A/N: Chap 43 review responses are in my forums as normal. Thank you all for reading.
Chapter Forty-Four: Secret Places of the Dark Earth
It was dark when Taylor sank down onto the rocky island. To her new eyes, though, there was no difference between light and day. Everything she saw had a blue overlay, but she saw no distinction between night and day. She saw everything with a stunning, almost painful clarity. Every grain of sand, every fish in the water. Color came as intrinsic knowledge rather than something her eyes distinguished. She saw blue as its Platonic essence of blueness; red as the pureness of redness.
She could see through distant walls to the clocks in the buildings in the fishing villages across the Fjord. It was still early afternoon, but this far north it was well and truly dark. Overhead, she could see the spirits being born from the mixing of the distant sun and the spirits of the air, glowing brilliantly in a brief burst of magic and creation before fading just as quickly into nothingness. Mortals saw auroras. With Taylor's new eyes, she saw birth, death and rebirth hastened to seconds with each wave. She could hear their exultant song of birth, the joy of their brief life, and the loss of their all-too fast death. . The beauty and joy of those brief bursts of life and light made her chest ache with a desire to weep.
Her new eyes would not let her.
She brushed her hand against her Brisingamen, and in her mind she remembered. A great statue once rose from the center of the fjord, with a flame where the face would have been to light the way for all those who sought peace. Only then it was a salt-water lake. The islands she stood on were once a solid peninsula that enclosed the lake itself save for small inlet to the sea.
Around the statue in her memories rose a great temple that spanned the center of the lake, with massive gears built by the finest metal smiths of the dwarves, gods and giants alike that allowed it to spin. Nine gates ringed the ancient lake, each accessible by the turning of the central temple. Each physical gate had its spiritual answer within, and along the branches of the Yggdrasil one could pierce the walls of this reality to travel to the realms of the gods.
Now? She searched, with all the new power her bifrost eyes could give her, but she saw only water, silt and stone. The gates were long fallen, destroyed when Ragnarök came. The great temple of Tyre was gone, torn to pieces by the final battle of Thor Odinson and Jörmungandr, the world serpent. The land that separated lake from ocean shattered like so much dust.
So much had changed over the centuries. Father travelled to the north after the Punic Wars, so over two thousand years ago. He dwelt in the lands of the north long enough to marry and have her half-brother Loki. He dwelt there long enough to see Loki grown and the twilight of the gods. Two thousand years later? Nothing of them remained.
She hoped. More than anything, she hoped that she could find some trace of the old temple that let her father travel between the realms. With her crystal eyes, she could open a gate and travel directly without having to go onto the branches of Yggdrasil.
She wished that Mimir was there to counsel her. More even than that, she wished her father could be with her. She could use some of that calm he seemed to project. Her mother's knowledge rested on her neck, but she yearned for the wisdom that was forever lost. They weren't with her, though. Mother was dead, and Dad couldn't risk even being in the same half of the world as her. She could see him now, with her new eyes.
She could see the Endbringers follow him and felt her heart thud with rage and fear. She stared at the beast in the sea which attacked them in Morocco and saw the truth of it, and fought back a gasp. Within, it raged. A torrential fire of primordial energy utterly devoid of spirit. Like Behemoth and the Simurgh, Leviathan was not a living creature, but a dead being given life by...something. Something that was not the Destroyer, but akin to him.
A second destroyer? A seed from a second destroyer?
"Not the time," she whispered. She turned to look back at the empty Fjord that once served as the center of the nine realms. It stunned her, then, to realize that Midgard wasn't the whole of the earth, any more than Geb was the whole of the Earth, or creation of Olympus. Midgard, like Geb and the Olympian creation, was that portion of the world that worshipped those gods. For the Nine Realms, Midgard was ancient Scandinavia. No more, no less.
Just as the physical plane was conquered by Christians, so too did the spiritual plains fall to Ragnarök. Related and separate. And now? Lost.
Her eyes burned from the crystals-a constant, low sting that she knew would be with her for the remainder of her life. She lifted into the air and flew to the center of the Fjord. Looking up into the night sky, she called for the spirits of the aurora to strengthen her for her journey.
With joyful cries that echoed through land, the scintillating spirits of blue and green spun high above before descending upon her like a tornado of light and power. They sang to her encouraging notes and gave their brief lives to her honor. She could feel tens of thousands of eyes, of all those mortals who lived around the Fjord, watching in awe.
I am Telos, she thought to them. Daughter of Freya. Last of the Vanir. And what I do now, I do for you. For the sake of world, give me your prayers! For the sake of your ancestors and your children yet to be born, pray to me!
And they did. Prayers came, some to the Christian God to show her way, some to her directly. Many blessed her in her own mother's name. Not all, not many in fact. But enough. She grasped at the power of their prayers and took the power of the auroras flying around her, and with one might scream, Taylor went Between.
Immediately the fire pushed against her. She felt the crushed bodies of the dead gods under her feet and saw the burning false sky above. Braced for it, prepared for it, she called on her own power and enveloped herself in the blue winds of Hel. Even with that power, she felt the burning fire of the Destroyer eating away at her essence and her power. She could not stay for long.
She turned her crystal eyes upon the realm she found herself, and felt shock to realize she stood within a corrupted, rotting Yggdrasil itself. In her mother's gifted memories, the tree was cloaked in blue starlight and flame, connecting all the realms of Midgard and tapping into the void from which all life emerged. Before, she'd only seen waves of bodies, but now, here, she saw the once brilliant tree covered in thick mats of flesh-like red and black. The fleshy material throbbed in time with a single great heartbeat, trying with all its might to snuff out the life of the world itself.
Bragi was I! Husband of Iðunn, first maker of poetry, and the long-bearded god, and son of Odin. I am fallen!
Taylor's heart thudded like a cannon in her chest. She looked down at the dead and realized here, where she stood within the heart of the dying Yggdrasil, was where Ragnarök came to its fiery death.
Freyr was I! Most renowned of all Vanir! Worshiped among Vanir and Aesir alike! Over the rain and shining sun I held dominion! Be quick, daughter of my sister! Linger not in this place!
Her mother's family lay scattered among the dead. She saw her grandparents; her sisters and uncles and cousins. She saw Odin and Thor, fallen as they fought, and all the gods of Asgard and Vanaheim. Giants lay scattered about as well-inhumanly large bodies seemingly hanging from massive branches of the corrupted life tree.
The burning acid of the Destroyer's form pierced the blue winds of Hel within which she sheltered, making her protective runes glow ominously.
Taylor looked around desperately, focusing with her native power and the crystals in her head, as she sought for a path through the branches of the dying tree. All she saw were bodies; of gods and giants and monsters alike. Giant wolves and trolls and…
There!
She saw tracks burned into the flesh mats in the shape of footprints. Massive footprints. Little flecks of flame rose up from them still, though it had to have been a thousand years since they were made. The fire of the prints were so strong not even the Destroyer could cover them up.
She flapped her wings, but the weight of the Destroyer's presence held her down. She could not fly here. Shaking, she began to crawl over the bodies of her fallen kin. Heimdallr was I! Most glittering of gods, whose mighty Gjallarhorn made quake with fear all who walk the Hel-roads! I am fallen!
The acid burned away the cold winds that sheltered her, slamming into her like a thousand hammers of unbearable heat. She could see her limbs burning and the tinker-tech fabric of her costume beginning to melt against her skin. And just like before, she saw with horror that pieces of bone on Sunny's charm were charring as well.
Scrambling over the waves of her dead kin, Taylor continued moving toward the flaming footprints as fast as she could. She couldn't breathe since there was no air. She couldn't make any sound at all as the Destroyer's putrid essence burned at her. Ahead, it seemed as if the prints stretched away from her, until with a last, silent cry Taylor reached the edge of the branch itself.
Nothing but red fire stretched out before her-no land, no horizon. She saw a vast, illimitable ocean without boundary. Without dimension. There was neither time nor place, length nor breadth nor height. Beyond the branches of Yggdrasil, where the flaming prints led, she saw nothing but endless chaos.
Words came to her, from one of her mother's favorite works. Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour, down had been falling.
Like Milton's Satan, Taylor found herself on the edge of hell looking out into the formless void. But unlike Milton's protagonist, she sought not to destroy man, but to save him.
I can do this. I was made to do this. Closing her crystal eyes, Taylor spread her wings, and leaped off the branch of Yggdrasil.
Her wings did not even slow her fall, but the fall was such a vast distance that the sensation was tantamount to flying. Time had no meaning, for there was no change, until abruptly and without warning the acrid, burning acid of the destroyer was replaced by the acrid, burning acid of actual acid.
She burst through black stygian clouds and found herself staring down at a nightmarish landscape of fire and brimstone. The only light came from lava and fire. She could see no sign of the sun nor light in the sky save a cruel, low red glow under the clouds of soot and acid.
What she thought was wind ringing in her ears was something worse-a low, inhuman keening sound. More importantly, though, was that when she stretched her wings out her feathers caught the sulphuric air and slowed her plummet to a gliding descent. She drifted down until her bare feet alit into black sand at the foot of a vast mountain of basalt and flame.
Though the world around her looked far more like a classical Christian hell than what she just left, the lava and acid could not penetrate her protection. When she called on the cold winds of Hel to shelter her, they did so without strain. Though the air smelled of rotting eggs and scorched earth, it did not burn her lungs.
With no immediate threat to her life, Taylor knelt down and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths of foul air. For the longest time, all she could think of was the horror that befell her mother's kin. She knew death meant different things to different gods. Ragnarök fell almost two thousand years before the Destroyer came to this world. But she also knew that after Ragnarök, the prophecies said that the gods would be reborn and the cycle start anew. They stayed within Yggdrasil itself, waiting for the day to be reborn, but at first the Christians delayed the cycle, and then the Destroyer ended it entirely.
"Calm," Taylor whispered. "Peace. You can do this, Taylor. You must."
The cold winds around her were comforting. Forcing her eyes open, she stood and set her shoulders. With her Bifrost eyes and her power to see the truth of things, Taylor began to look around the realm of Muspelheim.
What she saw left her feeling both confused and worried. The realm of Muspelheim was not a world on its own. It was a domain, no larger than Brigid's. She could see where it ended, and beyond it…
Water. Cold, dark water. The last of the nine realms to exist did so under the fjords of Norway.
Brushing her fingers across her mother's Brisingamen, she whispered to herself,
"Hævatein is there, that Lopt with runes
Once made by the doors of death;
In Lægjarn's chest by Sinmora lies it,
And nine locks fasten it firm."
She searched with her power as she recited the ancient Edda, looking and looking until she found it. On the very edge of the domain rose a massive structure of ancient, stained wood, cracked clay mixed with ash, and basalt. It looked as much like a tomb as a home, with sharply leaning roof slates that formed a sharp inverted V shape. The door dominated the front of the structure, with two massive stone statues on either side of the door that looked like hounds or wolves.
"Gastropnir," Taylor said. Though it took far more effort than it would have on Midgard, Taylor flapped her wings and took flight. She moved between the burning, smoldering mountains bleeding lava everywhere she looked, until she landed on a vast plan of black sand before the structure.
Only then, standing before it, did the sheer size of it sink in. She stood in the realm of the fire giants, and the fifty-foot tall door gave eloquent proof of that. Within that door was what she sought. I've come too far to stop now!
She took a handful of steps across the fine black sand when two massive orbs of fire ignited within the shadows of the giant door. The utter malevolence of the gaze stopped Taylor in her tracks and robbed her of her breath. The air rang with a deep voice that sounded like boulders rubbing against each other.
"Sinmara spake: who treads so soft on my sands? Who is it that smells of Vanir and foreign gods? Tell Sinmara now, or suffer in the jaws of Gif and Geri."
As she spoke, the two statues shook as if the earth itself quaked, and to Taylor's growing horror huge plates of ash and stone fell away to reveal wolves the size of Greyhound buses within. Two sets of burning eyes locked on to her as jaws large enough to swallow her whole opened to unleash growls that made her bowels shake.
I stand in the presence of the last Jotunn. The knowledge was at once astonishing and terrifying. Of all the Jotunns, those of Muspelheim were the most fear. Still, the challenge had been issued, and the forms had to be followed.
"I am Telos, Oh mighty spouse of Surtr! Daughter of Freya of the Vanir. Tell me, queen of Muspelheim, what price would you accept for the remains of Hævatein?"
The burning orbs of fire blinked, and then suddenly elevated until the creature herself stood in the doorway. If not for the two eyes, Taylor might almost think she was looking at Behemoth. There was only the faintest hint of a female form to the towering, bipedal being of rock and ash. One arm hung almost to her knee, while the other barely made it to her waist. The long arm ended in obsidian daggers each longer than Taylor was tall. All over her rocky body were sores and scabs that seemed to bleed lava. The orbs were eyes set in a face twisted by melted stone and ages of grief and rage.
"Sinmara spake: think thou worthy of my beloved's death-bringer?" Her voice boomed across the domain. Mountains answered with eruptions of ash and lava, responding to her anger in the same way Taylor's bobcats might to hers. "You, petulant child of petulant gods? What broken mind-chain would lead such to faith that they deserve what no other can claim? What gift could you claim to have that would be equal to that of mighty scath of branches?"
In the Edda, it was the tailfeather of an enchanted cock that Sinmara wanted. That cock, and all the gods that allowed it to exist, were long gone. But Taylor did not come unprepared. Against the possibility of this very thing, she brought the only item she had that might hold value to a being such as Sinmara.
From the Between she pulled a single apple, enchanted and glowing a brilliant golden hue that lit the dark realm of fire around her. "I offer you Idunn's apple, mighty Sinmara. A bushel full for you alone. Apples that bring healing and health, and will make you strong as when the world was new. Nine golden apples for Hævatein's remains!"
The fire giantess reared back as if struck. Her deep voice lowered. "Apples of the gods, offered freely in this place? Beloved spouse, how can this be? Who is this creature, that could offer such to us? Lies, she must be telling falsehoods!"
"Mighty Sinmara, if you think my words false, then test them yourself! I offer this apple freely as a gift. As proof of my words and purpose."
Taylor flapped her wings and sent herself into the thick, sulphureous air. It was harder than she'd ever experienced to do so, but it brought her within a few dozen feet of the fire giant's face. The monster's short arm rose, palm up, and Taylor dropped the apple on a palm large enough to sit comfortably on.
Taylor let herself fall back to the fine black sand before the giantess's house. Sinmara herself stared down with burning orbs at the tiny golden apple in her palms. A maw large enough to eat a car opened, and the tiny apple disappeared within.
The fiery orbs closed, and golden light began to shine between the cracks of the rocky skin. Lava burst forth from her sores only to run dry; beneath them Taylor saw what looked like actual skin.
Sinmara reared her head back as the golden glow encompassed the whole of her massive body. Just as stone and ash fell from the hounds when they woke, so too did whole plates of black stone and ash fall from the fire giants body. A flash of brilliant orange flame lit the skies of the domain like a beacon, and Taylor glimpsed massive, pale limbs lined in runes not so different than her own. Rather than Vanir cant, the symbols were Ymirish cant, the most ancient symbols among all the gods and giants of the Nine Realms.
"Yes!" the giantess called. Her voice no longer sounded like mountains grinding together; it now sounded as if a thousand women spoke with one voice. "Sinmara feels alive once more! The power of the primordium fills our veins!"
The last of the stone skin fell away, revealing a giant woman of terrible, almost unimaginable beauty. Her hair was made of strands of living fire, writing in a non-existent wind. She looked at once obscene and beautiful and terrifying to behold.
And now I know what kind of woman would love a man destined to destroy the world!
For several long, painful seconds, Sinmara stood in her obscene glory, her head raised as she reveled in her new health. After a minute, though, she bent her head back down to regard Taylor. She slowly knelt, dripping lava like Puritan-inspired vision of Lilith, and stared intently with burning eyes.
"Sinmara spake: how come you to possess these blessed fruits? Idunn, beloved of Bragr, is no more."
Her tone was completely different from the twisted, hateful threat of before. Now her words rang with dark-lined sincerity and a deep hunger. Hoping that her one fruit had brought out the honorable Jotun her father spoke of, Taylor removed another apple. This one held no enchantment. She changed that, chanting in her mother's language, until it took on the golden glow.
"Many gifts my mother gave me, great Sinmara! Among them is this, the magic of Idunn. Nine apples I offer you, in return for the pieces of Hævatein."
"Sinmara spake: A fair offer you make, child of the Vanir. But see here, on my arm?"
Taylor looked, and saw with a sinking feeling that the skin on Sinmara's had begun to blacken and turn rocky. "Spaketh she: see you now? Great is the magic of your fruit, but greater still is my need. Dying is the realm, cut off as it is from the branches of Great Yggdrasil. The Destroyer of all destroys even this, the realm of eternal fire. Sinmara's power has kept him at bay, but weakens with time."
"I am sworn to fight the Destroyer!" Taylor said. If she could convince this powerful creature to join her, her cause would have to succeed! If anything could kill Behemoth, it was a giantess of the fire realm! "I seek the shards of Hævateinso that it can be reforged. With mighty Surtr's sword in my hand, I can strike down the Destroyer just as Surtr struck down Asgard! The nine realms can be saved!"
"Sinmara spake: A doom worthy of eddas for ages to come. But what care does Sinmara have for the realms of others? What care did others give Sinmara as her beloved perished at mighty Freyr's hands? You are a child of Freya, you say? You are kin to he that killed my beloved. Tell her, little Valkyrie, why should Sinmara accept nine fruit alone, when the tree stands within her reach?"
Taylor's breath caught in her throat as the giantess stood. Already her right arm had blackened and elongated, and other spots along her massive body showed signs of doing the same.
"Spaketh she: Foolish little godling, coming unarmed into the realms of fire. Here you shall remain, tending me with fruit unending! When the destroyer tears Yggdrasil apart and the worlds of men perish in the void, Muspelheim alone shall remain, borne for all time by my power, and your enslavement. Welcome, Telos, to your new doom!"
"Well shit," Taylor muttered.