They Who from the Heavens Came (The Wisdom, #1)

Across the city and then some distance beyond, in the middle of a field, stood a great golden giant with the deadly black eyes of a falcon. He no longer had Quetzal to disguise him with the magic of his curious cube. He preferred it that way. Now he was nothing less than himself.

The sheep scattered in fear, once more, at the sight of him. Weak, pathetic creatures, they were, but not much worse than humans, Horace decided.

And after today, they would understand that. Even the Halflings would see their insolence in daring to imagine themselves powerful. As if a little magic could elevate them to the status of the Ancients, who had seen it all before them – who had generously taught them – who had gifted them the Wisdom. Everything about Earth was the product of the Ancients, and yet the Earthlings thought of the Ancients as primitive.

How did they manage to build the pyramids with their limited tools?

How did they carve out the lines at Nazca when they had no flying machines or balloons to view the images from the air?

How did mere men piece together Stone Henge?

Those were the sorts of questions Earthlings asked in the modern era. If Horace took the time to answer those questions honestly, no one would believe him. They could not fathom a time when the inhabitants of their world had been greater than they were today. They believed theirs was a generation of progress, as if they were on a journey to some identifiable destination, rather than repeating themselves with each era.

Horace was about to teach them. It would be good for them, humbling, to learn the truth – that the so-called myths were based on fact: the gods were real people, giants existed, there was magic in the universe, life on other worlds, and not everything had a happy ending.

And it would all start here, in England, once home to the Romans, the Vikings, the Celts and other great peoples who had made way for the poor excuses for nations that existed today.

Stories, thought Horace, were the foundation of everything that had ever been. After all, in the beginning there had been the WORD. And what were the sacred scriptures of the world but God’s messages for the peoples of the Earth? What were the legends, the folk tales, but stories created to interpret and understand life? And after all was said and done, what was history but a collection of stories, once again?

Stories were what everything sprang from, and they were what everything was destined to become. They held a power he was about to tap for his purposes.

Horace swept one of his great hands along the landscape, causing a line of electricity to ripple through the grass. It glowed and crackled like a firework, singeing the greenery on either side.

He closed his eyes and felt for the energy. It came quickly, as if it had been waiting for him to harness it.

A word came to him: Ginnungagap – the Norse name for the primordial emptiness the Vikings once believed existed before creation.

He spoke it aloud. Said by a mere human, the word would have been nothing more than that: a word. Said by Horace, it held unimaginable power.

The land split where it had been burned through. Each side pulled, separating the field into two halves. Darkness lay in the great chasm that now yawned at its maker, and the sort of smoke caused by dry ice floated out from the black.

From the depths, a hulking shadow sprang, a subject for nightmares. It solidified as it touched the grass on the opposite side of the chasm from Horace.

‘Ymir,’ Horace greeted the giant who now faced him over the darkness.

He was taller than Horace by several feet, and broader across. His neck was at least fifty inches in circumference, with little distinction from his head, which was square-faced and looked like a mistake made by an untalented sculptor. He wore black all over, and his arms were marked with the rough scars of great battles. His feet were terrifying in their enormity. Only one such as Horace would dare face such a beast.

But he wasn’t enough.

‘Bring forth your children,’ Horace commanded.

Just as the stories once dictated, from the giant’s body new beasts were produced. An ugly eye blinked in his leg, before its owner pushed his whole head through the skin and climbed out, immediately growing to almost the same size as his father. Ymir’s left arm heaved up and down, as if something were forcing it into motion. He lifted the arm and from under it came another hideous child. His final offspring leapt fully grown from his stomach.

When the dreadful birthing process was completed, the family stood in a row, the beginnings of an army.

But Horace wasn’t finished.

He cast his hands over the ice emanating from the dark chasm and whispered, ‘Loki.’

Yet another shadow burst forth from the deep, landing beside Horace. He was a descendant of the giants who stood beside him, ready to fight with them. But he bore greater powers yet, and Horace needed him most of all, if he ever planned to get past the Halflings.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve breathed this air,’ Loki greeted him. He wore a cloak to match Horace’s, black and marked with symbols not even the greatest of human archaeologists could have deciphered. ‘Who are you to dare draw us back from death?’

Horace didn’t hesitate in answering:

‘One who seeks to remind this world of the realms it has forgotten.’