Chapter XV:
Castle Rammbock's Mausoleum
Chime bells rang out from outside the infirmary.
Kalendros excused himself, returning to Kurt and the mourners with another shadow.
Like a prism, Kalendros projected a fuller form of the shade's dim light to Kurt: another child, a girl, her long brown hair down to the waist, wearing a white gown, a chain of quickore around her neck. She placed her hands on her face, her tears flowing.
“No…” she said quietly. “No…my…fault…my…fault….my fault….”
Kalendros lifted up the body of Grimnar, leading a procession into the hall, the shades, Kurt and three old men with long orange braided beards waiting outside the infirmary.
They followed behind red-robed Kalendros under torch light and the heavens-high ceiling stars, before stepping past a round, sandstone door, rolled back by one of the long-beards. They entered a low ceiling candle lit room: a mausoleum.
In the room were hundreds of plaques inscribed in various languages.
Grimnar was placed inside a hole under a blank plaque.
The grave and plaque beside Grimnar caught Kurt’s eye, reading it carefully:
2000-2050 A.A.[* ]
ETZEL DORN GALVAN
[*Anno Arietis]
“Etzel is buried here?” he asked silently.
“I brought what little was left of his body after the Groomslayer had used his corpse for Verity’s beating heart and brain,” said Kalendros shaking his head. The Shade of Etzel looked uneasy, staring at his tomb.
The young girl’s shadow turned away from the others, inconsolable.
“And this shadow girl here, quickore about her neck, I recognize her…” said Kurt, his Weever’s Eye and Tooth heavy in his breast pocket, “ She is the very image of the child Verity.”
Kalendros nodded. “Indeed---it is her shade, another visitor of the past like young Etzel here. They both have travelled with me to discover what fate awaits their future-selves…But the time is fast approaching when there will be little else to discover in this darksome saeculum.”
Kalendros spoke a rite of burial for the man of the wood, older than the sequoias, guardian of heath and dale, among other titles he bestowed upon Grimnar: “Heir of the Weever’s Tail, the Chopper of the Werebear of Fornhausen; Splitter of the Mockwitch Serpent, Heart-Piercer of the Ettin-king of Azzastad; may your tomb be calm, your body rested and your ghost lifted to Paradise.”
Grimnar’s grave sealed, they all supped within the mausoleum at Kalendros’ behest, eating bread and fish and drinking wine.
The shadows observed the men without joining the supper. Kurt spoke little during the funerary meal, speaking to Kalendros after an hour of silence: “What will become of the Weever’s Tail? Did Grimnar pass the axe to an heir, like John passing the Eye to me?”
Kalendros looked to the little shadows and said, “There was no further heir.”
“So what becomes of the Weever’s body? Verity will not give up the Tooth, the Tail has no living heir and Embla’s Scale? Did she not pass it down either?“
“Embla died as the last heir of the Scale.” said Kalendros.
“Then the Weever? What becomes of him? His body?”
“Without fangs he may not bite; no tail and he lacks balance and topples; scaleless and his flesh is like jelly, perfect for an ettin pudding.”
“What is left of him then?”
“The spirit of a sorrowful ettin.”
“The Weever is an ettin?"
“Not every ettin from his epoch was condemned to the Eldermark Maelstrom.
The Spellgesith worked among that primeval world to ensure mankind was protected and looked after.
The ancient-ettins like Tockwitch and the Yellow River Ghostqueen all envied this affection, so most turned against their maker.
They turned to the Unghost who ruled through his flesh-avatar, the six-eyed Thaumaturge.
The Weever was one of the few ettins which soon realized how great a transgression this betrayal against their maker was.
Abandoning the Unghost and his empty promises of power, the Weever was torn apart by his brothers, his body parts scattered and cast into the Eldermark sands.
But Rammbock's errandghosts, my brethren, salvaged his body, gilding him in quickore, preserving his remains as relics one day to be revived by a righteous tribe of man.”
“And we are that so called righteous tribe?”
“You are called to be so, Kurt. ”
Kurt, stared at the tombs of Grimnar and Etzel.
Kalendros sipped his cup then spoke, changing the subject: “I didn't tell you the origin of quickore early at the camp...It’s important to understand what makes your tribe righteous, why you are able to hold the heirlooms. Quickore is the blood of Rammbock made a mineral, a metal. Its only source is within this castle, built around the chamber where he was once tortured and slain by the Thaumaturge and Orbaulker. But he, like John, like the Weever, did not remain in their grave. Rammbock lives still, much to the dismay of the Unghost.”
“So, Rammbock came back to life? Tell me more, Kalendros…who are these shadows? Is it Etzel’s ghost? Verity’s soul separated from her twisted ettin body? What is their purpose, why have they followed me?”
Kalendros beckoned the girl and repeated Kurt’s question: “Why are you here, young lady?”
The little shadow looked up to Kurt,her eyes heavy, watery.
Then she spoke: “I’m from the other side. It’s horrible. So many…killings. Burning. We ran, me and my family. We were hiding behind the walls…the walls around my house…but they still found us…the soldiers. They took me…but I escaped from their wagon…it was blown up. I don’t know how…It was all on fire…I wanted to get back home…get back to Papa. Then I saw the purple dress lady on the hill…it started snowing. I met the boys…But everything was burning, everything was smokey…so we came here. The ghost took us here.”
Kalendros nodded, smiling faintly. “Thank you for sharing, young lady. Now it’s time for bed. Tomorrow is a big day. There is still something very important we need to see before you go home.”
Bells chimed from outside the tomb.
Verity looked woefully to the door.
“I’ll escort you out,” said Kalendros. “Do I need to go back there…and see…her? The bad girl?”
Kalendros shook his head. “There is not much more left to see. Do not fear. Learn.”
“Then show me. I’m ready," she said.
Kalendros took Verity by the hand and said to Kurt, “I will escort her to the last stop on their travelling of our world.
Will you stay with Etzel till I return?”
“Of course, Mr. Kalendros.”
“Thank you, Kurt Eisenforst.” Kalendros and Verity left the crypt, the orange bearded men following.
Etzel sighed, bowed his head to Kurt and looking up to the plaque bearing his name said, “Good night.”
The shadow took a key from his vest jacket pocket, opening his tomb and slipping inside.
+++++
Kurt slept without dreams or nightmares buffeting him. His pulver ear, deafened by Iseld’s horn, had rendered his waking and slumbering far more tranquil than the previous hundred years, but not all voices had been silenced. There were echoes of screams and shouts for help from his childhood. The shadow of Etzel called among those voices. After what felt like a few hours, Kalendros returned alone with breakfast; mutton. Kurt did not need to guess it was from Buck, but he mourned not, thanking the animal that sustained them in those hours.
“Where is Verity?” he asked. Etzel had not emerged from the tomb, Kurt wondering if the shadow stirred at the mention of her name.
“She has returned from the Eldermark front with me, after witnessing her contemperaneous counterpart, now a great commander of ettins second only to Orbaulker. Their battalions are held at bay only by the defenses of Chateau Bloodfirth, the last line of defense of unapegifted man."
“I thought the Count of Bloodfirth was an ettin,” said Kurt.
“Perhaps he is…or was... no matter his previous predelictions, Rammbock has picked him to join in our fight. While the vaighlings and ettins are a dreadful menace, the beasts of the Eldermark will corrupt the remaining life and goodness in this world swiftly and destroy all those in opposition to their master. They are not content on making slaves, but making slaves of slaves of slaves, enforcing a hierarchy as deep as the spiraling abyss that they call an empire.”
“Spiraling abyss...The Eldermark? Don't they already control it?”
“Yes, the Eldermark Maelstrom and its rings, fractioning on and on. Infinitely.”
“And you escorted the children to that wretched place?”
“These children must understand. You must understand.”
“Must we? The boy sleeps in his own tomb, while the girl lives with the guilt of murdering the boy though she hasn’t even done anything!”
“Kurt, soon this puzzle will be completed; there are only a few pieces left. Yes, the children, the shadows must know of this world's affairs, it is the Spellgesith's will.
I must escort you now to the quickore smithy. Another puzzle piece.”
“Just a smithy?”
“No, Kurt. It is not just any smithy. “It is the very chamber where Rammbock was once murdered. Where his blood ran hot and turned to stone. Now you will witness it liquefy just as it once gushed from his wounds.”
+++++
Out of the mausoleum, Kalendros led Kurt down the starry ceiling hall, passing the infirmary, down along walls without doors or any sign of stirring, living or dead.
"You’ve been called to the battlefield, Kurt Eisenforst," said Kalendros passing a scroll to the man.
Kurt learned as they walked that Arnulf Count of Bloodfirth had commanded an army of fewer than one thousand men.
Positioned between the marks of Earth and the Ettinland, they had been so far successful in fending off the forces of Orbaulker.
“How? There are countless more ettins.”
“Yes, it is a secret even Rammbock has not revealed to me thus far. But something within the Eldermark is responsible for our success…We will discover it soon enough…here, Kurt Eisenforst, into this hall, use your flaming saber to light its caliginosity."
Deathbrand illuminated the tiny hall, subterranean it felt, though it was an impossibility at their altitude, it was quiet and cold at first, but then hot, sweltering, as if a fire were to break and ignite a far brighter light than even the seven sticked candelabra a the wolf head's lips.
At the end of the hall stood a little door bearing a glowing red symbol shaped liked Deathbrand.
“There, inside,” said Kalendros pushing the door open.
A golden room, small, circular and filled with an immense light ushered them forward.
“The Smithy of Rammbock,” said Kalendros. “Here was the Weever given his form. Where Deathbrand too was smithied, indeed, it is the only source of quickore anywhere. Yet the Weever’s heirs have dwindled to two survivors, one is the commander of legions of ettins and vaighlings. The other is you, Kurt.”
Kurt removed his hat, feeling the heat wash over him, but it was a comforting blaze, like a bonfire in the thick of winter.
“Unfortunately, the Weever will not receive the body from you heirs...Rammbock has proposed another way forward. If you agree, that Eye in your pocket will be cast to the furnace and smelted into something new. You will become a soldier of Rammbock, fighting alongside us errandghosts and Rammbock and his army. Your fidelity will become an armor for you, the quickore granted to those faithful and only those faithful. Do you accept?”
Kurt looked to the furnace. He relinquished the Eye, bleeding, swelling and watching.
“I accept, Kalendros.”
“Then, prepare yourself for a metamorphosis.”
Kalendros lifted Kurt high and threw him into the furnace.
Chapter XVI: The Horned Penitent
*Anno Arietis