Chapter 2
1096words
Less than three thousand dollars remained in his wallet, his entire savings from quitting his job at the café, enough for a one-way ticket and a few days of food and lodging.
"Are you crazy?" Mark's voice exploded from the phone speaker, filled with disbelief and anger. "You're going to run off to some desolate mountain in Norway because of some missing old man's ravings?"
Elias leaned against the cold glass wall, watching the planes taking off and landing outside the window: "He is my grandfather, Mark. And those are not ravings; the markings on the map are very professional, and the rune interpretations also conform to academic standards."
"Conform to standards?" Mark sneered, "Last week you were still mocking him for talking to rocks! Elias, wake up! People disappear in that mountain area every year, and search and rescue teams couldn't find them after three months of searching. What use would you be if you went?"
Elias fell silent. He knew Mark was right; rationality told him this journey was meaningless and might even endanger his life. But whenever he closed his eyes, he could always see that sentence in the notebook, "The gods have never left," and his grandfather in the video pointing to the snowy mountains of Norway saying, "There lies a truth we have never understood." His grandfather had been rigorous all his life and had never said anything without basis. Those studies sneered at by academia might truly hide secrets unknown to mankind.
"I just want to go see." Elias said in a low voice, "At least to know where he went in the end, what he did."
Mark's sigh came from the other end of the phone: "You're always like this, Elias. In college, you could spend a month in the library researching a medieval manuscript no one cared about. Now you're risking everything for an elusive myth."
"Maybe it's not elusive." Elias touched the pendant on his chest, the coolness of the metal coming through his shirt, "Maybe some legends are forgotten history."
The boarding announcement sounded, and Elias hurriedly said "Wait for my news" before hanging up. During security check, the pendant showed a clear outline in the X-ray machine, and the security officer gave him a curious look: "Norse mythology enthusiast?"
"Something like that." Elias smiled, tucking the pendant back into his shirt.
Twelve hours of flying made him drowsy. As the plane crossed the North Atlantic, Elias leaned against the window, watching the rolling sea of clouds below. With his notebook spread out on the small tray table, he repeatedly studied those few incomplete maps. His grandfather's markings were peculiar; besides mountains and rivers, there were many strange symbols: three-legged ravens, snake-entwined branches, faceless human figures. These symbols could all be found in Norse mythology, yet his grandfather had combined them in a peculiar way.
On the back of one map, there was a printed email screenshot attached. The sender was "Olav@uib.no," and the recipient was his grandfather's email address.
The email content was brief: "The magnetic anomaly at Stonehenge matches the runic frequency you described. Recommend on-site measurements. Coordinates attached." Below was a handwritten note: "They are breathing."
Elias searched for the email address on his phone and found that it belonged to a retired geology professor from the University of Bergen. He tried sending an email inquiring about the stone circle and his grandfather, but received an automatic reply: "This email account has been deactivated."
When the plane landed at Oslo Airport, Norway was bathed in the dim light of early morning. Elias exchanged some Norwegian kroner and bought a train ticket to Bergen.
The train traveled along the fjords, with the scenery outside the window gradually changing from plains to steep mountains. Deep blue waters wound through the valleys like wounds splitting the earth.
He took out the Thor's hammer pendant and examined it carefully in the sunlight. The green stone on the hammerhead was actually an ordinary peridot, but it had been polished unusually smooth, with edges precisely forming a miniature runic pattern.
Elias suddenly remembered his childhood, when his grandfather hung this pendant around his neck, saying "it will protect you from being taken by mountain spirits." At the time he thought it was just a joke, but now he couldn't help rubbing the cold stone with his fingertips.
When the train arrived in Bergen, rain was falling diagonally onto the platform. This was a port city surrounded by seven mountains, with colorful wooden houses arranged along the slopes, like a spilled palette.
Elias searched according to the coordinates in the email and discovered that the "stone circle" was located outside a remote fishing village in Hordaland county, about two hours' drive from Bergen.
He found a cheap hotel near the station, with a window directly facing the fjord. The rain grew heavier, waves crashed against the rocks along the shore, creating a muffled sound. Elias opened his laptop, trying to find more information about that stone circle, but only found a few brief introductions on local tourism websites, describing it as "a Viking-era sacrificial site, exact purpose unknown."
Deep in the night, Elias was awakened by thunder outside his window. He walked to the window and saw lightning tearing through the night sky, illuminating the silhouette of the dark mountains in the distance. In that moment, he suddenly understood why his grandfather had been obsessed with Norse mythology — in this land ruled by storms and glaciers, the existence of deities seemed not to be mere imagination, but rather the ancestors' most devout explanation for the power of nature.
His phone screen lit up with a message from Mark: "If you're not back by next week, I'm calling the police."
Elias smiled and replied: "Don't worry, I'll take good care of myself."
He took out a copper box from his backpack and opened it again.
Moonlight fell through the rain-streaked window onto the parchment, where the charcoal-drawn lines seemed to come alive, slowly flowing across the paper. Elias's fingers traced along the mountain range contours on the map, finally stopping at the position circled with red ink.
Tomorrow, he would be going there.
Whether truth or emptiness awaited him, at least this journey would bring him closer to his grandfather, closer to that corner forgotten by the rational world.
