Chapter 8: The Queen of the Cosmos

Darkness descended upon my vision as we drew near to Skogtårn-i-Sør. I found the blindness unsettling, but Riodhr assured me that I had lost nothing: I was merely unaccustomed to dealing with hostile darkness like that of Jormundgandson, whose domain we now approached. I asked if this was why Unn had been unable to connect with the living things of the village, and Riodhr confirmed the connection.

Riodhr had also indicated the darkness could be pushed back, with effort and intention. I began to focus on the light: the now-waxing moon, the glow of my Heart’s Compass, and all sources of light that attracted me. Slowly, my inner sight began to return: indistinct and incomplete at first, but recognizable, and with brief moments of absolute clarity.

It was a vision of my parents that finally parted the clouds.

A second scene followed close upon this, while I was still overwhelmed with emotion and before I could block it out: my parents, arguing bitterly.

My father was insisting that he - they - should go out after us, beyond the wall. Should try to bring us back.

My mother merely looked at him with a strange mixture of rage and sorrow, and between gasping sobs she told him what they both believed: “It’s too late for them, Knut.” Her eyes said she blamed him for our disappearance; his stooped shoulders and hollow eyes said he agreed with the indictment. I could barely stand to see how my powerful papa had withered from within.

“It was my job to protect them,” he said, “and I failed...”

A second vision followed quickly on the first, almost before I could gather my defenses against it. I saw my father standing amongst the villagers, his shoulders still bowed and his head hung in disgrace as the signet and robe of a village elder were stripped from him while the Village Chief explained his shame to the assembled crowd: to have lost not one but two daughters to the Outside World ... to the Skogkatts ... this was a sure sign of his unfitness to lead in the village:

“If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of Freya’s people?!”

The vision faded and left me drained in a way I had never imagined I could be tired.

Helpless to dispel my parents’ sorry, I raged against the knowledge of it instead: “Let me die know, Riodhr, if this is what my vision gives me!”

I did not feel guilt - that had been alchemized out of me at Hathor’s temple by my sister’s forgiving touch - but the unadulterated sorrow struck a crippling pain through me, so I could not imagine ever moving again. Even drawing a breath was a sharp pain I wished to avoid.

“Focus on that which you wish to heal,” Riodhr advised, and so I did ... one breath at a time.

By morning, I was able to stand, don my armor and ride to the southern perimeter of the Skogtårn-i-Sør wall.

Once again, the arrival at this wall seemed anticlimactic by comparison to all that led up to it. Both the Market and Labyrinth gates were located in the north perimeter, accessible only to the people of the Folkvangr, so there was nowhere I could seek entry to the town from this position. Nor did I imagine I would be granted access to the town, even if I were able to reach one of the gates. Instead, I decided to do the only thing that had ever worked for me when I didn’t know what else I could possibly do: I sat quietly and waited for whatever “teachers” might show up. It took until nightfall for them to arrive, but I was not disappointed when they did.

High above Skogtårn-i-Sør, a full moon was bright in the sky; I smiled to recognize Hathor’s form in the constellations and moonbeams above me, and a particularly bright one directed my eye to a place where it picked out a rune hidden in the texture of the wall. “Touch me,” I read aloud, and placed my hand up on the stone. I felt a slight buzzing when I first touched the wall, then silence. Walking along the wall, I continued to trail my hand searching for any sign of response from the stones, but everywhere the silence was as dark as a the first. It struck me that the silence was almost too complete ... that even in repose, the stones should not be so completely dark and devoid of life, and I tried to look into the stones beyond the dark curtain. This new pressure brought forth a quick response ... but not from the stones.

Beneath my feet, a dark smoke began to curl and coil, arising from beneath the foundation of the wall; I fell back from my position, and at Riodhr’s urging, remounted on his back. The smoke began to coalesce quickly into a writhing serpentine body large enough to encircle the entire wall, and a flat, broad serpent’s head began flicking a dark tongue out in search of my heat.

“Who dares disturb my watch?” hissed Jormundgandson. “Who dares speak to the stones of my wall? No Southerner may pass my wall!” he hissed.

“And I am no Southerner,” I declared; surprised by my own boldness, yet compelled to continue, I added, “I am Astrid of Skogtårn-i-Sør, daughter of this city, and Lady of the Labyrinth. I command you now to open the Pilgrimage Road!”

I sensed Jormundgandson’s assessment as he probed me for any hint of deception. At last he admitted: “So you are, Astrid of Skogtårn-i-Sør. And so you may have ... passage for yourself alone ... as a daughter of the city. But you cannot command me against the charge of the Elders, little girl alone. Who are you to undo what they have commanded?”

“I may be alone, but do not mistake me for a girl. I am a shield maiden of Freya,” I challenged him, “And in Freya’s name I command you to give me the road, and release the stones of Skogtårn-i-Sør to me.”

At this, Jormundgandson began to writhe with rage, and I felt his grip break from over the stones, which had been listening to me all along. Now they broke out in joyous response: “We hear you, we hear you!” they said, “Now show us where you want us to go!” Before my eyes, the entire wall began to glow, and the stones began to lift away from one another with centuries of pent up energy.

Before I could command them, however, a new threat from Jormundgandson drew my attention away. Even diminished as he was, Jormundgandson was a formidable foe, and struck at me repeatedly. I defended myself with my sword, and Riodhr moved quickly to evade the vicious attacks. Again and again he missed, and even I was astonished.

“Freya protects you well,” he acknowledged, and withdrew when he saw he could not touch me this way. “So have your road and have our stones ... but you shall have no pilgrims along the South Road, oh Astrid of Skogtårn-i-Sør, unless you are Hathor’s champion as well!” And with that, he abandoned the solid snake form with which he tried to attack me, and with breathtaking speed a dark vapor sped upward to swallow the crown of Hathor herself: in an instant, the full moon’s light was blotted from the sky.

Without her crown, Hathor’s power would be weakened, leaving her lands and peoples vulnerable in the south, weakening the link from Hathor’s Temple to Sessrumnir ... leaving my beloved sister Brenna at risk.

“You mistake me once again, o Wise One,” I mocked him, “For I come from Hathor’s court as well. Hathor, I call on you now in the name of Brenna of Skogtårn-i-Sør: come forth and defend your own! Reclaim your crown from the Jormundgandson, the pretender and the usurper of your crown.” I cast down the bracelet from my shield arm, and instantly a golden serpent sprang to life; as quickly as Jormundgandson had swallowed the moon, so quickly did Hathor’s golden serpent take him by the tail and swallow him whole, forcing him to release Hathor’s crown as she constricted herself around his darkness.

As the last bit of his darkness disappeared, I was surprised to see a white heifer also popped out; she, however, seemed to take it all in stride, and walked calmly down some invisible hillside to continue her interrupted dinner of grass from the lush green common at the heart of the town.

Two great figures now approached the town, each one at least fifty feet tall: Hathor from the south, and Freya from the north. Falling into a trance, the goddesses spoke as if with one voice to the dark serpent trapped and suspended between them in midair: