The Codex Lacrimae

by A. J. Carlisle

  Old Nick leaned slightly toward the river. “Oh, Fossegrim !” he shouted. “Be a good fellow and retrieve those two, would you? While you’re getting them, I’d also take that hand-axe; it seems to work too well against your kind.”

  Aurelius still held the mattock, but the speed of the next event overtook any chance he had of defending himself with the tool.

  The water in the center of the river began to circulate in a widening, spinning vortex whose current sucked some of the strömkarlen and nixies into its center. Winds began to increase around the whirlpool, and suddenly a waterspout erupted upward from the river.

  “There they are, Fossegrim — do my bidding and bring them over here next to the Dark Elf!”

  Whistling a tune, Old Nick gripped the fiddle by its neck and slung it over his shoulder as he turned his back and casually began strolling to the area of the prisoner and stool.

  The fossegrim ’s size dwarfed all the water elementals in the river before it strode from the bank. The elemental reached Aurelius and Clarinda with the fluidity and momentum of a crashing wave, opening its arms and becoming again a torrent of water in the moment of its deluge.

  The waters of the fossegrim rushed devastatingly into the glade, a tempest that collided into them with such force that it disarmed and hurled Aurelius and Clarinda against the stand of beech trees. Then the fossegrim swirled in a sharp bend back toward the river and Old Nick. Sweeping up the young Hospitaller and Norn in its foaming, sprawling current, they bobbed atop the huge waves like corks tossed through rapids. They gasped for breath, but by the first intake of air they found themselves on the other side of the riverbank and lashed against trees, in the area where they’d both first seen Old Nick and his prisoner.

  The fossegrim, in giant strömkarlen form again, bound them to silver oaks with ropes of running water. They were right next to the other prisoner — a tall, elfin figure who’d been unconscious, but startled awake by the cold waters rushing into the forest.

  Sliding about in the mud at the base of his tree, Aurelius strained against the bonds, but soon relaxed and gave up.

  Kjenner du navnet mitt? an enraged voice gurgled in his mind with such roaring that Aurelius thought his head would split. Do you know my name?

  Sensing the fossegrim had asked, Aurelius shook his head and whispered “no.”

  “Hmmm? What’s that?” Old Nick said as he returned to his stool, his weight making a squelching sound in the mud. He farted enormously and chuckled, then peered at Aurelius with squinting eyes. “Did you say something?”

  “What do you want, Evremar?” Clarinda gasped. “How did you get here?”

  “Not really going to speak with you at the moment,” Old Nick replied dismissively. “So be quiet. I need to appropriate something and return to Earth.”

  “You mean Midgard?” Clarinda corrected.

  “No, I mean Earth.” He shook his head in feigned commiseration. “You poor Norns. You might have to memorize every way through the Nine Worlds, the names of all the boughs on Yggdrassil, and the placement of each thread in the Skein of Fate, but from my perspective they’re all parts of a whole.” He shook a finger from side to side, and clucked reprovingly at the girl. “And, I believe that I told you not to speak. You know, you’re not a guest in my house at Caesarea anymore, and I don’t think that you’re quite a full Norn, yet. As your father did on that shipwreck, you could die here if you’re not careful, Signorina.”

  “You killed him!” Clarinda shouted. “It wasn’t only Kenezki, it was you, too!”

  “Of course, it was Kenezki, you little tramp.” Old Nick clucked again. “I don’t do things directly — much more fun in getting people to do the work for you.” He nodded at the fossegrim, who’d been standing to one side of the three prisoners with arms crossed over its broad chest.

  An explosion of water blew from the magical creature’s “hand” and into Clarinda’s face, slamming her head back into the tree trunk. She was unconscious before her chin slumped onto her breastbone. The elemental reformed its hand and returned to a posture of guarding the prisoners and standing at the ready for Old Nick’s next command.

  “Good, good,” Old Nick commented, smiling approvingly as he leaned forward on the stool and put an elbow on his knee. “I’ve been wanting to do something to that witch since she upset some plans I had back at Caesarea. Now you and I can talk, I think. Fossegrim, please do the same to Volund here, so Master Santini and I might have a bit of privacy.”

  With the same hand, the creature blasted the struggling elf three times before he fell as silent as Clarinda against his tree. Meanwhile, the strömkarlen and nixies — confined to the riverbank as the fossegrim was not — screamed in frustration and blithely sang their tunes of enchantment, the noises creating a ghastly, hellish symphony.

  In spite of the peril, Aurelius couldn’t help but watch the towering fossegrim with macabre fascination. The gigantic, silent being seemed to be a living river. The flowing water of its face circulated around flaming eyes of the deepest sapphire, and while the spaces for its nose and mouth were similar to those shadowed areas that marked the strömkarlen, the fossegrim ’s power somehow made its features more defined than its brethren.

  A trout popped from the fossegrim ’s shoulder, arced in the air, and plopped into the area where its stomach should be. More fish were visible within the elemental as its roiling waters started to settle, and even a couple of salmon flitted back and forth in its form, heading from head to chest, down legs, and back upward to the top again in a desperate bid to find someway out of the man-shaped trap that loomed over the glade as largely as any trees that grew there. Pebbles and dirt started to settle downward inside the fossegrim the longer the creature stood still, the muck of the river bottom steadily drifting through the translucent blue waters of its body until it piled upward in the feet and legs.

  The giant seemed to notice Aurelius looking at him.

  Kjenner. Du. Navnet. Mitt? The fossegrim again asked silently. Do. You. Know. My. Name?

  Is it ‘Fossegrim?’ Aurelius guessed. He directed his thoughts toward it, but didn’t know if the elemental heard him because Old Nick was speaking again.

  “Now, I don’t see the troublesome item on you, so tell me where you put it and we’ll be done with this. There’s been simply too much planning and plotting and maneuvering over this...paltry thing, even by my standards, which — if you knew me — is saying a lot. I usually love a good bit of scheming.”

  “I do know you,” Aurelius countered, glaring at the man.

  “Indeed?” Old Nick smiled sympathetically, “No, I don’t think you do.”

  “Well, the only ‘Evremar of Choques’ I know is by reputation. I’ve heard that he’s a particularly rapacious Templar Grandmaster who’s taken over running Caesarea while his lord is back in Europe trying to raise money.” Aurelius spit bracken from his mouth and wiped his lips as best he could against the drenched shoulder of his robe. Everything in the quagmire smelled of rot and grime, like the upended sludge of a river-bottom.

  Merely looking at the devastation of this part of the forest would have been enough for Aurelius to guess the man’s identity, but he’d been suspicious of him when he’d heard the name Old Nick and saw the fiddle.

  He spit again. He wanted the foul taste out of his mouth and realized that he’d reached his own level of tolerance with this man’s demeanor and treatment of prisoners. He heard Clarinda shifting and starting to awaken.

  Don’t look at her again, he’ll see a weakness and exploit it.

  Aurelius kept his glare on Old Nick. He felt it paramount not to let Old Nick see that Clarinda was coming to, and unsure of why he felt so suddenly protective of her. Not to mention that there appeared to be some bad blood between them, and Aurelius was intrigued by what Clarinda could have done to make such an enemy of the man.

  “You could be Evremar, I guess,” he continued, “but I’ve never met him, so I wouldn’t know. If you’re walking aro
und playing a fiddle and calling yourself, Old Nick, though, on that name I might have some ideas.”

  “You’re a bit full of yourself, aren’t you?” Old Nick grinned. “For a priest, I mean. I thought that your lot were supposed to be taking vows of poverty, humility, and every other ‘-ty’ that Mother Rome could think to make you swear to.”

  “I’m a monk,” Aurelius murmured. “Who better than a priest to see your designs?”

  The youth frowned thoughtfully, then said, “I’m curious, though: why ‘Old Nick?’ Is it because they don’t know you by the more ancient names in these parts? What did Saint Jerome call you in the Vulgate?” Aurelius turned his head, intentionally ignoring the man for a moment. “Right, I’ve got it: Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris.” Aurelius stared directly into Old Nick’s eyes. “I think calling you ‘Lucifer, the Morning Star’ is a bit overreaching, but Pride is one of your problems, isn’t it? If you don’t mind, I’ll just call you Satan, or ‘Lord of the Flies’ — Beelzebub, right? — or, perhaps, ‘Old Scratch’ might be more appropriate here in the Norse lands. Skratte meaning ‘goblin,’ correct?”

  “Ah, I think you have, indeed, found the meter of it,” Old Nick said, amusement in his voice. “Is this you, or the Dark Book talking? If it’s you, then I might have to rethink my opinion about Hospitallers. If it’s the Codex Lacrimae, I’ve got an offer for you that will be hard to resist.”

  “The Codex Lacrimae?” That startled Aurelius. “What...what did you say? “

  Old Nick didn’t answer, but paused, surveying the restrained youth as if seeking something. “Now, let me see here...what form has that book taken this time? Ah, there it is — so it seems as if you are the Codex Wielder.”

  His arms still constrained by the flowing water-ropes above his head, Aurelius tried to look himself over, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, please,” Old Nick barked a laugh, “don’t try any lies on a liar —”

  The large man coughed, then gurgled as the point of a spear ripped through the front of his chest.

  He looked down at the offending weapon, startled, and then began pulling it out with exasperated yanks. No blood emerged with the withdrawal, and Aurelius felt confirmed in his guesses at the creature’s identity.

  Old Nick rose with surprising speed for his bulk to see who had attacked him.

  Another elf, clad all in black, stood at the edge of the forest, waiting to see the effect of his throw.

  “A- ha !” Old Nick howled, and hurled the spear at the elf. The magical being caught the weapon, and dashed back into the forest.

  “Fossegrim — after that pesky sprite!” Old Nick screamed, stepping forward in pursuit as the elf that blurred from sight. “I hate when elves get away from me — they’re more of a nuisance than dwarves!”

  The water elemental flowed down the hill in its raging torrent, with Old Nick trotting in tow.

  “I heard that last part, but kept my eyes shut,” Clarinda hissed next to him, fully awake, “What were you doing with the lecture on names — trying to bore him to death? If he is Satan, we’re outmatched from the start and need to find another way.”

  Aurelius looked at her and smiled. “The stories usually say that he can only do as much to you as you do to yourself — it’s his source of amusement.” She looked confused at him, but he switched topics, speaking quickly. “I was trying to give you some time to wake up. You seemed very confident about that necklace and he called you a Norn. I thought it was worth a gamble that you might be able to do something.”

  “Well, I can’t,” Clarinda groaned, struggling against the bonds. “The necklace worked once, now nothing. Where’d they go, anyway?”

  “Another fellow that looks like him,” Aurelius indicated the sleeping prisoner, “threw a spear through Old Nick. It didn’t do anything but get him angry, and then he ordered the... fossegrim to capture him. They all took off together.”

  “Rudyick,” Clarinda said.

  “Mi scusi ?”

  “The other elf — his name’s Rudyick. I met him earlier.” She paused, frowning in concentration. “Did you hear anything when you were captured by the fossegrim ?”

  “It asked me if I knew its name.”

  “Me, too. Rudyick said that if someone speaks the true name of a fossegrim, that’ll free it.”

  “Not control it?” Aurelius asked, wanting a weapon of some kind.

  Clarinda gave him a strange smile, and then said, “I asked the same thing — no, I think that if Old Nick’s been controlling it, the fossegrim might be grateful to anyone who grants it freedom.”

  “So, we just need to figure out its name,” Aurelius groaned, dismayed at the impossibility.

  With a thundering stride and torrent of water, the fossegrim was back, splashing through the open space and throwing Rudyick violently into the upper boughs of the tree. Now pinned by water-ropes, Rudyick groaned and looked blearily down at Aurelius and Clarinda.

  “I had to try,” he said mournfully, “you two weren’t doing anything.”

  “I must agree with you, Friend Rudyick,” Old Nick chortled as he came back to the stool. “Not very impressive a showing for the much-feared Codex Wielder and a Norn, eh? I think things were much better in the old days when world-cracking threats lived up to their reputation.”

  Aurelius frowned and gazed again at the fossegrim, letting his eyes rest on the waters of its form. As with Clarinda’s name, there was something familiar here that he thought he should know, and it had to do with the waters rushing through the elemental.

  Then he remembered — Grimnir.

  I give you that memory as a gift, Boy. Remember the ocean. It’s a good word, Hav, and to the Northmen it was everything.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  “Now, we need to discuss the Codex, Master Santini —” Old Nick started to say.

  “Hav.” Aurelius interrupted, speaking slowly as he looked at the fossegrim.

  “Takk,” the elemental groaned in relief, the Norwegian word for “thank you” flowing as a cool, refreshing stream into Aurelius’s thoughts.

  If the knight and Norn had been assaulted earlier with the force of a tempest, the fossegrim ’s attack on Old Nick unleashed the energy of a hurricane.

  At Aurelius’s naming, Hav became a wall of water that slammed into the surprised fiddler and cast him high into the air, then down hard into the river. When he hit the surface, all the strömkarlen and nixies pulled Old Nick down and took him upstream into the vast expanse of Lake Glittertind, where thousands more of the elementals waited.

  The fossegrim reconstituted itself into a humanoid shape again and, with a nod, the water ropes drained from the four prisoners wrists. He knelt and gathered them in a warm embrace, the waters of his form more soothing than the hottest and most relaxing of baths.

  Then Hav carried them all lightly into the air on chairs made of water that sat atop columns of churning lye and sandstone, the spinning water scouring the last of the mud from their clothes and bodies. They were dropped, dripping and soaked, across the river in the glade where Aurelius originally had arrived in Alfheim.

  Aurelius flinched when Hav extended a hand — recalling the impact that the water in those hands could unleash — but realized he had nothing to worry about. The fossegrim was taking back all the water that was in their clothing, leaving the garments clean and dry. Like rain falling upwards, streams of water flew from their bodies and into the fossegrim, who stood quietly, shimmering slightly in blue.

  Takk. Thank you, Codex Wielder. Your gift of my freedom will never be forgotten. Now you must follow him, it whispered in Aurelius’s mind. He’s already escaped my strömkarlen and nixies in the lake and makes his way to Hela’s lands.

  “Hela?” Aurelius asked aloud. “The Queen of the Underworld? That sounds like its exactly where he belongs.” He paused, craning his neck to look up. “Hav, could you come down here so we can speak properly? I can’t even see you again
st the sun.”

  Expecting the fossegrim to kneel, Aurelius was surprised when most of its form emptied into the river and Hav stood before him of a height with the members of the group.

  “Thank you... takk,” Aurelius said. “I don’t understand. Why do you need me to follow him? Clearly, I don’t where to begin such a pursuit, and I’d like to get back to my own lands...if that’s even possible.” He nodded toward the lively lake, the sight tempting him to stay and explore this strange, wondrous place.

  The strömkarlen and nixies were frolicking there, the menace of their earlier behavior completely lost in the joy at the freeing of their master. The elementals’ leaping and diving created a spray through which the sunshine refracted hundreds of separate rainbows. Utter joy had replaced the dread and despair that accompanied Old Nick, and Aurelius saw for the first time why Alfheim was called the Land of Light.

  “Is he speaking with you?” Rudyick asked, his tone incredulous.

  “You can’t hear him?” Clarinda responded as Aurelius kept his attention focused on Hav.

  “No,” Volund said, “and I’ve never seen a fossegrim act like this. They try to slay mortals, not rescue and converse with them!”

  I have my freedom, Hav replied to Aurelius, but I’m one of twenty-seven Nokken in the world. I need to free all the fossegrim, stromkarlen, and pixies under Old Nick’s spell, but I can’t because he stole my coral. If you can get to him, retrieve the coral, and get it to the waters of Niflehim, I’ll meet you there and you may keep this gift that I lend to you.

  The water elemental disgorged a small leather purse from its hip — a leather envelope rectangular in shape and slightly bulging — and gently it onto the grass in front of Aurelius.

  You might find use for this when the seas prove contrary or no ship is found to carry you whither you will. Taaaaaaakk. It said in a whispering voice that echoed with the distant lapping of an unseen sea. Then it waved to the group one final time before collapsing and merging into the waters of the River Perilous.

  “It’s a rare thing for one of the fossegrim to spend so much time in one place and not kill anything,” Rudyick said, reiterating Volund’s comment. “We’re fortunate, eh, Volund?”