Oliver raised his bloodied thumb to the first rune and whispered its name, “Othila.” The rightful inheritance. 

He waited, holding his breath, for something to happen, but nothing did. 

Of course nothing happens, he thought. If there was any sort of feedback during the ritual Odin would have cracked it long ago. He grimaced and moved carefully around the trunk until he reached the next rune.

The dragon. “Perth,” he muttered, pressing his thumb to the gnarled wound in the bark. In truth, neither he nor Gower knew the true meaning of this rune. After hours of arguing, searching through Gower’s books and Oliver’s files, and comparing the runes on the folio to the plot of Siegfried, Wagner’s notes, and Gower’s extensive knowledge of Norse history and culture, they had followed in Wagner’s footsteps and settled on “dragon” as a likely meaning.

“Gebo.” The blood. He didn’t know if the blood was actually necessary, though he suspected it was. The use of blood in rituals was well established in religions the world over, from the first blood sacrifices offered by Abel in the Hebrew scriptures to the Mesoamerican practice of offering grain blended with human blood to their gods, and while he did not understand the mechanics of the supernatural forces at work, Oliver was certain that there was a reason behind the independent worldwide emergence of the practice, just as he was certain the shards were related to the emergence of dominant cultures across the globe.

The next rune represented joyous singing, and it had been the key to Oliver and Gower unlocking the ritual. In his opera, Wagner had described the blood of the dragon giving Siegfried the power to understand the song of the bird, which was then able to tell him where to find the sleeping valkyrie Brünnhilde. That had been the most visible similarity between the narrative poem in the folio and the plot of Siegfried, and once they had decided to examine the poem and opera together, as different interpretations of the same basic plot, the remainder of the ritual had emerged quickly. “Wunjo,” Oliver said, reaching up to smear a line of blood up the vertical line of the rune, then sharply downwards to complete the shape.

He heard the rustle of leaves and glanced back to see that both Odin and Remiel had risen and were watching him intently. Loki remained seated, but Oliver was certain that his head had tilted up a few degrees to watch him from beneath his dark hood. 

He turned back to the tree, squeezing his thumb between the fingers of his right hand to coax more blood from the wound, and circled to the rune for fire. “Kenaz,” he said, quickly swiping his finger across the rune. I’ve got to finish it before they come any closer. If I can just open the pathway and step through before they can stop me...

He reached the final rune, which represented a safe and profitable journey. He heard leaves shuffling as the others came closer to him and he reached under his vest for the grip of the gun as he pressed his thumb to the rune and called out its name, “Raido!”

He stepped away from the tree, drawing the gun and hoping that something would happen. 

The white bark of the ash tree seemed to blur in Oliver’s vision, even as the carpet of fallen leaves, and the surrounding trees, and the two forms hurrying towards him were drawn into a sharper focus. Then a bright red line of blood streaked down from each of the runes, etching itself into the vague, impressionist form of the trunk as it descended, as if the blood were a line of acid eating its way into the tree. The world around the tree appeared to slow, though Oliver could not be certain if that were true, or if it was merely an impression brought on by the rapidity of the ash tree’s transformation, and then it was as if the tree itself were the at the center of a black hole, drawing all the golden light of the glade into itself. The smeared white lines of the trunk shimmered and suddenly grew translucent. Looking through them Oliver saw a stairway of black steps spiraling downwards around the twisting roots of the tree, illuminated by a vague glow that he could not rightly call light, more reminded him of darkness made visible by its juxtaposition against an even deeper darkness beyond. 

He stepped forward, his legs moving as if through deep water, and looked down the spiraling steps into the darkness beyond. Deep below, so far away that it appeared no larger than a pinprick of light, Oliver saw a flickering in the darkness and somehow he knew that that was where he needed to go. He glanced up and saw Odin and Remiel running towards him, Remiel with her hand raised in mute entreaty, and behind them Loki gathering himself for a leap with his sword held ready at his side. 

He looked away from them all, took one last breath, and stepped down into the darkness.

Next Chapter: The World Tree