Prelude Part 2: Egill Skallagrímsson

Year 4990, OTT

(Improved by Jason T)

The old man was known as the Hermit of the Skalil Rock. No one, not even the Elders themselves, dared to speak against his council in the rare events when he did appear at the Thing and took the seat of the Eldest. In whispered voices, they also called him a Wizard. His real name had faded into history and his life now spanned over four hundred years.

There were still many stories told about the last great clan War when the Lords of the Rocks fought each other. Not just with sword and ax but with weapons brought from beyond the sky; terrible weapons against which neither walls of concrete nor Nilfeheim rock could stand.

Egill was a young and strong clan lord back then, avoiding allegiances and not taking sides, but was dragged into the war as men of the Uhim clan attacked his burg and killed every living soul, while he was away fishing.

Having lost his beloved wife, his sons and everything he loved and held dear, Egill went to battle and became the most ruthless killer of that war. He killed hundreds of the Uhim Alliance single-handedly and, at the climax of that war, Egill dropped a nuclear bomb onto Uhim Island.

The use of a nuclear weapon ended the war and brought the shocked clan leaders together. All clan leaders from both the Alliance of the East and the Western Pact signed the Truce of Uhim that granted anyone access to any part of the oceans. It also cemented the power of the Circle of Elders as the highest authority of law.

Egill, numb with grief, took possession of the Skalil Rock.

No one remembered who had built the small burg on top of the tall rock, but it was said to be haunted and had remained unoccupied for ages, on a world where dry land was the rarest commodity.

Today, no one remembered his full name, or that it was him who had nuked the Uhim clan into oblivion, yet he was once the Chief of the Skallagrímsson clan.

Ever since his wife had died, appearance mattered little to him. He wore worn leather pants, patched with different materials, and in a very unskilled fashion, the tunic and the Anorak fur was smudgy and torn. There wasn’t much fur left on the hooded fur cape and it too was stained and torn. Egill’s emaciated face was framed by thin, stringy hair that had the same color as pale yellowish bones. His thin, unevenly growing beard was of the same color, but his eyes glowed with the spark of a bright mind.

For the most part of the past four centuries, he lived all by himself on this tall rock formation that could be found in the Blue Reaches of the southern oceans.

Skalil Rock was a thin column-like rock, around three hundred meters tall and on top no more than fifty or sixty meters across. The base of the pillar, at the point where it reached the surface, was only about 120 meters in diameter.

Here he had planned to live out his natural life, but it was also here where he met Tyr and it was this god-like entity that had gifted him with psionic powers.

To reach the small burg that was built on top of the rock pillar, one had to use a basket attached to a steel cable and an electric winch.

The first year of a new Longnight had arrived; in another twelve or thirteen months, the ice flows that already drifted around his burg would become a surface of solid ice.

Egill had just returned from one of his rare shopping trips. His submarine, the only one of its kind on all Nilfeheim, was loaded with the usual dry goods and packed groceries. He sighed, this was the downside of being a hermit, he had no one to help him carry things. He was muttering curses and grunted every time he carried boxes and bags to the elevator basket.

The hermit did not turn as a deep voice in his head said, “You could get all the help you wanted or even buy one of these robots I heard about. Even use your telekinetics to float the things up into your nest instead of cursing the height of the rock.”

Egill placed a box with salt, spices, and ready to eat dinners into the basket and turned. There, next to the sleek Submarine in the churning waves and between the ice floes, surfaced an immense whitish shape with huge triangular-shaped fins on top.

The largest predatory fish known to Union science was the sleek Tyranno Fin of Nilfeheim. A true fish, some of them were bigger than the Blue Whales of distant Earth.

This albino animal that surfaced next to Egill’s submarine was the largest Tyranno on Nilfeheim and it was sentient.

Egill had known the white fish for almost his entire life. It was Egill who had given the fish a name and called him Tyr.

The hermit was one of a handful of people who knew Tyr, but many hunters and fishers had seen it over the centuries that man had been on this world. There were stories and legends about the White Tyranno told at the tables of the old taverns that lined the Western Seawall outside the city limits of Halstaad Fjord, where only fishermen and Tyranno hunters gathered.

Egill turned to face his humongous non-human friend and replied in the same soundless mental way, “And you could use a fraction of your telekinetic powers to help me instead of giving me a lecture.”

Now he approached the edge of the small dock at the side of the Pillar. “I am surprised to see you still awake. Longnight has begun.”

“You short-lived humans have not really noticed that the Longnights slowly grow shorter again, as they have been for many many cycles. I foresee the time when Longnights are of equal length with Shortsummer. Our rather odd orbit, caused in part by the fifth planet that is technically a failed sun and its massive gravitational pull, is slowly but surely deteriorating...”

Egill held his head in his hands. “Don’t fill my mind with all those equations, I am not interested in those things. I don’t even understand most of it. I am not like you who hangs around the Union school rock, telepathically spying on the kids and their lessons.”

“Where else should a simple fish like me gain all the wonderful knowledge about the Universe and the United Stars? Thankfully, your off-world brethren are much more interested in these things than you and this is the reason your kind could bridge the vast distance and invade my peaceful and quiet world.”

“You are more a god than a simple anything. You know full well that all you have to do is reveal yourself to the Union Outpost. I may be a just a grumpy Nilfeheim loner, but even I know that a talking fish would not raise many eyebrows out there. The Union would come and most likely remove and resettle all humans. Union law is quite clear on that: You are sentient and you were here first.”

“It is not that simple. This world was colonized before it became Union. After almost 3000 of your years, this is as much the human’s world as it is mine. I am quite content with the arrangement as it is. Besides, without humans coming to this world, I would not be sentient.”

“How can we have anything to do with that? You told me you have been a sentient being long before humans set foot on this planet.”

“Because you humans always think in mono-directional linear ways when it comes to time. Cause and effect always apply but do not always have to be in a simple line.”

Egill sat down on one of the steel bollards and crossed his arms while he looked at the immense being before him with much affection.

“So, you are saying future and past are the same things and that everything is already decided, and that existence is preordained? If the future is set, then there is no such thing as free will. With a set future, there is no good and evil. Heroes are heroes because the outcome is clear, and criminals are not responsible.”

“No Egill, the future is very much like a dough, an unshapely mass of possibilities, but there are many ingredients that need to be there. The outcome is as predictable as a cake, but no one knows what shape it might take, or if it will be a good cake, or perhaps a burned excuse for a baked product...”

Egill gave a slight shiver from the cold and immediately the old man and his groceries vanished from sight only to reappear in the main hall of his small burg.

Tyr had once more demonstrated his tremendous psionic abilities. The translocation of almost a ton of groceries was no easy feat.

He simultaneously completed his explanation.

“ ... meaning the framework of the future is there and can be predicted and some conditions are preordained.”

“You are the only fish in the history of the Universe who can compare time with baking a cake. That is the only thing I really understood. The Norse of this world believe I am a wizard and have clairvoyance. They want me to throw the runes and then see the future as this is what a Seer and Wizard is supposed to do. But I am no Wizard and far from wise. What are these conditions you speak about?”

“They are shaped by events and decisions made in the past and in the now by the sum of all that is alive. These decisions are based on a basic set of rules if you will. For example, there is technically no such condition as cold. It is defined by the absence of heat. The same thing is true to many conditions and concepts. Darkness is the absence of light. Death the absence of life and so forth. Nothing occurs without having an effect. The very existence of the Metaverse as it now depends on a balance. If light completely eliminates darkness, how can it be still light? If there is only good, how can it remain good?”

“The Saresii of old call it Proka-Aku and a religious philosophy of your own homeworld called Taoism calls it Yin and Yang. I am quite fascinated with the many religions and philosophies you humans have come up with. To the Elders of the Universe, this concept is known as the RULE.”

“Some events must occur or perhaps be prevented from occurring, and these events are preordained and therefore can be predicted. It is not clairvoyance. Was the cake analogy not sufficient?”

Egill rummaged through the bags and boxes of his shopping trip and found the bottle of vodka he was looking for. “I would lie to you if I said I understand, but it sounds as if it should make sense. So what does this all mean, big fish? Why are you telling me all this? I sense in all this there is the reason for your visit. Not that I am complaining, any reason you find to visit me is a good one.”

“I am about to go to sleep, Egill but while I sleep there will be such an event, it is an event more important than perhaps any other.”

Egill poured himself a generous helping of the clear liquid into a reasonably clean cup and topped it off with cola. Here inside his burg, he didn’t have to be traditional. “Do you want me to wake you when it happens, whatever you think will happen?”

“No Egill, you can’t reach me once I retreat to the Sleep Mountains. My mind is awake like yours, but my body and nature are still Tyranno Fin. I want you to go to the Olafson clan and be present when Ilva Ragnarsson delivers her firstborn and also be there at his naming day.”