100 — AMETHYST OF TREASURES
The God Warrior Megrez Alberich was named after a famous ancestor of his lineage, one of the few outstanding warriors in a family with a long history in craftsmanship, particularly in the handling of heavy metals and the deep forges of Asgard. The most recent son of that lineage now suffered in the snow the shock and fury of Ophiuchus Shaina, the Sanctuary's Master-at-Arms trained from childhood to be that battle machine she was. Alberich, on the other hand, though he bore the name of an ancestor known for his heroic deeds, was actually much more accustomed to aristocratic receptions in other countries and the council halls of Asgard; he was exactly the one who served Valhalla as a link between that Realm of the Gods and the World of Men beyond its borders.
A man proud of his nobility and immense influence, and very far from any resemblance to that old grandfather Alberich, about whom stories of victories and conquests were told even on the other side of the world. That Alberich on the ground, however, was far from that force and therefore his defeat before Shaina was no surprise; much less for him, who knew very well the ability of the Athena Saints.
"Very good, Saint. Very good" said the man, wiping the blood that ran from his mouth.
Shaina didn't bow to the praise and marched before him, cracking her cosmo in her fist.
"Give me your Sapphire!" she ordered.
The God Warrior then looked deeply into the Master-at-Arms' eyes and removed the Odin Sapphire from his waist, throwing it towards Shaina. She caught it in midair and looked at him confused.
"I thought the God Warriors had more grit."
"I'm not a warrior." he replied, getting up. "And I'm on your side."
He showed the arrowhead pendant he had hidden under the purple protection of his Divine Robe. Shaina recognized that pendant, as it was what people who were banished from the Sanctuary after Aioros was considered a traitor wore.
"You are Camus' friend." she concluded.
Alberich nodded and added.
"Friend of Hyoga too." he took a deep breath and continued. "I would like to test the strength of the Athena Saints, for your mission will not be easy. Even with the Odin Sapphires."
"I don't trust you."
"And you do very well not to trust me, Saint. But there you have the Odin Sapphire. You don't have to trust me, you must take this Sapphire to Valhalla Palace and seal Poseidon in his Relic of the Sea."
Shaina finally fell silent, utterly surprised at how easily she had gotten that Sapphire. But then she chose not to waste any more time, after all Alberich was not a God Warrior she needed to worry about; clearly he wasn't capable of fighting and all she needed from him was what she already had.
"If you know the whole truth, why didn't you convince Valhalla to help us avoid this battle?"
"The Odin Sapphire turns a God Warrior into a war machine, clouding his thoughts. Hilda is possessed by something evil in her finger. The other God Warriors don't listen to reason anymore and, as you can see, I'm not an expert fighter to enforce my will by strength."
"You said you know Hyoga too." said Shaina. "For what reason then did he attack the Dragon Saint?" Alberich let out a smile.
"You don't how big the mountain we need to move to get Valhalla convinced he could act as a God Warrior so Hilda could give him a Sapphire. One Sapphire with Hyoga, another with me, there are already two that are not in Valhalla's power. It's a farce."
He seemed to have all the answers as he brushed the snow off his Divine Robe.
"Take me to Surtr's Cave." Shaina finally asked.
"The Cave of Surtr can only be accessed from the outer courtyard of Valhalla Palace. If you make it there, you will be under the Odin Colossus, our Greater God, holding the Balmung sword in his right hand." he said pointing to the sky in the distance. "Near the edge of this courtyard, there will be a long staircase to the bottom of an abyss; it will seem like it has no end if you look at it from above, but no doubt it will reach a point so deep that the cold of the Asgard sky doesn't even reach there. And that's when you'll know you've arrived at Surtr Cave."
"And where is the Relic?"
"That's the right question to ask." he began. "There are many, many treasures hidden and guarded in the Cave of Surtr, but the Relic of Poseidon is in the farthest chamber to the right of the entrance, where the path leads to a stand-still lake in the Cave lit by golden torches. Listen carefully: the Relics of Poseidon, as the Athena Saints may already know, are gifts from days of yore that the Earthshaker offered to Civilizations of the Seas. Be it a thurible, a shell, a canoe, and so on. And as with all Civilizations, he gave Asgard a gift that represented both his divinity and our ancestry. He gave us a gold bracelet called Draupnir."
"A gold bracelet?"
"Yes. It is on a pedestal indicated with Poseidon's trident."
"Very well, Alberich…" Shaina said. "I don't trust you, but here you seem to have been of some use."
"Wait, Saint." he asked, before Shaina walked away.
"There's something else I'd like to give you that might help you try to avoid confrontation in the halls of Valhalla. Sid and Siegfried will be guarding the Great Hall and the Valkyrie's Chamber, but the Palace is huge and there's a path you can pass through unnoticed."
"Well then, speak!" ordered Shaina.
"On the left side of the Palace, there is a complex of stairs that starts in the deepest grotto of the mountain, just beyond the ruins of Fossegrim, which can take you up to the high courtyard of the Palace. But there will be guards everywhere, as you might imagine."
Alberich held out both hands in front of him and then his Divine Robe glowed a purple light as Shaina noticed that something was taking shape between his fingers, drawing energy from that forest. It was a small, translucent, purple cube that he offered to Shaina.
"It's an Amethyst Cube."
"An Amethyst Cube?" she asked, taking the gift in her hands.
"Yes, it will make your presence in Valhalla Palace almost imperceptible, as this is a special Amethyst. See, there are warriors like Míme who are able to feel the Cosmo-energy of another warrior even though he is far away. This Cube will disguise your Cosmo-energy so that no one can feel it and will even lessen the sound that your footsteps will echo through the marbles of the Palace. This is because this Amethyst is able to feed on your vital energy, slowly draining your vitality until you are no longer able to take a single step."
"What?"
Shaina found the God Warrior smiling at her and finally realized the trap she had fallen into; she tried to release the amethyst cube from her hands, but realized they were now inside the cube. She dropped to her knees, as she already felt a little dizzy, as if her blood pressure had dropped, causing her to become extremely unwell. Alberich walked over to her and took back the Odin Sapphire that he had given her, leaving her his last words:
"I told you it was a good thing you didn't trust me."
He turned away and made his voice echo through the forest:
"Amethyst Sealed!"
Alberich de Megrez opened his arms and from his entire body a blizzard of purple amethyst appeared that covered Shaina creating a translucent coffin in which the Ophiuchus Saint, the Master at Arms, could still be seen with her eyes open and amazed to be locked in such a precious coffin.
Princess Freia looked out the window of her house at the snow falling subtly outside; it would still be a while before the usual white sky darkened slightly, heralding the very short northern night. Battles were breaking out in the distance and she closed her eyes painfully, as she felt that she had failed in recent weeks to defuse the fighting that was already spilling blood in her country.
And in bed lay one of those victims; Hagen reacted to any pain, and June, who had been watching the fire in the fireplace, got up instinctively, but then stopped a few steps away, looking across the room for Princess Freia. She crossed the rug and knelt before Hagen.
There wasn't much else to do for him, as his hands were taken care of.
"He will be fine." June said, trying to comfort her, not really sure what she was saying.
Freia took a deep breath without turning to her and didn't say anything. June chose to respect her moment and turned to go back to looking out the same window the Princess had been looking at before. Where the snowflakes fell.
"Do you think they'll make it?" Freia asked, finally standing up and speaking to her.
"We need to make it." she replied initially. "We've crossed the Seven Seas, gone to places forgotten by time, and lost a man far too good not to make it. This is the last relic."
"A good man?" the Princess asked, and June finally looked at her.
"Captain Meko Kaire" she replied with a pain in her heart remembering. "The biggest heart of the oceans. He guided us through amazing places and with him we managed to seal almost all the Relics. But fate was that his story ended on the same shore where he was born. Sometimes it really feels like it's all written in the stars."
Princess Freia sat at the table next to the window, looking at the same horizon as the Chameleon Saint.
"We rarely see the stars here." said Freia. "The snow is almost always falling, hiding the sky in the clouds. But there are seven of them that are very special to us."
"And what story do these seven stars wrote for your people?"
"A very sad one." Freia began. "With the Fall of the Gods many, many centuries ago, the Kingdom of the North, isolated from everything else, flourished in stories and great men and women, to the point where Odin rivaled the deities of the World. In its heyday, the heart of Asgard's mountains was filled with gems and precious stones. The people were prosperous and peaceful." the pride in Freia's voice gave way to a distant, sad look "It is in the oldest songs of our people that at the time of the great explorations of the Seas, Poseidon rose with even more might. It is said that it was at this time that Poseidon was filled with power to the point of being as huge as Odin and decided to share the World with Our-Father, giving us a piece of his power, which was the Relic of the Sea."
She looked at a pretty coat of arms above the fireplace.
"But today I understand that it was all a lie. Poseidon was already much stronger than Odin, most likely due to the fact that humanity was then dependent on its seas, seas that were like its own body and power. And if what you say is true, not only has Asgard been conquered, but seven other Civilizations. For a few centuries, Asgard still felt like the heart of the World, but isolated as we are, we completely lost track of time and before we realized it, we were already sunk in an abyss of ice and sadness. And in these last decades, in what we call the Age of Hilda, thanks to the emergence of my sister, the winter has become even more severe and the misery even more violent."
June was silently listening to Freia's account.
"The disasters of the sea never shake us, for Poseidon keeps his word to us, but his influence no doubt that slowly throws us deep into an abyss in which, I now see better, drives us further and further away from our Father-Odin, making him day after day only a stone statue and less of a God. Forgotten in our memories."
"But why then don't you rebel? Or why are you fighting us, who only want to seal Poseidon?"
"All of this I know because I trusted your words." replied Freia. "Pieces of a puzzle that I'm only slowly beginning to see. But much more than fighting Poseidon, what my sister and the God Warriors want most is actually serving Odin. For a very long time Almighty of the North has been silent, making his people to feel abandoned. The emergence of the Ring of Nibelungs could only be Odin's will. And for that will, my sister would do anything so that Odin would never disappear again. Never be silent again."
"That's why she truly believes it was a gift from Odin."
"It couldn't be anyone else's. My sister Polaris Hilda was born to serve and be the Voice of Odin. And not for a day through all these twenty years has anyone answered her prayers."
"Now that these prayers have been answered, she will give her own life for this."
"But it can't be like that." replied Freia. "The Ring of the Nibelungs is the march to the end-of-worlds, not to the beginning-of-time."
"If not Odin, then who else?" June asked.
"That's what I ask myself night and day."
Freia answered and the two watched the snow fall outside, light but cold.
Seiya with his overcoat eaten away, one of his sleeves torn at the shoulder and without his Cloth, went through the mountain following the footsteps that were in the snow. He was still very bitter at having fallen unconscious in Freia's mansion, but he was really badly hurt by Fenrir's claws. Ikki found it a mistake and absurd that Seiya wanted to fight in that battle without his Cloth, hidden in the basements of Surtr Cave along with the other treasures of Asgard; but he also felt responsible for the battle and mostly buried deep in his chest to finish Captain Kaire's mission.
He insisted with all his might with his friends that he would fight and, despite the protests of the brothers Shun and Ikki, Shiryu chose to trust Seiya by giving him the Sapphire they had conquered from Fenrir, because even though Shun managed to pacify the battle, Seiya had also bled for it. It was only fair that he took it.
But he wasn't with the Sapphire anymore.
He entered an ancient forest, which was where the footsteps in the snow led; and he followed them to a clearing where there was a person standing in the midst of the trees. A God Warrior. Seiya stopped before him on alert. He noticed, with astonishment, that at the foot of the many trees around where they were, there were purple crystals, giving that place a dismal and curious aspect.
"I was waiting for you." said the God Warrior.
"Who are you?"
"I am Alberich, the Megrez God Warrior."
"And I am Seiya, the Pegasus Saint."
"Well, Seiya." Alberich began. "I hope you're prepared for what's going to happen here."
They faced each other, each measuring the warrior in front of them.
"Seiya, you want my Odin Sapphire, don't you?" and then fell silent, noticing the pitiful state he was in. "But you must be dreaming if you think you can do anything in this state. Without your Cloth and looking like a corpse walking around."
"Don't doubt me. An Athena Saint always manages to perform impossible miracles."
"Right." replied Alberich, with an ironic half-smile. "In that case, I'll take advantage of the fact that you look half-dead and bury you at once."
Crossing his arms in front of him diagonally, he made his silver seidr burn around his body and Seiya watched as his Divine Robe lit up purple before his voice sent his blast of stones shooting.
"Amethyst Sealed!"
But Seiya could clearly see Alberich's attack, as it wasn't a polished technique or even a very well-developed one, so he jumped smoothly, escaping the blast of energy by jumping between branches above Alberich and surprising him behind him, releasing his mighty Pegasus Meteors. The God Warrior even tried to put his hands in front of his body in an attempt to avoid being hit, but the speed and violence of Seiya's fist, at that point, was already incredible; even though he was very tired, his Cosmo glowed more and more. And Alberich sprawled out on the snow, stretched out in great pain.
He tried to get up and Seiya watched as he struggled to do so, clearly unprepared for battle, he thought, finding that very curious. If that was really all the strength that the God Warrior had, then he had no doubt that the Odin's Sapphire would already be his. He walked calmly towards the God Warrior who was still getting up with difficulty from the snow, but when he approached Alberich the God Warrior stopped pretending difficulties and threw a very strong fist at Seiya's point-blank range.
Seiya dodged very deftly and even used Alberich's force against himself, grabbing him by the arm and jumping along with him to the height of the ancient treetops. The Bronze Saint's Cosmo invaded the forest and again his voice echoed with force.
"Pegasus Rolling Crash!"
The Pegasus Saint was indeed an excellent warrior. Behind Alberich, Seiya controlled the typhoon that formed to slam the God Warrior into the trunk of a gnarled and very old tree, so huge and massive that it seemed to have slammed into sheer concrete. But only Alberich's body fell badly wounded to the ground, gasping for air in his bruised lungs.
"Alberich, now I'm going to take away your Odin Sapphire."
Closer to a completely defenseless God Warrior, Seiya saw that even though he suffered bleeding on the floor, Alberich had a brief smile drawn on his face.
"It's too early to praise victory." he just said.
"What do you mean by that? You can't fight me."
"Look at that, Pegasus Seiya."
Still lying on the ground, the God Warrior pointed to where there were many amethyst crystals around a tree. Seiya looked at those precious stones, realizing that some even reached his own height, and understood that, in fact, they were vertical coffins, because although some were normal stones, too big, but apparently common, in others it was possible clearly see the bones of skeletons that were undoubtedly Alberich's victims.
But in one of those huge amethyst stones, Seiya recognized Shaina.
His eyes quivered at the sight; he approached and noticed that her painted eyes had a paralyzed horror, her arms seemed to have been frozen in the middle of a counterattack and her mouth was open, as if she had screamed before being trapped in that amethyst coffin.
"Shaina…"
Seiya placed his hand on Amethyst and a strange familiar sensation ran through his fingers that made him immediately take his hand away from the stone. The boy looked back at Alberich, who was slowly getting to his feet, still badly wounded by the Bronze Saint's blows.
"Alberich, what did you do to her?"
"I will use you and her as hostages to lure all the Saints." he began. "And this place will be your graves, Pegasus Saint. You will enjoy the hell inside the Amethyst."
The Pegasus Saint put himself on guard, but then he was invaded by a familiar and subtle Cosmo; it was Shaina's Cosmo, still struggling inside that precious coffin. Seiya looked at her and it was disconcerting that her eyes were always so furious with him, now transfixed by that expression of horror. He would like to do something for her. Shaina had been hell in his life during his training, but she'd also risked hers for him not being murdered by Aioria. No doubt if he was still alive, it was because of her.
"Damn it, Shaina. I'll get you out of there!"
"Don't be so sure" Alberich finally spoke, standing and, by this point, already very confident that he had two people in front of him who were important to each other. "This Amethyst has the power to drain human vitality."
Seiya remembered them; for it was with them that his hands were bound in the dungeon, so that even the Cosmos of the Athena Saints was unable to break what seemed such fragile chains. He looked at his bare wrist and saw the marks those handcuffs had left on him.
"Just like those handcuffs that trapped us in the dungeons of Valhalla Palace."
"Exactly. But those handcuffs are made with the power of amethyst just to keep you unable to break free, yet still keep you alive. The Amethyst Sealed, on the contrary, is a coffin that envelops and feeds on its victim's energy, slowly consuming it until there is nothing left of its body." and then Alberich finally had his haughty posture again. "How long can this Shaina hold out?"
"I'm sure she can hold it until I finish you off and set her free!"
Seiya didn't think twice and ran towards the God Warrior to split his smile in half.
"Wait a minute, Seiya. Don't you dare attack me now, for if I die, this girl will never be able to get rid of the amethyst. I hope you understand what I mean.."
The Pegasus Saint stopped his march, desperate.
"What?"
"If that's what you want, go ahead and kill me." he said, stretching out his arms. Seiya was at a crossroads. "But if you want to save the woman you call Shaina, get on your knees and promise to obey me. I will lock you up in the Amethyst Shackles to make sure you don't rise up against Asgard."
Seiya's eyes searched for Amethyst's coffin and again found the look of horror in Shaina's painted eyes.
"You don't have much time, make your decision or what's left of the girl will be just her bones. The precious Amethysts of Asgard drain the vitality and nourish this eternally living and pulsating forest."
"Damn it, Shaina…"
That woman had been Cassius's master and a terrible rival to Marin; a foreigner like them all, Shaina nevertheless had a certain acceptance among the more secure nuclei of the ancient Camarlengo and even the admiration of many of the Sanctuary's Greek soldiers. She was the only foreigner who, being so well-liked in Rodório, could even use her baptismal name brought from Italy, while the other outsiders accepted into the Saga caste had to renounce their foreign name for one that was given for them against their will: just as it was with Aldebaran, an Amazonian by birth, or even Moses, Captain Meko Kaire of the Maori and so many others who had to bend to that totalitarian government.
It certainly wasn't the case with Marin or Seiya, who were never part of the Camerlengo's fronts, although Marin had a certain mystery about everything that belonged to her: from her face to her name.
About Shaina, Seiya only understood when Saga's fall took place the feeling that Marin had for her; even though she had disappeared after the battle, he remembered how Marin respected Shaina during her training and often warned him not to get too hurt by the girl's pursuits. So it was, Seiya imagined, because deep down, Marin felt a certain pity for the rival who didn't see her role among the former Camerlengo's minions. She was the accepted foreigner in the group, the excuse they had against any accusation; a mascot to justify so much violence against the Sanctuary's immigrants.
Seiya suffered horrors at the hands of those who persecuted him and often Shaina herself mocked and put him through terrible ordeals; but the wound in the hand never took them away from what they really were: foreigners. And Shaina's feelings, even though Seiya was very young, he already understood in a sense. Her long-standing stubbornness against him, for after all, of all the foreigners who had ventured into the Sanctuary, Shaina pursued him the most persistently; as well as going after him even outside the Sanctuary and finally sacrificing herself before a Gold Saint to give him a chance.
If Seiya still didn't seem to have erased so much suffering at her hands, those horrified eyes that stared at him inside the Amethyst stirred something deep in him: he couldn't just leave her there, melting inside that prison.
He finally let his guard down.
"Very well, Pegasus." said Alberich, noticing that his words and the boy's feelings had disarmed him.
Seiya, in fact, couldn't help but feel devastated every time he sought Shaina's eyes and found them like that: frozen in fear. The Pegasus Saint closed his eyes, letting his heart feel the chill that ran through his body, as he was no longer a boy looking for his sister, fighting solely for the happiness of Saori or even his friends. He remembered Mayura's stern look when he announced in front of everyone that he was an Athena Saint. The helmsman of the Galleon who sailed to the Seven Seas to seal Poseidon under the command of Meko Kaire, who chose him and for whom the boy carried out his duties in an exemplary manner.
His duties.
In that instant, Seiya stopped being the boy he was before, even though his eyes were brave and young like the boy he always was. His Cosmo glowed brightly around his body.
"What are you doing, Pegasus? Will you let her die?"
"I'm sorry, Shaina." he began. "But we are Athena Saints and we must follow our mission to seal Poseidon. And if we need Odin's Sapphires for that, I need to keep fighting. It is my duty as a Saint of Athena!"
"Is that what Saints are made of?" Alberich asked in a higher tone, legitimately shocked that the boy would go through with this madness. "Don't you understand that this will seal your friend's fate?"
"Pegasus Meteors!"
The God Warrior didn't have a second longer to try to bend Seiya's will with his savage words; his body was completely enveloped by Seiya's Meteors, which knocked him to the ground once again. But this time Seiya's blow was weaker and Alberich got up in pain, but still alive.
"How curious." he watched on his knees. "You mean, then, that the Athena Saints abandon their friends? Are these the responsibles for peace on Earth?"
"Shut up, Alberich!" Seiya shouted. "We Athena Saints are willing to die at any time for our mission and for Athena."
With his back to the Pegasus Saint, Alberich worried, but he didn't let his enemy notice his worried expression. He had clearly underestimated his enemy, thinking him too young for a war like this. But if he was the Asgardian sage who brought the news of the World to the Northern Realm, he certainly hadn't done his job properly in putting aside so many incredible battles that boy in front of him had fought.
"Alberich, if you have any love for your life, let her out of that coffin right now!" but the God Warrior again smiled back.
"Your stubborness is ridiculous. Look at her! Come on, look at her! She is losing her life energy. Shaina is dying because of you."
Seiya might be a valiant Saint of Athena, but those eyes that slowly seemed to close inside Amethyst's casket still hurt so much. He was divided, and although he had shown enormous courage there in always moving forward with his duty, Alberich knew that he had already won that battle. Even though he didn't know all the miracles that the Pegasus Saint had produced and even though he was surprised at Seiya's courage and obstinacy, he felt in his skin that his last blows were faltering. Otherwise, the Pegasus Meteor would have defeated him definitively. If Seiya had used up all of his Cosmo as he did when they first met, he would already be dead, without a doubt.
But it wasn't like that.
The experienced God Warrior let the silence between the two prevail, because he knew that this would force Seiya to listen to his thoughts, his doubts, his anxieties. Alberich ascended his divine seidr and Seiya saw how from the earth beside him sprouted a very sharp vertical crystal of Amethyst that the God Warrior took in his hands.
"What is this?" Seiya asked himself, putting himself on guard.
It was something like a purple sword. The God Warrior smiled and leapt towards Seiya, attacking him like a very agile and skilled swordsman; but Seiya had had all sorts of teachings from his master Marin, he well remembered. So he easily dodged all the delicate blows of Alberich, who, without a doubt, was someone who mastered the art very well, although his blows were slow and without so much force, as if he had trained in his life much more by grace and style, than to beat his opponents. It was time for Seiya to counterattack and as soon as Alberich lowered his sword from the bottom to the top, the Pegasus Saint made a terrible mistake: he stopped the sword with both hands, holding what little strength Alberich had that sought to slice him in half.
At least that's what he thought, but then Alberich just wanted to increase his contact time with that poisonous Amethyst, so Seiya fell to the ground, feeling dizzy. Alberich let go of the Sword and opened his arms with its purple energy resonating with the crystals of that forest and sucking all the edge of that Amethyst sword into him. Seiya felt the brief effects of the poison stone and remembered the torpor state in which he felt trapped in the dungeon; immediately realized the trap, but by then it was too late.
"Amethyst Sealed!"
The voice echoed through the forest, its purple glow enveloped his Divine Robe and the crystal blast locked Seiya also inside a translucent coffin which Alberich's skill poetically placed him next to Shaina.
The Megrez God Warrior had won over the second Athena Saint, as he had promised Hilda and the rival Councilors.
"Almost there." he commented, as if speaking to the buried corpses.
But the sound of footsteps echoing far away among the roots and trunks of that Forbidden Forest caught his attention; no doubt it was yet another victim running into the webs of a pernicious spider that patiently awaited each one of them to feast on its power. But in addition to the footsteps in the distance, the trees that seemed to be Alberich's silent friends gave him the certainty of whoever was coming in the distance. It was someone Alberich hadn't expected so soon, but he knew he would have to face at some point in that battle.
He looked at those two amethyst coffins and covered them with the branches, roots and many leaves so that they disappeared from view and joined the trunk under which they rested. It didn't take long for the footsteps to reach him with an accusatory voice.
"You knew!"
Hyoga exclaimed behind him with an Odin Sapphire in his hand.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Alberich in action! I switched Marin for Shaina and looked for a way for him to trick Shaina out of wit . I used Shaina to have the same splitting effect on Seiya, and I think it works really well considering the relationship between the two. The stories shared by Freia to June I made up to give a little more ancestry to a people and explain why Hilda and the God Warriors are so unyielding in their actions.
NEXT CHAPTER: LETTERS FROM THE NORTH
What, in fact, happened to Hyoga once he arrived in Asgard?
