The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 138

Brother Murder spoke up, First of the Last, “Tell our queen, Hard-Heart, how you, mistaken warrior, have come to cut the binds that we have wrapped round her soft flesh.” So great was his enjoyment of my doubt, he could not complete his taunting request.

I spoke to the dark-haired queen, “These stabbing thoughts cannot stain my mission. I am Hard-Fisherman’s Tail-Hero. I was born to rule the black and hurt half-men of the wall of blizzards and behemoths. This assembly does not blunt my might forged by wonder-smiths. I am not moved to loose my strength on these shades until I keep my pyre-oath. I am come to rescue you, Copper-Croumed’s sister, from your dolorous fate, lost child. ”

The dark-haired queen spoke, Brother Murder’s Pleasure, “You have come to rescue? And how would you accomplish this tardy work? Can you rescue my life, that was glad-hearted and full of promise in golden kingdoms, that has been taken from me and exchanged for a hag’s end of regrets? What is it that you have come to rescue, slow-footed inheritor? My flesh that cannot be cleansed, my mind that cannot be emptied of fright, my heart that has become as hard as the land of ice? This is my home and this is my prison and this is my inheritance. What keeps me here is not these gluttons who give me pleasure as I give them pleasure. What chains me to my high-seat in this fen of despair is my loathing for those who have abandoned me and corrupted me. What holds me here, misguided thane, is that my pain is my purpose is my pleasure is my pain.”

I looked into the words of the dark-haired queen, and a fresh sorrow came to me, victory-blest man. I saw that it was not full measure to swing my battle-shaft through the dozen behemoths. To free her, lost love, from the chains she pulled close in her pain, I must break the bonds of her thoughts tied to long-lost and long-remembered days. My compassionate war-band and I knelt before her and wept for her struggles in the ice-wasted land. Our true tears became a torrent that crashed against the walls so that a flood rose higher and higher, immersing the dark-haired queen’s loathing for past wrongs, washing the hatred from her flesh.

I told the dark-haired queen, Hard-Fisherman’s Heart’s Heart, “Quest of my quest, Hard-Heart, rise from this table stained by faults of a wickedness alien to your true-ways, and stand free of your memories of long-lost and long-remembered days. Rise free, queen of my love, and accept your true name, Glad-Heart.”

I have the head of a hero. My hearth-companions call me Bulwark of the South. I am sharp-witted and have the clue to war-success. I enjoy the weather of rainbows. I take the high-seat in my ice-carved hall and share meat with my long-eared hounds. My retinue gathers at my drinking tables to hear my bards make hall-songs of my contests.

My bards finish their song of my quest to free the dark-haired queen. My companions cheer for the hard-won victories that thrust me forward as king of ice-clogged salt-trails even as my love won a soft-victory over the dark-haired queen. I accept the hails of my strong and numerous war-band. I turn in my high-seat to touch the hem of the flashing gown of my queen, Glad-Heart. There is no pleasure on her face for the songs of my bards. I ask her if she is not made glad to hear again of the long past days when I came to rescue her as Hard-Fisherman’s Ghost’s Heeder. I ask her if she does not love me, proud-headed prince, as I love her, proudheaded princess.

My dark-haired queen, Glad-Heart, speaks thickly, “It is not I who am troubled. It is you who have the pallor of the sick and the fever of the dying. It is you who appears to have fought his last battle in your wave-skimming ship, Glad-Hunter. It is you who seems as a man come to his sad ending-day.”

And it is true. Though I enjoy the weather of rainbows, gray clouds course across my vision, death-knells sound in my ears, and I taste my blood on my lips. I sink at the feet of the dark-haired queen. My brave shieldsmen rush to my side and weep at the sight of their bold king helpless on his hall floor. Elephant Son and Copper-Crowned lay their hands on my brow. I shout to them. I make no brave sound.

At last, my sight gone, my breath unable to stir a feather, I smell the love fragrance of my dark-haired, queen, Glad-Heart, and I cry out like a child, Time-Thief s Portent-Carrier, “Forgive me, Glad-Heart, for not loving you as you merited at my side, and for permitting my thoughts to wander to Poor-Patience in her grave and the son we made in the Land of the Whale-Killers.”

I feel my body fall from a craggy cliff and tumble end over fore into a rain that blows warm and soft. I heat Glad-Heart above me, and she is angry. I hear Glad-Heart call to me in a hard voice that does not suit the soft-armed consort that I thought gladdened by love, and this new voice that is an old voice tells me, “I shall come to Hell to get you back. Death’s door cannot keep me out. I shall come, for your work at my vengeance is unfinished, and there is no other like Skallagrim Ice-Waster, Rune-Carver and Wolfman, King of the South.”