For more information about the author, please visit: www.toasha-jiordano.com
The Rebellion
Gwendolyn Woodschild
Brandur discovers that he has been trapped and lost for centuries in the beginning of “The Meeting.” Frustrated, desperate, but wiser for the lessons he has harshly learned, he decides to do something quite unnatural to him; he decides to quietly watch his surroundings. When he is given back to the insidious Delgado family, Brandur finds that he has been forgotten by the family that turned him into a ghost.
I wanted to show who Brandur was in “The Catch,” and the dark side of his humanity in “The Rebellion.” When push comes to shove, what will Brandur do in “The Meeting?” Will he redeem himself? Will he prove himself to be just another villain? Or, like most things, is he somewhere in between? He is faced with the question we all are at some point in our lives; who do we want to be?
Gwendolyn Woodschild
Heartbroken, frustrated, and thrust into the modern-day world, Brandur finds that he has been forgotten by time itself. When Brandur’s valknut is given back to the dreaded Delgado family he discovers that they too have forgotten him, his past crimes, and the crimes their patriarch committed against Brandur. Unsure of what to do next, he decides to lay low to retain what little freedom he has and for the chance to discover a way of mending his wife’s valknut, and with it the shattered pieces of her soul. His plan goes well until one day a chance meeting has the Delgado family targeting another, and Brandur is forced to decide; Does he save his wife’s soul, or does he save a person’s life?
The Rebellion
“What do we have here?”
“Damascus steel, very high-quality, made into a Viking symbol. I wonder why it was in a lead box?”
“A Nordic symbol made with a smithing style that originated in India and Syria, then found in a lead box of unknown origin with what looks like heraldry inscribed into it, which was buried in a shrine. All of which have been found in what once was a Spanish settlement in Central America. If this isn’t a mystery for the ages, nothing is!”
“You forgot to mention haunted, that the area is known to be severely haunted.”
“Pish posh! We’re archaeologists, we know better!” the female voice chided.
“I don’t know… I used to not believe, but since we moved that first box out, I’m questioning that lack of belief,” a male voice answered.
Hawnt-ed. Such a strange word. I had never heard that word before, or the language it was spoken in. The two continued to chatter back and forth about the shrine where my lead box had been buried, with me inside, for…
“This site has to be at least 450 years old, give or take a decade,” the feminine voice squealed.
Oh.
So, if I add the time together, I died…
Over one thousand years ago.
That information took a moment to settle. One thousand years since I had been a living, free man. One thousand years since I had gone viking to, what I considered then, faraway lands. One thousand years ago I held my wife in my arms. One thousand years ago I was killed so my spirit could be locked into my valknut for its power instead of being allowed to ascend to Valhalla.
It took a while to allow my spirit to expand enough so my Odin’s sight could “see” the auras of the world for me again. As any muscle, it seemed if it went without use it took some time to limber it up. Between that and spending the better part of a millennium locked in a lead box with only myself for company, I was hesitant to rejoin the world. Everything was too big, too bright, too much to handle, and even though I had been locked away for centuries before, it didn’t make reentering the world any easier.
The woman, who radiated confidence and strength in a bright orange nimbus that far exceeded her body’s outline, seemed to trot toward where the man was standing as he inspected my valknut intently. His aura was a soft grassy green that was held tightly to his body’s outline. From what I had learned in my previous times of ghostly freedom, that meant he had tight control of his energy and naturally shielded himself, while the woman had no inherent sense of restraint. The two seemed like a well-balanced pair from what I could understand from their auras.
“Hey, Jason! Look at what I found when I cleaned the lid on the first box?” The lead box showed up as an absence of energy to my Odin’s sight. It had no aura, it emitted no energy, but it also didn’t absorb any either. The woman’s aura flowed over and around it, but never seeped into it.
She raised the box for Jason to see, and even I could discern the all-too-familiar engraving; her bright orange energy flowed into the curves of the rising sun over a large tome. Below the carved picture, the woman’s aura flowed into an inscription: Sequere solem ad scientiam.
“‘Follow the sun to knowledge.’ Steph, that’s the family heraldry and motto for the Delgado family!” Jason finally matched his partner’s excitement. “You know what that means, right?”
“Yes! This was one of the lost Golden Cup expeditions when the European countries were racing to claim as much as they could of the ‘New World.’ The Golden Cup wanted to record and preserve the indigenous cultures as much as possible before they were tainted or destroyed by the European Expansionism!”
“With the Delgado family being one of the leading families to risk their own for the preservation of knowledge! This is huge!”
“Our expedition just paid for itself, and then some. Especially for such a unique find. I couldn’t figure out what the first box held, but after seeing your whole one, I believe this one is a matching Damascus steel valknut, but this one is broken. See?”
Steph lifted the lid to the lead box in her hand and seafoam green aura spilled out of it in uneven and jagged rays, and all I could hear was the blood-curdling scream of a banshee. It was just like the old man Lokison had described to me and the other children of the village, only, I knew it wasn’t one of his women of the fairy mounds shrieking to announce an oncoming death. It was Torhild, my wife. The scream was the pain of her soul existing but shattered into pieces within the prison of her valknut.
Shattered because of me.
Shattered because of my blind determination for revenge.
Guilt washed over me. I was locked away for so long that I created a dream-like world in my mind, and in that world, my Torhild was whole and living and beautiful.
Reality made my spirit quaver in despair and self-loathing.
“Steph for the love of- shut the box!” Jason was obviously disturbed by Torhild’s never-ending shattered echoes of her screams. He cowered away from Steph, and the box in her hands, while he covered his ears in a vain attempt to shut out the screams. Steph seemed blind and deaf to both Jason’s cringing and trembling and to Torhild’s pain. She must be spirit blind, while poor Jason was sensitive to the spirit world.
“I don’t know what your problem is today, Jason!” Steph stomped her foot and shut the lid to Torhild’s box, which thankfully cut her screams abruptly short. “You have been jumpy and acting weird since we opened the shrine and unearthed its contents. These two lead boxes were obviously what was deemed important, even though there were gold and silver rings, bracelets, and pendants with a variety of stones in them that have a much higher monetary value. We need to figure out why, and we can’t do that if you can’t even look at half of the items!”
“I know, I know! There is just something really… Off about this site. I’ve been to others where I’ve, well, sensed stuff, but it’s never been as bad as it has been here,” Jason confessed.
Steph glared at Jason in frustration. With a sigh, she shook her head and turned to walk toward what looked like tents.
“Pack what you can stand. We are just about done here anyways; we can investigate the items back at our main office. There’s at least air conditioning there.”
Air conditioning?
“These are beautiful specimens!” The older woman clapped her hands together twice. “Thank you so much for contacting the Gold
en Cup Society and asking for them to contact the Delgado family. We are always happy to find pieces of our history we thought were lost!”
I staid tightly embedded in my valknut. It was hard to do; my spirit fought against me and wanted to stretch out, but I willed myself to stay as small as I could. I have little trust for the Delgado family or the Golden Cup Society. The Delgado Patriarch is who killed me, and my own vengeful actions against one of his descendants is the reason why my wife is shattered and in pain. The Golden Cup is the one that has backed and provided the funding for the Delgado family’s expansion and expeditions, which from my experience only have caused pain and death. I don’t trust this woman just because she is a Delgado.
Jason and Steph held up different items and inspected them with the woman. She seemed especially interested in me, my valknut, and I felt her mental prodding. I refused to react and wound my spirit tighter upon itself.
“Jason and I have been studying the area for a while. We followed up on rumors about a lost shrine, and we thought we would find something from the Mayans. We were hoping for a lost temple, and instead, we stumbled upon an old Spaniard settlement that one of your ancestors founded.”
“We already copied all of our notes once we got back here,” Jason said. “We wanted to make sure we sent you with a copy of what we deducted for your own records.”
“Wonderful!” The older woman said. “I don’t blame you for waiting to do that tedious task in the comfort of your offices. We will notify you where the items are stored within the Golden Cup vaults. I will also list both of you on the record, so if you need to view them for your research or would like to have them displayed for a presentation, you will be allowed to borrow them.”
“Awesome and thank you for taking them off our hands and storing them properly,” Steph elbowed Jason in the arm. “Maybe we’ll be able to get some actual work done now!”
“Stephanie!” Jason rolled his eyes at his fellow archaeologist.
“Well, you’ve been downright weird since we dug these up, what do you want from me?”
“Oh?” The older woman’s gaze narrowed slightly, but her jovial smile stayed firmly planted on her lips. “I hope nothing is amiss.”
“You tell her, Jason,” Steph rolled her eyes and crossed her arms stubbornly.
“Well, you see ma’am,” Jason started hesitantly. “I mean, Ms. Delgado—”
“Maria is fine, the business part is over. Let’s move to your lounge, we all have tea or coffee already. I must confess; I love odd or ‘spooky’ stories. I’ve been personally putting together a collection of hauntings through the millennia from our records. It’s amazing how certain themes and patterns repeat themselves across cultures and centuries. Just fascinating!”
My valknut was placed on a low table between the three of them along with the other items I was found with. They spent the next few hours recounting how the shrine in Central America was found, and in it the two lead boxes and other jewelry and art-eh-facts. How am I an ancient and historically important thing? I kept my energy open and receptive enough to be able to touch upon the meaning of their words so I could learn this new, bastardized language that seemed oddly melded of so many others.
Maria paid close attention to Jeremy, asking pointed but subtle questions to draw out his more mystical experiences yet was delicate enough about it so Steph didn’t feel left out or slighted. She moved the conversation about expertly and with a delicate hand. She was the most intrigued about Torhild’s wailing and how Jason reacted when her lead box was opened.
This was a dangerous woman.
Maria gave the two a small rectangle of what looked like very fine papyrus or vellum with strange runes on them.
“We are always looking for new talent, and I understand that neither of you is a fully certified archaeologist yet, but I will definitely recommend both of you to the Golden Sup Society,” Maria told Steph and Jason. “You’re thorough, talented, and each of you has specific talents that are very much sought after. Please, stay in touch! If I hear of any jobs either of you would be particularly suited for, I will be in contact.”
Steph was so happy she struggled to restrain herself from jumping. Instead, she bobbed on her heels and grinned from ear to ear. Jason, as per his nature, was more reserved but his aura glowed brightly with happiness and pride. Heliodoro, the patriarch of the Delgado family, had long ago told me about people who could sense and feel other people’s emotions as their own. I never had the talent, but I didn’t need it to be able to feel the pure joy pouring forth from these two.
I wanted to warn them, but I dared not risk myself.
How I have changed. Once, I would have gone to any length to do what I felt was right. Now? Who am I now? A coward? No, I’ve never been that. But how can I warn them without tipping off Maria? Because if she discovered the valknut she examined contained Brandur, the killer of Heliodoro, who was the patriarch of the entire Delgado clan, she would lock me away again.
Or worse.
Maria and the other two walked out of the room to get cases to transport my valknut and the other items in. I stretched out into my full form and inspected the room. The lounge had low, soft seating in shades of gray and tan, windows along the one wall, and a door on each of the other three. There were a few low tables, similar to the one the items had been placed on, and cabinets on the walls with shelves. On one of the tables someone had left more of the strange papyrus or vellum, but in larger sheets, and with strange writing items.
This must be an extremely wealthy society, to afford this much writing materials and to leave them carelessly about.
All the writing items had no brushes or charcoal centers, but a simple point on the one end made of metal, and this strange, clear material making up the shaft. These are amazing, what is this material? One of the only advantages of being locked away for centuries was that I hadn’t used any of my spiritual power. This would tire me, but I needed to do something.
I was taught runes as a boy by Trygve, the Speaker of Law in Darlthveit, my home, long, long ago. Over the years before I had been locked away repeatedly, I learned the runes and tongue for Latin and the runes and tongue for the language that Heliodoro, Martillo, and Efi spoke that was derived from Latin. The issue was that Jason and Steph didn’t speak Nordic, Latin, or Español, though I could hear and understand hints of those and other languages in their words.
I will have to try what I can…
The three came back with the padded cases that Jason and Steph used at the shrine to move everything to the “lab,” and carefully packed all the items in the carved niches within. Jason backed up and stepped on one of the strange and magical writing sticks that allowed the paint to flow out of the tip but didn’t leak when it was set down.
“Oh, how did this…” then he looked up and saw the trail of writing items that I pushed off the nearby low table. “Must have knocked these pens over.”
He picked up my trail and looked at the piece of parchment on the table. He studied it for a moment, then folded it up and pocketed it.
Maria, sharp-eyed and quick-witted as she was, noticed what Jason was doing.
“Anything amiss?” She asked.
“Oh, no, Ms. Delgado,” Jason answered with a thin smile. “I must have bumped the table and knocked the pens over when we brought the cases in. Someone wrote themselves a note, and it seemed important so I’m going to find them when we are done.”
It was much easier to keep myself embedded within the valknut after exhausting myself. I don’t know if Jason was able to read the Nordic runes or the Latin, but either way I could see that the message was received. Though he was untrained, Jason’s aura thickened and hardened at the edges as he shielded himself from Maria Delgado’s perceptive gaze.
My heart swelled with pride. Pride for myself and pride for Jason.
The room was brightly lit by the strange, magical lights high above, even though the moon was only on the horizon outside the windows. The rows upon r
ows of wooden shelves stood like sentinels of knowledge in neat rows, each of their deep shelves holding an organized yet eclectic mix of books, display cases, and lead boxes similar to mine and Torhild’s boxes. The walls were a pale, dull tan and the windows were as crystal clear as air and held in place with ingenious metal bracketing.
In the very center was a long table that could seat twelve adults comfortably with plenty of space to serve platters of food in the center, yet there was no food or drink to be seen. Instead, the items that Maria had procured from Jason and Steph were laid out individually with strange contraptions with three metal rings attached to the cover that held what the people here called “paper.” A team of people went from the shelves to a set of magical off-white boxes with boards of runes attached and back to the table with handheld boards with metal clips on the top. The boards held a stack of paper and in the top fit the magical writing utensils that paint didn’t drip from but flowed smoothly out of.
I itched to stretch and expand. I was starting to recover from writing my warning and I wanted to investigate my new surroundings, but I didn’t dare to try. Maria was a sensitive, and half of the people she supervised had shown different talents and abilities.
One young woman with lean features, thick dark hair, and green eyes had picked up my valknut and projected thoughts at me that I heard in my spirit clearly. I didn’t wish to let on that I wasn’t fully bound within my valknut, so I screamed wordlessly back at her.
“Enough, Sandra,’ Maria commanded. Her tone left no room for argument. “If the ghost was able to communicate or move freely about his patra, it would have by now. I have never seen a ghost stay sane after they were fully bound by a sambadda ritual, once it was perfected, and all of the ghosts who were a result of the early attempts and imperfectly bound couldn’t resist moving about freely for very long. The ghosts in the valknuts weren’t perfectly bound, but they don’t seem able to expand themselves from their patras.”
Forgotten Magic (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 3) Page 5