"'Tis a laborious tale, but we find ourselves with adequate leisure." Tarn relaxed into his seat, prepared to listen as Torrocka sorted his memories. Wearing a sadly reminiscent expression, grey eyebrows furrowed, he said, "I recall the unbearable heat of the day, such as they were apt to be after the rainy season, stifling and humid. Thus the cool temperature of Kalen's Sword Chamber was a welcomed relief. Including myself, six priests were participating in the Summer Solstice ceremony, when the first heart-shaking tremor collapsed the tunnel leading to the city. Naturally, we halted the ceremony, fearing the chamber was about to come down around our ears―"
"Ye fled! Abandoned the people when ye might have summoned Kalen and saved the city," Tarn accused, overwhelmed by waves of long-buried grief, moving feelings of maternal loss ripped open by Torrocka's tale.
"No lad," Torrocka answered with a slow headshake, "We could not have called upon Kalen. Only one of His blood may do that. Even if Kalen had appeared, there's naught He could have done."
"What task lies beyond a God?" Tarn queried, in control of his emotions.
"Yes," Torrocka agreed. "There is much Kalen may do that is beyond our mortal ken, but even a God has limitations. Now be silent, whilst I finish my tale. Where was I?" he asked rhetorically. His brows knitted together as he summoned more of the past to mind. "Oh yes, the tunnel. With access to the city blocked by tons of rubble, we had but one option if we were to survive―head inland."
"On the second day our torches guttered out," Torrocka remembered, "leaving us to grope blindly through uncharted corridors with only the grade of the floor to guide us. Hungry, tired and thirsty, we stumbled across an unblocked passageway sloping upward, to what we hoped led to the mainland. Never once believing we'd be trapped underground, and but a few hour's trek from water and food under normal circumstance, he hadn't reason to bring more than half a day's provisions." He explained, regret in his voice. "By the fourth day, Brunaldo, the High priest, the eldest of our order, died of thirst. Upon his death, I inherited this pendant. We were in dire trouble until we discovered a shallow tunnel running near the surface."
"As we neared sea level, we sustained ourselves by sucking the condensation off the walls," he told Tarn, halting in his story to recall an elusive memory. "We wandered back and forth up one dead end after another, until quite by accident, I tumbled into a chute. I half-fell, half-slid down its slippery surface, and found myself in a small cave graced with a pool of seawater in its middle."
"But for the dim glow of the pool―a glow that could only be reflected sunlight―the cavern waited coal-black. I dove into the water, and though the short tunnel. There was a narrow overhand of rock to pass before rays of filtered sunlight bathed me from above," he said, unlacing his fingers to brush table crumbs onto the floor.
"I swam to the surface. Although shore lay a short distance away, I couldn't see Atlantis. After more than a week underground, I didn't think it unusual that we had travelled beyond sight. Without giving the matter further thought, I returned to the cavern to share our good fortune, and lead the others to fresh air," Torrocka offered doucely.
"Once we stood upon dry ground, I examined the terrain in depth. Most of the trees were flattened as far as the eye could see, and a layer of grey ash carpeted the ground like the bed of a fireplace. The beaches were jammed debris, deposited by the receding waters. And the stink of rotting vegetation and animal flesh was overpowering. I realised why I had failed to recognise landmarks. They had been washed away, as had Atlantis. Swept from sight!" he exclaimed, his voice a mix of lasting disbelief and old grief.
"Clinging to a dim hope that we were mistaken, knowing deep down that we weren't, we set out for a village far up the coast. Far enough not to be affected. We found the villagers four days later, but not in the manner we expected," she shared, and paused as if to re-evaluate the wisdom of an ancient decision. "They had never shown themselves to be hostile in the past, and trade had always been plentiful. You can imagine our surprise when they struck two of our party dead and lashed the rest of us to poles," he announced, shaking his head.
"They carried us upside down, like spitted boards, to the village, where they caged us like animals, all the while chanting to their heathen Goddess, Ashwa. At dusk, we were fed a great banquet of a meal, after which we learned they intended to sacrifice us. Nothing ruins an evening like discovering you are to be sacrificially purified, and then eaten," Torrocka intoned while a ghost of a grin flashed across his features.
"Satiated like plump geese, the villagers imprisoned us and then imbibed hallucinogenic powder for the ceremony. I managed to work a bamboo post loose and wriggle my way to freedom. While I waited for the others to join me, our escape attempt was detected. Demmok, a priest of my rank, saw the dilemma and ordered me to remember my duty to keep the sacred Sword Chamber key safe," he explained with a sullen heart.
"I took to my heels as the village's intoxicated warriors stumbled after me. I eluded the heathens in the darkness, running blindly north-east," he spit out with a flash of old anger sharpening in his words. "For two months I travelled in a north-easterly direction, subsisting on small game and plants, and eventually, found this cave. With the beginning of each winter, I journey to the southern regions, searching for survivors, and then return in late spring to avoid the marauding bands of heathens who seek sacrifices during the summer months. I was on my way through the pass to continue my search when I ran into the snow leopard."
Intrigued by the story, but his original question unanswered, Tarn reiterated, "Thy tale fails to explain why the symbol on my father's sword is the same as that on the pendant."
"As I said, Connor was its trustee, given to him at your birth. "'Tis a family sword passed down through the generations," clarified Torrocka, and waited, a glint in his wizened old eyes.
"Thy explanation renders little sense. My father hailed from Asgard and presented it to me himself."
"So he did," Torrocka agreed, as were his instructions when Demma presented it to him on your naming day. We of Atlantis trace our ancestry maternally. For is it not out of their wombs that we come forth screaming for help? As you fathom, Kalen rushed to our aid many centuries earlier and took an Atlantean wife after the battle with Wotan. The Gods are a finicky lot who chose from time to time to take mortal mates. Kalen watched with sad resolve as His beloved withered with age. In his grief, Kalen granted us longer lives. But that is not the end of His gifts," he informed Tarn, readying a deeper thought.
"As a token of His undying love, both to Atlantis and to His wife, Kalen granted His beloved a female child. Jayleen, His aged wife, died shortly after giving birth, as though every morsel of life and energy she possessed went into creating her daughter, her namesake. Each firstborn daughter since the first bears the name Jayleen.
"Along with the child of His blood, He left a prophecy known only to the priests of His temple," Torrocka claimed, his brows scrunched together as he summoned Kalen's prophecy to mind, a prophecy he had begun to fear would die with him. In a singsong voice, full of rich crescendos, he chanted:
"From my seed will a female child spring;
It shall be counted many times ere a male child arrives
Bathed in great sorrow and need.
Of two nations will he be, one passed,
And one yet to come. With his rightful sword fisted on high,
He shall liberate the land from the old evil
Ushering in an era of peace throughout the land."
Wearing a philosophical expression he appended, "We always presumed Atlantis was the nation yet to come since we were such a young people when Kalen left us."
"What evil does the prophecy speak of?" Tarn probed curiously.
"I have heard in my travels of black sorcery, deep in the south, darker than any, save Wotan himself. They call themselves the Rings of Mahnaz. Some repute them to be Wotan's acolytes." Torrocka summed Tarn up, and then announced in a voice filled with certitude, as if he discharged a sacred duty, "I've spent twelve summers searching for you, son of Jayleen, blood-hear to Kalen's sword. The prophecy has come to pass."
"Bah, I am not that child. I am Tarn, son of Connor," he said defiantly, daring the priest to disagree.
Yet in his heart, he felt his words false. The image of a giant laughing at this refusal to kneel increased his quandary. Tarn recalled the empty scabbard and his father's last words to him. Visions of Kalen and his father swam in his head. He was a mountain youth with a mother he vowed long ago to protect and to supply food, and to care for, not a slayer of dark cults. And then there was a little matter of an oath he had made to himself to seek the rite of vengeance for his father's death.
Torrocka interrupted his jumbled thoughts, "Do you not think it odd to survive the sabre leopard's envenomed claws?"
I bled greatly. The blood cleansed mush of the poison from the wound. Thy healing skills did the rest," reasoned Tarn.
"'Tis true, you bled and rinsed the wound, and I did what I could to keep the wound from infection, but it was Kalen's blood that resisted the poison. If you require proof, take up this pendant and place it around thy neck," he said, removing the disk. "'Tis thy rightful inheritance, and my honoured charge to deliver it into your hands, son of Jayleen."
Hesitantly, Tarn accepted the pendant and slipped it over his head. Palpable energy raced through him, lighting up his nerve endings, searching for and saturating each tissue in his body. When the force that coursed through his blood stopped, an image of a great, two-handed sword flared in his mind. Superstitious fear of magic raised the small hairs on the nape of his neck. He reached for the pendant.
Torrocka watched a sphere of shimmering light encompass Tarn. When Tarn began to remove the pendant, Torrocka said, "It speaks to you, blood to blood. You are truly the one."
"I'll no use magic," Tarn declared distastefully.
"'Tis not magic, Tarn. You experienced the Ramka, the awakening. Had your parents lived, it would have been they, and not I to place it upon your breast. Kalen's sword is no ordinary blade, but one forged out of God-steel by Vulcan himself. Only the child of Kalen's prophecy may claim it as his own. The pendant has bound the sword to your blood, and to your purpose. It is your fate and your curse. You cannot deny ownership. The question is, are you man enough yet to fulfil the prophecy? Had Atlantis survived, we would not have bequeathed the sword until your seventeenth year. By my count we are a full year early," he challenged in steely tones that belied his advanced age.
Tarn bestowed Torrocka with a thoughtful look and let the pendant fall to his chest, bulling over his response. His father's words echoed in his mind. Connor was his father. He was Tarn, son of Connor, a member of the White Steppe clan. He refused to accept a God who deserted his people once his mortal wife died. He was of two nations. This he acceded. Upon his father's deathbed, he promised to locate Kalen's sword and learn the Song of Steel. This he would do. If the pendant aided him in the sword's recovery, so much the better.
"Aye, Torrocka," he said at last. "I'll quest Kalen's sword and learn the Song of steel, though not for ye, nor Kalen."
Torrocka couched a smile. It mattered little what reason propelled the young lad to his decision. It was Tarn's destiny to fulfil the prophecy. A person can't outrun his fate; no matter how stubborn and young he might be.
"Can you read Atlantean script, lad?" Tarn shook his head. "If you seek the scroll, you require instruction."
"No. I must return to my village. I am days late. Ye be welcome to join me. We may pass the winter there."
"A generous offer," conceded Torrocka, adding, "but the pass is closed. It hasn't stopped snowing since the day you arrived. While you slept, I ventured outside. No man or beast may travel that trail until spring."
"Hrrumph!" Tarn vocalised in a decidedly Asgard fashion. "I will glimpse on the morrow what trail may be travelled, and what may no. Meanwhile, have ye more food? Vulcan, all this talk has left me hungry."
"Yes, but not sufficient to feed both of us until the pass opens. If you recall, I spend my winters south. One of us must hunt," he finished, clearly meaning Tarn.
"Fear naught, ancient one. If indeed the pass be closed, I will return with the leopard carcass. Now, where is that meal? Gods, man, my stomach pinches my backbone."
Torrocka studied Tarn as he wolfed back a meal that would have been several for him. The lad seemed fully healed, and no worse for wear while exuding a vitality that had naught to do with Kalen, but which brought an image of Connor to mind. Tarn was much like the man he remembered. He was certainly as bold and straightforward in thought as Connor had been, and he possessed his father's ironclad barbaric code of honour.
As Tarn ate, he felt Torrocka's eyes no him. So this was a pure-bred Atlantean. Dark-haired. Olive-skinned. Unremarkable stature. Perhaps Torrocka wasn't an example of a typical Atlantean. If he had a choice of companions, Torrocka would not have come to mind. Still, the old man conveyed a certain knowledgeable aura that said I've seen most things before, and those that I haven't I'll figure out along the way. Not even when threatened with impending doom at the leopard's claws, did Torrocka lose his composure.