Milleniums of Jorth
by Adam Manning
Chapter 2
The Rainbow's Watcher
The life had left Bragi’s legs. His chest tightened
painfully with every gasp of breath and finally he stopped, unable to run any
further. His pursuer was only a few dozen yards behind and seemingly as fresh
as when they had both begun their flight through the thick vegetation of this
island, so far from their home in Greenland.
The young man turned, terrified yet resigned, to face his brother.
Leif was a
naked creature of the forest. His skin, daubed in the blue dye that was
normally applied by berserkers before combat, had been dirtied by his journey
through the trees, giving him the appearance of some wild devil. Fearing for his life, Bragi saw a strange,
animal quality had even influenced the way his brother moved. Leif squatted on
a fallen tree trunk on all fours like a hunting lynx, then leap to the ground
and run up to Bragi. They stood facing one another and Bragi could hear Leif
softly growing to himself. How quick had been the transformation, Bragi
thought, like a spell or bewitchment cast upon the man. Only a few days before
Leif, had like the others aboard the Surfrider, talked of his joy in
finding the new faith. Yet now here he was, slavering and drooling as if his
soul had been possessed by that of a rabid wolf.
They stood
silently for long second, Bragi at last speaking in a low sob.
“Don’t kill me brother, I am with
you. Please, don’t kill me”. Leif opened his crossed arms.
“It is not
I who does this, Bragi Ericcson. It is the bidding of Odin so that I may cross
the Rainbow Bridge that leads to the realm of the immortals. And none may defy
the All-father.” He stepped forward, arms out-stretched.
“No,
please”, Bragi implored. It was already too late. He felt the pressure of the
fingertips around his throat. A terrible scream tore the air, sending flights
of colourful birds soaring up beyond the green canopy and soon life flowed
through only one of the brothers.
* * *
Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge of the gods, had been easy to
find in the darkness of the army of trees that populated the island. At the bottom of the hillock where they had
observed the white glow, Bragi and Leif had looked up, having to shade their
eyes due to the dazzling brightness of the light’s source.
“Can you
seen around the base of the light, those tall stones in an arc?”, Leif asked
his brother.
“Yes. The
light is so painful though”, answered Bragi. The other norsemen began to join
them at the bottom fo the rise.
“Only by
going up are we ever going to know what sort of miracle we have found here”,
Leif shouted. A curious ringing noise,
like two blades striking each other in battle, had slowly grown in strength
until it was almost unbearable, like the light shining from the Rainbow
Bridge. Leif put one booted foot in
front of the other but a large hand on his arm stayed his progress.
Leif turned
and saw that it was Kalf who was trying to slow him down. “Wait, Captain. We
are mortal men and this, this is the working of the gods. How can we know what is the right thing to
do? The old tales say one false turn can lead to a man’s doom.”
With
restraint, Leif answered him. “Your words betray you, Kalf Kristainsson. Your devotion to the Krist is well known
among us. Calling on the Aesir, the gods, as you have has all the truth of a
bow made from a bundle of reeds. Odin the All-father now calls me to seek
Bifrost. I will heed his call.”
Kalf
retorted quickly. “Your piety brought none to question you either Captain
Ericcson until this very day. But now you expect us to believe this miracle is
a gift from those old gods that have long been thrown down by their followers?
Even this morning you yourself sang the Lord’s praises!” He looked at the
others to see if any supported his probing of their Captain’s true intentions.
“Be quiet
Kristiansson, lest I forget your obedient labour at the rudder and the kindness
your father showed mine in years gone by. No more of this talk. I want to look
fully upon Bifrost for myself. We shall make of what gods we meet when they
show themselves. Onward Bragi!”
They half
strode, half clambered up the hillock’s side. With every step the light grew
brighter. With every handhold on a rock to steady themselves, the ringing grew
louder. With a dozen such steps, the flat top of the hillock was but a hand’s
grasp away.
Leif
reached out impatient fingers to sink greedily into the hillock’s top and
pulled his head up to view what lay beyond. His eyes had grown somewhat
accustomed to the brilliance but he still had to squint to make anything out.
The centre of his view was dominated by the source of the Rainbow Bridge. Where
it struck the ground, it was the source of this blinding light. Unspeaking, the
brothers pulled themselves up and over onto the hillock’s level top. With a deep breath Leif stood, blinking in
the harsh brightness, drinking in the knowledge that he had now reached his
goal. In al it seemed a dozen or so rough man-sized stones guarded the source
of the Rainbow and with eyes narrowed to mere slits he could discern a larger,
horizontal stone lying at the juncture of light and earth. The two fingers quietly stepped forward,
though little thought guided their feet, and as they did so the other crewmen
joined them.
Leif,
followed by Bragi, knelt in front of this vision. “Surely at long last
All-father you show yourself to us in all your glory. No longer can we cast you
aside. We throw ourselves on your mercy and ask you to show us how to serve
you.” Of the others, almost all copied their actions bar Kalf and Ivar. Some
began chanting pagan praises to the old gods that they had heard during their
childhoods.
Their ears
had grown used to the ringing but still did not detect the footfalls as someone
approached them across the rise.
Transfixed like the others, Bjorn stood at the back of the group in mute
awe of their discovery. Fingers pressed down on his right shoulder and he cried
out, his shock all the more due to the overwhelming hold the sight of the
Rainbow Bridge had over him. He took a
step forward and then turned, at the same time unsheathing his sword from its
scabbard.
“Demon of
Hell”, he shouted, with a tremour. Now he looked closer, he saw a man in some
bizarre costume. The first thing he saw was a large headdress made from long
white feathers, the ends of which were either red or black. His face was
wrinkled and weather-beaten. An old man then, who had lived a life exposed to
the elements. His skin was darker than a Norseman’s and his eyes too brown. His
clothing looked to be of leather, as was much of theirs, but it was bleached in
some way and Bifrost’s glow made in shine like a white metal. In one hand he held a crude spear with
feathers decorating the shaft. In the other he held a sizeable conch shell. A
look of fear creased his already pleated features.
With a
strangulated cry, the old man spoke in some unknown and entirely alien
tongue. He repeated his words several
times and paced around Bjorn till he was in between the men and the
Bridge. At the end of each repetition,
he jutted the spear at them accusingly.
He cried
out more words, higher and more strident, raising his spear aloft
triumphantly.
“Who are
you, old one?” Leif asked. Behind him,
Svein too drew his sword and muttered something about dark elves that cursed
any who crossed them.
Leif asked
him again. This time the old man put the pointed end of his shell to his ear
and turned the open end to the Norsemen. Once more Leif questioned him but
thought it seemed the stranger heard him this time, he gave no reply they could
understand. Instead, he turned and
approached the Bridge, holding his arms aloft as if in worship to his god.
Leif turned
to address his men. As the old man
approached the Rainbow, the ringing noise grew less intense. The men crowded
around their commander.
“It’s clear
to me this old one is the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. He protects its end
here in Midgard. If we’re going to get over it, we have to deal with him.”
“So Leif”,
Ivar answered, “you expect us to believe that this native is the bright god
Heimdall. Is that it? The skins he wears, you think that is the snow-white
armour the watchman of the gods?”
“Silence,
cur, for that is Heimdall. Look, he bears the Giallar-horn, the trumpet
with which he sounds the passage of the gods from earth to heaven”, Leif
angrily replied.
“But what
about the sword he’s supposed to have. That spear is just a whittled branch.”
“Do not
belittle the guardian of the Rainbow. That is the horn that will signal the
beginning of Ragnarok, the battle at the end of the world. Look at Bifrost.
What colours do you see? The first are the red of fire, the blue of air and the
green of the sea, just as legend says. Does anyone doubt this is the work of
the gods?” Leif looked around at his men as he asked.
“I stand
with my brother”, Kalf stated. Kalf and Ivar were not related and his mention
of kinship referred to their faith.
“Then so be
it”, Leif said. He turned back to scan the activities of the stranger.
“This
Heimdall has the same look and features as the people we found living in
Greenland when we first arrived in our longships”, Kalf continued. This brought nods and murmurs of assent from
some of the crew.
“These are
the doubts of lesser minds, of men with narrow souls who cannot grasp the truth
when it shown to them”, Leif stated. “I
am the Captain here and we must seek the answers. I will question Heimdall once
more. Bragi, with me.” The two strode inside the circle of standing stones and
made their way to the old man. The light was blinding and they covered their
eyes, looking through the cracks between their fingers.
As they
walked forward, the white-garbed stranger stood, turned and then hobbled
towards them as fast as his old legs would still move. Some three yards or so in front of them and
held his spear out horizontally, as if to bar their further progress. The look
on his face confirmed this intent.
“Heimdall,
Guardian of Bifrost and Lord of Himinbiorg, your palace, we wish to
travel across this Rainbow Bridge to Asgard. Tell us what service you require
for us to earn this, the greatest of honours. We know no mortal man has made
this journey before but we swear to you our loyalty and obedience.” Leif would
have made a good preacher, Bragi found himself thinking despite the enormity of
what was going on around him. Almost as
soon as Leif had started to speak, the old man had put the shell to his ear
once more, with a quizzical look on his face.
The man
creaked out more in his babbling tongue but stood firm. As he talked, Leif’s
eye caught some movement in a tree off to the left in the forest below.
Straining his eyesight, he made out a large black-feathered bird sat on a
branch, pointedly looking up at him.
The All-father, Odin, had often disguised himself as a raven. What
should he make of all this, he wondered, his thoughts spinning. When the old
man had finished, they both bowed reverentially and returned to the others.
“The
Watchman has confirmed himself to me, for as it is said in the legends of old,
Heimdall would never let mortal men traverse the Rainbow Bridge”, he explained.
Bragi looked down, unsure of how to react.
“It is just
some old heathen priest”, Kalf shouted from the back, “and this place is some
strange natural thing, maybe like a waterfall but made of sunlight.”
Now go onto read Chapter Three!
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