This is a draft of the first chapter of Son of Hel, my novel currently in progress. It is rough, so naturally contains some overused words or wordy phrases. This is to show the expansion of the concept over an earlier version of the same work. There is of course no guarantee that any of the following will be in the final.
I’d like to see that land beyond Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Center of the Great Unknown.
——Admiral Richard Byrd.
#
It was the End of the World.
It was a place few mortals had seen—and most who had seen it had not survived to tell. At the pinnacle of the Earth, the Arctic Ocean’s surface turned to ten feet of ice, but beneath that ice, the deep waters still flowed. At the Symmes’ Hole, the very lip of the world—a vast opening 16,000 miles across—the water poured over a great cliff down into the planet’s interior in a massive waterfall that dwarfed every other spectacle on the planet. Deep in the world’s crust, in mazelike caverns fed by this tumbling sea, were light and life and vast civilizations that the men of the surface, crawling like maggots on a corpse, could hardly dream of. The water flowed through these subterranean networks like blood through the arteries until it at last emerged at the Symmes’ Hole of the south, a never-ending waterspout thousands of feet high.
But the Symmes’ Hole at the North Pole was not a mere void: Standing in its exact center, jutting starkly into the sky and supported by no one knew what, was the Black Precipice, a dark, windswept mountain tall enough to rival Everest, entirely of lodestone. This mountain it was that caused all compass needles to point inexorably north.
Though enormous, the Black Precipice was invisible from the distant lip of the Symmes Hole, shrouded as it was in a thick ring of icy mist. Few explorers had glimpsed this terrifying mountain, and most who had, had soon met their deaths in the bottomless drop of the waterfall. Though clever in his inventions, man had not yet built the flying ships capable of crossing that chasm and landing safely on the Black Precipice’s craggy cliffs—so those who dwelt on its rough and barren slopes remained, for the time being, unharried by the rapaciousness of human greed.
Standing tall in her chariot pulled by atomies, unbothered by the freezing wind, the high queen of Elfland passed over the deadly falls with no difficulty and, with all her train, flew toward the mountain. Even the terrible winds howling over the chasm gave her no trouble, for her magical steeds could easily block the frigid gusts with their gossamer wings.
Like a cloud of gnats, a great retinue rose from the Black Precipice to meet her—pixies and red-capped leprechauns and tomte mounted on flying caribou with pixy dust sparking from their flinty hooves.
Altogether, this great mass of flitting, buzzing fairies flew, with no apparent order in a small and brief reenactment of the Wild Hunt, the nightly gaiety that the queen had known in another age—when the world was newer, greener.
The fairies landed at last on a wide, flat platform carved from the mountainside. The queen, assisted by two elvish footmen, stepped from her car and instantly grew to human size—but then grew taller still, at last stopping at the regal height of seven feet. Cloaked in white fur and wearing a tall crown of intricately intertwined crystal delicate as a snowflake, she walked accompanied on either side by two flaxen-haired elves in golden armor, who bore spears and bows. At her elbow, clothed in motley and with a feather in his cap, stood Thomas the Rhymer, a former mortal she had plucked from humankind to make her own.
Thomas leaned toward her and whispered several reminders about policies, treaties, and courtesies. She nodded, but gave him only half an ear. This was a diplomatic meeting, strictly speaking, but her hosts were not ones to stand on ceremony.
All around the Black Precipice’s lower slopes stood a city of the elves. Because of the mountain’s extreme magnetism—and the aversion of its occupants—not a speck of iron could be allowed in this place, so the great and nameless city sparkled all over like burnished gold. Every roof was of shining copper, and the high walls of the fortresses were brass. Gold leaf adorned every doorpost, and the walls of even the humblest dwellings were of marble. Although the water of the Symmes’ Hole thundered perpetually around the mountain, a cacophony of hammers and saws easily competed.
Most of the elves who had come out to welcome her were of the tomte, three feet high at the most, with conical red caps and full beards. They had migrated here from the parts of Fairyland that stretched into the human territory of Finland, as demonstrated by their dialect. Mischievous and rough mannered, they laughed and skipped and turned cartwheels as they nattered in rapid Finnish.
The queen wrinkled her nose but maintained her regal frown. Many of the tomte were, like her servant Thomas, former humans—ghosts who had become attached to farms and over time transformed first into household spirits and then into elves. It was no wonder that they had turned to their present occupation as jultomte—which promised them a chance at the redemption they had failed to attain in their first lives.
Surrounded by the cavorting tomte like a harried mother in the midst of a playground full of energetic children, the queen let a restrained smile cross her lips when her first official visitor approached. She swallowed her bile as he stepped up to her and bowed deeply at the waist. She bowed in reply.
Her greeter was Piet—though he more often called himself Pedro. He was fully human, yet immortal. Dressed in motley with hose and pointed shoes much as Thomas was, he was otherwise unlike Thomas entirely: He was lean and clean-shaven—and his skin was ebony, whereas Thomas was light-complexioned, red-haired, and thick about the middle.
“Your royal majesty,” Piet said as he straightened. “You honor us with your—”
“Enough,” said the queen, though she said it quietly, with restraint. “Please, Piet, where is my husband?”
Piet smiled and tilted his head. “He will just now be coming from the church, your majesty, if you will but wait a moment.”
The queen winced, but said nothing.
#
The Cathedral of Saint Nicholas was almost as vast as the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. An imposing, almost mazelike edifice topped with golden towers that stood stark and sepulchral under the cold light of the stars and the green glow of the Northern Lights, it was majestic—yet the elf queen could not help but find it dreary: It was hard to make anything look cheery in the months-long winter of the frigid north.
A howling wind swept her fur cloak as she stood with all her retinue—dignified light elves and stooping gnomes and smiling Thomas—in the church’s cobbled courtyard. She displayed no discomfort in this cold that could instantly kill a mortal, so her servants and subjects were obliged to show no discomfort, either.
Irritation momentarily clenched her stomach. To think that she, mistress of all the elves, must wait on the worship of the Christ!
“Your majesty,” said Piet at her shoulder, his voice smooth and dignified, “there is no reason to wait in the cold. If you and servants follow me to the hall—”
“I will wait,” she replied.
A pause. Piet bowed silently.
“When does this … this service end?” she asked.
Piet smiled. “In a minute, your majesty.”
Himself a Mohammedan, Piet slipped away a few paces, unrolled a rug, and began to pray the fourth daily salat, the prayer of sundown—though of course the sun had not shone here for many days, as it was midwinter. Though more tolerable than the Christian rites happening within the imposing church, this was still obnoxious.
When he finished, Piet rolled up his rug, offered a faint smile, and said, “It is a strange thing to pray facing south, but at the North Pole, there is no other way to face.”
The queen quelled her nausea, thrust her hands deep into her white muff, and waited.
At last, the huge doors of the cathedral swung open, and a swarm of elves poured out—most, again, were tomte, though light elves, brownies, dwarves, pixies, hobgoblins, and a vast array of others were in the mix. In their midst stood the two men the queen had come to meet.
The first was human. Thick about the shoulders as well as the waist, he was a man who at first seemed almost too massive to believe: Six feet tall, with a flushed and fleshy face, it was little wonder that so many thought of him as fat. In fact, he was mostly muscle, though age and a fondness for sweets had expanded his waist. His cheeks and nose were bright red—from cold and from rosacea, not from wine—and his beard was full and white like that of the gnomes who pranced around him. A pair of half-moon spectacles sat low on his nose.
At the moment, a purple chasuble, embroidered with gold, hung from his broad frame like an august robe—but he wore no mitre and walked with no crosier, for the Church had long ago divested him of those symbols. His balding head was bare aside from a skullcap.
His mouth turned up behind his full beard and thick moustache, and his blue eyes glittered in the low light, but his expression was not one of simple mirth. He somehow combined merriness and great gravity in a way that even the queen of the elves could not fully understand.
This was Nicholas. The Church, mistakenly believing herself in possession of his remains, had long ago declared him a saint—but infused as he was with elvish magic, he was not yet dead.
The second man was the queen’s husband, Oberon, once king of all the fay. He was as tall as she, but broader at the shoulder, and he wore the golden armor and crimson cloak he had, long ago, worn to the highest ceremonies. A crimson sash enwrapped his waist. A golden crown, its spikes a full foot tall, stood from his high, noble brow. His eyes shone with a piercing blue, and his long, golden locks fell in curls across his shoulders. His face, fresh and unlined, could almost be mistaken for a young girl’s—and that was no doubt why many humans who had glimpsed him over the years had thought him a heavenly being and dubbed him the Christkindl.
He was as old as the Earth, but his features spoke of eternal youth. In human terms, he might have been fourteen—or forty, or forty thousand. It was impossible to tell from his appearance. Despite the great darkness of the frozen north, the warm light of spring surrounded him like a glistening aura.
The queen swallowed a lump. Though it irritated her, her heart fluttered.
When he saw her, Oberon straightened his shoulders and inclined his head. He walked down the steps and held out his gauntleted hands to her. His eyes smiled, but his words were not a greeting: “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,” he said.
She didn’t reply, but instead turned her eyes to the bearded bishop. “Your excellency,” she said with a slight bow.
After Thomas nudged her, she took the bishop’s hand and kissed it.
“Your royal majesty,” the bishop replied in a deep and rumbling voice as he bowed in reply. “You honor us. What brings you to the North Pole?—ah, but my manners! You are standing in the cold. Come with me, you and all your train, and I will treat you to a Yule feast such as you may have known of old.”
The queen smiled thinly. “A feast, your excellency? Is this not your Advent? I thought to find you fasting.”
The bishop held his middle and replied with a deep laugh that echoed from the marble walls. “It is always Christmas at the North Pole, your majesty. There is no fasting here. Come: I have milk and cookies—but if you must have stronger fare, I have cider, eggnog, ale, and mulled wine.”
The entire crowed, now numbering several hundred, marched with much shouting and laughter toward the Great Hall, where Saint Nicholas received his guests. The bishop himself disappeared into the church for a moment, but soon returned without his vestments, now in his habitual garb: He wore high, black boots of leather, black gloves to match, and a long, red coat, trimmed with polar bear fur, that hung to his ankles. On his head, instead of the mitre the Church disallowed him, he wore a red cap that hung to his shoulder. In place of a crosier, he walked with a heavy cudgel of brass. He looked prepared for a long journey rather than a feast, but such was his wont.
The tomte of the north chattered with Titania’s entourage as if reuniting with old friends, a fact that caused the queen to clench her teeth in consternation.
The Great Hall was as imposing as the church, a huge structure of marble with a copper roof that gleamed under the greenish glow of the Northern Lights. Bearded elfin footmen, dressed in red coats and high, fur-lined caps like Prussian soldiers, bowed solemnly before they threw open the huge bronze doors.
The hall was warm. Heated air, heady with the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon, struck the queen full in the face. She struggled to hide her delight.
The floor of the hall was of red marble, and the high, arched ceiling was of ornately sculpted gold. Lining the hall on either side were twelve evergreen trees decorated all over with shining candles, delicately painted paper ornaments, and balls of gold. Upon the pinnacle of each tree shone a crystal star that, by elfin magic, glowed with true starlight—cold and ethereal yet heartbreakingly beautiful.
These were not trees that some rude human had chopped down and dragged indoors, but living trees planted in the earth, growing in a clime where no other trees could grow, fed on magic. They were thick and nearly conical in shape, but not because of pruning nor because of selective breeding, but because of elvish magic that sculpted the trees in a gentle way so that their symmetrical shapes seemed natural and right. The sharp, acidic scent of their needles intermixed with the smell of spices that pervaded the hall.
The elves of the queen’s retinue had grown quiet as they glanced around at the opulent trappings, but the queen herself marched forward, pretending not to notice the forest-like line of Christmas trees, the golden roof, the marble floor, or the immaculately dressed tomte, made up like Prussians just as the doormen were, who leaned on their silver spears and bowed reverently to her as she passed.
At the far end of the hall of trees stood the arched entryway leading into the dining hall. Sitting by the entryway was an elaborate crèche, a rustic scene of carefully painted porcelain figures adoring the infant Christ—though the Christ himself was as yet absent, Christmas having not yet arrived. The queen roved her eyes over the scene, a fanciful depiction of all of Bethlehem: Mary knelt reverently in the stable, and Joseph stood nearby with one hand over his heart and the other holding a lantern. A docile ox and donkey flanked them. Shepherds, surprisingly clean and reverent, filed in to worship the absent infant. In the distance, the three wise men approached with their camels loaded with exotic goods. Around this imaginary vision of domestic tranquility transferred into a barnyard, peasants, mostly in early modern garb, went about their messy business—drawing water, wallowing in pigsties, flirting as they carried burdens down the road. In one corner of the display, as tradition dictated, was the caganer—a figure of a squatting man in Catalan dress, his trousers around his ankles.
The queen smiled faintly. She had no love for the White Christ, but this bit of earthiness in the midst of a holy scene amused her.
Bishop Nicholas, his rude leather boots clomping against the marble floor, drew past her and led the whole crowd into a broad hall full of long, oaken tables already covered with samite cloth and loaded with antipasto dishes of cheeses, cold cuts, pickles, and candied fruits. The bishop mounted to a high table and stood before a tall seat adorned with gold. Oberon and Titania soon joined him, standing to his right. Dignified and servile, Piet stood to his left. The other guests quickly found their seats.
Nicholas made the sign of the cross, spread his hands, and intoned a blessing on the food—though he was careful to state that the food his guests would eat was excluded. The queen released a faint sigh of relief at this courtesy.
One the bishop finished praying, a bell rang, and the elves fell to with relish, whetting their appetites on the hors d’oeuvres and washing them down with spiced wine.
The hall was enormous, even larger that the entryway with its living trees. The roof overhead was a dome adorned with a fresco depicting the virgin birth of the Christ in his humble stable. Much of the hall’s left wall was taken up with a wide fireplace in which the Yule log, a full seven feet in diameter, crackled merrily. Smiling smugly in front of the fireplace was the Tió de Nadal, a small piece of the log with a cartoonish face painted on it. When Christmas arrived, this small log would defecate an array of presents, mostly nuts and sweetmeats.
After the elves had whet their appetites, another bell sounded, and fifty brownies marched into the hall. Their heads bowed low, dressed in sackcloth—for it was a great offense to give fine clothes to a brownie—they held silver trays full of the night’s amuse-bouche, a canapé topped with salmon roe and nestled in a cream sauce accented with basil. Although the chef was no doubt pleased with this bite-sized offering, most of the elves wolfed it down and followed it up with more drink and much laughter. In a moment, the brownies had cleared the plates and flitted out of the room. They soon reappeared with a soup—a hearty, spicy vegetable and barley mixture to stave off the winter chill.
After the soup, the lights in the hall dimmed, and high, golden candelabras burst into flame. The brownies marched back into the hall, now holding over their heads a golden charger on which rested the huge, severed head of a boar with an apple in its mouth. In somber tones, they chanted the Boar’s Head Carol.
The queen again felt a stirring of disgust. In times past, elves would have performed this ritual in honor of Freyr, god of the fairies, but these fairies of the far north did it to revere the Christ.
After the song, the bore itself appeared—roasted and surrounded with fruits, it sat like an offering on an altar in the middle of the hall, and a brownie in a high chef’s hat carved off large chunks of its flesh. The soup bowl disappeared from the queen’s charger, and a plate liberally heaped with swineflesh soon replaced it. Her goblet of hot, spiced wine, half of which she’d absently drunk, refilled.
Bishop Nicholas himself nodded at all these proceedings, but he ate none of the dishes. On the plate before him, he had a small assortment of sugar cookies, and his goblet was full of fresh milk. As the queen knew, he now ate little else.
As the queen picked at her food, she glanced about. Adorning the hall, hanging from every wall, were boughs of holly, the one shrub the witch of winter could not kill, but which she annually cursed with her deadly staff. Over Nicholas’s head, however, hung a single branch, not of holly, but of mistletoe.
Although she kept her face impassive, this made the queen clench her fists in anger. Mistletoe—or as she knew it, Baldr’s Bane—had an unmistakable meaning: As was well known, the night the White Christ was born was also the night the great god Pan died; and by hanging mistletoe, a fruit that had once slain a deity, Nicholas was silently announcing the triumph of his god over all the others.
Brownies skittered across the table with loaves of Lussekatts—seasoned loeaves made with raisins—balanced upon their heads. As they passed, the elves waved their hands and ate with relish, though they did not actually take any of the loaves, for it was the custom of the fay folk to devour the substance while leaving the matter untouched. They took of the essence of the bread and bit into it with sharp teeth, but the loaves, to mortal eyes, appeared undisturbed upon their trays.
A brownie knelt at the queen’s elbow. She reached for a steaming bun from his tray, but then drew back her hand with a hiss when she saw that each of the buns had been marked with a cross.
“Take them away,” she snarled. “Take them away!”
The brownie backed away with much scraping and apologizing. Nonetheless, before the brownie left, Oberon silently reached out and grabbed the invisible substance of a loaf. He brought it to his plate and began to eat.
Under the samite tablecloth, the queen again clutched her fists.
#
On the far end of the hall, opposite, the fireplace, sat a young girl clad in blue felt lined with white fur. In spite of the warmth of the room, she wore blue mittens and only removed them occasionally in order to eat with her delicate, bone-white fingers. On her head was a snowflake-like crown not unlike the queen’s own. Avoiding the heated and spice liquors, she sipped ice water and disdained most of the delicacies offered to her. She ate only those hors d’oeuvres that had not been cooked, and when the rest of the guests drank hot barley soup, she sipped from a cold vichyssoise. The wall behind her glinted with frost, and the long, braided locks of her platinum-blond hair sparkled with ice. Her large eyes were the color of an icefield at midday, and only the faintest pink, like the color of a dying rose, touched her white cheeks. The only color in her face was in her lips, which were full and red in spite of her pallor. She was breathtakingly beautiful—but with the beauty of a glacier or fjord, harsh and distant and forbidding.
This girl gave the queen one glance, and in that glance froze her heart.
The girl arose after the boar was served. She stepped up to Bishop Nicholas, stooped, and whispered in his ear.
The bishop merely nodded, and then the girl swept from the room.
The queen pulled her goblet to her mouth, drank deeply of her wine, and ruminated.
#
The blue-clad girl left the warm hall and found relief in the freezing darkness outside. She was born from ice, after all, and she could not bear warmth for long. It was the blaze of the Yule log that had finally driven her from the hall.
After all, heat had killed her once before—and she did not know if she could live a third time, should heat kill her again.
Not just heat, but love, had struck her down all those years ago when, in a foolish attempt to gain the eye of a boy who had caught her fancy, she had leapt over a fire on St. John’s Day and evaporated into mist. She had known even then that she, a girl molded from snow and granted life by Ded Moroz, god of winter, had no business loving a mortal—but she had loved anyway.
And her love had slain her.
After her death, she had awakened in the far north under the ministration of Nicholas’s elves. There, to guard her second chance at life, she had resolved never to love again.
Nonetheless, in spite of herself, she sometimes felt moved by Nicholas himself, who reminded her of her father, or by King Oberon, who was so handsome and gallant.
Whenever such thoughts oppressed her, she took to the cold and lonely outdoors, always blaming the oppressive heat of the fireplaces when she explained her need for solitude.
She was lonely—but loneliness was good. She needed loneliness to survive.
Whenever she hungered for companionship, she always went to the same place, to the one she was sure she could draw close to without danger.
She went to see the beast.
#
Like Saint Nicholas himself, the beast had many names: To some, he was Ru-klaus, Aschenklaus, Knecht Ruprecht, or Belznickel.
But to those of the far north, he was Krampus, the last child of the old gods.
The son of Hel.
Krampus sat in chains on a barren floor of rough-cut stone. Huge horns, ribbed and knotted like a goat’s, curved up from his bony forehead and curled beside his pointed ears. Below the neck, his body was covered with matted brown fur. He had thick, muscular arms, though rings of iron held his wrists to the cold wall at his back. His left foot was vaguely human, though knotted and misshapen with long, yellow nails. His right foot was a cloven hoof. His clothing consisted of nothing but an unidentifiable assortment of filthy, tattered rags.
His muzzle was that of a hungry carnivore, pointed and full of sharp, tearing teeth. A vulgar grin sat on his mouth. Every once in a while, a thick, pink tongue—a full three feet long—would drop from his jaw and curl about in the air before retreating again into his maw.
Flies buzzed around him, attracted to his stench.
Krampus’s cell was cold, but it grew colder, and Krampus’s hot, acrid breath turned to puffs of white cloud. His grin grew wider as he felt the chill touch his hard, callused skin through his fur.
He took a deep breath, and his nose quivered.
“I can smell you, girl. Come out here where I can see you.”
A single shaft of cold light poured into the cell from a small grate overhead, forming a square of light at Krampus’s feet. Into that light stepped a young girl, thin and pale, and by her appearance no older than fifteen. Her eyes were the clear blue of a cloudless winter sky. She kept her hands tucked into a white muff of polar bear fur. Her face was pale, and her skin shimmered in the light, putting Krampus in mind of the gleam of moonlight on fresh snow. She was heartbreakingly pretty—but expressionless and waxen like a doll.
She was everywhere white and blue like clear diamonds and sapphires, beautiful, but hard and lifeless. The only hint of life in her thin, pale form was in her full lips, which were red like blood. However, no breath passed those lips: Although she walked in silently on tiny feet in thick, wool-felt boots, she was otherwise as still as a corpse.
Krampus chuckled quietly when he saw her. “Snegurka Ivanova,” he rumbled, and he thrust out his long, wet tongue to lick the air. “I can smell you a mile off—just as a trained seaman can smell an iceberg. To what do I owe this displeasure?”
Though her cold expression didn’t change, Sneguka curtsied. “Zdravstvujtye, gospoda.”
Krampus laughed quietly and rattled his chains.
“Is it my time?” he asked. “Is it yet my day?”
“Not yet,” she whispered, “but soon. The day is almost done, and midnight approaches. Then shall his excellency loose your chains.”
Krampus laughed bitterly. “A fine fate for the last child of the old gods, to whip the reluctant children who will not bow in obeisance to the White Christ.”
“It is the fate you chose, Krampus,” Snegurka whispered. In spite of the cold, her breath did not show white.
“It is the only choice I had, daughter of Ivan,” he replied. “What does your bishop now? Feast some foreign dignitary while I sit in chains?”
“The queen of the fay,” she replied. “She has come.”
Again, Krampus answered with a bitter laugh. “Once upon a time, she payed obeisance to me—before Pan died and the Christ arose.”
“That is the way of the world, Krampus.”
