“Perhaps he is already lost.”
“Perhaps his spirit is what moves us,” he said.
“It is my own spirit,” I replied.
“Of course, but his example and witness is our tie to victory, to overcoming, and more importantly, to properly becoming.”
“Follow the hero’s path—the path to godhood,” I added. “What better way than to slay a beast?”
“This battle was supposed to signify the end, to signify Ragnarok,” Hesiod said, massaging his temples with his eyes closed.
“It is not ours to fight. We are here for our own triumph, to succeeded only for our truth and future kin. Our ancestors too. It is our power and act. Ours to give. And we act now as we are. Pure and filled with eternal will!” I said.
“A virtue in and of itself, right there. Potency. We have not unlocked justice still, but right here I feel I am correct. Potency. We have ourselves and all our potential, and we act with that potential filled to the brim, pouring it out yet always refilling from the bowed acknowledgement of the infinite.” Hesiod smiled and grabbed my shoulder, laughing. “We walk into these virtues with ease, for we have had them all along.”
I grinned, as I’d known exactly where we were headed when I’d first spoken. Even better that Hesiod had said it first. He sang Wyrd’s song without even hearing it, so wise and pure was he. I grabbed his shoulders right back and laughed.
“Now we must move back from the eighth to the seventh,” I said.
He let go of my shoulder and squinted at me with a sudden seriousness. “A relation to self-reliance is to be filled with a vigor of infinitude. The virility of passionate being, the spirit of justice working hard and pure to overcome the mortality of our kind, seeking and earning what is deserved amongst the immortals.”
“And what must we do?” I said, pleased with the whirring of his mind. He truly needed no help from the gods, the myth-maker himself was always moving, always striding through his own path. A worthy companion! I gladly watched him proceed.
“Never cease and continue up the mountain. Yet the peak is just the bottom. The endless firmament is the true ascension that never wanes or stops. The infinite connected to finitude. Perseverance.”
“And still the seventh spell remains locked. You said ‘justice’ when discussing perseverance. Justice as overcoming mortality?”
“I remember saying we needed to bow in acknowledgment to the infinite. That is where the potency comes from, the purity of powerlessness as we’ve already discussed,” Hesiod said with his face scrunched small as he tried to fit justice in there somewhere.
I smiled at the intensity of his focus. I rubbed my chin and said, “Bowing to the infinite is the first act to bring about our great potency. But it also is the beginning of justice. What is just? Is it just to close your eyes to eternity, to that always ascending ladder, and to live and die as best as one can? No! Justice is both of ours as we climb! We ascend because it is unjust to let go and turn away. Power is justice when made powerless by that pure submission to the mighty currents of the always flowing river. We spread into the sea! We evaporate into the heavens! There is no ceasing. And that is justice. Accepting the mandate to be as one is meant to be, and not living as if one possesses more or less. We are just, Hesiod, as long as we lead ourselves and others up this mountain.” I threw my hands up as I finished speaking.
“And so we are!” he shouted, dancing like a madman. I laughed as his naked body flailed about.
“Be glad that decency isn’t a virtue,” I joked, bent over and unable to stop my chortling.
Finally, he stopped his insane jig and heartily laughed, holding his stomach as he breathlessly stared up at the empty sky. As we both calmed down, we looked at each other with as much seriousness as we could muster.
I breathed deep to reign myself in and said, “Still, have we met these virtues? We may be right in our thinking, but there have been no signs we are correct here with our choice. And are they merely choices? Our honor and courage were concretely tested. Even our discussion on purity was accomplished only after overcoming the residual fog of some unseen spells. Is that the case again? We have no signs. We talk, but are we truly as we say?”
“No rewards, no magical gifts, no. No flash of light or voice from the heavens, but maybe that’s just it. These final virtues are only signified by claiming them as your own, by acting as if already possessing them, because truly they can only be obtained within, not without. To be just is to pursue what is yours, and to give accordingly with an eternal gaze of truth. To persevere is to not stop ascending. To be potent is to face any obstacle, any monster with the knowledge of assurance in one’s own power. Have we not done this? Have they not been acted out from within us both?” Hesiod folded his hands together and leaned towards me, now a paragon of seriousness, and I found myself nodding along.
I held my chin with my thumb and placed two fingers on my cheek as I considered his wise words. “Could the same not be said of the other virtues? Were they not from within? Why did they require the concrete?”
“Of course they were, but then and there an act was proof. That is why it had to be made concrete. Here, the proof is in acting without expectation of aid or progress, an act that can never stop and always must be in every step. Pure act aimed at the heights of the firmament, that ascension into the eternal moment. An act that does not end, for it spirals in a flat motion, increasing yet remaining contained, eternity pressed into time, into the finite decay. Thus, the decay is made holy, by being preserved in eternity,” Hesiod said, his gaze lingering up at the dulled heavens.
“Then what are we to do?”
“We welcome Fenrir, acting as ourselves by relating ourselves to the infinite. We wait, and with ourselves in all our purity, the currents of glory carry us in a surrendered power, leaving us powerless to the perfect relation of higher triumph, of godhood.” He nodded and turned to look at me.
“So be it,” I said.
And so, we stood there at ease with our decision and unafraid of the terror wolf coming to swallow us whole. We were our own, for we had been made pure to and for our people.
***
Cerberus belched his red flames against the snow strangled air. He was not taking well to the land of the Jötunn and I couldn’t blame him. This frost, this unforgiving tundra was unwelcoming to our heat, and its darkness and cold were getting worse. Following the wreckage Rangabes and Hesiod left behind was no difficult task. I worried at what that Fjolsvith fool had said, who knew what lies he’d sowed? This land had long since been corrupted. The Jötunn considered themselves holy, better than mere gods, an evolution of the Hyperborean man.
Of course, they were a degeneration of that solar spirit I’d long ago kindled. The northern people and their gods carried that light still, but the Jötunn had chosen the darkness. They had chosen weakness and it at all came down to their infernal Lævateinn, their corrupt relic of hiddenness. Those who hid away their might were worse than the most immodest reveler. To pretend to be inglorious, lacking in might and hiding in weakened peace was the worst vice I could imagine.
“Cerberus, they no doubt have lied to Rangabes and Hesiod. Will they be able to see through it all?” I said, gazing up at the mountainous beast.
His middle head lowered down to me, his snakes hissing at the snow and his left and right heads glaring at Yggdrasil which we were fast approaching. “The well has collapsed and the rewards were no doubt given. If what you tell me is true, the Jötunn seek to subvert all that you do. Odin is gone and their end of the cycle is to begin anew.”
“You speak as if you doubt my truth,” I said, my burning eyes matching his red ones in intensity.
“I know they have a hound of their own. Fenrir who swallows light; he is an abyss darker than Tartarus. The Jötunn feed this dark wolf, but I know not why. Why was Rangabes sent here by Ra. What is there to accomplish? A cycle of dark begins in this realm and it will wash away the lingering light to bring about the new�
��perhaps something brighter.”
“When old Zeus was toppled from his heights, when the old gods fell in forgotten ruin, what had been foretold was cut loose, the thrashing marionette of fate whipping as wild as your serpents,” I said. His snakes turned together towards me and hissed, their orange tongues forking through the snow. I continued, unperturbed, “Wyrd of course enjoys singing her odd fate, the kind that changes at the whims of those who hear her song.” I shook my head, her aloofness and service of the other always caused me difficulty. “And with so much that was foretold coming true in a form none of us wanted to see, there was only one option for we of the old guard. We had to welcome in this herald of the new order, the man to give rebirth to the Hyperborean soul. It lies dormant in many peoples spread throughout the globe; some possess it more than others. Yet that wasn’t and isn’t enough to bring back the mythic might of the heroic ages of the past. Those with it exist now as islands, men alone without a worthy tribe backing them up. Rangabes is the one to change that, Cerberus.”
“I know this already. You haven’t answered why he needs to be here. This cycle is dark. There is no light for him to obtain.” Cerberus looked ahead and his snakes licked at his ears for him.
“I meant for him to go to the now degenerated Valhalla to free the heroes forced into the corrupted monstrosity of that glorious hall of power. But with Odin’s death, Yggdrasil wilts with no truth to drink from. And Ra sent Rangabes here for a purpose that has only become clear to me just now. You saw the ruin of the Duat, of Ancient Egypt at last darkened with only Rangabes now to carry their sun. That corruption that even Dionysus was unable to escape in his white pyramid of fire—the corruption that made a monster god declare himself of the solar realm... that corruption touched Rangabes. I know this now and for him to continue straight to Valhalla, even in its fallen form... then that corruption might in turn chain him to the darkness of what was once light, now twisted to a cold dead forever. Only one of uncorrupted light can burn through there unscathed. Not even I could do so in my current state. For Ra to send him here, into a land even more corrupt than Egypt had turned, he must have seen a need. A need I should have anticipated. What an unworthy architect I am for not measuring this angle.” I took a deep breath and kept walking forward, not bothering to glance at Cerberus now that I was deep within the swirling map of my everchanging plans. “He burned into the land of the living; his corruption swallowed with Dionysian virility. He said yes to the darkness and consumed it the same way in which Fenrir consumes the light. Ra saw what I should have first... in his final act of what is truly pure, Ra gave Rangabes the wolf of darkness to consume, and thus purify his body with a nothingness that must be overcome to step into Valhalla and over that bloody river that awaits—a noose around the neck of those unaccustomed to the dark. This is a proving ground now. I feared sending him here for I thought the Jötunn would lead him astray. I trapped Fjoslvith in that wall for a reason. They cannot be trusted! They never could.” I spat onto the ground, my sandaled feet kicking through the snow. “What I didn’t see was that without walking through such darkness, how could he be a bearer of light? The temptation in Valhalla as it is now would have been too much were his virtues not strengthened and confirmed. There is light because darkness in its absent being cannot exist without it. Darkness needs the light to know it is dark. Ra saw the need.”
Cerberus trained all three of his heads at me, forcing me to look his way. His serpents hissed like biting rain. “I do not see the need. Someone is not speaking true. You seek to mold Rangabes into the perfect being of your chosen light. But what of the other solar gods? What if they want him to be more theirs than yours? What if Rangabes becomes his own? You tell me to serve his need, to aid him, but am I aiding him or you? Apollo, what is it we are doing here? These nine spells reek of your magic. Your tests of virtue.”
I stopped walking and turned to him. Cerberus sat down and waited. I cracked my neck and rubbed my blonde brow. “I fed Odin to Fenrir. He refused to bow to Rangabes. The prophecy of his myth was that he would be eaten by a dark wolf and that his son Vithar would come for revenge. Only, Fenrir’s offspring was supposed to eat Odin, but I let the old wolf loose from his wicked chains and with his river of black saliva bloody and foul, I defeated the Allfather with darkness at my back.”
I stopped and Cerberus growled softly. The hound was proving as stubborn as I thought he’d be. What could I expect when he’d spent so much time in the dark, however noble his station? How could I expect him to understand such a difficult choice?
I remembered it like it’d just happened. The look on Odin’s face when I came to him; the white backdrop of snow like a blanket of cold nothingness, a void swallowing any hope of a new day and rising sun. We’d stood there in a freeze so cold that all feeling gave way to its numb touch. Like Hades, he resisted. Yet unlike Hades, Odin was of light. He glared at me one eyed and fierce, more fury fixed in that stare than any cyclops would ever dare. He leaned on his spear like it was all that held him up, yet his frame remained full of virility. His long robe whipped in the cold, revealing chords of muscle as hard and strong as dwarven metalwork. He stared at me and offered no response. He already knew.
“Was It Wyrd?” I said to him. “Did she convince you of some contrived fate? Do you not see what must be done?”
The Allfather stood tall and held up his staff, looking at its barbed point as if in search of some other way. “You fear us all. We the dying gods, we the living people—we are what is and you are what is not.” He glared his white eye right at my golden ones, cooling my fire with his frigid sight.
“My people are what gave this world light.” I took a step closer.
“You froze their paradise because they became too much like you. I welcome ascendancy. I do not fear your imagined avatar. Wyrd told me what is to come. She is wise, unlike you. Are we not gods of wisdom? Where is yours, Apollo? Has your crown of eternal day lost its meaning in its endless loop of self-contained light? You cannot admit to your dimming because your light is the only kind you can see.” Odin sighed and pointed his spear at me. “I’m a god who knows sacrifice and wisdom. You are so lost in your own dark that you call it light, even as it sinks into black. Wyrd played her song, but I already knew it was true. You are not.”
He hefted back his spear and flung it at me. I ducked low and let it pass, grabbing its frozen shaft as it crackled with blue. I spun back with it clutched in my hand and its momentum turned forward. My hand burned hotter than the sun yet was colder than the deepest of polar depths. Touching that spear had been the greatest pain I’d ever known. I flung his spear right into his side. He fell to his knees and I pounced on him, pounding his face with a maelstrom of hooked punches. He slumped down unconscious with his spear still propping him up. I’d caught him at last, and thus I carried him off to be devoured like a speared fish.
I rubbed my hand at the memory, the echo of pain still present, though my hand remained whole and unmaimed. Cerberus sat there patiently, suspicion still holding his snakes rigid. He would never understand old Odin’s babbling confusion. Light is light, there can be no other.
I sighed and cleared my throat. “Vithar doesn’t exist and neither does Fenrir’s offspring. Wyrd sings loudly from her dwelling place, laughing at the twisting of fate. Rangabes is a better Vithar, and so it is he who will defeat the dark—only, his dark houses the sun inside. That kind of light that not even I could know. Rangabes is my destined heir.”
Cerberus lowered his growl to a hum, his snakes silent yet staring their beady red eyes still at my face, hovering unsurely. “An heir or avatar? I’ll stay by your side and I thank you for waking me from such a wretched and weak slumber. I slept, but now I am awoken. There is untruth in this chilled climate, and I do not know where the stench begins or ends. But to turn on fellow gods of light, I do not know what to say. Your plans spread hazy before me, even Wyrd couldn’t sing a song so mad and obscure. Have you barded each god a different song? A different tu
ned hunk of meat with an appealing yet suspicious swine? I doubt your famed wisdom. But you brought me to the light, and in it I long to remain. Yet if this black sun of Fenrir is a ploy for you to stand alone in the next age, I will leave your side.”
“If you think me capable of such treachery, you won’t have a side to stand on,” I scoffed, wary of his suspicion. I needed him for this, and for quite a while longer. Fate demanded it, or so it seemed. But he’d made himself clear and I refused to be made a fool. “Come Cerberus, a wolf can only be tamed by a dog.”
Cerberus growled but walked forward, his serpents hissing at my back.
***
“Fenrir,” I said, rolling my shoulders and nodding at Hesiod. We both stood there naked, ready to face the wolf at last.
On the horizon a hulking shadow loomed. I squinted, something appeared off. As the moving mass neared, I recognized the shape of the beast and turned to Hesiod in confusion. The approaching hound had three heads attached to black slabs of muscle. Seven serpents spread out behind him like a perverse peacock's tail. I could recognize this dog’s likeness anywhere. Cerberus, the hound of Hades... in Jötunheimr.
“Another test?” I said.
“Why him, and here?” Hesiod muttered.
An answer of sorts was provided as a humanoid figure approached in the shadow of Cerberus’s mass. Now close enough to make out details, only a blind man would fail to recognize such a blazing mien. His yellow-white augers of light peered out from eternity, burning his gaze into mine. I held my head high.
Apollo wore a golden laurel on his head and its shimmering gleam intensified the aura of his stare. His hair was thick and curly and of medium length; it floated in waves down to the nape of his neck. Now even closer, I was taken aback by the ageless youth he appeared as. His face was pristine and hairless, his body fit and slim with skin a golden white—not sun kissed but sun embraced. He wore a white mantle thrown loosely over his right shoulder, and a golden robe that left his arms and legs uncovered. His body was a controlled power that was too sleek to be that of a burly wrestler, yet too strong to be that of a runner. The perfect balance. I shook my head and hoped that this beautiful god of light and wisdom was on our side. Why had he come now and with the hound of death at his side? Cerberus towered above him yet was diminished in the glory of Apollo’s perfection.
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