The Stone of Sorrow

by Brooke Carter

  As I watch, I see Einar sneaking back through the crowd to hide behind a big Jötnar. He gives a gentle nod to me and touches his tattooed arm. He is trying to say we are in this together. I give a slight nod back.

  But then Einar suddenly steps forward, and I want to blast him backward or freeze him in time. I do not want him in danger.

  “Great council,” he says, addressing the elders. “My name is Einar Ymirsson, heir to the Jötnar clan, and I have come to tell you that this witch Katla is an imposter. She has tried to steal the moonstone and in doing so has murdered countless people. My clan is under her spell!”

  “Lies,” says Katla. “He is a scheming elf and forbidden from the circle.”

  “If he was deemed worthy to pass through the moonwater gates, then he must belong here,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Enough!” says Urðr. “This is unusual. But we must observe tradition. We must first charge the moonstone. For there are hard years ahead, and the clan that wins it will have prosperity.”

  “And what about the clan that was destroyed by Katla?” I exclaim.

  “Silence!” says Urðr. “Though many look to us for guidance in matters of destiny, we do not decide such things.”

  “So you will do nothing?” I ask in disbelief. “What use are you?”

  Several people in the crowd murmur their support. They, too, seem to want the council to act. Amma always warned me about such things. Once people get power, they tend to use it to serve themselves.

  “If you won’t do anything, then I will,” I say, turning to face Katla.

  “Yes!” shouts a spectator.

  “Fight her!” shouts another. “Kill the witch!”

  “I will,” I say.

  But Einar is faster than I am. He attacks Katla with a poison dart, blown at her from his own mouth. As it zips through the air, I recognize its golden sheen. It is the arrow pin that belonged to his mother.

  Katla is faster than us both, and she sees it coming. She skillfully sidesteps the dart and plucks it from the air as it passes. She hurls it back at Einar and it hits him in the center of his chest. He staggers backward, an expression of surprise and pain on his face.

  “No, Einar!” I cry out, running to him.

  He struggles in the dirt, coughing, fighting to stay in this life. I touch his face and lean down to kiss him. “Hang on,” I say. I pull out the rune of Ür and lay it on his chest. I will leave it there, close to his skin, so that it gives Einar a little more time. I hope this will give me a chance to find a cure.

  I look up at the council. “Let me have my revenge,” I say, “or I will cast you into a never-ending fire.” I wield the rest of my runes, emphasizing my threat.

  The crowd reacts, some people crying out and hurrying to leave, others emboldened and shouting encouragement to me.

  The council confers, and then Skuld speaks. “We will grant you the opportunity to fight for the stone.”

  “Wise choice,” I say.

  “Very well, runecaster,” says Katla, her voice venomous. “We will battle.”

  “Bring forth the stone,” says the council elder.

  Katla kicks Sýr, who struggles to stand. She hobbles forward and approaches the pool.

  Sýr meets my gaze for a moment and then looks away.

  “The eclipse is upon us,” says Verðandi. “The stone must be placed in the sacred waters.”

  With trembling hands Sýr cups some water and raises it, intoning a spell of revealing. “I call upon the sun and the moon to reveal what is hidden.”

  The crowd gasps as the moonstone appears in her palms. It is still blue, but it is flickering now and almost inert.

  “Charge it,” Katla hisses, licking the edges of her cracked lips, flashing me a glimpse of her forked tongue.

  It is beyond her ability to hide her greed and desire for the stone, and the council glances at her. I hope they are nervous about her intentions, for everyone’s sake.

  As I watch Sýr lower the stone toward the reflecting pool, I feel a magnetic pull that I cannot deny. My body, my soul, wants the moonstone more than anything. I thirst for it, yearn for it, and I am ashamed to admit that in this moment I want it more than I want to liberate Sýr. I want it more than I want to bring my mother back from wherever I banished her to. I want it more than Einar’s health. I want the power.

  The casting circle glows a vibrant red as the moon completes its cycle. It is at this moment that Sýr drops the stone into the water.

  The circle plunges into darkness for a moment as the moon completely covers the sun. And then everything is illuminated by the glowing blue of the moonstone emanating from the sacred waters.

  Everyone is silent. None of us dare to move as we watch and wait for the stone to recharge. As it glows, blinking in the waters of all knowledge, I remember that this is not a simple runestone, and it is not a prosperity stone or even a time stone. This is an eye. The all-seeing, curse-bringing, lost eye of Odin. And as we all watch it, I have the distinct feeling that it is watching us.

  The darkness lifts. The stone glows a steady blue, no longer flickering.

  Katla paces on the perimeter of the circle, waiting for her moment.

  Urðr the elder steps forward and uses a long staff to scoop the stone from the water. She places it on a small pedestal in the center of the ring.

  “The competition will now commence,” she announces. “All representative casters may try their magic and cast the rune that will allow them to wield the stone. If they are successful, a challenger may attempt to battle for it. In the end, one will be deemed worthy.”

  Before any other clans can make a bid for the stone, Katla steps forward, dragging Sýr along with her.

  “She will claim the stone on behalf of the Jötnar. On behalf of me.” Katla stares into me from across the circle. She knows I will challenge her.

  “Don’t do it, Sýr!” I shout. “Don’t take it! She will possess you as soon as you touch it.”

  Sýr walks toward the stone, drawn to its brilliant blue. She looks at me and smiles. “It’s okay, Runa.”

  “Indeed,” says Katla, hovering behind Sýr. “Take it, Sýr,” she hisses. “Hold the stone. Let me feel its power through you.” Katla reaches out and clutches Sýr’s back, her fingers sinking into Sýr’s flesh and disappearing.

  People in the crowd back away in fear. “Dark magic!” someone cries.

  “Stop this,” says Skuld. “One caster at a time.”

  “Don’t do it, Sýr,” I beg.

  She looks at me. “Always the two of us,” she says, reaching out to grasp the moonstone from its pedestal as Katla sinks further into her.

  Sýr holds the stone for a moment, mesmerized by its powerful beauty, and then she opens her mouth and shoves the stone inside. With great effort she swallows it whole.

  “No!” I cry, at once understanding what this means. Sýr will surely die.

  Lit from within by the stone’s eerie light, Sýr staggers backward, and Katla falls away from her, releasing her unnatural hold on Sýr’s flesh.

  Katla lets out an anguished scream as she is separated from Sýr and from the stone.

  “Give it back!” she demands. “Stupid mortal.”

  “The stone,” Sýr says, her voice far away. “The eye.” She throws her head back, and the blue light shines from her eyes. “No, I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see.” She jerks in violent spasms and cries out in pain.

  “Sýr, no!” I run to her, but Sýr holds out her arms and I cannot get any closer. It’s as if I am walking against a windstorm, and I can’t pass through.

  I look at the elders. “Please help!”

  They are grim. “We cannot retrieve it,” says Urðr.

  “Then I shall get it,” says Katla. She hurls herself at Sýr, possessing her body and disappearing into her.

  The spectators scream as the two become one, and the casting arena bursts into chaos. People run, stomping over one another in their panic, leaving
their belongings behind in a desperate bid to flee.

  The witch cackles, aglow with power. I must try to separate her from Sýr again.

  Before I can think, Katla strikes at me with a blast of energy and I hold up my rune pouch as as a shield. The yellow fire rushes past me on all sides, carrying with it a coldness that I imagine is what death must feel like.

  “Blind the witch!” I shout, directing my rune power at her. A bolt of red fire shoots from my runes and knocks Katla back. She recoils, clawing at her eyes.

  She recovers in a moment, laughing. “You are weak. You are nothing,” she says, and her face changes to reflect Sýr’s, then my mother’s and then my amma’s. “Freak,” she spits as she walks toward me.

  “Stop,” I say, stumbling backward, away from the sight of my loved ones under the control of this evil. Sýr’s eyes still glow blue, and I wonder how much longer my sister’s body can withstand the moonstone. Wounds and burns appear on her skin. She’s smoldering from within.

  I steady myself and muster every measure of love I have for Sýr in my heart. I focus on it, remembering all the times Sýr has cared for me. Her lullabies and sleeping spells, the countless hours spent trying to teach me the ways of the runes, the games we used to play on the black sands of home. All our happy memories, and the sad ones too.

  Believe. Sýr’s voice in my mind is all the encouragement I need.

  I grasp my runes, powerful time stones in their own right, connected to me by fate and desire, and I know what to do. I will try to bind my runes to the moonstone.

  “I call upon the lost eye of Odin,” I intone. “I call upon the past, the present, and the future. I command you to leave my sister!”

  “You are too late,” Katla says from within Sýr. “We are one, and I control the stone.”

  “Never!” I shout.

  The three elders, emboldened by my commands, step forward and place their hands on me, feeding their combined energies into me. I am at once several people and one powerful being, and I feel all the fear and desire of these women coursing through my veins.

  “Sýr,” I say, and my voice sounds like four voices blended together. “Come back to me. Fight the witch.”

  An image floods my mind, a gift from Sýr. She is showing me what I must do next, but I cannot. “No, Sýr,” I say, my voice echoing around the casting circle. “Don’t make me do that.”

  Again Sýr projects the image into my mind. Please, Runa.

  I try to withstand her plea, as the horror of what she’s asking is too much to bear.

  Release me.

  My love for her is my undoing. I give in. With a scream, I charge forward and plunge my spear into Sýr’s stomach as she begged me to do. She falls to the ground, folding herself around the spear and clutching my cloak.

  Katla leaks from her, at first more liquid than a whole being. With struggle she regains some of her orginal form, but she, too, is wounded. A thick yellow blood oozes from the gash in her middle. As she tries to rise up and fight, she flops around on the ground, more snake than woman, and my fear of her vanishes. I know now that I am stronger.

  “Stupid runecaster,” she hisses. “You still believe in good and evil, light and dark. When will you learn there is no opposite to power? We are one and the same. We can join together and rule all the realms.”

  I hold Sýr, ignoring Katla as she writhes in pain.

  My beloved sister looks at me, her face full of love. “I must finish this, Runa,” she says. She grabs hold of the spear and plunges it deeper into her abdomen.

  “No, Sýr!” I scream.

  Sýr pulls the spear out and it clatters, slick with her blood, to the ground. She reaches into the wound with a trembling hand, pulls the glowing moonstone from her stomach, and holds the bloody stone out to me.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t want it. I hate it. Look what it has done.”

  “You must, Runa,” she says. She is growing weaker. “It is your destiny.”

  “Damn you, Odin!” I cry, directing all of my rage into the sky.

  The three elders recoil from me and begin casting runes around Katla. They chant an ancient binding spell that contains the witch in a pool of her own sickly yellow blood.

  I place my hand under Sýr’s, as I’m scared to take the moonstone outright. I’m not ready to touch it.

  Katla groans, surrounded by a magic she is now too weak to overcome. “My stone,” she wails.

  The stone changes from blue to red, and I understand what is happening now. Sýr has charged the runestone with her sacrifice. It’s a power beyond all understanding and far beyond the powers of the reflecting pool.

  “It was always your stone, Runa,” Sýr says. “You held it even as a baby.” As she says this, I know it is true. I remember the stone. I remember playing with it, holding it.

  “No,” Katla protests, writhing on the ground beside us. The elders have her bound, and she cannot heal herself in this state.

  “Swear it will always be the two of us, Runa,” Sýr whispers. “Swear it.”

  “I swear it,” I say through my tears. “Always the two of us. Where I go, I take you with me.”

  “And where I go,” she says, “I take you.” Sýr takes one last ragged breath and closes her eyes. She is gone.

  This casting circle, this city of moonwater, even this island, suddenly seem too small to contain my grief.

  I wrap my fingers around Sýr’s hand, my flesh touching the moonstone, and as I do the eye of Odin’s power flows into me, bringing with it the pain and power of Sýr and every caster who has wielded it before.

  The casting circle is engulfed in red light, and in an instant I can see through time. I can see my entire journey. The massacre of my people. The obstacles in my path. The doubt and the pain.

  Moving backward, I see my birth. My family. I see myself as a child. Moving forward, I watch as I grow older. I’m alone on a great ship, floating on an endless sea. It isn’t the ocean of home, but the bright blue waters of a new place, somewhere I have yet to go. There is a flash, and I see myself walking through golden fields. There are women there, beckoning to me. Sýr. Amma.

  When I come back to the present, I am holding the moonstone. It glows as red as my wrath.

  The casting circle had cleared of people, but now a few trickle back, murmuring at the sight of Katla dying on her belly. Some quake in fear at the sight of me. Others look at me in awe.

  The elders turn to me. “You are the chosen caster,” says Urðr.

  Katla crawls on her belly. “My stone, my stone, my stone,” she chants.

  “I am,” I say.

  I whisper to the moonstone, “You are mine, and I alone command you.”

  I look at Katla, who once struck deep fear in me but now reminds me of a worm under my feet. “You want this stone of sorrow?” I ask.

  “Yesss,” she hisses, reaching out a clawed hand.

  I hold it out to her and watch her slither. “Then take it,” I say.

  “Stop! What are you doing?” Urðr protests.

  Ignoring them, I lean down to Katla, and as she sneers up at me I dig my fingernails into her right eye socket and rip out the orb.

  Katla screams, the sound deafening. I squash the eye in my hand, slimy with her yellow blood, and throw it down into the dirt so I can crush it beneath my foot.

  “My eye!” Katla wails, clutching at her face.

  “When you see Odin,” I say, “tell him I’m coming.”

  With that I jam the moonstone into Katla’s empty eye socket. In a flash of red light, the stone sucks all of Katla’s power from her, draining her until she is a withered husk. Her fear is exquisite, and I’m pleased to see that she is still alive. She wheezes, barely clinging to this realm.

  “She isn’t dead yet,” says Urðr.

  “Wait,” I say.

  The stone pulses red, with a blue center in it not unlike the pupil of an eye. I take it back from the hole in Katla’s dried-out face, and her life power flows into
me, startling me with its intensity. Images of tree roots, hungry serpents and endless darkness flood my mind. I taste blood. So much blood.

  I use the stone to crack free one of Katla’s exposed fangs. I will take this with me on my journey to find Odin. Perhaps I will stab him with it.

  Standing over Katla’s shriveled form, I hold the stone high. “I banish you,” I say. “You will live out eternity in pain.”

  I wave the stone, and a large hole opens in the ground of the casting circle. It is filled with boiling magma, red and black and hotter than the realm of Hel.

  “You will be forgotten, Katla,” I say. “You serpent, you slave of Grabak. In every lifetime, I curse you. You will never know love. You will be forgotten. So shall it be. Until the end of time.”

  I kick Katla’s thin body into the hole, and she sinks beneath the flames with a weak scream.

  “It is done,” I say, and the hole closes over.

  Daylight returns to the casting circle and, with it, life to the Jötnar. Now that Katla is dead, they are released from her spell of control. They look around in confusion. My heart surges with the hope that my clan will also be freed from its death-like sleep.

  I struggle to shake off my rage. I am still consumed by it and have to will myself not to set everything ablaze.

  Ymir cries out when he sees his son on the ground. “Einar!” He rushes to hold him, lifting his head.

  The sight of Einar is enough to pierce the darkness within me. I hurry to him and kneel beside his limp body.

  “Please tell me he isn’t gone,” I say to Ymir, as I place my head against Einar’s chest. The slight rise and fall of Einar’s breathing tells me there’s hope.

  “Einar!” I shake him. His eyes flutter open.

  “Tell me how to cure you,” I say. “Your poison. What is the antidote?”

  “Asta,” he says, his voice weak. “Asta cure.”

  Asta. Of course. The flower he gave me. I reach into my cloak and pull out the bundle of dried asta flowers. There is no time to make a tea, so I crumble a bit of the bud and place it in his mouth. He chews and tries not to gag. I lay my runes on his chest and ask them to protect him, then gather water from the reflecting pool for him to drink. No one stops me.