“Then why aid us in breaking these spells?” I asked.
“You both might just possess the kind of light capable of dispelling such a darkness. I saw as much when you and your friend transformed.”
“And what are we to do once we destroy your work of safeguarding?” Hesiod crossed his arms unconvinced.
“You must unlock this chest, for not even I can, so corrupt have my spells of virtue become. I am powerless. This world, my beautiful homeland is forever faded now. To unlock the staff is to save it from becoming dark and evil, instead providing a similar release to nonbeing that Fjolsvith so greatly sought, only, our release here will be back into the cold of winter. Back to the comfort of swaying snow. I long for such a pure return. For you to hold the corrupted staff is to force the darkness into the light, and only a true light can burn it away. A light that you possess and that I sadly do not. The corruption has even seized hold of me; I feel my power fading into the same forgetfulness that Lævateinn suffered. I do not want this darkness. The sun has been chewed and spit out, gnawed on and disfigured, but it has yet to be completely swallowed. You are the last rays of a dying light.” She drew a long breath and stared over us at the World Tree. “Go back to Yggdrasil and slay the dragon Nidhogg. He gnaws the ancient tree’s roots and without a pure realm holding him back, he has begun to tear into the foundations. With fleet-footed clouds soaring in your soles, you will arrive much faster than you came, a flash of lightning to fell a monster. Though you might just find that he’s as much a monster as me.” She chuckled and looked down at us.
Hesiod and I both looked at each other perplexed. I nodded and shrugged, and we both turned and ran, our windblown shoes torrenting us forward in a jet stream of blurred air. And just like that, we stood next to the mighty trunk of Yggdrasil. At the base of the tree, a foul dragon scratched at the bark with its claws like a cat. Nidhogg was a muddy brown color with mossy, slime-green patterns triangulating down his spine, coming to a point in a gross rotten-yellow smudge on his tail. Pale green smoke floated up from the strangely glowing tail.
From where we stood, we could easily examine him, but he took no notice of us. Hesiod peered at the monster, searching for a weakness. A mass of shades suddenly sliced out of the air and stood between us and Nidhogg. They were so immaterialized that they barely clung to being, shivering there as mere shadows. They stood holding shimmering black spears that glowed with darkness. More and more shades stepped out of the air, and their ghostly silhouettes turned towards us, their features non-existent. I set my arms ablaze, my armor glowing with a reflected scarlet-orange light. Hesiod stood ready, his robe and mantle a blood drenched inferno. More shades appeared, wielding all kinds of weapons: spears, axes and clubs all around.
“Back to back, Hesiod... they circle us,” I said, as Hesiod already moved towards me.
We stood there with both our backs holding each other upright, and we spun in a slow circle, watching and waiting for the shades to make a move. But they too were waiting for something, though I couldn’t tell what. If only Hesiod had been given a weapon to go with his armor; at least I had my marks. As the air chilled and I began to feel the icy grip of a dark winter, I thought back to the way in which Hesiod’s robe had appeared, a light of fire that had emerged and bloomed out from his breast and from his heart.
“The fire that burned forth from your heart, can you weaponize it?” I whispered.
The shades had sucked out all the surrounding sound, leaving nothing but an increasing cold behind. All the while, Nidhogg continued his nibbling at the great tree. It reminded me of Apophis thinking me unworthy of notice. That serpent had paid the price for his dishonor, and this dragon was a serpent all the same. If he would not honor my worth, I would not let my honor be so profaned.
“My heart, it is of a higher heat and beat. It dances to the notes of Pan. The forest sun, deep green leaves ablaze in a field of fractal emerald, green shadows dancing along with the unseen hidden day that the deep forest sings.” Hesiod sputtered his words out, the volume unwelcome and unable to fit in this weighty silence that filled every inch of the air.
“Are you mad, spouting such paltry poetry at a time like this?” I hissed. His body tensed even tighter; I was afraid he might leap away like a spring the way he was bent against me.
He said, “Your heart has always been like the forest igniting its green fields, unknown and unsung by any mortal being and unappreciated by lowly beasts. Only the noblest of animals belong there, the worthiest of creatures. Your heart continues this dance of emerald day whether you are there and aware of it or not. Do you see? Do you see? The spell here is testing an apparent virtue, it being honor. You remember Skade’s list!” I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me, and he continued regardless. “Your heart honors existence by beating so; it dances alone to celebrate the perfection of being, even the being that we do not ever get to quite know until we meet our endless end. We are dishonored by Nidhogg, and these shades have no honorable hearts of their own. But to honor your heart is to honor the beating drum of life.”
I coiled up with a sudden excitement, realizing Hesiod was right, even in all his uncontrollable poetic verbosity. “Hesiod, your heart of flame is this weapon here! Let loose your glory and give the heart the honor it so deserves!” I shouted. The shades still stood there unmoved.
“And is there another virtue here to be unlocked before I pour forth this worthy wrath beating at the bars of its bony cage?” Hesiod said. His words stretched and snapped like a band ready to break, each syllable a testing of his sanity. Where had these words come from? Something was wrong. Could it be the heat rushing to his heart?
I thought back to the virtues unlocked thus far: courage, truth, fidelity and now hopefully honor. With horror I realized our stupid gaffe and why Hesiod’s sudden poetry shook me so. We’d already passed a spell with honor! Before I could say another word, Hesiod took my silence as approval and unleashed his solar force from within. A burning pillar of red light fountained out from his heart, consuming the shades in heat as he spun in a rapid circle and I dove to the ground as the burning surge singed the tips of my hair. The shades were burnt away, but Hesiod's dam of wrath had burst wide open. He was punching at his heart in an attempt to stop the fire, but all he succeeded in doing was singing his hand.
“At the dragon! Perhaps my heart still beats so furiously as to drive my power at that sick beast!” Hesiod cried over his shoulder at me and over the still raging torrent of fire and light that poured out in a horizontal column.
How could I have been so foolish to forget we’d unlocked honor? What was this one then? What was it that we were to do? As if an arrow struck my heart, I felt a piercing terror at the reality of what Hesiod was turning to do. I realized what the virtue was supposed to be, but it was too late. The flame tore across the landscape as he moved his breast towards the hungry dragon. I jumped in front of the beam, holding up my glowing arms to absorb his energy.
“What are you doing!” Hesiod screamed. “Let me feed this fiery furnace burning my soul—let me use it to accomplish our goal!” His voice cracked and shattered, brittle and dry, he sounded like a man on the brink of insanity due to an intolerable pain, or perhaps ecstasy. Was there any difference?
His torment was becoming my own as even my Hyperborean marks, crossed in front of me with my forearms extended and held together, were falling under the continuous wave of burning, bloody light. I was being pushed back towards the dragon. Did he notice us now? I dared not look back to check.
“Your light will burn away the tree, you overzealous fool!” I yelled.
“We must slay this dragon, this is my power to unleash!” he wailed, his mouth wide and his head reared back with his eyes rolling like a spooked horse.
“Destroying the tree upholding this world is worse than anything even Fenrir could do. Do you not see?” I said as my arms lowered under the continuous pressure and a burst of light in the top stream of his fire scraped across my uncover
ed triceps, searing the skin with liquefying blisters that bubbled immediately to the surface. “Not honor, we’ve done that already! We were mistaken. Not honor Hesiod, but think: what virtue opposes your uncontrolled wrath? What was it Skade said?”
“Discipline,” he whispered and collapsed as the light shut off, its source emptied of life. I ran to Hesiod’s crumpled body, his red robe just barely aglow, its bright fire reduced to dying embers.
Before I could attend to him, my calves were stung by a strange squelch, and a smell of rot assaulted the air. My pants on the backs of my legs bubbled with green acid, but they remained unmarred, the night-sky colored cloth refilling its holes with self-stitching ripples that healed both itself and my skin beneath. I leapt to my feet as Nidhogg charged, his tail raised and drifting out in front of him like a scorpion’s stinger. I dove out of the way to avoid the thrust of his green-fogged tail. Nidhogg made for Hesiod, but I hurled balls of light at him, doing no apparent harm but sending him into a furious turn to face me.
How would discipline win me this battle? I had no time to ponder as I dove out of the dragon’s hurtling path, his brown talons unveiled and reaching, his tail whipping like a viper at my head. I was quickly running out of steam: first from withstanding Hesiod’s heat, and now from my desperate dodges, which were coming closer and closer to peril, each dive another one nearer to a final leap into an abyss. I lowered my arms and aimed two explosions of light downward that propelled me into the air. I glided up and gracefully turned my body downward, heading straight for the dragon’s confused form. With both my fists full of light and raised above my head as if I held a sledge hammer, I slammed down and landed my blow on his spiny back, and the dragon collapsed under the force of my attack. He writhed there like a caught mouse, unable to get back up. I kept my searing, energized fists pressed into his spine, exerting a continued force of impact that left him helpless and wriggling there.
His tail hovered up and speared at me. I twisted my body and ducked as his stinger scraped my right shoulder, venom hissing but ineffective against my armor. I held my fists there and pressed harder, and at last he went limp, ceasing his resistance. But I refused to let up, leaving my arms aglow and pressing downward, waiting for some foul trick. His tail flung towards me again and even harder than before. I dove off his back and rolled into the snow. Nidhogg impaled himself to the ground, his tail pierced completely through his back.
“Why must you shame my company? Why must you destroy such a gracious host?” Nidhogg said, his voice a rolling lull, a frozen avalanche of tired, slow snow that thundered deep at a weary pace. “My shades did not attack. They welcomed you in a circle of peace. They merely awaited your permission to speak.”
“Liar! They wielded their weapons, they circled us like hungry wolves! Skade told us to slay you!” I stepped up to his scaly face and stared into his brown-gold eyes that blinked with a surprisingly human sorrow.
“The weapons were for war, not with you, but with Fenrir, for he is on his way at this moment. Skade told you to slay me, and she was right to. But we all are monsters without light, for our forms are reduced to mere shadows. It is my nature to bite at this tree. I long to fell it for a damming of eternity. Fenrir wants to swallow all. I merely want to exist. Yes, you must slay me, but not until the wolf is finished. Did you not think to ask?”
“Charity,” I mumbled. He nodded, grimacing and wheezing at the effort. “Why did you attack? Why did Skade not say more?” I asked.
“It would be uncharitable not to. Evil returned. Charity is a patient love. A patient action, even when the other remains still. Act with reason. Skade could not reveal this or the spell would remain locked away. It must be your virtue.”
“How might I aid you? Are the shades lost?”
“Back in Hel they go, what remains of it anyway,” he groaned.
“And for you?”
“Send me down to Hel too. The roots run deep, and my people await. We will fade into the dark together. Our time has met its purpose. My existence belongs with the soil. I’ve damned myself.”
I nodded, and Nidhogg smiled at me with his black teeth. I shot the full force of my light into his face, and his body burst into a green-gold glow, and flecks of silver rained down from the sky where his body had been. I stared at the glimmering flecks and realized that the greatest act of charity had been sending this fading beast into its own domain. A virtue forged, even when it appeared as if it had first been forever broken. I breathed a long sigh. Hesiod grunted in pain, and I turned and ran over to him as he struggled to his feet and stood up.
“Fenrir is coming,” I said, steadying him as he stood by his own effort.
“Charity? How were we supposed to see that from what we faced?” he muttered, staring at his feet and spitting in disgust.
“You eavesdropped yet you didn’t think to get up and help?” I joked half-heartedly.
His shoulders slumped as he rubbed his chest. “Could Apollo be behind my loss of control? My words were strained; my mind was aflame with a desire to burn. Was it from me or him... or both of us? Can I still wear this robe?”
I didn’t offer any answer to his line of questions. How could I? Only he knew what he felt there in that moment. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and said, “Maybe the armor feeds off feeling. Maybe Apollo designed it this way for good. Maybe for something sinister. We cannot yet say.”
He sighed and placed his hand over my arm. “I will make this flame submit to the beat of my own heart. Whether Apollo fanned the fire or not, it is mine to carry. I won’t make such a mistake again, Rangabes.”
I let go of him and patted his hand, before looking out at the horizon. We both stood there silently, the sound and warmth still choked out by the shadow soldiers’ lingering touchless touch. Even vanquished, their nonbeing still remained. The paradox of the heavy weight of that empty nothing.
Hesiod coughed and said, “And now to the seventh virtue. Justice. We shall see how this one is unlocked, I suppose. Fenrir should not be faced if we still have three more spells left.” He spoke with a bit too much force, as if to beat the straining silence away.
“Well, he’s coming soon and Nidhogg warned me without dishonesty,” I said, looking over at him.
Hesiod shook his head and looked away and off into the distance. “What virtues might linger here? Perhaps there are spells in this air still. The air is too still. The nothingness is pervasive.”
“Should we rely on chance? A voice from the heavens?” I shook my head and kicked up a puff of snow.
And there it was... Wyrd’s song. The soft sonic shimmer of the slight pluck of her harp strings, followed by a whispered laugh. I grinned at the irony of my previous statement. And once again, Hesiod did not seem to hear. I knew what needed to be said and done. I already walked the right path. Her seeds were planted in the fertile soil of my soul.
I continued, “We must rely only on ourselves here, no magic armor or weapons. Like in my battle against Sobek, I earned the wounds I suffered. Like with my rituals in Tartarus, I earned these holy marks. Remember what Skade said. The last three virtues are justice, potency and perseverance.”
Hesiod looked at me strangely and I couldn’t contain my grin. He said, “You look too pleased with yourself, brother. I suppose that is deserved. After all, did you not already earn the virtues thus far? Outside hinderances may have arisen; whether or not they were needed is beside the point. We earned the virtues because we already possessed them. These are mere tests, magic polluted by the dark, as Skade told us. Who knows what they were like in their purer form?” He crossed his arms and itched at his beard.
“If you think we earned all this by being as we were, then remove your magical garb. It is not a fear of Apollo if you do, but an embracing of your naturally burning heart. I will as well, and I won’t use these marks, earned or not. I fear no Fenrir for I fear none that dwell in the dark. How can light fear what is an absence of itself? How can light fear the shadows cast in its w
ake? The darkness belongs to the leeches. I am the light.”
I tore my trousers at the unbreakable seam and it split willingly, the cloth seeming to understand the necessity of my pure act of heroic will. I followed the act by kicking off the shoes of wind along with the trousers. Not finished, I undid the shining bands of diamond straps and removed my armor. I stood naked and in my own natural power.
Hesiod followed my example, but only after several seconds of strained deliberation while yanking at his chin hair, so torn was he by this chosen surrender to nature. But he undid his mantle and the cape fluttered patiently to the ground like a drowsy butterfly in summer heat. His living robe of strange fire poured off of his skin as he glared down at it, dripping away as if the heat of his stare was too much.
“So, we face Fenrir as we are. In all our purity,” Hesiod said, clasping my arm and staring into my eyes. “You are a man of true power. A man I’m willing to die with and for.”
“Likewise, brother. As we are, purity powerless in perfect submission to our power—our eternal wills. Fenrir can come. We will always be; he in his darkness never was.” I turned my gaze to the horizon, Yggdrasil an infinite fortress behind us.
“You know... if Fenrir has been freed, that means the Allfather has perished,” Hesiod said, his Apollo-fed wisdom always so sure. “From where then does Vithar come? He is the foretold slayer, the foretold avenger.”
Cerberus Slept Page 15