Siegyrd stood over the sleeping form of Gudrun in his human form. The gallery’s sun dimmed high above. He sighed, and anger played on the edges of his lip. He walked away from her toward the very back of the cavern where a black blade hovered in an aura of hungering shadow. He reached for it, then pulled his hand back as memory filled him.

  #

  The giant sword was driven like a stake in the spine of the world atop the wicked mountain. Its blade exuded darkness as a thing visible.

  Though you love the light you will be our blade in darkness. One day you will repay, but you will be free. Do you agree to our compact?

  The violent voice spoke directly into Siegyrd’s mind.

  A sickly sun scorched gray-streaked skies above him. The world beneath its rays was starved of light. From the pinnacle of that evil world, Siegyrd could see shattered wastes which drove into an endless muteness beneath where mists and shadows ruled.

  “You will free me, or I will fill your world of woe with songs of delight.” Siegyrd’s voice was a low threat.

  The laughter that responded shook Siegyrd to his core, even in memory. It was the raucous rattling of hordes of maniac men delighted on their way to doom.

  Skald, we thrill for the challenge of a new world, and you have need of us, of our power to return – home. The sound of gluttonous lips smacking echoed in Siegyrd’s head.

  Siegyrd shivered, and looked all around once more, surveying the drab display of the broken world. He had been warned.

  “I would wield your darkness with the light’s intent, suffer your evil only as a means to good.”

  Another laugh, mirthful and alien.

  Of course you will, Skald. We will not yield to you though, not entire.

  “Nor I to you. The struggle will be long, darkling. Release me!”

  Then our compact is sealed.

  #

  Siegyrd reached out again the cavern around him, and grasped the ebonblade, hearing the old voice in his head.

  Skald, how deliciously angry you are.

  Siegyrd flinched and half-closed one eye as he drew the ebonblade from its floating sheath. He grit his teeth and sighed as his body recoiled.

  He rested the blade flat across his bare shoulder, and his eyes, normally bright with silver fire, cracked with interlacing webs of night. As he walked past the woman sleeping on the bed of furs, an icy chill caused her to draw them more tightly to herself. Fear strode through the gallery adorned in a veil of rage. His silvery hair hung low upon his back, and the scales in his skin flickered between dark and light.

  Gudrun was awake, but she dared not open her eyes. She wanted to disappear into the folds of fur as a child’s ward against fear. His padding, barefoot steps reached the edge of the cavern far out. There was a whooshing of strong wind, and all was still. The air lost its pallor of fear, and she took a breath. She opened her eyes and looked around. The light filled the whole place with blinding radiance. She had noticed little the day before, but now she saw rows of shelves and various pieces of furniture of a make and usage she did not recognize with cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver draping.

  She stood and walked toward the shelves which were arrayed into a series of walkways toward the back which led to a giant curtain as tall as three houses next to a large carving in the immaculate walls. The curtain hung from rods of iron driven into the rock and ice of the cavern wall. The floor was smooth and seamless. It reflected the light from the false sun but also seemed to capture it within for some future purpose. She walked on a sea of living glass.

  Books dominated the shelves, some bound in leather as thick as her arms, others dainty scrolls of parchment frightened of the lightest touch. In some remaining space, a statue of a strange four-headed creature stood prominently on a pedestal, and what looked like a giant spearhead made of prismatic glass the size of a boreal bear rested in the gaps between tomes bound with folded gold. She walked on and saw gems the size of her head cut into magnificent, faceted glory. A slim sword made entirely of what looked to her like amethyst floated feet above the ground near another shelf. It spun in graceful slowness. Weapons lined one wall including long spears with leaf blades carved with tree patterns, paired short swords with curved blades sharing a single sheath, hammers made fit for the gauntlets of giants, and hand axes gilt and engraved with runic markings that sparked in blinding flashes.

  She turned down another row and saw a porcelain sculpture shaped like the hips of a woman but hollow and filled with what looked like golden sand. On a shelf to her left a contraption of spinning bulbs filled with different liquids danced with a satisfied whirring. She caught a whiff of sweetness in the air as she passed. Symbols and writings adorned almost everything in what she assumed were writings from many languages she had never known. They were scrawled on the bindings of the books and scrolls, the edges of the artifacts, carved into portions of the hard darkwood shelves. Some glyphs simply hung in the air as luminescent wisps written on semi-solid air. She reached toward one, which brightened at proximity, then pulled her hand back, shaking her head.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  At the end of the gallery was the great veil and a large carving. The carving was of a great dragon with shining rays around it. The creature’s head bowed slightly as if listening intently to someone whose image was worn away by time. Ancient writing in a script foreign to her glowed faintly beneath the carving. She examined it closely and a voice echoed softly through her mind as if reading to her,

  Dravok naa, masni.

  She winced as the words tried to translate themselves to her like living things longing to explain. She stumbled back a step rubbing her eyes and heard aloud, as if whispered, “Live well, friend.”

  She turned but no one stood there, a pressure building in her forehead.

  She turned aside to the massive curtain which must have weighed more than all the livestock of her village. That thought made her face fall, but she shook it off and approached. She could not push it aside, so tried to find a way around. After a short, fruitless search, she knelt to look at the base. A tiny space, a finger’s width high, separated the bottom of the curtain from the floor. She sank low onto her hands and knees. She felt the chill from the floor and craned her neck downward to investigate the room beyond.

  #

  Far below and many leagues away, Siegyrd stood at the entrance to a small town. Its keep was made of thick timbers and roofed with solid wood that could be seen rising above the spiked wall of jagged fencing which surrounded the broader town. On his flight he had witnessed half a dozen or more burned villages around this one. This was the first untouched town. He knew why as its fields were fat with the heavy scent of livestock, and storehouses creaked under the weight of pilfered harvests.

  He stood before the closed gate in the early morning before the rising of the sun. He sniffed at the air. The sweet smells and aromas of the festivities lingered and mixed rank urine and sweat and myriad spices and wisps of smoke from the low-burning embers of cook fires.

  The price for your freedom is overdue. We demand them, Skald, with interest.

  “Save your threats.”

  You underestimate our reach.

  “Your reach is only so far as my arm allows.”

  Siegyrd inhaled. His chest expanded as if he would swallow the sky. His eyes sparked with luminescent sapphire. Glacial symbols formed across his skin and scales enveloping him in a bright aura. He paused. The light flared in his eyes as the air vibrated and hummed around him. All at once, he exhaled. The burst of his breath froze the timbers solid and washed over the entire town in a tide of permafrost. Fires snuffed, people sleeping breathed their last. Living flesh crystallized cold in the dawning day.

  The power from his eyes and skin faded, and Siegyrd stepped forward toward the closed gate. He tapped it once with the hilt of the ebonblade, and it shattered into a fine dust of fresh snow.

  We demand slaughter!

  The blade’s voice raged in Siegyrd’s mind, but he responded with calculated silence. He walked on through the frozen streets. When he came upon the body of a man, he touched the edge of the blade to the frozen form, a shadow burst forth, engulfed the body, and receded. After, each form evaporated into frozen mists. The women and children Siegyrd left untouched by the blade.

  “You feast well enough without slaughter.”

  The blade’s voice said nothing, as man after man was consumed into its core, and their forms were turned to dust in the frigid glow of a rising sun.

  Siegyrd strode, executing his grim work until the sun was high. He stepped through alleys and across a marketplace of frozen monuments, entered death-filled homes. As he stood before the large central keep, the sun painted the dusk with crimson hues giving way to violet.

  He kicked the large, barred doorway shattering thick wood wrought with iron into icicle fragments which exploded into the feasting hall. He walked in to see a man seated on his makeshift throne of ill-carved and splintered dark wood. Upon his head sat a warhelm with a single horn in the center. On a table beside him was a twisted mask and a jug of mead, frozen solid as the stones that lay the foundations of the world. All around vassals and sycophants and revelers with the tyrant presented their final moment in still reflection. Siegyrd walked through and touched the blade to each before approaching the seated figure.

  Siegyrd drew a long breath. The cold filled his lungs with a delight that blunted his disgust. He raised the ebonblade high above him, gripping its hilt with both hands. His silver scales reflected shadows in the blade’s perfect dark edge. He paused there, in a moment of brutal anticipation. He swung the blade downward slicing clean through the frozen form and splitting him and his throne in two. Then with a back step and a turn of his grip he used the flat of the giant blade to bash what remained into a shattered ruin with savage satisfaction.

  We may yet be friends, Skald.

  Siegyrd returned the blade to his shoulder and turned to leave. As he walked out of the broken-down entrance he said, “You want for destruction. Some destruction aligns with wrath, justice delivered.”

  Ah, but how you enjoy it, Skald.

  Siegyrd held out his hand to his right, the blade hovering there, and released. There was a momentary pause as the blade pulled away part of the flesh in Siegyrd’s hand leaving a dark mark before it fell. A small portal of shadow swallowed the sword leaving Siegyrd standing there alone. He breathed once more, rubbing his palm, as he wandered to the center of the devastated town. He drew two swords, grooved and carved through with holes of various sizes. He swung the first, and as it passed through the air, the wind whistled through the blade producing eerie musical notes. He stepped and swung the second, which layered in further airy notes on top, and soon his voice joined the song, providing the melody. Siegyrd sang and danced and played a dirge for all the souls departed as he wept frozen tears for all but one beneath a day’s surrender to the dawn of night.

  #

  Gudrun’s eyes widened with wonder as she peeked beneath the curtain. The room beyond was filled with mountainous treasure. The room was filled with light, save for one stain of darkness in a far corner which she couldn’t make out from her vantage. When it caught her eye, her breath caught in her throat and she scrambled back, but a voice boomed through her, grim and dark and terrible.

  Little lost lady of the mountains, what terrors you will witness. Would you hear the truth of dragons?

  She felt she could not breathe and gripped her chest as fear trampled wild horses through her veins.