[Peter Ebbesen]

...Some Say In Ice: The Rift


Sometimes, I fear Tjordulf is intellectually challenged. A sad truth, but it is so.

"Master", he cries, "my eyes are watering."

Of course they are. Any mortal's eyes would be under the circumstances. The rift tears at sanity while unearthly voices disharmoniously cry silent screams of death from the ice-cold void between the stars and beyond the pale. Unstable, ridiculously expensive to manufacture, and undoubtedly dangerous, the rift is open. At my side, Angerboda shakes with the strain of maintaining it. Behind me, my Jotun guard, ready to repel invaders. I raise my hand to silence the crowd, and all stand silent as Angerboda exerts herself, arcane strands of astral power dragging an Ether Lord through the rift.

Fearful visage of terrible mien, the Ether Lord defeats rationality. Banished he was along with his fellows for good and sufficient reasons when the world was young, but I am in need of crack troops, and there are none better.

As he struggles within Angerboda's strands, I encase him in ice, and I lay my hand on him and bind him with my WORD, and he is subjugated - for now. He hates my binding and would betray me in a minute but my binding restrains him.

And he is only the first. Now the rift is open, I will allow a veritable flood through. Two full clans, I estimate, can yet be kept under control. Three, now, that is uncertain, and I really do not want any of them running loose - especially not the Ether Lords, but two clans, that I can manage.

With thirty Ether Warriors, two Ether Lords, a dozen Jotuns, and a score water trolls, Tjordulf and I set out again for the Himalayas.

Let the crone dread our coming, for the will of the God will NOT be denied.