by N. P. Martin
"Are you afraid?" the bees asked as they came toward me a little.
I shook my head. "No."
"Then enter the cave so you can be forged anew."
"Forged?" I said frowning, but the bees had already turned and were now flying away, leaving me to stand staring into the mouth of the cave, wondering exactly what was inside. I wasn’t scared exactly, more like apprehensive. Though I was certain that once I entered that place, I would never be the same again, and that I would emerge from it different. In what ways, I couldn’t be sure yet, but I knew I wanted to find out. I believed the bees when they said my destiny lay within the cave, and calmly, I walked inside to meet it.
Chapter 15
As soon as I walked inside the cave I became a little disconcerted to find that the interior was massive and cavernous, the rough walls stretching high up to a ceiling that I could barely see. I felt a little like Alice, having gone down the rabbit hole only to shrink in size. The cave didn’t seem anywhere near this big from the outside. The walls too, glistened with many colors from the luminous veins in the rock, making the whole experience somewhat psychedelic as I moved further inside. I soon stopped, though, when a giant figure rounded a corner just up ahead; a figure who stood many feet high, and who probably could’ve crushed me between thumb and forefinger like a tiny insect if he so desired. As the technicolor light from the cave walls lit up the figure, I soon saw that it was in fact a giant dwarf, with long, thick hair that had many braids in it, and a beard that hung halfway down his chest. The dwarf’s clothes were a combination of animal skins and furs. As he came to tower over me, I took a few steps back, not in fear exactly, but more as a precaution in case I got stepped on. The giant dwarf looked down at me with huge dark blue eyes. "Son of Cernunnos," he said in a booming voice. "I’ve been expecting you."
"Before now, no doubt," I said.
The giant dwarf shook his head as he crouched down, his dark brown hair now swinging in front of me like ship ropes. "Precisely now, actually."
I nodded. "Well, here I am, though I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing here."
"You have entered the forge," the dwarf said. "A place were bodies are broken, pulled apart and then rebuilt anew."
"Sort of like a cosmic chop-shop then?"
The dwarf stared at me as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. "If you say so." He reached down and wrapped his thick, stubby fingers around my body, gently picking me up off the ground and holding me in front of his face as if he was contemplating just eating me. "I will take you to the forge to begin the process."
"Is this going to be painful?" I asked as he straightened up, raising me to an even greater height as he held me just in front of his bulbous nose.
"Are you afraid of pain?"
I shook my head slightly as I rested my arms on his pudgy fingers. "Not especially, but I don’t relish it either."
"There is no pain here, little god, only transformation."
"Transformation." I mulled the word over as the dwarf walked with me in his hand. "What kind of transformation? Will I still keep my body?"
The dwarf smiled slightly as he rounded a corner, and I suddenly felt a great heat in the air. Managing to turn myself around in his grip, I looked ahead to where a group of giant cauldrons sat on a slab of rock, each one bubbling and steaming from whatever was inside. There appeared to be eight of the cauldrons altogether, and two other giant dwarfs stirred the contents with great sticks, and occasionally stoked the flames underneath with huge bellows, further increasing the suffocating heat in the area. "Within those cauldrons the fibers of your being will be strengthened," the dwarf said. "Allowing you to access the powers that have been granted to you. It will be up to you, through your actions, to delve into the mystery of those powers and discover for yourself their true nature."
I nodded, nervous now that I was about to get ripped apart and rebuilt anew. I wasn’t afraid, however, nor worried about what lay ahead for me inside this cave, with these almost monstrous men who appeared to be giants, their growth stunted so they could dwell in these caves and shape the very stuff of life. This was my destiny, I realized. I was always meant to end up here, in this rocky underworld with these smiths who were about to make me into a different kind of being entirely. Into a demigod, and hopefully, someone who could defend the world against Apep, Erebus and their minions.
Before long, I was practically thrown down on a slab of rock not too far from the bubbling cauldrons, which seemed to spit light in various colors, as though each one contained nothing but energy; the energy of life and creation. The fumes it created were intoxicating, causing me to feel dizzy and giddy, to the point were I lay on the slab of rock with a huge dopey grin on my face, vaguely wondering how the smiths didn’t succumb to the morphine-like effects of the fumes.
My grin soon lessened, however, when I suddenly realized the dwarf who had carried me here was now standing over me with an enormous hammer in his hand. The look on his face was focused, as if he didn’t see me as a person anymore, but as a mere substance to be worked upon and shaped to his liking. Needless to say I screamed when the hammer was brought down upon me, but my scream soon ceased when I realized that I was feeling no pain. In fact, when I opened my eyes, I realized that I was floating in the air now, hovering high above my physical body down below. I had no sensation at all as I stared down at my prone form, half expecting it to be a bloody mess after the hammer blow. Yet it wasn’t. Instead, it was as if the dwarf had used his hammer to break off some outer shell, revealing now a form made up of brilliant, breathtakingly beautiful light. When I looked harder, I saw this body of light was created by the hundreds of thousands of fibers of various sizes that represented every component of my physical body, as well as my brain and spiritual aura.
As the other two dwarfs stoked the fires under the cauldrons, the dwarf working on me suddenly grabbed a pair of enormous fire tongs and used them to grip the back of my neck, causing me to flinch even though I felt no pain as I looked down upon the scene below. When my body was flipped over on the slab of rock, I saw that my spine was represented by a long fiber of cobalt light. The dwarf took a knife of some sort and cut into this thick fiber, pulling it apart as he proceeded to pull bunches of smaller fibers from it with his hands, before tossing those fibers into the cauldrons. He ripped me open at various other places on my body as well, ripping out more fibers to give to the other two smiths, who then proceeded to stir them around inside the hissing, spitting cauldrons, before taking them out and placing them in a different cauldron that gave off an intense white light. Looking down on myself, I saw I was like a dissected animal, with bits of me hanging out everywhere, but not in a gruesome way, not with all those beautifully luminous strands of light.
Presently, the smiths by the cauldrons fished out the long fibers that had been placed in there, removing them with tongs and handing them over to the dwarf next to my body. The giant dwarf then went about inserting these newly strengthened strands of light into the length of my spine and in other places too, his thick fingers somehow able to delicately thread and fix the glowing fibers wherever they needed to go. I don’t know how long the dwarf spent rearranging my fibers, but it seemed like a long time before my spirit—or whatever I was—got pulled back down into my physical body, which had now been closed up once more, sealing away the new arrangement of fibers within me.
"The work is done," the giant dwarf boomed as he looked down upon me. "The web of your being has been forever transformed."
As I sat naked on the slab of rock, I didn’t feel much different at that point. Not that I got much of a chance to check anyway, for the dwarf suddenly reached down and picked me up by the head, raising me up to his eye level as he started to walk toward the cave entrance. It was a little disconcerting being held in such a manner, though I felt no pain as his fingers squeezed my skull. As he carried me along, I wasn’t really sure what to say except thank you. But before I got a chance to open my mouth, the giant dwarf
said, "Farewell, little god," and then promptly tossed me like a piece of rubbish out of the cave. I went sailing through the air, just about making it through the entrance without crashing into it, before landing with a thud and a skid on the lush grass outside, eventually coming to rest against a tree.
"Farewell to you too…" I muttered as I picked myself up off the ground, brushing dirt from me as I welcomed the warm glow of the sun blazing high in the clear blue sky. I was about to do a thorough inspection of my upgraded self when I realized there was someone standing not from me. I looked up to see a mountain of a man with a long bushy beard and wild hair, with a set of massive antlers apparently growing out of his skull. Greenish-blue eyes, shining like shimmering pools of pure energy, stared down at me from a height that must have reached over seven feet. I didn’t need the man to introduce himself, for I knew immediately who he was. For a long moment, I stared at him like a rabbit caught in headlights, before suddenly becoming conscious of the fact that I was buck naked, especially since he was covered in animal pelts.
"So," I said by way of introduction. "You wouldn’t happen to have a spare set of clothes lying around, would you? Or maybe a large fig leaf?"
Chapter 16
Cernunnos was about what I expected. He certainly lived up to his title of Lord of the Wild Things, at least in appearance, for he was probably the wildest looking being I had ever come across, which was saying a lot, considering I was from Dublin. I followed him into a huge grove where he sat on a large throne that appeared to be made from intertwined branches, from which a number of animal skulls hung in various places. When he had settled in, he sat staring wordlessly at me for a long time, his somewhat intimidating face making me feel very uncomfortable after a while, especially considering I was still naked. "How do you feel?" he asked after a while, his voice as deep as I expected, though his accent less so.
The question threw me slightly, especially after everything I had been through in the desert with Erebus, then in Apep’s world and finally in this place, in the cave with the giant dwarfs. "Like I’ve been ripped apart and put back together again," I replied.
He nodded slightly as if he understood, pulling the biggest pipe I’ve ever seen from out of the animal skins covering his barrel chest and placing it in his mouth, lighting the contents with a mere thought it seemed like. "That’s because you were."
"I don’t feel much different."
"You won’t, not until you discover your powers."
"And how long does that usually take? I’m going to need them very soon."
A massive plume of smoke left his thick-lipped mouth. "Apparently so."
I frowned slightly at his seeming lack of concern for what was to come. "You don’t seem too concerned about the threat from Erebus and Apep."
He chuckled slightly as he looked around at the trees surrounding us. "It’s really nothing to do with me."
My frown deepened. "Didn’t you help…create me, for this very purpose?"
"I did…against my better judgement."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I don’t like to meddle in the affairs of humans. If you all want to kill yourselves, that’s up to you."
"But I thought you were a protector of the Earth?"
"I am, and that is the only reason I agreed to procreate in the first place, to help save the Earth from destruction. I care more about the animals than I do about the humans."
"So I’m, what…just a tool then, and nothing more?" I couldn’t keep the hurt from my voice when I said it.
Cernunnos stared down at me from his throne as he puffed contentedly on his pipe. "I’ve kept an eye on you since you were born," he said. "For the most part, I considered you a waste of my sperm."
I shook my head slowly like he’d just slapped me in the face. "Sure tell it like is, Cernunnos. Tell me how you really feel, by all means."
A slight smile appeared on his face, though he seemed mostly unbothered by my reaction. "However, you have changed since your mother died. I’ve looked on since you have done the things you have done. You’ve even impressed me once or twice."
"Though not enough to make an appearance before now it seems."
"You humans," he said, shifting in his throne. "Always so needy."
"I just would’ve liked to have known about you."
"You know now."
Puffing my cheeks slightly, I shook my head. This guy is hard work, I thought. Bloody gods, thinking they’re better than everyone else…
"We usually are."
"What?"
"I said, we usually are."
"Did you just read my thoughts?"
"Your mind is like a device that won’t turn off. I can’t help but hear it."
"Then you know how apprehensive I am about facing Erebus in battle."
He nodded. "Erebus is a formidable opponent, though not without his weaknesses. I’m sure you’ll figure out how to defeat him."
"You aren’t being very helpful."
He stopped puffing on his pipe to give me a hard stare. "Helpful? I created you! I also just had you remolded in the forge. What more do you want from me? Would you like me to defeat Erebus for you?" He shook his head. "And this is why I have little to do with humans…"
"Am I your only—I hesitate to say son—your only progeny?"
"Of course you are," he said. "I don’t make a habit of lying with humans…however beautiful."
He seemed to be referring to my mother. "You liked her, didn’t you?"
He shifted in his throne again as he shook his head. "She was just a woman. They’re all the same."
"We both know that’s not true," I said as I came closer to him. "She became special to you, didn’t she?"
His bright gaze fell upon me again. "For a woman, she was…" He trailed off, as if he didn’t know how to express himself, or as if he didn’t want to.
"You loved her." A slight smile appeared on my face. "Didn’t you?"
Cernunnos shook his head as if the idea was ridiculous. "I hardly knew your mother. We lay together, briefly. That is all."
"But you still loved her from afar, though. I can see you did."
"Whether I did or I didn’t, it makes no difference now, does it?"
It did to me, actually. It mattered that he clearly felt something for my mother, though I didn’t tell him this. "Couldn’t you have stopped her from getting killed?"
"Whatever you think of me, I am not the all seeing eye. I see what I need to see and that’s it. And even if I’d known your mother was going to die, I wouldn’t have stopped it from happening."
"Why not?"
"It isn’t my place to interfere."
"But you’re interfering now."
"I’m merely meeting my son for the first time, nothing more."
I shook my head. "You’re fucking hard work, you know that?"
"I’m not sure what you expected from me," he said, sliding forward in his throne a little. "Would you like a hug? Would that make you feel better?"
"Fuck off, you’re taking the piss now."
"That’s all you humans ever do is take the piss, so…"
"But I’m not human, am I?"
"You are still part human."
"Which makes me less in your eyes, clearly."
Cernunnos sighed and then came down off his throne to stand over me like a massive oak tree. "In spite of what you think, you are still my son, and I don’t run from the life that I create. You have more power now than any other human on Earth. What you do with that power is up to you, but know that I will always be here to advise when I can, and to give guidance when it is needed. Beyond that, I don’t think you can expect much more from me as your…father. Perhaps over time, things will change and develop, who knows?"
"Assuming Erebus doesn’t kill me first."
He crouched down and put a massive hand on my shoulder, which despite its weight, felt reassuring. "Your actions of late have given me reason to have faith in you. That I can say for sure."<
br />
I nodded as I looked into his eyes. "I appreciate that."
"As a demigod, you have lots of growing to do. The Earth needs a guardian, and you must become that. Erebus is but an obstacle in your way. Remove that obstacle and your future will be assured, along with the continued future of life on Earth."
"Do you really believe I can defeat him? What if Apep gets involved? I met him, you know…" I trailed off as I shuttered at the thought. "His power is vast and terrible."
"A god like Apep doesn’t play the game directly, which is why he needs pawns like Erebus to do it for him. However, I will be there to ensure he doesn’t get involved."
"You’ll be at the Final Battle?"
"I’ll be watching from afar."
"I’d feel better if you were on the battlefield with me."
He squeezed my shoulder. "I’ve always been on the battlefield with you," he said, for the first time a note of fondness in his voice. "You just didn’t know it."
Chapter 17
By the time it took me to blink, I found myself standing inside the bookshop as if I had never left it; as if I had never ventured to the desert or winded up in Cernunnos’ world. Still buck naked, I stood for a moment, somewhat glad to be back home in familiar surroundings after the alien landscapes I had previously found myself in. When the picture of my mother hanging on the wall caught my eye, I turned to it. "So…I met…Dad," I said almost sarcastically, a pang of guilt going through me even as I said it, for I still considered Max to be my father, no matter about recent revelations. He may have had his faults, but at least he was there for me when he was alive, which is more than I could say for Cernunnos. "He’s arrogant, but I suppose you can’t expect much more from a god. And me…" I looked down at myself, at my seemingly renewed physical body, which no longer had any scars or marks on it, the skin as smooth and as unblemished as a baby’s now. "I got an upgrade. Though I’m not sure in what way exactly…"