Temple of Cocidius

by Maxx Whittaker

  “Huh.” Not what I expected to see, and not anything I can puzzle out. I trade a glance with Kumiko. Another carriage taps around the bend, silver-gilt with door panels painted like a cathedral ceiling.

  “This is so surreal.”

  Kumiko nudges me. “This is the realm of the gods. There’s no such thing, Lir. We don’t have rules.”

  That is so bloody true.

  She stands, steps forward, in full view of the road.

  What is she doing? My grip tightens on my new blade. “Should we–”

  Another carriage. This one actually clatters like a proper conveyance, drawn by six roan that nearly match furiously swinging tasseled drapes inside the windows. Its coachman is a shadowed figure, a black-paper silhouette of a man in a wide-breasted jacket and a three-cornered hat. The sedan must hold six people, and as it takes the curved slope the whole thing totters up on the right wheels, axle groaning in protest. But not the passengers. Laughter - very mortal, bawdy, maybe drunken, erupts inside the cab. The vehicle rights itself and flies on like a banshee.

  Kumiko stands in sight of the debacle, her presence causing not a hitch in the carriage’s progress. She casts a wry glance over her shoulder. “I don’t think anyone on this road is a worry for us.”

  I can’t argue with her. When the next coach rounds the bend at our backs, I hardly tense. After a few more turns in the switchback, they become part of the scenery.

  “So, the black dragonflight is at the bottom, red at the top.”

  Kumiko makes a small sound in her throat. “You can practically feel the animosity from here, can’t you?” She waves a hand. “Somewhere in the mortal’s legends it became an eagle at the top. Maybe the word used for dragon, or for the strength of the red flight? Mortals are terrible at translating things.”

  I remember Crispin saying something similar and wonder how much of the way mortals live is predicated on a lazy or near-sighted scribe.

  “What is not a mistake–” she begins, pausing for the chaos of two gigs racing each other around a curve, at an elevation that would spell death for a single slipped wheel.

  Kumiko clears her throat, impatient. “It’s not a mistake that Ratatoskr, the squirrel-being, made a sport of running the length of Yggdrasil’s trunk, whispering slander and gossip between the two flights, provoking them. Slander and gossip until he, knowingly or not, fell upon a truth: Nidhogg is trapped within Nastrond, but not the smaller, lesser members of his flight. Odr punished Ratatoskr for revealing this by turning half his body into a tail, and allowing Yggdrasil to be covered by Midgard, to prevent Ratatoskr’s journeys up and down its trunk.”

  “But the damage was already done,” I guess.

  “To an extent. The Svartr had already infiltrated Tindra’s, the Raudr queen’s, court. But the Svartr are unquestionably weaker. They rely on intrigue and deception, so they can’t reveal themselves. A win for the Raudr- except that one red dragon could, if caught alone, be overwhelmed by a large number of Svartr and their dark powers.”

  “So everyone tries to hide their identity, or at least pretend they’re something else.” This I know. I grew up in a royal court. Sounds like they’re all alike.

  “Leaving Tindra her hamstrung on her throne. Aside from her closest, oldest, most trusted warriors, she presides over a shadow court. And if her rule fails…”

  “The Svartr rise. Akershus and Valgrind, gateway to the god-realms, fall.”

  “And something worse than Ragnarok consumes the nine realms.”

  Something worse than the end of the world?

  Kumiko shakes her head at my silent question. “Ragnarok is a violent rebirth. What Mordenn would have, and Nidhogg, and the rest...there is no second era of man, or the gods. Including yours.”

  “But my people don’t follow all the same gods.”

  “Odr has many names over many realms. Heijl may be one. Like a king with jarls; your gods, mine, the gods of Freya or even Etain’s bone yards.”

  I stop in the middle of the road, unable to take another step for a moment. There are no boneyards in my lands. No swamp of bitter, vengeful mara. Sylvan folk and beings like the Valkyrie long ago receded into other lands, and into the mists of time, existing only as legends, although they must still live somewhere even if beyond the Long Coast.

  But the point is that they aren’t real to me or a hundred generations before me. They’re fairy and bedtime stories we outgrow in the trundle beneath our parents’ beds. Yet somewhere out there, there were boneyards, and clever gods, succubi and lamia. Events that shaped their every waking moment, curses and wars and machinations I never suspected, have been shaping my world too, all along. For a moment my head can’t grasp this vastness, the length of this intricately-woven cloth of existence.

  A god is just a man at his heart.

  Crispin’s words steady me. The moment passes.

  Kumiko rests a hand at my back, and we climb the next bend.

  –Akershus Gates–

  Our road widens beyond the turn, and blends from hard-packed earth to smooth, ancient cobblestones that pass beyond the wide maw of iron gates. A guard stands on either side, each the height of Torvik, their rough-hewn armor casting light from the torches above. The hafts of war hammers jut over their shoulders. They don’t move at our appearance, don’t even look real.

  I move to the brush. Kumiko however marches up the center of the road. Sheepish, I join her when she reaches the threshold.

  Still no movement. No sound. Are they even breathing? I point up the winding lane. “We can...pass through?”

  “The grounds are open to visitors each night from sundown to sunrise,” one guard intones in a perfectly mortal-sounding voice.

  I throw Kumiko a look and search our surroundings as we pass through the gates. Inside the stone walls, folded back like wings, are a second set of gates, riveted, iron-banded plank doors that can be closed behind the more decorative iron set.

  “And they’re just going to let us walk right in?” I whisper.

  Voices filter down through a manicured wall of trees that border the last stretch of lane. Torches cap an iron railing that spans both sides of a wide bridge swallowed by a dark archway at its halfway point. The rushing of water underscores everything.

  The narrow, lush stretch bordering the fence is crowded with people. Far back almost at the tree line a man and woman sit with three children, a meal laid out around them on a coarse blanket. Better dressed folk stand at the railing, pointing and gazing up at the fortress walls and the mansion towering above.

  What are they here for? It doesn’t take me long to discover that they’ve come for entertainment, for a spectacle. Shadow creatures move along the torch-bathed stone. Others flit about in color; gold tinsel and flowered silk damask. Fabrics and cuts only the wealthiest can afford in my kingdom.

  It’s a party, and townsfolk and their nobles have made their own out of spectating the far-off gala.

  Kumiko inhales. Green sparks collect before she’s exhaled. She nods to the bridge’s arch. “You won’t be able to pass beyond the tollgate. Maybe not onto the bridge at all.”

  “Damn. There has to be a way–”

  My words are drowned out by shouts that rise up from inside the gatehouse. Two guards appear, cut from the same rock and steel as the ones at the base of the hill. Strung between them hangs a wiry man, cap half unpinned from his head and full coat dragging the dirt. For being comparatively tiny, he’s doing a sound job of twisting in his captors’ grip.

  “...lost it. I’ve explained that already! Sirus Blaloch!”

  Dragging.

  “If you’ll only summon the empress she will–”

  The guards give their answer by shaking him between them like the favorite plaything of a pair of hounds. He’s not deterred for more than a moment. “She will vouch for me! Blaloch! I am ...Blaloch!” He grunts the last word as they throw him to his feet. He stumbles at the bridge’s end, throws out his hands for balance, and lands like an acro
bat. He turns, imperious, standing ramrod straight. “Go and get her, or there will be trouble.”

  “There’s trouble already,” murmurs a guard. “Back to the green, or I’ll remove you from the estate.”

  “Blaloch,” he bites back.

  “No invitation makes you nobody,” the second guard retorts.

  Blaloch draws back for an effete swing.

  Kumiko grips my arm. I hold my breath.

  His hand smacks armor with an impotent clunk. A hush falls over the crowd as the tinny echo fades.

  “Now, if you’ll please–” Blaloch’s words stretch to a shriek. A guard’s fist comes around, a lazy impact that bats Blaloch over the rail, off the bridge, and into the river’s fast-slowing moat. His gurgling cries last as long as I estimate it takes for him to thrash under the bridge and over the waterfall.

  His end is marked by a flock of paper birds, everything he carried in his coat – everything but an invitation. They flutter to earth, tumble in death throes over the grass, and one or two die against the toe of my boot. On impulse, I pick them up.

  The guards offer a warning look to the shocked-silent crowd scattered along the promontory before lumbering back to their post.

  “I think the Bifrost aura may be the least of our worries,” I tell Kumiko. “No matter what we have to do to get in, we’re going to need invitations.”

  Kumiko isn’t listening to me, at least not entirely. Her attention is fixed on eight or nine men in a wide spot off the lane, clad in silk stockings and posh coats. They haven’t stopped arguing, not even during the demise of Sirus Blaloch.

  “I think we may have an opening,” she murmurs, pulling me along behind her.

  The disagreement, so far as I can tell over their girlish bickering, stems from two men in each party having invitations. The two without, on both sides, are negotiating in increasingly shrill tones. A fast horse, a purse of gold, a parcel of land. A female servant; two female servants.

  I wink at Kumiko, tucking the departed Blaloch’s litter into my chest piece. “Watch this.” I saunter with all the arrogance I can muster, which is a lot, and lean against a tree while the bargains and insults hurl for another few minutes. It doesn’t take long for my presence to go from unconscious to very immediate intrusion.

  “We’re in the middle of something,” one sneers from the premature wrinkles of a painted face.

  I throw my arms wide and pretend to measure the distance between us. “And I am in the middle of it as well.”

  “The entertainment is here” mutters one, and a few on both sides groan.

  “Oh, I see.” I press a hand to my chest. “I have two spare tickets to wager thanks to absent companions. But I can see they aren’t welcome here, so…” I trill fingers in the air and stand away from the tree, making for the overlook where Kumiko waits, unblinking.

  “Oh! Oh ho!” A hand catches me in the chest. It crinkles the papers concealed there, all I need it to do. “Friend,” he oozes the word like cold honey, “we are men of wagers. Name your price.” The man is a shadow of handsomeness, chiseled face spackled over with white paint, helping hide the pox of syphilis that dots his lean jaw. Avarice and bored malice light his dull, dark eyes. I know these men-of-the-court. He’s a too-ripe aristocrat, paled and shriveled, greedy and paste his prime.

  Which side looks more unsavory? I don’t think there’s much of difference. “A duel between myself and you lot.” I point out the throng closest to the overlook.

  Looks pass between the men, one more smug than the rest. “Which of us would you choose?”

  I pretend to examine my nails. “Oh, all of you at once.”

  Most of the eight gape. Two look increasingly hungry, including the smug one who eyes my sheath. “We have choice of weapon.”

  “That’s only fair.” Fists, blades...whatever they decide on won’t be a match.

  He produces something from under his coat. Fashioned almost like the head of a cane, polished dark wood riveted with plates, gears, clockwork and levers. “Pistols, then.”

  “What?”

  “A pistol. A firearm? Surely you didn’t challenge us, the Lock & Ball club, without so much as a basic understanding of the gentleman’s pistol…” He tsks. “Too late now. A deal is a deal. Avery?”

  One of the men behind me draws his piece. From a small embroidered bag he takes a patch of cloth, and a lead ball. He pours something from a flask, and rams in the cloth and projectile with a jab from a small rod. Avery holds it out to me. “One shot; make it count.”

  All that effort for one shot? My childhood slingshot seems more efficient.

  “Never let it be said that Anton Davies is unfair. Would you like a second weapon? There are four of us, after all…”

  How long did it take Avery to load? And under no pressure. “One should do, thanks.”

  Davies rubs hands together, greedy and eager. “Ten paces. And don’t bother removing your armor.” He takes a long look at my unprotected head, sneers. “It won’t be necessary.”

  That tells me all I need to know about them. They don’t plan on injuring me, fighting to first blood. This is going to be satisfying.

  “Allisun will give the count.”

  Sword duels are fought at arms-length. Here we’re lobbing projectiles and adding useless distance to the mix. Asinine is the nicest word I can think of.

  “Ten...nine…”

  I take a ridiculously long step at Avery’s count. We’ve drawn a small crowd and I intend to give them a show.

  “Six...five…” Davies and his men can never turn faster than me. I even give them a head start when Avery shouts ‘One!’

  And I still spin around faster than any of them. For all my complaining, the pistol moves like an extension of my hand. Its trigger jumps, well-oiled and ready. It doesn’t aim quite like a bow, but I grasp the principle. I’m not prepared for the kick, the bark of a cannon announced on a grey cloud of sulphur-stench.

  Davies raises on tip-toes, spins like a dancer, and falls before the crimson stain on his white shirt is big as a milk saucer.

  A column of flame closes the gap between my hand and the man beside him. Onlookers cry out. My fire licks his pistol before he can fire. It explodes in a rain of fittings and wood splinters, and he shrieks, clutching his burned, lacerated fingers. The debris and the magic give his friends pause. I leap the gap, draw, and cut a line of death across them.

  All four lay in a heap at my feet, dead with a single shot fired. The pistol is a spectacular weapon, I admit, but blade and spell have their place.

  One of the remaining four inches in, hunched and trembling. “Well...ahh...since Davies and Avery won’t be needing their invitations–” His fingers worm into Avery’s shirt.

  I press his hand into the corpse with the toe of my boot. “I won the wager. I’ll take the invitations.”

  “You already have two!”

  “And I’ll take these two.” My boot digs deeper into his wrist. “Unless you have issue with that…”

  His head rattles, and he draws back his arm.

  I throw Blaloch’s abandoned papers to the ground, replacing them with the crisp, thick-papered, blood spattered invitations from Davies and Avery.

  The timid man snatches up my discarded papers, skims them. His bollocks return. “These aren’t tickets! They’re ledger pages. You swindled us!”

  I turn and close the gap between us in one step, bend and put us nose to nose. “More successfully than Avery swindled me with his choice of weapon shite. You thought me a sword-swinging barnacle from the back-ages, and every one of you would have stood laughing as he slaughtered me. If you’d like to make an issue of my win, I’m happy to go a second round.”

  The sound of his gulp is audible. The others back away.

  “I thought as much. Good night.”

  Kumiko watches me the whole way back, staring expectantly. Her eyes are hooded, and little teeth chew her bottom lip as her eyes track me.

  “What?”
r />   “I’ve always preferred the scholarly sort, but the barbarian has his appeal.”

  I wink. “Noted for later.”

  “Mm. Now that we have invitations and your blood lust is sated, let’s find a way through the Bifrost aura.”

  We skirt the rail past the bridge, taking our time until the crowd has lost interest and gone back to watching the mansion. The land concludes in a rounded point, and beyond the fence a sheer cliff plunges into the sea below. Akershus sits in the deepest part of a harbor’s natural curve, with the river for a moat. The waterfall is more than a deterrent for anyone scaling the rock face; it churns into a gaping hole below, a black mouth that swallows the crest of each crashing wave.

  “The mouth of Nastrond.” Kumiko’s whisper chills my skin. “It feeds the waters of the corpse-shore far below Yggdrasil, in the depths of Hel.”

  There’s something beautiful about the whole sight, and terrifying, like facing a beast of legend. Wild, feral, primitive.

  “Nothing useful that I can see,” offers Kumiko. The aura bisects the river, and the current here... “ She shakes her head.

  “It is darker out here by the water; we’d be concealed…” I have trouble tearing myself away from the sight. “But you’re right. Let’s not make trouble for ourselves. Let’s scout the forest edge for an easier crossing.”

  When we pass back along the green, Davies, Avery, and their men are being stuffed like sacks into a carriage, the remaining four arguing about who will take the corpses to the witch, and who should get the remaining two tickets. Any discomfort I had with our duel evaporates. The pair aren’t dead, but all eight are stupid and insufferable.

  We follow the iron posts into the tree line. Voices grow faint and the amount of land inside the fence increases until I’m sure we must be nearly back to the entrance gate. We’re beyond all but the most tenacious light from the fortress and the green.

  After a few more minutes of stalking the perimeter, the fence abruptly ends. No wall, no barricade. The pediments of an old stone bridge are visible ahead. It takes moonlight filtering through the trees for me to realize it clings to the edge of a wide lake. The river flows slower here, pooling against the last uphill climb into a low, boggy portion of the wood.