As she hit the Cauldron’s floor, she saw what Odin had.
Galian sat at the Cauldron’s absolute depth, shaking violently as the skeletons ripped and tore through his body. Galian’s body was badly damaged from the assault, and his face wretched with the great pain of the pillaging.
Tortured by the sight of his brother’s anguish, Odin began to scream at Galian. It was useless. The Cauldron’s pitch was too loud. Odin then waved his arms wildly, trying to catch Galian’s eye, but he quickly realized Galian wasn’t given the Boatman rite. He had no eyes.
“He’s in… he’s in so much pain,” Adara cried as tears welled in her eyes. “But he makes no sound.”
“He can’t speak,” Odin said gravely.
“Oh, Odin…,” Adara cried. “He is going to die… he can’t hold on. There’s no way…”
As more skeletons began to bash into the glass, the cylinder began to crack.
“Close it!” Haren commanded as the glass started to shatter.
Adara barely heard. She, exhausted and so overwhelmingly sorry for the pain Galian had been dealt, could barely think. As Haren braced her shoulders and called her to attention, Adara quickly recognized the threat. Just as the Cauldron’s skeletons and fire began to break from the cylinder, she extinguished the vision.
As the Shamance ended, a cloud of smoke billowed from the cylinder, but in seconds that smoke dissipated, and the only remaining evidence of the Cauldron’s depths were its three shaken witnesses.
Consumed like never before, Odin turned and set his furious strides out of Haren’s church. Haren sprinted in chase, and after she caught up, she blocked Odin’s path.
“Odin, you can’t do this alone. Please,” she begged, “just wait.”
However, as Haren met Odin’s furious stare, she knew Odin was not going to wait for an army.
“You saw him,” Odin said. There was a rage in his voice – like a smouldering fire that was being just barely contained. “Waiting is not an option,” Odin said firmly. “Adara has explained this world to me. There is fear and there is hope. If I must, I will die on the latter.”
As Odin’s eyes burned, the small, eyeless boy that Odin had seen at front of the church walked next to Haren.
“Morello?” Odin presumed.
Haren nodded.
“Then you, of all people, know I can’t wait,” Odin said.
Haren shook her head in regret. “Let me give you this then,” she said as she drew a plant leaf from a pouch on her belt.
Odin looked to the door and then back to Haren.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just eat it,” Haren said as she handed the leaf to Odin. “It will hide your blue eyes under a cover of yellow.”
Odin nodded and then quickly ingested the leaf. In seconds his blue eyes dimmed to the same yellow as the Scale.
“The closer you get to Forneus, the more the leaf will wear off,” Haren said. “His presence counteracts its magic. But with yellows, your travel should be less obstructed.”
Odin nodded and then opened the twin red doors of Haren’s church.
“Which way?” he asked. “Which way to Forneus?”
Haren pointed to a tunnel that went further east.
“That one will lead you as close as any.”
Odin nodded, and just before he turned completely out of the church, he offered his hand to Haren.
“You’ve done a lot for us,” he said as Haren accepted his hand. “But now it’s on me. If I don’t make it, you burn this god-damned land to the ground.”
As Haren nodded, Odin hugged her, and after grabbing a torch from the wall, Odin turned and sped down the eastern tunnel.
Haren’s gut churned as she watched Odin’s departure, but after he was gone, she turned back to her intently watching parish.
“Get battle ready,” she ordered. “We’re marching on the throne.”
The men and women of the church hesitated in the great implication of Haren’s order. It was monumental. Even still, Haren couldn’t allow for wasted time.
“Now,” she commanded to the stalling parish. “Our future hinges on our haste.”
Suddenly, Haren’s order registered, and the sixty parishioners began to scramble frantically throughout the church.
As her parish collected physically and mentally for battle, Haren strode contemplatively to the massive bronze altar.
At the altar, she pressed her hands into two specific points on the altar’s broad side, and as the bronze began to slide back, a large hidden compartment was revealed.
Carefully, Haren reached into the compartment and retrieved a large padlocked box. After she had examined the box, she took off a necklace she was wearing and drew a particular key from its chain. As Haren unlocked the padlock and looked into the deep red blood that filled the box, she was calmed to see it was just as he had left it.
With pleading eyes, Haren looked skywards.
“I’m choosing hope as well,” she said. “The timing is off, but the characters are right. In my mind that’s enough. Please, fate, make this so.”
After a loud huff, Haren reached deep into the blood-filled box, and after her hand found its bottom, she pulled Serich’s golden crown out from its crimson sheath.
“Serich,” Haren whispered, “forgive me if this goes wrong.”
44
As Odin sprinted through the eastern tunnel, he quickly converged on the doorway that led back onto the streets of Animus Letum.
At the doorway there were four armed guards, and as they saw Odin’s yellow eyes emerging from the darkness of the tunnel, they immediately drew their weapons. Odin continued to barrel towards them, showing no sign of slowing down.
Just before he reached the guards, Odin tossed his torch just above their heads, and as the guards focused on the flaming projectile, Odin cut swiftly between them.
Before the guards had even realized what had happened, Odin had kicked the door open and dashed back out into hell.
As Odin tore furiously through the roads and alleys of Animus Letum, he did so against all odds.
Truth had said Galian was fading. Impossibility had laid claim to Odin’s task. And all reason defied Odin’s heart. But it was his brother near death. It was Odin’s best friend in jeopardy. No measure of truth, or impossibility, or reason could ever argue his heart out of action. Odin believed he could save him – he had to.
As he ran, Odin was unsure of his path, but as he made sparing glances skywards, Forneus’s orange Soul Cauldron – and especially its hellish glow – made his endpoint clear.
Along his path, there were dozens of Scale and Vayne scattered on the streets. However, because of Odin’s yellow eyes, the serpent soldiers paid no special attention to him. He was one of their own.
As his determined strides chased down the orange Soul Cauldron, Odin knew that the magic of the leaf would not last, but against that threat Odin had to employ speed. It was not only his ally, it was his strategy.
As he raced over the golden roads, Odin began to converge back onto the long and wide avenue that led directly to the royal staircase. His heart flared as he realized he was almost at the Throne Room’s staircase.
However, as he rounded the corner onto the promenade, his sprinting strides were instantly intimidated down to a cautious walk.
Blocking the entirety of the lane was a horde of Forneus’s Vayne. It appeared as though Forneus had positioned them there as a measure of final safeguard, a mocking trial of Odin’s will.
Odin’s heart beat fast in panic. Sweat began to bead on his forehead. His feet started to tread carefully and slowly. As he edged forward, he began to feign a calm stride and assess his chances. He knew, from engaging the Vayne on the way to V, that he was more skilled in combat than the serpents. But he had only fought a band of them – there were literally one hundred of Forneus’s bodyguards blocking the roadway.
Regrettably, Odin knew he could not win such a battle. His only advantage was that the mag
ic of the leaf hadn’t worn off. As Odin took careful steps, he tried to navigate the clearest route through the serpent mass.
Unfortunately, there was no such path.
The Vayne had amassed a daunting blockade. The only way passed them was through them.
As Odin neared the first wall of serpents and he heard the slow hisses of their breath, they began to sniff the air suspiciously. Rigidly, Odin breached through their first wave expecting a fight. But as he walked further into the horde, the Vayne seemed otherwise uninterested.
Slowly, Odin cut through the myriad of Vayne, but as he brushed against the shoulders of countless serpents, he could not deny his vulnerability. He was amid a maze of armed killers, and his only measure of security was his yellow eyes – a meagre disguise that was fading the further he pushed into danger.
With the Vayne crowding him on every side, Odin slunk down, and as he tried to avoid detection, he used a subtle hand to claim one of the hatchets that hung off his Lyran armour. Carefully, he angled the hatchet’s golden head to catch his eyes in the blade’s reflection.
As Odin peered down into the metal, his entire body clenched with panic. His blue eyes were emerging from under the yellow camouflage. As Odin cursed under his breath, he glanced again at his eyes in the golden weapon. However, as the sight of a swinging axe mirrored on the blade, spurred only by instinct, Odin managed to drop his head.
The giant axe grazed just over his head and struck heavily into the Vayne in front of him.
The charade was over. The hundred Vayne had turned hostile.
Facing his gauntlet of foes and staring down his fading hourglass, Odin had no ambition to defeat his foes, only to evade them. He could allow for no trepidation or mistakes. His only choice was to run.
Like a wave, Forneus’s hunters began to charge inwards. As the serpents converged, Odin took one deep breath and stocked both of his hands with one of the golden hatchets.
“For Galian,” he whispered.
Just hearing his brother’s name seemed to ignite his soul, and as Odin’s blue eyes flared with the fire of a brother’s love, Odin erupted into a counter-intuitive barrage through the wall of serpent soldiers.
As Odin darted from left to right, the Vayne’s weapons and limbs swung into his path, and like a living labyrinth, every viable pathway that appeared was abruptly closed.
As they converged on him, the Vayne’s weapons began to crash against Odin’s golden mail. The strikes were growing closer and closer to a death-strike, and as Odin managed to duck to avoid a thrown spear, the horde of Vayne had nearly overwhelmed him.
Odin couldn’t allow it.
Desperately, he started to slice his hatchets into the tendons of any and all Vayne within reach, and as blood and guts splashed and sprayed around him, Odin’s fervent steps began to exploit the few passages that opened up. As he barreled through the horde, each of Odin’s turns met contest, but with the devastating hacks of his hatchets, the Lyran began to push closer to Forneus’s royal staircase.
As Odin’s exodus became marked by a trail of dead and disabled Vayne, the battle savvy serpents began to form a phalanx at their very rear.
Odin acknowledged the strategy, and as he dashed and dodged through the serpent mass, he launched his hatchets into the knees of the two Vayne at the center of the phalanx. As the center Vayne collapsed, Odin leapt urgently onto their exposed backs and launched himself high over the Vayne’s formation.
While airborne, Odin quickly retrieved two daggers from his belt, and as he fell out of the air, he tackled the final two Vayne blocking his path, plunging his blades into their chests as he crashed headlong into them. As the tackled Vayne crumpled backwards, Odin rolled over them, pulled his daggers from their hearts, and then – conscious of his fading time, as well as the small enraged army at his back – he raced frantically up the royal staircase.
45
Odin’s ascent of the five-hundred-step staircase should have cost him his breath, but instead, as he climbed the near-endless steps, he was neither fatigued nor unfocused.
He was absorbed in thoughts of deicide.
As his lengthy and rapid strides brought him closer to the stairs’ summit, he gripped the daggers in his hands even more tightly.
The titans of the afterlife were about to collide. The Lyran House and the Dark Pool were primed for war, and to the victor went the afterlife – once and for all.
As Odin reached the summit and his eyes gained a clear view of Forneus’s court, he immediately identified the occupied throne. With a ferocious scream, he lunged up the last steps and pitched his twin daggers at the throne’s cloaked king.
The daggers cut accurately through the air with their promise of assassination, but as they passed the fifty Vayne in the Throne Room, they suddenly halted in mid-air, and fell futilely to the Throne Room’s marble floor.
With another roar, Odin broke defiantly into Forneus’s court and quickly drew Sleipnir from his belt.
“Forneus!” he challenged. “Face me now! Come measure my wrath!”
Immediately, each of the Throne Room’s fifty Vayne, as well as the Vayne who had chased Odin up the royal staircase, converged on Serich’s heir. As Odin’s eyes continued to scold the king, he quickly disabled all Vayne within reach. The Vayne grew quickly in numbers, and in short seconds they had overwhelmed Odin.
Ten Vayne were restraining him and another five were poised behind him, intent on delivering their swords into his heart.
Just before they delivered the deathblow, Forneus cancelled the assault with a wave of his hand.
Heeding their master, the Vayne relinquished their grip on Odin, and backed off and formed a circle around him.
The amused Forneus, with his orange eyes glaring from under his purple cloak, stood at his throne, and then grinned as he approached the intruder.
“Your wrath?” he mused. “The snake does not revel in hunting the rodent. I desire challenge, and your wrath offers me none.”
“I beg you to test that,” Odin said as he readied Sleipnir for battle.
Forneus grinned again. “Your heart betrays you. I can hear it. I can feel it beating with your hatred for me. But it was foolishness that brought you here, not bravery. You have followed your heart to your own death. I am merely a consenting hand.”
“Your words are wasted on me,” Odin said sternly. “But I promise you, before we are done here, you will know a grave silence.”
“Like your brother?” the serpent goaded.
Forneus allowed himself a savouring grunt as he closed his hellish eyes.
“I feel him fading,” he said as he looked into his Cauldron. “He is so near his end. Both of you, so poised to die.”
“You’re mistaken,” Odin coldly promised. “Our destinies have brought us here, but our fates are not the same. The weaker will fall.”
“My condolences,” Forneus said coldly.
As he lashed his face with his serpent tongue, Forneus removed his purple cloak and exposed the grisly state of his face and body. His skin had been shed completely to black and green snake scales, and there were countless scars strewn across his serpentine form. Small horns had also begun to protrude from his forehead.
As the sinister orange glow of the Cauldron blushed against his muscular body, Forneus cast his arm out, and with his power, he summoned Serich’s mighty staff into his grip.
“I’ve waited a long time to extinguish the blues,” he said.
With another grin, he pointed the end of his staff mockingly at Odin.
“Bring me your wrath.”
As the hellish glow of the Throne Room gleamed off Odin’s golden armour, the young Lyran bowed his head and swung his mind into a lethal rhythm. He would not lose. Sleipnir would become his scythe and each of her attacks would drive to kill.
With Forneus still mocking him, Odin wound Sleipnir back, and on behalf of the Lyran House, he rushed at his villain.
As he came within range, Odin swung Sleipnir as f
ervently and accurately as he could; however, Forneus was equal to the onslaught. As the exchange of attack and parry amplified in speed and ferocity, the serpent deflected and dodged Odin’s attacks away with ease.
After turning a sequence of Odin’s attacks into deflections and misses, Forneus sneered at Serich’s heir, and with a pompous grin, he dropped his arms and allowed Odin’s onslaught of fists and staff to crash against him.
Forneus’s head and body, submissive to the assault, snapped and recoiled against the pummeling. Odin’s devastating attacks began to smash and bash Forneus’s flesh into a muddle, but still the serpent was unfazed. In spite of the devastating force, the king snickered at Odin’s strength, and as panic began to surface in Odin’s eyes, Forneus exploded at Serich’s heir.
The serpent blasted his right palm into the center of Odin’s chest, and after lifting him easily into the air, he slammed Odin violently down onto the marble floor.
Odin smashed heavily against the court and then skidded helplessly across the base of the Throne Room.
“Now you learn the lesson your father did!” Forneus roared.
The serpent paced wildly as if Odin’s assault had unlocked his rage.
“I feed on pain!” he screamed. “You cannot defeat me!”
As he savoured his growing rage, the Serpent stretched his arms out to the hellish skies, and with a primal scream, he used his considerable power to shake loose the giant stone columns that circled the Throne Room. The columns cracked and shattered into boulders and then, by Forneus’s will, became suspended high above his royal court.
“Let us test your skill!” he bawled.
In rapid succession, the king used his power to hurtle the giant boulders down at Odin.
Cross-haired at the end of the boulders’ path, Odin had no choice but to display his skill. He nimbly evaded the first of the boulders, and as the rocks came faster and in greater number, he set his feet into a sequence of quick and evasive steps. Instead of retreating from the onslaught, Odin used his agility to inch closer to his villain. As Forneus scorched two giant boulders at his target, Odin hurdled just above the first of the barrelling stones. As the boulder passed beneath him, Odin kicked off it and propelled himself even further into the air. He grazed just over the second boulder and descended directly at the Serpent. As he sailed down, Odin wound Sleipnir back and then belted her hard across Forneus’s jaw.
The Sons of Animus Letum Page 41