What is the Cost of Truth?

The mist had settled over the ground like tendrils from a faceless monster reaching its arms from somewhere hidden in the forest beyond. Old stone markers leaned this way and that as silent, dark soldiers, protecting the eerie silence from the outside world of life. But something stirs here. Two somethings in fact.

First, there is a woman. She stands within the safe warmth of the boundary of the car that had driven her to the graveyard. The soft purr of the engine blows warm air against her back while the car door keeps the soft glow of the light contained to one side. The coldness of the air tickled her face as she gazed over the still, white grounds then took a step forward, breaking the quiet with a soft crunch of the snow.

It almost seemed like sacrilege to break that hushed respect. But the desire to know what could be pushed her forward to take another step. And another.

Moonlight peered out from the clouds and revealed the peak of a snow-dusted crypt rising above the others and descending against the ice. A heavy chain had been wrapped around the gates as a deterrent for those who didn’t belong, but tonight the woman found it unlocked, as if inviting her exclusively. The woman’s hand gripped at a silken length of fabric hidden in the pocket of her coat and she lifted her hand to push against the gate that swung inwards easily, but not without protest.

The sounds of the metal grinding against itself almost hid the sound of stirrings inside the tomb. But not quite.

The second one, there is a creature.

It wishes that it didn’t remember where it came from. What had transpired in its weary, bleak life before. But it does. In fact, it remembers and recalls so much more. Its spine protrudes from the damp, stretched skin of its previous life. Organs have long since rotted away, leaving a shriveled belly over hip bones and a rib cage that despite there being no lungs, it draws breath with a raspy, rattling huff.

No matter how cold it gets though, it can’t see the mist of warmth. Of life. The frayed, swaying wisps of white-yellow hair do not move when they dangle across its nose. It breathes because it doesn’t know it doesn’t have to. It could sit in complete stillness and silence if only it knew. But memories of a time before kept it acting upon human things such as breath. Such as pacing. Such as protecting.

The wail of the gates to the crypt alerted the beast. Its sunken eyes turned toward the sound with renewed strength and somewhere within the depths a glow forms. It has been summoned.

The woman took a few tentative steps forward and despite wanting to look at the names inscribed in the markers on the walls, she kept her hands to herself. She did pull out the fabric though, the sounds that rose from the depths of the lower channels made her limbs tremble and her eyes locked on the staircase leading down.

Perhaps not knowing was better, her mind whispered to her as her legs stopped and shook. She could turn back now. The gnawing desire would fade and she could go on living her life not knowing the road ahead. Perhaps knowing, for now, was not worth the price.

The shift of the air reminded her that she wasn’t alone now. The ring of silence broken as something unsteady on its feet slid across the broken paving of the crypt floors below.

She could leave. She could chain the gates back together and get into the warmth of the car and be comforted that most people lived their whole lives not knowing. But blood kept her bound. Blood urged her to continue. Desire pushed her next foot forward.

Fear gave way to determination. To madness.

The woman and the creature met at the bottom of the stairs and for one brief moment, knowing was inevitable. Its glowing orbs pierced through her doubts and as it raised its clawed hand to swipe at her, she feared that she wouldn’t move. But blood moved her again. She stumbled and knocked over a large urn which crashed against the floor. From the broken shards rose a scream from the creature’s lungless depths and it lunged for her.

She used the fabric like a barrier. As soon as the creature’s flesh touched it, ice formed along the strands, but it found the cloth unyielding. Weightless to her, she held it fast out against it. But like chains, it repelled the other to the floor. The woman got to her feet swiftly and, guided by blood, wrapped the yielding fabric quickly around the creature’s midsection. And like that the skirmish ended. The creature was subdued, and she knelt above it, breathing that warm mist out of her lungs so full of air, determination, and life. “Tell me.”

The rattling air of the other was all that answered at first.

“Tell me!”

“I do not know which path you wish to seek.”

Her life laid before the creature’s glowing eyes. All the paths untraveled. All the paths lost to time. The way they branched and forked along as fate had intended. All arriving at different ends. It could see the path that led to that moment, but the creature’s intervention did little to narrow the options before her.

“I wish to know of love first,” she whispered and sat back against the creature's knees as the skeletal digits beyond cracked and flexed.

“You say ‘first’ as if you have the time to hear ‘all’.”

Her cheeks flushed at the reply and she grabbed at the fabric that binds the creature, pulling its almost weightless top forward to gaze into her fierce eyes. “If I am the child of the gods, then you and I have all the time in the world.”

The creature’s raspy breath rattled, a sound like dry bone shifting on cold stone. It tilted its shriveled head and a crack rose from the gape of its rotted lips over gray teeth. "Love is a winter fire, easily banked and quickly consumed. Do not insult the blood in your veins by asking what any farmer’s daughter may find at the turn of the year. Ask me the truth, daughter of the gods. Ask me how to hold an age in your hand."

Her fierce grip loosened. She became aware of the bitter cold between her thighs and she controlled her breath, closing her eyes for a moment, before opening them with renewed determination. "I wish to know of greatness," she stated, the whispered shame replaced by the thunder of true ambition.

Once again the creature rears its head, a Draugr finally letting forth the prophecy that the woman had sought in her pursuit. The icy layer over the thin piece of Gleipnir cracks as the monstrosity inhales a useless breath:

In crypts of thought, where shadows lie unseen, A flicker stirs, of what might well have been. But 'tis not past, nor comfort's fading gleam, That calls the soul from out a troubled dream.

A whisper breathes, beyond the mortal ear, Of lofty peaks where triumphs stand so clear. A crown awaits, adorned with frosted light, A name to echo through the endless night.

Yet heed the chill, that creeps beneath the stone, For every summit leaves the soul alone. A crimson stain, on laurels bravely won, The fading light of every setting sun.

The path ascends, through valleys choked with dread, Where silent specters mourn the living dead. Each step a choice, a severance profound, From tender touch, and hallowed, sacred ground.

A mirror waits, where brilliance shall reside, Reflecting back the cost you cannot hide. The laughter lost, the warmth that slips away, To forge a dawn from everlasting gray.

So grasp the height, if courage yet remains, Embrace the solitude, and feel the pains. For greatness whispers, from a chilling throne, ‘To stand above, you must forever be alone’.”

*

The stillness had returned as the moon had shifted over the graves silently. The mist had given way to a thin layer of ice, and the creature had returned to its protective vigilance within the crypts, the soft yet inflexible cloth purposely discarded against the floor now a treasure of subjugation. New footprints in the snow are left in the wake of the woman’s path back to the stalled warmth of the car waiting for her return. Her eyes sting from a stare that she could not blink away. A path laid before her now.

But at what cost?