Reflections Wlvn-6 part 2 of 3

October 18, 2022September 28, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Wlvn thought he could see where the river they were following joined to a much larger river in the distance, but he could not be sure. “It’s easier to see from the cliffs.” Badl took a deep breath and stood up straight. “The Desna runs right into the Dnapr which goes all the way to the sea.”

“To the sea?” Elleya asked, looked excited, and grabbed Wlkn’s hand. She very much wanted him to share her excitement, but Wlvn shook his head.

“Njord asked me to take her to the Danube. We can’t just dump her.” Badl looked disappointed.

“Well, there’s a human village not too far down the Dnapr. We should get there by sundown.”

“But what about the night creatures?” Wlkn asked. “Wouldn’t it help to put the big river between us?”

“Yes.” Badl hedged. “But after the rain and the flood, I don’t imagine they will be on our trail all that soon, and Thor did promise to slow them down. We should be good for the night. Besides, they got real food there, bread and eggs and pork and bacon. Lords! I could really go for some bacon right now.”

“I don’t suppose the flash flood might have caught the night creatures and drowned them all,” Wlkn wondered.

“I doubt it,” Wlvn and Badl spoke together as they went to gather the horses.

Sure enough, they reached the village just before sunset, and Wlvn recognized the small, wooded hill that sat up against the river, not too far downstream. “Flern,” he mumbled. “We’re home.”

“Dwarfs trade here sometimes.” Badl explained to the others over supper. “We got craftsmen in wood, stone and bone, and got some that can work in metals like silver and gold.”

“Copper mostly,” Wlvn interjected.

“And precious stones,” Badl said, a bit defensively. “Anyway, these people got beer and all this food and grain and stuff that we don’t always have in stock. We need our bread, too, you know, and our goddess said trading would be much better than stealing. She doesn’t like stealing, you know.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Wlvn felt obliged to put that in.

“Anyway, sometimes the elves trade here too, so I suppose that is why no one was surprised to see me.

“Like the young elf maid that lives with this old woman.” Wlkn pointed to the girl who fiddled with some dishes in the corner. He spoke softly and meant it kindly, but elf ears miss very little.

“My name is Moriah,” she said, as she brought more pork loin to Badl. “It’s not young elf maid. Here you go, glutton.” She planted the plate firmly in front of Badl’s face. “It’s a wonder these others get anything to eat at all with you around.”

Badl just smiled. “Right good cook would be a good name,” he suggested. She snubbed him and turned to the others. No one missed what that meant.

“Anyway, I’m only a half and half.” Wlvn looked closely. She had the elf ears and elf sharpness to her features, and while she appeared skinny enough, she had a good shape and looked well conditioned overall, like an athlete. She did not look terminally skinny the way some elves can look. Her hair fell to her waist, elf black, but her eyes were deep brown, a color hardly found among the elves apart from some deep in the woodlands. Then again, she had some freckles and that was not at all an elf thing. Wlvn guessed that her elf side came from some distance away or she would be with her father, but as soon as he considered that, the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He had a thought he did not want to think.

“I’m sorry,” Wlkn apologized. “I did not mean to offend.”

“Forget it,” Moriah said sweetly as she fetched another pork chop for her glutton. “But my mother died last summer, and my father’s people don’t live around here.”

“I miss my people, too.” Elleya had to say something. Being a talker, she started feeling left out.

“Oh, I have never seen my father’s people. I can’t imagine but it would be a strange thing for me.”

“Moriah.” The old woman called from a back room, and Moriah excused herself and went immediately.

“I understand the old woman was kind enough to take her in.” Badl stared at the girl as she went. “She is not better than a servant in this house, though.”

Wlvn nodded. He understood the arrangement. The old woman had three sons and two daughters who lived in the village, and they were more than well suited to take care of her, but she loved the praise for taking in the poor orphan girl, even if that girl became no better than a slave.

“I say.” Wlkn had an idea. “Maybe her father’s people are on our way. Maybe we could drop her off.”

Wlvn sighed. That was what he was afraid of.

He was not at all surprised later when he woke up in the middle of the night and felt drawn to take a walk outside. Thor asked him to take the half and half, and that did surprise him a little. “Didn’t you just try to drown us?”

“Eh?” Thor had to think about it. “No. You saw Njord first, didn’t you?” He spoke affably enough. “That was to show you the mermaid. You get a choice, see? Personally, I thought you might prefer Moriah, I mean her being half one of your own and all.”

“So, don’t tell me, her father’s people live by the Danube.”

“Oh, not so far. Just on the side of the mountains.” That felt like almost to the Danube, and Wlvn frowned, but Thor kept smiling. He caught Wlvn with his hands, but only because Wlvn had not gotten fully awake. “Now you can have the strength to bust the rocks and trees that get in your way. Why should I have all the fun?” He said this and vanished. Wlvn just groaned and staggered back to bed.

“Badl, you’ve been promoted,” Wlvn said in the morning. “You get to ride Number Two so Moriah can ride Strn’s horse.”

Badl nodded. “I was figuring on that,” he said. “Fortunately, Number Two and I have come to an understanding, and Strn’s horse is a good animal for the girl. I wouldn’t want to see her hurt by a rough one.” He leaned in close and whispered in Wlvn’s ear. “You know; she is not bad looking for a pointy puss.” Wlvn looked up quickly at that unkind description of Elves and he saw Moriah turn a little red around her freckles, so he knew she heard. He guessed she was pleased to be thought of as not bad looking and willingly overlooked the slight against her father’s people, something easy enough for her, Wlvn thought. Moriah did not know her father’s people.

Reflections Wlvn-6 part 1 of 3

October 17, 2022September 28, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Did you like the pyrotechnic display?” the man asked.

No one responded, except Elleya who asked. “The what?”

“The lightning,” Wlvn explained.

“Oh!” Elleya squealed in delight, jumped a little and clapped her hands.

“’S all right,” Badl said at last. Wlkn shook his head. He did not like violent storms.

“One for, one against and one in the middle. How about you?” The man asked, looking at Wlvn.

“You are not allowed to lay hands on my head,” Wlvn said.

The blond giant took a half-step back and Wlvn could almost see the denial going through the god’s mind as the gears in there did not turn too swiftly. “Actually, I just came to say that we are aware of the creatures following you. I am not authorized to remove them, mind you, but I may slow them down a little. I figured you wouldn’t mind. It is sort of a compromise. The whole last week has been exceptionally dry, if you haven’t noticed. Actually, there should be a first snow by now in these climes.”

“Thank you, Thor,” Wlvn figured out who this god was. “Tell Sif hi when you see her.”

“Why should I tell her hi?” Thor asked. “Sif?” But by then, Wlvn moved on, and Badl came right with him. Wlkn and Elleya were a little slower to catch on.

“I thought I handled that rather well,” Wlvn bragged to Badl.

“Slick as an elf, sir.” Badl agreed, “But…”

“But what?”

“Well, it’s just that, you see, Thor is rather easy.”

“Hmm.” Wlvn frowned and began to look around. That little cliff under which they had sheltered grew in height, and what is more, a second cliff rose up on the other side of the river. “We must be going through a little gorge. I am sure it will let us out on the plains again, soon, do you think?”

“This goes on for a bit if I remember rightly,” Badl said. “But I was wondering something.” Badl paused. Wlvn did not say anything, but he looked over, so Badl continued. “Do you think the mist and drizzle we had all morning was just the leading edge of that cloud buster that fell on us at lunch? I was wondering if it rained as hard as that in the uplands, you know, above the swamps, and then in the swamps before it got to us.”

Wlvn still said nothing, but he kicked his horse to a gallop. Badly shouted, “Hey!” and tried to catch up. Wlkn shouted something more substantial.

“Why the rush?”

Hardly a minute later, the horses ran through ankle deep water. The river overflowed its banks. Another minute and it got up to the horses’ knees, and a minute more, and they started swimming in it, or rather being carried along by a greatly increased current. It felt like riding a rubber boat through the rapids, except they were trying to hang on to a horse’s mane. Just when it got up to their necks, Wlvn caught Badl out of the corner of his eye. He saw the dwarf had nudged Strn’s horse up to the cliff side and he grabbed on to something and hauled himself up above the rushing water. Wlvn felt glad to know at least one of them would make it, but then he came around a bend and found Thred ripped from his hands. The water drove him down under, and he gulped a great deal of water. He expected to drown, but the water did not bother him at all. In fact, he found he could breathe under water, and see perfectly well, and that was good because he needed both arms and legs to keep from smashing into rocks and trees in his path. He knew Njord, God of the Sea, had to be responsible for this, and as grateful as he felt for his own sake, he got concerned about Wlkn and Elleya. Drowning was something he did not wish on anyone, even if it was something that now he would never experience.

Wlvn bobbed his head up and saw no sign of the others, but he did see his swan circling overhead, apparently in a panic. He shouted up. “I’m all right. Find Badl.” Then he got pulled under again.

The current stayed very swift through the gully. It pushed him farther and faster than they could have ridden on their own. He wondered briefly if it might obliterate their trail for the night creatures. He decided probably not, but it might slow them down a bit. After another minute, the cliffs fell away, and as he had surmised, he came out on to a broad plain where the water spread out and quickly became merely ankle deep.

“Over here.” Wlvn heard a woman’s voice and he walked back up to the edge of the gully, and up the side of the cliff a short way where he could watch the water come gushing out. He thought it might already be decreasing, but it felt hard to tell. “Here.” The woman handed him a towel and Wlvn gratefully dried himself. “And I thought you might need these,” she said, and she pointed to where all five horses were quiet and contentedly grazing.

“Thank you, um.” Wlvn said, because he did not know who he was thanking.

“Frigga,” she said. There seemed to be a scowl on her lips, but it appeared to be directed toward the gushing water, not toward Wlvn, and he felt grateful for that, too. This looked like one woman that he did not want to cross.

“Majesty,” he called her. Frigga was the queen of the gods. “Haven’t we met before?”

Frigga seemed fine with that question. “You were a woman,” she said. “Now that was a real adventure, not like the foolish and unnecessary game these boys are playing.”

“Game? I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“You are going to kill the Titan, aren’t you?” Frigga asked outright, and Wlvn nodded his assent. At least he would try.

“Foolish and unnecessary.” Frigga frowned again. “But here.” She had her hands on his head before he could blink. “Something useful, I hope.” And she vanished.

“Lord!” Badl clambered down the rocks toward him, but Wlvn got distracted. Wlkn had washed up down below, and he seemed in one piece, except for his holding hands with a mermaid, fish tail and all.

When he reached them, Elleya looked up at him. “That was fun,” she said as he handed her the towel. As she dried herself, the fish tail vanished, and her legs came back.

“Fun for you, maybe.” Wlkn looked spent. “I had to keep her from crashing into every rock, stump and tree in the gully. She wanted to stop and examine it all. Said it was lovely underwater.

Elleya nodded. “But you should see my underwater forest.” She smiled broadly before a look of apprehension quickly covered her face. She looked up at Wlvn. “My Lord, I am sorry. I could only save one. I saved my Wilken. I should have saved you.” She looked down with a look that expressed deep regret and failure.

“But I am fine.” Wlvn said, having recovered some by then.

Elleya looked up again and the smile returned. “And you are, so everything worked out.” She bent over Wlkn who lay on his back, and she stroked his cheek tenderly. “And I saved my Wilken.”

“Lord!” Badl caught up.

“Excuse me, Skinny Wilken.” Wlvn smiled.

Wlkn pushed Elleya’s hand back. “Not now, woman,” he said sternly and stood. She got right up beside him.

“Lord.” Badl caught his breath, his hands were on his knees. “We’ve reached the Dnapr.” He pointed and Wlvn had to turn around and shade his eyes against the sun which appeared to be dropping rapidly.

Reflections Wlvn-5 part 3 of 3

October 12, 2022September 28, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Wlvn did not stay asleep for very long in that dim light of dawn. The girl had the others help her take his cloak off so she could fold it into a pillow. It seemed a nice gesture, but Wlvn’s arms and legs got cold fast and that brought him back awake. When he opened his eyes, he found the girl sitting beside him, on her knees, staring down at him, and smiling for all she was worth.

“Do you have a name?” Wlvn asked.

“Elleya,” she said.

“Hmm. Not from around here I assume.” Wlvn sat up and put his hand to his head to ward off the headache. He saw Thred there, safe and sound, and Number Two came over and nudged him while he patted the horse’s nose. The girl looked every which way.

“No,” she said at last, while a touch of confusion rose up into her eyes. “I’m not from around here.” She helped Wlvn stand. Meanwhile, Wlkn and Badl had been banished to the fire where they sat cooking several flounders. As Wlvn and Elleya went to join them, Elleya spoke again. “I prefer mine fresh and raw,” she said, and she picked up a fish and took a bite and smiled. The fish had not even been cleaned and they could all hear the crunching on the scales. Wlvn looked at the girl more closely. Though a buxom one, and with plenty of flesh, she did not appear to be what might call fat. She had yellowish hair, though maybe it leaned toward the green side. Otherwise, she looked normal enough. She also looked rather scantily clad, and even as Wlvn pulled his cloak tighter, lest he be asked to give it up, he had to ask.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Elleya shook her head while Wlkn spoke. “I asked her that. She says she never gets cold.”

Elleya took another bite and appeared to nod in confirmation of Wlkn’s words.

“Lord.” Badl handed him a piece of fish.

“Thanks,” Wlvn said. “I don’t know any life when I especially cared for Sushi,” he added, as an offhanded remark.

“Sushi?” Elleya asked. Wlvn pointed at her fish, but she thought he was pointing at her. “No, my name is Elleya.”

“And we’re all pleased to meet you,” Wlkn said, sincerely, which got the girl to smile where they all got a good look at the fish guts and scales stuck between her teeth.

“Could we use her as N. C. bait?” Badl asked.

“Hush,” Wlvn said, but he didn’t say, no.

After breakfast, the newly rejuvenated Wlkn got promoted to Gndr’s horse while Wlvn got Elleya up on Brmr’s mare. Fortunately, she proved lighter than she looked, and when he got her legs around the horse in the right way, he thought he would hand the reigns to Wlkn to bring her along. Meanwhile, she started spouting.

“I have nice legs, don’t you think?”

“Very nice.” Wlvn patted her thigh while he noticed they were utterly hairless, not as soft as they looked, and a bit shiny in a way that felt hard to describe.

“I think you can have me if you want,” she said. “I didn’t know what to think at first, you know. I’m really very shy, but you are very handsome for a man. I would not mind being with you as a wife. Of course, I would like to see my family again, and Wlkn is very handsome, too, even if he is a skinny one. I didn’t know anyone could be that skinny.”

“Wlkn!” Wlvn interrupted her. He handed the man the reigns. “Here you go, Skinny,” he said as he got Number Two’s reigns, got up on Thred, and made sure he rode out front and hopefully out of ear shot. He wondered, what on earth made her think he wanted a wife?

They rode all that day, once again by secret paths that only Badl knew, and in this way, they put some real distance between them and any remaining night creatures. Since they were out of the swampland, they made a good day of it. When they settled in for the evening, Badl announced that even night creatures could not cover that much ground in a single night. That seemed a good thing, because they all needed some real sleep, and would have got plenty if they could figure out how to turn down the volume on Elleya.

The morning came with a red sky in the East. Elleya immediately declared that a storm was coming. “I thought that was only if you were at sea,” Wlvn commented, and that set her off on a whole host of stories about the beauties of the sea, and storms at sea, and how lightning could flash across the sky in an endless display of beauty, and the thunder could make the waves roll and felt where it tickled her tummy. To his credit, Wlkn listened patiently to every word, and Wlvn only thought, better him than me.

Sure enough, the drizzle came by nine that morning and Wlvn immediately started looking for some place where they could shelter. This flatland seemed just the right kind of environment for the swamps. They got out of the undulating hills of the upland, so the land did not have all the rocks and boulders spread here and there. Wlvn knew if a blow really came up, it might not be a good idea to shelter under the trees. He looked hard, and just before noon he got rewarded to find a very short cliff with a reasonable rock overhang. Wlkn almost had to duck to get under since he stood rather tall. Not much they could do about the horses but hobble them, and otherwise let them roam and seek what shelter they could find. But for the people, this rock overhang would do, and they immediately set about gathering as much wood as they could find before it became too wet to burn. It had been raining lightly for a couple of hours by then, and it felt like a cold icy rain besides.

At noon, just as they sat around the fire wondering what they might eat, the sky opened up in all of its fury. The lightening felt like it never stopped, and the thunder echoed continually in their ears.

“Freakish weather this late in the season,” Badl pointed out.

“But lovely,” Elleya said, as her eyes stayed on the heavens, and she even applauded several times. Wlvn could tell that Wlkn did not think it lovely at all. He had his back to the cliff wall and his eyes closed most of the time. Wlvn mostly tried to count the time. He thought if they did not make enough distance that day, the night creatures would surely be on them in the dark.

The whole storm came to an abrupt end around two in the afternoon. Wlvn gathered the horses while Wlkn put out the fire and cleaned up the camp. Badl helped and scattered their unused wood back into the wild. Elleya watched. She was good at watching. Once they were ready, a man came striding out of the mist straight toward them. He looked like a big man with wild looking blond locks kept barely beneath his helmet of horns. The helmet matched the armor the man wore, and the weapons he carried. They were sophisticated weapons for that age, like Wlvn had, so it told Wlvn that here was another one of the gods. He had figured out that the man by the river, the one who saddled him with Elleya had to be Njord, god of the sea; but which one was this?

************************

MONDAY

Thy run across Thor and Frigga before they find a human village and pick up another young woman to travel with them. Their journey is getting crowded and they are running out of horses. until them, Happy Reading

Reflections Wlvn-5 part 2 of 3

October 11, 2022September 28, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The two night creatures did not give their fallen comrade a second look, but they paused when Wlvn started walking to meet them. They were not accustomed to willing confrontation. They growled and then let out a roar, but still, Wlvn stepped forward. He tried to find Odin’s gift in his gut, and as soon as he had a clear shot, he let it loose. The night creatures also noted when the way became clear, and they leapt. They were incredibly fast, but nothing could withstand the awesome power that came from Wlvn’s hand. The whole area lit up like a battlefield, indeed, and two fried night creature carcasses fell straight to the ground, the blood that seeped out of them boiled.

“Ride!” Wlvn shouted with all the volume he could muster as he tried to keep to his feet. Thred had tugged free and backed up at the last, but the horse could not go far. “Ride!”

Badl did not hesitate, and Wlkn came right on his tail. They brushed past and turned off the safe path in a direction that took them away from the screams of the creatures, screams which were much closer than before. Wlvn clutched his stomach as he stumbled over to catch Thred’s reigns. He managed a comforting pat on Thred’s neck before he hauled himself up. Then he spoke to himself as he tried to guide Thred down the safe path, the horse trying very hard to stay as far away from the burning creatures as he could.

“I knew Odin was too young to be giving out such gifts. It’s a wonder I didn’t bake myself. Normal, human flesh and blood is not designed to hold such power.” Then he stopped talking to himself. He had to concentrate to keep from passing out.

Thred ran much too fast to be running through a swamp in the dark. Sadly, Wlvn, in no condition to guide the horse, needed all of his strength to keep from going unconscious. He hoped Thred would follow the other horses, but he guessed he got too far behind. After a time, Thred began to slow. Noises started up behind them, mostly normal swampy kind of noises which were spooky enough, but not necessarily life threatening. Wlvn lifted his head enough to check the sky. It would be light in another thirty minutes, he guessed.

Wlvn halted Thred and dismounted when the pain in his gut stopped feeling like he ripped every muscle. He could not see the river, but he figured it had to be safer to walk than ride. They had been lucky so far, racing through a swamp full of quick mud and sudden drops and deep pools, but there was no telling when that luck might change, and the cry of the night creatures could still be heard in the distance. They were still coming on and he could not imagine what he could do to stop them.

A loud crash and splash sounded off to his left. That prompted him to move to the right. He started thinking of starving bears and wolf packs trailing him, and he thought they would have to get in line. He looked up again. No light yet, and the moon looked about to set. He felt a little surprised that it had not rained since he left the land of the abomination. It seemed cold enough, being early November, that maybe he should have said snow. “Talk about the weather,” he mumbled to himself. He laughed.

A second loud crash startled him, but this time it came from his right. Wlvn paused. He did not like the feeling that he was being herded toward something. All the same, he found his feet slowly taking him to the left. Bog creatures. He remembered. They were lesser spirits, spirits like ghosts of the swamps, but Badl said that they were hungry.

Something growled behind them and Thred almost bolted. Wlvn turned to see two yellow eyes, night creature eyes, staring right at him, not ten paces down the path. He might not be able to make out the creature exactly in the dark under the trees, but he knew full well what it was. He pulled the sword at his back, not that he knew what to do with it.

“You need lessons,” Diogenes spoke into his mind.

“I need to survive.” Wlvn responded out loud.

The night creature began to roar, but the roar got cut off suddenly and got followed by a brief whimpering squeal like the noise from the creature that fell into the quick mud. That squeal also quickly cut off, and the eyes of the creature disappeared into a kind of deep, shapeless blackness. Wlvn did not hesitate to return his sword, mount and ride. The night creatures were terrors. He had no interest in something that could swallow a night creature whole, maybe especially if it was a hungry boggy spirit.

This is stupid, he kept telling himself. This is dangerous. On the third telling, he ran into a low-lying branch and got scraped right off of Thred’s back. The horse kept on going. Thred was a good horse, but he was only a horse and could only take so much. Wlvn did not blame him. Instead, he thought that now the pain in his back and head matched the pain in his gut. He looked himself over when he could, and he thanked every god he knew for the armor of the Kairos. That fall would have killed many a person and torn up the rest, but his armor absorbed most of the impact while he was cushioned in his fall by his inner clothes, and while he felt the branch tear at his arms, he saw only one small blood spot near his elbow, where his fingerless gloves did not quite reach his suit’s short sleeves.

Wlvn stood, a little wobbly, but he managed to get to his feet. He began to stagger in the direction Thred had run, as near as he could tell. He honestly did not feel sure of anything at that point. “Sun! I could use some light about now!” He shouted out and as if in answer to his call, he thought he saw the first faint bits of light break through the trees. He felt sure he could see his hand clearer than before. He stopped to cry in relief, but a new crash from behind kept his feet moving, and he even tried to hurry up.

A second crash followed, and a branch almost as big as him just missed smashing him against a tree. Wlvn ran but paused when he saw something off to his side. It was the swan, and she sang to him. He went after her. Naturally, she took to wing, but she appeared again not far away. “Chase me, chase me.” Wlvn smiled, delirious. A boulder landed not far from where he stood and he ran again, following the swan, trying hard not to lose sight of her, and trying even harder not to look back because he could hear the pursuit.

Ten minutes that felt like hours passed when he burst out from beneath the trees and on to the bank of the river. He saw horses and four people across the water, but felt no way he had the strength to swim across.

“There he is!” Wlvn heard Wlkn shout as he fell face down on the riverbank and prepared himself to be eaten. He only paused long enough to say thank you in his heart to the swan, though he figured her help had been in vain. “Huh?” Wlvn breathed the word when he felt his face pull out of the muck. His whole body got lifted until he floated on air, and while he felt a presence behind him, at the edge of the trees, he knew this had to be something else. He found himself pulled then, skimming across the water of the river like a flat stone cast in just the right way. He skipped a couple of times on the water and landed on the far side where he immediately turned to lay on his back and take in the rising sun. He saw the swan circling overhead before it took off again for the southwest, but all he could do was smile at his lucky charm before he heard a voice that roared like the waves in a nor’easter.

“About time you got here!” The voice sounded perturbed, as if Wlvn could do anything about it. He imagined he did his best just to get to his knees. Fortunately, Badl and Wlkn came over and helped. “I have this one.” The man continued in a softer, more normal voice and pointed at a rather chubby young girl beside him. “She belongs to my counterpart in the southern sea, somewhere around the mouth of the great border river. I understand you are headed to the great river to get whatever you need against the Titan.”

“Yes?” Wlvn did not feel sure what was being asked of him.

“Good. You can take her along.” The man tried to smile before he appeared to remember himself. “Oh, and here.” He stepped up and laid his hands on Wlvn’s head which made Wlvn’s head spin and think, not again! Then the man vanished. No surprise there.

“Good to see you,” Wlkn said.

“Lord, I’m glad you’re safe. I am truly glad.” Badl spoke like this became some great revelation for him.

“Leave him alone, can’t you see he is hurt.” The girl seemed more practical than the others. Wlvn did admit that she had a pretty face. Not a bad view, really, to be the last thing he saw before he passed out.

Reflections Wlvn-5 part 1 of 3

October 10, 2022September 28, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Outside, they found the horses just where they left them. Wlvn did not know what to make of that, but the horses did not appear to have missed them and they also did not appear to be hungry. They appeared rested, so Wlvn figured the Goddess, good to her word, kept them well. Wlkn stopped Wlvn as he prepared to mount.

“So, you really are planning on trying to kill the Lord of All?” He wanted to get things straight. He had a comment when Wlvn assured him that was indeed the plan. “I think that will be a very dangerous and difficult thing to do.”

“I agree.” Badl added his thought.

“I agree,” Wlvn admitted, but it changed nothing. The more he got in touch with his other lifetimes and memories of other ways of living, the more he knew that the abject slavery in which he got raised was wrong and had to be ended. What did Mother Vrya call it? Oh yes, the land of the abomination. Dangerous and difficult or not, he had to try, especially since it appeared that Odin and the other gods were not doing anything about it.

Wlvn got up on Thred’s back and grabbed Number Two’s reigns, and he shouted. “Thank you, Ydunna, for your wonderful hospitality. Until we meet again!” Even as he spoke, the mansion and orchard and everything associated with them faded from sight until they vanished altogether. The companions got left on the same grassy plains they had been traveling all along.

“Like it was never there,” Wlkn said softly, while he felt himself everywhere he could reach to be sure he was still there and still young. He had been an old man only a day ago, and the memory of all the aches and pains and incapacities and infirmities still felt very fresh, and not something to which he wanted to return any time soon.

Badl, meanwhile, got right up on Strn’s gentle horse and fell in behind without a word. Wlvn concluded that somewhere in the night, Badl had decided to go along for the ride. Wlvn felt grateful, because surely the gnome knew things about the wilderness and had a natural affinity for the animals of the wild that he felt might prove very useful.

For more than a day they had ridden up and down undulating hills, though the river remained steady beside them. Now, upon leaving Ydunna behind, they began to descend from what Wlvn could only imagine had been some kind of upland plains. The lowlands, by contrast, did not look too secure. The river spread out into bogs at first where it did not look safe to hunt or gather.

They made a good lunch from all of the food Badl managed to stuff into his tremendous pockets, and they did not think twice about the lint. They started the afternoon feeling refreshed and Wlvn felt like perhaps this journey might not be so difficult after all. They rode in silence most of the way, having very little to say at that point and being absorbed, each in his own thoughts. Over lunch, Badl had told them that the village in which they found him had been settled by people who escaped from the land of terror, as he called it; but that was before the electric fence and before the night creatures.

“I have not heard them all day,” Wlkn commented, hopefully.

Badl burst his hope. “Oh, they are still out there, waiting for the dark. Once they have the scent, they never give up until they die or feast.” Wlvn wondered how many there were, how many they would have to kill, but he decided not to ask.

As the day wore on, the ground beneath their feet became more and more of an actual swamp. Wlvn wondered what might live in that environment, but Badl assured him that there were mostly just deer and things like beavers and birds, eagles and gray heron. “There are cats, but they prefer the rocky places of the uplands, and wolves and bear, but they don’t venture much into the swampy areas, unless they are starving.

Wlkn looked every which way at that. “So, if I see something like that, I have to assume the creatures are starving.”

“Don’t worry. They don’t eat gnomes,” Badl said.

“But I’m not a gnome,” Wlkn pointed out.

“Yeah, well, they might eat humans. You have a point there.”

“Cut it out.” Wlvn scolded the dwarf for picking on the man as he dismounted. The others followed his example. “The ground here is too uncertain.” Wlvn looked to the sky to judge the time, before looking to the river which was hardly distinguishable from the land. “I had hoped there might be an island in the river we could swim to for the night,” he said. They had passed some islands, but they were all too near the shore or too small or in any case, too easy to get to. “Barring that, I say we move as far into this swamp as we can before dark. If the footing is impossible for us, it should be equally difficult for the night creatures. It might make them wary and slow them down enough.” He looked at Badl.

“It might slow them enough to make it to morning. It is impossible to tell with those creatures.”

“Lead the way,” Wlvn said.

Badl raised his bushy brows. “What, me?” Wlvn nodded. Badl grumbled something about the gods asking too much, but he went out front and spoke again after a while. “Actually, I do know an island of sorts in the swamp. There is only one safe way to get there, but the swamp things may have it covered.”

“Swamp things?” Wlkn had to ask.

“Bog creatures. Nasty spirits that like to drag things into the quick mud and gnaw on their bones. But maybe it will be all right.”

“He is kidding,” Wlkn said. “Tell me he is kidding.” Wlvn said nothing because he had a distinct feeling that this time, Badl was not kidding.

They reached the island just about the time the sun set, and Badl scouted it out on foot. “All clear,” he said on his return, and he escorted them across the bridge of solid ground that curved sharply around some quicksand. “The river is just over that ridge, and it is getting deep again in these parts. I figure in the worst of it, we might make a dash for the water.”

“Why not now?” Wlkn asked. He glanced at the last of the light as he gathered some firewood.

“Can’t sleep in the river.” Badl gave the short answer.

“Because last we knew the creatures were stuck on the other side. If they found a way across, let’s make sure they are all on this side again before we cross over, otherwise the deep water won’t do us any good.”

“So they might still be stuck on the other side,” Wlkn said, hopefully.

“Doubt it.” Wlvn and Badl spoke together.

For supper, they ate the remains of Badl’s pocket food with the ever-hungry dwarf, who snacked all day long, complaining that he was going to starve hanging out with a couple of human beanpoles. Wlkn built the fire bigger than it needed to be and ate in silence. Wlvn got quiet, too, but he did not stay silent in his mind. He had an internal conversation going on with the Princess, the Storyteller, Diogenes, Doctor Mishka and Flern and they kept explaining that the reason he could not reach Nameless or Amphitrite at the moment was because they were not going to help him out of his situation. He would have to decide what to do and maybe it was his fate to be eaten by the beasts.

“But the gods don’t have my fate line,” he kept saying.

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have one,” they kept answering.

Badl snored that night. Wlvn got some sleep, despite the snoring. Wlkn almost felt sorry he had become young. An exhausted old man would have slept, regardless. On the other hand, a young man going without sleep would not exactly kill him. He woke Wlvn when he heard the puma scream in the distance. Badl also came instantly awake and shuffled up to stick his face between the others.

“Somebody was snoring. Kept me up all night,” he whispered, and then they heard the screaming cat sound again and tried to pinpoint its location. “This side of the river.” Badl said. Wlvn nodded.

“Get ready to ride.”

“Wait.” Wlkn stopped them for a moment. “Last time they screamed like that there were three much closer. They almost caught us.”

“Like scouts in a battle.” Wlvn repeated what Diogenes told him and nodded again. “We better hurry.” And they did, but they were not quick enough. Even as they drew their horses to the safe path off the island, they saw three sets of eyes on the other side. Wlvn dismounted. “Get ready to ride when I tell you,” he said. “Badl, take him straight to the river and cross over.”

“They may be on both sides of the river at this point,” Badl said; something Wlkn did not want to hear.

“Do your best.” Wlvn handed Badl Number Two’s reigns and by the look in his eye he dared the gnome to complain. Badl held his tongue.

“Lord!” Wlkn shouted and pointed. One of the creatures made a run for them. It went right into the quicksand, and the squeals of hopelessness and certain death made all three travelers throw their hands to their ears. Further conversation became impossible, so Wlvn simply stepped out on to the path and pulled his horse behind him.

Reflections W-4 part 3 of 3

October 5, 2022September 4, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Everything on the table tasted wonderful, just the right temperature, including some of the fruit, which was chilled. The woman merely sat at the head of the table the whole time and watched, mostly Wlvn. Wlvn felt uncomfortable having those eyes trained on him, but for most of the time he got too busy stuffing his face to protest. When she produced the raspberry ices at the end of the feast, Wlvn finally had to say something.

“My Lady is too kind to us poor travelers,” he said, and she smiled at his sentiment while he continued. “Have you tried orange ices? You must, though I don’t know where you can get oranges this time of year outside of Italy or perhaps Iberia.”

The lady opened her beautiful blue eyes just a little wider and brushed her long, blond hair behind her ear. “I thought you were the one,” she said, without explanation.

Wlvn returned her smile and got to the point. “I would not like to impose on your hospitality, but we are being pursued by Loki’s creatures and I would be most grateful if you would give us sanctuary for the night.” Wlvn had looked out the long window in the room and he saw that the sun getting ready to set.

The lady eyed him for another moment before she answered. “Your horses will be safe. The creatures will not come up to the house, though I may require you to teach me how to ride one of the beasts.” She paused to flash her smile for him once more. “As for the rest, your rooms are already prepared. If you will follow me.” She stood. Somehow, she had changed out of her robe and skintight clothes and now wore a dress, still skintight from the waist up, and which did not even fall to her knees, and when she walked, moved in a way to where it is safe to say the three travelers who followed her did not see any other parts of that great house.

“For your servants,” the lady said and opened a door to a room with two beds. She stepped back to let Wlkn and Badl enter the room, and she took Wlvn by the arm. He could hardly protest, though he thought she seemed taller when he first saw her. Presently, she looked just tall enough for her head to top out about at his eyes. That made her his perfect height, as Wlvn supposed, and he had no doubt that was what she wanted to be. “Call if you need anything.” The lady turned Wlvn to walk down the hall.

“My friends will be safe, Ydunna?” Wlvn had to ask. He knew the woman’s name. She was the goddess of youth, keeper of the golden apples.

Ydunna stopped in mid stride and turned to face him. Clearly, she had made herself to be as ordinary and human as possible and looked a little miffed that he guessed. He looked down into her blue eyes and saw her change of mind as she pulled herself in real close and planted her lips on his. What could he do but oblige? But when they parted, he spoke again.

“My friends will be safe?”

Ydunna looked miffed again. “Yes,” she said. “And your horses. The Alfader says your mission is too important to keep you here, much as I might like.” She looked up again into his eyes and smiled as if in search of another kiss, but then she seemed to change her mind and turned him toward a door. That room was filled with a great big double bed, and Wlvn thought that maybe the Goddess did not change her mind after all. “In the meantime, you are mine tonight, and you will always have a bed here when you want it.” The way she said that gave Wlvn chills, as she followed Wlvn into the room and closed the door behind her, tight.

“What about your husband?” Wlvn asked.

“Oh, I’m not married,” Ydunna responded.

Wlvn quickly grabbed her to keep her at arm’s length. He studied her for a minute. “Only because you are so young,” he concluded. “What are you, fifty? Sixty?”

Ydunna dropped her eyes for the first time. “How could you possibly know that?” She asked.

“I’ve been around.” Wlvn softened a bit.

Ydunna looked up, and the look in her eye made her look like a cat and Wlvn felt like the mouse. “But I just love red hair.” She reached up to lay her hand tenderly on his cheek. Wlvn became afraid she might start to purr or growl at any moment, so he felt he had no choice but to change. One second Ydunna stroked Wlvn’s young cheek and looked longingly into his eyes and the next second she snatched her hand away like she had been burned. Wlvn went away and Flern came to stand in his place; and Flern frowned at the goddess.

Ydunna backed away and thought for a second before she came to a conclusion. “I don’t go that way.”

“I don’t either,” Flern said. “But look, as lovely, desirable and attractive as you are, my Wlvn has not had a good night’s sleep in three nights. He really needs to rest, if you follow what I am saying. Please, not tonight. Maybe some other night, but not tonight. Okay?”

Ydunna looked down for the second time. “But maybe it is too late,” she said. “I painted his ice with ambrosia. Odin said he was going to go against the Titan, and I was afraid he might need some extra help. He should be immortal now. What?” She asked what because Flern kept shaking her head.

“It doesn’t work on me. I’m immune. Whoever is in control to make sure I keep getting reborn at the right time and in the right places has taken me out of the hands of the gods altogether. Ambrosia is just apples to me. Oh!” It became Flern’s turn to act startled and Ydunna responded appropriately.

“What?”

“I just realized. Wlkn and I shared a taste of our ices because I didn’t think mine tasted like raspberries. That old man had a taste of ambrosia.”

“No! He can’t have had enough to be made immortal.”

“No, but I bet he gets a fair bit younger.” Flern started to laugh and Ydunna joined her in her laugh, and even put out her hand to touch Flern’s hand in a spirit of sharing. “You really blew that one,” Flern said.

“Now what is that old man going to do?” Ydunna asked and both girls began to laugh again just thinking about it. Then at once the laughter stopped and Ydunna looked hard into Flern’s eyes. “You know; you look exactly like him in a way. You have the same skin, same hair and same eyes.”

“We have the same soul,” Flern said.

“I know that, but I mean you look exactly alike, except you are a girl and he is very much a young man.”

“Thanks for that,” Flern said.

Ydunna patted Flern’s hand before she took her own hand back. “All right. I won’t have him tonight. I will let him rest, but remember, you promised I will have a turn.”

“No, no.” Flern spoke quickly. “I said maybe. The gods never make promises, and you might as well learn that now before you get any older.”

“We don’t?” Ydunna had to think. “I never heard that before. The gods never make promises?”

“Exactly.” Flern patted Ydunna’s hand this time and went away, letting Wlvn return to his own place and time. “That way you never promise something that you can’t deliver or that gets you in trouble later on.”

Ydunna put her hand to her mouth at the change. “That is remarkable the way you do that.” She stepped in and grabbed him and kissed him good night, but like she meant, see you later. “Just so you remember me,” she said, as she pulled away. Then a wry little grin crossed her face. “Right now, I have to go check on an old man.” She left, and Wlvn thanked Flern with all his mind and heart because there was no way he was going to be able to resist Ydunna if she became really determined. Wlvn tried not to think of poor Wlkn as he crawled up into the big bed. It turned out to be not much of a struggle for him to put Wlkn and everything else out of his mind because his head only touched the pillow and he fell asleep.

When Wlvn returned to the dining room in the morning, he found the table set once again with every delectable food to break his fast, but this time Ydunna did not come around. Badl came in and joined him as he partook of the feast, and Wlkn came in last of all, slapping his hands against his skinny chest. The gray hair was black again and it looked like a full head of hair. His teeth were restored, the wrinkles were all gone, and his eyes sparkled with vitality and youth.

“I’m a new man, I tell you.” He fairly shouted. “Never in all the world has a man been blessed as I have, to be young again and full of life.”

“Good,” Wlvn said. “So you can carry your own grain again to the center of the universe and once again risk being selected. Pass the butter.” He said the last to Badl who obliged with a straight face.

Wlkn sat down quietly, having the wind knocked out of him a little with that comment. “Now, that was hardly something to bring up when I was just thinking how good it felt to be a man again.”

“You have my sympathies,” Badl said. “Fortunate for me, I was never a man in the first place. Pass the bread.” Wlvn passed it and tried not to grin too hard.

Wlkn placed his chin in his hand, his elbow on the table and stared hard at his two companions. He looked like he was ready to sulk until Wlvn spoke up. “You better fill your plate. No telling when we may get a next meal, and you are skinny as a sapling, new man or not.”

Wlkn said nothing, but he did fill his plate, twice. Then he mumbled as he sat back with a contented grin on his face. “Still, it’s been a good dream so far, overall.”

************************

MONDAY

A good sleep and a good meal helps, but the night creatures are still after them and Badl can’t think of where to lead them except into the swamp. Happy Reading

Reflections W-4 part 2 of 3

October 4, 2022September 4, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Wlvn woke at first light and found that Badl already had the fire up and three perch cooking on the end of sticks. “Morning Lord.” Badl tipped his hat before he pulled a good-sized clay cup out of a hidden pocket in his cloak and wandered down to the river to fill it. Wlvn looked over at Wlkn, who appeared to be sleeping comfortably despite the loss of his mattress. He looked to see that the horses were near, and then he paused as he heard the baby wailing in the distance. The night creatures had crossed the river in the night, and Wlvn stood to get a better grasp on his bearings and perhaps get a better determination on how far away they might be. There were a few trees nearby, and he thought to climb one to look, but he supposed that crying sound likely traveled for several miles and the creatures might be too far away to see. He knew that they would make up the distance soon enough once the night came so it did not really matter if they were a mile away or three.

“Son.” Wlvn heard the word and paused. Someone stood in the shadow of the trees, someone hard to make out in the dim light of the dawn. “Son.” The man spoke again, and Wlvn took one step back. When the man stepped out from the shadow, Wlvn took another step back, not believing what he was seeing.

“Father.” He breathed the word because this could not be his father. His father got selected by the helpers, and as he looked closer, he saw the deadness in the eyes. A sudden breeze blew the stench of death in his direction.

“Son.” The body spoke again. “I have come to help you.”

Wlvn shook his head. “I don’t know what demons are keeping your body upright, but my father is dead.” He spat the words, for even in death and decay, this man did look like his father.

“Wlvn, my son. I am your father. I set out with six others, and they gave me their flesh and bone so I could reach you. I want to help. I know you seek to kill the Lord of All and I have come to show you how that can be done. Here, take my hand, I haven’t much time left.”

The man reached out his hand and tried to smile with putrid, decaying lips. Wlvn jumped back. “No! Keep away.” Wlvn had watched a fly enter a hole in the man’s cheek and come out somewhere near the opposite eye. He knew this man was stone dead and he felt afraid to listen, yet he could not help himself, because this man looked and sounded so much like his father. “I will listen,” he said. “But you must stand where you are and come no closer. I will not be infected with your death and demons.”

“Son.” The dead man paused for a moment as if thinking of what to say or do. At last, the putrid smile returned and he grabbed hold of his left wrist with his right hand. One yank, and the left hand broke free of the arm. “You are right. A touch would infect you, but it would also infect the Titan. Here. Take this hand in a cloth so when you find the Titan you may infect him with death.” The man shuffled forward one step and came out from the trees altogether.

“No!” Wlvn jumped back again. He loved his father so much he wanted to cry, but this was not right; it was not good. It had to be a trick to kill him—to give the demons entrance to his soul. “No!” He shouted again. “You are demon flesh. You are not my father.”

“Son, I am your father.”

“My father does not know what a Titan is,” he yelled and found two tree branches come up along each side of him. Wlkn held one and Badl had the other. They caught the zombie in the chest and arms and shove for all they were worth. They might have knocked the zombie on its back which would have accomplished nothing, but the zombie was slow to react and was still holding out the hand, trying to get Wlvn to take it. With that bit of balance going for it, the dead man began to stumble backwards.

“Son.” It spoke once more as its legs tripped back over a fallen log. It headed toward the water, a bane for any dead man, and when a foot stayed at the log, it became completely off balance. It rolled when it caught the riverbank and as a last gesture, it tossed the broken off hand in Wlvn’s direction. It fell short, even as the dead man fell into the water and began to break up into little pieces of flesh and bone.

“Don’t touch it.” Badl yelled at Wlkn about the hand and the foot while he went to find the right sort of branches to pick up the appendages and add them to the body in the river. All Wlvn could do was cry.

Once settled back around the fire, no one felt hungry.

“Save these for later,” Badl said, and they disappeared into a pocket in his cloak. Wlvn got the horses while Wlkn put out the fire and Badl protested. “Not up on those things again!”

Once all got settled, no small task in itself, Wlvn started them upriver.

“But the creatures are this way,” Wlkn protested.

Wlvn said nothing until they were well beyond the place where the zombie had fallen in. “Cross.” He said, and he went down once again into the frigid water. They rode all that day along paths Badl selected and in that way, they came in the late afternoon to a strange sight. It looked like a mansion; at least that was what Wlvn called it. It stood two stories tall, all painted white, and it had great columns along a wide porch, and double doors in the front where Wlvn half expected to find a doorbell. Out beside the mansion, there stood a great orchard which looked to be filled with apple trees and what he guessed were golden apples.

Badl shook his head. “Never saw this place before. It must be new.”

“Who lives here?” Wlkn asked the more practical question.

“I have an idea,” Wlvn said. “I only hope she will shelter us for the night.” He rode up and tied Thred and Number Two off at a railing. Wlkn followed his lead. Badl was a little slower getting down. He sniffed the air and did not trust what his senses told him.

“Apples,” Badl confirmed. “God’s apples. Not for the likes of me.” He got down and did not care if Strn’s horse wandered off.

Wlvn found a great copper knocker on the door and when he knocked, he heard the boom echo through the house. The door opened of its own accord, and they stepped in, Wlkn and Badl doffing their hats in the process. Wlvn, who had no hat, shook out and ran his fingers through his long red hair before he spoke.

“Hello?”

“Hello.” The answer came from a woman, and they moved as a group into what appeared to be a dining room. The table looked laid out with a sumptuous feast of boar’s head, venison, pigeon, salmon and flounder. Plenty of vegetables and fruits completed the feast, though Wlvn noticed there were no apples. A kind of rude beer sat ready to wash it all down, not that they needed any encouragement. They were starving, only having tasted a bit of perch at lunchtime, surprisingly still warm, but full of lint from Badl’s pocket.

“Smells wonderful,” Wlkn said, but he felt unwilling to move forward until invited, no matter how tempted he might be.

“Welcome.” The woman’s voice came before they saw the woman. That only happened when she stood up from a high-backed chair that sat facing away from them and toward the fire. “Please, come and help yourselves.” The woman smiled and put out her arm to invite them to sit at the table. She opened her robe in the process in what seemed a most innocent and welcoming gesture. Of course, the men were unable to move, seeing what they saw. This young woman had skintight, see-through clothing on under her robe which hid nothing, and neither was there a smidgen on that glorious body that needed to be hidden.

“I’m too old for this,” Wlkn mumbled.

“I’m too young,” Wlvn echoed.

“Gentlemen, please.” The woman smiled more broadly, apparently satisfied for the moment with the reaction she provoked.

“Well, I’m hungry,” Badl said. “Er, thanking you very much.” He tipped his hat and he moved to a chair at the table, and that got the others moving as well.

Reflections W-4 part 1 of 3

October 3, 2022September 4, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“I tell you, there’s good eating on these beasts.” Badl raised his voice.

“And I tell you these horses are not for eating.” Wlkn sounded just as determined and he looked up when Wlvn rejoined them. “Lord, you have to straighten out this little person.”

“Little person? I am not a short human, I’m a dwarf, a gnome if you want to get technical, and anyway, I am sure you have never tasted horse bacon and sausage the way I can make them.”

“Badl.” Wlvn spoke the dwarf’s name and Badl thought about things again and whipped off his hat.

“Lord?”

“And Wlkn. You said Lord.”

“Well, I was listening to this gnome person,” he pointed. “Anyway, maybe that’s a fair word for the god of the horses, or anyway, someone who seems to be friends with the real gods.”

“Loki is not my friend,” Wlvn mumbled.

“The god with the Lord of All.” Wlkn smiled. “I figured that one out all by myself.”

“God of horses? I never heard anything so lame in my life. He’s my god, god of all the elves, light and dark, and the dwarfs in between, too. The gods decided that some fifty years ago, in the days of Kartesh.” Badl built up a good head of steam before he remembered himself once again. He turned back to face Wlvn. “Counted among the gods, he is, even when he is no more than a grubby boy. That’s a fact.”

“See? That hardly makes you a normal, human mortal, does it?”

“Counted among the gods, he is.” Badl nodded.

“Stuff it,” Wlvn responded. “We have to decide what we are going to do here.” They paused as the wailing in the distance came again and this time it abruptly turned into a scream, like the scream of a mountain lion.

“They’ve got the scent.” Badl looked worried. “Let’s hope it is the horses they are after because they never give up, and they never quit until they are dead, or they got what they are hunting.”

“What can we do?” Wlkn looked as worried as the dwarf, but it seemed hard to tell because worried was Wlkn’s natural expression. Wlvn heard a different sound, looked up, and saw that beautiful bird. For some reason, the bird had come back and circled over their heads. Even as Wlvn looked up, it took off across the river. Wlvn had to run to the hole he made in the back of the shack to see, and the others followed. The bird landed in the water again, just like before, and it climbed the bank and took off again to the southwest, paralleling the river on the far side.

“Maybe she wants us to follow her,” Badl suggested.

“She?” Wlvn wondered.

“What is it?” Wlkn asked and stared off in the distance, though the bird flew out of sight.

“Called a swan, she is. Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Yes.” Wlvn and Wlkn spoke together as they heard the screaming again, but not quite as far away, and with perhaps a bit of a roar mixed in.

“It’s got the scent,” Badl said once again, and worried his hat almost to the point of tearing it.

“We cross the river.” Wlvn made the decision. He knew that horses were good swimmers, and while the river appeared fairly wide and deep at that point, the current looked gentle enough. “The trick is going to be getting Badl up on a horse.” He laughed, but it turned out not a difficult thing to do. Wlvn had to order the dwarf to get up on Strn’s mount, and even then Badl only felt prompted by the fact that the night creatures were clearly getting closer. He sat well despite the short legs, and the horse looked very comfortable with the gnome on his back.

Wlvn guided Thred slowly into the water. It felt very cold, and he remembered that it was November, but the horses went without argument. Even Badl’s horse followed the crowd, though to be sure, Badl looked more like Brmr’s size on the beast’s back and hardly looked in a position to guide, much less control the horse. Then again, the gnome, like all true gnomes, had a natural affinity for animals beyond anything a normal, human mortal might imagine. If Badl could not exactly speak to the horse, he could make himself understood, and now that the horse knew that it would not be eaten, it responded willingly to Badl’s verbal directions.

As the horses got to the depths and began to swim, Wlvn lost Number Two’s reigns. He looked back to make sure the horse still followed and saw in the last of the sunset, three beasts looking like gray terrors, standing in the shadows on the bank of the river, smack in the hole in the shack—the very place they just vacated. One of the creatures lifted its head and let out a wail such as they had not heard before. It sounded like a lost soul in torment. The other two beasts growled and roared at them like something between a bear and a lion’s roar, frightening to hear. The horses picked up their pace, and Wlvn saw one of the beasts enter the water to follow. The other two waited on the shore and watched. Wlvn raised an eyebrow at that behavior and wondered how intelligent these creatures might be. At first, the beast in the water did fine since it started in the shallows and it could wade without problem, but once it hit the deep water, where the footing fell away, it stopped, and it might have stood there for a time if a wave had not come and pushed the beast into the deep.

“Incoming,” Wlvn said. He expected the night creature to begin to swim after them, but instead he heard the beast whelp and squeal in despair as it sank into the deep to drown. “Halleluiah!” Wlvn changed his tune. “They can’t swim. We should be safe as long as we can keep the river between us.”

Wlkn looked up as if thanking the Alfader himself. Badl stayed too busy trying to hang on to the horse’s mane to do much more than make a simple comment. “Water sprites,” he said, and Wlvn heard and swallowed hard. The water sprites were his, too, just like the earth sprites—the elves and the dwarfs—and the fire sprites, and sprites of the air, too. It was too much, he thought, as Thred found his footing again and came up out of the water. Fortunately, at that moment, he hardly had time to contemplate it all.

“Lord.” Badl spoke as soon as he could speak again. “They will find a place to ford the river and be on us again before you know it, but I know some spirit paths that can take us out of range in short order.”

“Dwarf paths, where you can cover many miles in a few short hours?” Wlvn asked.

“I guess,” Badl said, not knowing what a mile or an hour was.

“You can find these ways in the dark?” Wlkn asked, aware of the conversation while his eyes still looked back. He lost his mattress in the water, but that was not what he looked at.

“This way.” Badl did not answer directly.

“Wait.” Wlvn got off of Thred’s back and mounted Number Two. Thred puffed, badly from all the exercise he had that day. Then again, he was not going to be pulled along like just any horse, so about all Wlvn could do was shake his finger in Thred’s face and tell the horse to keep up. With that, Badl started out and the others followed, though Wlkn at least wondered how the dwarf could see anything in the dark. He did not know the virtue of the dwarf nose or the fact that dwarfs in general were underground creatures and well suited to dim light.

It took only a couple of hours before Badl said they would be safe. The river still sat on their left, and indeed, having abandoned it almost at the start, they came upon it suddenly again just before stopping. Apart from a few small clumps of trees, neither Wlvn nor Wlkn saw anything but grassland that whole time. How a dwarf could find a short-cut through that was beyond them, but Wlvn at least remembered one old adage and decided not to look this gift horse in the mouth.

“Even if they find a way across right away, they won’t get here before morning, fast as they are,” Badl said. “Of course, in the morning they will have to find shelter from the sun where they can lay low for the day. You say night creatures can’t swim and that may be, but I know for certain that sunlight is like a bane to them, and they can’t move in it at all.”

Wlvn nodded, but he kept watching Wlkn make a fire. “I wish we had something to eat,” he said.

Wlkn looked up briefly and went back to work. “I wish I had that mattress,” he said. “Lord, that was comfortable.” And with that, and the fire burning, the three travelers lay down in the grass by the river and slept, not altogether successfully.

Reflections W-3 part 3 of 3

September 28, 2022September 3, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

It took all morning to complete the gentle turn around the bend in the stream. They had to walk their horses slowly through the rocks and briars of the grasslands, and sometimes they had to walk through the stream itself. The gully, which had been shrinking by the hour on both sides, now joined the flat grasslands, and the stream meandered across the surface of that land until, far in the distance, it ran into a great river. They could see a village along the riverbank, and Wlvn nudged his horse to a trot. He dragged Number Two along with him. Wlkn came at a little slower pace with two horses in tow, but by around three in the afternoon they came within sight of the houses. The village looked like the villages of their people apart from it being out in the open, not surrounded by trees, and yet one thing was very different about this village by the river. This village looked to have a stockade, like a little fort built at the back of the houses, right up against the water.

“Looks deserted.” Wlkn commented as they slowed again to a walk.

Wlvn nodded. “Deserted for some time,” he said, as he examined the farm fields. They were grown over with weeds like they had not been planted in several years.

“Maybe the Lord of All sent his helpers to burn them out,” Wlkn suggested.

Wlvn shook his head this time. “The buildings are run down, but still standing, not burnt. Besides, the Lord of All is not Lord of as much as he says. The arm of that Titanic monstrosity does not reach this far.” Wlvn had to shiver just thinking about that giant.

“So! There is land beyond the center of the universe.” Wlkn grinned, knowing for certain something that had long been a debate among the villagers. “The Lord can’t reach us here.” He looked happy for a second.

“I didn’t say that,” Wlvn said, as he kicked Thred again to a trot and only stopped and dismounted when they came up alongside the first hut. Sure enough, there were no fires, and no sign of people at all, but there were signs of wreckage. It looked like some kind of battle had been fought there.

“What happened here?” Wlkn asked.

Again, Wlvn did not answer right away as both the Princess and Diogenes came up into his mind and directed his eyes. He found a spear at his feet, under a tarp of some kind, with golden hairs, animal hairs, still attached to the stone tip as if glued there by blood. Just inside a big, ragged hole in the wall of one hut, in a place where the rain could not wash it away, there were more golden hairs.

“Hello?” Wlkn called out, just in case.

Wlvn walked up to the fort. The stockade had been broken through in several places, like with a battering ram, or something very heavy that got applied with great force. If he did not know better, he imagined some person might have thrown himself against the wall until he made the hole, but then he supposed even the Gott-Druk were not that strong.

“Hello?” Wlkn called again. He dismounted but held his reigns tight, no doubt thinking of the need for a quick getaway.

Wlvn dropped the reigns of his horses and stepped through one of the holes in the stockade wall. “Hello?” He echoed Wlkn. “If anyone is here, please come out. We will not hurt you.”

“So you say.” A voice responded and both Wlvn and Wlkn got startled to hear a response. Wlkn took a couple of steps back in case he had to run. The voice came from inside the hut at the back of the stockade, but no one could be seen.

“You see? I have no weapons in my hand. I only wish to talk, to ask what happened here.”

“I see weapons at your back. Dark elf, by the look of them. What are you, a Hobgob?”

“Just a boy and an old man,” Wlkn said as he stepped up beside Wlvn, having decided that standing next to the one with weapons might be the safer course. “We seek only shelter for the night and mean you no harm.” With that, Wlkn decided some show of their peaceful intent was due, and he began to gather up some lumber with the idea of making a fire while he thought, too bad they had nothing to eat. Of course, both he and Wlvn were well used to going without food for a day or two.

“Oh, no!” A head popped out of a window in the hut. It had a bulbous nose, a long brown beard that hung from the window almost to the ground, and beady little eyes that nevertheless looked old and wise and much older than Wlkn. “It isn’t safe here,” the face said. “Especially not at night. Night is when they come. You will bring them back here. They will come for you. It isn’t safe.” The head withdrew, back into the dark shadows of the hut.

“Bain!” The name, burst from Wlvn’s lips before he could stop it. The face in the window immediately popped out once with terribly wide eyes and withdrew again. The little one looked utterly shocked to hear that name, of all names.

“Bain?” Wlvn questioned himself, having no idea where that name came from, but it sounded right, even if it did not sound right at the same time. “But you can’t be Bain. You are far too young,” Wlvn concluded.

“How do you know that?” The voice fairly shouted from the hut, but the face stayed hidden. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Come out.” Wlvn shouted right back. “Let me look at you.” Something clicked in Wlvn’s psyche, and he knew this was one creature over which he had some say. The creature, a dwarf of sorts, came out of the door like his Lord had called him. He trembled, just like Wlkn trembled in the face of the Alfader. Wlkn took one look at the dwarf and dropped every stick of wood. This creature, clearly not human, made Wlkn tremble, too. “Your name?” Wlvn had it on the tip of his tongue, but he could not quite verbalize it.

“Badl,” the dwarf said, and he removed his hat in Wlvn’s presence because he felt it was appropriate.

“Badl. Of course. You must be Bain’s—”

“—Son. Yes, your worship, your honor, sir.”

“What the…?” Wlkn watched the exchange between the boy and this spirit of the Earth, and he decided then and there what had been brewing in the back of his mind all day; that this all actually had to be a dream and he was safe in his hut sleeping, or maybe he died, only he did not feel dead.

“You must be the god my dad told me about, but he said you were a woman.” Badl tried to make sense of what he felt. “But then he did say you were a man when you changed him, you know, from a regular imp to a gnome.

“I suppose I was, Badl.” Wlvn got that much out before he froze. Everyone looked up as they heard the distant sound of wailing, like a baby’s cry. The sun looked ready to set, and Badl had a quick look as if checking the time before he spoke. It felt near five.

“Lord, you have to get out of here. The night creatures, they will come like they came before. All they do is eat, and they are fast and strong and nearly impossible to kill, and…”

“What are night creatures?” Wlkn got back to his questions and looked at Wlvn. He decided that even if this was all a dream, he did not want it to turn into a complete nightmare if he could help it.

“I don’t know, except they have golden fur.”

“Mostly. Some are black and motley colored.” Badl started to answer before he shook his head and started again. “You have to get out. They hunt and eat, and never give up. They rest in the day under the shade but hunt as soon as the night comes.”

“Loki’s guardians.” Wlvn suddenly understood and put two and two together. “How long have they been walking the perimeter of the forest?” he asked.

Badl twisted his hat in his hands. “Couple of years,” he said, his face all twisted up with thinking.

“Since the days we started with horses and riders,” Wlvn concluded.

“Maybe we can fix the barricade.” Wlkn tried to be practical. He still did not know what night creatures were, but he did not like the sound of them. “Loki?” he wondered.

“No good.” Badl started to whine. “The men made it as strong as they could. Look, they used whole trees, but the night creatures busted through anyway. They just kept hurling themselves against the wall until they finally broke in. All those women and children.” Badl looked ready to cry.

“Bring the horses inside the barricade,” Wlvn told Wlkn, and the old man nodded. It was something to do to keep his mind off night creatures that he never saw and hoped he never would.

“Lord, lord!” Badl seemed about to shred his hat when Wlvn put his hand on the dwarf’s shoulder.

“It will be alright,” he said, and he stepped into the hut to look out the back window, except the back wall had no window. The hut had literally been built right up to the water and framed without an opening, so in order to see, he had to kick hard against the logs of the hut until they started to give way. “Help me,” he said, and Badl helped until the back wall opened up in a large gap. Several logs collapsed and Wlvn only looked up once to be sure the roof would not fall on his head. He looked across the river and saw the most beautiful bird he ever saw fly down on to the water, near the far bank. It appeared to look right at him, but Wlvn assumed it could not really be looking at him, being a poor, dumb beast. It began to sing an alluring birdsong that sounded as lovely as the creature itself, and it climbed carefully to the bank. With one more look back in Wlvn’s direction, it took again to the air and flew off in a southwesterly direction. Wlvn watched it for a time before voices drew him back into the stockade.

************************

MONDAY Chapter 4

They gain a dwarf to go on the journey once they convince him the horses are not for eating. And they find a lovely lady who will feed them. Until Monday, Happy Reading

Reflections W-3 part 2 of 3

September 27, 2022September 3, 2022M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Wlkn swallowed slowly before he fell to his knees and dropped his head. Odin ignored the man and bent over toward Wlvn. Somehow, he laid his hands on Wlvn’s head and before Wlvn could object, something went from the king of the gods into Wlvn’s stomach, or at least it felt that way.

“So you can return fire yourself if they should send another airboat in your direction,” Odin said and sat up straight. “So, where are you headed, any ideas?”

Wlvn frowned. First Poseidon filled his spirit with horses and now Odin filled him with a power strong enough to take a Gott-Druk shuttle out of the air in flight. “Southwest,” Wlvn said, but he could only guess.

Odin did not look pleased with that, but his words were merely curious. “I would think your troubles are behind you, back the way you came.”

“Zeus has something I need,” Wlvn said. “I have to have something to kill the Titan. That is not an easy thing to do, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Odin responded from experience, but then he had another question. “So, your intention is to kill the Titan?”

“Yes. It is my intention.” Wlvn spoke flatly, but it scared him to death to think about facing that great creature, so he thought instead about getting a swing at Loki if he could.

“Good, good.” Odin appeared to be satisfied with Wlvn’s answer. “Then I won’t stand in your way or keep you.” He shook his reigns, and without another word, his horse began to carry him up into the sky. Wlvn saw the rainbow bridge drop down for him, but he said nothing because he felt sure a dumbfounded Wlkn could not see anything but the Alfader flying. After only moments, Odin was too high to be seen, and then Wlkn looked once at Wlvn, but stayed on his knees.

Wlvn frowned. He did not understand what was going on. If Odin wanted the Titan dead, why didn’t he just do it himself? If he did not want to do it himself, Wlvn knew Tyr or Thor, or any number of other Gods would be glad to kill one more giant. Why did Odin want Wlvn to do it?

Wlvn had to whistle again for Number Two. “Get up old man,” he spoke sharply to Wlkn. “We have a long way to go.” Wlkn got up but said nothing at all until they started out along the stream at a slow and gentle pace. Then he seemed to burst with questions.

“That was the king of the gods?”

“Yes.”

“And to be clear, who was that woman who met us earlier, the one that gave me this wonderful sleeping pad?”

“Vrya. Goddess of love and war.”

“I figured it had to be something like that,” Wlkn said. “Did you know she spoke to me, even though I was unconscious at the time?” He seemed a little confused by that idea.

“What did she say?”

“She said I am supposed to stay with you and use my wise, old head to help you in any way I can. You do know I am too old for this? All this riding will probably kill me, I shouldn’t wonder, and then I will be no good to you at all.” He brushed back his gray hair, what he still had of it.

“And I am too young,” Wlvn admitted. “Your point?”

Wlkn shrugged. “I am traveling with the god of the horses, why should the rest of this surprise me?”

“Not me,” Wlvn said. “I’m just as normal, mortal, and human as you are.” Or at least he was before Odin laid hands on his head. It made him wonder what Mother Vrya did. She touched him, twice.

“Hmm.” Wlkn had to think about that. “So now, I suppose you know where we are going?”

“Right out of this world altogether,” Wlvn responded. “The king of the gods in the next world over has something I need to kill the Titan.”

“What?” Wlkn tried to grasp the concept of passing out of the world, altogether, but Wlvn thought he asked what he needed to kill the Titan.

“I need blood, from a beast called the Golden Hind; that is, if Zeus has not yet destroyed them all.”

“And you did not mention this to the Alfader?”

Wlvn shook his head. “I would guess he probably already knows; but in any case, it would not have been polite to talk about something that can kill a god.”

“The gods can die?” Wlkn started having real mental problems with all of this. Wlvn decided to hold his tongue. After a moment of silence, Wlkn stopped so Wlvn felt obliged to stop as well, and he turned Thred to face the man and waited patiently until the man spoke.

“I need to know,” he said. “Gods know the knowledge will probably kill me, but the gods also know that I will be no good to you if I don’t know. I can’t imagine the surprises we may have to face out here on this journey, but I hate surprises. A big enough surprise might make my old heart stop altogether, so I figure you have some explaining to do.”

Wlvn understood, but he hardly knew what to say. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Try the beginning,” Wlvn folded his arms.

“Well,” Wlvn swallowed. It already sounded impossibly strange to his ears, and he had not yet said anything out loud. “I’ve lived before, in the past, and I will live bunches of times in the future as well. You see, when I die, I won’t really die. I’ll just be reborn somewhere else and grow up into a new person. I won’t just be a copy of me, Wlvn.”

Wlkn scrunched his arms tighter around his chest. “And how do you know this?”

Wlvn knew that like Flern he had no choice but to show the man. “Back there,” he said. “When Loki yelled at his helpers to stop that man, me. I traded places with the Princess and got away.” And he did that very thing again. Of course, when Wlvn vanished to be replaced by a beautiful young woman with long, golden-brown hair and deep blue eyes, Wlkn’s jaw dropped. The Princess smiled and raised her arms like she was showing off. “Do you like my disguise?”

With that, Wlkn slid right off his horse, and had no mattress on the ground to catch him this time. The Princess jumped off Thred’s back. “Are you alright?” she asked, worried, and lifted his head gently from the ground.

Wlkn shook his head opened his eyes and screeched. Immediately the Princess went away and Wlvn came back. “Sorry,” he said. “I suppose it can be a bit of a shock.”

Wlkn nodded. “So, when the goddess said she was your mother, she was not kidding.”

“One day she will be,” Wlvn confirmed.

Wlkn scratched his chin. “That explains a lot already.” He paused before he offered his assessment. “And it helps. Yes, it actually helps me understand and be more comfortable.” Wlvn felt glad for that and helped the old man back up on his horse. Wlkn had another thought as Wlvn got back up on Thred.

“So how many lives do you have in there?”

Wlvn paused again. How could he explain this? They were not inside of him, but in their own time and place. The Princess came into the past from almost four thousand years in the future. He decided it was best not to get into why he was the Traveler in time and did a quick count, instead. “Ten right now that I can remember.” He got the man riding again as he talked. “There is the Princess. She is the huntress, an expert beyond any our village ever saw. I’ll be depending on her to help find the Golden Hind when we get there. Then there is Diogenes, chief of spies for Alexander the Great —but then you don’t know Alexander the Great. Diogenes is the consummate warrior, but I hope we don’t have to call on him. Mishka is the doctor, the healer, and I hope we don’t need her either. Then there is the Storyteller.” Wlvn paused.

“What does he do?”

“Keeps a record of all these different lives. Keeps my mind straight, you might say.”

“That’s four,” Wlkn pointed out, and Wlvn nodded.

“Then there are the two who belong to the gods. There is Vrya’s son and Amphitrite. She was wife of the god that first brought me the horses. A goddess of the sea, actually.”

“Like I said, that explains a lot. You spoke to the king of the gods as neighborly as I might have spoken to your father in the old days. I suppose we might expect all sorts of gods and goddesses popping in and out on this journey.”

“God, I hope not.” Wlvn turned up his nose at that idea, but Wlkn could not see him. “There are two more. They are the last two lives I lived before I was born. First there is Faya. I think though I only remember her because she is connected to Nameless in some way that I have not yet figured out. She died some eighty years ago or so.”

“I thought you said you did not die.”

“Oh, I feel all the pain, not the least the pain of letting go of all the people I love.”

There was silence again for a moment before Wlkn spoke. “I’m sorry for that.”

What could Wlvn say? He took a deep breath and continued. “My last life was Kartesh.” Wlvn smiled at his stray thought. “She discovered dragons.”

“What are dragons?”

“You don’t want to know.”

They rode a bit before Wlkn brought it up again. “There are still two missing.”

Wlvn nodded. “Me you know. And the one I am closest to is Flern. She doesn’t live that far away, only about six hundred years in the future. We are like partners, I think. I am experiencing her life while I am experiencing mine, and she is experiencing mine as well as her own.”

“I would be pleased to meet her,” Wlkn said honestly enough.

Wlvn shook his head. “Maybe later. Besides, apparently, she looks like me. We are genetic reflections, like identical twins of the opposite gender, if you know what I mean.”

“No idea what that means, but I have to say you are a very masculine young man. I can’t imagine a girl that looks like you.”

“She is very pretty. She is a beautiful young woman, and just thanked me, by the way, for calling her a woman instead of a girl.”

“You can talk to these other lives?”

“Sometimes. In my head,” and he got lost in an internal conversation that Wlkn stayed polite enough not to interrupt.

Storyteller Tales & Thoughts

Stories and reflections on storytelling

Kairos

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