by Kildare
A vertical wall of rock thousands of feet high neared and beyond it deep valleys were carved into the mountains. The sun bounced off the brilliant white of glacial fields higher up. Rocky fangs stabbed even higher. The glaciers fed many streams that skipped down the steep valleys and plunged over the lip of the wall, falling to the ground far, far below in a cascading mist. The waters gathered again into dark blue lakes hugged by smaller mountains.
Cillian wondered why they had quit rising; Serenus was flying straight toward the wall. They needed to be gaining altitude. They were a thousand feet too low. He tried to shout a warning, but his voice was lost in the wind. Serenus suddenly banked sharply to the right. Ira followed. Cillian groaned from the g-forces exerted. If not for the saddle, he would have been ripped away.
A rainbow arced in the mists ahead, veiling a waterfall. Cillian was lost in the majesty of it all when the horns slipped out of his hands and Ira dropped away beneath him. He had forgotten to fasten his straps. How could he have been so careless? So stupid? As fast as he fell, Ira plunged faster. This had been a mistake. It had all been a mistake. What was he doing on a dragon, anyway? What a fool he had been. He couldn’t fly. Now he would die, streaking Earthward like a comet. At least it would be quick.
Ira rolled over and spread her wings, slowing her descent enough for Cillian to catch up. A clawed hand snatched him and pressed him to her breast. She rolled over and continued the dive. Here the ride was much windier. They punched a hole through a thin layer of fog. The tips of pines poked through the blanket of more fog below. They were falling too fast. Just as he assumed once again he would die, Ira spread her wings and there was a jerking tug like that from a deployed parachute. Seconds later they settled softly onto the ground. Ira released her grip and Cillian lurched away.
He braced a hand against the rock wall to steady himself and exhaled for the first time in he wasn’t sure how long. How many times had he thought he was going to die in just the last thirty seconds? To hell with dragons. He could walk back to the capitol, a thousand miles though that must now be.
Ira looked at him and shook her head. “Amateur,” she mocked in Latin.
Cillian was too stunned to reply. They could talk? Why hadn’t he been told that? Ira turned and plodded away, probably in search of water. Cillian took stock of his new surroundings. Dense fog rendered everything a vague shadow. Yellow lichen patched the walls, haunting of evergreens in the dim light, a blanket of silence. Horror films were shot in such conditions.
“Follow me,” Aduro commanded. “The dwarf’s cave is near.”
Something about Aduro had bothered him, a feeling Cillian couldn’t pin down until now. Aduro’s bright eyes shone the color of warm amber, a color he had never seen in someone with skin so dark.
The general set off in a direction that put the rock wall to their left. Patches of grass were littered with red and yellow pine needles lying everywhere. From the mist appeared huge slabs of rocks. Some were islands, others leaned against the cliff wall. Cillian assumed they had fallen from somewhere far above long ago. At least he hoped it was long ago. After a couple hundred yards, Aduro motioned Cillian to halt. He pointed at a flat recess in the rock at the edge of the fog.
“That’s Sindri’s cave. I’ll lure the dwarf out into the woods. Once I’ve done that, you must sneak in and find the sword. Look for one unlike the rest. Waste no time. I can’t keep his attention forever. You don’t want to see an angry dwarf.” Aduro grabbed Cillian’s shirt and pulled him near enough that Cillian could feel his warm breath. “Touch nothing else. Nothing. This dwarf is the creator of many powerful devices capable of causing us all much grief.”
Cillian receded into a narrow fissure in the mountainside. Here he could see into the woods while still remaining hidden in the shadows. The entrance itself sat in a blind spot. An echo of knocking was followed by muted words. Aduro appeared in Cillian’s field of vision, the dwarf tagging along, a stocky figure about five feet in height. The fog quickly swallowed them both.
He crept out, mindful of how much noise a heavy tread sounded on dry pine needles. He could find no cracks to reveal the door’s edges in the shallow recess of the wall. It was completely invisible. How was he to open the door if he couldn’t even find it? He stepped back and looked over a broader section of the wall. No unnatural markings anywhere. He was sure this recess was where the dwarf had emerged from the mountain. But how? Had the dwarf walked through the rock?
He looked over the recess a second time and still couldn’t find the slightest crack. Not even a blemish, as if it had been sanded smooth. Foggy memory of a scene from the The Lord of the Rings. Did he need to chant some special phrase? First Gaelic, then Latin, now Elvish. He didn’t know Elvish. Not knowing what else to do, he pushed against the rock. The door cracked open.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Cillian looked over his shoulder. Seeing nothing of Aduro or Sindri, he pushed the door all the way open, entered, and closed the heavy slab behind him. The tunnel was about six feet in width, seven in height, and lit with lamps spaced every ten feet on both sides. The ground sloped down to a second door that opened in the same manner as the first. He entered a room with a table and hearth. Fire for light, floor of bare rock. Haphazard scattering of forging equipment and drawings on the table. He fought his curiosity to study the drawings and entered another room. There appeared to be a forge adjoining an armory.
So little could be seen in the darkness that he returned with a lamp. Racks of swords lined the walls, thirty at least, in addition to battle axes, war hammers, and spears. With so many, how was he to know the right sword? All looked more or less the same. Then he saw it. At the end of the room hung a lone sword with a black blade. He lifted the sword from the rack and was surprised at the lightness. Though black as coal, it shined brighter than any other sword in the room. It was forged of no metal he had ever seen before. There was no doubt in his mind that he had found Anbhás.
Passing back through the cave, he noticed a thick, leather-bound book on the table. Were his eyes deceiving him? No, the runes were quite clear. Cillian Rysgaard. How was his name inscribed on the book’s cover? It looked ancient, the pages yellow and weathered, a slash through the outer binding. He set his hand on the cover of the book, Aduro’s warning to touch nothing echoing in his head. Surely he could risk a quick look inside. He opened the cover gingerly, respectful of the book’s great age.
He jumped back in surprise and spun around. He was no longer in Sindri’s cave, but was now standing inside the entrance to another cave, staring out at the ocean. A hillside tumbled down to a beach far below where waves expired upon the shore, the surf echoing on the cave walls. Sea-scent hung thick in the air. A pale blue sky stretched without cloud as far as the horizon.
He spun around in confusion, trying to find his bearings. What had just happened? Had the book transported him from one cave to another? From the foliage growing on the hillside, he knew he was somewhere in the tropics. This was far from the evergreen forests of Sindri’s cave. He looked down. The book was no longer in his hands. Where had it gone? He spun around again, checking the floor, then pawed through the plants near the cave entrance with no luck. The book had vanished! How was he to get back?
The brightness of the sunlight outside the cave hurt his eyes, so he withdrew deeper into the darkness. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, the walls began to glow with runes radiating their own light as varied as the colors of a rainbow. He ran his fingers over the etchings. Who had chiseled these runes into the rock? And what was the source of the light? It was as if the rock itself glowed, as if it were living. How was that possible?
He could see now that the cave ran straight into the rock for a great length. He estimated the height and width of the walls were ten feet and saw nothing to indicate the measurements were anything less than perfect. This in itself was a remarkable engineering feat. More so that not an inch of wall was unmarked. Even the floor bore the letters. Some
one had spent a great deal of time carving these runes. Many years, at the least.
The runes weren’t random, but arranged in stories. From years of studying Norse myths, he had learned how to read runic writing. These told ancient legends. One legend here, another across the wall, a third above, and on and on. He had never seen, never even heard of a discovery like this in all the world. Here were preserved the legends of the Vikings. How was this possible?
“Is someone there?” cried out a voice from deeper in the cave.
Cillian froze. He wasn’t alone.
“Please help me. I’m trapped.”
Cillian crept deeper into the cave with caution, unsure what danger might lurk ahead. The cave widened into a huge cavern. Runes on the ceiling glowed with a light too distant to read. Ten alcoves had been cut into the walls on each side with an eleventh at the cavern’s back. A figure was carved in each. No light glowed in these recesses, veiling the figures in shadow.
The voice sounded again, louder now and echoing on the rock. “Please help me. I beg of you.”
The color of the lights shifted with the pitch of the man’s voice. A dim outline of a haggard-looking man chained to the walls within the last alcove appeared in the shadows.
“Who are you and why are you chained here?”
“My name is Lucas. The evil dwarf Sindri tricked me and bound me in these chains because I refused to help him kill the Imperator. Please free me. These chains are impossible to break except by the sword you now carry.”
Cillian approached to within a foot. He couldn’t make out the specific details of the man’s face in the darkness of the recess, but he could tell he was weak and malnourished. Only the chains prevented his collapse. Lucas lifted his head with difficulty. Long blond hair framed his gaunt face. “Please have mercy.”
Cillian lifted his sword above his head and brought it down upon the first chain. The blade cut clean through as if the chain were made of air. Cillian stepped back in shock. The woodcutter’s tale was true. How could a sword be so strong and sharp? He used less effort on the second chain, and again the links severed with ease.
Lucas stepped into the light and seemed to grow in stature as he did. Broken chains hung from the shackles still binding his wrists. Cillian recognized his mistake too late. The look of exhaustion had been a ruse.
A cold smile formed beneath the man’s bright blue eyes. “I am afraid I lied to you. My name is not Lucas. It is Loki. Maybe you have heard of me before? God of chaos and whatnot. But then you already knew that, did you not, Cillian? Or should I say, Professor Rysgaard.” Loki stretched his arms outward and sighed. “Do you know how good it feels to stretch after having been chained in this cave for so long?” He brushed past.
Cillian hurried after, still holding the sword. Perhaps he should try to kill him.
Loki stopped outside the cave entrance. At Cillian’s approach, Loki turned to face him. “You can put those thoughts away.” Loki grabbed the sharp edge of the sword and pushed it aside as if it were nothing more than a dull stick. “Anbhás cannot cut me, let alone kill me.”
“I don’t know how, but I promise I’ll get you chained back to that wall.”
Loki smiled, a hint of malice in his expression. “Excellent. I have a nemesis.” He patted Cillian on the shoulder. “The two of us are going to have one hell of a time. I would stay and chat, but I am afraid that I am in a bit of a hurry. I have a war between the gods to instigate. End of Days kind of stuff. I do not want to bore you with the details.” Loki turned toward the sea and stretched, lifting his hands up toward the sun. “Oh, and Cillian, the sooner you realize this is not a dream, the better. Your life depends on it.”
II
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4
The table was round. As was the room. A window without seam encircled it all. Stars shone in the deep depths of space beyond the glass. The room had no door. The question of how Cillian had gotten into the room was quickly replaced by the question of who were the strangers sitting around him. They numbered seven, each wearing a long robe of a different color and woven of a fabric appearing similar to silk, but wasn’t. Couldn’t be. It had a sheen unlike any fabric he had ever seen.
Even more remarkable were the beings’ eyes. Though their skin and hair varied in color, each one possessed golden eyes shining like little suns. Light so dazzling he had difficulty looking at them. When he did he felt as if he looked into a pool of infinite depth stretching beyond all measure of space and time. Though they looked young, they were far older than any mortal man. Didn’t know how, but he knew. In none of them could he safely guess a sex. They seemed to be a blurred line somewhere between male and female.
Though the table was round and nothing in their attire indicated a difference in rank, the being across from Cillian was their leader. Something about its appearance, in the way it carried itself, indicated a peer unequaled. The being had fair skin and hair so blond it could have been spun from gold. None of the others had blond hair.
The being’s gaze tracked around the room, pausing for a moment at each member, and ended at Cillian, who shifted uneasily in his chair. The golden eyes seemed to pierce through him, as if it knew his thoughts, knew everything about him. He couldn’t look away. Wanted to, but couldn’t.
A notion of time stretching, distorting, stopping, as if frozen in amber. The movement of stars, blue of pinprick lights smearing across the window. Cillian’s gaze shifted away and the clock’s rhythm returned. What had just happened? Had time sped up or slowed down? Or both?
“Do not be afraid, Cillian,” a gentle, but stern voice commanded, sounding neither male nor female, but like their faces, somewhere between.
Every gaze in the room fell upon him, yet none indicated they had spoken. There was no one and nothing else in the room except the eight of them, a table, and glass holding starlight.
Blondie smiled, the first display of emotion by any of them. Whoever or whatever these people were with such stunning physical beauty, Cillian had only heard their description in myths and fairy tales.
“This is no fairy tale,” the voice said. Blondie smiled again. “Yes, Cillian, I can hear your thoughts. I know everything there is to know about you.” The man’s lips didn’t move, but he was the one speaking. The shift in his expressions matched the words.
“Welcome, Cillian Rysgaard, first of the sons of Adam to ever attend our counsel,” the golden-haired being said aloud in the same voice Cillian had been hearing in his head. “My name is Michael.” Michael pointed at each of the other beings in turn as he—was it a he?—rattled off their names. “This is Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raguel, Remiel, and Sariel. We are the archangels, the intermediaries between Yahweh and his creations.”
“You’re not what I expected angels to look like,” Cillian said. He immediately felt foolish. Idiot. A flash of a smile on Gabriel’s face? The others blank as stone.
“Angels may take many forms,” Michael explained. “Your body is constructed of earth and ours of light. We are the essence of matter, not its embodiment. As to our sex, since you were wondering, we are neither male nor female.”
“Does this all have something to do with Loki? I didn’t know who he was when I released him. If I’d known, I would’ve—” Cillian stopped, realized for the first time how absurd he must sound. Loki wasn’t real. Neither was his release. None of this was real. No point in rambling about it like a madman.
“I am afraid you are wrong, Cillian,” Michael said. “This is real. All too real. Our greatest fear has been realized. Loki has been released from the prison where he had been confined for many ages. And you released him.”
Cillian slumped his head down into his hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This can’t be real.”
“It is real,” Raphael admonished, “whether you choose to believe it.”
“No, it’s not!” Cillian shouted, slamming a fist onto the table. “I couldn’t have released a god from a prison while dreaming. It’s not possible
.” Cillian had become so upset he shook. He wanted all this nonsense to be over with.
“It is not a dream,” Gabriel said. “At least not as you understand dreams to be. You believe a dream is a story your mind creates while you sleep, and usually dreams are nothing more than that, but not always, and certainly not in this case. Your soul traveled to another reality, another universe. In that universe, you freed Loki.”
“What am I supposed to do about that? You’re the archangels, you take care of it. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t want any part in it.”
“If it were that simple, we would leave you alone,” Michael said. “But we need your help to recapture Loki and return him to his prison.”
“What help could I possibly offer you? I’m a dying old man. And what’s with this body? Why do I look so young? Is this your work?”
“Not initially, but we have decided to maintain your current avatar. A younger body will better suit you for the trials you will endure.”
“Raguel, right? I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean, but don’t make any more comments like that.” Cillian hung his head and rubbed his hands through his hair. He toed on the verge of a complete meltdown.
“Calm yourself, Cillian,” Michael’s voice commanded in his head. His flaring temper was countered by another presence—a sensation of serenity. His emotions strove against one another, his anger wavering and then dissolving, tranquility rising ascendant. His anger doused, but not ready to speak with them yet, he studied the angels in closer detail for distraction.