There was a man called Elric Ketilsson, though in his old age men named him Grand Elric, for he had seen seven kings crowned, buried three sons, broken two sea-kings in battle, and lived long enough to become grandfather to half the children of Hrafnvik.
There was a man called Elric Ketilsson, though in his old age men named him Grand Elric, for he had seen seven kings crowned, buried three sons, broken two sea-kings in battle, and lived long enough to become grandfather to half the children of Hrafnvik.
Elric was broad in the back even when his beard had gone white. One eye had clouded after the fight at Romsdal, and the smallest finger of his left hand was missing. He owned a hall above the grey fjord, forty cattle, nine good horses and a sword called Ash-Biter, which had belonged to his mother’s father.
Elric had three daughters.
The eldest was Svanhild, who had a sharp tongue and knew the names of herbs.
The second was Yrsa, who climbed trees better than boys and feared neither ice nor blood.
The youngest was Runa, who spoke little but dreamed often, and sometimes named things before they came.
Their mother, Alfhild, had died in the winter of the red moon.
After this Elric became gentler with his daughters, though none would have called him gentle.
He taught them to row, gut fish, bargain hard, hide silver, bind wounds, and never trust a man who smiled before naming his price.
He also taught them one rule which he repeated more than all others.
“When the sun goes under the western ridge, come home.”
The daughters laughed at this, for they were young.
Elric did not.
“There are roads which begin after sunset,” he said. “A wise person does not learn where all of them lead.”
This was in the years when men still made offerings at old stones though the new priests had begun to travel north.
It happened one autumn that the rowan trees bore yellow fruit instead of red.
Old women said this was a poor sign.
The dogs would not sleep facing north.
Milk curdled before dawn.
A black mould spread upon the beams of the abandoned temple above Hrafnvik, and wherever it grew the wood beneath became soft although no rain had fallen.
Runa saw it and said:
“It is not growing on the wood.”
“What then?” asked Svanhild.
Runa touched the mould with a stick.
“It is growing through it.”
Yrsa laughed.
“Then the tree has a sickness.”
Runa looked toward the forest.
“Not that tree.”
That evening the three sisters went to gather cloudberries above the marsh.
Svanhild wanted berries for winter medicine.
Yrsa wished to see whether wolves had returned.
Runa said she had dreamed of a yellow stag and wanted to find where its tracks went.
They promised Elric they would return before the sun crossed the ridge.
They did not.
At dusk Elric stood outside his hall.
The cattle had grown quiet.
No birds moved.
Beyond the fjord the sun sank red beneath iron clouds.
Elric waited until the last edge of light vanished.
Then he said:
“They have found the wrong road.”
He took Ash-Biter from the wall.
His brother Torvald said, “We will take twenty men.”
“No.”
“Ten, then.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Elric buckled on his sword.
“Because twenty men can be lost as easily as three girls.”
He went first to the marsh.
There he found the daughters’ basket.
The cloudberries within were grey.
Beside it stood three sets of footprints.
They crossed the mud until they reached a dead pine.
There the footprints ended.
Around the roots of the pine grew yellow mould.
Elric crouched beside it.
He did not touch it.
He smelled neither rot nor fungus.
He smelled cold stone, seawater, old linen and something sweet like apples left too long underground.
Then he heard a voice.
“Grandfather.”
It was Runa’s voice.
It came from beneath the roots.
Elric drew Ash-Biter.
“Speak again.”
“Grandfather.”
Then Yrsa.
“Come quickly.”
Then Svanhild.
“He has found us.”
The dead pine opened its eyes.
Elric struck it.
The sword cut through bark and into darkness.
A wind came out of the wound.
It smelled of forgotten houses.
The tree split.
Behind it was not earth.
There was a road.
Elric went in.
The path beyond the tree was made of roots thick as ship masts.
Some rose above him.
Others twisted beneath his feet.
Between them lay a darkness full of pale drifting dust.
He understood then that he had not entered a cave.
He had entered the World Tree.
Men spoke much of Yggdrasil.
They said its branches held the worlds.
They told of the eagle in its crown, the serpent at its roots, the squirrel that carried insults between them.
Such things were known.
But few men spoke of what grew upon Yggdrasil.
Every tree bears lichen.
Every root carries worms.
Every ancient trunk develops rot.
Why should the World Tree be different?
Elric walked.
After a while he came upon a man hanging upside down from a root.
The man wore a merchant’s cloak.
His beard reached toward the darkness below.
“Cut me down,” said the man.
“How long have you hung there?”
“Three days.”
His beard was longer than three years’ growth.
Elric looked at his eyes.
They were yellow.
He walked on.
The hanging man called after him.
“I know where your daughters are.”
Elric stopped.
“So do I.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you do not wish me to go.”
The merchant smiled.
“That is wisdom.”
Then his face opened like rotten fruit.
Elric continued.
Soon he reached a river running upward.
Dead leaves floated against its current toward a lightless sky.
A woman sat beside the river washing a yellow cloth.
Her hair covered her face.
Elric said:
“What river is this?”
She answered:
“The river between the places rivers go.”
“What realm is this?”
“No realm.”
“Whose land?”
“No land.”
“What king rules here?”
At this the woman stopped washing.
“You know.”
Elric said nothing.
The woman lifted the cloth.
It was stained with handprints.
Three were small.
Elric’s hand tightened on Ash-Biter.
“Where are my daughters?”
The woman pointed upstream.
“Where the tree is sick.”
Elric crossed the river.
The water climbed his boots and ran upward along his legs, but he kept walking.
On the far bank stood a hall.
Its roof was covered in yellow moss.
Its doors were carved with scenes Elric could not understand.
Men knelt before empty thrones.
Ships sailed across dry land.
Children stood beneath suns with black centres.
At the top of the door was carved a tree.
A stain spread across its trunk.
Inside the stain was a crown.
Elric spat upon it.
The doors opened.
Within sat a feast.
Hundreds of people ate in silence.
Some wore clothes from Elric’s own time.
Others wore armour of patterns he had never seen.
Some were naked and painted blue.
Some wore robes sewn with stars.
At the high table sat a figure in yellow.
Its robe hung in folds too deep for cloth.
Its face was covered by a pale mask.
Around its head rose a crown like branching fungus.
Beside the throne stood Svanhild.
She held a cup.
Yrsa stood at the foot of the table with a spear.
Runa sat upon the King’s lap.
Elric walked into the hall.
None of the feasters looked up.
The Yellow King said:
“Grand Elric.”
Elric answered:
“Dung in a robe.”
Several feasters gasped.
The King tilted its head.
“You have travelled far to insult your host.”
“I have travelled far because you stole my daughters.”
“I stole nothing.”
“You took them from Midgard.”
“They walked here.”
“They are children.”
“So are men.”
Elric stepped closer.
“Svanhild.”
She stared ahead.
“Yrsa.”
No answer.
“Runa.”
The youngest blinked.
Her eyes filled with tears.
The King placed one long hand upon her hair.
“She sees most clearly.”
Elric raised Ash-Biter.
The hall laughed.
Not the people.
The hall itself.
Beams shook.
The floor breathed.
The Yellow King said:
“You believe this is a place.”
“I know it is not.”
“You believe I am a god.”
“No.”
“You believe I am a giant?”
“No.”
“Then what am I?”
Elric looked at the yellow growth climbing the pillars.
“A mould.”
For the first time, the King became still.
Elric continued.
“You grow where the worlds rub against one another. You feed where meanings rot. You wear a crown because men fear kings. You speak because men fear words. You sit in a hall because men understand halls.”
The mask turned toward him.
“And if you understand me so well, old man, why do you fear me?”
“Because mould can kill a house.”
The King laughed.
This time the walls bled yellow dust.
“You are wiser than those who call me demon.”
“I have repaired roofs.”
The King rose.
He was taller standing than the hall should have allowed.
Behind his robe were shapes like roots.
“Your daughters came because they wished to see beyond their father’s law.”
“That is what daughters do.”
“They wanted freedom.”
“That is what children want.”
“They wanted knowledge.”
“That is what fools want.”
Yrsa’s fingers tightened around her spear.
Svanhild looked at Elric.
The King said:
“They have eaten at my table.”
Elric’s face hardened.
“Then I shall carry them home sick.”
“They have learned my name.”
“Then they shall forget it.”
“They have seen what lies between worlds.”
“Then they shall spend their lives pretending otherwise.”
Runa suddenly laughed.
The King looked down at her.
Elric knew that laugh.
It was the laugh she used when she had hidden a frog in her sister’s bed.
Runa opened her hand.
Inside it lay three rowan berries.
Red berries.
Not yellow.
She crushed them against the King’s robe.
The hall screamed.
Svanhild threw the cup into the King’s face.
Yrsa drove her spear through the pale mask.
Elric charged.
Ash-Biter struck the throne.
The blade broke.
The throne split.
Beneath it was not gold or stone.
There was a knot in the World Tree.
A great black wound surrounded by yellow rot.
Elric understood.
The King was not merely upon the Tree.
It was feeding upon an injury.
“Girls!” he shouted.
“Cut the yellow!”
Yrsa hacked with her spear.
Svanhild took a feast knife.
Runa tore at the growth with both hands.
Elric seized the broken half of Ash-Biter and carved into the rotten wood.
The Yellow King became many things.
A stag.
A drowned child.
Alfhild, Elric’s dead wife.
Elric himself as a young man.
A sun with a black centre.
A mouth in a field of snow.
A king.
A beggar.
A stain.
Each shape begged or threatened.
Elric kept cutting.
At last the yellow growth tore free.
Beneath it was living wood.
Sap flowed golden-red from the wound.
The hall vanished.
The feast vanished.
The dead vanished.
The daughters fell.
Elric caught Runa.
They stood upon a root beneath a sky filled with stars.
Far away something howled.
The sound came from no throat.
It was the cry of a parasite torn from its host.
Elric looked into the darkness.
The Yellow King was no longer a king.
It had become an immense pale growth spreading across the void, all filaments and eyes and ragged membranes.
It spoke with thousands of voices.
“I WILL GROW AGAIN.”
Elric answered:
“So will we.”
Then the root beneath them split.
They fell.
Elric woke beside the dead pine.
Morning had come.
Svanhild lay beside him.
Yrsa was tangled in heather.
Runa slept with her head against a stone.
The daughters had been gone one night.
Elric had aged ten years.
His beard, already white, reached almost to his belt.
Ash-Biter lay broken beside him.
Yellow mould covered the blade.
Elric buried both pieces beneath running water.
The daughters spoke little of what had happened.
Svanhild became a healer and would never allow yellow fungus to grow near her house.
Yrsa became a ship-captain and refused to sail beneath stars she could not name.
Runa became a teller of stories.
She never told the whole truth.
When Grand Elric finally died, many winters later, his daughters burned him on a pyre of rowan, ash and pine.
Before they lit it, Runa placed three red berries beneath his tongue.
Men asked what this meant.
She said:
“It is payment for the road home.”
After Elric’s death the people of Hrafnvik cut yellow mould from every beam and burned it beyond the settlement.
Children were told never to follow voices beneath roots.
When they asked why, the old people said:
“There are nine worlds upon the Tree.
And between them are places that are not worlds at all.
Things live there.
Some are older than gods.
Some are smaller than worms.
Do not think small things harmless.
A worm may kill a tree.
A mould may wear a crown.”
And this became a saying among Elric’s descendants:
A king is only a king where men agree to kneel.
But rot needs no permission.