Lita stood staring at the second man who spoke and folded her arms. It was a legitimate request, but unfortunately she really did not know from the notes of the scroll, how big the vial was. For a moment, the frustration of it all threatened to erupt in her, but this time she decided to curb the urge. Calmly, she replied, “I’m afraid I don’t really know, but from what it holds I can venture to guess that it would be no bigger than your palm, gentlemen.”
The room’s atmosphere changed instantly to an unfamiliar comfort, for once. Even Lita found it pleasant. Had she not have to enforce her will with efficiency, she may have been a nicer individual, she reckoned, but sadly discipline did not function on kindness.
“If you can find any of the relics, specifically designed to contain an object, and it happens to be the estimated size of your palm, gentlemen, then you bring it back to me,” she concluded in her usual regal tone, reminding the men at once that the cold ambience never stayed away for too long. At least now they had an idea of what to look for.
Dismissing them until the next weekly meeting, she retired to her bedroom. From the sheath of an antique broadsword, she retrieved the scroll. It was a single sheet of fabric, finer than silk and stronger than spider’s web. Upon it the instructions were written in an obscure script, only very few people could read. Lita was one of those scholars who had studied the ancient Icelandic dialect on it and she could follow the words without much mutation in etymology.
She read there, again, about the vial.
Inside it, it reputedly held a substance which could invoke ancient abilities, sought by Shamans and Wise men, Kings and Prophets throughout the ages. Not one living soul could attest to its existence, but in various scriptures and grimoire, the vial and its unearthly contents have been repeatedly pressed upon. In some languages, Lita found the words depicting a goblet with magical water, in others a tubular crystal with dragon’s blood, the latter of which she deduced could have been some sort of alchemic combination of potions. If the assumed size was correct, she knew of but a few relics which could harbor the liquid.
For years, she had tracked the whereabouts of the scroll she now held and now that it was in her possession, she could finally continue on her journey to find the legendary Hall of the Slain, Valhalla itself.
Tales woven through history have often pointed toward Germany, Bavaria specifically. Some indicated a host of places in Scandinavia and even Russia, along the Volkhov River, perhaps also the Volga River. Lita had a world of ground to explore and limited time to do so. Since the death of Walter Eickhart, she would be the one to succeed him in the Order of the Black Sun. Her heritage was not pure German, but the Order considered her wealth and blood to be superior even to the sovereigns of Nazism, for Lita Røderic was a direct descendant of the Chieftain Wotan who, by some arcana became wizard god and ruled as the Viking god, Odin.
Her pursuit of knowledge had established her as an expert on, among other subjects, Anthropology and Theology, from where she had rooted her search into ancient history to locate the historical site.
Inside Valhalla lurked a great evil, so her scroll told her, upon the release of which the wielder of the Power would subdue all enemies of the Aryan Kingdoms.
Ragnarök would come to fruition at Lita Røderic’s hand and as Supreme leader she would eradicate most of mankind, save for her Chosen. Like the Ark of the Christian Bible, she would keep safe those of her choosing — decorated warriors, scientists, mathematicians, occultists, medical professionals, and those of superior intelligence quotient.
According to her, and many others involved in her acquisition of wonder weapons and the knowledge of kings, the state of the human race had reached an alarming status of infestation and nothing more. The media was the mother of fools, politics had become obsolete in the act of rule, and with the abolishment of executions, discipline, and proper education the world had become a smear on the face of Creation. Under her rule, the world would become a New Asgard, fraught with wisdom and order.
Of this objective, The Order of the Black Sun was not informed, but she could enjoy their protection and support until she could show them the way to supremacy. Lita sounded like a lunatic when she explained this to her father 20 years before, when she was a young, restless overachiever. Now she was a genuine threat, cunningly using Norse Mythology, from which the Nazis and the Black Sun took their ideologies to attain items lost to history. With these teachings and their relevant representative relics, she could find the renowned Hall of Odin. To her it was not mere legend, nor fairy tales with incoherent events and absurd characters, but tales rooted in historical account where important men became gods in the eyes of the frail subjects they governed. Lita knew that there was solid reality lodged in these ancient writings, if one knew how to decipher the trials and tribulations of antique perceptions in relation to what was now considered normal.
As in the Apocrypha and Theological texts she had studied, it was quite obvious that swords of fire, angels consisting of eyes and winged men were merely descriptions of the ancient perception of their true nature. Such was Norse Mythology and its runes, symbols, and gods. The power was very real, but viewed as tall tales of gods and monsters, while events and prophecies were lost in translation, for lack of a better term.
If she could get the coveted vial she was searching for, the contents would afford her The Vision of Kvasir, whereby she would be shown where on earth the entrance to Valhalla was. This would be her first step toward her plan of domination. What she knew about Alchemy in the old context, the vial contained a potion that was not a mere hallucinogen, like that used for vision quests. Unlike Peyote and Ayahuasca, this compound would show the consumer of the contents strictly what information it held locked. As if by magic, the vial liquid held chemicals which, when bonded with the brain’s receptors, would send the drinker into a trance where they will be shown the road to Valhalla, where it was situated on the earth today.
Now, all she had to do was wait for her men to discover the piece that held the vial.
“I’m not a complete monster,” she said to herself in the large room with concrete columns under her father’s manor.
After putting on surgical gloves, she carefully took the first artifact and placed it in the cabinet x-ray system to be scanned for any contents. She was alone in the vast laboratory-meets-storage facility.
The place looked like a parking garage for chemistry nerds: lined from wall to wall with chemistry sets, beakers and Bunsen burners. In the middle of the room, upon four large wooden tables gathered there, the stolen relics from the British Museum and the other hoards looted without any alarm from store rooms in the Isle of Man and North Umbria University were set out for scanning. It was hard to determine what the steel objects may have held inside and some of the relics had to be taken apart for scrutiny. This vial and its substance were more important than any tool or ornament made by hands long turned to dust.
In the deserted corner of the concrete room, someone was leering from the shadows.
Chapter 9
Sam joined Nina in the living area.
“Ah, Dr. Gould, you have not forgotten what good taste I have in liquor. Thank you,” Sam smiled whimsically as she passed him his tumbler filled a quarter of the way with the rich amber liquid dancing from side to side as he sat down on the couch. Nina did not hide her curious investigation of Sam’s new look. Her big dark eyes darted over his longer locks and she cocked her head to check his deliberate stubble. She scoffed blankly and he could not tell if it was a good verdict or not.