‘I’m only twenty-seven, and she’s not even my student.’
Julian wasn’t really listening. Twenty-one was the right age to be the Ava he remembered. Could it be that this old necklace she spoke about was the very thing he’d been hunting for all these years? ‘Sure,’ he waved his arm as if dismissing any notion of wrongdoing, ‘perhaps if you assist her in searching for the family heirloom she’ll be inclined to accept your dinner invitation. I think so.’
‘Excuse the pun, but I have enough on my plate with Theo buddying-up with Lorenzo.’ A worrying complication for Menelaus, and Julian understood better than anyone why it was a concern. This was a delicate game of chess Julian was playing. He dearly wished to involve Menelaus but it was imperative that he stay ignorant of his motives. There was too much to risk; to merely scheme in company was not an appropriate incentive to squander his strategy. His adopted son was his unfortunate pawn, which was regrettable to be sure.
‘Indeed. But you need to eat to fuel your bulk. There’s no need to share every meal with a bird like me. Enjoy the company of someone closer to the cradle than the grave for once. It will do you good. That’s an edict!’
Menelaus threw his hands into the air. ‘Fine,’ he laughed, ‘you win. I’ll call her. I already said I was going to anyway.’
‘Make sure you do, my boy.’ Julian chuckled for an entirely different reason. ‘Make sure you do.’
21
Temple In The Heath
I did go home that night. Just the thought of sleeping at St. Michaels, or pinching a spare bed at the Old Vicarage, filled me with dread. Not much of a choice, to be harassed by vampires on the one hand, or molested by crazy Italian witches on the other.
The sun rose over Hellingstead as I walked up the driveway, kicking gravel, deflated by the night’s events and the zero options I had to stay elsewhere. Father opened the front door, mumbling a greeting. He stepped forward to embrace me, but I slipped past him.
My second outing unchaperoned had been a disaster rivalling the first. Meeting vampires and a witch at the Red Hawk was Father’s doing, as he’d confessed, but this time I’d entered their home and committed myself – my powers – without intent, to their cause. Whatever that is. In the frigid reception hall, I tried to figure out whether I belonged to a coven or not.
My nose twitched. Nikolaj was up already, despite the house being gloomy with pre-dawn light. He was cooking, a process he infused with emotion, an ingredient, he maintained, in its own right. I could still hear the sobs echoing in the hall, still remember how I used to rush to my bedroom in tears, angry over my uncle’s discipline or disappearing acts, or his clumsy habit of sitting on my toys I’d so artfully hidden from danger, ensconced under a cushion or some such place deemed safe. Later, when the tantrum was forgotten, but the pain was still fresh, I would return to find a plate of warm chocolate cookies waiting for me. My uncle said sorry with food. He said everything with food.
My stomach gurgled, but if I was starving for anything, it was for a fight. Clemensen secrets, they were gnats crawling on my skin. The sweet aroma of hot waffles could not cover the stench curling through the air, sticky-sugared lies smearing my thoughts like maple syrup. I stomped into the kitchen because, despite my irritation, I couldn’t resist the food. My blood sugar was falling fast. The Gatekeeper craved nourishment. Nikolaj must have anticipated that, I thought, feeling manipulated; it isn’t much of a gesture when you can’t say no.
Uncle Nik was loading the table as I opened the door, my father on my heels. I tossed Nik a grim nod. ‘Theo, we need to talk.’
‘You’re telling me.’
Father sat on the benched table, leaving as much space between us as he could. ‘You’re blowing this out of proportion, Theodore. If we keep anything from you it’s for the best.’
‘If, huh? You still can’t admit it, can you?’ I stabbed the waffles with my fork, dragging floury squares through the syrup and scraping the plate. Nikolaj’s pointed ear angled away from the resulting screech.
Usually, when Father cleared his throat in that familiar warning, it would stop me mid-sentence. Not today, I was sick of his righteous spiel. I looked away in disappointment. We had reached the unsatisfactory mid-point in our conversation. We were experts at impasse when it came to each other, so I faced my uncle instead. ‘I want that sword fight you promised.’
‘What sword fight? Nik!’
‘Maybe when you’ve calmed down.’
I snorted, ignoring the steam pouring out my father’s ears. It felt good to turn the tables a little and be the one colluding with the other resident of Hellingstead Hall for once. ‘What’s the matter, Onkel? Afraid I’ll cream you?’ A flash of warmth radiated in my smile before I caught myself and stifled it.
‘Nik, answer me now. When was this arranged?’
‘Don’t command me, Nevø.’ Nikolaj’s hair glowed like a popping light bulb, hitching his volume to eardrum busting levels. The sound waves hit Father and ricocheted to me, silencing us both. A half Elf had some gifts. The ability to lean on to his kinda scary Elven side during arguments was one of them. ‘Espen, you’re the Gatekeeper no longer. Watch your tone with me.’
I sat there chewing the same mouthful of waffle for about thirty seconds, trying to remember the last time my uncle and my father hadn’t presented themselves as a united force. Nikolaj had suffered a lot of Father’s brusque behaviour with good humour, rarely snapping at him like that. What had changed? Had they argued while I was gone? It was galling to think they might have been discussing Menelaus Knight while I was out there prying information from Lorenzo without getting away from the starting blocks. That all along they were at home in safety, in possession of the full facts, or at least a greater number than I owned.
‘No,’ I said, my thought rerouting back to the conversation. ‘I’m the Gatekeeper. Nik, you promised me a fight. The way I’m feeling now I actually have a chance to beat you. If you say no, I’m leaving Hellingstead Hall again… for good.’
I hated using emotional blackmail. Bitterness does funny things to you. They knew I was bluffing; I had nowhere else to go. But it came down to risk. I had enough funds to decamp to a hotel for a while, but that would mean Uncle Nikolaj sending me unchaperoned into the Big Bad. Rolling the dice and playing the game wasn’t worth it for him.
‘Fine, Theo. But remember, you’ll be waving a pointy stick around. Don’t let your anger get the better of you.’
‘Fury makes the sharpest sword, Onkel. It will be you receiving the best of me.’
Nikolaj and I skimmed past the barn and the chicken coop, avoiding the boggy areas by sticking to the trampled path trimming the heathland. The temple, despite being dedicated to the Norse gods, loomed like the Pantheon in Rome, with evenly spaced Corinthian columns, and a pediment decorated with Odin, Thor, and Freyr, one god at each point on the triangle. Carved onto the gable, miniature scenes from the Eddas ran across the columns.
We mounted the porch and passed through the small vestibule leading into the temple itself, the airy, square room reaching its apex in the ceiling dome, allowing natural light to flood the spot where the three gods rested on bronze thrones.
The family crests seemed to float on the dome’s tinted blue glass, a colourful triad shedding sunlit hues onto those who craned their necks to look. A green stag on a red shield, Familia Super Omni etched beneath, which was my mother’s maiden crest. Then, Uncle’s Sarrow emblem: a yew-wood bow and arrow nested in green leaves that formed intricate fractal patterns like those I’d found on the trinkets in the undercroft, the night I discovered the Gatekeeper book. Finally, the Clemensen coat of arms: Mjölnir encased in runes, and the motto I had never understood until so recently, now that I was the Gatekeeper. Járner Jörð Líf – Iron is life to Earth.
It wasn’t much of a stretch to assume ‘iron’ referred to Thor’s hammer, above all else the symbol of his strength and power. It was that power that kept the world alive. A reference to our identit
y as Gatekeepers had been floating over my head since the first time I’d set foot in the temple. Our family secret was on our crest, and I had been ignorant of it.
I was ignorant about many things.
The floor was Italian-grade Carrara marble, polished, and pure. Stained glass windows looked out over the water, turning the sea into a shimmering rainbow in good weather, and splitting it into warring factions of colour in the bad.
Slim, coloured panes also adorned the niches created by the vestibule. It was one of those niches that housed Mother’s ashes in a golden urn, an oil painting Father had commissioned set above in a gilt frame, his wife, my mother, astride an Arabian horse who’d died not long after her, wind-swept, crimson hair blazing over her shoulders. I stopped to look at it and jolted; the night I’d become the Gatekeeper, I’d been trapped in nightmares, chasing Mum through the woods as she galloped away from me on horseback.
We forgot our argument for a short time, paying homage as we crept towards the three thrones, Nik heading the procession, as was the custom. We paused at the heavy, granite altar, or stalli. In the middle, an upturned palm carved from an old branch held a golden stallaringr, a ring Asatruars use to swear oaths upon, especially during a wedding. This had been the spot where Isobel and Espen had joined the Breac and Clemensen lines, with Nikolaj conducting the ceremony, sacrificing to Freyr for marital blessings.
The family had been happy and complete once, but Freyr forgot us and let us shatter. I glanced up at Mum’s crest and read it again, translating it to English in my head. Family above all. Which made my uncle’s deception that little bit worse; what gave him the right to keep secrets?
Nik and I bowed before the gods: Thor first, followed by Odin, and Freyr. I kept one eye on Thor’s hammer as I dipped my head, noting Odin beside him gleaming in bronze armour, and the rather bemusing erect phallus sticking out from Freyr’s lap – being a fertility god had it perks, apparently.
Nikolaj passed me the ceremonial knife and the wooden bowl, called a hlautbolli. The blade was sharp and cut the skin on my palm easily as I added my blood to Nikolaj’s. Our gods preferred blood sacrifice to gold in their collection plate. I imagined Lorenzo and Malachi would approve. It took some effort to eradicate the image of Malachi in priestly garments, slaughtering townsfolk over the church altar.
As a distraction, I glanced over to the embroidery hanging abreast the left wall of the sanctum, the textured fabric spun with gold and silver thread. It was a scene I was familiar with. It’s said that a giant offered to build a mighty fortification to encompass Asgard, the home of the gods, in exchange for wedding the beautiful Freyja, Freyr’s sister. Naturally, the story ended with a row when the giant came close to finishing the wall and winning Freyja. In return for keeping up his end of the deal, he was killed – the gods follow their own creed of justice. My grandmother, Elsa, had woven the characters in the drama, including the giant’s horse pulling enormous rocks all winter to complete the wall in time, while in the corner, Freyja was dressed as a bride, wearing her famous necklace.
I had participated in the blood ritual since I was sixteen but five years later, I found it as unpleasant as I ever did. It was with relief that Nikolaj took charge, using a sprig to spatter our blood around the stalli and over the feet of the idols. The bronze toes were encrusted with old stains, as if they’d been walking through mud. If Nikolaj found the task repellent, his face didn’t show it. He exulted the trio in a seamless blend of Old Norse and cryptic Elvish. I recognised a few words from his father’s tongue but I was far from fluent. The language was usually heard only amongst the tribe-folk, and not in human company, sapien or otherwise.
The libations dragged on, and the twitch in my face vibrated through my cheekbone. The agitation grew as I waited, desperate to get on with showing my uncle what I was made of. At last, he bowed and swivelled right, sweeping over the empty floor until he stopped in front of the granite wall. With a quick nod to the gods, I rushed after him.
The wall, by all appearances, was blank and smooth. From the outside, a visitor would see the semi-circular room bulging out like a growth from the main temple. By this point, I was breathing down Nikolaj’s neck, practically drooling to get into the hidden chamber – the armoury.
He stepped back and gestured for me to go ahead, and so I pressed my hands to the hard surface. Runes flashed across the wall and the rock shuddered, imperceptible except at the fingertips, loosening suddenly. A concealed door swung out and revealed a room crammed with weapons, loaded with everything from longswords, daggers, and maces, to bows and arrows.
Odin graced another stand that you had to pass, one way or another. It was a subtle reminder of his connection to Mars, the Roman war-god. Here, his armour was solid silver and gleamed in the spotlight placed above his head. Nikolaj slipped past and switched on the other lights, which dispersed the shadows nicely, but did nothing to improve the metallic tang in the air. No windows, and a solid granite door, meant little, if any, ventilation. It was a wonder we could even breathe in here.
‘Pick your poison,’ said Nikolaj, fondling the long bows mounted on the left, next to the engraving of… I traced the images with my fingers – Ragnarök. There was no mistaking it. It seemed the temple was littered with references to the Clemensen destiny.
I surveyed the immense display, collected over the generations since long before Nikolaj’s time, and that was saying something. Some of the swords hailed from the ninth century, and were original Viking weapons, their blades grimy from war. My father once told me about the previous owners, a hodgepodge of heroic figures and frankly intimidating men – nay, murderous marauders – although I wasn’t sure I wanted to be descended from a man called Einarr ‘the Eviscerator’.
I scanned over the rapiers and knightly swords, all unsuitable for non-lethal duelling. ‘I think the longswords are appropriate. Don’t you agree, Onkel?’
‘As much as I would enjoy stretching my bowstrings, we did agree to a sword fight. I don’t believe Espen would relish the thought of me firing arrows at his only son.’
‘Yeah.’ I selected my sword, banishing Father from my mind. He’d stomped after us all the way up to the gate at the end of the herb garden. I’d felt his anger firing sharper arrows than Nikolaj’s at our backs until we’d disappeared behind the barn.
There isn’t such a thing as a Viking longsword, unfortunately, outside computer games and novels. Otherwise known as a hand-and-a-half-sword, my choice allowed me to use two hands, one at the pommel and the other under the cross-guard for leverage. It wasn’t heavy as you might think, capping at around four pounds, it was easy to yield. I’d had practice, of course. My home education ousted PE and replaced it with duelling. The excitement soon wore off after I’d been beaten on countless occasions, courtesy of Father and Uncle. There was never a need to clean the temple floor; me careening across it on my arse was enough to keep it well polished.
Nikolaj picked out a similar sword with a longer blade. His height already put me at a significant disadvantage, and although my stature was fast-approaching his in length of limb, I’d not yet had time or opportunity to get used to my changing body. I felt wonky and off-balance, my muscles straining to catch up with cartilage and bone.
‘Ground rules,’ said Uncle Nikolaj, as we took up our places back in the main temple. ‘The winning strike must be a fatal one – as if this were a real battle – or at least knock your opponent unconscious.’
‘Agreed,’ I said, not content with the idea of merely drawing first blood, a feat that could happen within seconds. ‘What else?’
‘Basic magic is acceptable, but summoning the opponent’s sword isn’t, and you will refrain from using your Gatekeeper gifts. We can only use what we were born with. Accept?’
I scoffed. ‘No Elvish tricks either then, Onkel.’
He smirked, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. ‘As you wish.’
‘Enough time-wasting. Take your position, Stumpy.’
The hum
our evaporated from his face when I called him that name. Full-blooded Elves taunted him with it as a child on account of Nik’s single, pointed ear, and some of those bullies had ‘accidentally’ lost the tips of their own by Nik’s blade during swordplay. As his body turned cold and fluid, a river willing to drown anyone approaching its banks, I regretted it.
22
Crossing Blades
I stepped my right foot out and lifted my sword across my body, mimicking a scorpion about to strike, switching quickly into the correct stance, legs in an L-shape at a forty-five-degree angle to my uncle.
Nikolaj thrusted with his sword, aiming at my chest. I parried left, deflecting the blow, leaving him exposed to a counter slash, or riposte. He darted out of the way, the point of his sword quivering at my throat. I twisted to the right and lunged forward, but my sword slipped through his arm as he swung it out. He struck his blade across my T-shirt, catching the fabric as I sucked in my abs, avoiding a cut.
I kept one hand wrapped round the hilt, and the other nearer my waist, keeping the sword close to my body in a defensive stance while tracking Nik’s footwork as he glided across the Italian marble. He darted about, a fiendish imp intent on my destruction. Translating thoughts into action was too slow a process against the offspring of Alfheim; I needed to shift my awareness into the cool steel and flex it like a limb. There wasn’t time to zone out and summon the Gatekeeper’s magic, and that was against the rules anyway.
But I was a Clemensen. I had a lot of power meshed into my DNA that had nothing to do with my status as the Gatekeeper. I focused on the weight of the blade and visualised drawing it into my arm. Work with me, I commanded, and I’d gone and done it; I’d shoved my arm into the forge and it burned. I howled as the pain seared my skin, burning craters, singeing hairs, binding flesh with steel.
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 17