Cerberus Slept

  I leapt forward, angry at my thoughts being interrupted and scattered by constant shifting and dodging. I set my fists aglow, centering the light in each hand and I punched in a flurry of jabs followed by a right hook and then a left, right at the wolf’s calf but once again, not even a stumble. I tried to think as I weaved in and out from Fenrir’s legs, striking just to keep him honest and on guard. Perhaps the perseverance went deeper. Yes... that was it. Perseverance of the Hyperborean spirit, of the heroic blood of ancestors remembered and honored. To feed from their source of strength, to be rooted in tradition, to the history of a people so heroic they'd become myth. This light exuding from out of my marks was not the limit of such strength. I remembered bursting into an eternal fire and consuming Kronos, before any rituals or added strength were imparted to me. To tap into that, that would be perseverance; for how could one continue on through time if that which came from before was forgotten? If one forgets, then there is nothing to persevere with in the first place.

  “We persevere with our blood! We persevere with our ancestors! We are because they were!” I proclaimed to Hesiod and the heavens alike.

  With such an epiphany shouted out, my ancestors stormed together within me and without. Clouds of gold gathered in the heavens, blotting out the gray blotched sky. And from the glowing clouds, an ornate chest descended in a beam of light. It was carved with gilded golden wolves that spiraled into a whirlpool on the front. Each wolf had citrines for eyes that shimmered with yellow light. Fenrir howled at the chest and suddenly ceased his attack, cowering backwards as if it could kill him if he got too close. I walked over to it as it floated to the ground, the beam of golden light still shining down on it from above.

  I shuffled backwards with my eyes trained on Fenrir who snarled and shivered, the now gold bathed landscape reflecting off his silver coat. Hesiod followed me and kept his eyes solely focused on Fenrir. The chest had nine cracked seals atop it, each seal a half black, half yellow circle, like the moon and sun split. I opened the chest and stared at Lævateinn. Fire and darkness swirled over its white ivory wood. I grabbed it and raised it out of the box. The staff shined with a freezing white light, pulling me into a frigid sense of despair. A black shroud suddenly enveloped me and my body was pulled into darkness, and all my life was sucked into shadow. The chaos of non-being. And I was naught.

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  No... No! I refused this... this nonexistence. This darkness. What had the chest thrust me into? It wasn’t merely internal as I could still feel my body. I gripped the staff tighter in my hand, numb and cold. I walked blindly forward into the black expanse. While I couldn’t see, I could at least hear. Uncertain whispers stroked the nothingness around me, words impossible to grasp. The whispers floated, a circle of voices holding themselves adrift, as if deliberating whether or not I should be addressed.

  Rangabes

  The voice rose from a whisper to a declaration of masculine strength. A heroic baritone, deep and strong—this was a voice that was worth heeding.

  It is I, Aeneas. Long separated by time and blood, we share a sunlit start and the same shining task. The light of the sun stirs our blood. No matter how distant, a star’s light cannot be blotted out; it only takes time for it to shine towards the right spirit—from mine to yours. Rome was a successor, and before that it was my tragic homeland of Troy. That solar soul, that spiritual blood that sings high into the heavenly realms.

  “Aeneas. Great hero and father of Rome, why do you speak in this darkness?” I said.

  The staff you hold sets your blood aflame with cold truth. Your spirit is meant to supplant those weak cows above, now fallen below. The human has become a herd animal. But you are not called to stand alone. No, never! You are called to be a man, to stand above—and from this height, this rising up, this ascension up the mountain, you become yourself—a self. As a self, you now can find your flock. For a herd is faceless, but a flock is known by its fleece. Where are your brethren, Rangabes? Will you succeed in founding a new people, a powerful empire matching my own holy mandate?

  “I’ve been ascending from youth and now even from death.”

  And now you will see what fleece the flock of the sun wears. Light!

  The blind black crystallized into white and shattered into a brilliant and pristine gold. I stood on white ground, with a blank expanse of gold above, shimmering and sparkling like metal made into sky. And there before me was a line of men so legendary, so mighty that I nearly tripped over myself. But I remembered my own strength and my connection to them, and I watched calmly as they stood in their perfect line. Beyond their wall of heroism was a multitude of dull shadows standing still and together in mass; an army of silhouettes with hunched backs and dropped heads. An army of men forgotten in the dark, an army made up of mere cattle.

  “Join your brothers, this is a fight for you and your kin.”

  I turned around at Aeneas’s voice and took in the mighty progenitor of Rome. His hair was thick but cut short, its amber color a field of golden wheat set aflame. He had a prominent nose, straight and royal, and his jawline was strong with cheeks squared and wide. A face of classical power; his blue eyes peered out at me with the cold rage of an avalanche. His armor was immaculate and silver. His legendary shield that had been crafted by the god of fire Vulcan, was enormous. Only he could carry such heavy metalwork with ease. The shield depicted a future that was now past, the promised glories of Rome. Aeneas’s wide and muscular form was impressive, and he gazed at me with a patient understanding. I nodded at him and walked towards the line of heroes.

  There stood Julius and right beside him was Augustus. They each had their swords raised, their dominating spirits set forward. And there, Alexander the Great, with tan skin and curly dark blonde hair, he grinned with his big olive eyes taking in the promise of battle and glory with glee and excitement. Next to him stood a straight-backed and stiff looking man with a trim curled beard that was a light brownish blonde. He had clear gray eyes like the winter sky. His face was worn but calm and he gazed ahead with a serenity possessed only by those who knew their own greatness. He turned away from the herd army and looked at me.

  “I’m Hannibal Barca. There is no military mind as great as mine,” he stated in a calm and even voice.

  Alexander scoffed next to him. “I’d say the rest of us might argue our own case.” He smiled at Hannibal who only let the corners of his lips slightly spread in response.

  A man on the far side, several paces away from Hannibal, stood there with a billowing dark blood red cape. His shoulders were massive and spread wide, and his body cut inward at a steep angle that showed not the slightest bit of fat. He had brown-blond hair and a thick pointed beard. He wore a helm with a stiff horsehair plume. He had a hefty Hoplite shield painted a bloody red. A Spartan.

  “Leonidas, great son of the Lion, of the line of Heracles, you don’t want to welcome this new hero to join our ranks?” The man who spoke was another Roman, and I recognized that no-nonsense face. Trajan, the great expander of Rome. He spoke with mirth, yet his face remained stiff and watching the unmoving herd.

  “He has much more to do yet,” Leonidas grumbled, his voice heavy and rasping; he kept his eyes trained ahead the entire time, not breaking form or discipline in the slightest.

  A man standing alone and off to the left with a five-pointed silver crown atop his fiery red hair turned to look at me. His eyes were a clear green and his face was aflame with a thick red beard.

  He said, “My name is Brian Boru; I am a king who fought for my own and died doing so. My banner was solar, a sword bathed in the sun. We are of light. We fight for the right reasons and I am glad you and I are one.” He lifted his hefty longsword and pointed at me, nodding and then turning back to face the darkness.

  “This is what you must be, and what all who come from the sun must strive towards,” Aeneas said.

  I turned back to look at him.
Two proud looking warriors now flanked him, one on each side like Varangians from my Constantinople. Like my blessed grandfather. They had that northern look, dressed in chainmail and horned helms as they were. They were certainly of Norse blood.

  “Egill Skallagrímsson, warrior-poet,” the shortest one said, stepping forward. His stout form was as wide as a chariot and his beard was pulled into a long knotted auburn tail. “I plunder what I see, my ship an axe to the sea. Water broken into land, my strong sword cuts words out from tearful enemies as they drown in my drag.”

  “I am Eric Bloodaxe,” the other man said, grinning at the poet. “A King I am, and I raise this axe in hopes of quenching its scarlet thirst.” He lifted a large black axe that was spiked at the top and double sided with a wicked rusty blade. I looked closer and realized it was not rust, but dried blood from who knew how many years of slaughter from successful raids.

  And then a third man stepped out from behind Aeneas as if from the very golden air in this strange plane of existence—this realm of ancestral connectedness. He wore a plain bluish gray cassock with a tan chord around his large stomach. The man was mostly bald but for a stubborn sprout of gray hair atop his pale, round head. His beard draggled low and it was as gray and greasy as the hair that remained on his head. His face was fierce yet kind, the sort that demanded respect but gave affection and wisdom in return. His eyes were clear and hard like crystal and a soft sparked kindness in his irises invited me in.

  “It is I, Snorri Sturluson. It’s a shame Hesiod could not join you, but you are the one who holds the staff.” He gestured at it, his youthful and vigorous voice surprising coming from his old and portly form. “A poet all poets owe patronage to, but could he combat the warrior spirit and wonderful songs of my Eddur? Iceland is my island, and my writings will always remain as they were written—in stone. But you have not read them, have you my eastern friend? Well, our nobility unites us! Our sovereign spirits sing with solar blood! Turn then, heed the herded hordes with the brilliance of your brothers. Destroy darkness!” He shouted with infectious glee; his arms spread as if he were a prophet.

  I raised Lævateinn high as I turned. My uncovered skin shined pristine, a glowing gold mirroring the aura of the heavens. With my staff raised high, lightning cracked out from the firmament and crashed into me—an electric arm reaching down to press power into my being. That familiar ecstasy of eternity held me rigid as the blue light dissipated, leaving behind bulky, deep blue armor that covered my entire form.

  I took my helmet off to see what it looked like, and it was a glorious sight to behold. Two white antlers jutted out from the forehead so large, that I felt as if I could rush right into the fray, goring through them all like a charging stag. The antlers glowed with veins of blue electricity that snaked through the surface. The helm itself was a solid blue, smooth and simple with eye slits and tiny holes for the mouth. A strange white-lit rune glowed softly and covered the entirety of the face. It held a circle in the middle; eight branching symbols carved it into eight equal sized pieces. The branches looked like pitchforks, three jutting crossbars just before their three-pronged, forked ends.

  “The Helm of Awe,” Snorri called out, his voice drowned with reverence. He slowly started to sing a poem.

  “The Helm of Awe

  I wore before the sons of men

  In defense of my treasure;

  Amongst all, I alone was strong,

  I thought to myself,

  For I found no power a match for my own.”

  He coughed as he let the words sink into silence. “It gives the worthwhile hero glorious might. But only one worthy of it can wear such a mark. What is your treasure?” he suddenly asked.

  “My people,” I answered.

  “And who here is greatest?”

  “I am.” With no hesitation, I knew it as truth.

  How could I not consider myself the greatest, no matter the company? To not consider oneself the greatest was to lose before ever beginning. It was not to lie, but to believe without false hope. A pure focus of power. It was a will that was always striving for more and rested not in pretense but in the always present ascent of the being that became greater in the now—in the always.

  I looked around. Alexander the Great was smirking, no doubt he still considered himself the greatest man of all time. Augustus glared at me, clutching his sword tight and dragging it on the ground in repeated circles. Julius paid me no mind, still focused on the unmoving herd before us. Leonidas looked ready to fight it out right there to prove me false. Hannibal and Trajan like Julius, had their eyes focused ahead. Brian Boru smiled at me and shook his head. I looked back to Aeneas, who looked at me with a loving defiance, a silent support simultaneously disagreeing with what I’d spoken. Eric and Egil both chuckled.

  Snorri nodded at me. “Place the helm back upon your head.” He paused, waiting for me to do so.

  As soon as I donned the helmet, my vision was reduced and focused through the slits.

  “Ægishjálm er ég ber milli brúna mér!” Snorri shouted.

  White light filled the inside of the helmet and shocked my sight into a bright daze, before it settled back to a glow and I could see clearly once again.

  “This formula spoken has unlocked the power of the mighty rune. Your head is rimmed with a soft circle of white light, angelic and halo-like. The rune glows as the sun! You do not know it, but your eye slits are pools of blazing white light—beacons pushing back the dark.”

  I felt invincible in this worthy suit! My dark blue amour was colossal, a mass of crystalline mineral that jutted out like icicles of stone on each shoulder blade. The armor was covered in tendrils of blue electricity that pulsed with light in veiny paths, similar to my antlers. The energy of lightning was stored within my armor which served as a sort of engine for the power, my spirit the flint to set off the flame. A large white glowing sigil shined on the center of my breast plate. It was made up of a circle with eight straight lines shortly extending out from its center. There were tiny stars on the edge of each line, with the four corner lines hooking slightly like scythes.

  “That is Þjófastafur, the stave to stop thieves. The rune is named for the degeneracy for which it stops: Thief. Fitting, for the thieves of darkness on the battlefield want to steal your glory, to make you as meaningless as they are.”

  With my soul dipped in a divine pool of heroism, I was aflame with lightning blood and thunder strength. I stepped towards the line and held my white staff up, its carved ivory swirling in patterns of black mist mingled with fire. The shadowy herd in the plain below at last moved, their black heads creaking up, an eerie sound of moaning wind drifting up from their soulless shadows. The moaning rose into a shriek and then a howl, and as their cries rushed through the air as a whipping wind, in the far distance a familiar form towered high, materializing from a black cloud of ash made bright by the shrieks of the silhouettes. Fenrir, giant and growling stood at the back of the shadowy forces, looming over the battlefield like a silver mountain. A roar from behind made me turn around myself.

  Cerberus stood there as large as ever, yet his fur was no longer black, it glowed with a golden sheen and was pure white. His serpents were now silver and all their eyes, along with Cerberus’s own, were gold. No longer a hound of death and darkness, but a hound of light. A hound of the sun. He reared back his three heads and spat out three white balls of fire that arced through the sky, loping high into the air before tumbling down from the heavens and into the shadows. Apparently not wanting to be beat, Alexander leapt into the herd, his sword a flame of silvery-white light as he cut through the howling creatures reaching at him. Cerberus’s fireballs splashed into the field and explosions of flame cascaded over the shadows in rippling waves.

  I shouted, my roar echoed by the rest of my brothers as we plunged into the darkness and carved our way through with weapons of brilliant light. My strange staff glowed with a pale light of foggy gray, and it wiped out the shadow warriors wherever I swung. I w
hirred it in my hands, spinning it in a circle as the strange light burned away my foes. They air was frigid on the field, and the strange shadows’ touch was cold and painful. They screamed and cried, scraping at me with tendrils of black smoke that served as their arms. Standing as I was in the midst of them, a shallow sea of shadow, there was no avoiding their touch. Mercifully, my armor seemed to pain them as much as my staff did. They pressed against me, trying to overwhelm but they tremored back, squealing as several of them evaporated from rubbing against my runes.

  The shadows around me shivered away, shaken by whatever my armor had done. I charged into them, lowering my horns like a ram. Lightning crackled through my antlers and wherever I swung my head, the shadows burned into a bright blue before exploding back into whatever nothingness they’d emerged from. Fully charging ahead, I unleashed all my energy in a reckless push forward and through, aiming my progress towards Fenrir who was striking down at someone, though I couldn’t quite make out who. Balls of fire still rained down, Cerberus playing the part of artillery. My heroic brethren were sweeping through the shadow warriors with apparent ease. Both Caesars were deep in the center of the fray with their backs pressed against each other as no shadow could get through their sharp swords. Eric Bloodaxe was leaping about like a wild man, crushing the black mists as if they had skulls, uncaring if their shadows burned him with their freezing grip.

  I charged once more ahead, spinning my staff and swinging my head back and forth, my eyesight blazing white and so clear that I felt as if I could see their attacks before they fell—the helm giving me a mystical foresight. I pushed through the shrouded foes with ease, but to my horror, as I spun back around to see the damage I’d done, it was as if I hadn’t even made a dent. There were no holes in their ranks, and where the shadow men had been burned away, it seemed as if two had come to replace them. Julius and Augustus were no longer back to back, but separated and being overtaken fast. Alexander had vanished somewhere, lost in the darkness. The rest of the heroes were in dire straits. Hannibal had fallen, and he swung his sword trying to keep the shadows back. The great general had chosen the area of attack smartly, there were none behind him, but how could you defeat an enemy that came back twice as strong every time you dispatched one of them?