“Is this it?”
“Ja.” The troll smiled at Adrian, revealing yellowing, blood-stained teeth.
The book was old, massive. It was a curiosity on display in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Shards of glass littered the velvet cloth it rested upon. Ljotr’s handiwork. Adrian reached gingerly though the glass to caress the spine. Halfway down, his hand froze. He stood motionless, simply staring at it.
“Having second thoughts?” The troll hissed, glee and anger quarreling behind his eyes.
Adrain blinked and shook his head.
“No, Ljotr, I am not.”
“Well, Adrian, or whatever it is you’re calling yourself these days, what are we waiting for? The man in the moon to rise and spit in your eye?”
Adrian said nothing. He raised his free hand toward Ljotr, palm upwards. The troll snorted and looked askance at it.
“What’s the matter, Ljotr? Having second thoughts?”
The troll growled and placed his meaty paw into Adrian’s waiting palm.
“Double-cross me and you’re dead meat, mortal.”
“Transparse,” Adrian murmured, giving the troll no other answer.
There was a sound like a vast fluttering of pages, and the world just faded away…
***
Snowflakes like torn and yellowed parchment drifted slowly down from a sky without stars. There was no wind, just an oppressive weight to the air.
Adrian stood, eyes closed. Ljotr snarled and looked wildly about. Adrian slowly opened his eyes and turned in a circle.
“Well, I expected a cold reception, but this is ridiculous.”
“You aren’t funny, mortal,” Ljotr snarled. “Get to work. You’re on the clock.”
“Patience is a virtue, my bloodthirsty friend.”
“So is fortitude. How’s about we test yours?”
Adrian laughed. Ljotr blinked.
Before the troll could react further, Adrian scooped of a handful of snow and cast it into the air. The papery flakes drifted to the ground as the two watched. Adrian raked his hair back, out of his eyes.
“That way.”
The erstwhile writer strode off into the viscous night, leaving the troll to flounder in his wake. Their steps disturbed centuries of stillborn flurries. It was at once an endless journey and a trip of mere moments.
Ljotr blinked as a ring of fire suddenly appeared on the hill before them. Glancing behind, their steps seemed to trail off into infinity. The troll snorted.
“Narrative time dilation. Tacky.”
“Yet effective.”
The hill beneath their feet was blackened and blasted. Scraps of dirty snow half-melted to ice laced the hill like a ragged shawl. The ring of fire burned without heat, burned without roar or crackle. It danced in silence, spilling its light to the darkened sky above.
She slept upon a bier within. She was beautiful, in her own way. Her hair was long and white as the purest snow. Her complexion was as clear and fair a blue as an afternoon sky just starting to purple before the snow flies. Her breasts were lashed and bound by the intricate lace of a bridal gown. Almost imperceptibly, they moved, indicating that breath and life still stirred within her body.
She was also a full six feet tall if she was an inch, with rippling muscles that would put a bodybuilder to shame.
Ljotr pissed on the flames. The flames didn’t deign to respond. Adrian ignored the troll. The favor, unfortunately, was not returned in kind.
“Dude, stop feelin’ up my sister with your eyes and get her out of there. It’s what I’m paying you for.”
“Technically it is what you will be paying me for. And what is with that voice? You sound ridiculous.”
“Just trying to speak to you in your native tongue.”
Ljotr just snorted and thumbed his nose at Adrian. A missile of green snot shot out and hit the dirt of the hill with a faint splat.
“The bastard took her spear, her shield; he didn’t even leave her helmet.”
“And he’s done atrocious things to her armor.” Adrian cut in smoothly. “Although, at least she’s still wearing it, for what it’s worth.”
“That? The tatted lamb’s fart she’s wearing? That’s her armor?”
“What’s left of it. Don’t worry, she…”
“I know damned good and well what she’s capable of when she’s free. And that’s what you’re here to do. So get crackin’ and make with the magic.”
“I’m not a magician. It’s not that simple.”
“Then flutter your wings or whatever it is you do, fairy boy…”
“You of all people are not seriously going to stand there are mock me for being a fairy.”
“Do I look like I have wings, pinky?”
“Do I?”
Ljotr just grunted and turned away. Adrian turned to walk slowly around the perimeter of the ring of fire. After he had traversed the full circuit, he turned to Ljotr.
“Stand right here, please.”
“Why?” Ljotr glared suspiciously.
“You want revenge on the man who did this?”
“Well duh.”
Adrain fixed the troll with a steely eye. Ljotr farted and grumbled.
“Yes. I want to rip out his spleen and feed it to his ever lovin’ cats. Happy?”
“Ecstatic. Now are you going to stand there or not?”
“Why here?”
“Because whatever is keeping your dear sister here is going to appear right there.”
Adrian pointed to a spot about twelve inches in front of where Ljotr was standing. The troll sniffed audibly, glaring around with beady and malevolent eyes.
“How can you tell. I don’t smell nothin’.”
“Trus-“ Adrian sighed. “Because that, my odiferous friend, is the most dramatic spot in which to appear.”
“How-“
“And I know our adversary will appear there, because no one, and I mean no one, with a sense of taste or a hint of subtlety in their makeup would imprison a Valkyrie in a ring of fire. I mean for gods’ sakes, it’s been done to death. He’s not original, this one.”
“But-“
“You want his spleen or not?”
“I-“
“Do you want to walk through the ring of fire?”
“Well-“
“Do you?”
“I can’t-“
“Yes. Or. No.”
Ljotr fidgeted.
“No.”
“Then do as I say. I will wake your sister. The fire will vanish. The adversary will appear. You will rip out his spleen. There will be much rejoicing, and I will get us all the hell out of here. Good?”
“Well, yeah, but-“
“But what?”
“How do you know that you won’t get roasted? I mean, not that I care, but I would like to be able to get out of here.”
Ljotr scratched his armpit a bit sheepishly. Adrian sighed.
“Our adversary has to be able to get through the fire to woo her. Even if he didn’t, there would have to be a loophole. There’s a loophole. I will fit through it. It’s keyed to his power, and mine is close enough to his to work. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here in the first place, and I’d be having a completely different discussion with you, in far different circumstances, involving far less pleasant terms.”
Ljotr squinted, then spat.
“Damn right you would. Get on with it.”
Adrian made a point to sigh theatrically before stepping up to the flames.
“Ready?”
“Shut up and step into the fire, flamer.”
Adrian turned and stepped through the flames. He emerged on the other side unscathed. Adrian let a short breath explode from his lungs before stepping up to the bier.
The woman, the valkyrie, reclined upon the rough wood as if sleeping carelessly upon a divan. She made it look royal. She made it look beautiful.
“Kiss the bitch already. I’m freezin’ my balls off and I want to warm my hands in wizard’s blood.” Ljotr hollered.
Adrian bent down and lightly brushed her lips with his. They were cold and tasted ever so faintly of ice and elderberries.
Her eyes flew open. Adrian found himself caught by the throat and slammed onto his back upon the bier, their places reversed in an instant. Those lovely eyes burned with an ice cold fire and the lips that tasted of elderberries twisted back in a vicious snarl.
A high pitched shriek split the night sky and curdled the blood in Adrian’s veins. The valkyrie’s eyes widened, and she looked over her shoulder towards where Ljotr stood. Her fingers did not relax their grip, however, and Adrian found himself hauled around to stare at a bloody tableaux.
A man of indeterminate age, white of hair and black of robe, knelt upon the ground. With pale hands he clutched at a gaping wound in his abdomen. Blood ran dark as ink through his fingers.
Ljotr was licking his. He belched and waved to the two on the bier.
“Came to fetch you home, sis.”
The valkyrie said nothing. The old man stared at her, weeping. She coldly turned away.
“You.”
The venomous hated in that voice snapped Adrian’s gaze about, locking it to the old man’s.
“You have stolen my love from me. Your beast has torn out my liver-“
“Spleen,” Ljotr muttered.
“-but you, you have stolen my heart. For that, you shall pay, and dearly. You shall have my curse, but first, I shall tear out your heart.”
“Oh no you don’t.”
Ljotr thrust his fist into the old man’s back, through the ribs and towards the heart. It emerged from the other side, grasping nothing. It was as if Ljotr has thrust his hand through a shadow. The troll gaped at his empty hand, flexing his arm through the old man’s body.
“He lives, wordsmith. He lives and he knows what you did to him.”
The old man laughed. Adrian went pale. He struggled to stop out the word, but the old man’s voice echoed through to the depths of his being, cackling n the vaults of his mind and setting his bones to vibrating with hateful reverberations.
“Your lover lives. All these years, you thought him dead. You were wrong. Wrong to make the pact; wrong to pay the price. No other has ever done as you have. Not even I. I who lusted after beauty and bound it within ink and parchment, with the story of my life to woo her down through the years.”
“I’m not listening.” Adrian laughed, a note of hysteria in his voice. “I’m not listening, you’re not talking. You’re not talking and I’m not hearing.”
“You took my heart. I do not mind. See? I even give you a gift in return. Your one true love lives still, breathes still, and thinks always of you. Thinks of nothing but you and the best way to repay your gifts.”
“You’re too kind.” Adrian babbled. “Too too kind, really, you shouldn’t have. Here, take back the gift, really. It’s too much. I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out. Why, I’m sure you can even find someone else who needs it. I don’t need it. It’s not even mine. Doesn’t suit me at all. I don’t know what you’re talking about, even. You must have me confused with someone else. You’re crazy. You have to be. Locked up in a book for all these years. Why, I wasn’t even alive when you penned this manuscript, so you have to be lying. You have to be joking. There’s no way you could know what you say you know…”
“A story always knows. A story always has the right words, at the right time. You know that. You know that as well as you know the price for every little trick you turn. It’s an instinct. It’s in your gut. You know I’m right. You know I speak the truth. Your lover lives. As you live. Just exactly as you live.”
Adrian’s eyes flashed. With one smooth motion he pulled himself free of the valkyrie’s stunned fingers and stood, standing astride the bier like a fallen colossus.
“Very well. I accept that your words are true. Message received. Dying words heard loud and clear. You’ve had your chance, you’ve said you bit. Now piss off. I’m taking the limelight.”
“What- You can’t- The story doesn’t end that way.“
The old man sputtered. Adrian leapt lightly down from the bier and stalked across the now dead ring of fire. His eyes were cold, but his lips held a smile.
“Actually, I can. I rescued the maiden from the evil wizard. It’s my story now, old man, not yours. And you should know as well as I that the end of this story has already been written. You’ll choke on the black bile of your last, hateful words, undone as your vile magics backfire, tearing you apart in one titanic blast of karmic glory. Poof. Just like that.”
Adrian snapped his fingers in front of the wizard’s nose. The old man flinched back. Adrian continued, relentlessly.
“Fade away into smoke and ink, old man. Your time has passed.”
“Never!” The old man rallied. He raged and spat black, inky blood. “You have not seen the last of me. I shall return, and you shall pay. I swear it, upon the black blade of night I swear it. You will rue this day.”
The old man pointed one skeletal finger in Adrian’s face. His hand spasmed and he coughed up more blood. With a gurgling wheeze he slowly slid down Ljotr’s arm, toppling to the side as the troll’s claws slid out of his body.
“You will rue the day.”
The old man grinned manically and tried to laugh. A blood foam flecked his lips and rather than cackle, he shuddered and died.
“I already do,” muttered Adrian.
The corpse had no answer for him. It’s lifeless eyes just stared up accusingly.
Ljotr reached down and plucked them out, popping them into his mouth and sucking on them like a pair of sweets.
“Why don’t they ever die before they stop talking?”
“Dramatic license.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t invent it.”
Ljotr just grunted.
“Get us the hell out of here.”
“Gladly.”
Adrian raised his arms. There was a great sound like the fluttering of countless pages. Then they were gone.
***
The book was a sodden mess of torn pages, black ink and stagnant meltwater. Adrian, Ljotr and his sister stood in front of the case, surrounded by silence and the Bodleian Library. Adrian turned to smile at Ljotr’s sister.
“Welcome back to the real world.”
“Thank you. I-“
Her eyes widened; nothing more. It was warning enough. Adrian dove to the side.
Ljotr’s claws sliced through empty air. The troll grunted in surprise. Adrian tumbled through a sideways roll, coming to rest upon his knees in a basic stage combat defensive posture. One arm was outthrust, the hand with fingers splayed wide.
His eyes locked onto Ljotr’s.
“Amanuense.”
Ljotr’s eyes bulged and his jaw worked soundlessly. One clawed hand twitched, spasmodically. Other than that, he stood, frozen. Tears of blood welled up in his eyes and slowly spilled over the banks of his eyelids.
Adrian’s gaze remained locked on the troll.
“Take his blood for ink, his skin and flesh for parchment white…”
Ljotr shuddered as his skin split in a hundred places. It began to writhe off of his body, slowly flaying him alive where he stood.
“Sinew for threading, tooth and bone for binding…”
Tendons tore themselves free from binding muscle to bone, slithering off like pale and bloody snakes. Muscle sloughed off, revealing ivory bone beneath, delicately tinctured with gore. His tongue flattened and split, sliding in amidst the pages to rest as a bookmark.
Ljotr’s eyes alone remained to identify him. His body flowed and changed. Thoughts and memories, dreams and nightmares poured out of the well of his mind, writ indelibly upon the parchment of his flesh with the ink of his blood. Secrets unknown to even Ljotr himself were scribed into the book of his life, all veils ripped from their hiding.
A book coalesced out of the maelstrom of teeth and blood, hide and sinew. Bone melted and twisted into ivory filigree, tooth and claw into clasps and binding. Last of all were the eyes, culled of their color to paint the cover in garish glory, robbed of their gleam to polish the metalwork and filigree, and finally sunk into the cover, one front and one back, closed as the book was closed.
Adrian’s outstretched fingers closed slowly, firmly about the book. Reverentially he set it on the ground.
“We had a deal. You broke your word. Your service is now forfeit.”
He tapped the cover with a fond hand.
“Don’t worry, I’ll release you in a hundred years or so, if I don’t have need sooner.”
Calm returned somewhat huffily to the library. The books on the nearby shelves would have something to talk about for years to come. But that would be later. For now, they stood in silent witness.
“Thank you.”
The valkyrie’s voice threaded itself through the silence. Adrian glanced up.
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
“No,” she raised one hand to tuck a lock of gleaming frost-white hair behind her ear. “What you did was just. My brother broke faith. So long as you free him when his penance is done, we have no quarrel.”
Adrian nodded and rose. He slid the Book of Ljotr into his shoulder bag. When the clasps were secure, he glanced back to the valkyrie standing in the library.
“What will you do now?”
She smiled.
“I have a debt to repay. There is a man who could use my protection, I think, so I shall watch over him.”
Her eyes flicked to his face and back again for the briefest of instants. Adrian didn’t notice. The Book of Ljotr did not sit easily in his bag, so it had to be adjusted. In all likelihood, frequently.
“Good luck with that.” Adrian glanced up, smiling. “Let me know how that goes.”
With that, he turned and headed through the stacks, towards the library exit and the wide world beyond.
The valkyrie watched him go. When he was out of sight, she shook her head and smiled.
“I shall, oh savior mine. I shall.”
A spear of light lanced through a window, high in the wall above. It bathed her in an iridescent aurora and she dissolved into a small flurry of snowflakes. A phantom wind caught up the flakes and carried them after the retreating man, leaving only fading laughter in its wake.
“I shall.”
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