The Gargoyle

I reached out to pluck one. As soon as I touched it, it froze under my finger. Turning from glass into ice, all the thousands of flowers-as if they were connected by one soul-began to shatter in tiny explosions. With each came the release of a single word, in a woman’s whisper, and together they fashioned a symphony that sounded like pure love. Aishiteru, aishiteru, aishiteru.

The bursting lilies raced down the mountain like dominoes detonating their way to the horizon. Underneath the joyous blanket of Aishiteru in the sky, the mountain itself shook and trembled and fell, flattening itself into tundra that unfolded everywhere. Just moments after it began, all around me the frozen shards of flower had become a field of ice that extended as far as my eyes could see.

I stared into this vast icy wilderness and it stared mercilessly right back at me. The arctic wind whipped hard against my shaking body. I was now completely aware that I was naked, save for the angel coin necklace that never left my neck.

The grave was gone-naturally, now that the entire mountain had disappeared-but there was a simple robe lying where it had been. When I picked up the garment to measure it against my body, flecks of dirt fell from it and were carried away by the powdery ballet of the blowing wind. The robe was much too small but because it was all I had, I put it on. I looked as ridiculous as you might imagine a burnt man in a tiny woman’s garment would look, but when you’re freezing there’s little profit in worrying about fashion sense.

The robe was the same one that I had seen on the Japanese woman at the Halloween party. Without a doubt it, and the grave it had come out of, had belonged to Sei.

· · ·

The gleaming bleakness of this new world engulfed me. How complete was my change of venue: from the smallest and blackest space I could imagine, to the widest and whitest. For miles around I was the tallest object, enormous simply by virtue of possessing legs upon which to stand, and yet I felt dwarfed by the immensity of the sky. To stand on tundra is to feel concurrently grand and inconsequential.

The thin robe was little protection against the cold, and the wind cut to my marrow. Something moved at the edge of my vision. I was already developing snow blindness, but I squinted to confirm the sight: a trudging bulk outlined against the vicious blankness. The figure seemed to be coming towards me, but it was hard to tell on such a flat surface. I headed towards it. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be any worse than standing still, awaiting hypothermia.

After some time I realized that the object moving towards me was a man. He must help me, I thought, for to not help me would be to kill me. The first detail I could make out was his thick red locks, which stood out against the snow like bloodstains on a bedsheet. Next I could see that he was wrapped in heavy furs and wore thick boots. His pants were thickly strapped leather and his coat was an animal thing. Over his shoulder, he seemed to be carrying a parcel of pelts. Puffs of steam exited his mouth. Ice frosted his beard. He was close now. Deep creases lined the corners of his eyes and he looked older than I believe he actually was.

When he arrived in front of me, he held out the package he’d been carrying on his shoulder and said, “Farðu í Þetta.” I understood what this meant: You will put these on.

I unwrapped the package to find a full set of clothing, thick skins with fur that would protect me. I pulled them on as quickly as I could, and soon I felt the air between my body and the material starting to warm. “Hvað heitir Þú?” What is your name? I was shocked to hear Icelandic out of my mouth as well.

“I am Sigurðr Sigurрsson, and you will come with me.” His answer confirmed the identity that I had guessed; but only hesitantly, because here-wherever here was-Sigurðr was unburned despite the way his life had ended. Which made me wonder why my body was still damaged.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“When will we get there?”

“I don’t know.” He squinted against the horizon. “I’ve been traveling a long time. I must be getting close.”

Around his waist Sigurðr wore a scabbard, the same one that had been clanging against Sei’s hips when they were dancing. He extracted Sigurðrsnautr by its serpent handle, and handed over his belt and sheath. “Put this on. You’ll need it.”

I asked why. He answered that he didn’t know.

I threw away Sei’s robe, thinking it useless now that I had the skins. Sigurðr picked it up and handed it back to me. “In Hel, you must use everything that you have.”

I twisted the robe around my waist, as a second belt above the one that Sigurðr had just given me. I asked him how he could tell in which direction we should head.

“I don’t know,” he answered. Sigurðr was quite a conversationalist. He used his sword as a walking stick, the blade cutting into the snow with each step. For a man who didn’t know where he was going, he took very resolute strides.

“Is this a hallucination?” It struck me as supremely odd to be in a hallucination, asking whether it was a hallucination, in a language that I didn’t understand. (In fact, how many people in the entire world know the Icelandic word for “hallucination” is ofskynjun?) Sigurðr answered that he didn’t think it was an ofskynjun, but couldn’t be positive.

We walked. And walked. And walked. For days, but the sun never set. Perhaps you think this an exaggeration, that I really mean we walked for hours, which seemed like days. But no, I mean days. We traveled in constant fatigue but we never came to the point of needing sleep, and despite my bad knee, I felt I could continue indefinitely. I thought of the places in the farthest northern reaches of the world where the sun remains in the sky for six months at a time. Would we have to march that long?

Sigurðr remained a man of few, and confused, words; for the most part, the only sound that came from his body was a slightly musical clacking from under his pelts, around his neck. After a while I stopped talking to him, except to try to make him laugh. I never succeeded. Sometimes I stopped walking simply to break the monotony. I would beg Sigurðr to wait for just a minute but he would always state that there was no time for rest. When I asked why, he would answer, “Because we need to get there.”

When I asked Sigurðr where “there” was, he didn’t know. So I told him that, given the fact he didn’t know, I could see no reason to continue to follow him. He would snort, say that I was allowed to make this stupid decision, and continue walking without me. Just when he was about to disappear from view, I’d take off after him in a hobbling run. Because of course I needed him-what would I do in this place alone? And so we plodded ever onwards, heading to the place that he couldn’t define and I couldn’t imagine.

Hallucinations should be better than this, I thought. Walking the tundra for days is boring and I was surprised I could hallucinate anything that mundane, for that long. The cold was too piercing; the patterns of snow were too perfectly random in their swirls; and my tiredness ached too honestly to be imagined. The only thing that didn’t seem realistic was my ability to continue with neither rest nor food.

Of course it was a delusion. A damn fine, cold, protracted hallucination. Withdrawal should not be like this. Unless…

“Sigurðr, did I die?”

He finally laughed. “You’re just a visitor here.”

If this place was Sigurðr’s, as the coffin had been Sei’s, I wanted to know more about it. About everything. I decided to abandon all subtlety. “That sound coming from around your neck-is it made by the treasure necklace that once belonged to Svanhildr?”

He stopped walking, perhaps deciding whether to confirm. He did: “Yes.”

“Do you have the arrowhead necklace, too?”

“That went to Friрleifr.”

“His name was changed to Sigurðr, you know.”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments, until he answered in the softest voice I had heard him use. “Yes, I am aware. It was a great honor.”

“Will you tell me about Einarr?”