The Grimoire of Yule (The Shadows of Legend Book 1)

by Adam Golden

  “Alright,” Nicholas said tucking his weapon away. “Ready?”

  Volundr swung his own stocking flail around his head. “Ready? A damn sight more than ready, boy!”

  As the two humans climbed up the long ladders and ducked into the breach in the pipe, Nicholas shook his head, bemused. He’d caught a glimpse of his filthy grey beard and thought of the strangeness of it all, a man well past sixty summers being called boy. Though when the one doing the calling was approaching his millennium . . .

  —

  Night lay lightly on the White City, the entire place seemed to shine with the soft white luminescence of starlight. Nothing so crude as a torch or an oil lamp marred the ambiance of the magical domain of the Ljosalfar, and very few shadows loomed in the Dawn City, at least not on most nights. Nicholas doffed his strange leather costume and tucked the ‘handle’ end of his blood-spattered stocking club into his belt as Volundr and some of the others dragged the bodies of the cistern’s Light Elf minders into a concealed corner.

  “Alright, stick to your pairs, range out as far as you can, but don’t take too many risks. When you’ve found a likely target, you know what to do,” Nicholas reminded the strike teams.

  Each designated pair had one member who’d carried a brace of torches up the pipe on their back and another who had cared for a carefully banked coal in a small clay pot fixed to his waist.

  “Mayhem, fear, and confusion,” the wizard said. “Bring them panic and they’ll hand us everything we want. Go. Go and get your vengeance.”

  There was no cheer, but a uniform look of predatory glee filled every Dokkalfar face before they slipped, two by two, out of the cistern building and into the night.

  The dismayed cries and panicked screams came slowly. One isolated fire in one quadrant of the city, a savage beating several districts away, a knot of homes invaded in another. Within hours, towering orange blazes peppered the city, and roving bands of bandy legged black demons struck down pale-skinned foes wherever they found them. Light Elves ran into the night, blazing like torches and screaming like banshees, and were battered down in the street.

  Dokkalfar justice invaded salons and parlors, it found victims in their beds, on their privies, at their tables and in their cribs. Blood ran in rivulets in the streets of Alfheim. A keening wail of dread rose up from a populace who’d known nothing but indolence and plenty for ages uncounted. Those whose suffering had paid for that abundance had come to collect their due.

  Of Masks and Misdirections

  “We’re dead!” Volundr hissed.

  The two humans stood pressed against one of the massive ivory white columns that marched the length of the Dawn Temple’s brilliant grand corridor, a corridor which was suddenly alive with scores of bustling knots of armed and armored Light Elves.

  Nicholas waved a negating gesture at the other man and carefully peeked toward the wide central corridor where the flood of Aelfkin rushed toward the mayhem in the city outside. The armored Elves’ gear and bearing was more that of ceremonial protectors than of actual fighting men. Their armor was thin and showy, mirror polished, and festooned with gilt. Their halberds gleamed like silver and were tied with ribbons of silky crème.

  They radiated none of the dangerous professionalism one expected of real warriors. Perhaps once the guardians of the temple had been genuine fighting men, but centuries of inactivity and ceremonial duty had made them little more than window dressing, tools of pageantry. No, the real danger was in the pairs of robed elves that walked in the midst of each knot of guards.

  Sorcerers.

  The crippled wizard could no longer feel their ability, but he recognized their air of command, that arrogant self-assurance that came with the mastery of phenomenal powers denied to other men. The air of danger, which was lacking in their soldiers, positively rolled off those they ostensibly protected. Nicholas pressed himself back against the column, closed his eyes, and concentrated on keeping his mind as clear as possible.

  Slowly, painfully slowly, the clamor of boots and clinking of armor faded away. The last of the Ljosalfar units had clattered off through the temple and into the mayhem flaring in the city outside. Nicholas started a slow count in his head, and when he reached one hundred without further disturbance, he pushed off the column and started to move from the shadow of one great pillar to the next, deeper and deeper into the temple.

  “Madness!” the old man hissed at his side, his voice high and sharp with anxiety. “You cannot truly believe that they will have left the temple entirely abandoned . . .”

  “There has never been an assault on this place,” Nicholas replied. “Never. They have no procedure for a crisis, no experience with emergency. They’re reacting out of instinct and their instinct will be to project their strength. I’ll be surprised if we find anyone at all still inside.”

  “Very surprised, and soon after, very dead,” Volundr muttered, but he kept pace behind the younger man, his stocking flail gripped tightly in hand.

  The end of the temple’s grand corridor was dominated by the shrine of their Goddess. Elphame, the White Lady Herself, stood stories tall, a veritable mountain of carved creamy marble and alabaster clad in a flowing gown of pearly silk and thread of gold. One long shapely leg was thrust forward as though the lady charged forward boldly, and clutched tightly against her breast was an unfurled scroll rendered in stone so delicately that one could make out the crumples and creases as though it were of the thinnest parchment. Her opposite arm thrust outward and up toward the heavens in triumph, and in its upturned alabaster palm burst a jet of dancing blue flame.

  The sculpture was a masterwork, a triumph of form and artistry that left Volundr stunned. The delicacy of the Lady’s features, the depth of feeling inscribed in the set of her slanted eyes and the gentle curve of her mouth, the wild flowing grace in the swoop and swirl of her meticulously carved mane of ashen hair, which somehow exemplified the ephemerality of wind and movement in solid stone. It was incredible. Nicholas barely glanced at the idol at all.

  “There!” the sorcerer exclaimed.

  The door was small, plain, and obviously meant to be overlooked. It was set into one of dozens of identical narrow alcoves. Buried behind the clutter of elaborate sterling candelabra, vases of delicate snowy porcelain brimming with sprays of flowers in a hundred shades, and braziers heaped with rich incense that filled the hall with its heady perfume. It was obviously a portal not meant for the general run of worshippers, yet for all that, it opened easily with the slightest push of the wizard’s hand. Obviously, there’d never been much need for security there, after all, who in Alfheim would trespass inside their Goddess’s own temple?

  The bright openness of the grand corridor gave way to a dark and twisting set of steep stairs cut out of the dusky rock of the living mountain itself. The stone was well cut and finely dressed, the stairs square, evenly spaced, and more than wide enough for the two humans to walk abreast comfortably. Finely made, if plain, sconces held more of the bright white crystals that lit everything atop the mountain at regular intervals. The workmanship of the temple’s lower levels every bit as fine as that above, but simple and workmanlike where the upper level was all elaborate showmanship. Here was the real hub of the White City. This was where the real work was done. Down here, safe, and hidden from view, this would be where he would find the real seat of the elf witch’s power.

  The hidden stair wound downward into the heart of the mountain a considerable distance. Nicholas, buoyed by his hopes and expectations, seemed to feel none of it, but the grunts and gasps of the much older Volundr slowly invaded his peace as they continued. The white glow of the crystal lights gave way as they journeyed deeper. Things grew darker, murkier, until the two men were forced to grope along the walls and test the edge of each step gingerly with their toes before proceeding.

  The stairs went on, and slowly the orange red glare of firelight came into evidence growing stronger with each turn around the stone spiral. Volundr gasped and
Nicholas came to a stop, looking up from the careful attention he’d been paying to where his feet were placed.

  “They remade it . . .” the old man’s rich resounding voice sounded shocked, shaken for the first time that Nicholas had even heard. “It wasn’t enough to just loot its treasures, despoil its home, and all but bury its memory?”

  Fury was building in the old man until he was all but quaking with it. Nicholas looked out over the scene below them in wonder at the other man’s powerful response.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “What?” Volundr sputtered turning his wide outraged eyes on the younger man. “What is it? You saw it yourself when you looked in my mind! You saw the Anvil, the tools, all in their proper place. In Dain’s Great Forge. Look there, wizard, really look. It’s exactly the same. The sorcerers rebuilt the Forge in every detail. Why?”

  The final question was said in a breathy sort of whisper, obviously not meant for Nicholas. The human wizard looked out at the scene below and realized the older man was correct. The image was as it had been in the vision he’d taken from Volundr’s mind.

  The murky, perfectly oval chamber of dark stone ringed about by torches. The great circular forge pit and a bellows so large Nicholas couldn’t imagine how many would be needed to operate it. The carefully set aqueduct ran in a perfect square around the edge of the chamber and fed into a great stone quenching trough. The stone floor etched with concentric circles of northern runes and esoteric symbols in complex weavings and patterns. The wide, shallow steps leading up to the dais where Dain’s great Anvil altar looked out over the entire scene.

  Volundr was right, every detail was perfect. It was an exact recreation of the holiest shrine of destroyed Svartalfheim, painstakingly recreated beneath the central temple of their hated oppressors. What a strange . . . the thought died away as he saw it. A lifetime of study and instinct all coalesced into insight in an instant. Nicholas saw it and gasped himself. It was beautiful!

  “A spell,” he said, almost breathlessly.

  He turned and found Volundr looking at him as though he’d spouted the most inane drivel imaginable.

  “A spell,” he repeated. “It’s a spell. The placement of the torches, the carvings on the floor, the direction of the forge and anvil in relation to each other, and to the water trough. The utilization of the four classical elements, even the grade and slope of the walls and floor. The whole chamber is one massive occult glyph.”

  Volundr looked from Nicholas to the scene of Dain’s Forge and back, squinting at the chamber.

  “Alright, if you say so,” the old man allowed after a moment. “But what does this great spell do? Why would they need Dark Elf magic after the queen had already unlocked her new power?”

  “I imagine . . .” Nicholas said slowly, speaking as the idea formed itself in his head. “That the spell is needed to make the Anvil and tools do their work.” The words came out slowly, ponderously as Nicholas’ mind wrestled with the theory spinning before his eyes. “After the sack, the Ljosalfar probably just intended to siphon off the magic from the Dokkalfar idols for their own uses but, as you pointed out, once Elphame unlocked the First Force that would have been unnecessary.”

  As he spoke, Nicholas’ eyes cast around the chamber, searching. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but suddenly he knew exactly what had happened, exactly why this chamber had been so exactingly prepared. “They needed the Anvil to do what the two races were created to do in the first place. To make and imbue an object of magic,” Nicholas explained to the old smith who was staring at him as though he’d lost his mind.

  “What? How can you know that? What object?” the old man objected.

  “The one we overlooked,” Nicholas said, a smile of smug satisfaction plastered on his face. “That chamber is the same as the one you remember. Not exactly. Look carefully. There’s an addition.”

  Volundr squinted down at the chamber again, all but glaring at the room as though challenging the inanimate space. The silence stretched for a long moment and then a great burst of air rushed from the old man’s lungs. “I dunno what you’re on about—” he started.

  “The Anvil,” Nicholas interrupted. “Resting atop the anvil, don’t you see it?”

  “I don’t see . . . bah . . . let’s see how well your eyes work in a thousand years, shall we, pup?” the old man groused.

  Nicholas laughed, the first purely pleasurable laugh he could recall since . . . since . . .

  Since Tulio died, he thought before he shook the thought away.

  “Come, let’s go and have a closer look.”

  —

  Volundr followed the younger man on jerky, uncertain legs as they stepped down off the final step and into the Forge. He was nervous, by Hel he was almost quivering. The old smith stopped dead as the smell struck him: molten metal, carbon, coal smoke, sweat, and oil. He took a deep breath and let melded scents soak into him. Forge smells, smells of work, of home, but there was something more as well, something unique to this Forge, something special. It was a smell that wasn’t really a smell at all. Like the air after a lightning strike, a charge, a presence. The old smith knew it wasn’t right, not really, but the tears welling in his eyes as he stood there said differently.

  Volundr was a smith of the old school, fire and iron were as much a part of him as his flesh and blood. He was likely the last student left of the ancient way passed down to man from the elven masters. A way taught in this very chamber, at that very Anvil. This place, or the place this once was meant to imitate, was more sacred to him than any temple or crypt of his ancestors could ever be. His mind flashed back to the day, almost ten centuries before, when the Ljosalfar had swarmed down on Svartalfheim like a plague. Flashes of the chaos and destruction, the blood and fire and ruin. He’d thought this place was lost that day . . .

  The old man shook his head, sniffed loudly, and dashed the wetness from his face. Enough of that! The youngster had raced on ahead. Volundr could see him nearing the top of the steps that led to the dais already. He thought to call out, but couldn’t bring himself to disturb the silence; instead, he forced himself forward, lengthening his stride to make up the distance.

  Nicholas was already standing before the Altar when Volundr finally caught him up. The younger man had both hands resting atop the silvered Anvil and seemed oddly rigid, but Volundr paid him little mind. All his attention was locked on the strange object lying atop the sacred Anvil. The prismatic crystal tools of Eitri lay, shining in their rainbow-hued glory, heaped haphazardly on one corner of the Anvil, as if pushed aside to make room for the object that dominated most of the altar’s flat top.

  It looked, at first, to be made of the same flawlessly cut crystal as the God-wrought Dokkalfar tools, though it was much larger and had none of the multi-colored brilliance of those peerless implements. It was long, more than five feet in Volundr’s estimation, and more than three feet wide, a sort of faceted crystalline tube that came to a blunted pyramidal point on either end. The whole thing glowed with a vibrant blue light the old metalworker couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before. This, this was the work that the Light Elf sorcerers had needed Dain’s Anvil to work.

  No other tools in all the world, no other magics could have made a gem of such size and such perfection, but he still didn’t understand why they would. The old man leaned in close, the edge of the Anvil biting into his pelvic bone as he did. He squinted through the azure brilliance from the crystal, and then barked a curse and shoved himself backward in shock, nearly tumbling down the dais’ steps.

  There was someone inside the stone, a person, a woman. It wasn’t a jewel, it was a coffin. It was a sarcophagus forged in magic, like none the world had ever seen, but the woman . . . When Volundr gazed through the faceted stone, the woman inside had been gazing back. That was no corpse, it was a prisoner.

  “Nicholas,” Volundr stammered as he recovered himself from the shock. “Nicholas! I think that they’ve . . . I think that is . . .
r />   —

  The old Northman’s eyes were locked on the great crystal atop the Altar, trapped by the confusion of awe and horror that filled him. He didn’t see the change in the room’s other occupant. Didn’t note the strange bearing or tense posture. He didn’t notice the sharpening of the bearded man’s features or the dangerous glint that suddenly burned behind his iron grey eyes. Even if he’d been paying attention, Volundr might not have noticed the long, jagged sliver of ebony malice lying beside the heap of sacred metalworker’s tools on the altar, or the possessive way Nicholas’ hand closed around the dark curled ram’s horn hilt. If he’d been looking, he might have noted the sorcerer’s shadow seemed longer than it should, as though it were reaching, but Volundr, trapped as he was by the realizations of the crystal, saw none of that.

  He turned toward the man who’d been his companion through these last hard days, prepared to share the stunning truth of the crystal sarcophagus, but never got the chance. The midnight black blade of the ram’s horn dagger punched through the old man’s chest, as though he were made of parchment paper, and pulverized a heart that had beaten without falter for more than a millennium.

  Volundr clutched at the other man’s arm, jerking forward spasmodically, and pulling himself further onto the blade for his efforts. His mouth worked in gasping, wordless shock as he looked into eyes devoid of any human feeling, eyes brimming with a savage, animalistic glee. The old man was chilled, he’d been convinced he knew evil as well as any man could after centuries trapped below the mountain. He’d been wrong.

  Seemingly of its own accord, Volundr’s left hand scrambled across the top of Dain’s Anvil, searching, questing. It closed about the faceted haft of Eitri’s great crystal hammer, and the dying smith offered a prayer of thanks to Odin as he dragged the heavy tool toward himself. He felt the life pouring out of him. He was hollowing, draining like a pricked bladder, but the monster behind this man’s face . . . he had to . . .