Chapter 2

 

There were curious minds and hushed whispers in the neighboring flats as the doctor’s carriage sat quietly outside the Sandovals’ townhouse. He had arrived shortly before supper and was allowed into the house by an unusually shaken, pale Florence Sandoval, who normally invited all guests into her home with confident eyes and a bright smile. Now, her gaze was downcast, and she ushered the doctor in quickly before shutting the door tight behind them.

Being somewhat of a local celebrity, it was difficult for secrets to be kept when it came to David Sandoval. An apprentice to the highly praised and highly sought-after landscape architect Antoine Roland, and the author of a small collection of well-received stories that sold in most of Paris’s bookshops, David had made a very good name for himself at his young age. While it was no secret that he spoke more often of what stirred in his vast imagination than what happened in his real life, Paris society respected him and admired his skills. It was an immense change to David’s life only a few years ago in his hometown of Cervera, Spain, where his stories and imagination had been given little attention and patronizing smirks of amusement.

David missed his mother, father and brothers, but his Paris apprenticeship with Monsieur Roland had opened so many doors, including his eventual meeting and courtship of Florence, who had traveled all the way from England solely to meet her favorite new author. His journey to Paris had also initiated what may have been the grandest, most incredible adventure of his life…

It was a tale he would never tell. He had been sure it was over, and it was one he wished to keep pristine and untouched, locked away in his mind and soul. But it seemed that some stories were determined not to end easily, and a snake had been sent into his garden of happy endings to foul it.

When the doctor walked into the bedroom and saw David in his decrepit condition, he had extended a hand to introduce himself, positive that this was some ailing family relative that the Sandoval couple had taken in. When a tearful Florence explained to the doctor that it was, in fact, David sitting there, the doctor blinked a few times, adjusted his spectacles on his nose, and after a long minute of silence, cleared his throat.

“Well, this is new,” he muttered. “Let’s get to the bottom of this, oui?”

As David predicted, the doctor could not make heads or tails of his condition. He had never encountered such a condition before, although he had heard rumors about patients with rapid-aging diseases in a certain hospital in London. There had been no official studies or documents about such a disease, however, and all the doctor could say was, “Perhaps you are like that man from the story, Van Winkle. Maybe it works the other way. Rest, get plenty of sleep, and perhaps you’ll wake up young again?”

David wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a joke, or if the doctor was a tactless idiot.

Once the doctor departed, Florence sat down next to David on the bed. “Perhaps there is something to what the doctor said. Maybe we need to get away from the busyness of the city and go to the country. The fresh air, the sunshine, and the quiet might make you better again.”

David sighed. “Not to mention, someone will stick his nose in here soon enough, and then all of Paris will know about this.”

“We’ll say you have an ill relative back in Cervera that you need to attend to, and that you went on ahead of me. If we run into anyone, I will say you are a great-uncle that came to bring us the news, and that you are escorting me to Spain. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“You’re not ashamed of what’s happened to me, are you, Florence?”

Florence touched David’s face gently with her fingertips, giving him a sad smile. “Of course not. I could never be ashamed of you. But you have a reputation, and I wouldn’t want anything to damage it. I know you will recover from this, darling. And if you do not, I will still love you and take care of you.”

David took Florence’s hand and kissed it. He knew Florence was telling the truth, but a dark corner of his heart chastised him, saying that she deserved better than to be saddled with a brittle old man for the rest of her life.

The carriage rumbled briskly on the road leading out of the hustle and bustle of Paris. As much as David would have loved to return home to Cervera, he didn’t want his family to know what had befallen him, particularly since his younger brothers had no capacity to keep their lips sealed about anything. He and Florence were headed to the countryside in the south of France to stay at a small country inn where no one would recognize them. They had traveled through the area before, and Florence had fallen in love with the endless fields of golden-burst sunflowers. David could hardly feel excited about the trip. In his elderly state, merely getting from the house to the carriage had been exhausting, and his uncooperative muscles were making him testy. He said little, fearing that he would inadvertently gripe at Florence in his foul mood. It didn’t help that he honestly believed that the coachman, being of practically bear-sized stature, would cause the entire carriage to tip forward and flip over due to his weight. He hadn’t been able to tell much about the coachman other than his unusual size, for he was huddled inside a massive leather coat and wore a ludicrous hat that looked much like an upside-down Dutch oven.

Florence had not taken notice of the coach driver. She patted David’s hand and gently caressed his gray hair. David knew how fortunate he was to have such an understanding wife. Yet, every now and then, his thoughts would drift to a different face, one remarkably different from Florence’s. A sun-tanned face of feral beauty, long tresses of dark hair and stunning, golden eyes…

His thoughts returned to the present, and he saw that Florence had drifted into a deep sleep. It struck David as unusual, as Florence had never napped while in a carriage before; the jostling from the bumps in the road would keep her wide awake. Yet she was sound asleep, and even a sudden dip in the road that caused the carriage to bounce aggressively didn’t wake her. But her serenity influenced him, and he settled back with a few creaks in his joints and closed his eyes.

Instantly, he knew he was not alone in his slumber.

It is good to see you again, David Sandoval.

He knew that voice. It was one he had not heard in years, yet he was aware that the owner of that voice had been watching over him from this Realm of Sleep for all his life. The shifting rosy hues of the realm were leaking into David’s vision, and a peace took hold of him that let him know there was nothing to fear.

“Hypnos,” David replied—or thought, as it was unnecessary to speak aloud in the Dream world. “It is good to hear from you, although I wish it was during a better time.”

The indistinct form of Hypnos took shape before him, a man who shifted through many visages of the human ideal, although the two blue wings that extended from his head above his ears remained consistent.

Given what could have happened to you, I would contend that it could be a far worse time.

“You see what happened to me, don’t you? To my body?”

I see how everyone views themselves in their mind’s eye. You have always appeared much older than you truly are. An old soul, I believe the saying goes. But you could be lacking yours right now, had the Ilomba finished what it started.

“Is that what it was trying to do? Steal my soul? Why? Who sent it? Was it Nyx?”

Hypnos made an abrupt gesture towards David, silencing his thoughts. It disoriented David, not just from being silenced without warning, but the urgency of the gesture was unlike Hypnos. The embodiment of Sleep had always been a calm, tranquil being, at least from David’s experience. He sensed there was a tense apprehension in the god now, the feeling of being trapped in a dream where the dreamer has no control.

Refrain from using that name, Hypnos said with hushed caution. It would be best not to draw unwanted attention, although I fear there is nowhere in my realm that we cannot be watched. We must make this brief.

“Then tell me, quickly. Who sent the Ilomba?”

His name would mean nothing, as you nor I would be able to find him through name. But you have seen his face.

David was going to ask when, but then the thought came to him. The Ilomba’s face had changed once it had started to grow stronger, into that horrible man-like visage, before melting into the striped mask.

An Ilomba adopts the face of the one who sent it, Hypnos confirmed, sensing David’s realization. Such creatures are created by practitioners of black magic, but I fear your assailant is an entity that cannot be contained nor reasoned with. Its presence signifies that there will be great chaos in the near future, and it will grow stronger from that chaos. Yet it is in opposition with forces that could threaten its existence, and thus it wanted to claim you before its adversaries did.

“Me? Why?”

You are aware you have a rarer fate than most humans. A fate that could change the destinies of many others. Whoever owns your soul, owns your fate.

David paused, hoping Hypnos would add more, but the lingering silence indicated that he wasn’t going to. “Hypnos, if you aren’t going to give me straight answers, then why are you here? Are you helping me as…a favor to someone?” A surge of hope rippled through David’s essence as the face of a dear friend flashed in his mind.

You think of the sphinx. No, she is not aware of what has happened. But soon she, as many others whom you have known from her world across the Curtain, will be aware of the worst to come. The rise of Madness is only the beginning. While I do not bear the gift of prophecy, it is clear to me you may be tied to what will occur. And you will do no good in the state you are currently in. There is someone you must see to undo that curse upon your body, and I can send you to him.

David wanted more than anything to take Hypnos’s offer, to be sent wherever he needed to go to become his old—young—self again. He paused, however, a heavy weight on his mind. “I’m traveling with my wife to the country. I doubt she’ll understand about all of this ‘worst to come’ that you speak of, or that the god of Sleep is sending me away to see someone, somewhere, I’ve never met before.”

She will be fine. She is in my realm at the moment. I will give her a dream to make her believe that you are going to the country because you were exhausted from work and needed fresh air. She will think she dreamt of your aged condition, as will the doctor who visited you. She will awaken once you have been restored and returned.

“So this person you want me to speak with will return me to normal?”

You need only pass a simple test to see him, and then he will help you. Maybe.

“Oh, that’s reassuring.”

Let him know that I sent you. He will be more willing to help you then.

“He’s an old friend of yours, I take it?”

He’s my brother.

“Please tell me that being irritatingly cryptic doesn’t run in your family.”

It would do you well to not be so curt. I have guarded over humans for millennia, thus I have come to tolerate your kind’s…less admirable qualities. He, on the other hand, is not so patient. Offend him even slightly, and you will lose your chance to return to your original self forever.

“Very well, I understand. So, this test you mentioned…”

The fisherman will explain.

“The…who?”

David’s eyes opened, although for a minute he was not sure that he was awake. He should have been in the carriage, beside his sleeping wife, watching the French countryside roll by. But there was no carriage, no Florence, no countryside. There was a rickety, leaky boat that he sat in, bobbing on a churning sea that stretched out to infinity in every direction. The sky, which had been joyously sunny before, was painted in mirthless overcast, not threatening a storm but not offering any comfort. The only thing that remained from before was the coachman, the same abnormally large man in the leather coat and pot-shaped hat. His reigns had been replaced by oars the size of ship masts. David felt severely small, sitting face to face with this man.

The man removed the Dutch-oven hat from his head, revealing a tangled mass of earthen-dark hair. A thick beard devoured the lower half of his face, and as he sat up straighter, he showed that he was even taller than David had first thought.

This was not a man. This was, in both body and presence, a giant.

“Name’s Hymir,” the giant bellowed. “You ready to go fishin’, old man?”

Having returned from the Dream realm, David grunted at the stiffness and chill in his flesh and bones. He had never been fond of boats—not that he was fearful of water, as he could swim fine—but the constant swaying and the spray of sea foam in his face was rapidly unnerving him. Being seventy years older than he should have been did not improve matters, either. Everything ached and creaked and would not work properly. Something as simple as craning his neck to look around was an effort. “Dios mío, ser viejo es insoportable,” he muttered.

“What’s that?” boomed the giant, as he brought the tree-sized oars around in another powerful stroke.

“I said, ‘being old is a pain,’” David explained.

The giant nodded. “Can’t argue with you. I turned 1,132 last month. It’s no walk in Valhalla, I’ll tell you.”

David cocked an eyebrow. “Granted, that’s viejo. Are you immortal?”

“Can’t be sure. Most of us giants don’t live to ripe old age. Usually there’s a war, or a plague, or you trip and fall—for a giant, tripping and falling is not a trivial thing. Many never get back up, and there’s an earthquake’s worth of destruction to clean up afterwards. But me, I stay away from all that. My place is out here, on the water. Lots of fish, lots of clean air. Used to run a tour guide business for centuries, taking folks out here to fish for legendary catches. But my last one…” Hymir shook his head with a hearty laugh. “Crazy Thor, trying to catch Jormungandr like some eel on a hook! I laugh now, but I tell you, that rattled me so badly, I swore off the fishing guide business for life!”

David should have been curious to learn more about the story, as tales of grand adventure held a soft spot in his heart, but his concentration was elsewhere. He was scanning the horizon. “How far do we have to go to find Hypnos’s brother? I don’t see a spot of land anywhere.”

Hymir cast his gaze to the sky. “Don’t get impatient. The stars are pointing us the right way. It won’t be long now.”

“Hypnos said you’d tell me about a test I need to pass to see this…who am I trying to find, anyway?”

Hymir pulled another mighty stroke through the water. “Ah, test, yes…there is one of those, isn’t there?” He was quiet as he paddled along a few more times. “Can’t imagine you need to be too athletic for it, if Hypnos thinks you can pass it.”

David glared at Hymir. “You don’t actually know what this test is, do you?”

“Now, now, give me a minute to think. I’m working with a 1,132-year-old brain here.”

“Yet you remember a fishing trip with your friend Thor that must have happened, what, a millennium ago?”

“That’s different! You don’t forget something like that. We’re talking about hooking a monster whose whole body could curl around the entire world! With a mouth full of teeth that could grind mountains into pebbles!” Hymir shivered at the memory. “Mountains…that rings a bell…I think climbing is part of that test. But it’s not really climbing if it’s underwater, is it? Why wouldn’t you just swim upwards…”

“Did you say, ‘underwater?’” David nearly bolted out of his seat, but the precariousness of the rocking boat kept him down. “Wait, I don’t have to…” He looked over the side of the boat, into the frothy dark depths. “That’s ridiculous. My body’s too old to do an easy swim on the surface, let alone dive underwater!”

Hymir shrugged. “Sorry, old man. Geras likes his solitude, and there’s no place that has more solitude than down there.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘old man’ when you’re over a thousand years older than I am!”

Hymir tapped a meaty finger to the side of his head. “It’s all in the mind. I don’t think like an old man. I don’t focus on things like achy backs, or what I can’t do because I’m ‘too old’ to do it. Therefore, I’m not anywhere as ‘old’ as you are.”

David was going to argue that Hymir did not think about those things because he clearly had selective memory, but the giant had a point. David was still himself, whether eighteen or eighty, and he had faced much more daunting obstacles than this in his life. “All right, I understand. So, what was that name you said? Gyro?”

“Geras,” Hymir corrected. “Not familiar with ‘im myself. But if he’s anything like that devious hag Elli that tricked Thor into a wrestling match, you best be on your toes. She doesn’t look like she could lift a feather, but she pounded the God of Thunder flat as pannekaken! They may look like harmless, shriveled skin bags, but the older you are, the more you know, and the more you know, the more dangerous you can be.”

David knew how dangerous certain ‘clever’ people could be. His memories of Nico, the Teumessian, who valued cunning over all else and had tried to have Acacia killed in order to become the most cunning creature alive, had not faded with time.

Acacia…it was hard enough to hear the word “sphinx” without a pang in his heart, but to think of her name, to mentally hear it sing in his mind…and then to hear her gentle voice, see her golden eyes and smile in the weavings of his imagination…

“We’re here,” announced the giant. He let the oars rest in the water as the boat’s pace gradually slowed.

David was thrust back into the present and audibly groaned at being torn from his reverie. But it was just as well that Acacia was a memory, and not here in the flesh. For her to see him as he was, to see what would have undoubtedly been revulsion on her face, would have destroyed him.

Funny, that he was more concerned with what Acacia would think of him, rather than with Florence’s reaction upon his transformation. It was probably because of how comfortable he was with Florence, knowing she would still care for him despite his condition. Besides, she was eventually going to see him as an old man anyway, as they aged together over the years. He could never grow old with Acacia; her kind did not seem to age physically, given that she was centuries old and still had the face of a youth. Not that it was even a thought to concern himself with; wherever she was, the sphinx had another life to live that didn’t involve him. She had let him go so he could lead a happy, prosperous, stable life in Paris.

She had let him go…

“Are you wandering off, old man? I said we’re here.”

David looked over the side of the boat again and gulped. “You mean, this is where I…disembark.”

“How’s about something to give you a bit of courage?” Hymir leaned over the pot he had been wearing on his head, which he had placed on the floor of the boat between his feet. David had thought it was empty, but as he sat forward to look into it, he saw a frothy brew had burbled up inside of it.

“Not like the cauldron I once had. Now that was a beautiful piece, a mile deep, with enough brew to satisfy all the gods and giants together. Lost it in a wager. To my own son, no less.” Hymir sighed. “My modir gave me an earful about losing that cauldron all night long. The old lady’s got one tempest of a temper.”

David smirked, figuring Hymir’s modir was his mother. “Mothers are good at that. Mine has given me enough tongue lashings in my time.”

“Bet your modir doesn’t have 900 heads to scream at you with.” Hymir held out the cauldron to David, who almost dropped it from its weight. “Drink up. You’ll need the energy.”

David hoisted the cauldron to his lips and managed a tentative sip—and instantly spat the liquid out. “Qué repugnante!” he coughed. “What’s in this?”

“The ale of the gods. And some lime juice. And ox blood. Puts some hair on your chest.” Hymir laughed deeply, as he took the cauldron back and enjoyed a long swig of the nasty brew. “Now, I wish you good luck. Keep your wits about you.”

“Wait, you still haven’t told me what the test—”

David wasn’t able to finish his sentence, for Hymir picked him clean off of his seat with one hand and pitched him over the side of the boat. David thrashed in the water, sputtering and gasping for air as his frail limbs did no good at keeping him afloat. As he sank beneath the tumultuous waves, he heard Hymir call out, “No, down, old man! You want to swim down! And hold your breath, that’ll help…”