It came from the North

[Zadown]

I stumbled, leaned on my makeshift staff to not to fall. This morning's rain had made the sharp rocks slippery and travel over them was almost impossible. I paused and looked around - the view had not ceased to amaze me, yet. Everywhere around us the small, twisted birches were blazing in different shades of yellow and red. We were in the middle of the remains of an ancient mountain range, worn to tall but still majestetic hills.

 

"Hei, we can't stop here, mister. Still a few kilometers to go."

 

"Yes, right."

 

I turned to follow my local guide, a short and weathered man. It was impossible to tell his age - he could've been thirty or sixty. He did not wear the colorful garb of his forefathers anymore and in the failing light it was hard to see him if he stopped moving, with the green and brown outfit he had. I noticed with envy he did not need a staff to move around in this "pirunpelto" as he had called it, a devil's field of shattered rocks, left here by the receding ice after the last ice age. I allowed myself one last glace around the magnificent view, noted the dark clouds overhead that promised more rain and steeled myself to go on. I wasn't here to admire the empty but beautiful land, no. I was here on my own and Midnight Squad's business.

 

My train of thought meandered away from the boring details of walking through the field of rocks and towards the leather-bound tomes I was carrying in my backpack. They had been quite a catch, and I was sure the Black Jackal had not know what he had in his possession. On one of them had been made a lot of notes in a small, weird handwriting that one of the Midnight Squad's psychics had said to be almost certainly Baron Zoria's! How anything he had owned had ended up on such a lowbrown, common supervillain as the Black Jackal was a mystery, but we had been more concerned by the actual books itself than their history. It detailed numerous ages old natural spirits, some of them even by the name. And one by its true name.

 

It had taken a lot of boring, dusty research to get to this point. But the tremendous possibilities of being able to summon one of the primal spirits to help us, to use one of those forgotten, menancing spectres lurking in the prehistoric dark, beyond the civilization, for good .. the mere chance this might work made me giddy. So giddy I almost lost my footing, again.

 

* * *

 

"This is it, mister. They say one of the most powerful seitas of Lapland was here, before the retreating German army blew it up 1944 .. nothing here now, though."

 

I swallowed. Nothing? I could feel the presence heavy over the place, a spirit old and malevolent and angry, still wounded by the fifty years old explosion. Very, very angry. I felt my amulet's warmth even through two layers of clothing and shivered in the dark, glad that the local guide could not see my face.

 

"You may go now."

 

"Uh, southerner, you want to stay here alone? It'll rain soon again, and it'll be below freezing during the night. You sure you'll manage?"

 

"Yes, yes. Now go."

 

The guide gave me an odd look, but I barely noticed it anymore. My hands were trembling in anticipation as I removed my backpack and fumbled it open. He had not gone even by then, and I waved him away. Finally he left and gave me my precious solitude. Muttering, I growled one of the few cantrips I could do without a full-blown ritual, feeling a brief stab of bitterness as always. My relatives might be more powerful than me, mages, warlocks and witches of great renown, but after this my name would be known, yes! The last word of the cantrip escaped my lips and my vision sharpened, my eyes suddenly penetrating the veil of darkness and the border between real and unreal. With my new vision, I dared not to look at the spirit again, fearing what I'd see. Instead I hunched over the old tomes and started shouting the odd words inscribed on their pages aloud, not caring anymore if the guide would hear me still or not.

 

"Meahcci čuohti boazu ..."

 

My own voice faded, even when I could still feel my mouth open and close, my tongue move. I knew I was shouting directly to some other place now, yelling words only the spirits could hear, and I felt a powerful surge of joy course through my veins. This was what it meant to be born with blood of the sorcerers of Mu! This was what I had missed all my life! I stood up and let the book fall, not needing it any more. The spirits guided my words, possessed me to make me cry aloud the words they needed to hear, but even when they controlled me they could not stop me from modifying the spell of opening. I mixed in old chants of binding and compulsion, told the wakening force to go to Paragon City and to help us, help the side of good against the growing tides of evil and crime. I threw myself into the spell, too late realizing I was powering it with my own life ... and world faded away, strength leaving the empty, thin husk of my body.

 

The human skeleton that had been a man a moment ago raised its arms towards the stormclouds one last time before falling to the ground, its brown and rapidly aging bones scattering all over the old sacrifical ground, rain soaking the remains. Something insubstantial escaped the dead man, mixed up with the now freed primal force. Old hatred towards all humankind and the new spells of binding (reinforced by what survived the death of the man) fought as the spirit sunk deep into the earth, free but confused by this new inner conflict, anxious to grow a form powerful enough to be able to walk the Earth again. It gathered darkness around it and devoured the lingering traces of the souls of sacrificed reindeer it found and plunged deeper, and deeper.

 

Only to re-appear years later as the being to be known only as the Polar Night, years after the destruction of the Midnight Squad, after all records of its summoner were wiped out in the Rikti war.

Edited August 22, 2004 by Zadown