The monster’s lower body was covered in thick, matted fur that was missing in pink splotches down its legs. The legs were bent and ended with black hooves. Its arms were a muddy brown, thin and curled like withered plants, and two corroded iron shackles were clamped tightly around its tiny wrists. Even stranger, there were thick chains of rusted iron wrapped around its belly, pressed so deep into the flesh as to have become almost a part of its body, sunken in as it was with the skin rubbed raw.
Its strange head stared at me crooked, blinking empty black eyes like a dumb cow. It had a long, pointed beak, pale and speckled with red lesions, and it hooked far out and downward. It had no ears but oddly enough had what looked like gills with three flaps where ears should have been. To top it all off, two red horns that were tiny points of gnarled red poked out from its mottled gray scalp. It stood there labored and limp, panting hoarsely as it stared at me with emptiness.
I gripped my axe tighter all the same. “Who are you?” I said.
Its head slowly tilted and its eyes blinked at me. “Finnihil,” it wheezed, its voice a harsh release of dust deadened air.
“And why are you...” I trailed off.
What was I to say, why are you...you? It was a tortured and sad beast, so accustomed to its strange and unfortunate lot that it seemed to be numb to its suffering decay.
“Have you forgotten where we are?” Finnihil said through heavy breaths, its beak hinging open so slow that the words barely formed and found their way out.
I frowned and glared angrily at the beast. Was this monstrosity a part of me? Fenrir had been as a darkness capable of tearing my soul into a sad existence of fleshly unbecoming; he was a darkness that dwelt within and that I could fall prey to... but there was a power in it at the very least. Finnihil was a tortured corpse of weakness. This did not belong in my soul.
“You are no part of me,” I snapped.
“I am you when you take off your mask, beneath your mask that is beneath the lowest mask and hung and hidden in a cupboard burned in a forgotten fire. I am the hollow you that you fill with the soil of a sordid soul. I am the grave, the tomb, and the body buried deep. I am the self that refuses to relate itself to itself, looking not at the mirror but only through its broken shards of clouded glass. You cannot dress up a corpse and expect it to be a real man.”
“You are a lying fiend. A stranger here in this realm of greatness.” I was snarling and I didn’t care. I stepped closer and raised my axe, daring Finnihil to speak another lie in its weak and unworthy wheeze.
“Like a legged fish without land, I swim through ashen light, heavy with unworth. I’m the stranger that is so strange to your built-up façade, that my strangeness is a testament to my truth. I am you, Rangabes, without the lies, the masks, or the esteem.”
I stopped my predatory stride and stood straight, smiling at the pathetic creature. “No, no. I will not attack what is unworthy of acknowledgement. You are nothing but a black hole of nothingness, a void of potential where virtue, meaning, purpose and power go to die. You are the promise of comfort and weakness. But I act, become and ascend; my being perfected in the infinite light that I strive towards, for the striving towards is the only way to already possess it.” I laughed, happily realizing the thought and answer as I spoke it. “You cannot stop the moment from occurring, from always occurring. I spiral up, my circles tight and equal. My equilibrium is met with a return that only doubles in reward, and then more goals and greatness forever follow as it repeats. What you are, is what all are if they do not participate in eternity and purity. You are the power that is so self-absorbed, that the self is annulled and nothing remains but a black, meaningless non-existence. You are the finite incarnate.”
Finnihil scowled, a wicked and angry fire alight in its black hole eyes. “Then how is it that I am here beside you?”
“You are not inside me though. You are a false promise, the shadow to the back of my eternal pursuit. You can only become me if I stop. I will not, and am not ever going to stop. I’m not stopping. You are unbecoming.”
“Do you deny me?”
“No, no. But you are a mere shadow. To pretend you are not there is to ignore the light before me by pretending there is no back. So, you will submit to my light and watch my back. Your corruption, your empty potentiality is mine to conquer. The shadow must bow to the light of clarity. I do not deny you but I do not intend to let you run free, nor be destroyed. A shadow is needed, for how else can one know they are heading towards light?”
“I do not need you,” Finnihil spat back, the wheeze suddenly filled with air and life.
“What are you to me? Are you a fear of weakness, a fear of decay? My fear of the nothingness, my fear of meaninglessness? You are my fears made flesh. The fear of the finite.”
“And what if all those are true?”
“Your life is mine. I see that. I accept your weakness as my own. I cannot pretend that weakness and nothingness are no temptation. You, beast of unworth, you are me. Come, I accept your wicked sclerosis and add you to my own movement upward. A shadow at my back, pushing me forward and reminding me of the outcomes of decay, neglect and unmoving.”
Finnihil writhed and screamed at my acceptance speech, and with its head back, spine arched, and its crooked arms spread straight, its diseased corpse collapsed on itself and whirled into the form a black tornado that stretched up and tore through the gold firmament above. I held up Solisinanis and it burned with a powerful orange-white glow. My marks surged along with the axe, and I poured my red and blue light into the powerful weapon and held it up. A shattering crack of spiderwebbed light leapt out from Solisinanis; threads of red, white and blue coursed into the black tornado and spun it with fire, lighting it aflame.
The tornado wobbled unsteadily like a spinning top. I held my axe higher, the light still surging into the murky black. I drew inward and pulled the tornado’s shadow to me as it collapsed on itself. The black mass spilled into me and I accepted its power. As I drank the bitter cup of black, the sky cleared and all on my ancestral plane fell silent, shining and perfect as it was meant to be. Then the landscape shimmered and in a burst of cold white, I jumped out of the dark and back into Jötunheimr once again. The chest popped open and I sprang free. It was the chest that had held me locked inside. And now, I was ready to finish this with my newfound axe, blazing like the sun.
Hesiod was flat on the ground; my emergence apparently had knocked him backwards. Past him, Fenrir was gone and Cerberus stood tall, watching me with a quixotic glint in his eyes. This was the real Cerberus, black as sin and with eyes red as fire. I wondered if such a change of color was possible and whether or not the spirit of the Cerberus within me might unify his with mine. We were cut from the same cloth of fiery light.
“What happened?” I said.
“You fell into the chest and it latched itself closed behind you. I couldn’t make it budge and Fenrir still cowered, even with you shut away. And then a change went over him, his eyes went dark and he faded into the air. I feared that he’d followed you into that realm in some way.”
I rubbed the back of my head and wondered if the Fenrir I’d defeated had not merely been a part of my psyche but the real dark wolf, feeding off of the darkness that was my Finnihil, who in turn gave him that army of infinite shadow. Questions perhaps best left unanswered.
“He’s defeated now. And what of Skade?” I glanced around, looking for my armor. I spotted its red glow off to the right. “Come, let us clothe ourselves and finish this cleansing of the land.”
Cerberus suddenly barked, his three heads howling in unison. His noses twitched and his snakes writhed. “I sense it... I feel it. Yes. She’s gone. Perhaps she’s returned to her natural form, standing high as snow peaks and strong buttressed mountains. Perhaps she has fallen into the nothingness she longed for. The light, or what is left of it bleeds back into the realm. She is no longer as she was. Your axe, your transfigured staff seems to have broken her hold... for better or wors
e.”
“How can you tell?” I asked as I finished strapping on my armor.
“A change in the air. A sense of cleanliness that I can only just catch a whiff of, the slightest smell of unpolluted life, a freshness drifting in.”
“You got all that from smell?” Hesiod asked with a grin, King Arthur’s mantle adorning his shoulders once more. His chest bloomed red, and the ember lit robe covered his body. He bent down to put back on the cloudlike shoes before chuckling up at Cerberus. “Be honest, Apollo told you, didn’t he?”
A strange yelp purred out from Cerberus that I guess was his way of laughing. I laughed as much at Hesiod’s mirthful doubt as I did at Cerberus’s strangled guffaw.
“I caught the scent of light when Apollo raided the dark gates of Hades with his sumptuous, melodramatic glow.” Cerberus laughed louder which broke me and Hesiod in half as we bent over laughing along with his yelping. Cerberus managed to grab hold of himself and he waited all straight and dignified for Hesiod and I to stand up straight again, doubled over as we were. “But once his overbearing scent and light lift you free, you get a distaste for what is foul. My scent is already attuned to senses and powers you cannot begin to understand, but now that I’ve tasted the light...” Cerberus paused his stream of thought and grew gravely serious. I thought I might have seen a light mist in his eyes but with his height, it was hard to tell. “I want to be as Apollo shines. The light beckons me forth and I will walk in its power along your side, Rangabes.”
I put my fist to my heart and bowed my head. I hoped Skade had found her nothingness. I could only hope that much of what she had said about Apollo and my quest was untrue. At the very least, my two companions here were worthy of my trust and we would see this through the end. Wherever we had to go, I knew we were worthy to walk in the light. No matter the darkness, we had each other to shine forth.
Book 4
Endless Circle
The black stone lifelessly towered there amidst the vibrant landscape of lively green. I stared at Apollo’s toned and golden back. He’d returned to us right after Cerberus had declared the realm freed from the darkness. He’d taken us here in a cloud of light, as according to him, grave matters had fallen and caused much to shift. Valhalla had to wait. But it was a movement, however strange, and I was grateful for it. The land of the Celtic people, the land once again of the living. It was bizarre—I breathed with lungs and drank the fresh worldly air of earth yet I felt as though I were still tethered to the land of the dead, or at the very least, the land of fading myth.
“Apollo, why is it that I do not feel... alive?” I asked.
“You still are not in part. The netherworlds of the great myths had to be overcome by your might before you were supposed to set foot on earth. But these realms are bleeding, like Jötunheimr before, and this is not earth as you know it. It is a festered wound. It should not be. Yet duty calls and chaos reigns. You walk here only by my light.”
“How much further must I march underneath your glaring sun?” I said, angry at what I knew was likely the truth.
“What underworld remains? Egyptian, Greek, Norse, what more?” Hesiod said, throwing his hands up.
“You did not pass through the Norse underworld. You merely walked in the land of a dying breed’s darkening kingdom.” Cerberus spoke with detachment. Unemotional and seemingly uninterested, he simply spoke the truth.
Apollo kept walking and without looking back, said, “If you must know, Hel is all that remains, conflated sickeningly with mighty Valhalla. The Celtic Otherworld has bled into Hel and a strange tear is ripping both realms to shreds. Great Valhalla has been thrown into the darkness and surrounded by a black, boiling river of warm blood. There is where you will finish your task as a dead man, and there you will at last free yourself from the chains of the void. But we must take care of this nightmare here, in this sad seepage of Celtic glory. The Celtic people are not so far removed from their Hyperborean ancestors. Rangabes, these people are needed for your promised land, I assure you. Even in this half-whole land, walk on this ground with holy reverence as you must not profane what is sacred and pure. This battle is one in which purity will be attained, and the glory of the infinite lit aflame. Follow the fire and its spark might set you aglow with the power of resurrection.”
“And what can we expect here?” I said.
“The renegade goddess Sulis played me for a fool. If I had foreseen her treachery, she would have been thrown to Fenrir as dog food too. But she acted the part; she agreed to bow to our coming reign, but then as she saw you gaining power, she resisted and this castle—and our being here—is the result.”
“Why do you need us? Or why do we need you? She is one goddess, nothing I haven’t bested yet. One goddess of light is not even a flicker to me,” I scoffed.
“She has her armies of corruption. But worse, she has those powerful Celtic gods of light. The Hyperborean spirit might be blotted out here for eternity—yours with it—if we do not finish her and save the dying light of this land from the darkness that is the absence of good, the absence of the true one and only good, that being power.” Apollo stopped walking and shouted at the great black stones of the castle, “Sulis, your sun has set as the true one has risen. Come out and face us!” His voice echoed, clattering around the stones before bleeding out into a dead silence.
“Nothing,” I murmured.
“Everything is wrong about this place. Apollo, we would be wise to watch where we walk. A wrong step and I fear we might end up as Lugh.” Cerberus pawed at the ground, his noses twitching nervously.
“Lugh?” Hesiod said. “What has she done to him? He’s the true solar god in these parts.” He looked over at me.
“The Celtic sun has been blotted red with blood. Its rays severed from the source, now Sulis sits in her inverted throne with Lugh set in the land of the dead. He, Arawn and the Morrígan are drowned in the black blood of swine. She has her Gwydion setting tricks and traps all about us. Cerberus is right, a wrong step might be enough even to end my own reign of light.” Apollo tensed, his ankles flexing, his golden calves in silver sandals delicate and divine. The god of wisdom looked as if he had no answer to this disaster.
“Onward, let us ascend this castle.” I strode forward to lead the way, ignoring the worried grunts and gasps behind me.
The field before us was an empty green with mounds and hills surrounding it, all leading to the giant black carapace of a fortress that protruded out on the horizon. And there in that sword-like tower, I knew that this unworthy sun queen was waiting. So, she feared me? Good. She should. I was tiring of being the gods’ plaything. I wanted my people, I wanted to carry forth my own glory and live for that, for in that glory my people rested. But they could not awake until I myself awoke from this death thrall journey. And Apollo’s light upholding me... the thought made me sick. I was not one to take kindly to relying on the strength of another if it had puppet strings attached—chains to an artificial becoming. I was my own jailer, and the only prisoner was my weakness which I always tyrannized into submission, making it bow at the feet of power and suffering to transfigure it into an ineffable glory. That was how I lived and died, and it was how I would continue.
I still did not trust Apollo. I wasn’t entirely sure I couldn’t head towards my promised land as I was now. Wyrd’s words were what kept me straight. She’d told me where I needed to head, and her fate was one worth heeding. But still, who was to say Apollo wasn’t just using me to defeat his enemies, and that this quest of mine was really an excuse for him to run free and unchallenged amidst the diminished mythological realms of divinity? I stormed forward, angry at my suspicion and even angrier at the lack of clarity and truth. I almost welcomed Sulis and her trickster god friend to intervene, at least that would provide some form of action, an answer in itself.
Alas, no action came and I sadly made my way alone and hurried up to the black stone of the wall. Ignoring shouts from Hesiod behind to slow down and wait, I rushed forwar
d, preparing to launch myself over the wall and up towards the roof so I’d have a closer look and easier time ascending the tower. I stopped and leaned forward, staring at the craggy onyx stone blocking my path.
He is false and so are we.
The words cooed out from the stone. I shivered. They burned. They froze. I knew this pain. A corruption. A temptation. A desire. Who had planted it here?
He is false and so are we.
You are blind and cannot see.
Apollo wants and does not get.
This trap of his is always set.
So many lies, so many proofs.
There is deceit in finite truth.
My hand ached and I stretched it out, longing to touch the singing stones. I placing my hand against the wall and gasped as icy air filled my body. My blood slowed and the light and my surroundings vanished. More black. Again. Again. Again. Standing in the black expanse, I fell as if my feet suddenly realized there was nothing there holding them up. I tumbled down. Tattered and translucent souls pushed past my face, cobwebs of unworthy existence. It was odd that the longer I fell, the more at peace I felt. The expanse of nothing, the massage of death, and my endless descent soothed me. Falling without any sense of direction, it became more like a relaxed floating in cool nothingness. My eyes weighed heavy and threatened to fold closed, shutting off my faculties in this strange void.
And as my eyes fell dimmer and dimmer, a pale blue light hung off in the distance below... or above. I squinted at the light, and my sudden attention shot my body towards it and a blue glow enveloped me as I tumbled out of the dark void and into an entirely different land. I swallowed, realizing where I was. Hel seeped into the Celtic Otherworld with glorious Valhalla blasphemed and torn apart, right there in the center. Surrounding me was a black river of blood that bubbled and reeked of rot and burning flesh. Past the river, the light of this strange land was non-existent. Above and on all the outer sides was that same void I’d been falling through. Fortunate was I, to find a way out of it, or so I hoped. The stones had sang of Apollo’s trap. But why trust them? Why trust anyone? Not here. Not now. Hesiod was the only one. Maybe Cerberus, but I knew him not well enough.
Cerberus Slept Page 20