The wind had abated and an invisible swell gently rocked our ship, sailing ever forwards. There was not a sound, save for the creaking of the oars in their locks and the ferocious singing of the half-naked slaves.
We loved the sea and every evening we made a sacrifice to it as the sun was setting and a red twilight descended upon the green water. It was as though we were crossing a bloody bridge towards the sunset and the heavy clouds which had fallen between the sea and the sky. And at once we knew that the gods were dead and that the last of the living were aboard our ship and steering ahead into the emptiness. But we were not afraid, though the fear of emptiness wrenched our hearts like an iron clamp.
After we had left our final shore, the sun had set fourteen times when the first of our slaves died. Morning was breaking, sky and sea had become one, a pink mist shrouding everything in its wake. Like shadows the slaves’ bodies crouched forwards, then strained back again, their contours blurred through the mist, and not a sound could be heard, not even the splash of the oars. Then one of the slaves fell backwards, his back arched unnaturally across the bench; with a thud his head struck the thwart plank after which his body did not so much as shudder. We untied him from his shackles without stopping the others’ rowing. He was healthy, young and strong, his body did not reveal the slightest wound or mark, but he was dead and so we threw him overboard into the sea. Through the mists we saw his body sink immediately, but we did not hear the slightest sound, nor did the water splash up into the air. Soon afterwards the sun dispersed the fog, but it was not a normal sun: it was an enormous sun, tinged in a dim red, like a shield rusted in blood.
The sun remained like this for several days and the motionless sea gradually turned restless. Strange sounds could be heard from the water; moaning, the roar of a giant war horse, making our ship’s masts tremble.
For a long time we had not seen a single living creature in the sea. The water’s surface had been still and motionless, our ship’s progress slow and exhausting. But now froth and enormous bubbles began rising to the surface; as they burst they made a low, strange gurgling sound. We recalled tales of giant sea monsters and tremours ran the length of our bodies. But we were not afraid.
The following morning a second slave died in the same manner as the first.
The nights were as black as the gates of hell. The darkness seemed to thicken around us so that we could touch it. We tried to light torches, but they would not burn. We could barely hear each other’s voices, for even the loudest yell sounded as powerless as the faint whisper of a child.
Only the stars shone in the sky above. Like our shields they were great and they glowed like embers in the hearth. We recognised them no longer. But we were not afraid and we refused to turn back, for we were the kin of heroes. Bravely we steered our dragon ship towards the setting sun. Yet our songs did not ring out as before, and almost every morning another slave died for no apparent reason.
After we had been at sea for forty-two sunsets, a storm broke. Both sea and sky turned black and we tethered ourselves to the masts. Waves the size of mountains crashed around us and the water blinded and deafened us. It felt as if our sails had swollen and we were gliding up and down along the slopes of the waves towards the setting sun to the creaking and howling of every join and plank. At every moment we expected the ship to split asunder, but as if protected by some strange power it remained intact and at an unimaginable speed we travelled onwards.
None of us knew how long the storm lasted. The ropes with which we had tied ourselves fast cut deep into our flesh and the salt water stung our raw wounds. We could see neither the sun nor the stars. We were nothing but a boat of shadows amidst the thick blackness, at the mercy of a maelstrom of darkness shaking us like the hands of the fell spirits. All that could be heard above the thundering storm were the agonised cries of the drowning slaves as they prayed to their own gods. But we did not pray, for we knew that here the gods were dead.
Finally we too cried for death, for our pains were too great. But suddenly the storm abated. The sun once again shone across a radiant blue sky, as if a great hand had swept the clouds behind the horizon. And our boat rocked gently upon a smooth swell, as the water heaved in the wake of the sea’s rage.
The ship had survived unscathed. A few yards had been snapped, some of the railings broken, but none had lost his life. And we realised that, carried on the wings of the storm, we had covered such a distance as would have taken an entire month to row.
At that moment the slaves began to cry out: ‘Land! Land!’ And across the ridges of the gentle waves, far away towards the setting sun, we could see the spires of three stone towers.
The sun was brighter, the sky bluer and the sea shimmering greener than ever before. We sensed our destination was near. But we did not rejoice, and we no longer had gods to whom we could offer thanks.
The slaves rowed onwards with renewed vigour and resumed their ferocious singing which echoed out across the waves. The towers gradually became greater and from the sea there rose an island, and never before had we seen anything as beautiful.
Once again we were consumed with the heroic deeds of our Viking forefathers. We hankered for a great battle. As we sharpened our blades and the slaves polished our shields, rusted by the salt water, we sang the old war songs sung by our ancestors as they had once approached the rich ports of foreign lands.
The dull clank of our shields was ominous. It felt as if, after we were gone, not a soul would sing our songs again. But we strove to believe that our clanking boded ill for those who stood against us. And we strove to take pride in the red blood flowing through our veins.
Night fell. We rowed steadily onwards and discerned images of battle in the stars. By morning the sea was engulfed in a green mist. Once it dispersed we saw in front of us, but a stone’s throw away, the Island of the Setting Sun.
We noticed what a beautiful and rich island it was, with great, unknown trees growing upon it. In its centre stood a mountain, a green trail running up one side; a road laid of strange, coloured stone. At the mountain top was a triangular temple, and its three towers stood silhouetted, dark green and sharp against the sky.
Ahead of us was a harbour built into a small cove in the bay and around this lay a town, its buildings carved from green stone. Bushes grew right up to the water’s edge and their red and white flowers were reflected in the clear water. We could make out the seabed beneath us; great brown reeds swayed there gently and little fish darted in between them. Everything was perfectly still. Not even a puff of smoke rose from the chimneys in the town and we did not hear a single voice. It seemed that the entire town was dead.
Then we saw them: a group of soldiers standing in thick, motionless rows was waiting precisely where we were to disembark. They were clothed in green and bore round shields, edged in green and with an image in the centre the features of which we could not clearly make out. The points of their spears were bright and from the belt of each and every soldier hung a short, wide sword. There were at least four hundred of them; we were a mere forty in number not counting the slaves. But we were puzzled by the silence and stillness of these troops. They stood unflinchingly at the edge of the forest; we did not see banners, nor did we hear the cry of the battle horn nor a single shout of defiance.
A strange fear came over us as we watched them. But the sun was shining across the glaring blue sky and we rowed the rest of the journey, water rushing past our bow. Through the clear water we could make out the shadow of our boat racing ahead. We let out the Viking battle cry, the flank of our ship struck the harbour, hewn from green rock, with a thud and we jumped ashore protecting our heads with our shields, consumed with a battle fever upon once again feeling dry land beneath our feet.
A cloud of spears rained down towards us, but we repelled them with our shields. Still we did not hear a sound. As I looked at our adversaries I felt a strange shudder. Their faces were deathly pale, almost transparent, like marble from the sunny shores of the
Midd Sea; their mouths were thin and their lips tightly pressed together; their noses narrow and arched downwards; their eyes long, oval and dark. Each of them was a head shorter than us.
But men they were all the same, those green-caped enemies. There was something sombre and deeply disturbing about their silent resistance. Not one of them moved from his position. We waded through blood, blunting our swords. None of them prayed for mercy or surrendered as a prisoner. And when finally we rested, exhausted and gasping for breath, the shore was awash in bodies and blood and broken weapons. Not a single man survived amongst our enemies. Even the wounded thrust blades into their own chests, silently straining to end their suffering.
We rested and buried our dead before pillaging the town, and we gathered weapons and jewels from the bodies of our adversaries. We collected a hoard of rings and buckles, crafted of gold and an unfamiliar, heavy, pale metal. And now we saw that the figure on our fallen enemies’ shields was that of a woman in a green cape, her hands raised towards the sky and the sun.
And so the sun set once again behind this island, and it was blood-red from the blood that had been shed that day. Night fell. The slaves gathered wood and on the shore we set great pyres alight. The slaves made torches to light our path as we plundered the town. It was a magnificent and rich town, and upon the shore we gathered piles of gold and precious stones and strange, unknown metals. Never before had any Viking ship amassed such treasures.
We also found women hidden in the vaults of the buildings. Even as we dragged them out of their hiding places, they did not utter a word. They stood before us in silence, their brown hair hanging tousled around their green capes. They were indeed beautiful to our eyes. In these underground vaults we discovered small firkins carved from brown, shining wood, each filled to the brim with a strange wine giving off the pungent odour of unknown herbs. In the light of the pyres we spent the rest of the night celebrating our victory, drinking wine and sharing our spoils. And the wine entered our blood making us wild and berserk.
I saw my men and our slaves tear the clothes from the island’s womenfolk in the red light of the pyres; their white bodies trembled on the damp ground and they covered their faces with their brown hair. But not a sound passed from their clenched lips, though our slaves’ iron hands ravaged their fragile young bodies.
The following morning the shore was a scene of destruction, littered with the remnants of our feast. However, at the site of the battle there was no longer a single body to be seen. This surprised us greatly, but we understood that the women must have buried their dead overnight. Above us on the mountain top loomed the green temple, dark and foreboding against the bright rays of the sun, and its towers cast a black shadow across the slaves sleeping on the shore.
We set off upwards along a wide path of green slabs. The path was lined with great, strange trees. We tasted their fruits but discovered that they had a sharp, bitter taste. In a small field nearby grew an unknown crop, and its ears were the red hue of rust.
Not a single animal did we see on our journey. Once, however, something flew across our path, like a great, green bird, whose shadow brushed each and every one of us. We also heard a cry of pain, something which sounded like the drawn-out wailing of a dying man. We decided it must have been the soul of one of our fallen enemies. At this we laughed heartily and sang the victory song of heroes as we slowly climbed up the mountainside.
As we finally reached the temple the sun was shining from the very centre of the sky and our shadows were nothing but small, dark patches around our feet. The temple had been carved into the green rockface, for in all its high walls there appeared not a single seam or join. A great gate, depicting soldiers and the same green woman as on our enemies’ shields, lay wide open. We stepped through this into a triangular courtyard, and at the centre of this stood a round building surrounded by green pillars.
Just as we were walking into the courtyard, one of my men fell to the ground with a yell. We examined him and saw that a wound he had sustained in the previous day’s battle had reopened during our long ascent and now his blood ran into the cracks in the rock beneath us. Soon after this he perished.
The courtyard was triangular and its two sides pointing west were the longest. It was surrounded by a wall and in each corner stood a triangular tower. I climbed alone into the western tower, through dark stone staircases, and realised that it was empty. Only once I reached its flat roof did I discover a number of charred bones, which surprised me, as we had still not sighted a single living animal on this island. From the tower a view opened up across the whole island. It too was an irregular triangle shape. There was no other settlement on the island other than the green town at the base of the triangle.
As I descended from the tower my eyes became accustomed to the dark green light in the staircase and inscribed on the walls I could make out strange, intricate patterns and a repeating text in a lettering resembling Greek. Our slaves the learned men had instructed me in deciphering Greek script as a child, but the tower was too dark for me to understand anything of this text.
Upon stepping out of the doorway I caught sight of a woman dressed in a green cloak, her white arms bare, leaving the round building at the centre of the courtyard. She stood between two pillars and raised her hands towards the sun. Never in all my days had I seen such a beautiful woman.
She did not move, nor did she avert her eyes as we approached her. But as the sun shone into her eyes – and she endured the glare of the sun – we saw that her long, oval eyes were a deep shade of green.
She lowered her arms and turned to look at us. But she did not see us, for she was blind. Her body shuddered slightly as I approached her and placed a slave’s shackle around her wrist. And I was surprised to see blue veins running the length of her pale, translucent arms. She then left us, knelt at the foot of one of the pillars and hid her face with her hair. And we stepped through the dark doorway into the temple with swords in our hands, our shields clanging against one another.
The holy room was a round room edged once again with green pillars. A pale green dimness hung along the walls, but there at the centre, lit through skilfully placed openings in the walls and ceiling by the bright sun, stood the image of a goddess on a low pedestal, and upon seeing this we stopped and stared in awe.
It was carved entirely of green stone; the figure of a woman, her face and arms raised towards the sky. Her body was shrouded in a green cape reaching down to her knees and attached around her neck with a golden brooch, just like all the women on the island. The cape was embroidered in gold with strange patterns, of which I could only recognise the symbol of infinity, a snake biting its own tail, inside an irregular triangle. Her perfect body arched gently backwards, as if opening up into a great embrace.
The statue was the size of a human, but the strange lighting made it look considerably larger. Her face was unfathomably beautiful, her lips half open, yet expressionless. Her eyes were two frosted green jewels, glowing with life in the beams of sunlight. The pedestal was inscribed with the same maxim that I had seen on the tower walls. I knelt down to examine it. It contained three words, but I could not make them out. A letter was missing from each word making it impossible even to guess their meaning. This same maxim was carved into each of the twenty-seven stone pillars. Each of them was also missing the same letters.
The statue seemed almost alive. In the shimmering sunlight its body seemed to tremble. We felt that at any moment it could step down from its pedestal. And yet we knew that it was nothing but dead, cold stone.
It was a god, but it was the god of a vanquished people. I took my sword and with a single slash I cut the cape from around her neck and it fell to the ground. Before us stood the green goddess, disrobed, naked, her arms and body extended as if in a passionate embrace. This effigy truly was more beautiful than all mortal women.
We had hoped to curse the god of this thwarted land, but now we stood in silence before its beauty. We felt as if this statue were alive,
radiating a mysterious potency and a strange passion. We stood up straight and our muscles bulged with a longing to feel that embrace. I knew that she must be warm and alive, and, my hand burning with desire, I touched her breast pointing rebelliously, defiantly forwards. But it was hard and cold. At that moment I was like a child so much did I want to cry with disappointment.
Just then, around her delicate, left ankle, I caught sight of a thick bangle, fashioned from that same unknown, white metal. The jewels sunk into its sides flashed and gleamed in the sunlight. The others tried to remove it, but did not succeed. But then I noticed a seam in the bangle and touched it. It opened immediately. I placed it around my right wrist and it locked shut with a click. And since then I have never managed to open it again, but have worn it for the forty-eight winters that have passed since that day, and shall wear it until the sun has finally disappeared from this life and this my arm is but dust among dust. But there on the goddess’ ankle, where the bangle had been, there was now a white mark, like a circle drawn on human flesh with a hot iron.
As we stepped out into the courtyard we saw that the woman at the foot of the pillar had died. We lifted our dead brother-in-arms and carried him upon our shields down the mountainside, singing a song of eternal shadows. But I could think only of the green goddess’ beauty and I sensed that my companions were thinking of her too. And at that moment I realised that I despised them all.
Once again the sun began to disappear behind the island. Down in the harbour and in the houses of this devastated city we celebrated our victory, wine frothed in golden goblets and dice rattled against one another. We played for women and we played for gold and the treasures of the Island of the Setting Sun. We felt powerful and we knew our blades were sharp. And in secret we watched one another, but no one spoke a word about the green goddess. Yet every second we knew that there she stood up above, wondrous, alone, her divine body arched in a great, naked embrace. The towers atop her temple were framed in the setting sun, turning them black and green and blood-red.