I apologise for any random words or spellings. Falling asleep at the keyboard again!
Episode 8: For the Ring, Chapter 3
"Come on then," sighed Eve, pulling her coat closer around her in the day-long darkness of the Norwegian winter.
"What?" Flynn glanced over at her, fixing his hood into place.
"Are you going to tell me how you knew which winged man we were looking for?" Eve asked plainly.
"Ah, that," nodded Flynn, setting off from the ice covered hut the door had brought them to. He glanced up at the sky, checked local time on his phone and picked a direction. "Well, that's where the more gruesome part of Völund's story comes into play. You remember I told you about the king who hamstrung him and trapped him on an island?"
"And after he took his revenge on the king, he used his wings to fly away," added the Guardian, following her Librarian closely. "I remember."
"Well, what I didn't tell you was what form his revenge took," began her fiancé. He skidded on the snow as the land beneath it turned downhill. Arms flapping, he landed on his backside and slid down the hill until the mass of compressed snow ahead of him held him up.
"I'm guessing he killed the king?" Eve wondered, reaching his side and holding out a hand.
"No, much more gruesome than that," Flynn grinned, getting to his feet with her help and dusting himself off. "The king had made Völund live for many years with his imprisonment and disfigurement. The smith made sure his captor had to live with the pain of his revenge. The king was married, you see. He had a wife and three children, one girl two boys..."
"I'm not sure I like where this is going," interrupted Eve, resettling his head torch into place.
"I'll keep it short," offered Flynn, letting his arms hang still by his sides as she finished readjusting his mis-aligned accoutrements. "The two boys were as horrible as their father. They tormented Völund and laughed at him. One day, they went in secret to his island to ask him to make them each a sword. Völund pretended to comply, then killed the boys, buried their bodies and set their skulls in silver to make a pair of drinking cups. He used his elf-magic to turn their eyes into precious gems and set their teeth in a beautiful brooch. The cups he presented to their father, the gems to their mother and the brooch to their sister. The king never knew of the smith's deception until he landed on his roof during his escape to tell him of it."
"That is horrible," frowned Eve, removing two pairs of hiking sticks from his satchel and handing him one pair. "How does it help us, exactly?"
"The clipping about the body wasn't the only one on the page," admitted Flynn, leading the way forward again. "There was also a report of a pair of silver skull drinking cups being sold at auction for a tidy sum, along with a 'pearl' brooch."
"No gems?" Eve enquired, following him down the slope.
"No," Flynn shook his head, "but they wouldn't necessarily have remained with the others all this time. I know it technically gives us two sites to investigate, and it might be the skulls and teeth that are the main item, and it will take us longer to investigate both alone, and we could have sent a couple of the others out to visit the new owner of the rather grisly jewellery..."
"Three 'ands'," cut in Eve with a smile.
"But is it a crime to want to spend some time alone with my bride to be?" Flynn continued without missing a beat. "Besides, we need them all working on their little projects back home."
"And you want Cassandra somewhere safe," added Eve. "She's the most available for something like that right now."
"Indeed," nodded the Librarian. "I just didn't want to make it four."
"Don't think it counts if it's in a different sentence," grinned Eve.
"I'll take your word for it," he replied. They had reached the bottom of the slope, and a road of some sorts stretched out before them. Flynn leant down to examine the markings in its compacted surface. "I think I know where we can get some transport."
"Oh?" Eve looked down at the road in deepest suspicion. "Where? Or should I say 'what kind'?"
Her fiancé turned to her with a grin that did nothing to lessen her worries. "How do you feel about dog sleds?"
XXXX
The lens da Vinci was using magnified his eye into the realm of the grotesque. He had been studying the stone without interruption or sound for an hour and more. He dropped the lens onto the desk with a clatter. "Mio Dio! Questo è irritante! Can you not cease that infernal noise!"
Stone looked up from his scribbling of translations, a startled look on his face and an apology ready on his lips, but da Vinci's face was turned up to the mezzanine. Two heads appeared, one black haired, one red. Both bore expressions of polite confusion. Well, one was polite.
"Not sure what you're on about, mate," called down Ezekiel. "Couldn't hear anything up here."
"It was from you, I am certain! The tune, the," da Vinci paused, searching his brain for a word long relegated to the archives of memory. "Ah, the whistling. You whistle while you work!"
Ezekiel looked at Cassandra. "Is he calling me a dwarf?"
"You whistle all the time, Ezekiel," admitted his friend. "At least when you're happy and focussed on something."
"She's right," called up Stone. "You probably don't even know you're doing it."
"Do I do that out in the field too?" Jones frowned. "Because that really not a good thing for a thief to do."
"No, only in here," Cassandra shook her head. "Maybe you're concentrating on being quiet out in the field, so you don't."
"More likely he just feels more relaxed here," broke in Jenkins from the doorway. "This is home now, after all."
"This, no," Ezekiel shook his head as the Caretaker climbed the stairs to join them. "This is just temporary, while I was ill and now while we deal with all the little crisissy things..."
"Crises," corrected Stone and Leonardo automatically.
"I still have an apartment," said Ezekiel. "I could move back any time."
"Your landlord sent over the rest of your belongings a month ago," Jenkins told him. "Don't think I didn't notice. You're not the only one here all the time."
"Okay, so I'm between apartments at the moment," the thief admitted. "Once the current crisis is over, I'll find a new one."
"Hmm," Jenkins raised an eyebrow. "Come and show me where you are with this plan of yours. If you start whistling again, I'll be sure to join in."
"Polemico vecchio crociato!" Leonardo yelled as the three heads disappeared.
"Cavaliere, non crociato, pittore!" Jenkins called back, unseen.
"Arrogante vecchio pazzo!" Da Vinci raged back.
"Speak for yourself!" Jenkins sing-songed from above.
"Parla per te," da Vinci spat, turning back to the desk and the stone. He paused. He peered. He pointed at the stone. "Santa cielo! Giacobbe, look at this. Presto!"
Stone put Cassandra's notepad to one side and joined da Vinci at the desk. He looked where the artist indicated and his eyebrows went up. The runes on the stone were gone. In their place were a new set, as clear as though they had been freshly cut that morning.
"That ain't good," murmured Stone, mentally translating both script and language as he read. "The queen of hell rises."
XXXX
"That's quite the mechanism you have there," Jenkins opined, looking down at the diagram unfurled on the reading table. "Are you sure it'll work?"
"It has the genie seal of approval," smirked Jones. "I asked, and I received."
"You'll need ten representations to make it work," pointed out the Caretaker. "One for either end of each axis."
"I know," Jones nodded. "We need representations of things we know they've stolen. Things we didn't get back last time, that they still have."
"Good representations too," added Jenkins. "I can build the mechanism for you, and I can make a list of the items still unaccounted for, but I can only swear to three, maybe four good representational items that I can think of to link to them, and none of them something we want to let loose on a five-dimensional tracker."
"Then what do you suggest?" Ezekiel shrugged. "This is what the genie showed me. It works."
"Then I suggest," sighed the old man, "as much as it pains me to do so, that it is not my skills you need for this. At least not my skills as such. I suggest you ask someone more inventive, with a malicious streak for model making."
"You want me to work with the whistle hater," Ezekiel nodded in understanding. Cassandra glared at him. "Fine, you want me to work with Leonardo," he corrected himself.
Jenkins nodded, his face screwed up into a tight grimace. "You have no idea how much it pains me to say his name, but you need to ask da Vinci. He has the expertise in creative stuff."
XXXX
Flynn and Eve arrived at the dog sled hire firm and booked passage up to the glacier. The ride was uncomfortable, unpleasant and uninteresting. Aurora flickered in the sky above them, each watching the light show through their snow goggles. Finally they arrived at the glacier and unpacked their gear. They headed over to the nearest glut of people. Flynn was surprised to find they were gradually being surrounded with more archaeologists yet again. He looked round the place. Somewhere, deep inside the glacier, a light shone out into the night sky. Flynn walked over to the nearest person and asked them what was happening.
"Professor Davenport won't let us anywhere near the finds," complained a well-dressed young woman. "She's getting paranoid!"
"Professor Davenport?" Flynn frowned. "Where is she?
The student indicated the light in the glacier and Flynn and Eve hurried over to it. Sure enough, carefully removing layer after layer of ice from the frozen wings and body, was Emily.
"Emily Davenport, we meet again!" Flynn called cheerily. "Now just what have you found here?"
Emily flashed a dazzling smile at him. "Oh, I get the feeling you already know."