”
I grabbed his arm as he looked at me, his oaken eyes joined together with my evergreen ones, his roots grown to a tree canopied with my potentiality—our potentiality. We nodded and released our firm hold to head towards the canyon once again.
“Well done, purified ones.” The angelic voice floated down from the heavens while simultaneously thundering in the distant canyons. Yet it was not Wyrd who spoke. Another onlooker? How many celestial voyeurs watched our progress? “You near my canyons, and in my domain my mountains shake and soar. My lonely land of Thrymheim, my perfect recompense. Nobody is worth leaving your land for. Nobody. That is what I say.”
“And what if leaving your lost land is only to make a new land for your own? For if it is lost, then it can only be found again through rebirth,” I said, glancing intermittently at the sky and canyons.
The voice laughed, crashing solely as thunder, losing its lightness.
“Who are you?” Hesiod said.
“I am Skade and I am not here to prevent your triumph. You have released the holds of four spells, and the remaining five are blights on my home.”
“Four?” Hesiod said, looking at me. “Perhaps the three were rolled into one after all.”
“Our whole process of purification must have been three spells, the three combined virtues I mentioned,” I said, looking into the heavens not for Skade, but for another sign and whisper from Wyrd.
Skade’s voice drifted down like manna as she said, “The initial fire of your doubt against your friend was the first spell, and he lovingly spoke the truth to break it. And your embracing him broke the second spell and brought forth the virtue of honor. And lastly, when you so interlocked yourselves with each other and bloomed with communal light, a holy fidelity ended the three-pronged spell that served as three locks, yet in a strange way required one key: love. Three virtues with love as their key.”
“You were watching and listening this whole time!” Hesiod shouted at the sky. Skade’s thundering laugh shook us both.
I stretched my arms and said, “A welcome development.” I shrugged and added with a smirk, “Less wandering!”
“Come to Thrymheim. Be swift. On feet such as those you’ll never arrive.” Her voice calmed, its power hanging in the heavens, its looming might the temporary staying of the air before the swiftness of the storm. “Feet worthy of the Jötunn!” Her voice shook the ground and snow swirled around us until we were blinded with white.
The snow suddenly fell flat and our feet were wrapped with feathery white cloth. It was as if I wore clouds for shoes. The cloth shimmered and felt impossibly light, even lighter than when I’d been barefoot, yet my feet were now warm and I felt ready to soar with the wind.
“Step forward towards my mountains,” she sang, her voice ringing out into a heavenly chorus of operatic voices from every direction—even beneath our newly covered feet.
I took a step and my surroundings soared by in a serpentine snap. The wind was fresh and lively, and my body was tinged with an airy weightlessness. My surroundings had blown away and now I stood in the midst of the stone canyon. Black boulders, smooth and straight, loomed over me on each side. Hesiod stumbled forward, his body blurring before me and slowly flickering back to stability. His mantle flowed out behind him, a wide river of fire dancing in the wind. His laughter lifted high and he turned to me with a soppy grin spread across his face like melted butter. I grinned right back and chuckled at the youthful joy glowing in his eyes. No doubt I looked similar, but then I frowned over his shoulder at a figure who materialized out of the air as if born from the currents of wind.
A woman with grayish-white skin, like that of a polished pearl, stood before us. She was extraordinarily tall—at least four times my height. Her form was fit but not burly; if she weren’t such a giant she’d even be attractive. She had a matronly body with wide hips and large breasts, wearing a cloth dress that fluttered to her knees in a colorful clear sky blue. She wore high boots that were made of the same cloud-white material as the shoes she’d bestowed on us. Her hair was reddish-blonde; the way the sun’s rays brushed against its luxurious sheen made it almost pinkish, like a slight blush from a fair maiden. Her eyes were a clear and icy-blue; they stared at us as if unsure we were worthy of aiding her cause, whatever said cause might truly be.
“Skade, I am Rangabes and he is Hesiod. We are here to dispel foul magic and claim Lævateinn for ourselves.” I spoke calmly but remained on edge: even if she’d given us these shoes, she’d brought us here for her own reasons.
“Why do you pursue this quest?” she asked, her voice still and stark now that we stood face to face. She shook her head at my silent and set stare. “Do you even know what this staff is?”
“I know I need it. I was sent here for some purpose and the only path forward seems to require my getting this staff,” I said.
“We’ve been rewarded greatly thus far,” Hesiod added, glancing at our magic-imbued attire.
“I do not need to explain anything. Just point us to the next set of spells.” I stopped, waiting for her interjecting insistence that we aid her in whatever it was that she needed.
Her face fell grave, lines carving and disfiguring her pristine skin as she lowered her brow and stroked her cheek. “Do you not wonder why you were sent after such a staff? Do you not wonder who might be keeping this staff?”
“Of course,” Hesiod muttered, “but we trust the radiance of our kind sending u
s here, and we trust there is a greater purpose.” Pride set his face in stone, building his brow outward with a firm stare beneath.
“The sun swallower cursed this land, and curses all my kind. Fenrir, that ancient wolf of the dark deep, prowls Jötunheimr and has hunted my fellow Jötunn to extinction. He hates your kind, those of the true light.” She glanced around as if Fenrir were there and listening.
“Was he the one who cast the spells or not? What does it matter that we were put on this quest if we are undoing his bidding?” Hesiod said.
“Because I put the spells in place.” Her eyes went cold and her face clouded with a palpable despair that seemed to suck the life out of the air.
“Nine spells held by nine virtues. I see...” I mumbled, realizing the magic we’d undone was not corrupt but pure.
“Nine noble virtues cast in holy magic. Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Charity, Justice, Potency, and Perseverance,” she said.
“But why lock away the staff?” Hesiod asked.
“Svipdagr once pursued it, and it is true that the spells were cast to keep him away. But his suddenness here was of the sunlight that strikes the face of a man who’s overslept till noon. A different matter, then—his pursuit of the staff was a test of his worth for betrothal to another. But once duly wedded, he forgot his staff, and left here in the nothingness of no recollection, it darkened.”
“Did Fjolsvith know?” I said.
“I cannot say, but he knew it should remain locked. I do not think he cared for you: he merely wanted to use you to escape his prison and rest in eternal nonbeing.”
“But what is wrong with it? What has it to do with Fenrir?” I said, scratching at the bridge of my nose.
She squinted her eyes and leaned forward, lowering herself to my height as if she were a teacher scrutinizing a young student. “Did you see yellow eyes ascend from Mímisbrunnr?” I paled and she nodded at my reaction. “As Fenrir swallowed the last of my people, darkness came to dwell in this land once held in the esteem of light. The darkness was lunar in its essence, setting this realm in eternal night, even as day hangs haphazardly in its archaic form.” She paused, looked around and swept her arms in a circle. “This is no day. It is false. The virtues have been flipped and my magic corrupted. The staff, already darkened by forgetfulness, spewed a darkness that only increased Fenrir’s ravenous power and appetite. Lævateinn is indestructible and its leaked power was too much even for Fenrir’s shadow, and it blackened the old wolf darker even than night, darker than any abyss. Its ill aura birthed monsters as it mingled together with Fenrir. When my spells are undone, they will be freed along with Lævateinn.”
Cerberus Slept Page 14
