In Gray And Silver

Berta made her way to the hills. The path was  thorny and wet, each foot step a splash on disgustingly yellowish mud. A  hint of cold could be felt on her boots, and for a moment she was  tempted to curse the air and frost, but the mere thought chilled the  back of her mind.

They might have taken Ty, she pondered, and the very thought alarmed her.

It  was twilight, and though it was cold the promise of the northern lights  was too much to pass. They dazzled and wavered like a forest fire,  tugged at by strange winds. They were mesmerizing, and for a moment the  weight of her burden disappeared. No more missing friend, none of his  mother's tears, only the spectacle in the skies.

But reality was  fond of dark jokes. Suddenly, Berta heard the loud flutter of wings,  accompanied by a croak. She screamed, stepping away to see a large  raven, flapping its wings frantically while still grounded. She was  cornered against the thorns, and couldn't get away. Still, she felt that  she didn't need to: the bird wasn't chasing after her. She looked at  it's feet, and saw what appeared to be a large, metallic coin. The  talons obscure it, but in the faint twilight she could still make out a  carved trace.

The bird looked to her side and flew away, leaving  the coin on the ground. Now she could see that it indeed had a carved  rune: exactly three traces, a central one with other two converging from  its edges to in front of it, forming a crude, slightly-open triangle.  As Berta picked it, the runes became pitch black, as if they were  completely immersed in shadow, and she could feel a strange sensation,  as if her body was surrounded by water.

She began to hear  footsteps, and quickly hid her discovery in her pocket, next to her  heart. The sensation stopped, but she felt a strange emptiness in her  chest.

As she looked over she saw a strange old man, wearing the  strangest clothes she had ever seen: a strange, gray jacket covering his  shoulders, a same-colored shirt covering his torso and arms, what  seemed to be a white shirt under that one, same gray pants and gray  shoes. A small belt with exceptionally clean, almost dazzling knives  tied his waist; they had different handles, some of metal, some of bone.

She  thought those were fancy clothes of some sort - they weren't made of  the leathers and fabrics her village, or anyone she had ever seen for  that matter, used - but they seemed to be somewhat wearied down. There  was something in the gray that seemed to have once been of other colors,  but she couldn't quite figure which ones they were. That same grayness  felt empty, and in the twilight it even seemed as though it was  spreading, quenching the air and the moors out of any color.

His  skin and eyes seemed to be of the same color, though in the twilight it  was hard to tell. He looked somewhat thin, but his face wasn't ghastly.  On the contrary, it seemed rather rounded, something helped by a rather  short, white beard and mustache.

"Oh my, what has that frightful asshole done to you?" he asked, his voice surprisingly sweet and vibrant, which calmed Berta.

"It was just a bird" Berta said dryly.

"Still, it is no manner to treat a lady. Come, I'll treat you with hot cocoa and a cozy light."

"What is cocoa?" asked Berta.

"Oh right, you don't have that here. Milk, perhaps?"

"Thank you, Mister-"

"You can call me the Silver Man."

Berta gave him a puzzled look.

"Thank you, Mister Silver Man, but I have to keep looking for my friend. He's lost and it's almost night."

"What's his name?" he asked pensively, as if trying to remember.

"Ty, Tyelsi" Berta replied hopefully.

He snapped his fingers, and Berta swore she saw a small white spark.

"Oh, that one. Yes, he's with me, and waiting for you!"

"Waiting for me?" said Berta skeptically.

"Yes, that's why I came here looking for you" he said chirpily.

"But he's the one who's lost?"

"Details, details. I am sure you can talk those over."

The man remained upbeat, but Berta noticed that his hands trembled slightly. A hint of impatience.

She  was uncertain about going with him. Something about him felt wrong, in  spite of - or perhaps because of - his kindness. Yet, the law of  hospitality was sacred. If he was a bad host, the gods themselves would  see him punished.

She knew of one such case: old law speaker  Snorri, who once, begrudgingly, accepted a traveling bard. He had his  way with his guest and fed only scraps. In return, the night the poor  bard left, his flesh began to decay and fall off. He walked around the  town, begging for help, but he was refused at every turn, even by the  healers, and died in the town square. His blackened bones were burnt by a  valkyrie's light, until not even dust remained.

The memories were  horrifying, but Berta found a twisted comfort in them. The gods were  looking out for her, and maybe she needed their guidance.

"Alright, I'll come with you."

***

The  shack wasn't far away, being on the other side of one of the hills. The  trail to it was a lot more pleasant than the one Berta had passed on,  lacking thorns and with a drier, even warmer soil, covered in smooth  grass.

"Ah yes, I take it upon myself to make roads as pleasant as  possible" the Silver Man had explained, "All you need to make anything  better is a good dose of optimism... and pruning some weeds."

Berta  nodded half-heartedly, it was such generic advice. She wondered why she  had felt unsettled by the man in the first place. Yet, with each step  they took, the coin seemed to pulse with a strange sense of urgency, as  if asking her to remain alert. Above, there was a sound of wings  flapping, but before she could look the Silver Man tapped her shoulder.

"Here we are milady" he said, in a particularly cheerful way.

The  shack was surprisingly large, almost like a small barn. It was made of  gray wood, built in a rather strange way, the individual logs seemingly  not tied together by any rope. Yet, it stood firmly, and was so clean  that it even seemed to glow, a silver beacon in the fading daylight.

By  far the most impressive feature were the windows, made of thin layers  of sunstone and supported by silver beams, laid in a vaguely  butterfly-like pattern of two triangles joined at the tips. Glass  windows were rare in Berta's village, let alone ones made with such  precious materials. The visage was awestrucking, especially as the  northern lights were partly reflected, dancing along the beams and the  textured surface.

"I see you like my windows" said the Silver Man, craning his neck.

"They're beautiful" said Berta, still mesmerized.

"They're even better on the inside."

The  Silver Man walked to the door. He motioned invitingly, and opened the  door slightly. One of the windows could be seen, that indeed reflected  the lights even more intensely, as vividly as they were in the sky.  Beneath the window was part of the wall; while also made of wood, it was  covered by a rich white coating, that seemed as bright and as warm as  daylight.

Berta halted. One last step before the unknown.

"Ty, Ty are you there?" she shouted.

No response.

Worried  for him, she walked inside quickly, only to be greeted by a horrific  visage, that made her pause in sheer shock. The Silver Man took  advantage of this to silently close the door, cornering her in for good.

The  shack was composed of a single, large room. On the center laid a wooden  table, flanked by two wooden benches, seemingly made out of only three  independent pieces of wood each. On top, the beams supported two rows of  metallic hooks, beneath each being a bucket, also made of metal and  rather simplistic, with no handles. A few crates laid at the edges,  opened and bearing the same runes as the windows.

Hanging on the  hooks were the bisected, disemboweled bodies of children, the metal  piercing the emptied skulls. Their blood had almost entirely dipped into  the buckets below, their flesh so thoroughly exsanguinated that it now  had a very pale, almost white tone. There was no smell or rot; instead,  the flesh smelled very sweetly, which reminded Berta of spring flowers  in the meadows.

Clothes filled the crates. They were ripped and  stained, yet tucked rather neatly. Shoes were laid on top of the table,  and she could recognize Ty's at the end.

Berta looked again at the  hooks. In her panic, her eyes darted from half-body to half-body, until  they found her friend's left flank. At the angle it was hard to notice,  but she did see half of his blue eye and part of his auburn hair, and  soon the bisected face became more and more familiar, and all the more  horrific for it. His flesh was darker than the others, the  exsanguination apparently not complete.

Her eyes moved away quickly, trying to find his "right side", but it didn't seem to be anywhere.

"As  I told you, weeds need to be pruned" said the Silver Man, and Berta  heard a knife being detached from the belt, "And your friend wasn't one.  He was pure and sweet, so undeserving of this rotten plane, so I saved  him."

Berta tried to turn and punch the Silver Man in the gut, but  she found her arm stuck in midair. She couldn't move it, and she saw  her sleeve's brown color being muted.

"Part of him was already  buried" the Silver Man continued as he examined his knife, "never to be  touched by rot or decay. Though his left side is taking quite some time  to clean. Part of me thinks I misjudged him, but I'm willing to forgive  him nonetheless."

He turned towards Berta, glaring. It was a sort  of calm fury that wouldn't otherwise be noticed, if not for the angle  his eyes stared at her own. Berta noticed that they were indeed gray,  both the irises and the sclerae, separated only by a thin white band.  They reminded her of ashes, well after they've cooled down from the fire  and began to whiten.

"You, on the other hand, are clearly sinful"  he said, spite seeping into his voice, "I see it in your eyes, in the  way you talk. You have faith in these g-, in these demons, don't you?"

Muffled  pecking came from one of the windows, and both Berta and the Silver Man  turned to see the silhouette of a raven. For a moment hope welled in  the girl's heart, but she noted that the bird was barely holding onto  the ledge, and was forced to take off, hovering uselessly around the  frame.

"Luckily, these are true hallowed grounds. Your 'gods' do  not have any power here. You will finally pay in full for all of your  sins, you will face the justice your people so gleefully evade. You will  die, and you will die in pain, until every last drop of your miserable  blood boils and is cleansed from this world!"

He raised his knife,  and his eyes closed. Berta heard a muttering sound, and she knew he was  praying. But she didn't understand any of his words, and his voice had  an echoing quality to it, permeating the air and the wood and even her  own soul.

As she heard it, the voiding sensation in her chest  increased. She looked down at the pocket, and saw it glow with a violet  light. The coin radiated that light, but the rune, vast against the  pocket, was still pitch black. Still immersed in the deepest shadows.

Berta  realized something, and turned her gaze to the Silver Man. She  inspected him, her eyes lowering to the ground, and noticed that he had  no shadow.

She, on the other hand, still had hers clinging to her  feet. It was small due to the ambient lighting, but it was still rather  dark, and she lost herself in its blackness, focusing on it. She thought  of how dark the night outside must've been, how much she'd rather  escape and run away far into it, away from that place of death.

Yet, she wanted revenge for her friend. No, she would not run away, into the night. The night would run into her.

She  kept staring at her shadow, and sure enough it grew. And unlike her  body, it was free. Berta delighted in this, and took no time stretching  the shadow as far as they could go. It met one of the walls, then  crawled up the ceiling.

Soon, it reached the hooks. And their flesh.

"Now meet your end!" the Silver Man said, preparing to strike.

Before  his knife could touch Berta, however, half a child body slammed against  him, knocking him off his balance. He swatted away the corpse, but to  his horror its hand still clung to his sleeve, weighting him down. Half a  mouth tried to bite him, but his knife to an end to it, and the jaw  dropped into the ground, followed by the arm, with a bloodless thump.

To  his horror, the other half bodies dislodged themselves from the hooks.  Some tentatively, slowly tearing their half-heads, while others swung  wildly and landed all over the place, knocking or falling on the buckets  and splattering the blood across the pristine room, and themselves. All  of them had been touched by Berta's shadow, branched like puppet  strings.

"What have you done, witch!?" the Silver Man yelled madly, grabbing the undead children and butchering them further.

In  the chaos, Berta tried to move, but she was still stuck. She kept  trying to overwhelm the Silver Man, but this strategy quickly backfired  as he glared at her, knowing exactly what to do. So she used the  children as a blockade, slowing him down slightly.

This was all  she needed to separate one half-a-corpse from the rest. She stared at  him for a moment, tears welling in her eyes, before she willed him to  jump and throw himself out of the window.

"No!" the Silver Man shouted, punching a half-face out of the way, but it was too late.

The  room darkened, until only the Silver Man's faint light remained. And  immediately after, every window and the door burst, as a massive flock  of ravens swarmed in in all directions. They flew in a disorganized mass  of feathers and croaks, knocking Berta to the ground. She quickly found  that she could move, and crawled her way to the door.

As soon as  she left, an intense white light began filling the shack. It wasn't it  regaining its glow, but rather something within it shining intensely.  The ravens were repelled from it, and Berta could see its source.

She wished she hadn't.

With  a last, hateful gaze into her eyes, the Silver "Man" was gone from that  world, and his leaving was marked by an intense blast, burning away the  ravens, the children's bodies and Berta's eyes into oblivion.

Berta  could no longer see - or feel her face at all -, but she knew when the  light stopped, when its pressure left the emptied, now dry sockets. Soon  after, she heard the shack fall, the final tomb for what remained of  those children.

Berta crawled in the dark. Al though she was  blind, she began to feel the rune pulsing, guiding her in the shadows,  and knew more or less where to go. She managed to get up and run, only  to kneel down gently. Her hands reached, feeling a cold, wet object.

Tears streamed down her eyes, as she hugged what remained of Ty.

Suddenly, a familiar croak filled the air, followed by intense flapping.

"You're the only one that made it out, aren't you?" Berta said, although she couldn't guess why.

"Payment" a voice emerged, guttural and croak-like. Berta didn't have to guess who it was.

"What?" she asked.

"You offered that boy in exchange for the blasphemer's demise. It was an offering to me."

"I had to get out!" Berta cried, "I didn't know-"

"That is irrelevant. Give me his body."

"No! He needs to-"

"To  what?" the voiced darkened, "To bury him or burn him, deny me my prize?  You have my gift, you had my service. Now offer him."

"You mean this?" Berta said, grasping the coin and throwing it to the ground, "Take it. I don't want it anymore."

"So be it."

Suddenly,  Berta felt a sharp pain on her palms, like a thousand knives pierced  through her hand. The pain - and what seemed like a physical force of  some sort - pushed her away, prying her away from Ty.

"No!" she screamed, impotently stabbing herself further, trying to reach her friend.

Suddenly  the pain ended, and she fell on broken and shredded hands unto the  ground. Ty was gone, the last evidence of him being some strained wing  strokes in the distance.

Anger consumed Berta. Even though she  hated the Silver Man, she saw clearly why he felt the way he did. The  gods were nothing but petty savages, they needed to be brought down.

With  a pained effort, she rose from the ground. The run was no longer there  to guide her, but she didn't need to. She knew she didn't need it  anymore.

With effort, she made her way back to the village.

***

In  the Halls of Godheimr, the Allfather couldn't help but laugh. Perched  on his arms, the flock of ravens echoed a dissonant song, a hymn of  mockery to the girl.

In his palm laid Ty's body, the two parts now  one. Yet, the unburied half had darkened, rotted slightly on the way to  the world above all others. The part buried by the Silver Man had,  however, remained pure, protected by his odd enchantments. This amused  the Allfather to no end, who rejoiced in the poetry of irony.

Suddenly,  the halls lightened up with an intense light. the Sun had arrived, her  chariot trotting through the pristine, quartz-like firmament, stopping  half-way to the throne. The Allfather closed his hand, hiding his prize.

"Had a good day, I presume?" he said mockingly.

The  Sun didn't say anything. Her valkyries helped her out of the chariot  and fred her steeds, guiding them out of the hallway. Dark-clad  valkyries - his - joined in, brushing the steeds. Valkyries, light or  dark, took the Sun's weapons and armor, cleaning them.

She walked to the right, in the direction of her own chambers. But not before glaring at the Allfather.

"What?" he asked, "I did save the children, did I not?"

"You know your cruelty goes too far" she said angrily, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time with the wrong monsters."

"Wonder AND wander all you like, you're never going to sit here" the Allfather laughed, raising his butt slightly.

The  doors to the Sun's chambers close with a violent tremor. A silence  followed, ended with the Allfather's sigh, regretful and wistful.

He stared at the mended boy in his palm, and breathed it into life.