Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) (35 page)

All who beheld the creature were stricken immobile. It wasn’t until a great horn sounded that Lokutis and the others awakened and turned to see where the sound was coming from. A similar creature had perched on the mountaintop and bellowed through a long trumpet. Extended sonorous blasts shook the foundation, causing rocks to slide from the cliffs and the ground to shake.

With the first trumpet blast, large raindrops pelted the dirt, the wind picked up, and thunder and lightning rent the sky. A gushing noise drew Lokutis’ attention to the spring where he had splashed his face that morning. It hissed and frothed as if a subterranean sea was rising to the surface.

Servants and soldiers broke and ran in every direction. They collided and scrambled over the top of one another, forgetting in their panic that only moments before they were prepared to put their swords through one another. Marduk whipped his people, cursing them to stay put.

Akahamet stood firm at Lokutis’ side. “What are they?” he asked, a mixture of fear and awe in his voice.

Lokutis looked on with disbelief. His form shrank from the bull-horned monstrosity back to that of a slight man. His frame shimmered and his rich clothing reappeared.

He said simply: “Archangels.”

“I am with you, my Lord,” Akahamet said, reaching out and touching his master’s forearm. Lokutis barely took notice. The storm angel drew back its scythe and cut down Lokutis’s deformed giants. It hooked their bodies and flung their severed torsos into the air. Another swipe sent crimson-and-black-clad corpses scattering.

The trumpet blared without cease now, the rain plastered Lokutis’s hair and clothing against his skin, and the scythe-wielding archangel was almost upon them, reaping its grisly harvest.

To his credit, Marduk stood his ground and lashed out with his whip, sending bolts of red energy at the thing. But it was to no avail, for the bolts passed through it as if it were made of mist. Marduk cast aside his whip and the sparking, sputtering weapon turned back into a coiled piece of metal. Even as the scythe bore down on him, he raised his fist and raged.

The weapon passed through him swiftly, yet did not cleave him in half. He went rigid, and a ghostly image of himself was ripped from his body in two pieces. The top half was Marduk’s face, contorted in torment, and the image faded into the wind. His body collapsed. On the ground his head lolled to one side and Lokutis could see that his eyes were glazed with cataracts as if he’d been dead for hours.

“My lord, look out!” Akahamet cried and pushed Lokutis aside.

The scythe plunged. Lokutis crashed to the ground and saw Akahamet take the blow. As the man’s body fell on top of him, Lokutis saw Akahamet’s forlorn specter float away. He struggled out from under the body, but froze momentarily when he made contact with Akahamet’s white lifeless eyes.

He snapped out of his horror. The archangel stood above him, raising the scythe.

A wall of water engulfed him first, obscured his assailant, and lifted him off the ground and swept him away.

He flailed in a turbulent current, reaching and grasping for some sort of hold, hoping he wouldn’t be pounded against one of the stone columns. His lungs started to burn, and he struggled out of his breastplate and cape. When he was free of the metal, the current popped him to the surface.

The landscape, or lack of thereof, was now completely different.

Gone was the threatening archangel. Gone was his tent. Gone were Marduk’s corpse and the gilded elephant. Even the meeting place, with its altar, throne, and amphitheater were gone, replaced with a foaming, swirling, disorienting sea. Though much of the tower was still visible, the tips of the valley’s mountains protruded from the water, and those were quickly being swallowed.

Lokutis flailed around to find some haven of safety. He had no immediate foothold on anything, and he considered swimming for the tower, even though it was leagues away. And should he make it, then what? Hide in its honeycomb vaults in the sky, snacking on rats?

He squinted into the driving wind; the rain beat his face and he couldn’t see. He paused in his treading water long enough to shield his eyes with one hand.

The sea-foam was lifting off the surface of the water and gathering in the air like a flock of birds, and then migrating towards a light in the sky that was brighter than any sun. It lit the foam around him, and made it glow like the luminous plankton of the oceans.

Except it wasn’t plankton.

Roughly the size of his fist and alternately round or spherical, depending on how you looked at them, they were little creatures covered in eyes. Human eyes.

They turned like fiery little wheels and bobbed like bubbles in the water. They behaved just like sea-foam, but then rose like smoke or mist, pausing just long enough to stare curiously with that multitude of eyes at Lokutis as they passed by.

“Thrones,” he said, calling the angels by their name in the hierarchy of the Heavenly Host. Never had he heard of the beings coming anywhere near Jhove’s earthly creation. Not since it was first made many, many millennia ago. Lokutis now understood what he had seen earlier, pouring out of the maelstrom in the sky like water out of a gourd. It had been the Heavenly Host coming forth to purge the earth of its wickedness and its monsters. Monsters like him.

Marduk had been right.

The last of the shining beings floated away from him and then suddenly something obscured the light in the sky and cast him in shadow. When his eyes had adjusted, he got a good look at what had blocked his vision: It was a giant boat, simple but sturdy. Essentially a cube with another cube on top, a sort of cabin surrounded by a deck.

And just when he thought things couldn’t get any more surreal, Lokutis saw all manner of animals gathered on the deck, in particular a pair of giraffes staring down at him as if
he
were the oddity.

A violent undulation of the water took the vision from his sight and he was cast among the flotsam. Tree branches, uprooted shrubs, the carcasses of dead birds and domesticated animals, and even the corpses of his own servants. Another heave of water shifted his view again, this time setting him before the great tower, still far away.

The light in the sky burned above the tower like an eye, lighting up the carved cylinder of the mountain. He was amazed to see that a significant portion of it still rose above the waters, but the dark currents clawed at its stones like demons. An arch collapsed and sent a portion of the shell wall into the water, sending up a wall of spray. Though this caused more of the innards on the upper tiers to be exposed, the lower ramparts survived the assault.

The last of the Thrones disappeared into the light, and the light began to dim. The tower darkened with shadows, starting at the base then working their way up to the top. As the shadows grew, a chill that had nothing to do with the water crept up his spine and he watched helplessly as the light slowly collapsed in on itself. The light winked out. The world became bereft of light and warmth, as if a door had closed. Only the cold rain, the turning waters, and the tower, somewhere in darkness, remained to watch Lokutis’s slow death.

As he struggled to stay afloat, a revelation came to him. The entire world was destroyed, wiped clean this day. Yet the simple villager, Noam, and his family most likely survived in the ark. This wasn’t the end of all things.

Jhove meant to start anew, and he had left the future generations something: The tower.

When the waters had subsided and Noam’s descendants repopulated the lands, they would eventually come across the tower again.

And it would call to them.

Tempt them.

Just as in the ancient stories, where Adam and his wife were set in a beautiful garden with a forbidden tree in it. That is why Jhove left the tower standing and intact, yet incomplete. Future generations would have to decide for themselves whether to leave it alone, or try to finish it.

Lokutis didn’t have much time to ponder what the chances of either happening would be, for another great wave overcame him and this time all went dark.

#

The sound of the surf told Lokutis he was still alive. Salty air washed over his skin, and all around, seagulls made their excited cries. He could not move, and to open his eyes was to drag shards of glass underneath his lids, and to swallow was to gag. But there were voices and movement around him, so he forced himself to open his eyes.

The light hurt. He wanted to be blind. But then the brightness coalesced into forms and colors, and he was staring into a blue sky, at wispy clouds, at gulls coasting on arched wings.

“Ah, our guest is awake,” a deep voice announced.

There was more movement about him and a face swam into view. This person reached down and helped Lokutis sit up.

“I imagine you have an incredible tale to tell,” the voice said, and eased something soft behind Lokutis’ back to prop him up, “but by the looks of yea, the tale will have to wait a spell. No matter, you are in good hands now.”

Lokutis took a good look at the owner of the voice, who now crouched before him. He was a large man, with full beard and head of hair so dark that it had a blue sheen to it, and was streaked with silver. His skin was very pale, as pale as Lokutis himself. His eyes were piercingly blue, set deeply and fringed with crow’s feet. His teeth were big and straight on an expansive face; Lokutis assumed he was a nobleman in some faraway land.

“Can you at least tell us your name?”

Lokutis swallowed the rocks in his throat and licked swollen flaking lips. Even his tongue was dry, but he managed to say, “Lokutis.”

The large man frowned, yet maintained his fatherly smile. “My, that’s a mouthful. How about we shorten that to something more manageable, shall we? Loki.”

Loki moved his eyes around his surroundings. He was on a rocky beach at the foot of a slope. Snow and scree rose up to a high mountain peak. The air was cool and the rough, grayish foliage was alien. The only things that looked remotely familiar were the trees, some relative of his native cedar. His host wore coarse clothing of wool, leather, and animal skins.

Loki lay on wool blankets, under a pile of skins. The pleasant smell of roasting meat drew his attention to a campfire nearby on the beach. What looked like a boar was turning on a spit above the flames. A kettle boiled in the flames. Many people, dressed as roughly as his host, were gathered there and drinking from horns.

“Frigga, bring our guest some broth, he must be famished...and something to drink.”

A stout woman acknowledged the request and bent over her kettle.

The man turned back to Loki. “Frigga, my wife, she will fix you up nicely.”

Loki gestured weakly. “W-where am I? Who, you?”

“I am Woden, son of Bor, and you are in the highest reaches of Midgard, where we retreated from the Deluge. We have been here well over a moon now, waiting for the waters to recede. I sent out my birds to see if the waters had started to do so. They came across you, clinging to a log.” Woden gestured to two large ravens sitting nearby on a tree branch. “You have Hugin and Munin to thank for being rescued; otherwise you would have floated right by us.”

The ravens bobbed their heads. “Drowned rat! Drowned rat!” they croaked.

The woman Frigga brought a steaming bowl and a large wooden spoon. She was large of girth, but had a friendly round face that was not at all unattractive. Her blond hair was braided into a rope as thick as Loki’s arm. Woden took the bowl, spooned some broth and put it to Loki’s lips. With his aid, Loki managed to swallow some. Considering the circumstances, it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.

After a few spoonfuls of the broth Woden reached for the drinking horn. “I imagine everything and everybody you knew previously are gone now. But as I said, you are in good hands. You are one of us now.”

“There you go again, taking in strays,” somebody nearby scoffed. “Someday it will be your undoing.”

Loki looked in that direction. Sitting apart from the fire was a giant of a man with a flaming red beard and wild head of hair. He scowled as he wrapped a leather strap about the shaft of a great war hammer. The weapon was so huge that no normal person could wield it. But the redheaded stranger had arms as big around as Loki’s torso. All in all, he made Marduk look like a child.

Woden ignored the comment, but lifted the drinking horn to Loki’s lips. “My son Thor, he is a dour and taciturn sort who is slow to trust and even slower to befriend. But you needn’t worry; he will love you as a brother soon enough and there is no greater ally.”

Loki sipped at the dark liquid in the horn, and almost immediately gagged. His reaction drew much laughter from those gathered around the fire.

“Mead is an acquired taste,” Woden admitted.

“Father, look!” A new voice cried.

All in the camp turned towards a figure standing on the rocks at the ocean’s edge. He was another large man, and an elaborately carved horn hung from a strap around his neck. He pointed out into the sky. A hushed gasp rippled through the crowd. Arching across the heavens was an iridescent arc of many colors, which was simultaneously solid and ephemeral. Light emanated from it powerfully, so much that Loki could not look at it for very long.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” the man on the rocks said.

“What is it?” Frigga asked, mouth agape.

“It has something to do with the Deluge, I’m certain,” Woden said.

“Hemdal,” called Thor. “What do you make of it? Nobody knows the powers of the earth and sky as you do.”

Rapt with the bow in the sky, Hemdal turned to address the camp. “It has much power, I am sure. As if the song of the world itself was harnessed and made manifest. I can only imagine that it comes from the Creator himself. Why he would leave such a powerful thing unguarded, I do not know.” Hemdal seemed entranced, and his gaze turned inward. “What one could do if they could make it their own!”

Loki groaned.

Though he had floated to the ends of the earth, as far away from the tower as possible, he still bore witness to the sort of folly that lead to the Deluge. He did not know the true meaning of the prismatic bow, but he was sure Jhove had not put it there to be coveted.