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BLoSC+TS fic ch. 6

Deviation Actions

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Literature Text

Fandom: Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, with some humanized characters from the Toy Story trilogy (Jessie, Woody, etc.)

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Adventure/Fantasy/Humor

Summary: Zurg meddles with powers he scarcely understands, and puts much more than the fate of the Galactic Alliance in jeopardy. Now, it's up to Team Lightyear and a couple of unexpected allies to save the day.



...And the Serpent Shall Poison the Heavens



"People afterwards called him Leif the Lucky. But his father, Eric, said that one account should balance the other, that Leif had rescued the ship's crew, and that he had brought the Trickster to Greenland. This was the priest." —A.M. Reeves, The Norse Discovery of America, 11906 HE*

"Often throughout the day he turned himself into the likeness of a salmon and hid himself in the place called Fránangr-Falls. Then he thought to himself what stratagems the Asas might have recourse to in order to catch him. — Now he was taken truceless, and was brought with them into a certain cave. — There he lies in bonds till the Weird of the gods." —The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, Translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, 11916 HE / Rasmus B. Anderson, 11879 HE

*The Holocene calendar of the Earth, reconstructed by Ph.D. µπ 'Micropie' Gaugino



CHAPTER VI

Quotes, quotes, quotes. Quotes and bloody quotes. If only he could've gotten a moment's peace from that interminable, geeky gabbling about obscure minutiae no sane person ever would be able to recall perfectly.

But noooo. On and on it went, infodump after infodump. On top of that, Zurg had strictly forbidden him to blast the pesky brain pod into spinning quanta, no matter how irritating the 'lectures' might evolve. And...perhaps the boss was right, at least partially. His knowledge of this boondocks of a planet verged on abysmal, and if ever he wished to bring this little adventure into a successful end...well. He'd just better try to endure it teeth-grittingly.

Oh, a robust frequency scanner could always detect anomalies and impending dangers in the landscape. However, he doubted such data would be of much use in a situation involving eldritch wossnames that probably defied both logic and the conventional laws of physics.

Warp's scowl swept over the forbidding landscape of snow and ice broadening out below. Often, it scarcely distinguished itself from the cloud-bedecked sky in the hair's-breadth-away-from-the-polar-circle, washy, brumal day. He would've very, very heartily liked to hunt down the jeering bastard who had named this blasted hole Greenland, and strangled him for this insolent bout of misinformation. The only green bits he had come across so far were the gently swaying palm trees of Mahambas 6 in the recesses of his imagination. Fine, maybe an Ice Age had conquered the planet since those far-flung days of first colonization, but hadn't these dweebs ever heard of updating?

So...if the boss's ancestors had jumped out of the protoplasm of this frost fest, no wonder he loathed anything relating to white. If a color ever could induce nausea, this was the place to be, indeed.

The very least, his personal plumbing system didn't feel exactly tip-top. Disbelief and apprehension had befriended one another and now larked along the highways of his gut, making his stomach emit suspicious grumbling noises.

He, Warp Darkmatter, soldier of evil fortune, murderer many times over, renegade.... For him, fear usually remained a semi-unknown concept on his wayfares smelling of easy dinero and the perfumes of a fawning gaggle of chicks. This one included neither, but already seemed like a déjà-vu of his trip to Planet X.

His grip on the steering controls hardened.

Well. From what he had understood, the mission's ultimate purpose wasn't to unleash one of those standard-issue grunty cave trolls, but a shapeshifting something, a slyboots that had apparently accomplished much mayhem before his final capture and imprisonment some thousands of years back. Hah. Zurg might've claimed he hailed the world from the summit of his purpleness, but in Darkmatter's opinion, this time the Emperor's ducky pond of reason had been emptied of both birdies and water.

Trickster figures, whatever the mythology, never boded well, especially one as evasive as this, if the legends in question indeed did build themselves upon something firmer than soggy marmalade. The elemental problem with tricksters converged to the fact that...well...they were tricksy, disgustingly cunning. With such talent, they usually could detect loopholes even inside a solid block of terillium carbonic alloy. Failing this, then at least the microscopic gaps in the atomic structure opened up a whole new world of possibilities. These might appear infinitesimally small, but a meticulous enough sod might still wriggle through eventually.

Oh, he'd long prided himself on his masterly shrewdness, what with managing to fool the idiots of Star Command ever since the Academy and everything, but what would he pay for half a cupful of extra guile right now, not to mention this very handy ability to shapeshift! He could rocket off, and, in case Zurg's bloodhounds uncovered his trail, turn himself into a bloody clump of snow for a few days, after which only the edge of the universe would limit his future choices.

As if that'd ever happen.

He harrumphed at the thought, and continued flying low over the ground, keeping one eye on the coordinates pullulating across the console screen, and hoping that the outmoded maps his crew relied on made any sense. Well, there was only a single spot called Helheim upon this dismal island, a large glacier that apparently loomed right in the near horizon, although he could barely discern the difference between it and the rest of the vista, including reefs and patches of frozen sea. Yet, that had better be what they were looking for. His patience would not carry him much further, especially as Zurg's bounties grew scrimier year after year. This time he'd managed to negotiate a bonus for—as he had put it—High-Risk Meddling with the Supernatural. Yet, the measly sum still did not much tickle his cultivated taste buds accustomed to the leisure of his early years as Agent Z.

After a while, he switched the controls to the landing mode and barked a few orders into the comlink. The ground below supposedly sported a rocky terrain underneath the whiteness, so his vessel should not have been in danger of sinking into icy water. Behind him, the blurry outline of another space ship, crammed full of miscellaneous low-life lackeys, was just in view through the mist gathered here and there above the snow.

"Right. Where in blazes're we exactly headin'? Ya talked 'bout some...hinge-whatsits," the mercenary snorted at the accompanying brain pod, once the ships stagnated on firm ground and had burped out their mash of grubs, pods, hornets, and a flock of pseudo-scientific equipment.

"Henge, Mr. Darkmatter," the brain pod corrected, sheer exasperation trilling in his voice. "Pardon me for mentioning this, but you're quite as impossible with the terminology of this quest as Master himself. Huh, he still calls the noble tongue of the Norsemen Old Horse, although that might be just an excuse to vex me. Cannot precisely tell when he's acting serious. Anyhow, the little we could deduce from the riddles of the Ettin, the henge, which is a circular earthwork, ought to lie somewhere hereabouts. It apparently serves as the gateway to the outer deserts of Helheim, where the Key-"

Warp groaned inwardly, impatience rushing through his arteries. Oh, he certainly was not the average Tradeworldian wretch with wet meringue for brains, but the concise introduction to Zurg's present scheme—and one of the most intricate ever—had been poured over him simply too brusquely during the past few days. The results of several years' data mining, shady mythological figures from the half-extinct cultures of the Northern Earth, snatches of cartography, history, poetry, weirdly pronounced names written in an unknown alphabet, and the nastily itching threat of the Other Side...all sprawled in a jumbled, sticky lump somewhere in the back of his mind. It proved hard to extract details from this mess, especially when it came to those foreign expressions.

"We are in Helheim now, aren't we?" he pointed towards the bleak glacier with one banana-sized finger. "Or, are ya tellin' me we're supposed to find its alternate universe evil twin or summat?"

"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking," the brain pod coughed. "I must say, I expected you to gain better insight into Old Norse mythology and today's...uh...assignment from my well-crafted slides. Eh, well, I did mention that the Northlands carry many names derived straight from the millennia-old tales of the Nordic peoples, which some name Vikings, albeit this is much disputed in later historical studies, giving that the national-romanticists of the 119th century HE designed this term to denote-"

His ramble shriveled down to a small squeak with a question mark in the end, after his eyes strayed upward and met Darkmatter's furious lour.

"GET TO THE POINT, will ya?"

"Yes, yes, ah...uh...it is my theory, that these sites bearing such remarkable names were, or are, hotspots of certain quality, where dimensions overlap one another and distort the fabric of the universe, allowing a person comparably effortless access to other realms, given that he or she can pass through the wards of the Portal itself. Presently, we stand ashore Helheim, from the ice-cold banks of which we shall reach out to the dark dominions of the daughter of the one Master strives to free from his ancient bonds; Hel the Eternal, Hel's home, Helheimr."

Despite his well-warmed space armor, Darkmatter shivered involuntarily in the hazy winterscape. The pod must've fallen off its rocker already before becoming this half-anonymous specimen of Zurg's creepshow, which as a mere concept already plucked at his nerves. An arm and a leg, maybe, but to give up one's whole body? Just plain disgusting. Perhaps the weirdo had been the spit-licker of some chthonic cult in his former life, if he could blather on about the most dangerous portions of the mission all misty-eyed and zealous devotion purring in his voice.

Oh yes, and this Hel character herself.... A recollection untangled itself twitchily from the heap of half-ruminated information, the image of a woman in long, sweeping robes. The imagination of some bygone artist had trapped the figure on the woodcut, exaggerating the impression here and there, but that notion still could not brush away the square, dour visage, the outstretched arms bulging with something far other than excess indulgence in godly delicacies, or the gray figures cowering behind her throne. The true purpose of the latter he could not hark back, but gave him the creeps nonetheless. There had been other portrayals of her in the lot, teetering towards the fabulous and quite ticklingly sultry, but this had somehow stood out the most due to its harsh...whatchamacallit...realism.

Now they were about to steal into this land of...

Another thought elbowed the first out of the limelight, causing him to blink and stare at the frosty desolateness as if from a slightly different point of view. It did not improve the prospects at all.

"Hel, Hel...ya don't mean...? When ya humans blather on about going to hell, it-"

"Ah-heh-heh, yes...nothing really to do with the...hot place. Originally, before imported beliefs mingled with the older cultures, it simply served as a metaphor for dying among the Norsemen."

"How friggin' jolly," Darkmatter grunted. "Just wha' I wanted: to saunter into th' living room o' another life-force-suckin' occult bugger. Let's ge' on wi' it, then; how low do we need to sink wi' this condemned mumbo jumbo, draw multiple rabbits from top hats to find this bleedin' henge, or wha'? Besides, still don't understan' why I must play th' damn hero, an' do most o' th' dirty work alone. Why couldn't th' bucket-brain rush 'ere to freeze his keister off himself, as he's already neck deep in this mystic drivel?"

"Uh, because he's seeking for the First Key himself on the very hour, relying directly on the wight's guidance? I say, did you deign to read my memo at all? Umh...anyhow..."

The brain pod reached out one segmented appendage and produced from the recesses of his exoskeleton a silver disk the size of a beer mat. A thick, amber lens gleamed faintly in the middle, surrounded by densely spiraling runic writing on both sides.

"This most intriguing wherewith furnished us with the means required to expose the entrance to the well-guardian's hideout. It's called a galðr-lens, which stands for a spell-lens in our mundane tongue. Ah, required seven break-ins into museums all over this planet to discover two undamaged specimens. Anyway...firstly, place it over your eye to evaluate at the vicinity for signs of any feasible gateways. I daresay you'll recognize one upon first glance. Then, you must repeat the incantation after me when you occupy the conjuration circle. The verses we briefly practiced, that is. I'm afraid the person actually endeavoring to disinter the Key must perform the ritual of unveiling. Alas, we cannot storm in with a small army of hornets, clattering away and inanely blasting everything that moves into sub-atomic particles. Nevertheless, we shall guard argus-eyed at the Portal while you're in. The Emperor values your talent for dexterity and deviousness, and therefore-"

"Fine, fine." The mercenary yanked the disc from the brain pod's clutches, turning it over in the clawed fingers of his mechanical hand.

"Eh, it is safe to remove your visor. The air is a tad on the chilly side, but not poisonous. The lens, as I've gathered, functions better when in direct contact with genuine, breathing flesh and blood. Master obviously experienced a trifle of trouble because of his own armor, as he explicitly refuses to dismantle even a minor portion of it while in public. Oh, and..." Timid and jittery as the pod already was, now his voice turned unusually fainthearted. Perhaps inadvertently, his bloodshot gaze jumped down to regard Darkmatter's robotic arm. "Uh...almost forgot this, but...the exosuit of our Emperor apparently blacked entirely out at some instance during the antecedent expedition. I advise you to keep a wary eye on your own cybernetic modifications, lest this phenomenon should recur. It may somehow be tied to the inherent nature of these meta-realms. The very least, Master did proceed past the overlapping region joining our world and the borders of the dimension beyond, perhaps slipping into some distant frontier of the mysterious Niflheimr, th-"

"Enough wi' tha' bleedin' claptrap! I'm not getting any bonuses for listenin' to random geekwad blethers about Viprinces or whatever wretched buggers for hours on end." With that, Darkmatter released his helmet, grimaced once or twice after the blast of 250 K weather, and crammed the lens over one eye. He was standing almost on the bank of the great, lifeless plain of imperceptibly journeying ice now, the troupe of toadies hovering behind in a haphazard semicircle.

A small, surprised intake of breath hissed through his lips, as he caught the vista through the slightly cracked, insect-infested lens of polished amber. He had expected to find only carcasses of long-gone mosquitoes to float blurrily in front a smudged landscape of snowy forlornness tinted with a mawkish shade of honey, but never the great, inky black surfs licking greedily at the rocky littoral. It was as if the churning heavens had swallowed all the erstwhile whiteness: the almost inky ground beneath his boots shimmered with a faint greenish tinge. No traces of the amber's characteristic, warm tones existed anywhere: he was peering at an entirely otherworldly, somber wilderness much reminiscent of some obscure black metal band's album covers, dripping with misanthropy and depression.

As the dark waves only continued their mindless lapping, Warp turned to the left, holding the disk firmly over one eye. Almost immediately, crude standing stones swam into view, beyond which rose an embankment piled high with lichen-clad rocks, surrounding an even larger tumulus that possessed the bleak aspect of a burial mound.

Warp suddenly found his throat oddly parched. Moistening his lips, he rasped, "Oy, pod. Think I found yer hotspot. So, let's ge' over wi' this whole pansy poetry recitation; don't wanna associate mysel' wi' some maidenly sissyboys plucking at lutes an' mewling on about roses an' unicorns."

"I assure you we aren't dealing with roses and unicorns here..." the brain pod responded curtly. "Now, pay heed to the intonation while you speak the incantation, lest you should pronounce something vital incorrectly; special care ought to be taken with the verse concerning Gangleri and Rúnatýr. Regrettably, I have not fully grasped the meaning of those kennings, but Master's enunciation was somewhat patchy, and that may also have contributed to the loss of electricity in the nanocircuits. Oh well. Now, if you would sit down over here..."

The brain pod pointed at a group of concentric circles a handful of minions were drawing on the surface of the hard-packed snow. Rune staves had been stuck to the ground intermittently along the rim of the outermost ring, while a spindly brazier hunched lopsidedly in the very middle. Warp glared at the slipshod assembly in disgust. The wizardly servant caught the look, and coughed.

"We are forced to improvise, as the ancient lore has, for the most part, been rent asunder by the talons of time. Yet even with this ersatz reproduction, we were able to locate the entrance to the fell, despite Emperor Zurg's hardy skepticism."

Without another syllable, Darkmatter stepped into the inmost circle, snatching the longest rune staff from the brain pod's grasp. Well, he would not be able to escape this bloody escapade into the rampaging grounds of skeletal ferrymen and Dark Streams of Doom in any case. If he happened to meet a giant, three-headed hound on the way, he'd certainly demand another incentive for Having to Endure Damn Stupid Clichés with a Straight Face.

Therefore, he might just get on with it. He soon found his mouth trying to accommodate itself around the shapes of the weird, unintelligible sentences the stooge orated, while he squinted through the spell-lens and held the inane stick aloft; a poorly carven piece of wood he had the urge to powderize with a single crunch of his powerful fist.

"Þurisaz, þurisaz, þurisaz! Urðar lokur haldi þér öllum..."

Furthermore, his brain kept interfering with the ceremony by hurling out thoughts like 'This is stupid.' and 'Nothing's gonna happen for sure.', while the already kindled, chilly dread crept crawling further up his backbone. It was not natural to poke one's nose into such a lair of occultish affairs. Improvised conjuring circles...craters, were they truly attempting to infiltrate the dominion of a death goddess with the aid of these mildewing pieces of drift scrap, and some stinking incense probably fabricated from mud and a smattering of weeds pilfered from Rhizome? Yet, what if...what if this abracadabra truly worked? Bloody blazars, what if it did work?

It felt so utterly surreal, crouching there upon the hard snow, and gazing into the ill-omened other-realm through the little peephole, while his left pupil registered mere unrelenting wintriness.

The Emperor had succeeded, after all, and...

It started to snow. Small flakes pirouetted down upon the stationary knot of Zurg's toadies, the whistle of the rising wind accompanying the mismatched duet of the two villains. A couple of times, Darkmatter gave an unconscious stutter, as the arctic air bit into his skin accustomed to much milder climates. The metal of the talisman felt like it might freeze against his face any moment now.

He was just chewing at a particularly difficult expression, when something happened to the dispassionate surroundings. First, the air rippled as if seen through a heat haze, and then, in a nigh-on audible whoompf, all snowiness vanished, in the manner of a great dust sheet being pulled aside.

Here, Darkmatter dithered, partly because of the scale of the sudden change, partly because of the tension accumulating in his chest. The disk slipped in his bulky fingers, and his tongue tripped over the spiky clumps of consonants and wide walls of vowels. Somehow, he yet managed to pull the threads of the fast-fraying verse together, and the ululating 'aeeoghuiierrm' joined an intelligible word. At least, a word understandable to the brain pod.

A few paces behind him, a wave of trepidation had hit also the latter person, now nervously scanning the proximity while still elocuting the last dregs of the incantation. This was for a good reason, as something not supposed to occur had just done so.

Indeed, nobody had warned Darkmatter that the whole visible landscape would disintegrate and recompose itself into a vista of netherworldly gloominess. The dark, icy stream passed its tongues over the shore curving out of sight somewhere beyond newly mushroomed hills, and to the left, the two spaceships shone with their absence. When the last phoneme died on his lips, he twisted his head round to gaze confusedly at his only companion in this new realm, the brain pod. If a skull-less, skinless organ of though without pores was able to perspire, the sod was definitely doing so now.

The grub cluster had dematerialized entirely, and so had the gaggle of hornets further down the slight slope. Even if they were as retarded as decapitated hens, they still created a certain atmosphere of safety. That would have been especially welcome against the foreboding shadow of the monolithic grave mound looming before them, wreathed in rags of gray mist. Darkmatter could also discern other details of the so-called Portal better now: the huge slab of stone marking the entrance to the barrow, and the snarling, glaring faces wrought into the standing stones. For the most part, these did not bear any semblance to those tree-hugging hillbillies that still sparsely populated this planet, and although their eyes were only pieces of carven rock, they seemed to possess a cunning, startling intelligence of their own while they stared at the intruders.

The nasty sense of sepulchral hollowness in the mercenary's innards only deepened. He didn't like the look of this at all.

"Blazes, did Zurg give me one o' his most miserable lobotomy experiments for a tour guide, or wha'?" Warp hissed through his teeth, looking daggers at the other survivor. "Ya told tha' only this condemned henge was supposed t' become visible! NOW WHAT? How're we goin' to take a hike outta this blazin' hellhole, when even my ride's been swallowed by sum bat-brained gothgirl's freak-o daydream?"

"We...ah...pursue our quest?" the minion piped up nervously. "A-albeit, I...erm...d-did caution you about the risks of inexact pronunciation. Th-"

His sentence was cut short by the sudden jolt that shook the earth, sending him sprawling onto the hard, rocky ground. Darkmatter's head pivoted back to face the grave mound, while he, almost unconsciously, attempted to activate the ion blaster of his robotic arm. This was responded only by a pathetic click-click issuing somewhere from under the casing. The clawed fingers jerked feebly once or twice before becoming utterly inert.

Before their anxious countenances, the enormous tumulus was trembling. Pebbles and dust cascaded down the sloping sides, and the thick slab jerked. Once, twice, thrice, the ground jolting harder on every strike.

The only, single gateway to the barrow was being pushed open from the inside.

Through the widening, black gap in the formerly sealed entrance, steam began pouring forth, mingling with the crescendo'ing grunts and heaves of something laboring under the weight of the multi-ton boulder.

And, behind the dumbstruck duo, the waters of the gelid stream no longer only tainted the world with their life-imbibing inkiness, but now frothed and bubbled, as if in sudden wrath.


* * *


A glassy bridge, stretching out far into the horizon, far into the sun-washed billows hanging in the pale, infinite sky. Colors of every hue and intensity rippled through the strange, transparent material resembling neither stone nor metal: it was as if light itself had been turned solid and woven into a gently arching plane, constantly alive with the dance of refractions within. Only the nine winds of the heavens supported this massive structure, and on, on it sloped; down, down towards a snow-riddled mountainside of immeasurable steepness. At some point, the harsh, unyielding rock joined the fluid play of light, forming a small battleground where coils of rime attempted to snake up the bridge and quench its mellow warmth, like that of a stone which has lain bare in the spring sun. Elsewhere, strands of light extending from the main body endeavored piercing the deep firn, as if finally willing to force a summer upon that dour world of ever-winter.

Where two rival realms meet, war is always afield...

"Twice hast thou sent forth thy messengers, and thrice now have I told unto thee, King of Útgarðr, the answer of Alföðr! He shalt nay harken more of thy war-mongering lies, borne on the tip of thy guileful serpent-tongue. Thus he bideth thee to take thy leave, thee and thy brother, even though he greatly regretteth to lay these tidings before the salt-sprinkled feet of the Mead-Brewer," the man standing astride on the Bridge shouted to the two figures opposing him across the section of roiling elements.

The massively built, red-haired warrior menacing the first speaker from a knee-high snow dune folded his arms across his chest, and snorted a cloud of vapor through his nose. Whereas his hair usually coiled calmly on its own, it now fanned out almost horizontally, resembling living fire more than ever. It was as if twenty centuries had been suddenly lifted from his shoulders: straight and furious, the King's stature rose above the backdrop of distant firs, his beard bristling and the wildfire of his eyes dyeing the iron of his helmet an aggressive orange.

"Serpent-tongue, indeed! I should sew thy lips shut for that impudence, great-nephew, blood-traitor of thy kin! Oh, but who am I to swear oaths to one snot-nosed sapling of a bridge-thrall barely forty hundred winters old, as many and a muckle of ye basking in the corpse-light of your bygone glories have blossomed from the fruits of our sisters. Half-breeds that have defiled their noble bloodlines forevermore, the lot of ye! Akin to that oaf denser than his hammer, the slaughterer of my erstwhile king and father, oft journeying to wreak genocide in our frost-home, lacking the measliest of reasons for his stark-mad acts, other than mayhaps finding our kin repulsive in his mead-hazed eyes! I shall nay accept these tidings, as thou well kennest, but demand the Thing to be forgathered!"

King Ægir, the white-haired man seething next to the fire-tempered King of Útgarðr, bunched a gauntleted fist into one open palm, producing a thunderclappy sound. With a couple of strides, he advanced to the cross-section of frost and light.

"Forget thy fancy words worth the glibber tongue of a skald, brother; 'tis a good trashing this vainglorious brat needeth," he snarled. "Perchance then he shalt withdraw his overweening presence thence, black-eyed and tawdry teeth scattered all athwart the Bridge! Alas, how hath the vigor of guðr-blood waned, as a toddler, barely taken from the breast of his wet-nurse, oughteth to munch his morn-pap with dentures!"

The person addressed grimaced, gold indeed flashing between his lips. "Be ware, for fain shall I sound the Gjallarhorn, and call upon this 'oaf denser than his hammer'!" He patted the great bronze lur curving around his frame. "Then shalt the ever-blest Bifröst mayhaps behold the final demise of two of the last Ettin kings!"

"Halt, ye two!" the King of Útgarðr snapped, intervening with the impending brawl. "And rammest thou thy vacuous threats where Skinfaxi cannot drag his sun-chariot! I do nay wet my kirtle afore the Hammerhand, for my magic far surpasses his pitiful toys these days. Yet doth it verily be thus, that thy lord refuses to meet us, and offers naught but such rudeness in return? Hark and heed, for we had a pact of auld, a Covenant of Peace, which neither side was to trample underfoot, lest the threat of the War rist anew! Hither have we fared, far from the strongholds of Útgarðr and Læsø, clad in our finest mail and burnished Völundr-forged armor, Naglfar anchored at the mouth of the firth past yon mountain, presenting thee with a boon and a gift, and our welcome doth be this? Wherefore botherest nay the auld Wanderer to meet us eye to eye, beard to beard? Wherefore chooseth he to malinger in his high halls, instead of greeting us in person? I would have deemed him tired of weaving these fruitless wars that shall merely bring a doom upon us all, yet I must be mistaken, then."

The messenger on the Bridge was now angry enough to draw his sword, and brandish it at the King over twice his height. The act appeared quite pitiful, however, as it seemed the Ettin could have merely extended an iron-gloved hand and snapped it in two like a termite-plagued toothpick, or simply burned the whole man down to a small pile of charcoal with the conflagration of his gaze.

"I told unto thee that the blame of thy hardships lieth nay upon our heads! No lady or lord of the high halls broketh the ur-sleep of the well-guardian."

"Shouldeth the matter stand thus or nay, the Wanderer shalt honor me with his presence, or-"

The deep boom of a war horn tore at the air.

The man with the bling-bling teeth might just have threatened to blow his instrument, but this sound reverberated from the opposite direction. Slightly bemused, the trio turned their noses toward a trodden path leading to the roots of the Bridge, a path whose sides were now gouged with footprints the size of small rowing boats, the way having had been too narrow for the Ettins to promenade along. It soon dropped out of sight down a steep mountainside.

Now, however, something silvery moved up and down at the end of it, like a very fancy bobfloat upon an indecisive geyser, becoming more visible by the second.

The horn sounded again, and now a visage displayed itself beneath the object revealed as a rounded helmet with a spectacle-like eyeguard, not unlike those the kings wore. On a closer inspection, the newcomer appeared to share also their height and bearing, but his countenance was still smooth and void of the weathered rigor.

Whether this young chap was handsome or not, depended on the eye of the beholder. A cavewoman might have gotten her furry knickers in a twist over him, whereas someone permanently fawning over dot-nosed, sparkly anime bishies could just as well have thrown up. Whatever the impression, his corn-yellow beard jutted out with tight curls, his pupilless eyes burned with the blue flame of Ægir, and his muscular chest heaved with the effort of climbing.

He skidded to a stop, and clapped his fists together, bowing to the redheaded Ettin.

"What meaneth this haste, Hrímvaldi? What manner of tidings bringest thou, so that thou moot run all the way hither, brow agleam with sweat?"

"A matter of the utmost urgency, my King," the young man panted. "Someone broketh into thy old fort in Bálagarðr. This vile mongrel-breath tooketh th-"

"WHAT?" the King bellowed, evidently guessing the outcome, his eyes blazing deep crimson. "What Hel-curst bastard toreth the wards and dwarf-locks asunder, spells I spun together from the Elder Fire ere the age of machines in Miðgarðr began? Didth any watchful eye ensnare the likeness of this thief?"

"Egðir the Runesmith did, my King. Toldeth of a robed, cloaked man clad in a strange helmet, one-eyed and wild of laughter. Furthermore, this I do nay fain say unto thee, yet Egðir swears by the blood of Ymir that he beheld the well-guardian's head accompanying this thug, borne along upon a crawling pod such as the beings of many curious shapes and sizes dwelling in Miðgarðr might fashion themselves."

The much shorter messenger still guarding the Bridge had to shield his face, as the King of Útgarðr burst into a column of blinding, scorchingly hot fire, roaring with rage as he did so. The moment of uncontrolled fury lasted only for a moment, however, and the impossibility sneering at all the laws of physics took the form of an armored man again.

Then, the King laughed, the raucous contempt rolling and echoing in the great abyss beneath the Bridge.

"Oh, one-eyed, indeed? So doth this be wherefore the blithering addle-head and his personal petting zoo refused to grace us with their presence, eh? Verily, Thought and Memory must have grown senile and deplumed with age, as it seemeth they no longer soar freely through the wide heavens, but thus fall into the deepmost gorge of folly and madness."

Then, without warning, the mighty Ettin raised his hands, and struck the Bridge with an appalling power. Massive whips of fire lashed out from his fingers, and a swirling, blue bolt of energy materializing out of thin air hit the joint of light and frost. The force of the blow sent the messenger tumbling down into the stream somewhere far, far below. Cracks, and blisters caused by the fire-tongues erupted upon the glassy surface, and with terrible speed, the Bridge itself began to erode, huge chunks of swirling color falling down after the man whose screams had already evaporated into the high winds.

This rapid chain reaction continued, until not a single, wavering strand of Bifröst remained in sight. Upon the crag, the King of Útgarðr surveyed grimly his handiwork. Ægir, his arms folded across his chest, bore an almost indifferent aspect. Only the young courier was struck by evident shock.

"Hrrmpf. Well, that shalt speed things up a smidgen, e'en if the wrong namesake now standeth in the helm of Naglfar. 'Tis nay but the Wanderer that cunneth hide trickery up his sleeve."

With that, the King turned his back on the destruction, and stomped off into the snow.

Only tiny motes of frost glimmered and danced in the void once graced by the elusive play of the Bridge's light.


* * *


In the throne room of the airborne Dreadnaught, Emperor Zurg turned a strange stone object over and over in his hands, his helmet twisted into an ear-to-ear grin of manic glee. One could almost see saliva frothing through the grille; such was the magnitude of his excitement.

"Uhuhuhuh! Jim-crackin'-dandy, it's mine, mine, a little evil goldmine of mine, uuhahaah, I'm feeling so trickety-boo I could conga with the stars! One down, two more to go!" Zurg twirled on the spot, holding the Key high above his horns, his trailing robes eddying about him. "Now, where's that Darkmatter lallygagging? Tch, get him on the horn anon, he's late again!"

The wight, one of the mightier Ettins of old, now constrained to Zurg's service with archaic bonds and spell-chains linked straight to the forgotten source of Elder Fire and Frost, peered direly at the crazy, capering Emperor from a gloomy corner near the seat of power. The winding tresses bobbed to and fro, as if he were shaking his head.

Through the incessant whooping, the Emperor could not catch the ill-boding verses the wight started humming with a low, dolorous pitch, the otherworldly echoes in his voice mere figments of whispers, soft as a feather brushing at velvet.

"Void thy vaunting | cursed thy cheer

For the worm writheth | serpent of sky-seas

Walls weep with venom | verges of worlds nine

Bifröst breaketh | all of Útgarðr rageth

Spear-age, sword-age | shields shall shatter

Wind-time, varg-time | afore all shalt fail..."

Anyone still reading this? If not, this just might be my last update. While I like writing, this particular story has required so much external research into various topics, that I'd really appreciate hearing back from people a bit more. It's not like I'm inherently fluent in Old Norse or alliterative verse or anything.


Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.

Note: this doesn't have anything to do with the stuff I wrote/drew during the early 00's.
© 2011 - 2024 zorm
Comments4
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liliCartMan's avatar

Oh man you are still active!