3.8 - The Art of Playing Dead

     There is a shallow pit in Hel reserved for geld collectors, where the boiling mud coats their skin and the tri-headed worms burrow through the soles of their feet and out through their eyes over and over for eternity. At least that’s what they say to Olafur, when he arrives. He never asked to be a geld collector, he was born into it. His father had been one before him, and his grandfather before that. When he was younger, he dreamt of serving in the King’s guard. Like the heroes in the old tales, he would clash swords with mercenaries, sever the heads of beasts, and save the fair maidens. If only he wasn’t so short, and thin, and terrified of violence, and generally ill-suited for any physical endeavors. At a glance, he could be mistaken for a young boy, or girl for that matter, as his face and body lacked definition of any kind. He wasn’t even eligible to try out for the city guard when he became of age. The Algerbloom census had listed him as ‘Interior Class’ which prohibited him from working in any of the physical fields for fear of putting those around him at risk. From there, he was limited to three opportunities. 

The first was to join the Kalt Order, a measly fourteen monks sequestered to a three-room annex of King Eirghen’s castle where they molded away reproducing documents and transcribing the daily events of Algerbloom in mind-numbing detail. The second was to become an apprentice for the city moneylenders, and the third was to take up his father’s mantle as a tertiary geld collector. The way Olafur saw it, either his own city would hate him for collecting money, or strangers would. It was a simple choice. King Eirghen’s second cousin served as primary geld collector, and the high ranking Halledottir family supplied a daughter as the second geld collector. When those two were away, or when geld to be collected was substantially insignificant or otherwise undesirable, the duty would fall to Olafur. The latter was the case this time, as his coach rumbled up the side of Derngur Mountain towards the ill-fated town of Brattavik. 

At the foot of the mountains, the snow gently dusted the hillside, but as they neared their destination the wind slammed into the coach from one side and then the next like a giant batting a ball. Olafur could feel the splinters in his hands from his grip sliding along the edge of the wooden bench, but it was all he could do to prevent himself from slamming into the sides. Through the front window, he could see Ingbolt’s waist and only barely make out his elbow in the blinding white around him. A heavy rope was lashed around him and tied through the framework of the coach, keeping him from being flung from his position, and even so, there wasn’t an ounce of discomfort in his voice. 

“Y’know, they say this place is cursed. My Pa took a handful of folks up here once and said it was thick with regret. Like the whole town had done something they shouldn’t have and living up here was their punishment. He said it felt like he was being watched the whole time but by profane eyes. Just old stories though. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” 

Olafur was more concerned with the freezing cold than the bedtime stories. It was easy for a warrior to catch his death on Derngur Mountain, and Olafur was far from hardy stock. 

“How much further, Ingbolt?” he yelled. As the words escaped his mouth, the wind just as quickly grabbed them with its long fingers and pulled them to their doom. He cleared his throat and shouted again, twice as loud. The words drifted halfway across the carriage this time, before being yanked through the window and dashed once more. Forget it. Knowing how long I’ll spend in this tempest won’t make the time pass quicker. 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to walk the last of it,” Ingbolt shouted as the carriage shuddered to a standstill, aggressively rocking side to side. “The road looks quite narrow up ahead, and besides that, the horses can’t take much more of this.”

Olafur sighed, and released the bench with one hand to grab his pack only for a heavy gust to crash into the coach and roll him over onto his stomach, one hand still holding the bench. 

“You hear me Olafur?” Ingbolt shouted back. 

“Yes!” Olafur yelled. He could feel his vocal cords scratching as he put every ounce of breath into the word, still laying half off of the bench, face towards the floor. 

“Well okay, you don’t have to yell at me about it. I’d take you all the way if I could,” Ingbolt responded. 

“I know, thank you Ingbolt!” he pulled himself to his knees and looped his pack over his shoulder. On all fours, he reached a hand up and pulled the handle of the door. As soon the door was open enough for a string of light to splash through, the wind took it the rest of the way. It clattered into the side of the carriage. 

“Watch the wind,” Ingbolt said. 

Watch the wind, he says. Unbelievable. The man is oblivious. On all fours, Olafur crawled down the steps and into the snow. The only saving grace of the conditions was that the gale seemed to have whipped most of the snow from the path, leaving barely a foot left. His hands were already numb from the cold through his gloves, so he felt nothing as he plunged them into the powder. Once he was on his hands and knees in the snow, he carefully stood and pulled his fur-lined hood up around his head. Just as quickly as he did, the wind took it off. He pulled it back up. The wind took it off once more. 

“Here, take this,” Ingbolt said. Olafur looked up at the man, who was leaning around the side of the carriage. His mouth and nose were covered with a thick cloth mask, but Olafur could tell he was smiling beneath it. He held out a leather cap with strings sewn into each side. “Put your hood up, then put the cap on and tie it under your chin. It’ll hold in the wind.” 

Olafur nodded in appreciation and did as he was told. The cap was clearly designed for larger heads, as nearly six inches of excess string hung down his chest, but the cap and the hood held. Olafur gave a thumbs up to Ingbolt and then trudged forward past the carriage. The mountainside towered above him on his left, and on his right, he could only see swirling belligerent whiteness, but he knew a sheer drop wasn’t too far off. He kept his left hand along the rock to steady himself, and one foot after the other slowly made his way forward. Looking back, the carriage was already lost to the blizzard. He only hoped Ingbolt hadn’t dropped him off too far from Brattavik. 

The longest hour of Olafur’s life passed before the path began to turn inward, and a mountain wall appeared along the right side as well. With walls on either side, the wind subsided slightly, and the snow wasn’t quite as thick in the air. Somewhere before him, he could barely make out the flickering of torchlight, like devil’s eyes, ushering him forward. The wind slowed even more and bounced off of the rock walls in strange ways, wailing and swooping. So this is what Ingbolt’s father spoke of.  Nothing more than wind. I should have known. Even so, it did make the path rather unsettling. It continued to slow until it was enough for the snow to fall straight down, and build up deeper on the ground around Olafur. It was up to his knees now, and it took all the strength he had left to press onward. There’s nothing for it, Ingbolt will be long gone by now, and won’t return for two days. Two days was typically how long it would take to convince a Jarl that the geld they owed was warranted. Or, at least, two days of a geld collector breathing down their necks was all they cared to endure. 

“What business do you have here?” The voice, strangely smooth and bitter all at once, nearly knocked Olafur from his feet. Nestled in a nook of the rock wall to his right sat a woman bundled enough to practically fill the space. The nook was lined with a blanket and she was laying back on it like a princess on her throne, one leg dangling free and the other pulled up against her. A heavy fur-lined hood much like the one Olafur wore was pulled up around her head, and pale blonde hair loosely spilled out from it. Her sharp red cheeks were illuminated by a small flame inset in the stone next to her, which she was warming her hands in front of. 

“Apologies my lady, I didn’t see you there,” Olafur said, collecting himself and bowing before her. 

“Intruders would sneak right past if they saw me first, fool,” she said. 

Olafur glanced around him, at the tight corridor of stone, towering up hundreds of feet above. 

“Ahh, yes. Of course. Well, I’m here to see...ah…” Olafur reached into the breast pocket of his heavy fur coat and pulled out King Eirghen’s appeal, which was more a formality than anything. Everyone knew that if the King requested geld, it was to be paid or the consequences would be felt sooner or later. “Jarl Lauritz of Brattavik, in regards to a collection of geld.” 

The woman huffed. “You know there’s a shallow pit in-” 

“Yes, yes, I know my fate thank you,” Olafur interrupted. “Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?” 

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth curled down in a tight scowl, but she pointed straight ahead. 

“The largest cabin at the end of the row. Flanked by stone.” 

Olafur gave another bow, this time rather curt, and heard the woman spit. What a lovely introduction. As soon as he cleared the stone walls, the weather went dead silent. The snow was no longer up to his knees, it barely reached the top of his boots, and the wind was gone completely. The basin was fringed with behemoth evergreens, taller than Olafur had ever seen. They had a lightness to them that seemed...odd. Torchlight illuminated the row of houses aligned down the center of the basin and ribbons of moonlight twirled down through the cloud cover above, neither of which explained the vibrant purple glow that seemed to dart along the branches of the trees. It was as if they were sparkling, or crackling. Perhaps it was something to do with the altitude? Olafur made a mental note to inquire further once his work was finished. 

Brattavik was as insignificant a town as Olafur could imagine, which must be why the geld to be collected was so minor. He wasn’t sure how any geld was acquired in the first place, up here. In his great grandfather’s time, Brattavik (it was called Khordul’s Rest then), was an exporter of gemstones found near the peak of the Derngur Mountains. The gemstone deposits went dry decades ago, and since then, nothing comes or goes from Brattavik. Olafur could only assume that they were still working through reserves of gemstones set aside for the future. He was nearing the large cabin, flanked by two massive trunks, cut to match and stripped of bark. Each one was covered in runes. Olafur didn’t believe in the old superstitions, but it was common for towns on the outskirts to cling tight to the past. He hadn’t retained much from his runic studies as a boy, but he could assume that these were warding spells of some sort, designed to keep spirits at bay. Passing through town, he had only seen four others, three of them peering out from behind curtained and frosted windows at the stranger in their midst. A woman stepped out from the Jarl’s cabin and curtly motioned for Olafur to go in, before marching past him. He nodded in acknowledgment and moved up the steps towards the door before realizing that it was the same woman from the entrance of the basin. He spun around to confirm what he had just seen, but she was gone. It couldn’t have been. No one came to Brattavik, it was most likely a sister or daughter, or some twisted familial relation that Olafur would rather not consider. It had to be. He may not be the most observant type, as most of his attention was directed inward, but he would have noticed her pass him. 

As soon as he pushed the door of the cabin open, he was greeted by an overwhelmingly sweet and tart smell. Cloudberries. The entire building smelled of cloudberries. Even more specifically, cloudberry jam. Just the smell alone was enough to make Olafur’s mouth water. Before him was an antechamber illuminated by a slowly spinning chandelier. A dozen fist-sized candles were lit on the chandelier, but the light they produced was akin to what Olafur had seen in the trees. A soft purple wave of light splashed against the walls around him. 

A voice called from the chamber ahead, one door closed and one hanging open slightly. An ensemble of lights, faint greens, bright blues, nearly blinding pinks, bounced off of the open door from within the room. “Come through if you may! I don’t appreciate snoops, scamps or stealers in my chalet!” 

The voice was high pitched and multifaceted like it was echoing through a glass.

“Of course! I was simply appreciating your dazzling lights. You must tell me how you achieve such a spectacle once our business is concluded,” Olafur said as he pushed open the door and moved into the inner chamber. As soon as he entered the room, the lights he had seen glimmering on the door were gone, replaced with plain white light from another slowly spinning chandelier above a dining table. Each seat at the table was prepared with a plate of steaming food, the smell overwhelming to Olafur’s senses. Grilled stockfish, mashed potatoes and gravy, mutton stew, and krumkake filled with cloudberry jam for dessert. Each dish, one by one, passed through Olafur’s nose as if he were consuming them with smell alone and moving on to the next. He eyed the plates and was dismayed to see they didn’t match what he was smelling. In fact, the steaming piles of food didn’t seem to be...anything at all? They looked like paintings done by a child, made to imitate food, but they lacked a dimension. Some even seemed to shift on the plate when he would look away. Each seat was vacant save one, at the head of the table. A man sat, slumped, with an enormous faded blue robe on, its hood pulled up. The only reason Olafur knew it to be a man was that a wispy beard leaked out from the darkened hood like smoke. His face was hidden entirely. 

“Do you feel hunger? Are you capable of eating?” the same ricocheting voice asked from the hood. At first Olafur took it as an insult, as he was accustomed to, but there was an earnestness to the question that felt as if the Jarl was truly curious. 

“I...well yes. I do and I am. The smell is quite delectable I must say.” 

The Jarl giggled. 

“Only the best! I made it myself!” he said. 

The Jarl was at the opposite end of the table from Olafur, and he hadn’t moved an inch since Olafur had entered the room. His hands were placed on the table but hidden beneath the massive sleeves of his robe. Ingbolt, I pray you find my bones if I end up on the serving spoon of this man. He thought. Something was clearly and quite directly abnormal about this Jarl. 

“Jarl Lauritz, if I may, I do hate to do business on an empty stomach but I feel it would behoove us to get it out of the way immediately,” Olafur said, chancing a sideways glance at the food on one of the plates. It nearly moved off of the table before setting itself back as his eyes locked on it.

“Ah yes!” Jarl Lauritz said, whispering the ah, and nearly shouting the yes. His voice not only reverberated oddly, but it also fluctuated in pitch like a wind-tossed winter cap. “Business.” 

He said nothing after that. Gods be, where have I found myself? Olafur thought. He made a move around the table and began walking towards the Jarl. 

“Stop!” Jarl Lauritz howled in panic like a dying bird. The sound scared Olafur terribly, enough for him to jump and tangle one of his feet in the legs of one of the dining chairs. He overcompensated in the other direction pulling the chair with him, which in turn robbed him of the modicum of balance he had. He then too aggressively propelled himself forward again, falling to his knees, taking the chair with him. As he fell he flapped both arms out, and grabbed the tablecloth with one hand. In a single motion, he took the chair, the tablecloth, and everything on it to the ground with him. He landed face down on the gray fur carpet and heard a yelp from the Jarl akin to that of a child. 

“Oh dear me, I am so terribly sorry,” Olafur said, extricating himself from the tangle he had made on the floor. “I have a tendency to…” he froze, his mouth agape as he looked at The Jarl. The motion from the tabletop had pulled Jarl Lauritz forward, and he now lay face down on the table, motionless. 

“Ja...Jarl Lauritz?” Olafur whispered. I’ve killed him. I’ve killed the Jarl. he thought. 

“One moment!” the voice echoed. “I seem to have...I have...I’m...fallen.” 

Olafur slowly approached the slumped-over body and placed a hand on his shoulder. The fabric of the robe was thick and cold as ice, and the Jarl’s shoulder was sharp. 

“No, no, it’s quite...I...you can just...go,” The Jarl mumbled, frantically. For the first time since he was a boy, Olafur ignored the command and pushed the Jarl up into a sitting position. As he did, Jarl Lauritz’s hood fell around his shoulders, revealing a half-rotten head. His eyes were open wide, motionless, his cheeks sunken into the bone, and large chunks of skin were completely rotted away. The skin that still clung to the bone was covered in gray strands of hair, tangled with larger clumps of hair that had fallen out. 

“Ahhh!” Olafur shouted, falling back onto the floor. 

“Oh, I’ve gone and ruined it again. I’m terrible at this,” the voice said, no longer coming from the Jarl, but from behind him. It still echoed, but now sounded more comfortable, and appropriate. As if previously it was trying very poorly to imitate the Jarl by only slightly changing its normal tone. 

“Who are you? What are you?” Olafur yelled, crawling backward. 

The lights began to shift, and pulse, until the room was a glittering maelstrom of green and pink and blue. A form moved from behind the Jarl’s chair, taking shape before Olafur. Their head was humanlike, only larger, sporting eyes the size of horse hooves and ears like scythes. They stood barely three feet tall, on chubby legs covered by a purple dress. Their arms, all four of them, and equally as chubby as their legs, were held in front of them with hands open in a peaceful gesture. 

“Please, don’t kill me,” the creature said. 

“I...what?” Olafur was still scrambling backward but paused at that. 

“I’ve seen what you do to each other. Please don’t skin me, or pop out my eyes, or pluck my arms from my body and roast them on a spit.” the creature was shaking. 

“Did you kill the Jarl?” Olafur said. 

“No of course not!” she said, placing two hands on her waist indignantly. “I would never! I found him like this. It seemed like a good opportunity to practice.” 

“Practice what?” Olafur asked. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, matching the height of the creature. 

“My art!” she puffed out her chest, and swirled, her bare feet lifting off of the ground for a moment. As she spun back around, there was a look of disappointment on her face, and the lights in the room flickered for a moment. “I’m no good.” 

“What exactly is your art? If it isn’t rude of me, what exactly are you?” Olafur asked. 

“My name is Yulivandra, and I am a Fey of the Summer Court!” she proudly stated. “You can call me Yulie. Or Vandra. Or Yulivandra. I would prefer one of those three.” 

I’ve heard tales but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would meet a Fey, Olafur thought. Stay calm, Olafur. Don’t embarrass yourself. A child of the gods is before you. 

“Well hello milady Yulivandra!” he said, slightly louder than he intended as he pulled himself up into a proper, courtly stance. She flinched at the noise. “You may call me Olafur. I am...an adventurer of great renown in the human world. I have traveled great lengths to arrive here, and am pleased to meet one of your kind. I’ve come across many Fey in my days, but none quite as ravishing as yourself!” 

Yulivandra giggled and lifted off of the ground to match Olafur’s height. She had no wings to speak of, but rather it seemed that a pedestal of light had formed beneath her that she stood on. 

“You are too kind, good sir,” she said. “Are geld collectors typically considered adventurers in your world? My friend told me you were coming to take money back to your people.” 

Instantly, Olafur’s heart sank and his shoulders slumped. He had forgotten all about the woman, perhaps multiple, he had met coming in. Were they also Fey, disguised by some illusion? Surely he would have noticed. 

“No...geld collectors are far from it,” he said, dejectedly. “I’m sorry for trying to deceive you. I only wished to impress one of such qualities as yourself. Geld collectors are the lowest of the low, and I am the lowest of them. Shield your eyes lest they behold one of the most insignificant creatures on earth.”  

Yulivandra made a sad hum, and Olafur could swear he saw her eyes well up for a moment. 

“You shouldn’t say such things!” she said. “You are a bearer of life, and as such are a beautiful being! I do understand your lack of heart, however. Believe it or not, I am not quite as well respected in the Summer Court as I would like to be. It is how I found myself here. A Fey in a place with no humans is like a forge with no flame, but the Summer Court is wide and expansive and must keep watch on the entire world. Otherwise our magic would slowly fester and die out. So here I am, like a sojourning monk, awaiting life to return to this place.” 

“What of the women I saw coming in? The guard and the one who looked remarkably like the guard?” Olafur asked. “And the wandering eyes that watched me from shielded windows?”

“Oh, Hollisae and Hollisae? They are changelings assigned to be my bodyguards. Unfortunate for them, I know, but they make the best of it.” Yulivandra said. She seemed to have grown bored with standing and paced back and forth through the air, occasionally twirling or playing hopscotch on an invisible track. “The houses are no longer inhabited by humans, but creatures come and go in their travels. I’m afraid I’m not too sure who’s staying there now.” 

“Well, I suppose collecting geld from a Fey and...two...changelings is a fool’s errand,” Olafur said. The fact that the changelings had the same name but were referred to separately proved to only confuse him more about their identity or identities. 

“We don’t use money!” Yulivandra said happily, then she froze. Her eyes grew wider than Olafur could have imagined. “I have a wonderful idea!” 

“I am all ears,” Olafur said. As you are all eyes, he thought. The phrase seemed to confuse her for a moment, as she looked him up and down, looked at his ears, then shrugged and shook her head. 

“Stay with me!” she said excitedly. “It is desperately lonely here. We, the two of us, can bring life back to Brattavik!” 

Olafur wasn’t entirely sure how she intended for that to sound, but regardless, he felt butterflies in his stomach. The thought was silly, of course. He was human, and gainfully employed. He made enough coin to stay comfortable in Algerbloom, and continue to...collect geld...and...watch others live out their days...joyfully. No, it couldn’t be considered. Brattavik was a dead town. It would rot away, or be covered by snow and forgotten to time. Just like Olafur would in Algerbloom. A man with no discernible talents, no discernible future, no discernible past. He had simply floated through his life, like a piece of parchment in a tub of rainwater, waiting to slowly pull apart. When assigned this mission, King Eirghen had called him Ellibur. He had known the king since birth. Had attended the geld collector meetings with his father. He was nothing. Less than nothing, because nothing isn’t remembered as something else, it simply isn’t remembered. He was so insignificant to Algerbloom, that other lives were assigned to him like a painter covering up an aged canvas with his own work. Now before him, hovering in the air and absentmindedly popping bubbles of light that sparkled like fireworks, was a magical being who wanted Olafur around. Not someone else, not an imagined version of Olafur, but Olafur. Plain and simple. A third in line geld collector with the frail body of a child was wanted for the first time in his life. 

“Yulivandra, you have given me something I could never have dreamed of when coming to Brattavik,” he said. “Inspiration. I would love nothing more than to stay here with you, if you would have me.” 

She closed her eyes and smiled wide, then flipped through the air and nearly tumbled into the dead body of Jarl Lauritz. 

“Oops!” she said. 

“First things first, milady,” Olafur said. “We need to...relieve Jarl Lauritz of his position.” 

The king and queen of Brattavik smiled at each other.