Bloodaxe no longer leapt, he limped and staggered, and with my divinized eyesight I could see his numerous wounds sizzling. Frostbitten and broken down, he was at his end, still hobbling towards the shadows, refusing to go on the defensive. Leonidas was off to the far corner of the battlefield, he’d managed to march through their ranks with his heavy hoplite shield glowing red, and his helm with its scarlet horsehair crest marked him out amongst the blackness. But his jabbing spear and blazing shield were beginning to give way to the sheer amount of shadows closing in on him. Egil was slicing with his sword in one hand and chopping away with his thick blunt axe in the other. His face was mad with joy, apparently unperturbed by the dire state of our attack. Brian Boru stood tall above the herd, swinging in every direction with his sword, but even I could see that he was hurting.
Cerberus had his heads lowered alongside Aeneas with Snorri as well. They were no doubt deliberating on what to do to end these replicating demons. I breathed slow and long, a sharp chilled air bringing me back to myself and in the present. The Helm of Awe had spread my sight and self out over the battlefield like an army of ants with antennas alert, all in a moment as if time had bowed to the majesty of my might. Now seeing there was no obvious way I could win amongst these grunts, I charged through them and headed for Fenrir. The dark wolf was being pestered by Alexander, which shouldn’t have surprised me; I knew the great conqueror wouldn’t be so easily taken. He’d been the first to charge in and he must have headed straight for Fenrir. As I neared, an exhausted Alexander rolled out of the way of the striking Fenrir’s attack.
“Nothing harms him,” he said, his breath thin and his chest heaving. He lowered to a knee and paused.
Fenrir stared down at the both of us and growled. I ignored the shadows behind me, I could only hope that my solar blood brothers would persist in keeping the darkness at bay. I stood there and waited. Fenrir had not attacked, he was back to staring at the staff I held, the same sense of fear in his eyes as before.
“This staff Lævateinn is like you, isn’t it?” I shouted up at the wolf. “A darkness and light, forced together. You devoured Odin, you took Hesiod and Týr’s hands—the power of the Allfather, an ancient poet, and a god of war absorbed into your essence. All those forces... light and darkness mingling together... paradox. Like you, that is what Lævateinn stands for.” I held the staff out further. Fenrir stepped back, snarling. “You hid away this relic; a key to keeping the chaos of your world and the order of mine, in balance.” I chuckled, holding up the staff and studying it closer, its fire twisting in helixes around the dark mists hovering throughout. “You want to bring the world fully into darkness, into your realm. But you did not think of the result of swallowing the sun, you didn’t think that this light would persist. For where there is a little bit of light, there cannot be darkness. And where there is a little bit of dark, well... whatever exists around it, exists. You are an absence. A decay. A little bit of poison ruins any well. But what does a little bit of purity do to a pit of waste? These forces aren’t meant to exist within one another. This dark mingled with light... but unlike you, I’ve taken my dark and transmuted it into a purer light, a light above mere existence. My purity comes from descending into the filth, and overcoming it by filling it with power. I’ve transcended while you remain unbalanced and unwell.” I laughed, letting out a Dionysian joy as I danced in front of the scowling wolf, swinging Lævateinn like a baton.
“Do something, you madman! The shadow warriors will be the end of us all. Kill this wolf!” Alexander yelled.
I scowled at him, but a quick look back at the battlefield changed my mood. The shadow warriors had multiplied to the point of forming a completely connected black mist. There was no battling that now. I turned back to Fenrir and charged with the power of my runes and armor, leaping up and soaring high into the golden heavens. I threw and thrust my body with staff and antlers leading the way, straight at Fenrir’s teeth. He snapped his jaws while whining in high pitched fear. My antlers struck his cheek and the staff shattered in half, breaking inside his mouth. He gagged as he swallowed half of it. I fell to the ground and landed with a booming thud that put my armor to the test. It held together, but my bones strained and my flesh ached. As I slowly stood to my feet, careful not to rush, I found that my body was bruised, but still intact. My antlers dangled in front of me, snapped in half and clinging their like broken twigs. I dropped what remained of Lævateinn and yanked off the ruined antlers, throwing them in a shattered heap.
Fenrir stood tall as ever, unfazed. He had his head tilted and his ears perked, but nothing happened. My bravado and his fear had apparently both proved pointless. Or so I thought. Suddenly, the great wolf of darkness howled so piercingly high that I staggered backwards and clutched at my helm. The agony and retching pain that carried Fenrir’s soaring howl into the air was a wicked and awful sound. His body tremored and shook, distending and bloating, rippling as if of liquid, gas, and solid all at once, unable to settle on just one. His cries of agony became three-fold, the wind howling along with him and the sky thundering too. In a sudden burst, Fenrir’s body exploded. A burst of pale green light followed his raining blood and guts. The army of shadow was gone, leaving us tired men of the sun to remain, wounded and confused. My brothers now rallied to my side, Aeneas along with Cerberus and Snorri at last entering the fray.
“Don’t step closer!” Aeneas shouted, sprinting alongside Cerberus with Snorri bringing up the rear.
“We’ve figured out the purpose of this all. It was what we were discussing during this impossible battle that was set only to bring about this metamorphosis,” Snorri said in a hurried, rasped burst of words.
The wearied warriors and heroes now all stood beside me. Nothing of Fenrir remained but some large diseased chunks of his carcass, with the rest spread out across the field in gory bits of flesh, rotten and foul.
“Before she comes, you must know what this place is,” Aeneas said, his strong hand upon my shoulder. “This place is you. A manifestation of yourself. Not merely an inner battle, Fenrir was quite real...in a sense. I and all these great men are very real yet gone, as we’ve moved on into the great after. We also remain tethered to reality, because of blood. The blood of the Hyperborean Hero, the solar spirit that transcends mere biology and mortality. We all...” He let go of my shoulder and spread out both his arms as if to hug the lot of us. “We all are one in our purpose: to destroy any darkness that blots out our glory, both within and without. Our purpose is to ascend to the sun, its rays pathways that only we can walk. We are power. That is our purpose. Be a tyrant of your soul, Rangabes. Break your weakness into submission, tyrannize it for that is the only way to walk the path of the sun. A burning must always be within, that painful fire of fulfilment that comes only from the worthy suffering of the infinite becoming. Always pursue glory. We are all one in this path.”
They bowed their heads and my heart sped up as I doubted my reality. “Is this real? A dream? A hallucination?”
Cerberus, glowing in ethereal light peered down at me and said, “It is real. All of us, me as the hound of light and Fenrir, the wolf of dark... we exist inside you in a way. And this battle is what the Lævateinn forces the wielder to wage. It drives most mad, or darkens some into absolute evil or others into lethargic light. A transforming light transmutes darkness, as you said. That is why this staff was locked away. That is why Fenrir fears it so. And perhaps others do as well.”
“So, none of you are your actual selves from eternity? From myth and reality?” I asked, removing my helm and looking them all in the face.
Aeneas smiled at me and said, “These selves you are looking at, these mirrors of greatness, both light and even dark—this source of power and being is yours, and it shows your connection to both aspects. We are related in that sense, but most do not get to fight such an inner battle with such clarity and reality. Most let their unconscious mind suppress it or internalize into a weaker form. So, in spirit, we that still sta
nd give you our strength. We watch over you from outside of time, just as we all do here inside your own eternity. Though Cerberus is a living friend among you still, his soul radiates and reflects a man as only a hound can do. You need each other, do not let his darkness win, open his eyes to this reality.” He pointed at the shining Cerberus at his side. Aeneas then looked at me closer and his face flattened. “This will hurt, but we mean to give you our combined light. Remove your amour.”
I quickly shed the armor and stood naked before their great power and I opened my arms wide.
“Look down where the staff has split and the shattered antlers rest,” Aeneas said.
I did so, lowering my arms and kneeling. The white antlers, still pulsing with blue light, had grafted themselves into the staff and formed into an axe. It was now a double-bladed axe, pure white in its power, and the darkness that once coursed through the staff was no more, only red fire remained in its immaculate twisting helixes. I grasped the axe and heaved it high. I closed my eyes and thought of those once again that came before me, and those that would come after, and how I and they all related to the sun. My kin. My people of light. I opened my eyes and a swirling vortex of burning golden light roared above in the heavens. A pillar of white golden light shined down in a perfect beam that enveloped my raised axe, and then the light vanished in a blink and my axe of the sun remained.
Its hilt was now an orange-red with yellow swirls carved into it like a sea of flames. Whatever material it was made of, it was impossible to say. It was not heavy and it felt cool to touch. If fire could be made into a solid, this is what I imagined it would look like. The double-sided blade that had come from my broken antlers was now pure gold, each side of it sharper than even Fenrir’s terrible fangs. The double blades glinted and gleamed, their bright gold hue like the sun itself, and the fiery hilt of the axe looked like a ray of sunlight extending down.
“You’ve made it pure,” Aeneas said as he bowed his head.
All the great heroes around me shimmered into bright and golden silhouettes. They all stepped into me, their warmth and power making me whole. A peaceful power, one that felt as if it had always been and always would be, as long as I kept my gaze fixed on its truth. Smiling and now alone, I looked affectionately at my new axe.
“No longer Lævateinn, I’m calling you Solisinanis. You’ve transformed all to sublimity.” I nodded, and turned to the gore Fenrir had left behind.
A she still had to come. And then what? The metamorphosis, the monster after. Regardless, I was ready. And sure enough, there in the carnage, a woman of pure glory and beauty stood. Wyrd. Her dress flowed in ripples along with her perfect hair, the olive tone subdued in the light of her yellow mane. Those blue eyes melted with understanding, warm and willing to listen and love. She stepped out of the filth and glided towards me, her dress swooshing over the ground and peeling back to reveal slender, pale feet. I breathed in her scent of day, the fresh clarity of a misty morning heavy with a cleansing dew.
“Rangabes, my child. You move with a might befitting of my son, and fitting of a story that needs to be told.” She drifted up to me and placed her soft hands on my cheeks. “Aeneas is at home with me and our Lord. So many people have misunderstood the truth of me. It is why my name is now what it is. Like the Blessed Mother, I birthed a powerful man. Not Lord, but a servant of Him. I am her handmaiden now and I come to you at her charge.”
“Venus?” I mumbled.
She drew back her silky hands and frowned. “I was called that once. Aphrodite before. Some said Persephone was my darkened reflection, my Chthonic Sun. You smell of Dionysus.” She laughed and swirled backwards. “Do you see us in the mirror? Do you see what we mirror?” She leaned forward to stare at me with a sudden and shocking solemnity.
“I do,” I whispered.
“All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open. But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven, that is labor indeed,” she chanted.
“Virgil,” I said.
“The iron race has ceased and is ceasing. The golden will arise over all the world.” She smiled at me. “A holy poet who spoke as a prophet. He saw much truth in me and my son. This truth has now found you.” Her eyes moistened, immersed in holy tears that softened her blue irises into spotless skies.
“I believe—help my unbelief.” I reached out a finger and caught her tear.
“I will, for He wills.” She took my hand. “Come, you must see what is promised.”
Still holding my axe, I held her hand as we were covered in white light. It warmed me and a chorus of voices sang out, ripples of pure music stirring my spirit while Wyrd’s grip tightened. The song rose up, the voices flying away as the light removed itself in a whir of gold. We now stood atop a mountain of gray stone with white snow dotting the pine tree landscape below.
“We stand on the highest point of the mainland of your promised home.” Wyrd stood beside me, beckoning her graceful arm at the wide expanse below. The sky glowed red as the sun awakened for a new day.
“My promised home,” I repeated, the cold wind slapping at my naked flesh. I was numb to its touch; the glory of this land was the only cover I needed.
Jagged gray mountains rose up from the earth like massive rows of fangs. Snow dotted their towering brilliance with a gleaming white. It was as if we were standing in the mouth of a giant serpent whose entire jaw had detached and fallen, its ruin the majesty of might. The landscape far over the mountain-tops was rolling, more peaks and valleys beyond, blue mingled with the red of the rising sun, setting the watery visage aflame in purple.
“We stand in the west of your promised land, it is for you to spread out towards, to strive for once the east becomes your own. But this you must know and tell your future kin: your home is not meant to cease at the end of this land. I speak now of a manifest destiny of glorious overcoming, thriving and subduing. But can what be made manifest ever cease its manifestation, if it truly be your destiny? Like the always increasing tower of glory, to top it off, to cease its ascension is to topple it down. There is no stagnation, only building or tearing down. The powerful, the mythic heroic might of the new gods, the mortals who move with eyes and body aimed at eternity, that is what this destiny requires. If for a moment you tire and accept what already is, or what someone else has already done, that is the moment the tower collapses, for it cannot be held up only by those who built it in the first place. It must continue to be upheld by every age, and this continuing is done through pursuit. Look up at the sky when out of land; the stars await your manifestation of power and glory. Always ascend.”
I nodded my head, eager myself to leap off this peak and wrestle the land into submission. “When will this be mine? How will it be done?”
“It is not a when or how, but a what and a why. The what and why are both love—but what kind of love? A love that is required. A love that carries a shall, nested in its essence. For if love has the potential to change, then it is not the shall saying love, the love based in eternity. The eternal love that is built with the shall as a foundation, is a love that transcends and carries with it, everlasting greatness. That love is free, and truly the only kind of love that is free. So, you must love this homeland that will be yours, but it must be built with the shall. No matter how far you spread, no matter how much you succeed, others will come after you—teach them not to let the tower collapse, to maintain and repair, and build. Build! Even if the land is aflame with weakness and decay, this love must never falter. Only those who understand such a truth can claim that they are of your glorious stock.”
“And now I will begin my taming of this land.” I nodded to myself, scanning the landscape and strategizing how I might make it my own.
“There is still more that must be finished in the land of myth. Once you finish in the land of the Norse, the Celtic land must be mastered. There lies Grian Dorcha, the terrible black castle stolen from the Otherworld and erected by Sulis in her jealous fear. Another thrust back int
o darkness remains. Circles to be closed. Then, with the sun not at your back nor merely above you, but burning within, your deeds its glorious rays—only then must you come. The land can only be properly tamed if bathed in the light of Hyperborea. You will be ready once you have gone to Hyperborea and taken her light. She is yours and will give you many children.”
“Thank you,” I said, turning from the view. Wyrd held her hand up and I kissed it.
She smiled at me, only to frown as her crystal eyes squinted. “Always listen to my song, even when it sounds strange and harsh. I sing for you and your kind. I tell you this now, something foul awaits your return. This was the metamorphosis my son warned you of. Use your Solisinanis and put an end to the nightmare. You now truly know what is at stake. This land is not meant to die without your noble flock pasturing in its glory.”
Wyrd stretched her hand out again and I grabbed it eagerly. And in a blaze of white heat, our light hurled forward and tore through the sky, puncturing into the gold canopy of my ancestral plane and landing in a boom before the remains of Fenrir. I gripped my axe and stood there alone, for Wyrd had vanished.
In the shadowy remains, a figure stood; a beast misshapen and foul, double my size. It stood there with a hunched back, its body gnarled and malformed. It was grotesque and twisted like a spindly, fungi-covered rotten branch of a dead tree. Its skin was brown and spotted with pale warts, purple splotches and white boils, some of which were leaking a slimy, putrid, pale puss.
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