A/N I thought I would give one of these author notes a try. If you like the story, please leave a comment or vote. If not please leave a comment telling me why. My current schedule gives me a lot of free time so I will be posting 2 or 3 times a week. I hope you enjoy.
Brad was roused by the sound of voices. His head was pounding like a thousand drums and his body felt like every inch was on fire. The pain made it hard to focus on anything else but with effort he managed to turn the distorted sounds around him into words.
“He used one of the words?” The voice belonged to a man that Brad didn’t recognized. It was a deep voice that helped to focus him. “Which one was it?”
“Algiz,” Eir voice replied
“Well Gunnar always was a reckless one. We should just be happy he is alive.”
The pain was too much. Brad struggled to stay awake but soon his eyes lids won the battle of will and he was tossed from consciousness into dreams of demons and torture from fire. The eyeless demon stood over him hissing in laughter.
It had grown in size now towering over Brad like a blazing mountain of fury. It was playing with something Brad couldn’t see, whatever it was the monster was hurting it was getting great joy from its victims screams. With a talon like toe nail it cut into Brad’s chest causing his skin to become scorched.
Brad howled with pain. “Please stop, please!”
“Stop?” the demon asked. “Is that all it takes to break the great Gunnar? A little pain and you beg? Where is your pride? What happen to your fortitude?”
“I never had any, please stop. I’ll beg if that is what you want,” Brad pleaded
“You already have. What does a weakling like you have to offer?” the demon laughed and wisps of smoked came from its mouth.
“You can have my life. You can kill me just make the pain stop.”
“So you are so willing to give your life? How about the life of your wife instead?”
“My wife? I don’t have a wife.” Brads words were followed by more laughter from the demon.
“Is that so?” The demon crouched downward. Now that the demon was close Brad could finally see what it was it held. Or rather whom it was. It was Eir, she somehow looked older, bit more mature but it was her. The demon held one of her arms in each of its hands. Laughing he slowly pulled her arms apart. Brad could hear popping from her joints and her cries in his ears was the worse pain he had felt yet.
“No!” Brad screamed
“Or maybe she would enjoy being with someone that isn’t a complete coward.”
“No! No! No!”
“You’re wasting time. Wake up Gunnar.” Brad knew that voice. It wasn’t the demon.
“Odin? Odin, where are you?” Brad asked.
“I’m here,” Odin said.
There he stood every foot as tall as the demon. For the first time Brad saw him for what he was. His presence brightened the area and soothed Brad’s burns. Odin was real and the god stood at Brad’s side.
“Wake up Gunnar,” Odin repeated
“Watch me roost this hen,” the demon added in
The two spoke over each other, fighting for Brad’s attention. Odin was continuously calling Brad by the name Gunnar and telling him that he had to wake up. While the demon made sexual comments and gestures with Eir.
“No!” Brad screamed not sure at which of them it was directed at.
The two turned on each other and began to argue. As words turned to fists the two giants began to grow even larger. Grappling and punching they fought and the earth shook with their rage. Brad saw Eir lying on the ground.
The demon must have dropped her at some point. Any thought beside her got pushed aside. He had to help her. He had to save her. Slowly he stood up and made his way over to her. Each step brought him great suffering but he moved onward anyways. He would help her, he would save her.
“Eir, you okay? Please be okay,” Brad said
Eir stood up and brushed herself off. “Of course I’m okay. You are a silly one my heart. This is only a dream. You can’t get hurt in a dream.”
“A dream?”
“Of course it’s a dream. See look there.” Eir pointed up towards Odin and the demon. Their mass arms were now flexing and the seemed to be in a contest for the perfect pose. “Now wake up Gunnar.”
Brad awoke to see Eir. Not the more mature Eir from his dream but the real on he met yesterday. He knew it was too early to have such feeling for her but he couldn’t help it. He drew her in and hugged her tightly as silent tears of relief rolled down his checks.
“Are you okay?” he asked
“Me? You were the one in a freaking coma dummy.” To Brad’s surprise Eir hugged him back.
“I was in a coma? For how long?” Brad asked
“Almost thirteen hours. Fine it wasn’t a coma, but you scared me.”
“What was that thing?”
“Oh, you remember that do you?” Eir said breaking away from the hug. “That’s hard to explain. I was kind of hoping you would forget.”
Eir dodged the question by crossing the room and making herself busy putting clothes away into the closet. His closet; for the first time Brad realized that he was in his room.
“What are you doing?” he asked
“Putting my clothes away.”
“Okay, why?”
“You just keep getting stranger. Isn’t Obvious? If I’m going to stay here I need clothes.”
“You can’t stay here!” Brad yelled in shock
“Why not?” Eir voice remained calm. As if she was talking about passing clouds or a TV show she saw and not moving in with a boy she just met.
“Well we will get in trouble.”
“By who? Who comes down here besides the maids? The maids themselves aren’t problem. If any of them say anything a small bribe will buy their silence.
“Look I think you’re great and all, but you can’t move in with me. I hardly know you. And you still haven’t told me what that thing that attacked you was.” If Brad was honest with himself the idea of her staying did appeal to him, but he just wasn’t ready for such a commitment.
“I can’t tell you. It isn’t my place. But I am staying.”
“No you’re not,” Brad retorted
“Yes I am. Just try to stop me.”
Brad tried to argue but Eir was has dense as a rock. After an hour he gave up and settled for not speaking to her. Maybe in the morning he could find another empty room and move without her knowing.
Brad was further astonished by Eir’s audacity as she climbed into bed with him. He immediately jumped from the bed.
“What are doing?” he asked
“Some of us didn’t sleep all day. I’m tired and going to bed.”
“In my bed?” Brad exclaimed
“Do you see another here?” Eir flashed Brad a brilliant smile that was half playful and half way a challenge.
“Fine, I’ll sleep on the floor.” Brad said lying down.
“Don’t be such a silly prude. It’s just a bed.” But Eir made no attempt to stop him.
Brad’s alarm went off at four-thirty. He was amazed to find that there was no pain left in his body. In the bathroom mirror he noted that his hands and arms were barely pink. No worse than a slight sunburn. Nothing compared to the horrors of his dream.
After a shower and a change of clothes Brad headed outside. It was his first day of work and school and he wanted to make a good impression. So he slipped out of the room as noiseless he could so he didn’t wake a sleeping Eir.
A few of the maids were already gathered chatting amongst their selves and not one acknowledged his existence. Cateline Jackson cleared her throat and the surrounding maids went quiet. She gave a speech about making sure the students were happy and going the extra mile in their duties. Followed with the work schedule and assigning maids into groups and sending them to their buildings. As the maids hurried off to their work Brad approached Cateline meekly.
“Ms. Jackson?”
“What?” She didn’t even bother to look up from her stack of papers.
“I was told to report to you?”
“I don’t have use for boy. Boys don’t know how to clean. They only make things dirty. Go see Danny instead.”
“Who?” Brad asked
“Danny, he has a shack behind the building. If he isn’t there check by the wharf.” If her tone wasn’t clear enough to tell Brad the conversation was over she made it evident by walking off leaving him staring blankly after her.
Brad tried the shack first since it was the closest. He knocked on the door again to no response. He knocked again, this time he could hear movement inside but the door didn’t open.
“Um, Danny are you there? Ms. Jackson told me to come to you.” Brad said
The door cracked then was swung open. The man on the other side pulled Brad inward. He grasped Brads face twisting it in his hands inspecting it for reasons Brad wasn’t sure of.
“You healed nicely,” Danny said. “Yes, very nicely.”
“Let go of me,” Brad said yanking Danny’s hands from his face.
“Easy Gunnar. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“What did you call me?” There it was again. That name Odin kept calling him in his dreams. Now that he thought about it he heard Eir call him that as well before he passed out. Then there was the man talking to Eir in his room.
“Gunnar. That after all is your name.” Danny said
“My name is Brad. Don’t you think I would know my own name?”
“You should yes. But you don’t and that is why you are here. We need you to remember who you really are. Ragnarök nears there isn’t much time.”
“Even if I believed you how am I supposed to remember?” Brad asked
“You will remember by doing. We will train your Viking skills and hope that it triggers your memory. I admit it isn’t the best plan but it is all we have as of now.”
“I’m going to pass. I have a chance of a lifetime here and I can blow it by playing at warrior with you in a shack.” Brad turned for the door but was stopped by Danny’s hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll make these easy for you then. You want to be at this school? Well as I understand it that requires you work for the school. Since Cateline placed you into my care and your second shift is with me. Well it would be a shame if the school president heard your duties.”
Brad didn’t have a choice. Rosey was a once in a lifetime chance for a kid like him. Danny had won and he knew it. The only thing Brad could do was give in.
“Fine when do we start?” Brad asked
“Now,” Danny said. “Let’s see. I guess we should start with runes since you are likely to kill yourself and everyone around you if you keep using them without really knowing how.
Danny dug through a chest at the foot of his bed. Throwing clothes, books and other items, letting them lay where the landed. Before retrieving a stone slab from the bottom.
“The very first thing you need to know is that words are power. They shape reality and make things real. Have you ever wished for something out loud or told a friend what you wanted and you got it?”
“Yea, I guess,” Brad said. “But that was just coincidence.”
“No it wasn’t. It was the power behind your words. The problem is consequences that come with it. You may get what you wanted but at great cost to someone else. That is Odin reached into the nothingness to give us the runes. Runes hold the absolute power of words. Once you completely understand every aspect of a rune you can control the elements to it.”
Danny handed the stone slab to Brad. Twenty-four pictures were carved into it. Each made of straight lines but arranged different so each picture was different. Instantly Brad knew one of them. He saw almost every day of his life. It was the same picture carved on the rock his parents had left him with