The Time of the Titans

Chapter 25: Brynhilde's Song

That night, I felt exhausted. It could have been the pain and ache I suffered from of the beatings I had volunteered to take the same day, first from Oliver and his friends, and then from the twins as a part of the improvised and rather childish plot through which the red-headed warrior woman had instantly seen. The previous night's battle against the valkyries and their red mahis was also in fresh memory, although it felt as if it was at least a week ago. Time seemed to flow somehow differently on Mah Island. Yet none of the mentioned issues exhausted me like the weight of choice, the battle raging within me.

When I had turned on the bog and returned to Ze, only to be recaptured, I had made a choice, gambled on my freedom, lost it, regained it, and won a right to walk in their Base as a free man. Unarmed, though, but free. Max had assured I was free to leave them and the entire island if I so wished. What was the matter then? Well, the matter was that I didn't want to leave. Or, I wanted, and I didn't want. The island was what I had wanted so much to find while still in Atlantis. Now that I had found it, I wanted to stay, yet I felt I had to leave because I was stuck, and Mary and the girls had been taken, and if I stayed I might not progress towards them. But where would I go from here, when all around here was just the deep blue sea?

Frankly speaking, I didn't know if I was serious when I said I would run away with Brynhilde. I was just developing the plot from what I had agreed with Max. The impulse came from somewhere within me, with frightening spontaneity. As if I repeated what I had said long time ago, while simultaneously hearing a gentle tinkle of alarm bells somewhere deep in my mind. Was I really about to betray the boys, who had helped me and trusted me? Was I about to betray the island, which seemed to whisper to me, from the hides of its ancient trees and from the whoosh of the undulating grass? Whisper me what I already knew: that I belonged here, to this island. That this is where my last resting place was. I was not here by accident.

They had promised me I could leave the island if I so wished, but of course I was not permitted to set our only captive free on my unilateral decision. On the other hand, Brynhilde was our prisoner partly because somewhere, her sisters-in-arms were holding captive my Mary Darling and the children for whom I and Mary had been responsible. Somewhere, they held them, in a strange place which started vaguely shaping in my mind through the scattered references Brynhilde had made. Did it not sound like a Narnia from what she had told? I wondered if the passage was to be found in a wardrobe rather than on the seas.

And what about Brynhilde? After all, she was an enemy combatant, our adversary, who would not have hesitated to stab my chest with a sword if she was set free. We had killed three of her alien warriors, wounded the warrior woman named Astrid, and humiliated Brynhilde herself by taking her prisoner. Why would I suddenly trust her? I'd run away over moors and sail from the island to another unknown, chasing a will-o-the-wisp that was Mary Darling, out there somewhere, held captive by armed warriors, humans and mahis. And what if I found them? Instead of handing over Mary and the girls to me, wasn't it much more likely that they would just capture me – or kill me like they had killed Caroline Ellis? Even if I managed to convince Brynhilde, why on earth would I succeed in convincing her princess and knight? What would Mary think about Brynhilde and me? What would Helena think about Mary and Brynhilde? Who was it that I had become?

And yet it might have happened, if three other things didn't happen that night.

*   *   *

The first of the three things was the storm. It started in stealth in the late afternoon, before the campfire was lit. The wind had changed by the time when I and Brynhilde were taken, both separately, to the Gemüt House. Trees were swaying and sighing, the wind hurtled by the walls, and leaves were flying by, although we were in the sheltered valley in the middle of the island. Only the shadow of the volcano was visible since its shape disappeared into the darkened sky. It started raining.