Chapter Ten
The Viking and the Princess
If Moiety had understood exactly what her problems were, we could say that she had been running away from them; however, the princess was only just now learning to call things by their right name. The tsunami that resulted from lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire washed the misandrogynous mermaids away but it also flooded the entire island. The weight of the giant and the anchor inside of her was pulling her down despite the scroll’s magical ability to provide some buoyancy. Job’s Leviathan has been tasked to carry the princess down into the deepest part of the ocean to confront her final dragon.
“When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”
-Ellie weisel
“What is this place called?” Moiety asked Leviathan.
“We have traveled up the river Gioll to the headwaters, Hevergelmir, in the Nifleheim realm.”
“Nifleheim?” Moiety asked, picking one of three words she did not know.
“The frozen mist, the valley of the shadow of death, and the land of the dishonored dead. The River Gioll is the current flowing through this trench - the heart of Nifelheim. It is the boundary between the living and the dead, and here at its headwater, Hevergelmir, you will meet your third and final dragon, the wyrm, Nidhogg.”
Leviathan exhaled a breath of light and Moiety watched the seafloor continue to creep down under the wall. “What does this mean?” she asked.
“We are at the base of the World Tree and nearby are the gates of Hel. Listen with the light of Odin’s poetry scroll.”
Moiety grew quiet in the darkness and for a moment heard nothing. And then peacefully a still small voice reached her ear. It was a quiet command coming from the current directed to the fires just below the surface,
“The seas have lifted up their voice
The flood lifts up the pounding waves
‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further:
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.’
When sorrow of death encompasses
And torrents make you afraid
Walking through fire you will not be burned
The flame will not set you ablaze.”
So it was the peace in the current’s song and not the water itself that was holding back the hellfire below the surface.
“There is more that is born in a birth than a baby, more than sound that is sung in music, more than oxygen that sustains in the breath,” said Leviathan.
“And more than the wetness in water that quenches the coal,” Moiety finished the dragon’s thoughts.
Moiety and the dragon continued to follow the trench against the current in the darkness. Soon Moiety began to see what looked like thick branches and fallen logs suspended in the current. Moiety saw more branches as they traveled. The branches moved fluidly with the water. They were not, in fact, branches; this was an underwater thicket of loose hanging roots. She was impressed at how the massive Leviathan was able to lithely maneuver through the underwater canopy.
As the leviathan slowed his pace, Moiety was able to get a closer look at the roots. New tendrils were sprouting off from larger ones every second. Each one ended with a small loop encircled by a larger loop. The tendrils were very small, but they grew quickly. Moiety was able to feel a warm grateful vibration when she touched them.
Intricate as coral, and moreso. Moiety could see that only some of the roots were free floating in the water. Most of the roots were knitted up in complex and creative looped cables like the sailor's woolen tunics of the far northern islands. New root systems joined old root systems to make new designs and old root systems split apart to follow new paths. The whole system was a living, moving, changing canvas of decorative knots.
As vibrant as it was, something was not whole about the root system. Some of the roots were blighted and flaccid, uninvolved Support this podcast
