Echo Cave

ECHO CAVE            THE remarkable REVELATION

            ECHO CAVE            THE remarkable REVELATION

           

           

            Echo Cave had been only recently opened to tours.  Previously it had been regarded potentially unstable.  But the state had needed a good way of raising money without taxing anyone, so cave specialists and then construction workers were sent in, to make the place safe and tourist accessible. 

The specialists had seen thousands of caves, and so Echo Cave did not stick out to them.  A nice, relatively large cave of type such-and-such and that one structure, of course, but they had seen dozens like it.

The construction workers were a little more careful, a little more wary, only about half of them had been on cave jobs before and those that had moved around slowly with their heads bent a little forward, and peered around constantly, as if something might fall down if they didn’t notice it first.  There were enough workers on the team, and they were being paid little enough, that when one of them briefly disappeared, no one noticed.  What they did notice was the unnatural paleness of his face when he returned.  He stared straight ahead, and his chin shifted, as if he were simultaneously chewing on something and thinking very hard about it.  His fellow workers obligingly made the expected comment that he looked as though he had seen a ghost.  But either he had not seen enough movies or he had no narrative instinct about him at all, for he refused to enlighten them as to what had happened to him.  He simply quit the next day, without giving any reasons to them or to the boss.  They shook their heads.  He had always been a strange one anyway.  Within a couple days, he was no longer talked about, and by the end of the week, he was no longer even occasionally thought about.  Whether society in general was better or worse for this development is beyond the scope of this narrative.

Echo Cave was opened to tourists as planned—on schedule and with all the necessary precautions in place.  The opening day there was a big event touting the cave’s “natural wonders” and “extravagant beauties.”  However, despite the overblown add campaign—which the governor insisted would draw thousands and thousands of dollars and surely pay back for itself very quickly with tourists’ dollars being spent in the state—despite all of this, Echo Cave refused to perform as expected at first, and drew only minimal amounts of curious cave enthusiasts or random fun-seekers.  After a few truly atrocious weeks, the private aides of the governor were advising him to step back the ad campaign and warning him that it might be best if he just not mention the cave at all anymore, because it was truly becoming an embarrassment, a giant sinkhole of a project which was going absolutely nowhere.  Some whispered that it probably should be shut down, because it could become a flash point for bad PR, especially with the next round of elections coming up.  Others opined that it really should never have been invested in the first place.

But all of this did not prevent Paul David Hope from making his last minute decision to join a lonely tourist group heading in there late in the afternoon of a remarkably chilly late October day.  Neither did the fact that he really knew nothing about caves and had just stepped in as a lark—because he had some time to kill before catching his redeye flight back to New York—keep him from lagging behind the group.  His thoughts were vaguely, and in fact, almost unconsciously, preoccupied with his sister’s divorce from a guy named Seth, which she had insisted that he, Paul, manage, although he was just out of law school and barely set up in his own practice, and thus not nearly as qualified as all his family and acquaintances seemed to think, at least not in his own eyes, and probably not in the opinion of anyone in the profession, anyone who had a reasonable idea of how messy these things got.  And yet, his impetuous sister had got the notion in her head somehow that he was the one for it, and had insisted, and he found himself saddled with the case, and immediately more than little bit in over his head.  He had been highly concerned, until he discovered that Seth had not hired a lawyer at all and intended to represent himself, a very unwise move, in Paul’s book, which had ensured that things actually went rather smoothly after all, and Paul was able to wrap things up smoothly, boosting his own self confidence and his reputation in the eyes of his flighty sister.

All at once, Paul looked about him and there was no one in sight.  Somewhere in the distance he could hear voices, but this cave did strange things to sound.  There was no way to tell where the noises, the floating fragments of conversation, were coming from.  Something about the rock walls, how they wound around, passages doubling back on themselves, again and again, a twisted maze—somewhere in all of that, time and sound got mixed up.

            Suddenly he heard echoes, but these reflected noises were different, oddly familiar.  His spine tingled, but for a moment he did not understand.  What?  Where had he heard that odd voice before?  Strangely like his sisters, yet masculine, like his own, yet more reedy. . . . He stopped dead.  He remembered his voice on his own answering machine.  Take out the fuzz, and that was it.  Almost.  The weird echo was in fact his own voice reflected back to him, as if from the other side of a universe of difference.  There was still something off.  And he could not make out what this voice—it? him? was saying. . . .

            “Hello?  Who’s there?” he called.

            “Paul David Hope,” came the answer, booming, reverberating.

            “That’s, that’s MY name!”

            “And it’s my name.  You’re not going to understand, but I am you.  In 2054.  Don’t you hear the sound of an old man in my voice?  I’m . . . what you become.  What we become, I suppose.  But we have to have this conversation.”

            Paul puts his hands to his head!  “Why?”

            “Because you, I, we, must hear it, in 2010, so that I can exist in 2054.  If I, if you, do not hear this conversation then, in your now, in your present, I, or you, or we—whatever—do not become who I am in my now!”

            “And who am I then, I mean, in 2054?”  Paul heard a weird desperation in his own voice.

            “Well, you’re me, of course!”

            “I mean what are you, what am I, like?”

            “I can only say that I am what you will become with the knowledge of this dramatic conversation.  It will change our life, Paul.”

            “No!  Come on.  This is bizarre.  This is too weird!”

            “It’s strange for me too,” the spectral voice booms back.  “To return to this cave after all these years, knowing that I inflict upon myself the very thing that has turned me into what I am, a man of science, who has seen both great progress and great setbacks, great love and great isolation, and who is continually wondering over time and space.  I forgot, until I told you just now, what year it was I was told.  In a few days, you will forget it, try as you will not to.  And so I wondered, you will wonder, when this day will come again.  That is the price of forgetting.  You will pay a price for the knowledge too, though.  Your family will abandon you.  All that respect you were feeling as a lawyer will evaporate.”

            “No!” Paul murmured.  “I don’t want things to change.  You know we hate change.  So why are you doing this?”

            “Don’t you see?  We have no choice.  This conversation happened the first time, and so now it must happen again!  I came here because I had to.  And you, alas, you, I in 2010, have no choice but to listen, unpleasant though it be!  And yet . . . I just have to try this:  watch your step!”

            “What?”  Paul’s head was spinning.  He staggered backwards, stumbled into a stalagmite, and tripped.  Rock leapt up to meet his forehead.

            When he awoke, he was frigid, and alone.

Uh-oh

           “Where’s Jeff?”  Luke shouted over the din of music and feet pounding the dance floor.  His younger brother had been right beside him a minute ago.

            “What?”  Sasha looked a little dazed.

            Ana didn’t hear him at all.  She was dancing as hard as anyone, whipping her hair around like she meant to hurt somebody with it.

            This time Luke put all his mounting anxiety into his voice.  “WHERE’S JEFF?”

            Sasha opened her mouth.  “He’s right over—”  Her pointing hand drooped.  “No, never mind, he’s not.”  She reached out and tapped Ana’s shoulder instead.

            Ana spun around to face them finally.  “What?  What’s going on?”

            “We don’t know where the hell Jeff is,” Luke yelled hurriedly, before Sasha could explain and make it sound reasonable.

            “What?”  Ana’s eyes were trying to focus but her feet were still tapping to the music.

            “My brother’s gone.”

            “Oh.”  She looked disappointed.  She said something more that Luke could not catch over the buzzing pulse of the synth bass.

“What??”

She cupped her hands around her mouth.  “Is that unusual?”

Sasha shrugged and folded her arms, as if defending herself from accusation.

Luke tried to step closer to Ana but was blocked by a flailing set of arms.  “I told him to stay close to us!”

“Chill, man,” she shouted back.  “He’s seventeen, I think he can take care of himself.”

“Mom said I have to look out for him.”

“Gosh, it’s a pretty tame club, what do you think’s gonna happen?  He’s too old to get kidnapped and too poor to get mugged.”  She rolled her eyes and launched herself back into the dance.

Luke looked helplessly to Sasha.

She bit her lip.  “He probably just went to the bathroom.”  She looked very pretty doing it, and he was angry at himself for thinking like that when his brother could be in trouble.

He sighed.  “I’ll check.”

Sasha nodded.  “Okay.  Go for it.  I’ll stay here in case he comes back.”

Luke moved off across the dance floor, pushing through body after whirling body as he tried to make it to the back of the room and the pale, glowing signs that denoted the restrooms.  The more he struggled through the waving legs and arms and hair, the more that sign looked like the promise of a distant haven of safe rest.  This had not been his idea.  Ana had set it up.  They had been going to go out for Josh’s birthday, but Josh himself had not shown.

Typical, Luke thought.

Edging past a heavyset guy in leather, he finally broke free of the dance floor, though not of the incessant beat that had burrowed into his skull through his eardrums.  The restrooms glowed up ahead, and he plunged on, ignoring the tables piled high with t-shirts, posters, and CDs.  The bearded and tattooed guy nearby watched him lazily.

The restroom door was heavy, as if resisting the revelation of its secrets.  Luke pushed savagely past it.

No one was inside.  It was absolutely empty.

But it smelled of cigarettes and vomit.

Luke edged over to the loosely hanging door of one of the stalls and gently opened it with his knee.  The toilet was backed up, and the toilet paper was spread out maze-like on the floor.  Something greenish was dripping down one of the walls.  “Pretty tame club,” huh?  He was not so sure anymore.  But then, he did not have much experience with clubs in general.  Not nearly as much as Ana anyway.  He was not sure what drew here to places like these.  Otherwise she seemed remarkably studious, almost geeky.  She even wore math t-shirts sometimes.  But she seemed like a different person here, like she had to have this experience to let loose something that she usually kept carefully locked up behind equations and rational statements.

He checked the next stall, and wished at once that he had not.  Multi-colored barf was splashed all over the toilet seat and the floor.  He almost turned away in disgust, but then something caught his eye.  Flecks of Cheetos orange.  Jeff had consumed almost a whole bag of Cheetos in the car during the long ride here.  Shoot.

Luke shook his head and started out.  He almost ran into a skinny man in a black polo with a mop coming in.  The name of the club was emblazoned across his chest.

Luke pointed over his shoulder.  “There’s some barf in that stall.  And the toilet in the other one’s clogged.”

The corners of the man’s mouth drooped.  He nodded thickly and proceeded to edge past Luke.  “I know that, man,” he mumbled.  “I was just in here.  You don’t have to be a royal jerk about it.  This is my job, but I don’t have to like it.  I saw it man, I saw it.  Kinda hard to miss that kind of evidence of a good time.  Why you think I’m bringing a mop in here?”

Luke put his hands up.  “Sorry, dude.”  He turned to go again, but again a thought stopped him.  He tapped the skinny man’s polo-clad shoulder.  “Hey, if you were in here a minute ago, did you see anybody?”

The man turned and the mouth corners drooped sourly again.  “Do I look like I care?”

“No you don’t,” Luke admitted, backing up a step, “but I’m looking for my younger brother and I’m afraid he’s missing or in trouble or something.  I think he might be the one who barfed in here.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, he was eating Cheetos earlier, and—”

The man laughed humorlessly.  “Oh, yeah, I saw that too, Sherlock.”

Luke rolled his eyes.  “Was he in here when you were before?”

The man sighed.  “Yeah, yeah.  Yeah I guess you’re probably right.  I guess he was.  It wasn’t pleasant, either.  He was barfing, for sure, and didn’t look like he was feeling too good.  Too much of a good time for the little guy, I suppose, heh heh.”

Luke felt something creeping into his stomach.  “Which way did he go?” he demanded.

“Out into the sunlight,” said the guy.  “Probably sitting on the front sidewalk now, wishing he was man enough to still be dancing.”

 Luke glowered.  “I oughta punch you.”  He walked out.

Get Lost!

Get Lost!

            Listen, to understand this story, you have to first understand me.  Because the story is about me.  Selfish?  Yes.  Join the party.  I think we all tell stories about ourselves and that’s all we really do, and all we really want to do.  Every story is really about its author.  So just shut it with the self-righteous judgmental nonsense already.  Yeah, this story is about me.  Right, I was explaining myself.  I don’t make friends very easily.  I’m not sure why, but I don’t.  Maybe it’s because I don’t give a flying crap about all the meaningless chatter.  I find it very difficult to talk with a straight face about sports or television or these idiotic brain-drool sessions that pretend to pass for a high school education.  I have very little to talk about.

Hold it, I can already hear what you’re gonna tell me next.  You’re gonna prattle about how there are always other outsiders, and I’m just mature for my age and am thinking more than most and should therefore just find some smart, quirky fellow outsiders to have fun with.  As if Captain Picard or Dungeons and Dragons is more meaningful than David Beckham or American Idol. As if being in high school was about making friends, about trying to fit in.  I don’t buy that.  I guarantee you, for ninety percent of people here, that’s a means to an end.  Sex.  Or “love.”  Or whatever you want to call it.  That’s why people come here—to hunt for someone who will tolerate them long enough to let them gain the status of being in a “romantic relationship.”  Romantic, sure.  Okay, fine, yeah I know, kids go to high school because their parents make them.  Don’t worry, I’m not into pretending we have more free will than we do, seriously.  But they pretend that its fun because they’re hunting for a glorified kiss—meaning in a moment, or in a series of moments—and they think they can extract it from a “relationship” (you can go ahead and change the last letter of that word) with someone who likes the same meaningless garbage as they do.  And if this whole education experience, this whole walking down the halls and jostling backpacks and laughing like there’s something funny or interesting or, kill me now, cool about it all, then they can feel justified in wasting so much time dancing around the edges of the hunting ritual, peripheralizing their knowledge, if they have any, that deep down they’re always wondering—suspecting, the smart ones—that its all a crap shoot.

Long story short, I don’t bother talking much here.  But there’s that word again—story, and I was supposed to be telling you one.  I don’t know whether or not the above gave you any real idea of who the main character, the central attraction, to this sordid tale really is, but thinking that that’s even possible means assuming that I know who he is, so, as my contemporaries would blithely say, “Whatever.”  They wouldn’t mean it, of course; not like I do.  Right, telling you the story.  You must take me for some—but, whoops, I almost forgot, I don’t care.  Had you going there for a second, didn’t I?

The story concerns the brief history of myself and Sarah Sarah.  I’d better explain, for the sake of the uninitiated.  This high school is small enough that it has never been a place for last names.  A last name means either you’re adult (a dolt) or you’re someone from Some Other School, who requires full introduction and distinction, so you can’t be confused with someone important.  In other words, totally not cool, not with it.  So it’s not Sarah Rosenstein and Sarah Jemme, it’s Shy Sarah and Sarah Sarah.  This latter appellation serves to inform of genuineness, actuality, distinctiveness, only-one-that-really-matters-ness—the Real Sarah, the only one worth referring to, of course, duh, obviously.  Shy Sarah is the type of girl you catch staring at you from a corner of the room and she immediately brushes hair over her face and coughs.  Sarah Sarah is the type of girl whose eyes never rest on you purposefully for more than about half a second, or on anyone that is not in her immediate circle.  She is also apparently the kind of girl you unexpectedly find in an empty corner of the library crying her eyes out over a “C-” circled in red on a small stack of word-covered paper sheets stapled together and gripped tightly between her white white hands.  A conversation something like this then ensues:

She says (angrily), “I didn’t see you there.”

I shrug and put my eyes somewhere else.  What was I even doing here?

“Hey, I was talking to you.  Are you . . . ignoring me?”

She’s onto me.  I look back at her.  “Who’s asking?”

She sets her paper aside.  “I’m Sarah.”

“I know,” I say, showing my teeth.  “But who’s asking, Sarah Sarah the socialite elite, or Sarah who just got a C minus?”

“Now you’re just trying to end the conversation.”

I roll my eyes.  “If we were having a conversation, it wouldn’t sound like this.”

She falls silent.

I smile to myself.  But my eyes go back to her sooner than I expect them too.  She’s wiping hers.

She creases and folds the marked paper defiantly.  “You’re not in Honors American Literature so you wouldn’t know.”

“Honors, huh?  Bet you’re really proud of that.  I’ve gotten bad grades.”

“You sound like you’re proud of that.”

My turn not to say anything.

She laughs, but it’s a light laugh, not the kind used to hit.  “So what would this actual conversation sound like, if we were to have it?”  She has blue eyes.  She would.

I swallow.  There’s a decision here.  “It would sound like me asking you why you care about what a red pen mark on a sheet of paper says about you.”

She shakes her head. “And me responding that it has to do with my chances of going to the college I want.”

The decision is staring me down.  “So you can get the job you want?”  I ask.  “So you can get the money you want?  So you can get the retirement you want?  And then?”  But my heart’s not in it, and I think she can tell.

She smiles a little.  “Everybody says you’re a weirdo.”

I swallow the bitter taste in the back of my mouth and smile back.  “Would it be weird if I asked if you want go get some coffee?”

And yes, that happens, and suddenly it turns out that I’m dating Sarah Sarah, the unassailable, the perfect stone statue girl who everyone wants but nobody gets.  I learn a lot of things about her quickly, first the meaningless stuff:  she likes mint, she likes her coffee with lots of cream, she likes Coldplay, she hates the cold, her phone is always running out of batteries, she knows almost nothing about electronics, she has an uncle, she has a sweet tooth, etc.  Then the surprising and vaguely relevant stuff, which I tell myself I should make an effort toward remembering:  her birthday is in July, she has two younger brothers she adores, her parents are divorced, she doesn’t do drugs, she doesn’t want help with her homework, she feels uncomfortable with people she doesn’t know well, sometimes with her own friends too, she owns a car, she has a job, she hates her boss, she likes her coworkers, she hates night-shifts, she saves money for college, she was held back a year in grade school, she loves literature, she loves her friends, she dislikes slutty Britney, she dislikes football, she doesn’t know who Shy Sarah is, she once talked to my former friend James, she wants to know more about me, she’s leaning forward, her breath smells like mint frappe, she’s a very good kisser.

And I don’t quite understand.  The only thing I can come up with is the myth of the mysterious but somehow backwardly attractive outsider, but that doesn’t satisfy me.  If that’s true, she’s as dumb as I first thought her, and none of this is likely to last long either; that myth is self-defeating.

Thing is, I’m no longer completely an outsider.  There’s sort of an awkward awe I see out of the corner of my eye sometimes now.  I’m not the weirdo anymore.  I’m the Guy Who’s With Sarah Sarah.  That’s a problem, I think.  I don’t want to be her shadow.  But this school is crammed full of flitting stupidity, and I don’t want anybody else either. I don’t want to be anybody’s shadow. 

I’ll just not go to school the next few days.  See how she reacts.  I’m not a bug she can pin to the wall.  Watch her try.

The Tale of Torinern

Here's a poem I wrote in high school (probably 2007?) that I recently dusted off and decided to put up here. Thanks to Dad for the suggestion of sharing it here, and to Mom for helping me edit it way back then.

 

 

 

                                         The Tale of Torinern

In the ancient days, ere the elder war,

When the seas were one and the lands were four,

When Eeteryth and Mortigerth

Still stood like stones near Carlinn’s Door,

Ere the Sword was forged or the Crown was made,

Ere the great green forests began to fade,

Tall Torinern did walk the earth

With eyes like fire on the edge of a blade.

Long o’er the lands of Valtalith

He roamed with Quellnir, strong elf-smith.

Far and wide and long he’d roam

Before he made Uthov his home.

Coast! Coast! Uthov by the sea,

Coast! Coast! Beyond the last tree,

Your keening winds blew others aside,

But called Tall Torinern, so long free.

Your waves that turned the Army of Ghath

And would have turned Ceithon from his path,

They drew the Warrior to your tide,

For he was wont to match your wrath.

On Uthov’s coast a tower he builded.

Tall, and tall, and tall again.

Its lofty peak with gold he gilded.

Its gate-doors one; its windows ten.

Torinern, Boldest, why did ye linger,

In Uthov build the tower of Thinger,

So near the sea, the cold dark sea,

So near the rock, the Warning Finger?

Why built ye there, so high, and higher?

Why knew ye not, that pride’s hot fire,

Is drowned deep by the cold dark sea?

You were warned not to name the prophet “liar”.

On Uthov’s coast a tower he builded.

Tall, and tall, and tall again.

Its lofty peak with gold he gilded.

Its gates-doors one; its windows ten.

When the Thinger was done many men he invited

To a feast at his tower, but they were affrighted.

“Go not through his gates!” they whispered around.

“The shadow of doom on that tower’s alighted.”

Torinern, in a rage, he called them all yellow.

In the village nearby they then heard him bellow,

And they wondered and feared at the darkling sound,

But that did not bring to him one guest-fellow.

Torinern, Torinern, why such madness?

Heeding no warning the prophet gave ye?

Starting in pride, you have ended in sadness.

Why did ye build there, so close to the Sea?

The suns of summer had sailed on past,

A ship, pushed by time, so marvelous fast,

On into autumn where crimson leaves fall,

And Torinern, Sar’s Bane, was bound to the mast.

For Time, it stands still only now and again,

And Warrior and Tower, the wonders of Men,

Were swept into chill, as bitter as gall,

And down came dark Winter from cold Neeinen.

Down came the snow, and the Thinger surrounded,

The waters did rage and new tide-pools were founded

And dark ice crept round the stone base of the tower.

The crash of the Sea, like a battle horn sounded.

Winter had come and allied with the Main.

To pull down the Thinger it seemed they were fain,

But Torinern resisted with all of his power,

‘Gainst flood and ‘gainst chill and ‘gainst dark icy rain.

Many are the tales that now have been told,

Of Torinern’s fight with the Sea and the cold,

But the battle was years and years ago,

And the memory is dimmed of the bards who are old.

So here now is written, lest all should forget,

How the Sea and the Warrior in battle first met,

And never had Torinern faced such a foe,

And ne’er has the Sea faced a mightier yet.

The wind swept about the Thinger in rage,

And Torinern paced like a beast in a cage.

As the cold icy waters surged ‘bout his strong bield

He forgot, he forgot, the words of the sage:

“Tall Torinern, heed me, as one who did roam,

I’d take ye for fool had ye fear of the foam,

But put not away your great shining shield,

Nor e’er by the Sea make tower or home.”

The words of the prophet were not just his own,

And a fool is the man who sets tower or throne,

‘Gainst the will of the One who is King of the Sea.

Listen, O nobles, your lifeblood’s a loan.

The words of the prophet, they came from far higher,

They came from the One who rules ocean and fire,

But Torinern scoffed and he laughed carelessly,

And thought not of those who might carry his bier.

Torinern, Torinern, why such madness?

Heeding no warning the prophet gave ye?

Starting in pride, you have ended in sadness.

Why did ye build there, so close to the Sea?

Up came the Sea like a host all in sable,

To test if to topple the Thinger ‘twas able.

No house of goblins was that mighty tower,

But has ever the Wild Sea been tied in a stable?

Torinern the warrior drew forth his bright sword,

The blade he had taken from dark dragon’s horde,

And careless of wave and of wind and of shower,

A challenge, a challenge, to grim Sea he roared:

“Hear me, O Sea! What man named ye Strong?

The fool should be hung for speaking the wrong.

I challenge ye now to loose all your ire.

Let’s see if the truth lives up to the song!”

And with words like to these he bolted his gate,

And dared the vast Sea to tell him his fate.

In the heart of his tower he kindled a fire,

That was like to the blaze of the Hall of Narsate.

The fire burned fiercely, so hot and so and bright,

That the stars in the sky looked far down from the night,

To see what made smoke thickly pour from the Thinger,

To see what great fire so rivaled their light.

But Torinern now, looking out from his keep,

Saw what he had sown he was certain to reap.

A wave like a giant leapt o’er Warning Finger

And no elf or swift monkey could match such a leap.

Now crashed down the wave and full flooded the tower.

With a rush and a roar it drowned the bright fire.

And the stars up above were blinded by smoke,

While Torinern, soaking, did cough and did choke.

But up sprang he again and his wrath burned the brighter.

For no cold nor no wet had yet daunted the Fighter.

But never before had he faced such a gale:

‘Gainst the Sea Undivided no sword could prevail.

The great storm wave drew back and the Thinger still stood,

But the fire was doused and all wet was the wood,

Yet Tall Torinern laughed in the face of the Sea,

And he would have laughed louder if louder he could.

He waved his bright sword, from the dragon-horde taken,

Its blade was a-drippin’ but its steel unshaken.

He roared at the ocean, “Why, coward, you flee!

Bring forth all your might and your slave the foul Kraken!”

The warrior’s loud pride-words, they echoed about.

The Sea waited a moment as if in grave doubt,

Then drew back, as if stung, from the rocks of the shore,

Then drew back from the shore like a river in drought.

Tall Torinern, gleeful, triumphantly shouted,

“Where are ye now, waves? The Sea I have routed!”

But heedless was he of the creak of the door,

And if he had heard it, his words might have doubted.

All in a moment the gates burst asunder.

The tower was shaken by rolling of thunder,

And Torinern blinded by fierce lightning flash,

As the Sea came again, like a pirate for plunder.

In through the wreck of the once mighty door.

In until water had drowned the stone floor.

In came the Sea, with a terrible crash.

In came the Sea, with a terrible roar.

Yet Torinern, blinded and deafened, still stood,

Like of old he had done by the edge of Dark Wood.

And with shield in his left hand, and sword in his right,

He dared the Wild Sea for to do as it would.

But the Sea threw him down, passing like unto dead,

And the great helm was broken from off of his head.

He rose and the Sea he still struggled to fight,

And roared like a beast that’s been wounded and bled.

Wave after wave, they crashed into the tower.

The Sea had unleashed all the depth of its power,

And the stones of the Thinger began now to groan,

But Torinern still from the Sea would not cower.

Stern he had been and yet strong was his will,

Though ‘round him, his tower, the water did fill,

The fey light of battle still in his eyes shone.

Tall Torinern Bold was not easy to kill.

But still on came the Waves like a host never ending,

And the gate of the Thinger was far beyond mending,

As the Sea poured with wrath into Torinern’s bield.

All its might and its power the Ocean was sending.

Of all Storms that have punished and racked Uthov’s coast,

The one that destroyed, marred and ruined the most,

Was this rage at this man who refused now to yield,

This man who stood daring to bellow and boast.

The Thinger was built as no tower before,

But only so much could it take and no more.

And now pillars and columns so marvelous strong,

Were threat’ning, were threat’ning to follow the door.

The stones made a noise like a beast, caught in death,

Like a beast giving voice to its last heaving breath,

And the Thinger down-falling like swift cut off song,

Was seen from afar by Lord Ornor of Neth.

Down fell in ruin the mighty proud Thinger,

And in falling it toppled the grim Warning Finger.

Both fell together, crashed into the Sea,

But, Torinern, Torinern, what then of ye?

None know how the warrior escaped from the tower,

None know what befell him in that darkling hour,

When Thinger and sea-rock both fell into ruin,

But all know that the warrior was killed not so soon.

Up leapt Torinern, bright eyes flaming!

Up leapt Torinern, vengeance claiming:

‘Gainst the Sea that had thrown down his tower of pride,

‘Gainst the Sea Undivided, the Unbroken Tide.

Lord Ornor of Neth, from afar looking out,

Though beholding and wond’ring what doom was about,

Could not hear what was said by the shape on the sand,

Could not hear, in the thunder, the challenging shout:

“Vengeance I claim for the tower of Thinger!

Torinern ever in Uthov shall linger,

‘Til Sea is defeated, and crushed by my hand,

And avenged are my tower and Old Warning Finger!”

Then Torinern, Boldest, made such a great leap,

It carried him up to his chest in the Deep,

And swinging his sword at the waves he did slash,

Retribution, he thought, for the fall of his keep.

The waves threw him back, but still onwards he came,

And Torinern’s onslaught is wreathed now in fame.

Onwards, and onwards, full rasher than rash,

Flung back many times, he fought onwards the same.

And whether his challenge was heard by the Sea,

And the sting of barbed words thrown far too hastily,

To the wind and the water most speedily went,

And from his dark chains the foul Kraken set free,

Or whether, more simply, the splash that he made,

As he thrashed in the Sea with the moon on his blade,

Awakened the monster, the slimy sea serpent,

One way or another, It came, so ‘tis said.

Up surging in anger, up surging in foam,

Like a wave overshadowing some tiny home,

Came the Kraken aroused from his long years of sleep,

Came the Worro aroused from his lair in the Deep.

Huge and tremendous like giant sea snake,

It reared up its head and it roared to the sky,

But Torinern, fearless, to Kraken he spake,

First of all men to give Worro reply.

“Is this the great Worro?” in laughter he said,

“Is this the foul Beast of whom all are in dread?

A snake! A snake! A snake of the Sea!

A snake, I don’t doubt, with no teeth in his head!”

A moment, a moment, the monster was still,

The echoes of mirth in its ears ringing shrill.

Then it opened its mouth for the warrior to see.

And daggers a thousand shone ready to kill.

Then all in a moment the warrior knew fear,

In terror stood he who once broke Kaion’s spear.

The water he felt now all cold round his throat,

And remembered, profoundly, the words of the seer.

The prophet of God had forewarned him of doom,

He saw it now coming as dust sees a broom.

The Sea all around him did stink like a moat,

And the Serpent above him all monstrous did loom.

Fear came upon him like swift rising tide.

The waves crashed around him on every side,

And he knew, and he knew, though he hated to say,

What a fool he had been to say God’s prophet lied.

But now, even now, he refused to despair,

But looked on the night sky and thought it was fair,

And called on the God he had scorned for a Way,

And lifted his sword and met Worro’s foul stare.

The Worro, astonished, came down like black hate,

His jaws opened wide like the doorways of fate,

And twisting wrapped Torinern up in his coils;

Ne’er yet had his rage been e’er known to abate.

Then swift down they went: Bold Warrior and Beast,

The Kraken preparing itself for a feast.

But Torinern knew he was not done with his toils,

And remembered his fight on the Field of the East.

Together they went to the Deep of the Deep,

And ever around them foamed waters did seep,

As they plunged and they sunk, ever fighting like mad,

But the Warrior repenting, forgiven, was glad.

The Sea closed around them, the gate of a tomb.

The Sea roared about them, a herald of doom.

They sunk to the deeps to the lair of the Worro,

And from the dark depths came the Kraken’s foul fume.

Blood came there too, as the morning sun rose.

The men of the village, with fingers to nose,

Lamented the fall of the warrior with sorrow,

And Gorthan’s fair daughter let fall a red rose.

But Ornor of Neth although old had keen sight,

And different, withal, he read signs of the fight.

And looking o’er water, revealed by dawn’s light,

“Too much blood there is here,” in his wisdom he said,

“For Torinern Boldest alone to be dead.

Look ye, oh, look ye! The water is red.”

Now far and now wide the grim tale swiftly ran,

Of the fall of the Thinger, the wonder of Man,

And the fight of the Sea and its thrall the foul Worro

With Torinern, Champion of bright Orlidan.

Wherever the tale of battle is told,

The hearers do mourn for Tall Torinern Bold,

But for death of the Kraken-beast no one does sorrow,

For wont it was ever to sink ships of old.

The bard is now silent, the saga is o’er,

The hounds now are chewing the bones on the floor,

Guests weary, but happy, and filled with brown ale,

Take leave of the great hall, depart by the door.

Now lean close to me, let me speak in your ear.

I am old and my words some young someone must hear.

The Saga is over, but not finished, the Tale.

For the warrior lived on yet for many a year!

What! You now say, and you start from my side.

What! You now say, and no wonderment hide,

You think that too long I have sat by the fire,

But I am one true bard who never has lied.

Go, if you wish, and you’ll never hear more,

Of when seas they were one and the lands, they were four,

But a fool would you be if you called me a liar,

For I am a master of all the old lore.

The blood of the Worro, it made the Sea red,

For Torinern’s sword-blade had pierced its foul head,

But up from the Sea-depths Tall Torinern swam,

The Serpent, alone, of the two, was now dead.

Impossible! Say you, but I say ‘tis true.

Long after the Sea had gone back to God’s blue,

A wave tossed a man on the beachhead of Gyam.

And who that man was, I’ve no need to tell you.

Now come, in your mind-eye, where my words will lead,

Past the plains of Quar-thoorah, where horses do feed,

Past the hills of Narsate, rolling green like the Sea,

Past the Mountains of Corgor, and the Lake of the Reed.

And there where the Sea bends around to the south,

(Quiet, young fellow! Put hand to your mouth!)

Now follow with ear and I’ll tell what you’ll see,

If you come to the lands of harsh Swayar past Gouth.

In Swayar stand mountains so marvelous tall,

They’ve stood there unchanging since Xear did fall.

A cave, like a mouth, dark beneath them now lies,

A cave, ‘neath the tallest rock mountain of all.

And there in that cave live a tribe, wild and strong,

A tribe that ne’er yet has been heard of in song,

Among them’s a man who has fire in his eyes,

Yes, among them’s a man with a sword bright and long.