“What are they?” Desdemona asked as he stopped just inside the entrance. He copied her motion, raising his weak torch to see for himself.
He made three slow rotations around the perimeter before he answered her, his voice hushed, his heart loud. The chamber was filled with figures—hundreds of them—chiseled into the rock. Circles and obelisks, eyes and angles, a language of pictures and drawings Dagmar couldn’t decipher but recognized all the same.
“They are . . . runes,” Dagmar whispered, the fine hairs on his neck and arms rising in reverence.
“I thought the only runes were in the Temple of Saylok. I thought they were guarded by the keepers,” Desdemona whispered. There was no fear in her face, and her voice echoed the thrill in Dagmar’s own heart. He was wise enough to be afraid, afraid enough for both of them. But he was not afraid enough to leave. Thunder rumbled, hammering against the mountain above them. The reverberations made the cavity hum.
“What do you think they all mean? Are they stories?” Desdemona asked.
“Some of them. Look, you will recognize these,” he said, pointing to the figures nearest the entrance. It was as if the runes began with them.
“It is a tale of the gods,” she said, pleased with herself. “There is Father Saylok,” Desdemona pointed out. “And Adyar the eagle, Berne the bear, Dolphys the wolf, Ebba the boar, Joran the horse, and Leok the lion.” The chiseled renderings were remarkably detailed. The god, Saylok, son of Odin and father of their land, stood in the center of a six-pointed star, his animal children equidistant from him, each one occupying a section of the star.
Dagmar touched the uppermost point and moved to the right, saying the name of the clan—Adyar, Berne, Dolphys, Ebba, Joran, and Leok—as his fingers fluttered over each one. “This is how our land must look from the sky.”
Desdemona, emboldened by his action, reached out a hand and pressed her palm to the rune directly in front of her, her eyes lit with curiosity in the jittery shadows.
“This rune has wings, Dagmar,” she marveled, the lines hugging her fingers as she traced them. The rumble of distant thunder changed, rising in pitch until the drone became a thousand whispers. A fluttering swelled in the cave, like the wind outside was fleeing the rain.
Desdemona snatched her hand from the figure, but it was too late. From somewhere above them, a legion of wings descended, swirling around the chamber, striking the walls, clawing for space, tangling themselves in Desdemona’s hair and tugging at Dagmar’s clothes. Their torches were knocked free as they swatted wildly at the writhing bodies and papery wings. Muffled screams erupted from their throats as they buried their faces against each other, hiding from the swarm.
As quickly as they’d arrived, the bats found the opening in the chamber and rushed to depart, the swish and hiss of their flight echoing even after they were gone. For a moment the children huddled together, hands moving over their limbs and loose clothing, checking for blind trespassers.
The torches burned on, two small fires on the cavern floor, and Dagmar stooped to retrieve them, relieved that he and his sister wouldn’t be left to find their way out in the dark. He shivered violently and shook out his clothes once more, but Desdemona had already moved on, torch in hand, her fear as fleeting as the bats.
“That rune had wings, but this one has a flame. Mayhaps it is a fire rune,” she mused.
“No!” Dagmar yelled, and the sound split and jangled off the walls in a chorus of denial, but the carving Desdemona caressed whooshed into flame, the lines of the symbol glowing like hot coals. Dagmar cursed, dropping his torch again. He shrugged out of his cloak so he could smother the fire licking the wall.
“Are you mad? You can’t touch the runes,” he bellowed, beating the flames. His cloak would be singed. It already stunk of bats. The rune blinked out as the fire was doused, and Dagmar stepped back, panting, waiting for the next calamity.
“Why can’t I touch them? You did,” Desdemona muttered, but she stooped to pick up his torch, chastened.
And Dagmar realized he had.
He had touched the walls first.
He had traced the star of Saylok and nothing had happened.
“Mayhaps . . . some of them are simply stories,” he offered, feeling strangely empty.
“Then touch the fire rune,” Desdemona challenged. “My torch has gone out.”
He hesitated, knowing he was a fool and Desdemona was a tormentor. But he couldn’t resist.
He expected heat and felt only the cold kiss of stone, the furrows tickling the tips of his fingers. He pressed harder, willing the rune to light, wanting the power his sister had so easily wielded. Suddenly—desperately—he wanted to call wings and fire, even if it meant the bats carried him away and the cave burst into flame.
But the rune denied him.
“Mayhaps I have rune blood,” Desdemona marveled, oblivious to his disappointment. “Like the keepers.”
“Rune blood and no bloody sense,” Dagmar said, smiling at her to take away the sting of his words, smiling to take away the sting in his chest. He had always dreamed of being a Keeper of Saylok.
He froze, an idea dawning.
“There is . . . blood . . . on your fingers,” he said. “You traced the runes in blood. Hilde says the keepers use blood to power the runes.”
Desdemona held her fingers to the light. Blood stained the tips and lined the crevices.
“I do have rune blood,” she marveled, gleeful.
Dagmar used the blade of his hatchet to nick his finger, wincing a little at the pinch. Blood welled, black in the poor light, and without allowing himself to fear, he traced a rune that enclosed an eye, wiping his blood in the furrows that formed lid, lash, and pupil. The rune seemed harmless enough, no wings or flames, no swords or headless men like some of the others.
Then he waited, hopeful and horrified at what he might see . . . or what he might not see.
Then darkness swallowed him whole and his mind was not his own.
Pictures formed and fell away, and distance narrowed as he rose above the cliffs. He was flying at dizzying speeds, soaring over the trees back to the cottage in Dolphys where he lived with his sister and his father, where he tended goats and fed pigs and read whatever he could scavenge, even if it was the scribblings of his own hand. He continued past his home, flashing over hills and vales, over forests and streams until he stood on the temple mount of Saylok, blood on his hands, eyes lifted to the rafters of the sanctum. He wore a keeper’s robe—deep purple—and his head was cold. He touched it with wet fingers and felt the bare skin of his scalp.
The temple melted into a grove, giant trunks and heavy branches covering the sky and burrowing into the ground he knelt upon. He held a woman in his arms. She looked like his memories of his mother, but he’d been four when she died—so small—and he’d never held her this way. She had always held him. Her body was warm, but her eyes were cold, and he cried, great gulping sobs that tore at his chest and his throat.
“Dagmar, can you hear me?” his mother asked, but her gaze stayed fixed and her mouth did not move.
“Dagmar!” she cried, and Dagmar gasped, pulling long, deep breaths into his starving lungs. He breathed so deeply, the woman slipped from his arms, and he catapulted back across the distance, the landscape moving so quickly that the colors became a blur of greens and blues, light and dark, and he found himself back in the cave, lying on his back, his arms and legs flung wide, blood in his nostrils and a pulse behind his eyes. Desdemona knelt beside him, holding his torch, and he realized it was her voice that had called to him.