Prologue
Ellen was sat in front of her computer doing the thing she did
every night, play Creatures 2. The sky outside was dark and flashing
occasionally with a sheet of lightning, Ellen didn't even notice, her attention
was fixed on her screen, watching the little Norns that lived there go about
their business like they normally did (as if I could use "normal" in
the same sentence as "norn" ) Her mum knocked on the door.
"Ellen love I've got some cocoa for you here."
"Just leave it. I'll get it in a minute," Ellen
replied, not listening. Outside the door Ellen's mum shook her head consigning
Creatures to Hell and cursing Cyberlife in all manner of foul language that
went on for too long a time for me to type here as the resulting manuscript
would go on for several tens of pages. Ellen never did get that cocoa because
at that moment a large flash of fork lightning hit the house and traveled along
the electricity cables to blow the fuse of every electrical appliance in the
house. Ellen didn't notice what had happened until the monitor flared with a
white fire that was so bright she had to shield her eyes from the glare. The
screen flashed even brighter, then went black. Tendrils of smoke rose from the
machine, but where Ellen had been there was nothing. She had completely
disappeared!
When Ellen opened her eyes she gasped with shock. To her right
was a sparkling waterfall, falling at an amazing rate into the pool that was a
bright clear blue. To her left there was a rounded contraption and between her
toes she could feel sand. Where on Earth was she? A wave of realization washed
over her, she wasn't anywhere on Earth, she was....No...It was impossible! Any
doubts she may of had were dispelled when she caught sight of three Norns
playing. Slapping and kissing each other. 'What went wrong?' she thought 'why
am I here? Oh God.' A male norn came over to her and said "'Ello gorgeous
what you doin' tonight?"
"Going home, or trying to" She said panicking
"Sure you don't want to stay?" The Norn replied
"Positive" she stuttered and fled to the lift.
Punching frantically at the button she saw the norn following her "Darn
it, move, you God awful thing!" she screeched at the lift. It started
moving, chundering up to the desert. Ellen breathed a sigh of relief and her
knees gave way 'I wonder if I could make a COB that speeds the freaking
contraptions up' she thought. 'I'll try just as soon as I find my way back
home.’
Ellen felt the heat of
the area and was desperate to find somewhere cooler. She headed east to the
water. She sat on the pier and dangled her feet in the cool blue water. It was
the first time she had got a look at herself, she had a type J norn head and
limbs and a type B body complete with a short fluffy tail. She was a rich shade
of chocolate brown that varied in tone depending on what type each part of her
was. It was getting colder. Night was falling. ‘What would I be doing now if
this hadn’t happened?’ she wondered. In the corner of her eye glistened a
tear.’I would be playing on Creatures.’ She tossed her head of shimmering
silver curls ‘I never thought I’d actually play in Creatures though.’ She gave up trying to hold back the tears and
let them fall freely down her face,staining her already dark fur even darker.
The sniffles ebbed as she closed her
eyes and nodded off,crying herself to sleep.
****************************************************
Urd the ettin stood on the rock that acted as a lookout point
noting that the ettin population had depleted more over the last day. The
Grendels were getting stronger. It was strange how they took the ettins away to
slaughter them instantly but they took the Norns to torture them until they
could take no more...and then torture them again. She shook her head sadly,
wondering why the hand had done nothing for a while, then remembering that the
hand couldn’t do anything until the Slayer was here.Urd, as the High Priestess,
had access to the Albian Scrolls, The scrolls had every event that had ever
happened in Albia and everything that was going to happen, from the genesis to
the nemesis, the dawn of time to the dusk of the RagnarØk. On about the
21st scroll it documented the arrival of a force of grendels and how a norn and
the hand who combine their forces will defeat the Grendels and there will be
peace once more. No-one knew who wrote the Scrolls but they were all in verse,
this particular prophesy went something like this:
Then
Evil comes to reign supreme
A
Norn and a Hand will set us free
Amassing
an unlikely team
A
tragic death we all shall see
Yes. You’ve guessed it. Someone dies at the end of it all. ‘It
can’t be anyone like a Grendel because the prophesy states that it is tragic’
Urd tossed her white locks and made a face, ‘and there’s nothing tragic about a
Grendel dying, poxy things.’ She stood up and dusted herself down. ‘Time to go
wake the others’ she whispered softly. The others were the other two Prophets,
Verdande and Skuld. Urd wondered why the Grendels hadn’t tried to kill the
Prophets yet, she thought that they would be the first the Grendels would go
for. She shrugged her shoulders and went back into the cave,letting the ferns
that acted as a curtain fall back behind her.
*******************************************************
Ellen woke abruptly to the sound of hushed talking. She sat up with
a start to see three ancient Norns huddled together, watching her.
‘Holy crap,they’re staring at me,’ she thought. Her first
instinct was to run. Her brain said Go but her legs said No “oh ‘eck “ she
thought to herself. When the Norns started to approach her, her temporary
paralysis vanished and she leapt to her feet, tripped and went hurtling over
into the ocean. As ancient as they were, the Norns had flippin’ good reflexes
and caught her by the hand just before she vanished forever beneath the cold,cruel
depths. They hauled her ashore and she shouted ‘all right tell me what’s going
on here.’ The Norns looked at each other ,and when Ellen had regained her
composure, began to tell her,everything.
‘So, let me
get this right , Grendels have attacked, carted an alarming amount of Norns and
Ettins off to their deaths and I’m here to put a stop to it, yes? Wow it’s all
so much clearer now!’ Ellen said sarcastically.
‘You and the Hand’ The
Norn Prophet named Clotho corrected, noticing that Ellen flinched when she said
the word, ‘Hand’. The involuntary movement was not missed by the other two
either.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Lachesis
‘ Yes what’s wrong?’ echoed Atropos who had an annoying habit of
more or less repeating what her big sister (who she adored ) said.
‘Watch’ said Ellen and she put her hand by the Eldest Prophet’s
(Clotho’s) tail. a little devil icon appeared. The Prophets jumped a few paces
back ‘What’s going on here?’ they muttered in confusion.
‘You’re the prophets.You tell me,’ replied Ellen wearily.
‘You’re the Hand.’ they said ‘but how can this be?’
‘I’m not so sure myself’ Ellen said frowning
‘Well, I don’t know how it happened but I know what it means,’
said Clotho. The others stared at her eagerly, ‘It means that this is the Norn
we have been looking for. The Nornir race and the Handir race combined in one
body. My dear’ she said turning to Ellen, ‘You are our salvation you have come
to set us free.’
