Authors: Eva García Sáenz
I hid a gesture of annoyance. The poker game had started again.
What to say, what not to say.
How much should I bet, how much could I lose.
"How much do you really know about me Marion?"
"I've done my research and I know that you've got nothing to do with the Hooke Awards. I have a good contact there and I discreetly asked for Wistan Zeidan. They've never heard of you, but I didn't compromise you, don't worry."
"I appreciate your prudence."
"I would never compromise a longevo," she muttered. "Our life is complicated enough without tripping each other up."
"But you weren't surprised to see me This morning, at the meeting, I almost fell flat on my face when I saw you, but you... You weren't just putting on a front for Pilkington. You weren't really all that surprised."
She studied the palms of her hands, as if looking for a ring that wasn't there.
"I've been looking for you for a while now," she finally said, as if it was a shameful confession.
"A while?"
"A year ago I saw you on the surveillance cameras at the Kronon, when you went to San Francisco. I recognized you, you had the same goatee you had four centuries ago in Plymouth, the same traits, so many years later. I never forgot you, I've had many men at my side, but I never forgot about you, and I cried for you for many decades. I considered myself as a widow for a very long time."
I was the same, how could I forget you, my dear Marion? How could I forget what we went through?
"Do you keep an eye on all the security footage at the Kronon? Is that another job of yours?" I said hoarsely, trying to focus.
"Not exactly, but I control a lot of Pilkington's activities. He asks a lot of questions in all the departments and my bosses don't like it."
"And who are your bosses, who's behind the Kronon Corporation?"
She turned away from me.
"That's what I'm trying to find out, they're awfully discreet, I don't even know if the names or faces of the executives I met with in the Board Room are real or just a front. And maybe I shouldn't get tied up in those kinds of matters, I just want to be close in case I can shed more light on finding out what I really am."
And I can tell you, but it's too soon for that.
"And I suspect that you're also behind what the Kronon Corporation could discover with regard to aging, am I right?" she added, finishing off her wine. "The question is, why have you returned, a year later? Isn't what Pilkington told you enough? Have you found something? Another lead? We could do it together, me from the inside and you with your elusive identity."
Marion put her glass down next to mine, and on doing so, her finger lightly brushed the back of my hand. I jumped up, feeling uncomfortable.
"I can't do this, Marion. I can't continue with this."
I walked over to the concrete railing and leaned on it, looking at the street lights.
"Continue with what?"
"I have a wife and everything I'm doing is for her."
"I don't understand what you're saying," she said, after standing up and walking to my side.
"I can't tell you anything else, she's been kidnapped and I only have two options: find the person who did it or find a compound to reverse the effects of the telomerase inhibitor in nineteen days."
"And if you don't?"
"If I don't, she dies, Marion. She dies."
Solstice
ADRIANA
When I woke up that morning I found two plates of hot food on the floor of my cell. Enough for that day; a recently baked roll which I devoured without giving much thought to, a meat stew that looked to be game and a grilled trout that melted in my mouth. I saved half of my rations because I didn't know when I would eat again.
The days seemed eternal inside those stone walls. The wind never stopped blowing through the high, small window and I felt disoriented without a watch or phone. My only reference was the light that came in from outside, and then slowly left me until I was once again lost amongst the shadows.
Gunnarr arrived as I was drifting off to sleep. He sat on my quilt without turning the lights on and continued with his story, as if he had never left the cell:
"So, I left the farm that morning without saying goodbye to anyone, found Skoll in the woods and followed him. Those first days when we were alone were the most instructive days of my life. Skoll was the leader of his group, the
berserkir
, so he oversaw the secret ceremonies and sacred rites consecrated to Odin. But not the wise Odin my father had told me of, but rather a vengeful Odin, the warrior who cut lives short riding on his eight-legged horse, an evil gift from Loki.”
“Skoll taught me about everyday items which, once handled correctly, had very powerful and useful effects. For example, the bread contaminated with ergot, a cousin of LSD. You can imagine the hallucinogenic effects those loaves had. And that's how I met Odin, his caves, his wolves and his entire heavenly court. They talked to me and I talked to them. All the inanimate objects came to life. The mountains were huge, the giant boulders in the streams were luminous elves... “
I began my training by taking small doses with every meal, making sure that I had no weapons nearby, to find out the effects it had on my body.
Some days later he began to give me beer with black henbane. Henbane makes you feel light. When I drank it I felt as though I lost weight, as if this huge body was a weightless being, and I felt like I was flying.
It was amazing.
I was me, Gunnarr, in all my glory, not a farmer.
"It's all a lie," Skoll repeated. "Don't believe anything you feel or see. The other
berserkir
believe that they are really flying, which is a good thing during combat, but you have to lead them and you need to see the reality."
"But I have flown, I swear that my hand touched the top of that pine tree. I swear that I have been on the snowy peak of that mountain. Feel my hands, they're still cold."
"You haven't moved from where you're sitting right now, boy.
He cast a meaningful glance at his boot and I realized that his huge foot had been crushing mine for quite a while.
"I'll tell you a secret that everyone wants to know about us: why don't weapons hurt us? It's thanks to the red drool of Odin's horse. When it falls on the forest floor, it turns into these red mushrooms. They look innocent enough, but the powder the spores give off is enough to control eleven men, and those eleven men can control the outcome of a battle. Your dreams that lasted for eleven nights, the power of being invulnerable, indestructible, immortal: you can only get that feeling from the red mushrooms."
"So that's all it is? A feeling? It's not real?"
"It's real if you believe it is."
"That's not good enough, those are empty words to trick me. I wanted it to be real."
"So you really want to be immortal," he whispered, scornfully.
"Yes, that's what I want. That's how I felt in my dreams."
"Ok, boy. Well keep dreaming," he said, patting me on the back and heading off to collect more mushrooms.
When I had learned all there was to know about his powder, his plants and his roots, when my body was used to seeing brighter colors and sharper sounds every morning, he took me to the camp where the other ten
berserkirs
were hiding out.
They had all fought in many battles, they were old comrades of war and they were used to fighting together. They looked at me with the same kind of apathy that one looks at a puppy, and then they ignored me.
The next day we headed North, following the coast towards Frisia. We crossed parts that would later be known as Halen, Stalen and Visen. And that's where the first
razzia
I took part in occurred. A fairly unprotected farm, with no fencing, ruled by an old
jarl
whose sons had set sail months ago and had not returned.
It was disgustingly simple: the fire, the pillage, the unarmed men. They barely resisted. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I had taken my share of red mushrooms that morning, and I can say that I did feel powerful and light, although I was also conscious of every painful cry that came from the mouths of my victims, farmers, like me. Some of them I even knew.
“But do you know what I remember most about that blood fest,
stedmor
? The fear that my neighbors would recognize me and tell my father. That's what I remember. So I smeared my face in blood, in an attempt to hide my identity, and continued with the killings, begging Odin that my father would never find out about what I was doing.”
When no more screams could be heard, Skoll came over to me and pointed to one of the adjacent buildings.
"Now for the women, don't kill them. Just rape them, Odin should spread his seed, so that when we die there are still
berserkir
on this side of the valley."
So I went inside one of the huts, and saw a girl hiding there.
In actual fact it was a storeroom where they kept their provisions. When she heard me enter she didn't even hide. She stood before me, shaking, with Dutch courage.
I threw her on the floor, looking behind me, but no
berserker
had followed, me, they were all otherwise occupied doing more or less the same as me.
"Scream, woman, I want you to scream and beg me not to do it."
I tore off her skirt and apron, exposing her breasts. She was paralyzed from fear. I pulled my pants down and leaned over her.
"Come on, scream! Loudly! Haven't you ever faked it with your husband?"
The woman looked at me, not understanding was I was trying to tell her.
"Aren't you going to touch me?"
"Of course I'm not, what do you take me for?" I replied, offended. "Now, could you please scream, as if I were splitting you in half? If you don't, other
berserkir
will come to make sure I'm raping you properly, and then, I promise, you will want to scream like a pig."
The good woman began to howl, every scream more convincing than the last, as I lay down beside her and tried to take in what had just happened. I counted my first kills, many of them beardless boys, like me.
Then I hunted around the storeroom and found some blueberry juice, which I covered myself in and artistically painted some wounds on her. A split lip, a black eye, those sorts of things. Skoll walked through the door, just as I had imagined. I pretended to ravage her. He seemed happy with what he saw, and he left. And that's it."
"So you didn't rape her," I thought out loud.
"I didn't want to tear women apart, I did that once, when I was born, and I've never forgiven myself," replied Gunnarr, shrugging his shoulders in the dark.
"I went back to camp, whilst all the
berserkir
congratulated me profusely for my blood baptism. Skoll couldn't take his eyes off me, his dark eyes, which were shining with pride.
"That thing you do with both hands is going to come in very handy, boy. I've never seen anyone kill that fast, and with both hands at the same time!"
I smiled, going along with it all, but inside I was dying at the thought of what I'd just done.
Although the worst was still to come. Skoll thought that I was ready to be one of them, and the next morning he woke me, while I was shivering from the cold. We normally slept outside, and they had taken my fur blanket. I soon found it. I just had to follow the sound of their laughter. Two of them were covering it in honey.
"What do you think you're doing with my blanket?" I cried, facing them.
"Don't wash yourself in the river for the next week," said Skoll, stepping in front of me, who was in a great mood that morning.
"You can turn me into a
berserker
, but there's no way I'm going to stink like you do. And why are you ruining my blanket?"
"We're preparing you for your lady. In a few days you'll be ready for your challenge, but we have to wait for the right wind."
On that infamous day they wrapped me in a sticky fur that had once been my blanket. Then they took me to a cave hidden away in the forest. They pulled my blanket off and threw me to the ground, unarmed and in a state of shock.
"If you survive, bring me her paw. This is the test you have to survive," he shouted.
To begin with, I couldn't see anything, but I could smell her and she could smell me. It was a bear who had recently given birth and had been separated from her cub. I tried to escape, I ran to the entrance of the cave, but in horror, discovered that the
berserkir
had lit a wall of fire, blocking my exit and that of the bear, although the wind that day was blowing the smoke out and we weren't chocking to death. I wasn't even going to have a quick death.
So I turned to face her, and she charged at me, furious, and there we were, standing up and dancing a lethal dance. I blocked her swipes with these hands that you see before you, I felt the mud and moss from the forest on her soft pads. I was in shock, I knew that I was going to die and I almost gave in. I assumed that she was going to eat me alive, without a single weapon to take on that huge beast.