Therefore, Mord Fiddle lavished his last might in order to paint a portrait of the South that was a compelling lie in its parts, as Lazarus had suspected. Grandfather presented the Ice Cross as exaggeratedly bad, the Hielistos as exaggeratedly just, and Cleopatra as exaggeratedly fallen and imperiled. He gave me a purpose beyond my quest for Grandfather that he hoped would usher me onto a path that might one day carry me free. Rather than tell me what to do, which might never have been enough, he created a fabulous landscape and cast me in the role of a champion. Such was an art Grandfather had worked upon his whole life, rendering mankind’s murky history into Lord God’s clear plan.
It could only have been Grandfather’s plan that if his grandson was to survive in the three realms I have called my cosmology, then Grim Fiddle must descend into Niflheim and await Ragnarok—the Twilight of the Gods, or, to be partial to Grandfather’s word-hoard, that Grim Fiddle must walk among the most wretched and await the second coming of Jesus, when Lord God would judge the quick and the dead, would welcome the righteous into the Kingdom of Heaven.
And how did Mord Fiddle, doomed seventy-four-year-old man, move to attain his triumph over history and also to color my fate? He merely set the stage and cast the characters in his fortnight of talk. Grandfather ignited the drama with a last spark, preaching a sermon that Grim Fiddle, abandoned twenty-nine-year-old man, could not turn from.
“You are not the first nor the last, Grim. I have told you, I have shown you, we have seen, there is no peace. Satan is in the world. There is no refuge. It is wrong to seek refuge, wrong to hide from the wickedness Satan has brought. Stand, move, attend! Cleave to righteousness. That is your sword. You see Satan’s harvest. Fast, Grim. Grow mindful, Grim. Do not shy from the light of that mountain of evil. Look into it. Show Satan you are not afraid of him. Lord God braces your arm. Lord God girds your loins. Make war on Satan. Attend! It was my life. Make it yours. Strike! Go to her.”
Such is my memory of the last testimony I heard from the Minister of Fire. I was away from him, inspecting Angel of Death with Kuressaare and Germanicus, when he died. Longfaeroe told me when I came in. They were afraid of me then, with cause. I tried to bring him back. I kissed him. His lips were cold, and hard. I touched him and there was none of the fire that made him, only a wasted old man, released.
Much is at issue in Grandfather’s last cogent testimony to me. One of the most significant puzzles is, did Grandfather actually say, “Go to her”? I am certain he did not use a name. Whom did he mean? Could it have been Lamba? Could it have been Zoe? More worrisome to me, he might not have said, “Go to her.” It might be that my memory, which has often failed me throughout this work, has here fooled me. Did I want him to say, “Go to her”? Did I imagine the whole testimony in order to preface “Go to her”?
I suggest the truth of it might be that Grandfather himself invested his last testimony with the mystery that was Cleopatra. Grandfather knew he owed Cleopatra a debt he could not himself pay. She had protected him at Elephant Island, and then again at Anvers, had permitted him to continue his search for me. Grandfather had promised in return to help Cleopatra save herself and Charity. Some might have said that the debt was canceled when Cleopatra chose to fall to the corruption at Anvers. My grandfather would not have agreed, did not. Yet as Grandfather increased his debt to her, he increased his revulsion toward her. She gave him her charity, and it enslaved him, and he reviled her for it. He did not call her “the whore of Babylon” idly. Nor did he cast her as the protector of fertility idly. I suppose now that Mord Fiddle was caught in the same paradoxical position that Cleopatra forced on all who loved her and despised her. Honor the mistress, defame the mistress, she remained the mistress. I did not then understand the depths of Grandfather’s problem. Like Lazarus, I saw only artifice in Grandfather’s portrait of Cleopatra. Now I have come to see that my cosmology of the South (Grim Fiddle’s North interpreting Skallagrim Ice-Waster’s South) can solve Cleopatra’s role in the South. I realize it might not be any less artificial than Grandfather’s creation, but it is what I have, and it does continue to comfort me. I suggest that Grandfather was confounded because he owed a debt he did not know how to pay to a human being who had become half a woman scorned by fate and half a serpent scorning fate. Cleopatra was both a monster and a protector. I shall not press this more than to say that Mord Fiddle commanded Grim Fiddle to attend a queen of slaves who was black and white, scaly and sad, her mansion Eljundir and her name, Hel.
Mord Fiddle was dead. I would like that this event could explain, or excuse, more of my conduct. I suppose that the reason I am unable to recall accurately Grandfather’s last testimony is that death, which lifted the shadows from the face of a failed despot, dropped those same shadows on my mind’s eye. The Norse would say: Grim Fiddle was death-darkened.
Germanicus tried to restrain me; Jane and Violante tried to nurse me; Longfaeroe tried to get me to mourn in a ceremonial fashion. Lazarus alone stood by silently. I am said at one moment to have collapsed dull-eyed and feverish, at another to have pushed aside their nurture, to have commanded that the wretches of the camp be led by Grandfather’s chamber to bow before the corpse of a Norse hero. My hysteria is said to have lasted a week, while Grandfather’s corpse blackened and putrefied. I am said to have heeded eventually their pleas for decency and to have orchestrated Grandfather’s funeral, washing his body, trimming his beard, dressing him in robes I took from the Brothers, building his pyre above Aurora Bay. When Mosquite tried to betray Grandfather’s Hielistos to the Ice Cross who came in search of their lost ships, I am said to have ordered him hanged the day of the immolation, and also to have ordered Kuressaare and his men to massacre the Little Brothers. Then I am said to have taken up the torch. I said my farewell to Grandfather’s remains in a state of mind that looked to my people to be a dream.
It was a deep dream, a berserker’s dreaming. I have mentioned that when I changed shape, I became a beastly killer, inflamed and dauntless. What I have withheld is that the change also acted upon both my mind and my mind’s eye, so that not only Grim Fiddle changed shape, but also figures, events, and words appeared to Grim Fiddle to change shape. As I was bewitched, so I saw magically. I have kept this revelation, because it seems insupportable by the record; there was never anything I read in Norse myth or legend to explain what I experienced while in a berserker state. There is certainly no rational explanation for what I want to present. I should defer. I cannot.
It is true, I did not report my dreaming while a berserker at Port Stanley; it was lost to me while I screamed at the mountains on the high heath of South Georgia. I shed it deliberately; Abigail’s love helped me shed it completely. My dreaming following Grandfather’s death is carved in my mind. Though it is not a logical tale to record, I want to try. I have embarrassed myself so often in this confession, I am left without such philosophical delicacy. And also, I can rely on the fact that I learned after my dreaming lifted what actually happened in that year or so of Grim Fiddle’s darkness. I shall relate in detail what Germanicus, Lazarus, Longfaeroe, Wild Drumrul, Kuressaare, and Cleopatra told me of my conduct. It was straightforward enough: Grim Fiddle abandoned his responsibility to his South Georgians; Grim Fiddle took Angel of Death and the best of his sealers and Grandfather’s Hielistos to Anvers Island to slay and to rescue, and when seduced by murder, and by the dark-haired queen, Grim Fiddle remained to usurp and to avenge.
First, though, there is this berserker’s vision of my crimes. Why? I want compassion. At least, I want understanding. I want some other human being to see as I saw in my dream, wherein Grim Fiddle transformed from death-darkened to vengeance-gorged, wherein Grim Fiddle wielded righteousness as his battle-shaft, and wherein Grim Fiddle, sea-wise and strife-eager, struck and attended and paid a debt, and one more thing, wasted the ice.
I have the head of a hero. My hearth-companions call me Bulwark of the South. I am sharp-witted and have the clue to war-success. I enjoy the weather of rainbows.
I take the high seat in my ice-carved hall and share meat with my long-eared hounds. My retinue gathers at my drinking tables to hear my bards make hall-songs of my contests.
The bards sing of the season when the sea boiled with waves of flames, and war-creatures from western shadows stained beaches with the children of men. I was in my early manhood. I rode the salt-trails on a sound wood wave-cutter. My captain was a white-bearded giant, the blood of feuds in his breast. His name was Hard-Fishennan. He was gloomy entertainment. He coveted me as his own. I left the company of Hard-Fisherman to seek signs of safe passage through western shadows. I led a war-band. My eye drew us into the company of men captained by a black-bearded whale-killer. His name was Elephant Son. Our blades were dulled by ripping at bone joints. We fled to a keep where we were trapped in burning halls. My need was to return to Hard-Fisherman. My new-tarred boat was destroyed by no fault of mine. / waded into the war-creatures from western shadows. My battle-shirt was craving. My blood-price was a host. My wounds gave me sleep. Elephant Son carried my body to the east, to his home, the Land of the Whale-Killers.
The high-pitched bards, in my favor-rich hall, sing of my seasons among the Whale-Killers. I wore the dress of a keeper, and lived among the children. I wept for my need of Hard-Fisherman. He was the father of my mother. I longed for Dragon-Worrier. He was my father. My teacher was a bitter-tongued man. I matched his wits with tales of my youth, in the Land of the Fire-Scolds. I passed my happiest days in the company of slender-armed women. One, Poor-Patience, asked me to set aside my war-ways. We gave thanks to God for our child. The clearness of Heaven revealed no end to strife. The King of the Whale-Killers was fame-winning. He was not blameless. He was too much away from his halls, where drink gave men contempt for slaves. His name was Elephant Father. At his table, sly hall-fellows, who used their blades on their kin, spoke against Elephant Father. They claimed there was a new evil, born in the defeat in western shadows. They said that Elephant Father had lost his bright edge. The hall-fellows captured children and placed them in keeps. Elephant Father called the hall-fellows mischievous. Elephant Father called upon me, in my keeper’s clothing, with the smell of a slender-armed woman on me, to take up again my battle-shaft and to give chase to the new evil. I turned to the counsel of my brother, Copper-Crowned, who had the secret to the beast in men. The slender-armed women bestowed on us their attention. We asked God for help, for without Everlasting Might there can be no victory. I stood before the hall-fellows and told them that the new evil was not born in defeat in western shadows. I told them that the new evil was an old evil that comes into mens hearts when famine covers their tables. I wrestled with the old evil that has no name, that feeds on faith. The old evil stalked the Land of the Whale-Killers, and broke the seal of the linden-wood halls, and tore the flesh of the children. I protected many, but not all. The hall-fellows blamed Elephant Father for my failure and murdered him in his grief. The screams of the slender-armed women slowed my reach. Poor-Patience was pulled down to her sad ending-day, and I was stilled. The hall-fellows feared my wrath. They captured me and my brothers. I cursed the hall-fellows as kinsmen who make nets of malice for harsh gain. I led my brethren and the children onto a deep-chested ship, where we gave our backs to the mischief of the Land of the Whale-Killers.
The sharp-tongued bards, in my well-wrought hall, sing of my season on the sorrow-laden sea. I guided my deep-chested ship into a storm tossed by sea-beasts. I met a shape-changer. Her name was Time-Thief. She was my mother. She recalled her charge to me in my youth to follow the ghostly leavings of a thousand-year-dead outlaw. She recalled her charge to me that I must rise to rule the black and hurt half-men of the wall of blizzards and behemoths. She shamed me for my wandering ways and for my time astray covered with the blood of other men’s feuds. She gave me true terms to follow my heart. I commanded my company to begin my craved-voyage for Hard-Fisherman. We sailed into western shadows. Among ice islands and fire mountains we were set upon by creatures in dense escort. We were defeated. We accepted the guidance of men in tall white warships. They led us to shelter in a smoky fen on a stone beach covered with lost hopes. My war-band wavered before the bark of the fire mountains. I fed my company my patience. I dressed in endurance. My war-hound sounded a cry for her lost sister. I was pregnant with memory of ancient counsels, “When want is crime, I am outlaw.” God gave me courage and then he gave me Hard-Fisherman. He was come to his ending-day. He took my eyes and made them his, took my ears and made them ours, took my sorrow and made it joy of promised triumph. He gave my soul a need for revenge against the murderers of my father and the eaters of my father’s brothers. Hard-Fisherman chose his words with the cunning that was his warden. He left me with a quest-thirst for a dark-haired queen who was gripped by the kindred of Cain. I laid my arms, thick as oak trees, across Hard-Fisherman’s pyre and swore an oath. “No shades, no shadow creatures, no talon of the evil one, will keep me from wresting the dark-haired queen from her prison of affliction and setting her freedom as high as mine.”
The keen-eared bards, in my deep-dug halls, sing of my seasons with anger’s billow against an alien brood. Hard-Fisherman’s soul had departed this earth. My mourning burned my throat. I proclaimed to my company that they should commence prayers for my soul, for I was bound by oath and would not turn from my duty unless death broke my limbs. My brave shieldsmen walked to my side. Elephant Son said, “Your tracks, our steps.” Copper-Crowned said, “The black-eyed fawn, that dark-haired queen, is my sister, and you are my brother.” I welcomed my thanes onto Hard-Fisherman’s curved-prow ship, where we joined with those who had followed the white-bearded seeker. We loosed the hawsers and pushed off from those stone beaches. We did not heed the cries of the slender-armed women left behind who were unconvinced of our promise to return to them in their smoky fen, who gave sour portent, “Those who feud break their promises like battle-shafts.”
Elephant Son set our special sea-dress, and we swam through an ocean afire with hatred and covered with crackling ice islands. My ship was Glad-Hunter. I stood at the prow with my truth-cleated battle-shaft. No sea-beast bent our line. No fumes from Hell bent my head. My thanes said a wonder-smith had forged my reach. I slew the ice, and gave waste to ice-wasted shores.
Elephant Son’s sea-wisdom brought Glad-Hunter beneath the gaze of the kindred of Cain, who Hard-Fisherman had told me held the darkhaired queen in chains for their pleasure. The kindred of Cain were behemoths grown swollen by feasting on the flesh of black and hurt halfmen. They squatted in a cliff-keep built by long-dead giants. It was nameless. It was walled perfidy. I was not blocked from driving my curved prow wave-cutter onto the poisoned shore. I bolted on my honor-linked armor. I sprang to the ice-draped rocks. I was at the noon of my might. I was ripe of mind for my quest.
There was no morning or evening in the nameless cliff-keep. Murder slew time and falsehood made one day as long as a season. I led my thanes through the underground trail. The dark cast thickened. The stones ahead boomed beneath the step of an approaching behemoth. He dragged his loathsome body before me. He said his name was Brother Murder. He said he was first among the last in the nameless cliff-keep that was walled perfidy. He said that the dark-haired queen was his hard-won consort. He said he was pleasure for the dark-haired queen, whom he called Hard-Heart.
I met the treachery of the boastful behemoth. His breath was without cure. His eyes were pits. I kissed my memories of Hard-Fisherman. I was unafraid of his lust. I did not pity him. I commanded my thanes to stand in my reflection. I spoke out, son of Dragon-Worrier, “I am the Champion of the Land of Fire-Scolds.”
He spoke out, First of the Last, “You are Hard-Fishermans Sought-Treasure. Your coming has long been told. My queen, Hard-Heart, had entertained me with tales of your wasted days of longing. My queen, Hard-Heart, who gives me pleasure as I give her pleasure had ordered that you share our feasting table. I would have you slain before you sleep. My soft-armed consort commands that you must first suffer the
sorrow that slays sleep.”
I spoke, Champion of the Land of Fire-Scolds, “Your lies are as clear as my quest. No false contempt will deceive me, no rancid meat will sicken me, no sleep in this hall of monsters will tempt me, for I am come on a pyre-sworn oath to free the dark-haired queen from your embrace. / am Hard-Fisherman’s Seed’s Seed, and I wield a mind no less bright-edged than my battle-shaft. When I strike for my desire in this stinking fortress I shall gather to me the slaves whom you feed upon as I shall dispatch you and your Cain-brothers to your welcome in Hell.”
Brother Murder fell into a silence that contained a foul learning. Brother Murder led, and I and my war-band followed, through the underground trail to the roasting hall where the kindred of Cain gathered for their feast.
The dozen behemoths who ruled there, joined by the first among the last, displayed themselves in treacherous entertainment at their long table. I and my quest-companions walked among them. I cast my eyes hard, for no light penetrated that smoky fen. I could not glimpse the dark-haired queen whose fair form I had come to wrest from the ice-mere, and I told my sea-warriors that the desire of my quest must be sealed within the nameless cliff-keep.
The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica Page 41