Here There Be Monsters

It was a glorious morning when Sévarg set out from the village, but the weather had quickly turned foul.

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A cold, wet snow and pervasive wind began halfway up the Great Mountain, and each step in the knee-deep drifts was taking more effort than the last. He glared at the sky in a silent curse, and hiked his furs further up around his ears. Her place should be around here.

The Elders had unanimously voted for Sévarg to make the trek. It was, after all, their last resort, and he was the only one healthy enough to make it up and back again. And she was the only one left to turn to. The Völva.

A small cabin materialized amidst the haze of snow. Redoubling his efforts, he reached the crude wooden door. His breath puffed out in large plumes of exhaustion as he brought his hand up to knock.

A frail voice called from within. “You may enter, Sévarg.”

He froze. How did she know who I was, or that I was even here? The woman filled him with such a sense of uneasiness that he almost turned around to go back down the mountain. But he came here for an answer, and he couldn’t return to the village without a response. He slowly lifted the latch and opened the door to a small room, everything in hues of oranges and browns from the fire in the fireplace.

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The Völva sat by a cookpot, stirring its contents absently as she grinned at Sévarg.

“You’ve come! You’ve finally come to ask me..” She spoke enthusiastically, with a voice that was both soft and encouraging, like a doting grandmother. “About the past.”

“Aye.” Sévarg stepped in and took the only other seat in the small room. “The plague...it is killing us all. The Elders suspect it’s coming from our food, but what can we do? We must eat.” He sighed in frustration. Why had they sent him, of all people? He was never good with words. “What can we do to stop this?”

The Völva’s pale eyes studied him and then she nodded as she rose from her chair. She waddled over to a small table and pulled a scroll from beneath a pile of papers. She unrolled it as she brought it to Sévarg.

“Back in the day…” she began, but then trailed off as if distracted by her own thoughts, her eyes fixed on some point far beyond the close walls of the cabin.

After an uncomfortably long silence, Sévarg cleared his throat. “Um...the plague?”

She visibly jumped and stared at Sévarg as if she had forgotten he was there. As if he were an invader of her memories.

“The...monster….the Leviathan is the cause. It’s breath fouls the water and all it contains. Destroy it, and we stand a chance. We may yet live.”

She gave him an unexpectedly warm smile. “Well, some may live, anyways.” She pointed to the map in her hands, her arthritic finger resting on the landmass that was their home. Grœnland. The finger then swept across the vast expanse of water to the west, until it rested upon his destination: a figure like a dragon with two spouts. Beneath in ornate lettering were the words: Here there be monsters.

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Sévarg rubbed the cold little hands and blew warm air on them.

“Is the fire warm enough? Do you need another blanket?” He reached for a fur on the nearby chair.

Alise shook her head with a weak smile. “I’m fine, Papa.”

He placed a hand on her head. She looked just like her mother.

“I love you, Alise.” He tucked in the covers, delaying his departure a few more moments. “Ingrid will take good care of you.”

He glanced down at the tray of food by the bed that had gone largely untouched. “And do try to eat something. You need your strength.”

“I will, Papa.”

He kissed her forehead and turned to go. He grabbed his father’s sword by the door. He could never live up to the legend that he was, but he would need his sword.

He stepped out of his humble home and saw Ingrid standing there.

“So you’re going for sure?” As if it were his choice. The Elders had all told him he must go. All of the other able-bodied warriors were either sick or had deserted them.

Sévarg nodded and turned to leave, afraid of what he might say.

She grabbed his arm and whispered fiercely, “This is a fool’s errand!”

“Aye, it probably is.” They probably could have had a life together, but after his wife had died, he wasn’t ready. Now it was too late for them.

Sévarg pulled her into an embrace, something he had longed to do but hadn’t for reasons that now seemed silly. Perhaps she could find a good husband and raise Alise as her own. If he succeeded.

He reluctantly pulled away, lest he lose heart and stay with her until the plague finally overtook them all.

He headed toward the docks.

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A noisy gull squawked overhead as it kept pace with the boat, as if it were hovering in place. Sévarg blinked and then quickly got to his feet and pulled out his spyglass.

Mist. I can’t see a thing! But I must be close since there are gulls about.

He put away the spyglass and willed the mist to burn off as the morning sun came up. It had been twenty days, and still no sign of his quarry.

He took out the folded brown parchment held close to his breast, carefully unfolding it as he had done so many times since he left. The creases had been worn smooth and white, threatening to split even in the gentle pervasive breeze.

Turning leeward, Sévarg’s fingertips gingerly traced the ornate figures in sepia and ink. The drawing of the monster, with its serpentine body and twin spouts, had been the object of his obsession.

Surely the Leviathan was close now.

A beam of sunlight rested its soft glow onto the map. Sévarg went to the bow of the ship and stared westward again as the mist dissipated, revealing two huge spouts rising from the dangerously close shoreline.

Wait...those aren’t spouts!

Sévarg stared in horror at the realization of what he faced: smoke stacks. He had heard of these structures growing up, in stories about how the world was before it broke. These buildings were called...kjernekraft. They had been the cause of it all, the Great Loss.

The old Völva in her century-old addled mind had turned the building from her childhood memories into something more understandable. The Leviathan.

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The boat came aground on the beach, and Sévarg staggered on the coarse sand.

“No! No, no, no, no, no….” He fell to the ground, on hands and knees as if prostrating himself to the god, Leviathan.

There is no way I can defeat this! I will surely fail!

Those words, that sentiment, reminded him of when he was ten and learning to use the sword from his father. He had fallen to the ground, practice sword limp in his hands as he looked up forlorn at his hero. The man who led his village, the one who rallied men behind him to defend the people from raiders. The man could get even the most craven man to think he was a hero.

But not Sévarg. He knew he could never measure up.

“Why should I try, when I know I will fail? The result is the same, but at least I won’t have wasted my time,” he spoke through bitten back tears. “At least I won’t have gotten my hopes up for nothing!”

He will never forget the look on his father’s face: the man who was always immovable as a stone had looked...sad. He sat down cross-legged on the ground before Sévarg.

“Son,” he said, his clear blue gaze reaching into his soul. “It is not for the success that we try with our blood and our tears. It is for the love of those we protect.”

His father reached out and gave his arm a squeeze.

“Whether we succeed or fail, we must try. There is no choice in the end.”

Sévarg, still on hands and knees, rocked back on his heels. The image of Alise came to his mind, and Ingrid, and the people in his village. The strangely deformed fish that came in with each fishing net. The coughing that could be heard from every hovel. The rows of graves that were being filled each week.

He slowly stood and retrieved his father’s sword from the boat. No, it was his sword now.

With a resolute look in his eyes, Sévarg held the sword over his shoulder, and charged ahead with a cry of defiance and rage and determination.

“It is not for the success that we try with our blood and our tears. It is for the love of those we protect.”

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Author's Note: The main character's name, Sévarg, means Sea Wolf in Icelandic. The prompt gave me in inspiration for that name. Also, I'd like to give a shout out to @lenadr for the information on Sea Monsters from her Discord show, Cabinet of Curiosities.

This story was written in submission to @steemfluencer's Shipwreck Creative Writing Challenge - Round 2

Join us at The Writers Block on Discord.
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