Read Mythworld: Invisible Moon Online
Authors: James A. Owen
Mythworld: Invisible Moon (16 page)
“Shut up, you stupid warg,” said Herald. “You’re going to be dead in a few minutes, anyway.”
Shingo strained to lift his head and continued speaking. “When Hagen finds the heart, it will not be long before you join me.”
“The heart?” Meredith asked. “You mean the treasure—the Nibelung treasure. Gold.”
Shingo chuckled, bloody spittle scattering across his chest. “This is the folly of history—that truth is lost amid story and myth, and this is mankind’s error. Not all myths are merely stories; some of them are true.” He coughed again, chest rattling. Meredith held him up as best she could—by then, he outweighed her by several hundred pounds. “Your poets and musicians—they caught on to something that everyone else seems to have missed; but most of the time people missed things because they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.”
“I’ll agree with you there,” said Herald. “Too much history is obscured by metaphor as it is—but when that which remains true to the source is overwritten, like with the palimpsest in the Prime Edda, then precious and vital links to the past are lost.”
“What was in the palimpsest, Herald?”
“Oh, great stuff,” he said, coughing. “I wish I’d had access to the whole thing. But the keeper was the first line, which gave the name of the book, and also the name of the All-Father of the Gods—‘The Book of Alberich.’”
“Alberich?” said Meredith. “Hagen’s
father
? What does that mean?”
“It means,” spat Shingo, “that your Hagen can do pretty much whatever he wants—and if what he wants is to find the treasure and rule the world, then he’ll probably do it—no matter whose script he is using.”
“Then what of this is
true
?” Meredith asked. “That he’s looking for old stories? That there is no Nibelung gold?”
“There is a treasure, but it is not gold,” said Shingo. “Hagen … Hagen searches for the heart of the world. It lies, stilled, in a box of cold iron; and if he can find it, it may be that he can force it to beat once more … if he succeeds, then the heart will be his to command, and with it, the world.”
Shingo’s eyes were clouding; he was dying, but he continued to speak as if narrating from a vision. “The seas and lakes, which were his blood; the earth, which was his flesh; the mountains, built from his bones; the rocks and pebbles which came from his teeth, and the bones that were broken. Of all the parts of his body, only the heart was not made into something new, for it alone bore the power to make him whole again. When it is found, a doorway will open, so that all of his children, long gone from this place, may return to rebuild the body of their father. And when that occurs, it will be the end of all.”
“Who? Whose children? Hagen’s? What is he searching for?”
Shingo pointed a clawed finger. “Ask him … Ask the Herald … The Herald knows …”
There was no final breath, no death rattle. Even his arm, pointing, remained aloft. But he was dead.
“Herald, what is it? What was he talking about?”
Wheezing, and losing consciousness, Herald turned his face to the sound of her voice. “We tried to tell you, Reedy. In those papers, the papers we found in the library—it was an article by your … by Michael, published just a year before the festival in Bayreuth. It was about some ancient document called the Uppsala Dance. Hagen—I mean, Galen wrote notes over the article that he believed the poem in the Dance referred to the Nibelung treasure, Reedy—the real treasure. And if he was right, the treasure Hagen is searching for—the treasure of the Nibelung—it isn’t
gold
at all.”
“What is it, then, if not gold?”
Herald was foaming, spittle flecking his face, and the blood was beginning to flow from his ears and mouth. Speech was an effort, and he was beginning to black out. “Don’t you see? He’s looking for the
heart
—for Ymir’s heart.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re coming back. The giants are coming back to the earth.”
***
Epilogue
Half-Moon Waxing
Whenever Meredith found herself to be at a crossroads in life, she was usually able to find some solace in one or another of C. S. Lewis’ writings. At the moment, the book of his she was reading (with a most apropos theme and title) was
All My Road Before Me
. A record of his travels from the time of college until the cusp of his career as a writer and teacher, it had been a pleasant respite from the grisly events of the last few days—and, to tell the truth, Meredith didn’t know how she’d have gotten on without it. After that terrible business at Soame’s, Meredith was so bothered she went home and ate an entire quart of chocolate-chip ice cream, and the livers of two children she found hiding in the garage. Lucky for all of them the griffin didn’t catch them—griffins take forever to kill their prey, and they never share.
Meredith dug up the copy of Lewis because of the ice cream—it always depressed her when she lost control that way. She needed to work on getting her priorities and self-discipline under tighter reins, particularly since she was now responsible for more than just herself. Shingo took Meredith’s father from her, and a large part of her innocence and trust—but he didn’t leave her alone.
In Meredith’s belly, there was a stirring. Perhaps they sensed the great adventure which was only now beginning; perhaps they feared that the best of the adventures were already done with. She cooed to her children, comforting them. There would be many more adventures, and there was much to prepare for.
“Shh, little frost-ogres. Hush and sleep. Sleep, and live, and grow strong, like the body of your father, and in time, when you are ready, we will avenge the father of your hearts.”
What was left of the populace of Silvertown had turned out that morning to help clean up Soame’s. Delna was busy nursing Glen back to health, and while it would be a long time in coming, Meredith expected that June would recover from his wounds, both those spiritual as well as physical. The Mayor, having already declared that Soame’s should be rebuilt as a rallying point for the community, would most likely begin with a refurbishing of the dome and the ruined main hall. And when that was done, she wouldn’t doubt it if the scaffolding was rebuilt, and June once more took up his painting.
One event, both disturbing and unexpected, was the disappearance of Shingo’s body; Meredith suspected that he was not really dead, that his sudden propensity for quick healing was merely working beneath the surface. A blood trail led to a shattered window at the rear of The Pickle Factory, then outside across the snow to the woods north of town, where it diminished, and disappeared.
Below where Meredith sat on the roof of the house, in one of the bedrooms, Harold slept, having only remained conscious long enough for her to bandage his many wounds and get him to a bed, and to change his name again. That makes three times for the week, but all things considered, Meredith thought she could cut him some slack. It’s going to take him some time, but she’d been fixing up worse injuries since before his ancestors were taken by aliens off of the Mayflower.
Meredith decided to bring him along so he could tell her more about Hagen, and this mad quest of his to, what? Bring the father of the giants back to life? Bring back all the giants? What planet was he from, anyway? If there were such a thing as giants, Meredith hardly thought he’d have to look that hard.
Still, Meredith thought, there may have been something to what Shingo and Harald said—enough to be worth listening to, at any rate. Besides, Harald was a good guy—loyal, smart, intelligent. Pretty good qualities, and too stringy to really consider eating more than an arm or so at a time—after all, he had already lost the hand—and when a woman stumbles across a man that good, well, she just can’t eat him all at once.
She had to remind herself she was kidding, of course— about the eating him part, anyway.
She couldn’t help but wonder, though—if there were giants, who’s to say their return would be a bad thing? It’s a big world, after all—and there’s no telling whose side they may take in any given conflict, either.
Even if Hagen should find Ymir’s Heart, the treasure of the Nibelung, it would take him time—much time, before he could do anything really significant with it. Not that it would have much effect on Meredith; after all, it had been a week since he killed …
… Since … since Michael died, and supposedly set the wheels of change in motion, and what has changed? Meredith had her house; she had her mortar and pestle; and she had her camera. True, she may have been a bit more gray than she was several days ago, but it had been a pretty difficult week.
The sun was rising. Time to go.
A gesture of her hand was all that was needed for the house to rip its foundations out of the ground, rising, stretching its long, leathery, rust-colored legs to their height. Gingerly testing its balance, it shifted about a moment before pausing for direction.
Where to go, what to do?
Meredith supposed it wouldn’t have really mattered; after all, this was America—The Land Of Opportunity, where anyone, even a thousand-year-old Russian witch, can become anyone she wants to be, do anything she wants to do. Money would never be an issue again; new rules were in place, now. And besides, with six billion people on the planet, it’s not as if there wouldn’t be enough to eat.
All things being equal, that would be a fine plan, if she didn’t have something more important to do. Meredith had discovered much about herself, her family, and her own history during the last seven days, but there was one thing she needed to have closure on, no matter how irrational it seemed. One thing she needed to find. And according to Shingo, the place to begin looking was Spain.
And at the end of the day, when she thought on it, in a world where so much could happen in so short a time, was it really that unlikely to believe that she would find Vasily’s head?
Sucking contentedly on a finger bone, Meredith decided. She slapped the eaves and pointed to the East.
Stepping past the griffin, which was scrabbling around at the end of the driveway for scraps, the house moved briskly towards what used to be the interstate, and in moments, disappeared among the trees.
O O O
End Book Two
The story continues in
Mythworld
Book Three: Babylon’s Meridians
Available Soon!
***
About the Author
James A. Owen is the author of the bestselling
Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica
series, the creator of the critically acclaimed
StarChild
graphic novel series, the author of the
MythWorld
series of novels, the author and illustrator of the forthcoming series
Fool’s Hollow
, and the author of the nonfiction trilogy called
The Meditations
. He is also the founder and executive director of Coppervale International, a creative think tank and studio that also publishes magazines and books, and develops and produces television and film projects. He lives in Arizona with his family, where he is currently redesigning an entire town.
If you are interested in arranging for James to speak at your school, library, or business event, please contact:
Heidi Berthiaume
Freelance Author Appearance Coordinator
Coppervale International
Magic is real. And worth looking for.
***
