Fable - Ask Frostfling Barrow

[Frazil Valrulf]

Spoiler: Music

Sastriga gracefully leaped over the dwarves and through the doorway Rimer and Rovan had opened. Frazil flung herself rather less gracefully through the door among a stampede of panicked bodies trying to escape the yawning pit. Looking back, she saw no one behind her, but she considered the lack of echoed screaming a positive outlook for their survival.

Frazil's eyes, being adapted to prevent snowblindness in the tundra, were not accustomed to the darkness of the underground. In this place, void even of the moon and stars, she could only squint into the unseen as they rushed forward. But her ears caught a familiar sound that caused any ísflögur to immediately pause: the soft groaning of ice underfoot. Sastriga, who had been idly sniffing around the chamber, also stopped. Her ears perked up.

Frazil gingerly shifted her weight from foot to foot to test the ice, frowning at the feel of it beneath her boots and the small air bubbles that hugged the bottom surface. She whistled to get the attention of her brash companions.

"Watch step! Ice not as thick as looking."

She moved over towards one wall, thinking that the ice was likely thicker there, and kept going at a cautious pace.

One of the dwarves muttered a curse as his boot slipped on the ice and he dropped his torch to catch himself. As he bent down to pick it up, he froze for a moment, his stare locked on the icy cave floor.

"What in the Hell?!" His outburst drew the attention of the nearby survivors, who quickly understood his sentiment.

From below the ice, a monstrous eye nearly the size of his body stared up at them.

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

This eye of primordial size observed them through the ice, nothing but a thin barrier separating these young races from something truly old. Rovan felt as small as a snowflake before a blizzard, gazing into its dark slit, like some wound in a sea of brass sclera. The eye sunk and vanished from view, the opaque ice hinting at some gargantuan form gliding away.

The ice . . . another cloud of frost poured over it from below, like a titanic breath. That cloud spread well below all their feet and caused many an explorer to panic and begin staggering across the ice. Frazil's warning reverberated in his head though. He didn't move immediately, but took his time to observe the more impatient souls going across.

Just as he was about to take his first step after them, he noticed a curious feature to the ice. Shapes were left behind from the cloud below - impossibly so, like someone cutting shapes in a foggy window with their finger. These, however, quickly caught his scribe's eye in their impossibly angular shapes. Letters. Symbols.

ᚼ◟ᛁᚱᛘ⸝ו╮ᛅᚦ⠃ᚢ◟ᚱ ᚾᚬᚱᚾᚠᚬᛏ⸌Íᛙ╮
ᛏ ᚾᛅ⸜⸝ᛋᛅᚢ⸌ÍᛚÍᚠᚢ

Memory splintered his current thoughts. He had seen these symbols before. In Tafna's book. But could he find a similar arrangement as to this?

Rovan feverishly flicked through pages in the book, eyes flitting from left to right, seeking, seeking, before the runes might disappear . . . and finding. There.

Marking the page, he sought to join the rest, taking the path that appeared safe from others walking it.

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

The ancient creature dove back into the depths, apparently losing interest in them. Some of the dwarves breathed a sigh of relief at its departure, while others held theirs in anticipation of the worst as they crossed the slick surface of this frozen grotto.

The quickest of the survivors had nearly reached the far side, in a desperate half-running, half-sliding fashion, when they felt the whole floor shudder beneath them.

Crack!

Fissures snaked out from an uplifted chunk of ice. A massive shadow in the underlying water recoiled and disappeared down beyond their sight, possibly to ram the lake's surface again. Several dwarves closest to the collision lost their already precarious footing and toppled over, uninjured but dazed.

The whole cavern was reverberating from the force of the impact, sending masses of icicles plummeting from the ceiling. Frazil flattened herself against the closest wall, trying to get as far from the cracks in the floor as possible. Her gaze was drawn to movement on the ceiling just as one of the icicles came shattered next to her, coating her flinching form in white.

Crack!

This time the leviathan creature breached the surface several yards away from its original impact point. Glacial water spilled out over the separating ice floes as rows of flat, serrated teeth closed around a chunk of ice and its screaming dwarf occupant.

The remaining survivors took off in every direction, trying to avoid both the falling shards and the more deadly threat that was lapping at the widening cracks in the floor -- hypothermia.

Even Frazil could not survive long in such frigid waters... especially with a hungry monster in it.

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

Spoiler: Music

He slammed the book shut, about to pursue the others, when the first crack shook the floor and sent the ceiling weeping with deadly, frozen tears.

"Noo--" Rovan began with an upward inflection at the first icicle shattering near him, as if he could tell the rudely impacting object to stop, like one might scold a drunk coachman. When more fell in swift succession, so did his negations, increasing in volume and desperation: "No, no, no - no - no,"-the frozen lake heaved and lurched like a dying whale, splintering the surface-"NO! NOOO--!"

His shrill cries and tripping escape were cut off when he slipped, falling as long as he was. The book tumbled out of his grasp and kept sliding along, before its part of the ice broke off, drifting in water. A gap substantial already separated him from Tafna's knowledge.

He struggled to rise, pointing and crying out for his lost item to anyone nearby:

"The book! We must not lose it! Get the . . ."

None listened. They all ran for their own lives. There was one last soul he could ask. He managed to struggle himself up to his knees without slipping, his clothes rendering him about as agile as a cart. Waving frenetically at Frazil and pointing at Tafna's book drifting off on its own ice-floe, he shouted, nasal voice rattling dully against ice walls:

"Frazil! We cannot afford to lose Tafna's work, it may prove vital for us!" He staggered to his feet, reaching the end of where he could safely stand, watching the book drift further from him, now by a gap of three yards. "Aid me!"

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

Frazil turned to look at the book Rovan was so excited about. It was about ten yards from her position, but between her and it lay a hazardous field of glacial water, ice and slush; all of which looked about the same in the haphazard torchlight borne by panicked dwarves. At least it seemed that the roof had already launched all of its projectiles.

She hoisted her own torch in one hand and made a run for the fallen tome. While her boots stuck somewhat better to the slushy interface between ice and water, the cracked floes threatened to fall apart beneath every step. Being lighter than the dwarves and more used to navigating thin ice, Frazil managed her way across the drifting surface without incident.

Sastriga had been pacing along the ice at the lake's edge, whining fretfully as she tried to figure out how to get at the creature below. She took Frazil's rush forward as a cue to bound across the ice, claws scratching across slippery surfaces, feet sending chunks of ice into the water as she went.

Frazil reached the final gap between her and the book first, but stopped short of the jump when an ominous shadow swam beneath the light of her torch and, a split-second later, the ice sheet she was standing on tilted violently.

She reached desperately for the edge of the ice as a dark head crested the water. With a momentary grip keeping her aloft, she swung at the leathery hide with the torch in her other hand. She couldn't tell if she'd struck the thing before it fell back into the water with a splash, sending her and bits of the ice floe flying. She only saw the blue light of her torch careening through the air like a comet before being engulfed by near-freezing water.

Luckily, she'd landed closer to the shore, and was able to drag herself out of the shallow water without much issue aside from being wet, cold and thoroughly angry.

She sputtered a string of curses. The book must have been long gone then.

A black nose nudged her. She looked up at Sastriga and managed a grin.

"Bring it to him," she pointed to Rovan after picking herself up and grumbling at her sodden armor and clothes.

Rovan would see the large wolf run up and stand before him with a tome held gently between its teeth. Sastriga would drop the book at his feet with the satisfaction of a lesser canine fetching a stick before shaking the extra water from her fur.

Amazingly, the tome would be unharmed except for maybe a few teeth marks in its cover.

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

Rovan tremulously picked up the grimoire in his hands, noting the teeth marks and how deep they could sink into leather - even with a gentle touch. The wolf looked ever so pleased with its efforts, tongue lolling at him. He managed a crumbling smile back, though he knew better than to pat the feral thing for its efforts.

"My thanks," he mumbled in awe, barely audible against the cacophony of cracks and splintering ice.

It was time to leave this place, lest they all end in the water or a draconic gullet. Now with the book safely back in his possession, he could think more clearly.

What they needed was a distraction.

He noted the vague movements of this titanic reptilian and where it had last been.

Dragons, if indeed it was one, were intelligent creatures - or so he had heard. He noticed it had gone after the dwarves that seemed to scream and shout the most. But their shouting bounced maddeningly about the room, making it difficult to tell from where they originated. No doubt, it relied just as much on the interplay between shadows and light to mark their whereabouts, just as these flickering lights guided them as to its location.

"Rimer! On my mark, fling all your packs and lit torches at once, towards where we came from!"

"What?!"

"Hasten to it, I say! And yell in Common as if you are retreating for the exit!"

He sincerely hoped the beast wouldn't understand Dwarvish. He lifted a hand, still staggering across the ice towards the other end of the lake, then flung a pointing finger for the exit. Rimer and a handful of dwarves managed to fulfill his wishes, throwing packs, knapsacks and lit torches to go skating across the ice. Meanwhile, they yelled and screamed - little acting required - urging one another to retreat back the way they came. Rovan added his voice to theirs:

"Retreat! Retreat, back to the outside!" his words declared, while his feet took him in the opposite direction. He narrowed his eyes, slipping and staggering sideways, searching for its movement, hoping sincerely its senses were as limited as theirs.

The ice broke again. And the bundle of sacrificed torches and packs disappeared between snapping jaws and an awesome arc of scales, frills and a spiked back. The thunder of its titan form crashing back into the waters drowned out their screaming voices, waves rolling towards them as if already in pursuit.

Rovan, Frazil and what remained of their host hastened to shame those waves for speed.

They left the lake, only to find themselves in another place . . . braziers blazing with fires as cold and blue as the all surmounting ice. The natural rock and ice gave way once again for worked stone, but knotted and bulging with encompassing ice, like faint, frozen waves on an ocean. Monstrous figures crested this ocean on pedestals, crowding the hallway for space, their dark forms trammeled by the same rampant ice. Some of these creatures nearly matched the shadow monsters they had encountered outside - but petrified, imprisoned, and much grander in size.

The temperature dropped nearly as much as if they too had plummeted into the cold waters, and it only seemed to grow colder, as they reached the chamber at the end of this hallway . . .

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

The chill grasped with claws felt down to the marrow of their bones, cold that misted their breaths almost before they could exhale. Even the ísflögur shivered in the primal winter that hung heavily in this hallway. If ever Frazil wanted to be reminded of home, this would have been a close comparison to some of the colder arctic nights, save for the lack of constant tundra wind.

She stayed close to Sastriga, whose body was still warmer than their surroundings, and to the bare warmth provided to her unique physiology by braziers burning with the sacred frostfire. Even so, the water that had soaked her head to toe had frozen into a fragile clear crust that cracked with her every movement.

The grotesque statuary leered over them as they made their way down the corridor. Frazil glared back as if daring them to come meet her axe, though she wondered in the back of her mind if she was in some sort of prison, or a very bizarre trophy hall. Sastriga must have had a similar opinion; a deep growl vibrated through her neck and chest as they passed the frozen menagerie.

Beyond the hall stood an archway formed of ice so clear and fine that it looked like woven glass. Upon it was engraved a single word unfamiliar to Frazil.

The room beyond might have been created by an altogether different architect than the previous chambers. Any rough-hewn stonework that might have carved out this part of the crypt was completely obscured by delicate ice sculptures that seemed to cover every surface of the room: herds of mammoths and reindeer stampeded in spirals around pillars that held up a vaulted ceiling; landscapes of conifers, mountains and glaciers accented the walls; semi-realistic wolves, snow bears and sabre-cats snarled soundlessly as they guarded rows of catafalques.

Empty ones, Frazil couldn't help but notice. This had to be the nornfædd tomb, but its occupants were conspicuously missing.

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

Spoiler: Music

A most curious menagerie of frozen critters passed him by - all while Rovan shivered, huffed and puffed, stamped his dead feet and rubbed his numb fingers against the increasingly oppressive cold.

But of course his lord had to send him in the most northern, far-flung reaches of the Spine. And straight down into a cursed crypt, to boot! Full of dragons, ancient magic and ravenous shadows. What sort of penance was this his liege lord had sent him on? What had he done, exactly, to deserve all of this?

Gods, what he wouldn't do for a fire right about now and some mulled wine. He could envision himself back in The Seven Stars, a heart tavern in the Middle City of Alliria, all wrapped up in heat, comfort and indulgence. Sipping from his mug, while wriggling exposed toes before a crackling fireplace in his own quarters.

He had even gone as far as approaching one of the blue-burning braziers, stretching out a hand in vain, hoping for heat, but finding nothing but cold rejection. It seemed no fire, or indeed life, could survive here for long, choked and quenched by merciless, stark ice.

In his self-pity, he nearly missed rows of catafalques, glaringly empty. The only reason they caught his notice was the persistent search of Frazil, her leashed wolf sniffing the empty beds of corpses, as if looking for an old friend.

Soon, they reached the end of this petrified chamber, as dead and frozen as a glacier, like the ice grotesquely imitated life while crushing it.

Pillars, animals and trees crowded a central, ritualistic well, like a stiff congregation. It was by then that Rovan gathered his nerve to stop focusing on his own ailments with the freezing air, and attempt to question Frazil, speaking through chattering teeth:

"D-does any of this make a modicum of sense to you?"

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

The collective teeth chattering of the group might have wakened the dead, had there been any. A few of the dwarves tried to remedy this with good old-fashioned dwarvish first aid, otherwise known as Firegut Whiskey.

These miners in particular carried small skins with them as the go-to treatment for anything from a snakebite to a hangover. In this case, they were hoping for a miracle cure for frostbite as they guzzled the liquor.

"'Ere. Put some fire in yer gut. Might stave off this damned chill a bit longer, eh?" one of the dwarves said companionably, offering Rovan some of his liquor out of pity. At least he had a beard to hide behind, for what good it did.

Up until now Frazil hadn't really noticed her companions' discomfort, but it slowly dawned on her that the human wasn't well-suited for the cold when he started stamping his feet and rubbing his hands like he was possessed by something.

She had been busy pulling out jerky from Sastriga's saddlebags and feeding the biggest scraps to the wolf before eating some herself; presently she retrieved her own thick mammoth-fur cloak from the bag on Sastriga's other side. She'd had it for so long that a few tufts had fallen out of it, and it now had a musky scent all its own, but it had served her well in the howling storms that often scoured the winter tundra. Of course, it was also sized for her to wear.

"Maybe not wear summer clothes in snowstorm next time?" she teased Rovan with a smirk as she offered the cloak. "Maybe Sastriga can keep you warm, if you no mind a little nibble."

"D-does any of this make a modicum of sense to you?"

Frazil made an attempt to translate his words, with limited success.

"Would not say is mountain of sense, no." She stared down the well, which like most of this place only met her with impervious darkness. "More like pit of no-sense.

"Could be for... offerings, maybe? Or where they dig for construction materials?" she suggested with a shrug before beckoning behind them.

"Would say this definitely nornfædd tomb... if any nornfædd here. Is like they build for them, but never used..." she trailed off, lost in thoughts that didn't quite add up.

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

Having received a flask of whiskey from a dwarf with unspoken gratitude, Rovan was halfway through his third swig when Frazil presented her offer:

"Maybe not wear summer clothes in snowstorm next time?" she teased Rovan with a smirk as she offered the cloak. "Maybe Sastriga can keep you warm, if you no mind a little nibble."

Rovan glanced at Sastriga, horrified. He took the cloak and purposefully side-stepped further away from the wolf.

"Reckon I will take my chances with the cloak, thank you." And the alcohol, he finished for himself, taking another swig with a wince. It tasted more like a purifier for medicine than anything else. But it did stave off the cold with a ball of fire in his throat and gut.

"Would say this definitely nornfædd tomb... if any nornfædd here. Is like they build for them, but never used..." she trailed off, lost in thoughts that didn't quite add up.

Swirling the flask in his hand with his question, Rovan raised his brows at Frazil:

"And what exactly are these, ah, nornfaed?"

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

Frazil remained silent for a few moments, still staring uselessly into the well, while she considered how best to explain. An idea came to her and she tossed Sastriga the last of the jerky in her hand before digging in the saddlebags again.

This time she pulled out a thick leather-bound box, and from that a rather plain lute. This was met by confused gawping accompanied by a couple snickers, though in fact strumming the strings did nothing to soothe her intense expression.

She played a few chords before settling into a slow rhythm of three that she seemed to like.

"Queens and Thanes rule from frozen halls; bring clan glory, or bring clan ruin," she spoke in time with the rhythm she'd begun. "Mothers of sacred life-flame. Fathers of war. Keepers of law. Weavers of spell."

She thought back to an old tale her mentor had told her years before that might have made the best summary she could think of:

"Nornfædd crown and hearth: Hermaður axe and hammer."

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

This was met by confused gawping accompanied by a couple snickers, though in fact strumming the strings did nothing to soothe her intense expression.

While the rest laughed, Rovan narrowed his eyes, attempting to puzzle out where Frazil was headed with this display. Soon enough, her chords rung dully throughout the hall, the gentle, stringed vibrations foreign to this dead air.

"Queens and Thanes rule from frozen halls; bring clan glory, or bring clan ruin," she spoke in time with the rhythm she'd begun. "Mothers of sacred life-flame. Fathers of war. Keepers of law. Weavers of spell."

She thought back to an old tale her mentor had told her years before that might have made the best summary she could think of:

"Nornfædd crown and hearth: Hermaður axe and hammer."

Her music and diction might not exactly be aureate, simple and slow as a farmer's nursery rhyme, but they hinted at a distant age gone by and long-held traditions. So, it appeared Nornfædd were what counted as nobility among her people. Not too dissimilar from Alliria, really - a class for ruling and a class for working. Rovan adjusted this extra cloak granted to him, allowing its folds to wreathe down around him.

Spoiler: Music

Crack. The sharp snap caught his attention, and when he turned, he found its source.

A new gash split the frozen snout of a bear in twain, spidering down its neck, reaching for its foreleg.

Rovan raised his hand, indicating for Frazil to stop. He listened carefully . . . and heard another sound. The faintest of whispers, as if spoken through several panes of glass and from a great distance, yet rumbling with unrealised power:

"Jek heyri at . . . þú leikr enn . . ."

His eyes sought the origin of this strange voice. And he found it emanating from the well, as if some far-away spirit was rumbling from its deep bottom.

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

Neither the whispers nor the cracking of ice caught Frazil's notice, but she ceased her playing when Rovan motioned for it. A large part of her wanted to play all the louder for his interruption, but the curious expression on his face suggested there was a good enough reason for it.

She followed his glance down into the well, although she wasn't sure what he was looking at down in that lightless pit. Had she still had her torch, she would have tossed it down to see how far it would go; lacking that, she looked around for an alternative.

The only obvious thing was one of the dwarves' flasks. Luckily, one of the miners, having finished his small ration of liquor, tossed his to the floor with an angry grunt.

"'Ey, that's mine!" he protested when Frazil snatched it up. Apparently he wasn't ready to get rid of it just yet. Not that he had any choice in the matter.

"Go get it then," Frazil said flatly as she dropped it into the well. She shushed his ensuing string of curses and listened for a ring of metal striking the bottom.

Rovan Ravenhill

 

[Rovan Ravenhill]

A beat. Then, a distant clang,

The flask hit a hard bottom. Quite a drop, really.

Rovan leaned over the well, gloved hands on its edge, listening carefully, eyes peeling the sides of the well as if they held some secret answer there.

"Jek heyri at . . ." the voice rumbled from the bottom again, more forcefully this time, defying whatever separated them.

"LEIKR!"

The cold winds that whipped up with the voice blew his dark hair back, filling his nostrils and skin with a terrible miasma - freezing, worse than the air around them, yet damp from its source of moist life. He retreated from the well, pulling the hood from his cloak over his head as if it could protect him.

Leikr . . . Leikr? Where had he heard this before?

Distantly related to the dwarven term of legem . . . or the Nordenfiir 'eikre,' with that harsh, rhotic sound at the end. It sounded almost like some strange alchemy between the two tongues . . . both terms meaning 'to play.' Could that be what it meant?

Tafna's words echoed in his mind. The speech of the frost giants is lost to us. This may be the first writing we have found of them. From the words he had heard spoken by Frazil, it could even sound like some distant cousin of her accent, too.

Languages often shared the same roots. Like family trees, they held some similarities to one another, slowly changing and morphing before the twin wheels of time and distance.

Whatever had spoken these words was very much alive and at large. As well as probably being large. But from its desperate roar, it might be in some plight itself . . .

So far, they had witnessed one draconic creature. Could it be a similar one, related to the first they had seen? Or perhaps the very same one? How would it sustain itself here? Linked to this room by some underground lake or system of rivers?

Too many question, too few answers. But he did arrive at one conclusion.

It wanted for them to play. Play? Play what?

At last, his gaze ended on Frazil's instrument.

"I think . . . whatever is down there . . . wishes for you to continue," -he twirled his hand, looking for the right word to capture her previous and rather modest performance- "playing."

Frazil Valrulf

 

[Frazil Valrulf]

"Jek heyri at . . ." the voice rumbled from the bottom again, more forcefully this time, defying whatever separated them.

"LEIKR!"

This time Frazil heard the voice as clear as day. She found the words vaguely familiar, yet exotic enough to elude her understanding. They sent a nameless dread creeping through her guts to settle into a small knot in her stomach.

Some instinct called her to draw her weapons and pursue this assumed enemy; instead she turned that intuition into a question aimed at the unseen speaker beneath their feet.

The query that blinded her mind to all else flowed out in the form of a song, quick in tempo and with an upbeat melody. Her fingers swept with practiced memory over the lute's strings, drawing out the bright chords and notes clearly from each vibrating strand.

"Ahoń unizie neðan siabie ŭ trygg..." Frazil recounted in the half-chanted, half-sung tradition of her people the myth of the god-hero Ikkituq Ataan; how he tricked the great dragon Grenhyl and stole his fire. Like any tale about the trickster god, there was no room for either solemnity or dignity for his foes.

If what waited below was what she subconsciously feared, she would likely rouse its ire. If not -- perhaps it would find the story familiar, if not entertaining.

It was almost a shame that none of her compatriots could understand the words.

Rovan Ravenhill