I stared at him, my body loose and my unease hidden. He needn’t know how much I’d grown to distrust his meddling in my affairs. Here he was, my unseen benefactor who clearly wanted something, and who’d rubbed these other immortals in perplexing ways. I would let him speak his piece and I would judge the truth. I stared up at Cerberus, his scent of ash and fire like burning coal. He watched me with what looked like kindness, or at least a kind of respect. His right head glanced down at Apollo and his other two heads stared directly at me with a slight, dare I say endearing tilt.
“Rangabes. As Hesiod is your brother, may I one day call you mine as well. Apollo wants something, be wary.” Cerberus spoke inside my mind and apparently only I could hear. I stared up at the hound and let my eyes speak for me. There was no deceit there. A feeling, one I couldn’t say Apollo gave me.
Apollo stood there in his radiance at about the same height as Hesiod and I, yet his eyes made him seem as if he were staring down from the heavens. Those irises were furnaces of white heat; I almost looked away for it felt similar to staring at the sun. Yet I forced my gaze onto his, refusing to turn away from the searing light. Not pleased at my frigid welcome, he frowned.
“Are you sure you possess the virtue of charity?” Apollo said.
“I’ve heard much said about you here.” I let my words linger in the air, shrouding Apollo’s condescension.
“What was said?” Apollo asked Hesiod.
“What was said and what was not, doesn’t matter.” Hesiod spoke firm and strong, his eyes daring Apollo to strike.
“A cold welcome for the warmth I’ve given you both. Who do you think brought you forth from the darkness of death?” Apollo looked up at the sky and I rebuked myself at the rush of relief I felt as his stare released me.
“Why are you here? Why wait till now? And why put me through these trials and tests?” I said.
I tensed my body, tight with a fury I could no longer control. His haughty airs and expectation that we should bow before him made me want to attack him right here and now. He was not my god. Christ was atop all peaks, above all. Apollo showed—ironically—too much darkness. Hyperion, Helios and Ra were somehow different. Purer. Apollo was a man desperately flailing in a river of necessary fate he’d not ever known or loved. I glared at him, but he kept his gaze away and upward.
Apollo sighed and said, “You surely know why you are here: to smolder through the great mythologies of old, to inherit the birthright of old Hyperborea and make it into your own, perhaps a higher form. That is why I sent you ahead. You need these ancient lights to create a new, bright civilization from these once shining ones. You are a son of my power; my solar spirit radiates out from your blood. In you, proud Aeneas walks into war, claiming what is his—a new people and homeland as his Troy burned to the ground. But you ask even more, why here? Why this frigid wasteland? For this realm of power resisted our light.” He lowered his eyes and stared into mine. I met his gaze and watched him closer. “But there is a lingering sun within Fenrir’s soul, swallowed whole. In his belly rests Týr’s right hand; what power awaits the one to slay such a mongrel abyss? Odin’s son, Vithar was supposed to slay the wolf. But Vithar’s strand of fate was never spun. He is not coming for he is naught. But like great Aeneas, Vithar’s power is of the same celestial fire—the clothing of light that covers you both.” He paused, looking past our unclothed bodies and at our discarded clothing. He turned his attention back to me. “And you, son of the sun, you are destined with Wyrd’s incessant stringing, to slay him instead.”
“At this, I am grateful. For you have allowed me to move as one living,” I lowered my head in guarded respect.
This god deserved that at the very least, no matter his guiles he had brought me opportunity and life, and for that any mortal must show some gratitude; to not at all would be worthy of the dark. He was my kin, my ancestral beginning. I bowed my head lower, my irreverence shaming my heart. Hesiod followed my lead, mumbling apologies.
“I want you to be my beacon of glory and light to a world that has forgotten much of its ancient power. Look at me, you are my sun, the ray of my light to a dark, weak, and profane modern world.”
I looked up at him and he extend his arm. I clasped it strong and he pulled me in close to hug me. His skin was like the comforting embrace of a fireplace in the dead of winter; he held me as a father might a son.
“Hesiod,” Apollo said warmly as I pulled back. He smiled and extended the same offer to the poet who gladly accepted.
I was only vaguely aware of Cerberus’s watchful and suspicious eyes judging and weighing the truth. A loyal and useful companion he would make. I lowered my head to him but he barked, his serpents extending down and gently lifting my chin.
“You must be greater than I, and I am here to serve. Greater than Apollo too. That is what you must strive towards, the unending, overflowing goal of infinity always filling your cup yet never satisfying your thirst.” Cerberus spoke in such a manner that even though his voice came as thought, I intuitively knew it had been meant for all of us to hear.
“Cerberus is right. I need you to be my beacon and to bring back the perfection and glory of Hyperborea. This sad age of iron is rusted over with weakness.” Apollo winked at Hesiod and continued, “the decay of this age will only get worse and that’s why you’re so desperately needed. That’s why you must be far greater than I.” He nodded and firmly planted his hand on my shoulder, warmth and confidence exuding from his touch. His furnace eyes seemed softer in a sense, as if their light was not meant to push me away through force but draw me in through kinship. “King Arthur’s mantle,” Apollo said, beaming as he gestured his arm at the piles of our shed attire. “A worthy gift he was all too willing to part with.
“He lives?” Hesiod said.
“No, he is caught beneath the rubble of Valhalla and you will meet him in its twisted form soon. But that mantle is Hyperborean in nature, that is, it came from the blood that bloomed in great Aeneas’s tree. King Arthur’s ancestor, and yours as well, Rangabes. But you Hesiod, you too my Hyperborean poet, are related in more than just spirit to this glorious past.”
Hesiod coughed and said, “What of my robe? The fire that burned my heart was one of solar power, yet it beat with a terrible wrath.”
Apollo cleared his throat and stared up at the World Tree. “My gift to you. The fire was yours, I merely gave you a wick to hold it. The wrath... well, I wanted Nidhogg to burn.”
“Is that charitable? He was not as he seemed,” I said.
“Was it truly Skade who made these tests?” Hesiod said, rubbing his chest.
“Yes, made by the work of the Norse immortals with the spirit of my wisdom and sun imbuing them with greater forms. Hence your robe and King Arthur’s mantle.”
I frowned. “And what say you about Skade?” I said.
“She is the one who corrupted them.” Apollo shook his head. “That staff must be opened and used, but not to defeat Fenrir, but to defeat Skade’s slipping grip on this sick realm.”
“She claimed to create the spells to lock away the threat of the staff and hold her land against Fenrir,” Hesiod said. “And besides, how can we be ready if the chest remains locked?”
“She needs that staff to bring about her own doom. Moros, Kronos, and so many of our kind seek to escape and return to nothing. True solar gods return to the sun and imbue creation with warmth and light—with power. Ra... Hyperion and Helios. They live through the light, and you carry their embers in your own will. Skade is just another Fjolsvith seeking an end. Their darkness is wanted.” Apollo rubbed his eyes and for a second he looked weary to the point of being mortal. “And Hesiod, I cannot say how you might be ready for that is a spell you must break alone. If I aid you, the lock will remain latched shut. Skade has made sure to corrupt the spells to such an extent that not even I can solve them; a dark immune to my light.”
“We fight Fenrir alone then. Your presence has brought much clarity and vigor to my being.
Thank you.” I bowed my torso and crossed my arms diagonally over my chest.
“Not alone, for Cerberus here will be remaining with you to watch. I cannot promise his intervention either, but if there is a way, he will find one. I can do nothing more for you, for you need to become your own sun and not a mere moon reflecting my light. I have enemies in other lands I must deal with swiftly.” He smiled and vanished in a pillar of white light, leaving nothing but hissing snow behind.
“And now that the god of light has left, Fenrir skulks out from his shadows. He comes,” Cerberus said, his heads gazing out at the horizon and his black noses twitching. Smoke snaked out from his nostrils as he breathed, his chest a furnace and his mouths leaking ash.
Sure enough, Fenrir at last showed himself, a true terror to behold. He made Cerberus look like a pup, and black shade followed in his wake, darkening the landscape in murky shadow. Fenrir’s fur was startlingly silver, the color of the full moon on a clear, crisp night. His eyes were yellow and bright and his loping body flowed across the landscape, shimmering silver like a stream of moonlit water. He slowed to a trot and stopped just in front of us, eyeing us with an air of superiority; his lips curled, revealing white fangs sharper than sin.
“You smell of Odin’s unborn son. But do you know your dear Apollo fed me your Allfather?” Fenrir snarled his words out, a deep growl that tore through the darkening air.
The gray sky was drenched in an inky black mist; weak light sifted through, casting the setting in a dark and unnatural purple hue.
“He’s not my father and Apollo did what he had to.” The news hardly surprised me, but still, Apollo would do whatever it took to see me through it all. I feared what that meant for any he thought too weak—or worse... too strong. But those were worries for then and not now.
Fenrir growled, “You and your friend stand exposed with your weapons and armor cast aside, yet you brought a mongrel. Even still, his might is certainly a weapon and hardly a reliance on yourself. Are you persevering with your own power up this summit?” He barked a high-pitched laugh that was more hyena than wolf.
“I could burn you to a crisp, wolf. I am here only to watch. I will not interfere for I understand what must take place and I hunger for an end just as you do.” Cerberus’s bark punctuated his booming thought.
I smiled as the realization struck me head-on. The genius of such a spell! The trickery! It was not just to leave a stray starving. So, the virtue required an act after all! And was it only left to justice, or did it belong simultaneously in the realm of charity? Was Nidhogg not the real test? For even the worst of fiends would host a friend, but to host an enemy, that was a virtue only one of the utmost charity could act. I chuckled, Fenrir and Skade couldn’t outwit Apollo’s masterful magic, it was too perfect. Perhaps his spells were not as corrupted as I’d thought.
“Would you like to eat with us, Fenrir? I am only trying to be charitable, for to fight famished would be unfair.” I bowed with a wide grin and Hesiod laughed as Fenrir snarled.
The colossal wolf laid down on his fours and looked at us expectantly, his massive paws crossed in front of him; his claws of black iron twice as big as my body.
“Where then is your food? I cannot break this spell; it binds us all for the moment. But if you cannot bring forth a worthy meal, then it is a virtue unearned and the staff remains locked,” Fenrir said, his voice a low and somehow distant rumble—patient power pregnant with storm.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead and I desperately scanned the area around us, but there was no sign of anything to make a meal out of. I looked over at Hesiod and clenched my jaw.
“My fire can cook any meat to perfection. But where might we find such game to hunt?” Cerberus said, his thoughts as whispers meant only for Hesiod and I. Fenrir tilted his head at us, his pointed ears twitching in a fruitless effort to hear.
Hesiod smiled, nodding to himself and squinting his eyes, staring at nothing but his thoughts. “Yes, yes, now I recall. That’s it. Fenrir,” he said, stepping closer to the beast and staring directly upwards. “What would you like to eat?”
“Your flesh,” he barked, his snarling a wheezing laugh.
“I knew you’d be unable to resist. So confident are you, yet so repetitive. You ate Odin and you tore off Týr’s hand; you have a certain taste. And as you have requested, so I will not deny. It is the host’s job to offer the very best, and here is mine,” Hesiod said.
Hesiod’s exposed chest glowed orange and the light flowed beneath his breast and drifted outward. His veins shined yellow as the light swirled through his body like smoke from a blown-out candle. Then in a sudden rush, the light poured together in a pool of red, all focused and gathered in his right hand. Smoke arose from his hand and his face paled as he screamed in agony. The light flashed and the hand plopped off, falling to the ground and leaving behind a cauterized stump at his wrist.
With a grimace, he slowly bent down and picked up his pale hand, and held it up above his head, offering it to Fenrir. The wolf howled like a brittle chime. He slowly lowered his head and his long purple tongue slipped out, gently scooping up the hand. As he raised his head back up, his tongue slowly returned to his mouth like a bear who’d left its cave too early from hibernation, sluggishly going back to sleep in the dark again.
And then, Fenrir swallowed Hesiod’s hand. I winced at the motion and glanced at Hesiod’s grim demeanor. Yet he stood fixed and assured, staring up at Fenrir and rubbing at his stump with his remaining hand. Cerberus stood at attention, staying an observer as the spell required.
“Cerberus, you tamed pet. I am of the wild and for my own purpose. You sit there and let your masters die. Come, fight me you mutt.”
“I will not be baited and doom you all to the corruption of the realm. You only say such a thing because you fear those two. They are not my masters but they will be yours.” He laughed, his rumbling bark strange and croaking, both out loud and by thought.
“No sign nor gift from the heavens. But we have proven the virtue and now we can end this.” Hesiod spoke slowly with a rising fury—the building up of a trembling volcano about to erupt.
Fenrir licked his lips and stood, our bodies specks beneath his feet. If we were to do this with no aid from our armor or my marks, I saw no obvious way to attack. Regardless, I stood with my knees bent and my body tense, ready to spring myself into action.
“It is not a breach of perseverance in your power to use what is in your blood. That is truly ascending as yourself, for is not one’s self everything his ancestors have instilled within him? To be potent is to know from where your strength comes and to use it accordingly,” Cerberus said.
He spoke the truth and I nodded. This was a battle that required a true strength. To keep it unused and hidden was a vice in and of itself. The virtues required a full embracing of what was truly our own. And that was what our blood sang. The history of Hyperborea cried out for revenge on all those who would destroy the light. My forearms glowed.
Hesiod was suddenly covered in crimson light from his shoulders down to his hand. The light appeared so strong that it almost looked solid, but for a slight and translucent shimmer. A three-fingered talon, scaled with pure red light, shined where his right hand had been. His heart was a glowing, pulsing tree of light with paths spreading outwards like ancient roots. His heart looked as if it were suspended in glowing spider-webs of veined light that crisscrossed over his torso before gathering as solid pools on his arms and shoulders.
With the two of us aglow with Hyperborean light, we faced Fenrir, waiting for him to pounce. And that he did, his clawed feet swiping at us—but here we were at an advantage; so small were we relative to him, that our streaming dodges propelled by light kept us untouched as we sprinted and rolled in every direction. I couldn’t help but imagine the two of us as fleas next to the giant wolf.
Fenrir growled and lowered his head, snapping his jaws as I dove out of the way and sent myself skidding further as his foot stamped down w
here I’d landed. Two streams of red and blue light poured out from my arms as I shot myself out of his reach.
Through the silver blur of Fenrir’s empty strikes, I saw an even blurrier pattern of red, bursts of it bouncing about like a ball. Hesiod leapt at Fenrir’s legs, his talon of light slicing at ankles as if they were trees. But hardly any damage was done; he was simply too large for us.
I stored up all of my might until I felt ready to burst, and shot out a focused concussion blast at his nearest hind leg and it struck true, yet in its dissipated glow, Fenrir hadn’t even stumbled.
“Nothing works!” I yelled, rolling out of reach as his jaws snapped shut.
I followed my shout with a flurry of energy bursts that brought another swipe of his feet at me. I launched myself into the air, my light fueling my limited flight.
“We need that staff!” Hesiod yelled back, his talon raking through fur as smoke sizzled in his wake.
“Well, where is it?” I ducked a sweep of Fenrir’s woolly gray tail. “Have we not completed all the virtues?” My question hung unanswered in the air as Hesiod launched himself high with bursts of red light beneath him, and he scraped his claw through Fenrir’s quads to no avail. He landed clumsily, his stumbling luckily saving him from Fenrir’s bite.
We were being resourceful, using every trick we could think of to dodge and strike, so it had to be the last virtue, the ninth. Perseverance. We persevered in our own power, our own flesh and might yet nothing was proving effective. We were certainly acting out the virtue as we continued hopelessly struggling in this apparently unwinnable battle. Perseverance most certainly didn’t mean foolheartedly continuing what wasn’t working, but it meant more to not fall prey to emotions: to fear, suffering, or pleasure, as I could not deny the thrill of combat, even one as fruitless and dangerous as this. But all those feelings were faded, it was not quite that either.
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