Sun-Blinded Leaves the Fortress Road

There then lay the road out of the mountains, carven by countless carriage wheels, tamped by man and his hooved beast. From the mountains it ran off into the distance, tapering to a keen point on a flat plain. Above this point and a long way off, a tower-like structure loomed blue, piercing the clouds and mingling with them, befogged by veils of rain.  

Upon this road lived a mendicant named Solblindi, or Sun-Blinded, who sat with his begging bowl some distance from the stronghold, which was known as Gastropnir. Every day, the blind beggar listened to the heroes, champions, and warriors hoping to gain entry into the heralded fortress. Some guessed at the treasures within – whether precious gems, sacred lore, or enchanted maidens – while others advanced with little care for their quarry, scorched from within by ambition. And every night, Solblindi listened to these heroes, champions, and warriors, defeated and repelled, trudging from whence they came. For Gastropnir was an impassible redoubt. 

How shall we describe the stronghold? Imagine an impossibly high wall. Set in this wall, a gate named Thrymgjol, or Loud-Clanging, protects the interior; the gate itself is guarded by two ravenous hounds. Now, imagine: behind this gate, a monstrous spear rises into the heavens like a minaret. There, amongst the clouds, a house balances atremble on the spear's point.

That is not all. Upon the roof of this house roosts a cock with beautiful blue tailfeathers. You see, to get past the hounds at the gate, you must feed them the only food they desire: the wing-joints of the cock. But this cock can only be killed with a sword stashed deep in a sea goddess’s watery keep. And the sea goddess will only trade the sword for a tailfeather of the cock roosting atop the house. An impossible task!

Perhaps you might ask: what’s inside the house? 

O, none of the heroes, champions, and warriors really knew, but it had to be something special to require such measures of protection, no? Some said they’d heard mournful weeping echoing across the plain, or seen glimmers of gold in the house’s windows, but it was all rumor and story. Those who knew the truth had long ago vanished, or so it seemed.

One day there stopped before Solblindi, the blind beggar, a man who called himself Vinkald Varkaldsson. He asked Solblindi if this was indeed the way to the fortress Gastropnir. Solblindi started at the name. 

“Vinkald Varkaldsson, you say?” He’d heard the name before. The most formidable reaver in generations, if tales were true. A warrior whose fierce reputation proceeded him. Solblindi reached out and brushed his fingertips to an arm clad in cold chainmail ringlets. All he could manage was, “Yes, this is the way to Gastropnir.”

If Vinkald could not gain entry into the stronghold, then no man could. Coins rang in Solblindi's bowl and the hero was off.

In the weeks and months that followed, stories came back to Solblindi of Vinkald’s attempts. He disguised himself as a Spring Flood. When that did not work, he changed himself into a Summer Drought. Yet, the fortress Gastropnir remained unpenetrated. The hero disguised himself as the Autumn Darkness, then the Winter Wind. Still, he was repulsed by the stronghold’s gate and returned to the roadside beggar. 

“What do you know of this Gastropnir, beggar?” asked an exhausted Vinkald, sitting beside Solblindi.

In truth, Solblindi tired of these heroes passing by, each the same with their boasting and bragging. What wonders could their minor deeds build? It was time for these bitter days to end. If Vinkald Varkarldsson wasn’t the right man, what did it matter anymore?

“Well,” began the old beggar. “I built the gate. I built Loud-Clanging,”

“Say more, friend."

“This is what I know,” said Soldblindi, hearing the jingle of coins and feeling his begging bowl grow heavier.

“Long ago," he began, "two children named Menglöð and Svipdagr played bride and bridegroom. The lovers were young, yet to be wounded by the world. She had a head of hair like spun gold; he tilted his face to pay her words heed. Playing together in a hawthorn wood, they would blindfold themselves and pointing a single finger before them wander the trees until they met fingertip to fingertip. The wood bloomed as they passed safely by thorn brambles and perilous crags. They never erred, never missed, such was their heart’s connection. Their fingers always found each other. They called this game True-Love.”

Vinkald Varkaldsson cleared his throat, asking: “A boy named Svipdagr?” 

Soblindi continued:

“They played every day for years until one day Menglöð wandered the wood never meeting Svipdagr. She called into the silent trees, eventually beginning to weep. Taking off her blindfold, she found herself at the forest’s edge, near a great precipice. It was twilight and the constellations were out, etched into the night above. She considered the vast darkness stretching across the realm. She couldn't believe it was true, and was not ready for her love with Svipdagr to end. But this world is cruel, and causes such pain. The boy had drunk the beer of battle, the mead of combat, and left for war at the borderlands. Such was Menglöð’s heartbreak that she was able to enlist the god Loki’s help in building a house that quivered on the tip of a huge spear, and a giant to build the wall. For the gate's construction, I was brought here to work. So hot and bright did I fire my smithy that I slowly went blind as I finished the gate called Loud-Clanging. As Menglöð requested, the gate will only open for the lost boy, her missing Svipdagr…”

Solblindi stopped. He heard the hero beside him begin weeping. The beggar reached out to hold the man’s arm, feeling his cold chainmail armor.

After a long time, Vinkald spoke: 

“Then no one will ever enter Gastropnir… All these great deeds, these heroic feats, are for nothing. For I was the boy Svipdagr, so many years ago, who left the fair Menglöð to test the fates at the borderlands. Battle-luck was with me and over time I became Vinkald Varkaldsson. I was chiseled by war, made weary by struggle. My life became something new, something terrible…”

Vinkald continued: "Svipdagr the boy lays dead on a carrion-haunted battlefield somewhere, I know not where…” 

Solblindi was silent for a spell. The wings of vultures wheeled overhead. The starving hounds paced, gnashing their jaws, and the distant house trembled far atop its spear, where the greatest treasure waited. The old man thought of how the fates, in their weaving, oft parted folks who never returned to each other’s arms. And what befell these poor souls, such-parted, in their unhappy days? Finally, Solblindi said:

“Remove your armor, warrior, and throw down your weapons. Tear the hem from your mantle. Blindfold yourself and play the game of True-Love as you did when you were a child.”

How Solblindi desired to see the gates of Thrymgjol as they opened once more, the powerful mechanisms he’d forged drawing the great doors apart to reveal Gastropnir’s interior. The gates he could see in his minds-eye, but what lay beyond was lost to the veils of old memory, to a world of ghosts. And when Vinkald Varkaldsson’s armor clattered to the ground – so many pieces of dented metal, so many skins of weathered leather, and the maiden Menglöð emerged fair and bright from her mighty fortress – the old man saw, in the visions of his mind, the two children playing the game of True-Love once again, as they always had – and always would – but could not imagine their true forms, pale and vulnerable, wracked by time and worry, as they disappeared blindfold into the trees, trusting their hearts’ connection once more.

Solblindi, then, took his begging bowl, now heavy with coin, and roamed onward from the fortress road in search of a warm bed.

***

Matt Knutson is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop. He's been a resident at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and his work has appeared Cola Literary Review, Expat Press, Bat City Review and elsewhere. His manuscript "In The Hills" was a semi-finalist for Iron Horse Literary Review's 2022 Chapbook Contest, and his story "So Far Behind I Thought I Was First" was a finalist for Bridge Eight's 2022 Summer Short Story Prize. Originally from San Diego, he now lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and cat.

Ross Nervig grew up on farms and ranches in Iowa and Colorado. After a career as a communications strategist, he received his MFA from the University of New Orleans in 2020 and there won the Svenson Prize for Fiction and the prize for Best Thesis. His publications include Kenyon Review, Southwest Review, and Bayou Magazine. In 2018, he was a writer-in-residence at the Lemon Tree House residency in Tuscany. Currently, he lives in Nova Scotia with his wife and son.