1. Eirik and the Secret of Avalon
The night cold had seeped into Eirik’s very bones, but
colder still was the desolation in his chest. That darkness, which had snatched
away not only his breath but also his memory, imposed upon him an unyielding
design: to find his beloved.
'How could I find my way,' I wondered with a pang of
bitterness, 'if the old paths of the mind have been erased like engravings
in the sand? What strange force has woven such chains upon my will, allowing
only the echo of a love, but not the path to find it?'
Even so, the promise made to his heart resonated louder
than any impediment. With his ship, faithful companion of a thousand tides, and
the wisdom of the winds and stars, Eirik vowed to traverse the vast domains of
Midgard, and far beyond if necessary. He would seek the hidden bay, that
blessed corner where the celestial lady waited.
Guided by the only resource that still remained intact
within my head—my intuition—, I steered my course, as was my custom, following
the sun's path towards the horizon and the position of the evening stars, until
I reached that immense cloud in the middle of the sea that always stood in the
way of my journey home. After a lapse that felt like an eternity, I descried
the figure of a distant island shrouded in the void of the mist. Suddenly, a
flock of gannets tore through the silence, soaring over the haze with a
rhythmic beating of wings that I knew well. My pulse quickened; their white
silhouettes cut against the grey were the definitive sign I was waiting for. 'At
last, I have reached the harbour of my dreams,' I thought, while observing
their circular flight over the invisible cliffs.
In that fleeting instant, the beating of wings released a
shower of white feathers that descended upon the swell like pale snow. I seemed
to discern those specks of light lingering on the surface, caressed by fingers
of foam emerging from the depths to hold them in a strange, almost deliberate
pattern. I felt a pang of certainty; a hunch that this white trail was no mere
caprice of the wind, but the echo of a presence already awaiting me on the
other side of the veil.
It was the last image etched upon his retina before
consciousness slipped through his fingers once more…
The island seemed to float between the folds of time,
rocked by the oscillating foam of the sea. That mass of stone, now wrapped in a
translucent gauze, was lost in the distance as if entering into nothingness.
Scents of intense ripe apple aroma broke through the veils of vapour, like
invisible gusts flooding everything around in an incessant swaying. Avalon
appeared in the midst of that shapeless cloud, showing glazes of emerald green
that filtered through channels opened in the mist as if the stone itself
breathed through the light.
Access to the mythical Crystal Isle, protected by perpetual
fogs, was not easy to find. 'Only he may conquer it,' —in the words of the Nine Fairies— 'who
feels a deep conviction and brings with him a noble purpose.' And so Eirik achieved it, driven by
the certainty that he would find his beloved there, for the memory of her
breath, sweet as apple pulp, continued to spiral amidst his thoughts.
It was that yearning that finally rent the veil of
lethargy. The silence that had buried his soul began to crack, and Eirik
regained consciousness amidst the folds of a different reality. He was not
awakened by the fierce roar of the North Sea, but by a silken whisper and a
crystalline murmur that caressed his ears. Upon opening his eyes, the absolute
darkness had been replaced by a pearlescent mist.
He then crossed, now with firm feet upon the shore, a white
and misty entrance. He advanced decisively over the silver sand, hoping to see
once again the graceful figure of his beloved wrapped in a mantle of magic,
just as always happened under the spell of the last rays of sun prior to the
night of Mabon.
But, on the other side, as the last traces of mist
dissipated in the air, he found only the solitude of the void and the bitter
taste of nothingness. In it, the echoes of his own thoughts were lost, blurred
by the muffled howls of wolves in the distance. And yet, in a single instant,
the image of the place began to appear before his eyes in all its splendour, as
if painted in watercolour, with a sky veiled in golden tones by the sunbeams
behind clouds of translucent crystal glass.
After his long process of dreaming, during which he seemed
to hear his beloved’s voice whispering his name, there appeared before him the
presence of a lady of solemn bearing. She looked him fixedly in the eyes,
halting time, and prepared to release him definitively from his lethargy.
Eirik scrutinised her features with a painful urgency. The woman before him possessed a serene, almost mineral beauty; her skin had the glow of alabaster and her eyes, deep as mountain lakes, distilled a millenary wisdom that would intimidate the boldest warrior. However, she was not the woman of his life. A sudden chill ran down his spine as he realised the truth: that face was not the one that inhabited his dreams, nor did her presence radiate the warmth his heart craved.
'Welcome art thou to the Isle
of Avalon,' the High Priestess spoke to him, as she held out her hand
for him to kiss. 'Thy steadfastness of heart and thy noble
purpose have given thee direct access to our world, hidden and inaccessible to
others.'
Eirik’s gaze was lost for a moment in the misty horizon.
There, amidst the apple trees of golden glaze, he thought he saw female figures
gathering fruit. Their movements were those of the waves kissing the sand, and
their voices, a distant murmur, the song of the sea that cradled the island. A
setting that was entirely foreign to him.
Instinctively, I sought the contact of the metal on my
lobe, the small anchor that kept me tied to my world and the memory of my
beloved. As I brushed the bare skin, a gelid void struck my chest. The earring
was gone. In that instant, a suffocating anguish stripped me of all strength; I
felt that, by losing that object, I had also lost the hope of seeing her again.
I felt like a castaway on an eternal shore, a wandering spectre who had broken
the only thread linking him to his destiny.
With a frank gaze and a voice that conveyed a deep and
reassuring peace, the Priestess read Eirik’s thoughts with clairvoyance and
prepared to warn him of what would transpire from that moment onwards:
'I regret to tell thee that thou
art very far from the place thou desirest to find. It seems that fate holds a
long and exhausting odyssey in store for thee. My soul senses that Avalon is
but the first threshold of many thou shalt have to cross.'
And in that instant, the High Priestess placed in his hands
a sacred pentacle, a marvel of alchemy, composed of five apple seeds. Each one
shone with the light of immaculate gold, a jewel that for its brilliance and
purity would have been worthy of the neck of the goddess Idunn herself.
'With them thou shalt grow an
apple tree that will only germinate in that land where thy beloved truly
dwells,' the
Priestess’s voice sounded this time as if it came from behind the stone walls
in the distance. 'Only then, when at least one of the seeds
germinates instantaneously, wilt thou know that thou art in the exact spot thou
so longest to find.'
Eirik closed his hand over the pentacle, feeling the warmth
of the alchemical gold against his skin and his deep sorrow. He bowed his head
slightly in a sign of respect before looking at her again.
'I thank thee for this gift, Lady of the Mist,' he said with a firm voice. 'Tell me, whither must I depart? How
shall I find my path in the immensity of the abyss?'
However, the answer did not come with words, but through a
ritual of divination that seemed to drain the very light from the air. After a
surrender of exhausting intensity, the High Priestess glimpsed a fragmented
truth: the trace of a captive island, a kingdom hidden behind veils of
perennial mist and the incessant roar of the tides. It was there, in the
heartbeat of an ocean that never rests, where her clairvoyant eyes found the
reflection of a lost object. She revealed to him that a three-pointed talisman
awaited in the depths of that abyss, buried by the oblivion of the ages,
waiting for an unshakable will like his to claim it from the silence.
'Thou must depart for a land
that is hidden beneath the weight of the waters,' she revealed with a measured voice. 'Only
in the heart of Atlantis will thou find the Silver Triquetra, that talisman
which shall be thy compass and thy shield. With it, thou mayest navigate the
paths of the universe while cultivating an integral harmony: the perfect dance
between the strength of the body, the clarity of the mind, and the purity of
the spirit. It shall remain with thee until thou findest the end of the road.'
An unexpected warmth began to make its way into my chest.
It was a brief throb, a spark of hope that defied the logic of the abyss; I
understood that, although my hands were empty of memories, they now carried a
promise. That incipient light did not erase my sorrow, but it granted me the
strength necessary to raise my gaze and accept the fate that opened before me.
'The only thing that remains
for thee to do,' she instructed, with a voice that carried the faint echo of
a warning, 'is to gird the talisman to thy chest, and instantly it
will become thy guide, thy faithful companion in this long pilgrimage…' she murmured, her gaze now absent, as
if the next veil were being drawn back before her eyes. 'Atlantis,
the sunken city, awaits thee…'
Eirik tucked the five gold seeds into his pocket, feeling
their weight like a small but constant flame against his skin. With a final
gesture of respect, he bid farewell to the High Priestess. She began to move
away with the same composure with which a swan glides over a mirror of dark
water, vanishing amidst the scents of the apples and the vapour of the
fountains until her figure was but a memory of whiteness in the mist.
Upon reaching the boundary where the land merged with the
sea, Eirik did not find a wooden vessel, but a trail of white foam that seemed
to await his arrival. He turned one last time: in the distance, the song of the
nine sisters merged with the whisper of the wind, a melody that reminded him
that, although he departed alone, the breath of the sea would never forsake
him.
- I. OVERTURE: My Name is Eirik
- II. EXORDIUM: "MYTHOS", Symphony of a Wandering Soul
- III. RESONANCE: My Story and the Secret of the Shadows
- IV. PRELUDE: Eirik's Dirth
- CHAPTER 1: Eirik and the Secret of Avalon
- CHAPTER 2: Discovery in Atlantis
- CHAPTER 3: In the Shadows of Hades
- CHAPTER 4: The Pull of Niflheim
- CHAPTER 5: The Icy Breath of Yule
- CHAPTER 6: Return to Mabon
- CHAPTER 7: Eirik and the Mystery of the Sirens
- CHAPTER 8: The Mirror of the Lake of Shadows
- CHAPTER 9: Finale
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