Skull of Oghren

by Tuomas Vainio

  Thus with an allowance for the ice handed by her mother, he steps out. The streets remain wet after the night's storm and the clouds above still blanket the sky in their grey embrace. The city is waking up. Atlas stretches his arms before he swings the wooden crate to his back. He sticks his hands through the handles made of dry rope. It weights, it is clunky, and heavier still when filled with ice.

  Atlas takes his first steps on the cobblestones and bricks that form little islands surrounded by pools of rain water. That water occasional splashes along with his steps, and the hay inside the crate ruffles with each step. He heads left from his home, he heads straight towards the market.

  His face is not a stranger to most of the people leaving their apartments. They recognise him from the deliveries, or sightings at the butcher's store itself. He hears inquiries about their orders, and so he politely explains how he is tasked to fetch more ice, and how it should not take much longer for his brothers to come along with the packets.

  His young face remains twisted in a perpetual smile until at long last he finds himself on the market square. The storm and rain has delayed the arrival of most merchants. They can wait the earliest hours for the rain water to evaporate. While some others inspect the stalls to see what damages the rain and storm had caused. It is there among the half empty stalls that Atlas stumbles on Hip. The other boy doesn't notice him at first, as he seems to be too busy reading something while picking his nose.

  Atlas looks at the pottery hanging and placed around the stall, before he clears his throat. Hip jolts, and falls down from the stool he was sitting on. The boy struggles to get up, rubbing his sore butt. 'Oh.' He says once he notices the crate on Atlas' back. 'The usual trick?' He whispers while looking around for any pair of too curious ears.

  'Not yet. Have to see the ice merchants first.' Atlas chuckles. 'Have you seen the twins?'

  'No, not today. I think they might try to convince their dad to see the guilds themselves. They are bit too young for it, but maybe their dad will just take them to see what to expect on their tenth birthday.'

  'Yes... why waste early interest.' Atlas scratches his head, while his gaze wanders blankly past the stalls into the direction of the ice merchant.

  'You are the youngest. You cannot inherit your father's business. So not long ago your best hope would have been to find a butcher's only daughter to marry. So there is nothing wrong with...' Hip winks in the direction of the crate. '… finding ways to save a piece and chink here and there. The gold won't be missed, so don't give up your dreams, and if you do, all of us got some years until the magister's test.' Both of them chuckle.

  'I'll be back soon.' He says, waving his hand before walking further amongst the stalls.

  Atlas eventually finds himself by the ice merchant, and purchases a block of ice smaller than what is needed for their cold storage. The coins that linger in his pockets weight heavily as he heads towards his friend for little help to produce rest of the ice he was sent to fetch.

  Three years to save enough to start something of his own, or three years to put his hope on a chance to pass the magister's examination. Nevertheless, the guilt still lingers on his mind.

  ***

  Pandora moans and groans. She doesn't like porridge. To her it is always feels either too thick, or too moist, not to mention how her reluctance to eat allows the bowl to turn cold. Thus through great struggle Pandora forces the spoon back and forth, looking for any excuse to dash away.

  Naturally her mother is not too pleased. But for now the best she can do is stare at her daughter finish her porridge, before she has to leave the house herself. It is the every day game of time for both of them.

  Pandora tries to eat as slowly as she dares, but still not too slowly to be scolded. She dares not to evoke her mother's wrath and have her gaze turn into something absolutely terrifying. Thus when the mother can no longer stay behind, Pandora has almost cleaned up her entire bowl. Her relief of not having to eat the two or three last spoonfuls does not linger for long, what lies ahead of her is the dishes. She could leave them for later, but then the porridge gets stuck, and she hates scrubbing. Thus she wash the bowls and pots with the aid of a bucket full of water, and finishes the task by pouring the dirty water down the drain before leaving to fetch a new bucket of water from the well. A quick dip and she can place the washed bowls pots on the shelves. She doesn't climb on any stools and chairs as there are no witnesses for her simple trick of illusion.

  Thus, she wipes her wet hands on her dress and goes to look at her father's daggers on the wall. It would be easy for her to reach for them, and run around the house fighting imaginary were-rats, but something stays her hand and mind. She wonders whether it is respect, or just the idea that she once had a father who held those daggers.

  A sigh falls from Pandora's mouth as she turns away. She looks both left and right. Two doors. A choice between two options. She could head to the courtyard and into the 'Secret House of Mysteries' to see what Loge is up to, or she could head down to the streets and have an adventure of her own.

  Pandora saw Loge jump into the bird, so her decision is quickly made. She needs to have a story of her own to share with Loge. Thus she heads out onto the streets, rubbing her fists in hopes of any minor conflict found behind the nearest street corner.

  In a nearby house, Dione sees Pandora's short hair pass past the window. As Dione jolts up to see more, she sees how her friend is walking on the streets with her hands closed into fists. Inside Dione's mind a voice is creaming the word; no, repeatedly. Yet she excuses herself and dashes out, tying her laces while hopping onwards with one foot on the wet streets. Her socks get wet before she gets her both boots on.

  When Dione finally manages to catch up to Pandora, she has already darted into one of the narrow passages between buildings. 'Stop.' She cries out. Pants. 'Don't go there, it will be just a useless fight.'

  Pandora stares at her friend for a moment, before she finally opens her fists. 'Fine. I got another idea!' Thus she grabs Dione's hand and drags the other girl with her. They walk hours on the streets while those slowly get busier and ever more filled with all walks of life. At first Dione does not know where they are headed, but as the city walls rise on the distance, she kind of gets the idea.

  The white city walls, build as thick and tall as it is needed to deter anything from armies to dragons. A man made ring on top of the caldera's edge once raised and build by ancient magisters, or so the legends say. Towers occasionally decorate the even top of the wall, while the wall's mountain base remains uneven and jagged.

  Pandora leads the way, climbing along the mountain's edge, balancing on the few feet of footing. She is headed towards a jagged peak resting against the wall itself. A spot where she sits down with her feet dangling over the edge. Dione shakes by Pandora's side, but the platinum haired girl only points into the distance telling Dione to look.

  The rooftops surround the streets, towers stand tall in the distance, and entire city lies before them. A mountain of human construction surrounds the great towers of the magisters in the very middle. A city as misshapen as it is elegant with its tiny people walking on the streets, and leaning out of their windows. The life under the thousand flags and banners. A day under a grey sky.

  Dione calms down. 'It kind of looks pretty.'

  'Yeah. It is even better on top of the wall itself.' Pandora notices Dione's inquiring gaze. 'I sneaked into one of the lifts.' Dione's gaze intensifies. 'Fine... My mother took us to visit family in the surrounding valley.'

  'So how did you find this place?'

  'Argument with mum. Ran away, found myself here, and I climbed up. It was a cold day. When it snowed last year.'

  'Yeah, I remember watching it fall from my window, and how those petals melted against the glass.'

  'I got home half-frozen, and had fever for a week.' Pandora chuckles. 'Still, it was peaceful.'

  'Do you think it will snow this year?'

  'Who knows.'

&n
bsp; 'My grand dad tells stories old of snowy winters, how an inch of snow halts the entire city for a day or two.'

  'Sounds kind of silly.'

  The two girls linger perched against the wall for a moment more, before they begin their careful climb back down. Little tendrils of shadow help Dione's grip stick, while Pandora seems to be almost careless with her speed.

  The two decide to head back towards their homes, and as Dione has no idea where to head, she is forced follow Pandora's lead once more.

  ***

  The twins sit at the back of a cart among the empty barrels used for iron and coal. The cart shakes and rocks against the stones and pebbles of the streets. The metal patch on the wagon wheel occasionally clinks. The twins look towards the hairy back of their father and his heat parched thick skin, how his bald head almost looks like a distant barren hill against the grey skies. They have packets of sandwiches next to them, little something that their mother has prepared.

  Narvi and Hati are feeling nervous and excited. It is their first trip to their father's guild, a whole day's journey on the cart. Thus the cart slowly rolls onwards dragged by the borrowed mules. The coloured windows and the brick walls slowly roll past along the cart's sides at their own steady pace. Those are familiar buildings even if the angle of seeing them feels strange.

  Yet soon the twin brothers can no longer recognise their surrounding buildings. It piques their interest, and so they get on their knees to watch the occasional cart rolling on the other side of the street, the strange people going about on their daily business. Their father does not look back, but he hears how the twins try to come up stories for the people they have seen.

  With each passed street, the style of the buildings begin to shift too. Little bit more details on the street side walls, some curious brick framing for the windows, and the size of the windows themselves begin to grow larger. They are travelling past one of the better sides of the city. One of hundreds of caldera districts. A place where coins are ever so loose that even beggars can earn a decent living.

  Hati and Narvi look at their own clothes, and they know that they have come far from their home. Just by looking around, the boys realise how poor they are. It makes them feel sad and angry, a swirl of emotions that causes their smiles to fade and they stop trying to come up with life stories for the people passing by.

  The voice from their father's mouth grumbles without judgement. 'There are more things in life than the amount of coins to spend.' He chuckles, and so a small faint smile returns to the twins' faces.

  When the cart finally stops, it is in front of a massive hall with thick and tall towers at one side of the building, and tall round chimneys on the other. The sounds of hot metal being poured down and hammered by smiths ring out as the chimneys moan and billow out their puffs of smoke. The banners depicting anvils and hammers are are brightly coloured, if also touched by smoke, and those adorn the walls in between the glass windows of the tall towers of management and resident magisters.

  Hati and Narvi get up and see a bearded man address their father, documents are signed, and soon the bearded man waves his hand. Older boys rush out to feed the mules, and to swap the empty barrels with those filled with iron and coal.

  Their father comes around and lifts both brothers out of the cart. 'Let us go have a look around.' The three walk in past the open doors and into the gloom lit by the glimmer of molten metal.

  The twins watch how the hundred men wrought the metal before them. And they cannot help but to think how their own furnace and anvils seems so small in comparison. How their attempts to smith their hammers at Loge's home seem somewhat silly against the context spreading all around them. How magisters in brown robes aid the manufacturing processes, from guiding the molten metals to producing the final touches.

  Their father shows them around, while telling stories of his own youth. How he used to run around providing assistance just like the current batch of apprentices wearing their leather aprons, how he learned to work the metal to his will, and he cannot help but to exchange words with those he knows. The twins follow him around absorbing every word, until they reach a wall adorned with works of iron and steel. The works that each of the guild's apprentices had left there at the end of their apprenticeship. Objects from every kind of tools to even weapons, and their father squints his eyes to find the one he had made himself all those years ago.

  The twins also take their chance to look around, and what they notice is how each of the objects has an imprint on them. Their father explains: how the guild magisters and those in training add the symbols as signs of quality, and so at long last he presents the blacksmith's hammer he once crafted himself. The twins look at the imprint of an ogre's head on the left side, and that of a candle on a open book on the right. The father explains how the ogre head belonged to a magister in training that was responsible for making the hammer enchanted, and how the candle in turn belonged to his old master in charge of his training, and so he goes on to mention how both are now working as masters in different guilds elsewhere in the city.

  The hammer feels heavy in the hands of the twins, and before their father can take it back, he is caught by someone of his old friends. Hands are shaken and laughter ensues as the adults share their stories. A moment the twins make use. In their pockets they have bits and pieces of metal. Hati does his best to replicate the imprints on their father's hammer and some of those on the wall, and Narvi tries to do the same with the enchantments. They have acquired the needed samples of what to mimic and copy before Loge's fireplace turned into a furnace. Their hearts pound with the fear of being caught, but no one seems to have taken a notice.

  Thus after their father finally takes back his old hammer and places it onto the wall, they head out, and eat the sandwiches their mother had prepared. The empty barrels on the cart have disappeared and replaced by ones filled to the brim with the iron and coal their family needs to make the pots, nails, and other household items their livelihood depends on.

  The boys hop on to the back of their cart as their father takes the driver's seat. The mules groan, and the cart shifts onwards. It does not move as fast as it did before, but they are slowly rolling towards their home. The unforgiving cobblestones and the weight of the load cause the cart to creak every now and then. It takes a while for the twins to get used with the sound.

  ***

  Yarnsaxa yawns before a sack of flour, a loud yawn before she sees the effort to pick it up and carry it back to her mother and father. The father raises it to the table as they prepare the dough for tomorrow. Yarn's mother asks for more eggs, and the girl heads back to the storage room. Then to go and lit up the fire beneath the oven. These little tasks and assignments keep Yarnsaxa busy, before she can finally get up on a stool and gets her chance to knead the dough from yesterday along her parents.

  She smiles as her fingers sink into the blob of slightly sticky dough left for her to shape and mangle to make sweet buns just like those by her parent's. First by plucking a lump of dough and rolling it into balls of roughly equal size before placing them on a large oven tray. A cut with a knife, and these balls of dough are filled with jams of various flavours by carefully squeezing the cloth wrapped around the piping tube. The final touch starts by placing another tray on top these balls of dough filled with jam, and so the trays get flipped over. The hole is hidden at the bottom of the pastry to keep the jam within. Finally decorative cuts are pressed, some raw egg is brushed on top, and large pieces of sugar get sprinkled on. The sweet buns are finally ready for the oven.

  Yarnsaxa looks at her handiwork with bride, and cannot wait until those are sold in baker's dozens.

  ***

  Bergelmir scratches his head. There is no one inside the secret house of mysteries. Loge is not at home, and neither is Pan, or even the occasionally oddly talkative rat. The young boy's cries and shouts go unanswered as the house remains silent. Empty of all life, not even the pigeon of cloth is pecking at the floor panels with its beak.<
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  Bergelmir cannot help but to feel that he has broken into someone else’s home. A thief lurking around the corners and going through the possessions while everyone else is gone. He wonders to himself if it is what Pan feels like, if he has broken into homes of others.

  Yet there is a limit how long a young boy can bear to sit still while waiting for others to come. Bergelmir decides to climb up the stairs and seek out the place where the silver daggers were stashed. Bergelmir certainly would not dare to touch them with Pandora around, she might ask for a duel, and he might end up with the pointy end sticking out of his chest.

  But as there is no one around, one silver dagger is raised and pointed towards an imaginary foe. Stabs and slashes follow, as little Bergelmir continues to fend off his invisible foe, as he dashes left and right, and climbs on chairs and tables for better footing.

  Little by little the air shivers with colours and shapes. A nearly translucent silhouette of a bearded man fights in swashbuckling fashion against Bergelmir and his little dagger. A villain from bed side stories, a pirate of ill repute and cackling laughter that swings his sword in broad and lumbering strokes. A scourge of the seas and pillager of thousand merchant ships, who fights slow enough for Bergelmir to dodge and step out of the way. This fledgling illusion becomes distorted when it passes by solid objects. The sword itself doesn't cut, it only scatters and bends like frozen smoke.

  Nevertheless, Bergelmir's face begins to twist with glee, as his clever trickery from leaping one chair to another leads him to point his dagger at the throat of the imaginary bearded pirate. The faint silhouette lets go of his sword, and Bergelmir shouts out with joy, and tugs the dagger to his side.

  After swiping the sweat from his forehead, he returns the dagger to the box it was kept. None would be wiser, he thinks to himself, before heading back down to the ground floor to wait for the first kid in their small group of friends to arrive. He sits on a stool, slowly waving his legs back and forth.