The Last Praetorian

by Christopher Anderson

  “I was leaving regardless,” Tarion said. “However, I have friends and business in Trondheim. I’ll buy back your good graces, duke, if you’re so disposed.”

  “For how much?”

  Tarion fetched a single chest of gold.

  “It is acceptable,” the duke said, knowing he couldn’t broker a better deal.

  “I’ll have Hrolf oversee the rebuilding of Trondheim, the building of the temple and shelter for the families of the unfortunate,” Tarion said. “Hera has her trove, so all is settled.”

  “It’s as good as from Tyr himself,” said Thor, laughing and that was that.

  He walked back to the stair, as Thor pounded him on the back. Even in mirth, the Thunder God was prodigiously strong, but Tarion didn’t know what was worse, being beaten by Thor or enduring Freya’s stare. She gazed at Tarion with eyes as hard and sharp as an obsidian knife. He cringed, but then she looked away. Her eyes didn’t soften. Tarion followed her gaze. The Goddess was locking eyes with Aubrey.

  Aubrey, to her credit, didn’t back down. She glared right back at the Goddess. Then she glared at Tarion. He glanced at Freya. Now both women were staring at him. He hustled outside to help Hrolf.

  The duke left under the watchful eye of Hera Vora. The townsfolk were amusing; they arrived in fury and left in song. Tarion helped Hrolf load four chests of gold, one for the temple, two for the town and one for Hrolf and his family.

  Tarion kept one chest of gold, silver and the jewelry.

  Thor talked with Freya during the loading and when Tarion came back from carrying the last chest, he asked her, “Are you coming or are you going?”

  “I’m not coming Thor, but I’m not staying either.”

  Tarion was suitably confused. He ducked inside and hoped to avoid Aubrey, but the girl wasn’t there. “She’s probably with Hrolf, where she belongs.” His only thought now was to lock the door and go to bed. With any luck, he’d slip into an enchanted sleep and he wouldn’t wake up again until the world changed.

  Tarion picked up his goblet and the remainder of the wine. Grimacing, he put the cork back in and put them back on the table; it wasn’t nearly strong enough. “Thor, it’s good to see you again. Freya—” he opened his mouth as if to say something, but his mind became a blank slate. He threw his arms up and went upstairs, completely drained. He staggered up the stairs, trying to forget what a trying day he’d had. As he turned the corner, he stopped and listened for Freya. There were no footsteps. Was he disappointed? He cursed himself, “That’s what you get when you fall in love with a Goddess.” Defeated, he retreated to his bedchamber for some well-deserved rest. He opened the door, but shock stopped him at the threshold. The woman on the bed wore nothing but a golden glow around her smiling face.

  Chapter 27: A Witch Here and a Witch There

  “You had an easy time packing me up and sending me off as an acolyte in front of the world, can you say it to my face?” Aubrey asked with a feline grin. She rolled onto her tummy and rested her chin on her hands, kicking her feet in the air. “I suppose you did it for my own good, but why not have your cake and eat it too? There’s nothing about being a druid that demands chastity!”

  “Maybe not, but there’s something about honor that does!” said Tarion sharply, automatically. For the first time since he’d been to Norrland, Tarion felt the weight of his age and experiences. The desire for a new life dashed against impenetrable rocks in that moment, ironically because of Aubrey’s beauty and not for the lack of it.

  Tarion was lukewarm to the idea of being betrothed to Minerva because she was so much younger than he. Even though at forty he was as hale and hard as a young strapper of eighteen—he’d simply seen too much, experienced too much and already lived too much. How could he expect to be a partner to someone whose outlook on life came from such a different pair of eyes? The young Norse barmaid should have elicited the same doubt; yet her innocence and exuberance contrasted sharply with Minerva’s more combative and reserved nature.

  “Aubrey you are a catastrophe of wit, sass and beauty,” he told her soberly. “Look at me. Don’t waste yourself on me; I’m a phantom in your mind—a fantasy. The man beneath has moved beyond where you should be. I can’t re-live life the way you desire it.” He went out on the balcony and saw Hrolf counting his trunks yet again.

  “Come now, Tarion, I’m almost eighteen,” she said. “Tell my father I’m staying to see where my temple will be built.”

  “Hrolf!” he called. “Don’t forget your daughter, she’ll be right out!”

  Hrolf waved absently.

  Aubrey got off the bed and sashayed up to Tarion. “What’s the matter, Tarion? Don’t you like the look of me?”

  “Aubrey, I like the look of you far too much for my conscience!” he said firmly, blocking her path to the balcony. He took her by her shoulders, trying not to touch anything unbecoming in the process and trying not to stare. Firmly, he turned her around and guided her to where her clothing lay draped over a chair.

  As he left the room, he said, “This is serious Aubrey. You’re going to make the Goddess Freya very angry if this continues and she’s going to take it out on me! Now be a good girl; I have enough people trying to kill me.”

  #

  Thor looked after Tarion with a knowing eye. “So are you still set on your course?” Thor asked, his single eye glancing upward as if he could see through the floorboards to Tarion’s encounter with Aubrey. “First he saves a town that doesn’t want anything to do with him and now this. Every turn of his life has been a test; and every test he passes. Are you still willing to make the trade?”

  “It’s not as if we had a choice Thor,” the Goddess replied.

  “No, you’re wrong,” Thor said, making the table jump with his mallet fist. The Thunder God stomped around the keep, thumping the table, mantle, sill, door, wall or anything else that wouldn’t immediately break under his angst. “It’s the destructor who wants to banish choice, but we’re not under his dominion yet. We do have a choice—that’s the point!”

  When Freya did not answer him, Thor told her, “Listen to me; as I lay there dying on Vigrid, the Destructor tried and invoke Ragnarok and so end the world and start his dominion. He couldn’t—something was missing.”

  “Why did he fail?” Freya wondered. “That power is under Tyr’s purview. Now we know the Destructor is Tyr. Only Tyr can order the remaking of the world and end Freewill. What stopped him?”

  “We’re absolutely sure Naugrathur is really Tyr?”

  “Yes, but we are no closer to knowing who the Wanderer is in truth,” Freya replied with notable frustration. “We both knew him in Aesir, and both Tarius and Alfrodel saw him with their death sight; the Valkyries do not play tricks with a dying man’s mind.” Freya pursed her lips and frowned.

  “What about Tarion,” Thor asked? He shook his hoary head. “Are you so determined that he should not have a life? Look, I know your desires, none better, but Tarion has a life; a real flesh and blood life. Couldn’t you at least allow him the illusion of one? What could it hurt?”

  “Tarion has a destiny; that destiny is to free the Wanderer,” Freya said forcefully. “Every rune, every portent, every single piece of this puzzle points to Tarion freeing the Wanderer. That is his purpose; his only purpose!”

  “Do you want the Wanderer to destroy the Destructor or do you want him for yourself?” Thor asked sternly.

  “One goes hand in hand with the other Thor.”

  “Yet what of Tarion, do you honestly think he’s gone through everything just so he can open the Rainbow Bridge and free the Wanderer?” He raised his single hand and ran it through his thick beard. “Think of the life Tarion has led. Can the Creator endow a man with so much and doom him to be the door ward for another? No, I refuse to believe it!”

  “He’s only a mortal man, Thor. What more do we expect or need from him?”

  Thor buried his face in his drinking horn. He shrugged his mighty shoulder as if to lift the
entire tower with his angst. “I’d rather see us fall then to think we must destroy such a man, the best of men, only so that we can continue.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Asgard is still where he has to go, if for no other reason than to open the Rainbow Bridge. Let’s hope the Norns lead him to the horn on the way.”

  “Then what becomes of him,” Thor asked. His single eye turned hard and morose. “Has it occurred to you that your preservation of Tarion may work too well? That man has faced more and accomplished more for our sake than any God accomplished—even Tyr—Tyr sacrificed his hand; we’re asking, no we’re duping Tarion to sacrifice his existence. When he realizes what this means, do you expect him to go quietly?” The Thunder God’s voice turned into a deep, rumbling whisper terrifying to hear. “He will see it as the ultimate act of betrayal! What if he doesn’t accede to this mad scheme of yours; what if he fights the Wanderer and triumphs—what then?”

  Freya frowned and said, “This is what Tarion was born to do Thor. It is his purpose in this existence.”

  “He’s saved the world a dozen times over without the Wanderer’s help!” Thor clenched his teeth in an angry frown. “Tarion is my companion. I would stop this if I could.”

  “There’s no other way Thor.”

  Thor remained silent for a long moment. He turned to leave, but over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll get him to the threshold of the Rainbow Bridge. Beyond that I’ll have nothing to do with it,” he shrugged. “Even if this works out the way you want it, I don’t think that you and the Wanderer will find happiness Freya. More likely than not the price we’ll pay for ridding the world of the Destructor will include all of us—and so it should!”

  #

  Tarion trudged downstairs, but Freya wasn’t there. In a few moments, Aubrey came down, fully dressed. She hugged him good night—a hug Tarion grudgingly admitted he didn’t want to end—and then she left the tower. Tarion locked up and went upstairs; he wanted nothing more than sleep. This time, Freya was waiting for him in the bedchamber, arms crossed over her bosom and a cross expression on her face.

  “That was well handled, since she was not, I should say.”

  “Very funny,” Tarion told her and he threw himself wearily on the bed. “Instead of spying on me couldn’t you be more helpful? You could’ve scared Aubrey off; Goddesses have their terrifying side, don’t they?”

  “Women are hard to put off when they’re on the prowl. She’s very attractive, especially naked.”

  “Don’t remind me, Freya,” he said, sitting up dejectedly. “My life is complicated enough as it is. I’m content to dwell on skinny dipping Goddesses under the stars!”

  “What a sweet thing to say.” She leaned over him and kissed him on the cheek, saying, “You’re charming, you know that? I could get used to having you around Tarion—really.”

  Exasperated, he reached for the wine but found the bottle empty. “As a Goddess you couldn’t do anything about this, could you?”

  Freya was gone without so much as a puff of smoke.

  “No I suppose you can’t.” Tarion groaned, turned down the lights and slipped into a deeply troubled slumber—completely alone in the world.

  The next morning was fittingly cold.

  Tarion cooked himself breakfast, gathered his plunder and walked to town. He was tired of all this: the confusion, the notoriety and the company. He had a plan. Freya was right about one thing. He needed to leave and soon. Today he hoped to find out how he was going to do that and where he was going to go.

  Trondheim did not welcome him. The expressions of people were not pleasant. He ignored them. Tarion was tired of blundering through the world in the dark. He’d get some answers. Pulling his hood low over his face, he went straight to Magi’s Row.

  The street looked much more inviting in the daylight than it did that first night in Midgard. It was crowded and noisy and many people were there who had no real business there. They wandered through the street and shops gawking at the magical animals, the tricks and the odd fireworks display.

  Tarion found Beath’s shop without any problem. He opened the battered blue door and ducked under a low beam to find a small dim room filled with a clutter of magic odds and ends. Beath was sitting in the corner, drinking tea under a cloud of incense. She was an old wizened woman crowned with severe white hair. She shuffled from behind the piles of books and antiques, appraising him with sharp eyes and a put out expression that barely creased her yellow parchment flesh.

  “Well what do you want here?” she asked with an unpleasant manner. “You’re not trailing any of his minions are you? Wait a moment—I smell dragon. Well, well, so the stories are true; you’ve been busy, busy, busy!” She sprang over an assortment of rubbish with the energy of a teenage tomboy, eyeing one of Tarion’s bags with anticipation. “Now, let’s have a look at Gaurnothax, there. What do you have?”

  Tarion took the bloodied dragon skin wrapping out of his burlap bag and unrolled it, displaying the grim contents. Beath bent almost double in her examination.

  “You know your business,” she said with a smile. “These aren’t washed but bathed in the drake’s blood and wrapped in his flesh. That helps keep them fresh and the blood has value too, once cured. Yes, here we are: the eyes; ears; olfactory lobes; a strand of the right shoulder muscle; the heart wrapped in the scale of his temple; larynx; venom sacs; and what’s this, by my word, you do know your business! Not one in a thousand adventurers would know the value of the testicles, nor where to find them. I’ll have to hand it to you, Tarion. To slay him was one thing, but to know his worth is truly wondrous. I shall make you a well-to-do man this day!”

  “Gold is not my price,” Tarion told her firmly.

  Beath sighed, “Information can be more dear than gold. What is it that you want to know?”

  “I need to know where to find the Horn of Heimdall.”

  “Well, finding things is normally not too difficult,” she replied. “That’s a different one though. Never mind, we’ll take a crack at it. Sit down.” She placed a ball of crystal between them and after a deep breath, clasped his hand and began to chant. The ball brightened and darkened erratically. At length he saw a great battlefield. It seemed as if the entire world fought. The vision centered on two figures, the giant King Johaan and the golden tressed Heimdall. Back and forth, they battled, but Johaan took the upper hand and Heimdall fell to the earth with cloven armor.

  Johaan took a golden horn from the God’s body and the vision faded. When the ball lightened, it showed a great arctic palace and deep within the palace a set of halls. There was a secret room behind an elaborate armoire. Within the room on a bed of velvet was the golden horn. Tarion nodded with satisfaction, but even as he did, the scene changed to show a flaxen haired mortal woman of severe expression with Johaan. She smiled, though not in a manner that showed joy, rather it looked like the face of one who covets something dearly. Just as swiftly, the scene shifted to the face of a pale girl. Then Tarion saw a gray castle by the angry sea. The ball went dark.

  “That’s as far as it goes,” Beath said. “That was the witch Rowena; she’s very, very powerful—my ball will not penetrate her walls.”

  “The Horn of Heimdall is within her castle?”

  “Hard to be certain,” she told him. “It revealed the horn quite clearly in Johaan’s palace, but that may be the last place it rested before disappearing behind Rowena’s magic—who knows, this isn’t always an exact science.”

  “Is there anything else, you’ve got quite a bit of credit with Gaurnothax?”

  Tarion thought for a moment. He had everything he needed to fulfill his quest, except—why? “What is the link between the Wanderer and the Destructor?”

  Beath went white at the mention of the Destructor, “I’m not going to do anything involving the Dread Lord!”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Tarion assured her. He thought of a way around the old woman’s understandable reluctance. “Very well, show me
Villi and Ve, the brothers of Odin. What happened to them?”

  Beath scowled, muttering, “It’s dangerous to meddle in the affairs of Gods, but you are paying me enough. Here goes,” she took a deep breath and asked, “Show me Villi and Ve the brothers of Odin AllFather!”

  The ball immediately went dark. Beath commanded it again but nothing happened. “Blasted ball!” she said, banging her fists on the table. She wrapped up the ball and laid it aside, grumbling, “That’s strange; it’s as if the ball was afraid to show me more, rather than it couldn’t.” She glance up at him and asked, “It might be easier if I knew your purpose.”

  “I’m trying to find out why I’m the vehicle to find the Wanderer,” Tarion told her.

  “Well, let’s try something more basic. Maybe we can get in through you, Praetorian. The Norns wove you into the tapestry of the Destructor and the Wanderer. Let’s find out why.” She produced a small leather bag and a pair of long iron scissors. She reached over, but the scissors couldn’t cut a single strand of his hair. She handed the scissors to Tarion. He cut a lock of his own hair and gave it to her.

  “I’m cursed,” he said simply.

  “It must be some curse. I’ve only heard tell of that, but I’ve never seen it before,” she said suspiciously, throwing the hair into the bag and shaking it vigorously. “Now, we’ll have only one crack at this. She closed her eyes and shook the bag, commanding the runes in an eerily singsong chant.

  “Runes, tell me what binds the Praetorian to the Wanderer?” She cast a rune on the table and announced, “The Twain.”

  She shook the bag again, asking, “What binds the Twain?” She placed another rune on the table and announced, “Ragnarok.”

  She shook the bag a third time and asked, “If the Twain ends with Ragnarok, where did they begin?” She laid a final rune on the table and stared at it. Beath shook her head and put the bag down. She scrounged through a pile of books, found one, and paged through it. It took some time to find what she was looking for. Looking up from the book, she studied the rune. It was plain but for a single almost infinitesimal dot. “The book says that rune is named Elucidar—I’ve never seen it or even heard tell of it.”