Lindír hardly knew how to react. His head sank low to the ground as a cold feeling of shame and hurt wrapped around his chest. “I am not a fool,” he said quietly.
“You’re not,” Ámnistr confirmed. “But you don’t need to be a fool to act foolishly. Goodness knows I’ve been the fool in my life. But those druids—if they are druids at all, and I’m not so sure they are—are setting you up. They’re flattering you. Which means they’re trying to get you to do something for them.”
“Of course they’re trying to get me to do something for them,” Lindír said. “They need my help, and I am the only one who can help them!”
Ámnistr sighed, and slumped low, his eyes squinting with sadness. “Nephew. You’re nineteen years old. Hardly even a man, and far from a warrior.”
“I am a dragon,” Lindír said, spreading his wings wide. “I was born a warrior.”
“Listen to yourself, nephew! That kind of arrogance, there are more ways that kind of thinking will bring you to ruin than there are stars in the sky. And these druids are wise enough to know that, I ken.”
“Or they know what a dragon is capable of,” Lindír said. “They know that no other creature in the North could be half as good a champion as a dragon. And they are desperate folk, Ámnistr! I may be young, I may not be half so great as Sivnis and the other dragons of old, but I may very well be all that they can find!”
“You said they’d been wandering for how long?” Ámnistr asked. “Nearly a season?”
“That is what they claimed.”
“And you truly believe that nobody and nothing they could’ve lit upon would be good enough to fight on their behalf? If all they needed was strength of arms, you could pay a troll a keg of mead to do it. Not even to mention sorcerers, knights, would-be heroes of every banner.”
Lindír took a step back, rearing his neck away from the giant. “Do you believe me no better than a common troll, a knight-errant? I thought you believed in me!”
“I do!” Ámnistr snapped. “But this ain’t a matter of character or goodness. These sages claim to want a monster—an unbound draugr at that—slain. There’s no shortage of folk out there who will do such a thing, and if they believe that you have the strength in you to do it, then there are a myriad of others who are just as strong.”
“But I am a dragon,” Lindír said slowly. “I am more than just strength.”
“Not to them you’re not,” Ámnistr said. “Think, nephew, really think. This whole situation smells worse than a troll’s lair. They lavish a boy with praise, ask for his aid, tell him only of the glory which will come once the killing is done. They’re playing to your vanity, making you agree to go with them before your sense returns to you.”
“Have you considered that I am worthy of that…” Lindír bit back his tongue. That line of argument would get nowhere. “And suppose this is a trick? What could they possibly be aiming to do? I have no money to be swindled out of, and unless they are truly stupid, they would know not to arouse the ire of a dragon. Even a boy.” Lindír spat the word “boy” with as much disdain as he could manage.
“I don’t claim to know their minds, nephew. Every trickster’s of a different sort. They could mean to lead you into some trap, capture you and carry you off again. Or there is no draugr, and they plan to use you as a weapon against some rival of theirs, then leave you to rot. I don’t know. I never claimed to know. But this is clearly a trick of some kind, or I’ll eat my own beard.”
Lindír could find no flaw in Ámnistr’s argument, no piece of vital evidence that would point toward the veracity of anything which the druids had said. But none of that mattered; nothing at all mattered besides his shot at glory. Would they call him Lindír Draugr-Devourer after this?
“I offered to let you come along, you know,” Lindír said. “And add a new song to your repertoire. But I think if you’re going to complain of conspiracies everywhere along the way, then I’ll rescind that offer.”
Ámnistr’s jaw fell open as he looked upon Lindír with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. “What’re you on about, nephew?”
“The druids,” Lindír said, half-turning away from Ámnistr, “offered to split the glory between us. You could have even helped me in the battle, as I’m sure your strength is more than up to the task. But if all that you are going to do is naysay, then I am shutting down the offer.”
“I…” he leaned forward upon his stony seat, quivering with sudden fear. “I never cared about that. Even if there is glory to be earned—and you know how I feel about glory—I’m trying to help you, nephew.”
“You’re not! From the moment I told you about this, you have done nothing but try to dissuade me from the course! What makes you so desperate to prevent me from earning a name for myself? Are you afraid that I will come to eclipse the legend of the giant troubadour? Do you savor the idea of my remaining eternally your servant?”
The Drum was again struck dumb. He looked into Lindír’s eyes, seeking some connection, but the dragon avoided his gaze. “Do you really think so poorly of me? I’ve told you afore, I know you have something great in you. But this won’t lead you that way.”
“I will have slain an unbound draugr! What superior greatness is there?”
“You’re being lied to, nephew!” Ámnistr roared. Then he took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was as soft as it had been in the mountain ruins. “I know it feels good, seein’ yourself as the hero savior. But this stinks of trickery, and following those folk is going to do nothing but get you hurt. There will be another chance to earn your name.”
“Of course there will be,” Lindír said sadly. “But only on the day you decide to allow it, and not a day before. What was it you told me? I should not live my life by the principles of others? Well, Ámnistr, you’ll be glad to hear that I am putting your lesson into practice. Firstly, I shall stop living my life according to you.”
“Lindír, wait!”
And that was all that Ámnistr had a chance to say. Lindír turned around at once, the tip of his tail whipping the chest of the man he’d spent nearly two years traveling alongside, before he sprang into the air and took aloft. He knew, as well as Lindír did, that the conversation was over. And so he collapsed onto his stone and said no more.
Lindír tried to focus his thoughts on the glory which awaited him, rather than the pain which lay behind. But so fresh a wound could not be ignored. He wished, desperately, that he could have convinced Ámnistr. But there was no way he could have, other than to bow to his demands, and that would have meant giving up what was rightfully his for the whims of an old man. So Lindír growled and whined under his breath as he flew across to the far side of Brautarnir, where the druids awaited him.
They, in their grey robes and dirty faces, responded with a great burst of praise and adoration, which washed off of Lindír’s scales without effect. Storm-hair wept with joy that at last a savior had come for them; others conversed about how safe they now felt with a dragon at their side. A few of them even sent up a few verses of song, quoting some old hymn of divine praise for their good luck. Lindír paced impatiently back and forth until they had packed up all of their things and set off into the hills.
Once they were away from Brautarnir, the druids travelled in near-total silence. It befit their status as ascetics, Lindír thought, though it proved an eerie contrast to the effusive friendliness they had shown during their interactions at the camp. He found himself thinking once again of the bald, pale-skinned druid who had watched him from afar earlier that day. By carefully accounting for each and every member of the group, Lindír had become quite certain that the bald one was not among them. And yet, who else would wear a druid’s robes?
Eventually Lindír’s curiosity grew too great to bear, and he thought to ask Storm-hair about it. She was somewhat apart from the others, far enough ahead on the trail that only she could hear when Lindír asked her about the strange watcher he had seen. She looked up at him once he was done speaking, her expression strange and thoughtful. Lindír could not help but be drawn to her eyes, black as treacle and infinitely deep, with a strange quality about them that he could not place.
“There is no such person as you describe amidst our group,” Storm-hair said at last. “You said they were at a great distance? Perhaps you mistook their features.”
“Perhaps…” said Lindír, though there were no druids who resembled the watcher closely enough for that to be at all likely.
“Consider, also, that it may have been an encounter of an altogether more spiritual nature. You are a unique thing, Lindír Heimirsson; perhaps gods are watching.”
They made camp in a narrow ravine, far from the town and from any other sign of life. The druids ate only bread and water, and so little of the former that Lindír marveled that they had even the energy to sustain their long marches. They all retreated into their sleeping furs at the same time, no doubt one religiously ordained. And yet, despite all of their regimentation, sleep did not come easily to the sages. Lindír heard them constantly stirring during the night, sometimes mumbling to themselves or even sitting up for several minutes at a time, arms in their laps. His sleep, too, was poor. He could not help but think of Ámnistr, wonder if they could reunite when all was said and done.
When morning came, the ascetics ate another thin breakfast, packed up the few material goods they needed to survive, and walked out of the camp, all with near-perfect simultaneity. Lindír’s limbs were still sore, and his eyes encrusted with sleep, when he was forced to rise and follow. Even dulled by exhaustion, though, Lindír’s senses were still acute enough to be aware that he was being watched.
He circled the others, eyes scanning the thin mountain scrubland for any sign of unfamiliar movement. A few times he took to the air, hoping that whatever was watching him would be unable to hide itself from above. Other times he pretended to be distracted, looking down at the ground or scratching at a tree, then suddenly looked back when he thought it would not be expected. Once he turned away from the ascetics without warning and ran a mad race around the area, hoping to run into something by chance, or else drive it from hiding when it was forced to dodge out of his way. Whatever eyes were upon him were not to be outwitted.
Clearly, then, whatever was watching Lindír and the others was no creature that could be hunted or caught. It must have been something unnatural, something invisible or intangible like mist, something that always knew where not to be. He thought back to Storm-hair’s words. Was there a god watching? Or was it the distant gaze of the draugr he had set out to slay, already preparing a trap?
He decided not to confide in his traveling companions. If they knew any way to occlude the draugr’s sorcerous gaze, they would have done so. And if it were a god watching, then they would not be able to do anything at all, for any power they had would have been derived from the gods. Lindír himself was worrying more than enough for all of them, the constant paranoia slowly abrading his already-frayed nerves.
It was mid-afternoon, the sky gone ashen with heavy rainclouds, when the group arrived at an open wound in the mountainside. But no sword-cleft was this; three huge outcroppings of stone came together, forming a steep depression, the base of which looked to have rotted away. What might have been a comfortable sleeping nook instead formed the mouth of a passageway that swiftly faded into darkness.
“This is how we shall reach our hidden home,” Storm-hair explained. “This cave cuts across the mountains, and by traveling through it we shall cut nearly a fortnight off of the journey home. Who knows what kinds of torments we will have spared our fellows by this expediency.”
The cave reminded Lindír all too much of the cell in which he had come of age. He gazed into the blackness of the cave mouth and felt that it was infinite, that he would never escape from it once brought within. “Are you certain that this is the only path?”
“Quite certain,” said Storm-hair. “Are you afraid?”
Lindír puffed out his chest and spoke in a low voice. “Of course not. I am merely steeling myself for the foe ahead.”
Storm-hair laughed, a melodious sound that ill fit her short frame. “As you say, Lindír Heimirsson. We will go ahead. You may protect our rear.”
Many of the druids moved on ahead, including Storm-hair, filing swiftly into the cave. A few remained behind, watching Lindír with expectant gazes, until he finally remembered that he was the only hope of these poor folk. With his torso low to the ground and his shoulders bunched, he stepped into the darkness.
A few of the druids held aloft candles, the wax dripping down onto their uncovered hands. The flickering light left deep shadows across even Lindír’s vision; it was a wonder that the druids could see anything at all in the scarce light. What could be seen of the cavern walls was pale stone, cold stone, shiny and slick with condensation. As Lindír walked into the cave, he spent as long as possible looking back at the open air, or to the illuminated portions of the wall on either side. But eventually he was forced to look ahead.
Total blackness lay before him, the abyss where the sun had not shone since the dawn of time. It seemed nearly solid, reaching out to take hold of him. He had not seen darkness like it since the day that he left the Red Citadel. Every flicker of the golden candle-flame formed tendrils of shadow reaching out to him, calling to him, attempting to pull him back in and lock him beneath the earth forever. He attempted to step forward, but his limbs refused his order, every muscle locked in place.
Lindír remembered some of Ámnistr’s songs, and how the hero would always have to face his greatest fear in order to reach the conclusion of his quest. The darkness was his fear. But greatness lay on the other side of it, and he would have to find a way to bridge that gap if he wanted to find his greatness.
There was a figure, cloaked and silent, standing at Lindír’s side, all but invisible in the shadowy dark. By the gleam of candle-flame in her dark eyes he knew her to be Storm-hair. “You said a god might be watching me. Do you think they watch me in support or in hatred?”
“I think they watch you in interest, Lindír Heimirsson.”
The voice which spoke did not belong to Storm-hair. Lindír started, turning suddenly to look more closely at the stranger. They bore the garb of one of the ascetics, and indeed he recognized their androgynous countenance, but never had they and Lindír spoken to one another directly in the whole of the duration of the journey. Lindír very nearly made the mistake of assuming this was a simple error, until a question arose in the back of his mind.
“How did you know that your leader and I had spoken of such things? We were away from the others at the time.”
Immediately, before the stranger at Lindír’s side could react, Storm-hair spoke up from behind them. “I mentioned it briefly to the others,” she said. “You must have been away when I did.”
Lindír turned about to face Storm-hair, partially to apologize for the confusion and partially to ask for her support. But as he did, for the briefest moment, he made contact with her umbral eyes. The reason he had mistaken the other one for being Storm-hair was that he had seen those eyes, reflecting light in the dark. He quickly looked back to confirm. Indeed, the other druid possessed the very same eyes as she did.
Something was wrong. Lindír strangled his words in his throat and focused with greater intensity upon the druids than he had since the moment he’d met them. He peered into the darkness, mind straining to understand the evidence of his senses as he turned his gaze slowly from one grey-cloaked figure to the next. They stood as still as statues as he watched them, seemingly confused by his sudden change in demeanor. And that made it all the easier to confirm the horrifying suspicion that had arisen.
Sometimes when Ámnistir had reflected on his past, Lindír would see a strange cast come over his eyes, though only a glimmer of it. He recognized it as age, the unique quality of one who had been alive for two centuries or more. Each and every one of the druids had the same eyes, identical in their utter darkness; and those identical eyes were drowning in the ancient. The longer he looked into them, the more Lindír became convinced that he was looking into something nearly as old as the cave behind him, something utterly primordial. But they were humans; how could they be so utterly old and so utterly alike?
Remembrance. A word spoken in hushed tones around a campfire so many months ago. Soulless husks that imitated men, but driven by a far older and far greater intellect. Lindír’s throat felt very dry, and he struggled even to pronounce the dread word.
“Homunculi,” he said. “You’re all homunculi.”
The expression on Storm-hair’s face soured slightly, though it was neutral enough to be mistaken for pity. “Lindír Heimirsson? What’s the matter? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was caught between the homunculi before him and the darkness behind, and so Lindír had no choice but to fight. His back arched, his head went low to the ground, his legs splayed out in all four directions and his wings flared half-open. “Don’t lie to me,” Lindír said. “I know what you are!”
He remembered the way that they all moved in unison, every emotion echoed with equal strength by every member of the group. It could not have been rehearsed, for even trained actors could not have been so perfect in their performance; but a group of marionettes all suspended from the same bar? And they had eaten so much less than would have been necessary for a group of human travelers, and spoken so little to one another that they must have had nothing to say at all. Had they truly been roused by night terrors, or were their nocturnal movements the fluttering of the mind behind them?
“Please don’t fret,” Storm-hair said again. “I’m sure whatever is causing this outburst is something we can resolve with words. We need your help.” Her confusion, her desperation, both were written plainly upon her face. Too plainly, as though drawn on with a compass and straightedge.
All at once the voices of the other druids rose up in chorus.
“What’s gotten hold of you?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Don’t turn on us like this!”
The cave behind him was not a shortcut to some distant temple, that much was clear. The homunculi were going to lead him down into the dark, into the realm of the Under-Queen of which they were representative, and once there… No being who could say what took place there had ever returned to tell of it. At any moment he feared that they would swarm him, chain him, drag him off. And then he felt a hand on his leg.
One druid, the one whom Lindír had mistaken for Storm-hair—though if he was correct, then it was not a mistake at all—had slowly approached him from the side. They had extended a hand, murmuring something that was meant to be reassuring, and gently ran their fingers down the scales on Lindír’s upper thigh.
Lindír’s tail moved reflexively, the same way a cow, feeling a gnat alight upon its flank, twitches without thinking. The reflexive movement struck the druid full on the body and sent them flying into the stone wall of the cave. There they shattered, body ruptured, oozing red and grey fluids into their cloak. Were Lindír a physician he might have noticed that the organs which now lay bare within that ruined corpse were not those of a human. But Lindír was no physician; instead, what he noted immediately was the reaction of the rest of the group to the death of their fallen comrade.
Which was to say, no reaction at all. The moment that the body struck the wall, all trace of emotion fell from the faces of those who still lived, leaving their faces as blank masks. Lindír took a step forward, preparing to fight, or else to charge through them if the need arose.
“You can still come with me,” Storm-hair said. Although still produced with the same vocal cords, possessing the same timbre as the kind druid, it was not the same voice. This one was sharp and cruel, slow and measured, every syllable produced with the precision of vast experience. As she spoke, others spoke as well, voices fading in and out as they mumbled along with her.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I can offer you everything you would ever want,” said the Under-Queen. “You will be loved, and cared for, and fed. You will be my cherished one, my right hand, the leader of my armies and the sole object of my eye.”
“I don’t want to be your pet,” Lindír said. “You will not chain me in the underworld merely by offering to give me a soft bed.”
“Pet!” said the Under-Queen, and now she spoke with many mouths at once. “You would not be my pet!” Then back to only one, a deeper voice. “Lindír, is it glory you seek? I will give you glory. You will lead vast armies of homunculi, hosts of draugr and trolls, legions of giants and hellira.”
The homunculi slowly advanced, fanning out as they did. They made no move to attack, and indeed none of them bore weapons, but merely reached out at Lindír in gestures of placation. He responded with violence. The one who had spoken he struck first, lunging forward and sinking his teeth into the flesh. It tasted bitter and soapy, so he only bit down hard enough to crush the ribcage before spitting it back out. Without even an instant’s break, the Under-Queen’s diatribe continued from another mouth.
“Is that not what you seek? I will love you as you were meant to be loved, glorify you as you were meant to be glorified. I will show you the world through my eyes and—”
Lindír crushed that one underfoot. He was in the fullness of his fury now, every limb thrashing and tearing and breaking whatever he could reach, dashing the homunculi against the walls and tearing them asunder as they did not resist. They had tricked him, deceived him, plied him with tales of glory and very nearly dragged him underground once more.
“—give you all that I have to give. Let me show you! Let me see you with my own eyes. The surface world will not treat you any better than my domain.”
Lindír roared, and the roar reverberated off of the cave walls until it seemed that they would collapse. “But it would be your domain,” he said. “Up here, at least, I live in no domain but my own.”
By then, all of the homunculi had fallen. A few others still lived, though maimed, and stared at Lindír with their black-pit eyes. It was one of those, leaned against the cavern wall, who the Under-Queen next spoke through. The expression on the homunculus that Lindír had called Storm-hair turned to fury as her appearance melted away, the copper skin and mass of black hair replaced by the pale, bald creature that he had seen watching him in Brautarnir so long ago. Then it spoke.
“Lindír Guthrúndottir, you who will be kinslayer, you who will be adulterer, you who will be sibling and conspirator with draugr! Hear me well! You have made a great mistake today, and so know this: one day you will lay prostrate before me in the heart of my domain. And no matter how far you fly, how long you look, you will never find the freedom that you seek.”
It was no ordinary speech. Though quiet, the words possessed leaden weight, as though they were being carved into the very air with a chisel as they were being spoken. Lindír knew without knowing that these words were important. Words of truth, words of prediction, words of magic. Lindír was frozen in place, unable to move, unable even to turn his ears away from the words until the Under-Queen at last fell silent. The moment she did, Lindír charged, smashing the homunculus’s skull into a pulp against the stone wall.
But it mattered not, for as he did, the standing homunculi collapsed as well. The will of their maker, the animating impetus that had filled them, fled from their bodies. Lindír was alone in the cave.
He did not remain for long. Realizing the magnitude of his error, he dashed from the cave mouth and sprang into the air, flying with all of his might for Brautarnir. In the day and a half since leaving that place, the homunculi had crossed nearly three score of meadows, normally a short jaunt by air. But there was a strong wind blowing from the south, and Lindír was slightly lost in the unfamiliar environs, and so he did not reach the town until sunset.
He landed in the town square, bellowing Ámnistr’s name, bellowing that he was sorry and that he had been a fool. There were few townsfolk still about, and they informed him of the truth. Lindír and the homunculi had scarcely left the town when the Drum, in a sullen mood, gathered his things and set off at a brisk pace in the opposite direction.
So Lindír took to the skies once more. He beat his wings against the windy night air, frantic to the point of frenzy, working himself into exhaustion that he might find Ámnistr before it was too late. He followed the hill-country trails, wishing that he remembered the lay of the nearest towns where the Drum might have gone. Once he found Ámnistr, he would be able to make it all right, that he knew. The old giant was nothing if not forgiving, and though their last words to one another had been cruel, Lindír would do whatever it took to obtain forgiveness.
Lindír did not find another town until dawn. He did not so much land as he did narrowly avoid crashing, his wing-muscles sore and stiff with exhaustion. A cluster of farmers working in their gardens quickly arrived, gawking at the dragon and wondering whether to summon the militia.
He asked them if they had seen a giant troubadour passing through. To a man, they answered that they had seen no such giant, not since his last visit some years before.
Lindír’s eyes had been firm on the ground for the entirety of his flight; he could not have passed Ámnistr without knowing it. But if the giant were still ahead of him, then the people of this town would have at least seen him come through. It wasn’t as though they would fail to notice. There was only one explanation, then: he had gone the wrong way, and Ámnistr was already far afield. Lindír’s wings were exhausted from hours of continuous flight, and the fight against the constant autumnal winds made his lungs burn with exhaustion. There would be no more running.
Which meant that Ámnistr was lost to him forever. Lindír’s own foolishness had cost him the one man to ever truly take Lindír under his wing. No. He had been tricked. The homunculi, the minions of the Under-Queen had stolen Ámnistr from him. And he had been selfish enough to let them do it. He would be alone once more. He remembered aloneness and despised it, hated the future of listless wandering that stretched out before him, but could think of no remedy for it.
A great heat arose in Lindír’s stomach. He had to tell himself that the world had robbed him of his mentor, or else the guilt would become too great to bear; and so he grew furious at the thieving world. How dare the Under-Queen have tricked a dragon out of his closest friend? How dare Ámnistr have forsaken him so easily? How dare? How dare it all?
Lindír opened his jaw and let the embers trickle forth. With eyes that glowed from within with flames of hate, he looked upon the peasants who dared to gather before him, and the fields beyond them with their herds of cattle and sheep, and the buildings of the town beyond them. For the first time in his life, Lindír felt the thing he had been told was his birthright; the clarion call of ruin. And ruin sounded so very sweet.
End of Act Two
Oh wow I'm early. And dang, what an unfortunate turn of events.