Eric Olafson, Neo Viking Vol. 01

"Aye indeed. What are we, if not shaped by our traditions and our honor? Volund Olafson, Lord Mighty of the Olafson clan, honored of old, your son may court my daughter for the purpose of marriage."

Isegrim sat in his finest at the table and stared at the veiled woman. Her hair, caught by a ray of sunlight, gleamed like gold. Her eyes were large and green. He could not keep his eyes off her. Gretel was forgotten. This princess, this creature of finest Nilfeheim stock would be his bride after the required time of courting. His father had just clasped arms with Erik Gustav Ragnarsson.

Both of them were pleased and more ale and beer were brought.

The old Ragnarsson still held Volund's arm. "Our clans are soon to be one, the day I can no longer raise my arm will be the day the Ragnarsson banner and shields will be placed in the Cave of Forgotten clans, but strong Olafson blood will mingle with mine in the offspring these two will have."

Volund's eyes glowed. "Aye, a grandson of this bond, wise and cunning as the Ragnarssons and strong as the Olafsons. When he becomes clan chief, who knows ... the throne of Lars Erikson could be his. Uniting the clans of the West and East under one banner." Volund raised his tankard. "His name shall be Eric to honor thy name. Eric Olafson!"

Erik, still holding the other's arm, agreed. "So it shall be."

Neither man was sober anymore and both basked in the future glory of a yet unborn heir and spun the tales of conquest they all loved so much.

Erik Ragnarsson pounded his fist onto the table's surface and made tankards dance. "It is not proper that the father of my daughter's husband lives like this. It behooves the Olafson clan to be once more first among the clans of old. Ragnarsson Rock is big and well maintained; it will serve our future grandson as a fitting cradle. Come ye, Volund, move to my burg. Be its steward and master, let your son Isegrim be master and steward once our arms are weak, and until he who combines our blood is born and has passed the Ancient Rite of Passage. This burg can then be properly renovated for future use."

"I cannot deny the attraction of thy offer, but how can a burg have two masters?"

Erik Ragnarsson taking another deep draught of the strong ale. "I am more often than not away from Nilfeheim. By Odin's sacred spear I pledge everything I own, everything that is Ragnarsson, both on this world and everything beyond, shall be Eric Olafson's, he the yet unborn fruit of our children's union; but until that day he comes into his own, the Ragnarsson Burg shall know one master only, you, as its steward."

Erik Ragnarsson left Olafson Burg three days later, taking his daughter and warriors along.

Volund waited until the flier was a mere dot at the horizon; then he turned to his son who was standing behind him on the courtyard and smashed his fist with all his might square in the face of Isegrim, only to follow up with a hail of blows and kicks. He yelled, "Oddløg, my hand's getting tired. Bring me the whip."

Isegrim was a strong man already, but Volund was a true brute. Isegrim did try to land a few blows for himself, but the old man caught his arm and executed a painful lock, almost breaking his arm.

Isegrim was on his knees as Oddløg brought a broad leather whip made of braided and twisted Fangsnapper leather.

"Father have mercy. I deserved the beating but let up in your rage. I have seen the beauty and I gladly obey."

"You are despicable. No warrior, no matter the reason, pleads for mercy, and no soul disobeys me on this rock. Not the Lowmen, not the Warriors, and not even you, my son."

Volund, however, dropped the whip and drew his sword instead. "Before we leave this rock and move to Ragnarsson Burg, I will cleanse this, our ancestors' home, from all filth."

He stomped with heavy steps down into the quarters of the Lowmen.

He killed them all, and his sword and arm were covered with blood as he hacked down another maid and yelled, "I will kill you all! Where is she?"

Volund raged like a demon, the old, cursed Olafson rage, that had been known by friend and foe alike, burned like fire in his eyes. Ancient lore and the legends of old spoke of Norse warriors who fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury while wearing the pelt of a wolf.

Old Olafson clan legends claimed this rage had always been with the men of the clan, and this was the reason the wolf became the banner symbol of the clan. Once the rage took hold, they showed no mercy and knew no temperance. Volund killed them all—men, women, children, and the old—but he could not find the source of his rage.

Gretel had hidden herself in a near-empty barrel of urine, the disgusting, reeking liquid collected from humans and Nubhir alike, to be used in an old process of tanning skins into leather. Now, wet and stinking, she stalked between the dismembered bodies of the Lowmen, the slave-like class of people who had few rights, who were poor and existed in this society to serve and obey.

Her family, her own father, two of her younger sisters, her uncles, and everyone she knew had been hacked to death in a scene of grisly gore.

Using her voluptuous body to seduce the son of the clan lord seemed such a good idea just so recently—a way to escape this filth and the abhorrent conditions that existed in the bowels of this burg. Now she understood the warning from her mother, telling her to stay away from the clan lords and high ones.

She knew of the stories that came from beyond the sky. But to her and all the other Lowmen of Nilfeheim, they had been nothing more than fairy tales.

She knelt next to the lifeless body of her mother, only recognizable by her smudgy dress. Nilfeheim broad swords were terrible weapons.

It was always cold down here, the stench of hides, rotten meat, and the disgusting substances used to make leather now mingled with the terrible odor of fresh blood.

Some clans treated their Lowmen well and she heard some even paid them a little.

But Lowmen were not allowed to go to Union school by decree of the Elders and were kept by the clans like property.

What now? Even Elga, who cooked for the Lowmen, was dead.

She could not stay here. Eventually new Lowmen would be hired. There were always plenty in the outskirts of Halstaad Fjord, even poorer and hungrier than the rest, eager to do anything for a warm place and food during Longnight.

Gretel had watched the high visitors after Isegrim had rushed away.

There was a small window with an egress well from where it was possible to watch most of the courtyard without being seen, and she watched the other clan chief and his daughter.

She had a truly regal appearance, wore a fine velvet dress, and had clean blonde hair that shone like gold.

It was easy to look like that if you had nothing to do all day but play the harp, do needle work, and decide what sweetmeat to eat.

She wanted to be like that: desired, rich, and free.

However, now her family and everything she knew was gone, and if she were seen, she too would join their fate.

To escape from an island was not easy, perhaps one of the reasons the Lowmen had never revolted. It was forbidden to congregate, to plan, or to gather in enough numbers to overthrow the harsh and brutal clan masters.

But she swore to herself to find a way to get her revenge.

She kept herself hidden till the wee hours of the morning, when the ale and meat had felled those hulking monsters, and she gathered as much clothing as she could find.

There was a little motorboat tied in the sub pen, a natural grotto that had been enlarged and fortified with Duro-Crete on the north side of the rock and directly under the burg. Just like the gate above, this entrance could be closed with a steel portcullis, and like the ones above it needed electric power to be raised and lowered.

No one ever lowered this heavy barrier, all the muscle on Olafson rock could not raise it.

Gretel knew about the other son of Volund, and the tale that even Hogun Olafson could not turn the big wheel to raise the gate.

The Lowmen had little in the form of entertainment, so they often sat in circles and told stories. The second born had always been described as gentle and treating Lowmen equal and fair. Gretel did not believe these stories.

Eventually she managed to get the boat started and guided it through the gate and out of the mouth of the grotto into the open sea.

She could not hope to make it all the way to Bifrost, the largest island where Halstaad Fjord, the biggest town, was located.

She heard them say the island was a good 1500 kilometers to the south.

Gretel would never find it in a small open boat without navigation equipment that she would not know how to use anyway, but she hoped to make it to Bendixen Rock, the traditional home of a clan that was an old enemy of the Olafson's. On a clear day, Bendixen Rock could be seen from the ramparts, far on the horizon to the west.

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Prelude Part 2: Egill Skallagrímsson

Year 4990, OTT

The old man was known as the Hermit of the Skalil Rock. In whispered voices, they also called him a Wizard, and no one, not even the Elders themselves, dared to speak against his council in the rare events when he did appear at the Thing and took the seat of the Eldest. His name was legend and his life now spanned over four hundred years.

There were still many stories told about the last great clan War when the Lords of the Rocks fought each other. Not just with sword and ax but with weapons brought from beyond the sky, terrible weapons against neither walls of concrete nor Nilfeheim rock could stand.

Egill was a young and strong clan lord back then, avoiding allegiances and not taking sides, but was dragged into the war as men of the Uhim clan attacked his Burg and killed every living soul, while he was away fishing.

Egill, having lost his beloved wife and his sons and everything he loved and held dear, went to war, and became the most ruthless killer and fighter of that war. Single-handedly he killed hundreds of the Uhim Alliance and at the climax of that war, he dropped a nuclear bomb onto Uhim Island.

The use of a nuclear weapon ended the war and brought the shocked clan leaders together. All clan leaders from both the Alliance of the East and the Western Pact signed the Truce of Uhim that granted anyone access to any part of the oceans. It also cemented the power of the Circle of Elders as the highest authority of law.

Egill, numb with grief, took possession of the Skalil Rock.

No one remembered who had built the small burg on top of the tall rock, but it was said to be haunted and remained unoccupied for ages, on a world where dry land was the rarest commodity.

Today no one remembered his full name, or that it was him who had nuked the Uhim clan into oblivion.

Yet he was once the clan Chief of the Skallagrímsson clan, and his name was Egill.

Ever since his wife had died, appearance mattered little to him. He wore worn leather pants, patched with different materials, and in a very unskilled fashion, the tunic and the fur anorak were smudgy and torn. There wasn't much fur left on the hooded fur cape and it too was stained and torn. Egill's emaciated face was framed by thin, stringy hair that had the same color as pale yellowish bones. His thin, unevenly growing beard was of the same color, but his eyes glowed with the spark of a bright mind.

For the most part of the past four centuries, he lived all by himself on this tall rock formation that could be found in the so-called Blue Reaches of the southern oceans.

Skalil Rock was a thin column-like rock, about three hundred meters tall and on top no more than about fifty or sixty meters across. The base of the pillar, at the point where it reached the surface was only about 120 meters in diameter.

Here he had planned to live out his natural life, but it was also here where he met Tyr and it was this god-like entity that gifted him with psionic powers.

To reach the small Burg, that was built on top of the rock pillar, one had to use a basket, attached to a steel cable and an electric winch.

The first year of a new Longnight had arrived; in another twelve or thirteen months the ice flows that already drifted around his burg would have become a solid ice surface.

Egill had just returned from one of his rare shopping trips. His submarine, the only one of its kind on all Nilfeheim, was loaded with the usual dry goods and packed groceries. He sighed. This was the downside of being a hermit, he had no one to help him carry the things. He was muttering curses and grunted every time he carried boxes and bags to the elevator basket.

Egill did not turn as a deep voice in his head said, "You could get all the help you wanted or even buy one of these robots I heard about. Even use your telekinetics to float the things up in your nest. Instead of cursing the ice of the rock."

Egill placed a box with salt, spices, and ready to eat dinners into the basket and turned. There, next to the sleek Submarine in the churning waves and between the ice floes, surfaced an immense whitish shape with huge triangular-shaped fins on top.

The largest predatory fish known to Union science was the Tyranno Fin of Nilfeheim, sleek true fish, some of them bigger than the Blue Whales of distant Earth.

This albino animal that just surfaced next to Egill's submarine was the largest Tyranno on Nilfeheim and it was sentient.

Egill knew the white fish for almost his entire life. It was Egill who had given the fish a name and called him Tyr.

Egill was one of a handful of people who knew Tyr, but many hunters and fishers had seen it over the many centuries man had been on this world. There were stories and legends about the White Tyranno told at the tables of the old taverns that lined the Western Seawall outside the city limits of Halstaad Fjord, where only fishermen and Tyranno hunters gathered.

Egill now did turn to face his humongous non-human friend and said in the same soundless mental way, "And you could use a fraction of your telekinetic powers to help me instead of giving me a lecture."

Now he approached the edge of the small dock at the side of the Pillar. "I am surprised to see you still awake. Longnight has begun."

"You short-lived humans have not really noticed that the Longnights slowly grow shorter again, as they have been so long ago. I foresee the time when Longnights are of equal length with Shortsummer. Our rather odd orbit, caused in part by the fifth planet that is technically a failed sun and its massive gravitational pull, is slowly but surely deteriorating..."

Egill held his head. "Don't fill my mind with all those equations. I am not interested in those things. I don't even understand most of it. I am not like you who hangs around the Union school rock, telepathically spying on the kids and their lessons."

"Where else should a simple fish like me gain all the wonderful knowledge about the Universe and the United Stars? Thankfully, your off-world brethren are much more interested in these things than you and this is the reason your kind could bridge the vast distance and invade my peaceful and quiet world."

"You are more a god than a simple anything. You know full well that all you have to do is reveal yourself to the Union Outpost. I may be a just a grumpy Nilfeheim loner but even I know that a talking fish would not raise many eyebrows out there. The Union would come and most likely remove and resettle all humans. Union law is quite clear on that. You are sentient and you have been here first."

"It is not that simple. This world was colonized before it became Union. After almost 3000 of your years, this is as much their world as it is mine. I am quite content with the arrangement as it is. Besides, without humans coming to this world I would not be sentient."

"How can we have anything to do with that? You told me you have been sentient beings long before humans set foot on this planet."

"Because you humans always think in mono-directional linear ways when it comes to time. Cause and effect always apply but do not always have to be in a simple line."

Egill sat down on one of the steel bollards and crossed his arms while he looked at the immense being before him with much affection.

"So, you saying future and past are the same things and that everything is already decided, and that existence is preordained? If the future is set, then there is no such thing as free will. With a set future, there is no good and evil. Heroes are heroes because the outcome is clear, and criminals are not responsible."

"No Egill, the future is very much like a dough, an unshapely mass of possibilities, but there are many ingredients that need to be there. The outcome is predictable as a cake, but no one knows what shape it might take if it is a good cake, or perhaps a burned excuse for a baked product..."

Egill, the groceries, and everything vanished from sight only to reappear in the main hall of his small burg.

Tyr had once more demonstrated his tremendous psionic abilities. The translocation of almost a ton of groceries was no easy feat.

He simultaneously completed his explanation.

" ... meaning the framework of the future is there and can be predicted and some conditions are preordained."

"You are the only fish in the history of the Universe who can compare time with baking a cake. That is the only thing I really understood. The Norse of this world believe I am a wizard and have clairvoyance. They want me to throw the runes and then see the future as this is what a Seer and Wizard is supposed to do. But I am no Wizard and far from wise. What are these conditions you speak about?"

"It is shaped by events and decisions made in the past and in the now by the sum of all that is alive. These decisions are based on a basic set of rules if you will. For example, there is technically no such condition as cold. It is defined by the absence of heat. The same thing is true to many conditions and concepts. Darkness is the absence of light. Death the absence of life and so forth. Nothing occurs without having an effect. The very existence of the Metaverse as it is now depending on a balance. If light completely eliminates darkness, how can it be still light? If there is only good, how can it remain good?

The Saresii of old call it Proka-Aku and a religious philosophy of your own homeworld called Taoism calls it Yin and Yang. I am quite fascinated with the many religions and philosophies you humans came up with. To the Elders of the Universe, this concept is known as the RULE.

Some events must occur or perhaps prevented from occurring, and these events are preordained and therefore can be predicted. It is not clairvoyance. Was the cake analogy not sufficient?"

Egill rummaged through the bags and boxes of his shopping trip and found the bottle of vodka he was looking for. "I would lie to you if I said I understand, but it sounds as if it should make sense. So what does this all mean, big fish? Why are you telling me all this? I sense in all this there is the reason for your visit. Not that I am complaining, any reason you find to visit me is a good one."

"I am about to go to sleep, Egill but while I sleep there will be such an event, it is an event more important than perhaps any other."

Egill poured himself a generous helping of the clear liquid into a reasonably clean cup and topped it off with cola. Here inside his burg he didn't have to be traditional. "Do you want me to wake you when it happens, whatever you think will happen?"

"No Egill, you can't reach me once I retreat to the Sleep Mountains. My mind is awake like yours, my body and nature are still Tyranno Fin.

I want you to go to the Olafson clan and be present when Ilva Ragnarsson delivers her firstborn and also be there at his naming day."