A Reign of Steel

CHAPTER TWELVE

Thor writhed, trying to break free of the grip of the white snake—but it was just too strong. Its muscular body wrapped around him from his ankles to his chest, squeezing him in a vise. It now faced him, hissing, preparing to bring its open fangs down on Thor’s throat.

Thor tried to buck, to thrash, to do anything—but he was helpless. All he could do was close his eyes and turn as he braced himself for the inevitable snakebite in his face.

Thor did not comprehend what was happening here, in this place. He had always imagined that when he’d found the Land of the Druids, he would be welcome, greeted by his mother. He expected that he would instantly recognize it as his home. He had expected nothing like this.

And now, Thor could not believe that he would spend his final moments here, would die here, so close to finding his mother, at the mercy of this awful beast.

As Thor braced himself, he opened his eyes, forcing himself to watch his final seconds on Earth. And as the snake lowered its fangs, suddenly Thor spotted motion out of the corner of his eye. It was a man, perhaps in his fifties, a large figure, with a long beard and shaggy brown hair—a man that Thor dimly recognized. He wore resplendent armor, the armor of a King, and he, upon seeing Thor, rushed forward, reached out with his gauntlet, and grabbed the snake by the throat, snatching it in midair, just inches before it could sink its teeth into Thor’s face.

Thor watched in amazement as the man squeezed the snake by the throat, harder and harder, the snake hissing and gasping. Thor felt the snake’s muscles slowly relax around his body, as the man squeezed the life out of it.

As the snake began to loosen, Thor wiggled one arm free and raised his sword and chopped its body in half.

The half of the snake wrapped around Thor fell limply to the ground, but the other half, which the man held, still struggled to live. The man squeezed it harder and harder until finally, the snake’s eyes bulged open, then closed, and its body went limp in the man’s hand.

As the man threw the snake’s carcass down to the ground, Thor looked up at him in disbelief. It was a man he recognized; a man he’d loved; a man he’d missed dearly; a man he thought he would never see again.

King MacGil.

As King MacGil dropped the snake’s head, he looked at Thor, smiling broadly through his beard, and stepped forward and gave him a hug, embracing him as a father would a son.

“My King,” Thor said over his shoulder, as MacGil pulled back and looked at him.

“Thorgrinson,” MacGil said, clasping a warm hand on Thor’s shoulder, smiling down with approval. “I told you we would meet again.”

Thor was speechless. He did not understand what was happening. Had he died and gone to heaven? Or was he losing his mind?

“But…how?” Thor asked. “How are you here? Are you alive?”

King MacGil smiled, put his arm around Thor, turned, and began to walk with him, leading him down a country path.

“You always had so many questions.”

“Have I died?” Thor asked.

King MacGil laughed in delight, and Thor was elated to hear it. The King’s laugh was a sound he had missed dearly; indeed, he hadn’t realized until this day how much he had missed seeing him. In some ways, though he had known him so briefly, King MacGil was like a father to Thor, and seeing him was like having his father back.

“No, my boy,” King MacGil answered, still laughing, “you have not died. In fact, you’ve just begun to live. You are about to truly live.”

“But…you died. How are you here?”

“None of us die, really,” MacGil replied. “I’m no longer in the physical plane, that is true; but I’m very much alive otherwise. In the Land of the Druids, the veil between the living and the dead is thinner, more translucent. It is easier to cross. Your mother sent me here to find you. To guide you to her.”

Thor’s eyes opened wide in surprise and excitement at the mention of his mother.

“So she does exist,” Thor said.

MacGil smiled.

“Very much so.” He sighed. “One cannot traverse this land without a guide. I shall be yours. You should have waited for me patiently, at the gate, to come get you. Then you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into all this trouble. But you were always impatient, Thorgrinson. And that is why I love you!” he said with a laugh.

They wound their way down a path, and Thor took it all in, wondering.

“I don’t understand this place at all,” Thor said. “It feels so familiar…and yet, so foreign.”

MacGil nodded.

“The Land of the Druids is different for each person who enters it,” he said. “It is a different place for me than for you. We might even see two different lands. You see, Thorgrinson, everything you see here is merely a reflection of your own consciousness. Your own memories, your own hopes and needs and wants and fears. Your desires. You might pass through here and see your hometown; see your first love; see any place that was of importance to you; see the peak moments of your life play out before you. You might encounter your most glorious times, your highest ambitions—and you might also encounter your darkest demons. In that way, the Land of the Druids is the safest and most pleasurable place on the planet—and yet also the darkest and most dangerous. It all depends on you. On your mind. On your demons. On how you perceive yourself. How you perceive the world. And most of all, on how deeply you can control your mind. Can you shut out a dark thought? Can you give power to a positive one?”

Thor took it all in, overwhelmed, trying to understand. He realized something as he listened to the King’s words.

“You,” Thor said, “you are a reflection of my mind.”

MacGil nodded back, smiling.

“You loved me,” he said. “I was an important person to you. A mentor of sorts.”

“When I leave this place, you’ll be gone,” Thor said, beginning to understand, and saddened at the thought.

MacGil nodded.

“When you leave—if you ever leave—then yes, the world will go back to as you know it. But for now, here we are. As real and as alive as we ever were. Your entire mind, your entire consciousness, is spread out before you. Don’t you see, Thorgrin,” he said, draping one arm around his shoulder, “this entire land is a reflection of you. It is an exercise in mind control, Thorgrinson. Some of your happiest moments, some of your most beautiful memories, will appear before you on your journey. Though I must warn you: do not let your dark thoughts overwhelm you, even for an instant. Dark thoughts pass through the Land of the Druids like fierce storms. If you do not learn to control them, they will destroy you.”

Thor gulped, nervous, beginning to understand.

“So that town I past,” Thor realized, “my hometown. I created that. My mind created that.”

MacGil nodded.

“It was an important place in your life. It was the place you wanted to welcome you.”

Thor realized something else.

“And then that field of flowers I walked through,” he said, “it was indeed where I first dated Gwendolyn. And that white snake I saw…”

Thor trailed off, piecing it all together. It was beginning to make sense. Finally, he was understanding. This place was more powerful than he’d realized. More amazing, more promising, than he’d ever dreamed. And yet also more terrifying.

They walked for a long while in silence, until something occurred to Thor.

“And my mother?” he asked. “Is she alive? Is she a real person? Or just a figment of my hope and imagination? Is she here only because she exists somewhere deep in my subconscious? Only because I always wanted her to exist? Only because I needed her to exist? Only because I dreamed of having a glorious parent?”

King MacGil was silent, expressionless, as they walked.

“You seek absolute answers,” he said. “In the Land of the Druids, you will find there are no absolutes. The only answers you’ll find are within yourself. However powerful you are inside, that is how powerful this world will be before you. Prepare yourself, young Thorgrin, and steel yourself to control the hardest, greatest, most unwieldy weapon of all: your mind.”

Thor traversed the Land of the Druids for hours, MacGil by his side. The two of them had been laughing and bantering for hours, reminiscing about the old times, about the hunts they had taken together, about King’s Court, about when Thor had first met the King’s daughter. They talked about MacGil’s accepting him into his family; they talked about battle, and knights, and honor, and valor. They talked about King MacGil’s assassin, and the vengeance that had been taken. They talked of politics. But mostly they talked of battle. They were both fearless warriors at their heart, and they understood each other on a deep level. In some ways, Thor felt as if he were here talking to himself. It felt so good to be talking to King MacGil again, to have him back at his side. Thor felt a sense of a break from reality, as if he were wandering in a surreal land, in a dream from which there was no waking up.

They passed through vistas that Thor recognized with delight, places that felt so familiar, places from his hometown, from his countryside, from outside King’s Court. He felt so comfortable here. A part of him could dimly feel his mind creating these places as he went, and it was hard to separate the two; Thor felt as if he were standing at a strange intersection between his own mind and the external reality of the world. It was scary to him to realize the depth of power of his mind. If he could create anything, that meant he could create the most glorious kingdoms with the snap of a finger. Yet if he had a moment of weakness, that meant that, in just a few moments, he could create the darkest kingdoms. That terrified him. How could he keep his mind filled with positive thoughts all the time?

They crested a hill and both stopped, looking out. Thor gasped, awestruck at the sight. He could hardly fathom it: spread out below was King’s Court. It was a perfect replica, so real that Thor was certain it was the real thing. It looked more glorious than he had ever seen it, thousands of knights in shining armor standing before the ancient stone walls, standing before the portcullis, lining the parapets. There were more knights than he’d ever seen, glorious warriors protecting a glorious city.

King MacGil stood beside him and smiled.

“Your mind is a beautiful place, Thorgrin,” he said, looking out and admiring the view. “I never had that many knights in King’s Court. It seems you have increased their ranks!”

King MacGil threw back his head and laughed.

“In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen that many knights at once,” he added. “The shining of their armor blinds me. You truly are a warrior at heart.”

Thor had a hard time believing his mind was creating this; it all seemed so real, so perfect, more real than anything he’d ever seen.

Thor set out on the path with MacGil, the road perfectly immaculate, heading toward the gates. As they went, thousands more knights appeared on the road and stiffened at attention, lined all up and down the road. Trumpets sounded in the distance.

They crossed the bridge, over the moat, under the portcullis, and into King’s Court. As they passed beneath the massive, arched stone gates, waiting to greet them was a single person, smiling, hand outstretched to them.

Gwendolyn.

Thor beamed at the sight of her. She looked more beautiful than ever, with her long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, wearing a regal dress, smiling and holding one hand out for Thor.

Thor hurried to her and embraced her and she leaned in and kissed him, hugging him tight.

Then they turned and walked through King’s Court together, King MacGil falling in beside his daughter.

“I’m glad that you envision my daughter in such a beautiful light,” King MacGil whispered to him. “I see her the same way.”

“Thorgrinson,” Gwendolyn whispered, clasping one hand around his arm, leaning in and kissing his cheek. He could feel her love for him, and it revived him.

“Gwendolyn,” he said, clasping her hand, holding it tight. Suddenly, Thor remembered. “Where’s Guwayne?”

No sooner had he spoken the words then there came the cry of a baby. Thor looked over to see his son in Gwendolyn’s arms. She held him gently, cradling him, smiling.

Thor reached out and took the boy, who leapt into his arms, bigger and older than Thor remembered. Guwayne hugged Thor, and Thor hugged him back.

“Daddy,” Guwayne said into his ear.

It was the first time Thor had ever heard him speak. It was surreal.

Suddenly, Gwendolyn and MacGil stopped, and Thor turned to see why. As he saw, he stopped, too.

Standing before them was a man who meant more to Thor than just about anyone: Argon. He stood dressed in his white cloak and hood, holding his staff, his eyes shining as he stared back, expressionless.

“Thorgrinson,” Argon said.

Thor reached out and handed Guwayne back to Gwen, but as he looked down, he saw that Guwayne was gone. Vanished.

Thor looked over at Gwendolyn, but saw that she was gone, too. So was King MacGil. In fact, as he spun, he saw that everyone—all the knights, all the people that had filled King’s Court just moments before—had disappeared.

The city now stood empty. Now it was just Thor and Argon, standing in this empty place, facing each other.

“It is time to further your training,” Argon said. “Only here, in the Land of the Druids, can you begin to reach the highest levels of who you are; can you begin to tap the deepest levels of your powers. Only here can you understand what it means to be who you are, what it means to be a Druid.”

Thor fell in beside Argon as the two of them walked through King’s Court. There was nothing but silence, and the howling of the wind. Finally, Thor spoke.

“What does it mean to be a Druid?” Thor asked.

“It means to be everything and nothing. To be a Druid, one must master nature, and one must master one’s self. It means to combine the frailty of being human with the limitless power of harnessing nature. Do you see that lion, there, charging us?”

Thor turned and saw a fierce lion racing for them. His heart raced with fear as it neared, yet Argon simply held out a hand, and the lion stopped as it leapt and fell to their feet, harmless.

Argon lowered his palm.

“The lion opposes you, until you understand its nature. There is a current that underlies all things. Here in the Land of the Druids, the current is not beneath the surface. The current is the surface.”

“I feel it,” Thor said, closing his eyes, breathing in deeply, holding up his palms to the wind. “I sense it. It is like…a thickness to the air…the slightest of vibrations, like something humming in the sky.”

Argon nodded in approval.

“Yes. It is like running your palm over rushing water. It is everywhere, and here, it is easier for you to harness it, to understand it. And yet it is also easier for you to lose control.”

Thor turned and saw a bear charging for him, roaring, at full speed. Thor’s first impulse was to turn and run, but instead he held out his palm, feeling the energy of this place, knowing that it was only nature. Only energy. Energy that he could harness.

Thor held out both palms, waiting, despite his fear, forcing himself to stay calm; at the last second, the bear leapt, roaring, then stopped. It stood there, its paws in the air, flailing, and finally, it lowered itself down to the ground and rolled onto its back.

Argon turned and walked away, and Thor, amazed, turned and hurried to catch up.

The two walked and walked, leaving the gates of King’s Court, Thor wondering where they were going.

“If you hope to meet your mother,” Argon said, finally, “you have a far journey ahead of you. The Land of the Druids is not a land that you cross at your leisure. It is a land that you must earn to cross. It must admit you. It is a land that demands of you, that tests you. Only the worthy can cross it. Your mother is at the farthest end of this land. It will take everything you have to reach her. You must become stronger.”

“But how?” Thor asked.

“You will have to learn to purge yourself of the demons that lurk within you. Of old, painful memories. Of anyone who mistreated you. Of feelings of anger, hate, vengeance. Of hurt and pain. You must learn to rise above them, to leave them in the past. It is the ultimate test of a warrior—and of a Druid.”

Thor furrowed his brow as they walked, trying to understand.

“But how do I do that?” he asked.

Argon stopped, and Thor looked out and saw stretched before them an endless landscape of gloom. The land was mud, punctuated by dead trees, and the dark clouds that glowered above it matched its color. A slow-winding river cutting its way through it, its water the color of mud, and Thor realized at once where he was.

“The Underworld,” Thorgrin said, remembering the Empire. “The Land of the Dead.”

Argon nodded.

“A place of your darkest dreams,” he said. “An endless and vast wasteland. It lies inside you. The darkness, along with the light. And you must cross this. It is the first step in the journey.”

Thor gazed out with dread at the barren land, hearing the awful sound of distant crows, feeling the intense gloom pervading this place. He turned to Argon to ask him more—but was surprised to see him already gone.

Thor turned back to look for the safety of King’s Court, wondering if he should turn around—but it was gone now, too. He stood alone, in the center of this endless wasteland, surrounded by death, by the darkest corners of his psyche—and with no way out but through.