WIEDERGEBURT Act VI: Chapter 49

It had been a long time since I’d felt this listless. Sitting on a bench inside of Fray’s garden, staring up at the night sky, I felt the sense of time slip between my grasp like grains of sand slipping between my fingers.

The night was cold, a chill wind blowing through the garden, though I myself could scarcely feel it. Spiritualists rarely felt the effects from the weather. Even if I did get cold, I could always channel the fire element through my body to warm it up.

Fray, Tor, and Sif were currently busy imprisoning and sentencing the numerous traitors found within their ranks. They could not punish everyone, but quite a few were going to face harsh penalties for betraying Tor like they had. I was not a part of this process. It had been about six days since I’d seen them.

My companion suddenly scooted closer to me, hip and thigh bumping against mine, petite body snuggling close. I felt her horn graze my shoulder. Looking down allowed me to gaze upon a head of silvery emerald hair. At the same time, a leathery wing came around to touch my other shoulder, as if to embrace me.

“You have been quiet,” Siv said.

“Have I?” I asked.

“You have been talking even less than me,” Siv confirmed.

“I suppose I have.” I reached behind her and gently caressed her tail before placing my hand on her hip. “I have a lot on my mind.”

“Are you thinking about the Dweorg who was with the Sekbeist?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I confessed.

Siv tilted her head, horn brushing against me once more. A silence stretched on between us. It was neither painful nor stifling. I took comfort in Siv’s warmth, the scent of her hair, and the familiar contours of her body.

“Who is he?” she asked at last.

“He is an old friend from long ago,” someone said before I could.

“Sister Kari…”

Kari walked out from behind a tree, a smile on her face as she took a seat on my right. Siv’s wing flapped back so Kari could snuggle herself into my other side, then came forward again, resting against the blonde woman’s back.

“His name is Hreidmar,” Kari continued speaking, voice soft, almost willowy. “Before Eryk went back in time, he and I ended up in Niðavellir.”

“Ah. I remember this story,” Siv said suddenly, eyes alight. “Hreidmar is the Dweorg King, yes?”

“That’s right.” I smiled and stroked Siv’s hips, even as I wound my hand arm around Kari’s waist to pull her closer. “He helped us when we became trapped in his realm, and we helped him liberate his people. However, he remained on the other side. The Sekbeist captured him, enslaved him, and forced him to break the seal on the Great Overlord of the Seventh Plain.” I paused for a moment. “I always meant to travel back to Niðavellir in this time and save the Dweorg again… but there was never a chance to.”

“And now it looks like the Dweorg were enslaved and Hreidmar was enslaved,” Kari mumbled. “The past has yet again changed in a way we couldn’t predict. It makes me wonder… when did this happen back then? I have always been curious. After the Sekbeist destroyed Nevaria, we stopped keeping track of time. We never did learn how old we were.”

Spiritualists aged much slower than regular people. While the aging process was not significantly slowed upon reaching the First State of Spiritualism, at the Second State the body began slowing quite a bit, and the body slowed even more after reaching the Third State. We were probably in our late twenties or early thirties when we traveled to Niðavellir, but as to our exact age, I really didn’t know.

“I realized a long time ago that we cannot rely on our knowledge of the past anymore,” I said, a wry smile on my lips. “Too much has changed. Nevaria was saved. You were never forced to marry Grant. We crossed the Endless Desert and left on amicable terms with Queen Medusa.”

“You have four beautiful wives who love you very much.” Kari teased with a grin, poking my cheek.

I nodded. “I do indeed have four wives who love me, and a son… I wonder… how they are doing.”

A somber mood overtook me as I thought about Fay, Lin, and Raul. They were always lingering in the back of my mind. I knew Fay and Lin were alive because I could still feel them through our bond, but I didn’t know what shape they were in. Were they healthy? Were they hurt? What was happening to them back on Miðgarðr? What if they needed our help?

“That Warp Gate leads to Miðgarðr, doesn’t it?” Kari said.

“I believe so, yes,” I said.

“And those six Sekbeist Lords… they are probably now on Miðgarðr,” she continued.

“Yes,” I said, my voice a whisper.

“We need to ask Fray to activate the Warp Gate,” Kari said.

I sighed. “We both know it’s not that simple. Activating a Warp Gate requires the use of a key, and Fray already admitted they destroyed the key so they couldn’t activate it. Their hope was that in doing so, the Sekbeist would never be able to reach Miðgarðr even if they successfully conquered Ásgarðr… but you are right. We should at least ask. Do you know when they will be done administering punishment to those who betrayed Tor?”

Kari shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

I sighed and glanced at the sky again. It was funny, but this sky was quite similar to the one on Miðgarðr. I wondered if all skies in every realm was like this. Was Niðavellir’s sky like this before the Sekbeist came?

As the three of us sat there in silence, left to our own thoughts and the comfort we found in each other’s presence, footsteps came to us. We turned as one. Stepping into the garden was Chloe. No longer dressed in the armor she’d been wearing since our journey to Vindenket began, she now wore the simple black and white dress of a maid.

“There you three are,” she said. A relieved smile crossed her face. “You have no idea how long I’ve been searching for you.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yes, everything is fine. However…”

“However?” Kari prodded.

“However, Lady Fray would like to speak with you three about what you saw when you arrived at the palace, down in the basement where the Warp Gate is located. She also wishes to tell you about the six who went through that portal,” she said, her expression serious. “You should go to her right away. She will be in her study.”

“Thank you for letting us know,” I said.

As one, the three of us stood up and made our way out of the garden with Chloe. It seemed we would finally get the answers we were looking for.

***

There was a military prison meant for traitors and prisoners of war located near the southern edge of Ásgarðr. Tall and gloomy, it looked nothing like a prison so much as a foreboding tower. Tora could see men and women patrolling atop the crenelations at the tower’s peek. There were also a pair of guards up front. The two men dressed in scratched silver armor crossed their halberds over the entrance when she approached, keeping her from moving.

“Halt. State your name and intentions,” the man on the left said. He looked like a middle-aged man, but he was probably a couple hundred years old.

“I’m Tora Tiwaz. I’m here to see Tyr Tiwaz.” When the guards glanced at each other in shock, she removed a rolled up parchment from her cloak and handed it to the man who spoke. “I have a letter of authorization to visit from Lady Fray and Lord Tor.”

The man unrolled the parchment, read the contents, and rolled it back up before handing it back.

“That is indeed permission to visit the prisoner known as Tyr,” he said at last, retracting his halberd, as did the other man, who looked much younger. “Please follow me and do not try anything funny.”

The guard removed a key from the belt around his waist, inserted it into the lock. Runes glowed around the lock, spread across the door to reveal even more runes, and then vanished. After pushing the door open, the guard gestured for her to follow him and walked inside.

It was perhaps common of a prison, but the hallways she was led down were dark, covered in stains, and looked old, like no one had bothered to clean or refurbish it. Tora understood the truth. This dark and foreboding gloom was meant to demoralize prisoners, to make them feel despair by leaving them in a rotting prison.

They took a stairwell that led down. The spiral staircase seemed to lead deep beneath the ground, but she knew it was actually leading into the lower levels. She learned from history books that this prison had been built before Ásgarðr became the sprawling metropolis it was now. What they now called the slumbs had been the original Ásgarðr, and this prison was something that had been built back when the city was first created. The bottom floor was technically the first floor and not a basement.

A dank and gloomy hallway greeted them as they emerged from the stairs. Tora glanced around as she walked through the hall, following the guard, their footsteps echoing ominously within the dark space lit only by a few monster core lamps affixed to the walls.

The jail cells were located passed the first hallway, metal bars covered in runes. There were cells on both the outside and inside walls. Each cell was meant to hold no more than one person, but these held at least four or five, a necessity because of the number of traitors who joined Tyr in his quest to rule Ásgarðr.

Many of these people smelled of unwashed bodies, the pungent scent hanging thick in the air, sweat and grease and shit causing her nose to wrinkle. She tried hard not to peer into the cells. However, it was hard when quite a few of them were obnoxiously catcalling to her.

“Hey, baby. You come down here often?”

“Did the guards send you to service us? I hope you know how to suck cock. Mine is pretty dirty and could use a good mouth to clean it.”

Tora scowled at the crass words coming from the jail cells, but she held her tongue, knowing it was a waste of time to speak with these prisoners. This was not the reason she had come here anyway.

“The people locked up here are all from the Northern Division,” the guard said to Tora.

“Ah. That explains why they’re so fucking horrible,” Tora said with a nod. The Northern Division was well-known for being a den of rapists and thieves.

On the other side of the circular hall was another door that led to another spiral staircase. They descended again and continued going down, reaching the deepest levels of the prison. At long last, they arrived on the last floor, which only contained a single prison cell. Sitting on a cot inside of the prison was the person she had come here for.

Tyr did not look bothered by his surroundings. His expression was calm as he sat with his legs crossed, eyes closed. He did not even respond when she walked up to his cell.

“I will allow you some time to speak with him,” the guard said, an understanding smile on his face. “I’ll be waiting at the door for when you are done.”

“Thanks,” Tora muttered as the man turned around and left.

She went back to eyeing Tyr, who still had not reacted to her presence at all. That pissed her off to the point where she was seeing red.

“Look at you. Tried to fucking take over Ásgarðr, only to fail miserably.” Tora sneered at him. “I hope you are happy with yourself.”

“I do not regret what I did. What I wanted to accomplish was necessary for protecting our realm,” Tyr said in a calm voice. “My only regret is not succeeding.”

“Because of you, hundreds of our citizens are fucking dead, or did you not get the news?” asked Tora, trying to keep her voice restrained.

“While I regret the loss of life, I must point out that none of this would have happened if Tor had not forced me to duel against him,” Tyr said.

“You’re so full of shit,” Tora snapped.

“Did you come here solely to insult me?” asked Tyr, finally opening his eyes to look at her.

Tora closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm down. Being in this man’s presence always made her upset, but she had come here for a reason. After mastering herself, she glared at her father.

“Tell me how my mother died,” she demanded.

Tyr sighed as he shifted out of his cross legged position, letting his feet rest against the stone floor, and placed his hands on his knees as he looked at her. Tora glared right back. She did not back down. Seconds ticked by. Then Tyr opened his mouth and told her about the death of her mother.

***

We made our way back into the castle and found Fray exactly where Chloe said she would be--sitting at a small table inside of the formal dining room. She was alone. I did not know where Tor or Sif had gone, but as we entered the room, such thoughts fled from my mind.

“I am sorry for not being able to meet with you until now,” Fray said, gesturing toward the chairs. “Please, take a seat. There is a lot we must discuss.”

I took a seat with Siv and Kari on either side of me. Siv scooted closer to the edge so her wings and tail wouldn’t get in the way. Meanwhile, Chloe took her usual position directly behind me, hands clasped before her, the very picture of a maid.

Now that I was up close, I could see how exhausted Fray appeared, bags hanging under her eyes, shoulders slouched. She normally sat with such straight posture that seeing her slouched like this was shocking. That she didn’t even seem to realize how tired she looked was testament to how much work she’d been doing.

“Are you getting enough rest?” I asked out of concern.

“I will rest when time permits.” Fray smiled. “But you know we Guddomelig don’t actually need rest. I can go for months without ever needing to sleep. I am merely…” She paused, face scrunching up as she searched for the right word. “Mentally strained. Figuring out how to deal with so many traitors in our midst has not been easy.”

Hearing her talk like that reminded me of what Empress Hilda--my mother-in-law--went through when the Drage Family betrayed her. A large number of Nevarian Spiritualists and Imperial Royal Guards had been bought off, while others had betrayed her for their own reasons. She’d been forced to deal with numerous cases. However, she also couldn’t afford to punish everyone since it would have diminished her forces. It had been a tricky situation that left her exhausted.

“Chloe said you wanted to speak with us about the six Sekbeist Lords that went through the Warp Gate,” Kari said.

“I did,” Fray said with a nod.

As we were speaking, a young woman came in pushing a cart before her. Atop the cart was a finely crafted tea set that looked more expensive than some houses. Each piece’s central decoration represented a different cluster of fruit and flowers. I recognized some of them like the Ten Thousand Year Old Ginseng and the Bodhisattva Dragon Fruit, but there were others I didn’t recognize. The entire set was translucent, made from a rare material that could only be found here on Gudeverdenen.

We did not speak as the woman went about setting up our tea. She placed the tea top, a jug of cream, and a sugar bowl in the center, then set plates in front of us along with our cups. My cup had a strange flower that reminded me of a lilac, except this had numerous thorns surrounding it.

Once the maidservant served our tea, she bowed to us and retreated, the door closing behind her.

“The six Sekbeist Lords who traveled through the Warp Gate are among the ten most powerful Sekbeist around. We call them the Zehn Todesherr. The four who kept us occupied along with the six who raveled through the Warp Gate all belong to this group. They’re powers are comparable to mine, Tor’s, Sif’s, Tyr’s, and Chloe’s. Each of them has completely comprehended three concepts, granting them extraordinary powers.”

I placed several sugar cubes in Siv’s tea, added some cream and a single cube to Kari’s, and then dropped two sugar cubes in my own, all the while listening.

Kari’s eyes had not left Fray’s as she spoke. Even after I finished making her tea as she liked it, she refused to look away from my aunt, grabbing the cup and taking a sip without glancing at it. Siv, on the other hand, looked at her drink as she took the cup and blew on the liquid to cool it. Dragon’s were reptilian in nature. They sensed through their tongues, so burning their tongue on scalding hot tea would be terrible for them.

“What are their names?” I asked.

“You already know Grovier,” Fray said. “He is the one you managed to hold off when we made it back to Gudeverdenen, though I believe he was too distracted with his plans to fight seriously against you. If he had, you might not be here.” She took a sip of her own tea. “The others are Leblos, Gorrick, Rache, Morden, Dieb, Attentater, Wutend, Macht, and Unglau. During the Great War, they were the enemies who gave us the greatest trouble aside from the Sekbeist Overlord. Many of our greatest were slain by their hands. Back then I was still young and nearly died several times fighting them. I was saved each time at overwhelming cost to our forces. Even now, we were unable to kill the four who attacked us. They managed to escape after their task was done, though not without taking a lot of damage to themselves.”

Hearing about how great these enemies were caused my soul to quiver, caused my heartbeat to quicken. I felt it hammering in my chest. It was like my heart was trying to break free of my ribcage.

“And these six… are the ones who are now on Miðgarðr,” I muttered.

Fray’s expression became disheartened. “Yes…”

I closed my eyes as a wave of dread and nausea washed over me. Thanks to Fray, I already knew what they would be after, the revival of the Sekbeist Overlord, whose body had been split into eight and sealed inside of the Eight Great Overlords. They would sweep over the realm, indiscriminately killing anything and everything as they sought out the temples where the Great Overlords had been killed.

Imagine filled my head, one after the other, without stopping. I saw Lin, her body torn in half, Fay with her sightless eyes staring at the sky, and Raul as he lay on the ground in a pool of blood. I pressed my palms into my eyes as if that would stop me from seeing these images. Even thinking about them caused incredible pain to well up inside of me.

“We cannot allow them to revive the Sekbeist Overlord. Do you have a plan to help us get to Miðgarðr?” asked Kari, leaning forward as she reached out to take my hand in her own. It was my real hand. The warmth of her fingers and palm filled me with strength and allowed me to focus on the task at hand.

Fray hesitated, then swallowed the rest of her tea in a surprisingly inelegant display. “We do. It will take somewhere around a month to implement, but we are going to create a space-time distortion that will forcefully open the Warp Gate without the key. It is funny. We destroyed the key and spread the remains across Miðgarðr because we didn’t want anyone discovering a way to get there. Now we ourselves have been trapped by our own schemes.”

I could not see the humor of the situation, but judging from the mirthless and self-deprecating smile on Fray’s face, she did not either. But her words did make me think of something. She said the key had been broken and scattered across Miðgarðr. It jogged my memory.

“Kari?” I turned to her. “Didn’t we find something in that strange ruin in the Morkdypt Ravine?”

Kari tilted her head curiously as if she didn’t know what I was talking about, but then her eyes widened as she held out her hand and summoned something from her storage ring. The object that rested on her hand was fairly large, about twice the size of her hand, and looked nothing more like a jagged rock with strange glyphs written on it. I recognized the runes, but I had no idea what they were used for because this object was obviously broken off from something much larger. It was just a piece.

Fray’s eyes widened. “That is a piece of the key!” She took the item from Kari’s hand, studied it, and then glanced at us. “You say you found this in a ravine?”

“The Morkdypt Ravine is a large ravine located inside of the Demon Beast Mountain Range,” I answered. “There is a strange ruin down there that looks like nothing I’ve ever seen. When we went there, we discovered Ask’s journal along with this. We did not know what it was for, but we took it with us since it looked important.”

“Hmmm…” Fray hummed before a smile lit her face. “With this, I believe we can successfully open a Warp Gate. It will still be difficult, but the chances of successful have gone up exponentially.”

We spoke with Fray for several minutes longer, but her time was still needed to attend to other tasks, like helping her cousin fill in the gaps left in their military forces. She said goodbye before heading out.

We left as well and began making our way back to our bedroom. The halls were not as crowded as I remembered them, but many of the servants living in the palace had been killed. We’d held a funeral service a few days prior.

Funerals in Ásgarðr were not so different from those on Miðgarðr. A funeral pyre was built, the dead was laid on top of it, and their body was cremated, placed in a ceramic jar, and given to the family of the deceased. Sometimes the ashes were scattered somewhere at the behest of whoever died. For the most part, though, the family received the remains and would often build a shrine to honor them.

As we were turned a corner, I caught sight of a listless Tora standing in the hallway, looking for all the world like someone who’d died and come back as a corpse. Worry filled me as the normally obnoxious woman didn’t even seem to sense our presence. She normally had such finely honed senses and would always notice people stomping their way down the hall with such a lack of subtlety.

“Tora, are you feeling okay?” I asked.

Tora blinked, turned, and blinked again as if she didn’t recognize me at first. My worry grew.

“Eryk,” she said at last, her voice a sigh. “What are you up to?”

“We were just heading back to our room.” With a frown, I walked up to her and placed a hand against her forehead. “And you never answered my question. Are you okay? You seem rather… tired, I guess. You’re not sick, are you? I know Spiritualists don’t really get sick, but you aren’t looking too well.”

As I felt her warm but not abnormally so forehead, Tora finally reacted like I expected her to. She jerked back. Her face was red as she stared at me with slightly wide eyes.

“T-the fuck was that for?!”

“I was just checking to see if you have a fever.”

“I don’t have a fucking fever! And you can’t just touch a girl without her permission, fucker!”

“You say that, but aren’t you the one asking me to marry you? If we get married, I’m going to be touching you a lot, you know.”

Tora sputtered out denials and expletives. I smiled. This was much more like Tora I was used to.

“You know,” Kari began with a mischievous gleam in her eyes, “For such a crass young woman, you are awfully pure. I’d have never expected that. Could it be you are unsullied? Have you never been touched by a man?”

“O-of course I haven’t! Did you fucking think I’d spread my legs for just anyone?!” Tora shouted so loud her voice echoed down the hall.

“Hmmm… then have you ever touched yourself?” asked Kari.

“T-the fuck do you wanna know that for?!”

“No reason. Just curious.”

“Well, fuck your curiosity!”

Because she was here and Kari was taking pleasure in teasing her, we let Tora follow us back to our room, though she would not be sleeping in our bed quite yet. I turned my thoughts toward other matters. It would be a little over one month before we could travel through the Warp Gate to Miðgarðr, and we would need to be stronger if we wanted to have any hope of defeating those six Sekbeist Lords, those Zehn Todesherr.

In other words, it was time to test that training method Fray spoke of when she discovered the runes on Kari’s and Siv’s chest.