Outside the bitter cold winds of Longnigh



Galactic Chronicles Book I

CAPTAIN ERIC OLAFSON

FIRST JOURNEYS

By Vanessa Ravencroft

CHAPTER 1 – Nilfeheim-



Outside the bitter cold winds of Longnight howled around the thick duro-crete walls of the Burg, but here in mother’s drawing room it was warm and cozy. The soak-stones glowed warm with Tyranno Oil fire in the oven. Somehow I always thought her room was just a bit warmer than all the other rooms and halls. The walls were not gray duro-crete. Velvet curtains and wall carpets depicting the great clan wars hid most of it. I was lying on my favorite spot, nestled among the incredible soft copper and white colored Nubhir furs spread out on mother’s divan. Her fur blankets were lined with smooth, luxurious shimmering ivory satin. Ever since I could remember loved to feel them. My blankets were made of the coarse hair of Fangsnappers and not lined at all and had a strong musky odor. Here everything smelled wonderful.

She was sitting across in her favorite chair, the thick book of legends on her lap and she was reading to me about another fantastic adventure of Thor the thunder god. Her long blonde hair glistened like gold in the warm light of the reading light. The old book resting on the maroon colored skirt of her velvet dress, the one with the golden seams I liked so much.

She was a great reader and could bring the characters of the story come alive and she gestured with her slender hand and began to read:

“One morning Thor, the mighty God of Thunder, awoke from a deep slumber; he reached for his hammer as he was wont to do first thing every morning. Alas, on this day, his fist formed around thin air -- the hammer had disappeared.”

Her hand was searching the thin air next to her chair and I was no longer lying down. I never had heard this story before and hat to sit up straight. Thor’s hammer gone! She glanced at me, gave me a deep smile and kept on reading. Her voice increased in intensity and she managed to speak with a deeper voice.”Thor was beside himself. His rage was immense and would probably have been quite destructive, but without his hammer, all he could do was rant and rave. What good was the God of Thunder without his mighty weapon?”

I could only imagine. Thor without his hammer!” Mother’s voice became a quieter and her face had a quizzing look “Of course he had his suspicion as to the identity of the thief ... it could only have been those pesky Giants! But no matter, he needed his hammer back, and quickly! First thing though, he had to find out where the Giants might have hidden it. Who better than Loki, the wiley one, to make inquiries. Not to lose any time, Loki went to Freya and asked her for the loan of her feather-dress, the famed falcon-cloak, so he might quickly fly to the land where the Giants dwell. When Freya heard what the cloak was needed for, she was more than willing to help. So Loki went on his way and it wasn't long before he happened upon Thrym, one of the princes of the Giant clan. Thrym feigned surprise and inquired what could possibly be so wrong in Asgard, or perhaps Elfland, that Loki dared enter the realm of the Giants on his own. Loki told him of his mission, to find the hammer of Thor. Whereupon the Giant threw back his huge, ugly head, shook with thunderous laughter, and then told Loki that the hammer was well out of the reach of the Aseir ... safely buried, some eight fathoms beneath the earth's surface. And it would never again be swung by Thor ... lest Freya herself be brought to him as his bride. As Freya was the bride of Odin and the most beautiful of all the Aseir.”

I knew Freya would have looked exactly like my mother, for who could be more beautiful than her? “You should have a cloak of feathers too!” I said. So you could look lovely and I could borrow it to fly around!” She laughed.”Oh that would be grand indeed. However I doubt Freya would want to share her cloak with a mere mortal, but I too wondered how that cloak would look like, especially when my father told me this story when I was a little girl. “

“What did Freya say when she heard about that?”

“Let me read you more of that story and let us find out.” She turned the page and once again she read. “Loki hurried back to Asgard, to inform Freya that she needed to ready herself to become the bride of the Giant Thrym. For the good of Asgard, of course! Freya's outrage became the stuff of legend in the halls of Asgard -- the idea, she, the beautiful, wild, free-spirited Freya, the bride of that mangy dog! But something had to be done. Finally, Heimdall, the wise one, advised Thor that there was no other solution than that he, Thor, dress up in women's bridal frocks and pretend to be Freya. To say that Thor was less than taken with this idea would be an understatement. No way was he going to risk the ridicule of all Asgard. There had to be a better way! But nobody could come up with a better plan. Everyone knew that the Giants had long had their eye on Asgard, and with the help of the hammer, they might even accomplish this goal. And that would simply not do! Especially since Odin was in his sleep and could not be woken for 100 years.. Loki even offered to accompany Thor, decked out as his handmaiden and soon, the great rams were ready to draw Thor's wagon across the heavens. Mountains split open, forests burst into flames, and the rumble from the mighty wagon could be heard from a long way off. Thrym believed it to herald the arrival of his bride. He bade his hall to be decked and the tables readied for a great feast. “As night fell, the great meal had begun. Thor alone ate a whole roasted ochsen, eight salmon, and every bit of the sweetmeats that had been served for the women; all this he washed down with three barrels of mead. Thrym thought this just a bit odd, but Loki whispered to him that Freya had not eaten for eight days, too overcome with longing for the Giant Prince. Now that was more to the brute's liking, and he felt a desire to kiss his betrothed. But as he lifted "her" veil, he pulled back in shock ... the eyes he encountered glittered as with madness. Again, Loki explained that Freya had not slept for many nights, from longing for her groom. Then the giant's oldest sister came forth and bade "Freya" take her golden bracelets from her arms; with these she would insure the old giantess' favor and good will. Meanwhile Thrym, impatient with the ways of women, called for the hammer to be brought and laid in his bride's lap. Thus would their union be sealed before the Gods. Those words were music to Thor's ears. No sooner did he hold his hammer in his hand than that he sprang from his chair ... the first blow killed Thrym outright. None of the clan of the giants survived that night, not even the old women who had asked for his bracelets in return for her favor. He paid her in blood instead of trinkets.”

She closed the bug with a loud thud that brought me back to reality. “And it was thus that the God of Thunder reclaimed his hammer.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“What is an ochsen?” I asked.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“It is a huge animal with horns, twice the size of the biggest Fangsnapper you ever going to see.” “Not even Uncle Ragnar could eat an entire Fangsnapper!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">She laughed.” No I am sure even your huge Uncle Ragnar could do that.” She put the book aside, got up and brushed over her skirt.”And now it is time for my little warrior to go to sleep.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“He could not have done it without the help of Loki and the wise Heimdall.” I concluded and she nodded.” This is very true, Eric and that is the message in this story. It means not all problems can be solved with raw strength and weapons. Of course Thor being Thor he ended the story his way and made sure no one would ever again get the idea and steal his hammer.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father who had entered the room, his eyes glassy made a growling sound from his massive chest.” Loki is a trickster and he deceived Thor many times after. No Neo Viking should ever listen to this particular story. ”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Mother pursed her lips and said.” But he is one of the gods and half brother to Thor and he did help the Thunderer to get his hammer back!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">He glared at me.” This is no place for a warrior born. Look at you lying on furs in the boudoir of a woman. You are too old now to be in your mother’s dressing room. All this warmth will make you soft like a woman. You are to go outside right now and keep watch on the tower. The cold wind will clear your mind of all that soft rubbish and steel you to be a man!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Mother protested.”Isegrim he is five years old what is wrong with me reading him the legends of the Gods? He is not going out on that freezing tower in the middle of Longnight. There hasn’t been a guard up there for 500 years! He is no warrior yet, he is a little boy!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father uncoiled his ever present whip; he carried on a sling attached to his wrist. The whip was made of a length of steel cable. He bellowed loudly and angry:” Know your place woman! It is not proper for you or anyone to question my decisions!” I could smell the mead on him as he rushed by me towards mother.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">She stood there not moving an inch and holding her chin high. “You do not scare me with your whip! You are drunk. Now leave my rooms! My Father will hear of this if you do not leave now!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father screamed:” No one gives me commands in my Burg, you are but a woman and your only duty is to please me! He slashed the cable across the face of my mother, blood was everywhere…and I woke up, bolting upright in my bed. That night had burned itself into my mind and I knew it would be with me for the rest of my life. My mother died that night. A night that happened now six years ago. He had killed her and he had beaten me after it as well. I almost died that night and more often than not I wished I had died with my mother that night. Death was nothing but a word for me before, but I knew very well what it meant now. There was no rest for me in a night like this. I could not go back to sleep without seeing the lifeless bloody heap that had been my mother. I could see kit even right now, but being awake was better. Isegrim had married again and now I had two brothers. Lothar and Tyr. My stepmother was a kind woman I did not hate her, but she was of simple mind and would rarely speak at all and if she did, it was to praise the manhood and strength of my father. Lothar was two years younger than me, but father treated him like his heir, even though I was the firstborn and according to our laws heir to all. I had but one goal in life, to grow old and strong enough to kill my father for what he had done to my mother. Oh I feared him, a footstep or a noise that announced his coming send shivers down my spine. He would not leave any opportunity to kick or hit me. If I was lucky he was done after just one or two strokes and lost interest in me. Then I had been banished from the main house by my father and had to stay in an unheated room in the old tower. My step brother now had my old room with all my things and Lothar from early on learned that he had a special position and he too never let a chance pass to let me know. All this I got used to. The best day in my life happened when I turned seven and I could go to Union School. Away from the Burg and away from my father.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">At basic school I learned that Nilfeheim was the third planet in the Solken System. That Nilfeheim was a Water-World and that we all originally came from a Planet named Earth and settled Nilfeheim a long time ago. Our teacher was an Off-worlder, a person that was not born on Nilfeheim and didn’t even have a beard. Solken System was only one of many Solar Systems that belonged to the United Stars of the Galaxy, usually only referred to as the Union. Humans and Nonhuman species belonged to it and space ships travelled between all those worlds. One morning he told us that every Union Citizen had rights and was bound by a higher law. Higher than that of the Elders and the Traditions on Nilfeheim, laws my father broke as he killed another Union Citizen.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">This was the first Shortsummer I experienced, the period our planet was on the short end of its elliptical orbit around our sun and it would last three standard years. The other period we called Longnight and it lasted for seven standard years. During Longnight the sun would barley appear across the horizon and temperatures plunged to minus sixty degrees. Now during Shortsummer temperatures could climb all the way to 15 degrees and most of the planet wide ocean was ice free.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">I stepped to the small window and looked outside. Our Burg had been built on a large rock above the churning waves of the ocean; actually it was the peak of an underwater mountain. The rock was known as Ragnarsson Isle and had been the traditional home of the Ragnarsson Clan ever since Nilfeheim was settled by Terran Colonists in 2166. Now during Shortsummer and on a clear day I could normally see the Oseberg Island where the Oseberg's had their burg, but not tonight, a strong storm coming from the south, pushing the waves to crash even more violent and higher against the rocks of the isle than usual and reach all the way to the lower walls of the burg. The Oseberg’s were the mortal enemies of the Ragnarsson Clan and until about 500 years ago there was open war between these clans. Although open clan wars were no longer practiced or permitted, it was still forbidden to even speak the name Oseberg within these walls.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">It was still very early and there would be another two hours before the burg came to life and the servants and the clan would get ready for the hunt. So I was very surprised when I heard steps, my door was opened without a knock or announcing my visitor. Only one person in the Burg would do this, my father. Isegrim was a big man, even for Neo Viking Standards. He wore his fur lined housecoat and his long black hair not yet braided. His face framed by a full beard of the same black color. He stared at me from his cold blue eyes and barked at me.” Your Grandfather is here! He wants to see you!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">At first I wondered why he did not send his servant Harkun or one of my brothers and came himself to summon me, but he made his reason clear with his very next sentence.” If you mention anything about what happened to your mother. I will kill you on the spot. Do you understand?”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“I understand that my mighty father is afraid that it comes to light he murdered his wife. The wife that provided him with a Burg and wealth. Wealth her father can take away from you. You need to kill me now, father. For I will not stay silent and the day will come I will revenge my mother!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">His whip uncoiling was his answer. I knew he would do just that and kill me right there and then and part of me wanted just that.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">There was no escape from the lashing cable. The room was small and the only escape was the door in which he stood. The first lash burned across my chest, ripping my night shirt and splitting skin. I already expected the second, but it never came. An ever taller and more massive man held my father by the wrist. It was Uncle Ragnar, my father’s brother.” I have remained silent before, I will not this time. Kill your son and I shall go to the Elders, after breaking every bone in your evil body, brother!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father howled almost like a Fangsnapper.” This is my Burg, this is my house. You are but a guest here. How I choose to raise my son is not yours to decide. If I choose to kill this failure then this is my decision too. These are our traditions!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Ragnar smiled.” Do you want to make the old man wait; if he waits to long this might not be your burg after all.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father said nothing more but glared at his brother and I saw pure death and hatred.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">But I followed them to the house and into the family hall. I had never seen my Grandfather before as he was off planet, representing Nilfeheim and the Solken System at Pluribus the Planet of the Union.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Erik Gustaf, the patriarch of the Ragnarsson clan sat there in a chair by the long dinner table with a tankard of Ale next to him. He was not only one of the richest men; he also was one of the Elders in the Circle of Elders, the highest authority on Nilfeheim. Both his hair and beard was gray and braided the traditional way. His right hand prodded on a black and silver walking cane he looked at me and then my father. “I know what happened to my daughter. I know you have beaten her to death. I know you treat your own son like an outcast because he might have seen your deed.” His tone of voice was matter of fact and vibrated with great authority. “As a father I would like to kill you, take my revenge on you. As Union citizen I want to simply have you arrested and hung for murder. But I am also the last of the Ragnarsson Clan and I am an Elder. We do not call the Off Worlders and we stay true to our laws and the traditions. My beloved wife could not give me a son before she died and Eric is the last that carries Ragnarsson blood. When you married my daughter, I was content that the Ragnarsson Clan would cease and continue in the Olafson clan. Your Clan is of the old lineage and I looked forward to the merging of our families.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">He sighed deeply and continued.” As I said I am also an Elder and must uphold our traditions. While it is without honor to beat a woman to death and you are guilty of murder by the laws of the Union there are now ancient laws that you have broken. As much as it pains me, you are the master of this house and by our traditions, the sole authority on this rock.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father’s face changed to a cold smile.” This is so and yes I have beaten your daughter, my wife and on many occasions as she did not adhere to our traditions and rebelled often against my will and word. It is your fault not to raise her properly and accepting the rule of man.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">The old man nodded.”This might be the case. I did put the love to my daughter above my dedication to the traditions on occasion. However I will keep a very close eye on you, so you do adhere to our traditions. Since you choose to hide behind them, I will make sure you live by them. Fail to live by our traditions even the slightest, and the Elders will cast you out.

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">The Old man pointed at me.” By our traditions he is your firstborn and not Lothar. While you have the right to choose anyone as your heir in your home, he shall be the heir to all that is still Ragnarsson!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father kept his grin and said.” He is my son and until he becomes a man by our laws, all that is his is mine.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“This is why I make Ragnar the guardian of his inheritance. “The old man got up.” I shall leave now as I must return to Pluribus. Be assured even in the case of my death. You will be watched and while the death of a woman by the hands of her husband is not punished by our laws. The death of a male and healthy son will be!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">He walked over to me and said.”You have your mother’s eyes and her hair. I can see much of her in you. This pleases me.” He put his hand on my shoulders and then looked to Isegrim. “I must leave Nilfeheim again to represent our world, but I swear by Odin I will find you if he comes to a sudden death!”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Father crossed his massive arms.”You had your say old man. I humored your presence till now. This was your Burg after all, before it became mine, but my Burg it is. I care little of your threats and soon you are dead and I will be an Elder. Now it is time for you to leave. Go play with your off world friends. The Union has no meaning on Nilfeheim and you know that. Once I am the Elder I will see that all this bad influence is swept away and we return to our old ways.”

<p style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“You will fall before this happens.” The old man however did leave with these words.

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