The Blade

Chapter 13

It all began—as so many of these tales do—with sex.  Olifat, son of Lugeilan, loved nothing more than to seduce the daughters of the other gods.  A diverse and generally cantankerous lot, the other gods, while unable to agree on pretty much anything else, were united in their feelings about this.  Not to put too fine a point on it, it really pissed them off.  So, after one seduction too many, Olifat found himself banished, cast down to the mortal realm on a lightning bolt.  Specifically, down to Volanda.

Unfazed, Olifat picked himself up, brushed the worst of the scorch-marks off his robes, and decided to make the best of his banishment.  Initially, he had a lovely time, godding it up, performing miracles and just generally being a really swell deity—the kind he imagined mortal ladies would be seriously into.  Easily bored, he also set about making his new home into a more interesting place; among a host of other innovations, he introduced tattooing to Volanda, gave sharks their teeth and endowed scorpions with their sting.  When a few killjoys pointed out that these last two inventions were not really very useful and were in fact actually kind of dangerous, Olifat simply smiled, smote them heartily, and whenever possible, slept with their wives.

This might have gone on for...well, forever (gods being annoyingly immortal), if not for a particular young woman.  Already radiant as a child, Kira Qo's beauty grew with her, and by the time she reached womanhood, tales of her exquisite allure had spread far across the land.  Eventually, inevitably, these tales reached the ears of Olifat, and the lusty god, ever unsated,  turned his attention to the innocent, lovely young woman.

Only to find his ambitions thwarted.  Gifted with the intellect and will to match her beauty, Kira was no blushing flower, and was not about to have her head turned or her virtue claimed by the first amorous, amoral immortal to arrive on the scene.  Swarmed with suitors, she insisted that if Olifat wished to prove his worth to her, he must take his place among them.

The god's first inclination was to simply smite his competition, leaving the field open to him alone.  But despite his best efforts to resist, Olifat's millennia of existence had imbued him with something approximating a degree of wisdom, and deep in his immortal bones, he sensed that this approach would not appease Kira.

Instead, he engaged upon feats of great strength, hurling boulders from one mountaintop to another and felling mighty trees with his fists.  Kira smiled politely and continued with her daily chores.  When a storm rolled down from the hills, Olifat displayed his phenomenal speed and agility, catching every raindrop in his mouth, before they could strike the ground.  Kira shook her head sadly, as her garden wilted for lack of water.  When the wise elders met to discuss the affairs of the village, Olifat challenged them to stump him with riddles, answering every one without hesitation.  Kira simply yawned, and went to bed—alone.

Completely unaccustomed to failure or rejection, Olifat found himself surprised by his own response.  Rather than resorting to wanton and widespread smiting, or simply wandering off to find another conquest, he instead became ever more determined to win Kira's affections.

Weeks rolled into months, and still the young woman remained aloof.  Winter arrived, bringing bitter winds  and biting cold, and despite the villagers' best efforts to stay warm and safe, huddled in their dwellings, sickness inevitably stalked among them.  In due course it struck down Veles Vo, a quiet young man, unremarkable in most respects, other than that he had secretly won Kira's heart.  Desperate, unable to bear the thought of losing her one true love so soon after finding him, she turned to Olifat.

With the truth revealed, the god flew into a rage, bellowing his anger to the heavens and storming across the countryside, cleaving hills and flattening forests with the force of his fury.  But in time, his anger passed and he found he was left with a single sensation.  An unaccustomed feeling he had never experienced before.  In his mind's eye, all that he could see was Kira's tear-stained face, and in the aftermath of his anger, all that he could feel was sadness.  Spurned or no, he found that he could not bear the thought of her grief.

Vast and varied though the mischievous god's powers were, healing was not among them.  But, perched high on a mountainside, gazing down upon the village huddled in the snowbound valley below, he realised there was indeed something he could do.  Something incredibly dangerous, even for a god.  He would travel to the sun and bring back an ember.  In so doing, he would bring fire to Volanda, and provide the mortals with the means to master the cold.

Banished from the heavens, Olifat was forced to travel to the sun the long way around.  Having made his way to the summit of the very highest peak in Volanda, he summoned the largest roc in the land, riding it higher still.  Then, when the great bird's wings finally reached their limit, he threw himself with an enormous leap, from its back and onto a passing shooting star.  From this star, he leapt to another, and so, leaping from flaming rock to flaming rock, he eventually made his way to the sun.

Blinded by the light, baked by the heat, feeling his very essence melting away in the furious furnace of the fiery orb, Olifat plucked a single ember from its blazing surface.  Dizzy, dazzled and dazed, he fell back to earth, casting a fiery trail across the sky, before plummeting into the mountains, with a resounding boom that rolled over the frozen village far below.

In time, when he could determine which way was up and which parts of the rubble in which he lay were actually parts of him, he made his way down to the village.  Scorched, scarred and smoking, he presented the ember to the elders.  Fires blazed, the cold was held at bay and the villagers rejoiced, but of Kira, there was no sign.

Eventually, Olifat found her, keeping vigil beside the sickbed of Veles Vo—a sickbed that was now empty.  Fire had come too late to save the young man; stricken, Kira fell into the god's embrace.  Comfort was all she sought and comfort was all Olifat intended to give, but grieving over her loss, grateful for Olifat's selfless act, and grasping for an escape from the pain, her embrace soon became something more.

The union of mortal and god is not usually fruitful, and it remains a mystery as to why this occasion was to be an exception. Perhaps this particular god's uncharacteristic human emotions at the time—his altruism, his affection, his selflessness—played their role.  Whatever the reason, Kira's condition soon became clear, and Olifat, finding new untapped depths of responsibility deep inside himself, resolved to put aside his trickster ways, settle down in the village, and become a family man.  Or a family god, at any rate.

But even gods are not immune to the vagaries of fate, and Olifat's was about to twist.  His father, Lugeilan, had been keeping a watchful eye on his wayward son, and in light of his newfound responsibility, had convinced the godly pantheon to give the former trouble-maker another chance back in heaven.

Torn between his Volandan love and his desire to return to his ancestral home, Olifat found that his reserves of responsibility were perhaps not quite as deep as he had thought.  True love was one thing, but raising hell in heaven was something else entirely.  He knew that he could not resist his father's invitation.

But in returning to his old ways, he did discover another heretofore never experienced feeling—guilt.  Before leaving Volanda, in a valiant attempt to assuage this unfamiliar and unwelcome emotion, he granted his unborn child a gift.  A gift that would protect them from the multitudinous perils of mortal life.  A weapon, but not just any knife or club or bow.  This was a weapon he himself had wielded.  A weapon of godly power.

A sword known as the Blade.

Gazing at the embers glowing dully in the fireplace, George swallowed the last mouthful of his breakfast enchilada, wondering for a brief moment what Lob's cholesterol level must be.  He turned to his grandfather.  "Is all of that true?"

"True?  Who knows, Georgie?  It was all millennia ago.  Who knows where the line lies between reality and myth?  But we have the Blade, and here we are.  Anyway, that's only half the story.  I'll tell you the rest, once we're under way.  Time to get moving."