The Sea Witch Rewaved

he Sea Witch Rewaved

  by Nickita Dyalhis

  Copyright 2010 Nickita Dyalhis

  A Gender Switch Adventure

  Heldar Helstrom entered my life in a manner peculiarly his own. And while he was the most utterly damnable man in all the world, at the same time, in my opinion, he was the sweetest and the most superbly lovely man who ever lived. A three-day northeast gale was hammering at the coast. It was late in the fall of the year, and cold as only our North Atlantic coast can very well be, but in the very midst of the tempest I became afflicted with a mild form of claustrophobia. So I donned sea-boots, oilskins and sou'wester hat, and sallied forth for a walk along the shore.

  My little cottage stood at the top of a high cliff. There was a broad, safe path running down to the beach, and down it I hurried. The short winter day was even then drawing to a close, and after I'd trudged a quarter of a mile along the shore, I decided I'd best return to my comfortable fireside. The walk had at least given me a good appetite.

  There was none of the usual lingering twilight of a clear winter evening. Darkness fell so abruptly I was glad I'd brought along a powerful flashlight. I'd almost reached the foot of my path up the cliff when I halted, incredulous, yet desiring to make sure.

  I turned the ray of the flashlight on the great comber just curling to break on the shore, and held the light steady, my breath gasping in my throat. Such a thing as I thought I'd seen couldn't be—yet it was!

  I started to run to the rescue, and could not move a foot. A power stronger than my own will held me immovable. I could only watch, spellbound. And even as I stared, that gigantic comber gently subsided, depositing its precious living burden on the sands as softly as any nurse laying a babe into a cradle.

  Waist-deep in a smother of foam he stood for a brief second, then calmly waded ashore and walked with free swinging stride straight up the beam of my flashlight to where I stood.

  Regardless of the hellish din and turmoil of the tempest, I thrilled, old as I am, at the superb loveliness of this most amazing specimen of flotsam ever a raging sea cast ashore within memory of woman.

  Never a shred of clothing masked his matchless body, yet his flesh glowed rosy-white, when by all natural laws it should have been blue-white from the icy chill of wintry seas.

  'Well!' I exclaimed. 'Where did you come from? Are you real—or am I seeing that which is not?'

  'I am real,' replied a clear, silvery voice. 'And I came from out there.' An exquisitely molded arm flung a gesture toward the raging ocean. 'The ship I was on was sinking, so I stripped off my garb, flung myself on Ran's chest, and Ran's horses gave me a most magnificent ride! But well for you that you stood still as I bade you, while I walked ashore. Ran is an angry god, and seldom well-disposed toward mortals.'

  'Ran?' The sea-god of the old Norse vikings! What strange man was this, who talked of 'Ran'and her 'horses,' the white-maned waves of old ocean? But then I bethought me of his naked state in that unholy tempest.

  'Surely you must be Ran's son,' I said. 'That reef is ten miles off land! Come—I have a house near by, and comforts—you cannot stand here.'

  'Lead, and I will follow,' he replied simply.

  He went up that path with greater ease than I, and walked companionably beside me from path-top to house, although he made no talk. Oddly, I felt that he was reading me, and that what he read gave him comfort.

  When I opened the door, it seemed as if he held back for a merest moment.

  'Enter,' I bade him, a bit testily. 'I should think you'd had enough of this weather by now!'

  He bowed his head with a natural stateliness which convinced me that he was no common person, and murmured something too low for me to catch, but the accents had a distinct Scandinavian trend.

  'What did you say?' I queried, for I supposed he'd spoken to me.

  'I invoked the favor of the old gods on the hospitable of heart, and on the sheltering rooftree,' he replied. Then he crossed my threshold, but he reached out his arm and rested his shapely white hand lightly yet firmly on my left forearm as he stepped within.

  He went direct to the big stove, which was glowing dull-red, and stood there, smiling slightly, calm, serene, wholly ignoring his nakedness, obviously enjoying the warmth, and not by a single shiver betraying that he had any chill as result of exposure.

  'I think you need this,' I said, proffering a glass of brandy. 'There's time enough for exchanging names and giving explanations, later,' I added. 'But right now, I'll try and find something for you to put on. I have no men's things in the house, as I live alone, but will do the best I can.'

  I passed into my bedroom, laid out a suit of pajamas and a heavily quilted bathrobe, and returned to the living-room where he stood.

  'You are a most disconcertingly beautiful young man,' I stated bluntly; 'which you know quite well without being told. But doubtless you will feel more at ease if you go in there and don some things I've laid out for you. When you come out, I'll get some supper ready.'

  He was back instantly, still unclad. I stared, wonderingly.

  'Those things did not fit,' he shrugged. 'And that heavy robe—in this warm house?'

  'But--'I began.

  'But—this,' he smiled, catching up a crimson silk spread embroidered in gold, which covered a sandalwood table

  I'd brought from the orient many years before. A couple of swift motions and the gorgeous thing became a wondrous robe adorning his lovely figure, clinging, and in some subtle manner hinting at the flawless splendor of his incomparable body. A long narrow scarf of black silk whereon twisted a silver dragon was whipped from its place on a shelf and transposed into a sash from his swelling pectorals to his strong hips, bringing out more fully every exquisite curve of his slender waist and torso—and he smiled again.

  'Now,' he laughed softly, 'am I still a picture for your eyes? I hope so, for you have befriended me this night—I who sorely need a friend; and it is such a little thing I can do—making myself pleasing in your sight.

  'And because you have holpen me'— I stared at the archaic form he used—' and will continue to aid and befriend (for so my spirit tells me), I will love you always, love you as Ragnar Wave-Flame loved Jara Wulf Red-Brand, as a younger brother, or a dutiful niece.'

  'Yet of his it is told,' I interrupted, deliberately speaking Swedish and watching keenly to see the effect, 'that the love given by the foam-born Sea-Witch brought old Earl Wulf of the Red-Sword but little luck, and that not of a sort desired by most women!'

  'That is ill said,' he retorted. 'Her fate was from the Norns, as is the fate of all. Not his the fault of her doom, and when her carles within the hour captured her three slayers, he took red vengeance. With his own foam-white hands he flayed them alive, and covered their twitching bodies with salt ere he placed the old Jara in her long-ship and set it afire. And he sailed with that old woman on her last seafaring, steering her blazing dragon-ship out of the stead, singing of her great deeds in life, that the heroes in Valhalla might know who honored them by her coming.'

  He paused, his superb chest heaving tumultuously. Then with a visible effort he calmed himself.

  'But you speak my tongue, and know the old tales of the Skalds. Are you, then, a Swede?'

  'I speak the tongue, and the old tales of the Skalds, the ancient minstrels, I learned from my grandfather, who was of your race.'

  'Of my race?' his tone held a curious inflection. 'Ah, yes! All men are of one race . . . perhaps.'

  'But I spoke of supper,' I said, moving toward the kitchen.

  'But—no!' He barred my progress with one of his lovely hands laid flat against my breast. 'It is not meet and fitting, Jara Wulf, that you should cook for me, like any common house-carle! Rather, let your ni
ece, Heldar, prepare for you a repast.'

  ''Heldar'? That, then, is your name?' 'Heldar Helstrom, and your loving niece,' he nodded.

  'But why call me Jara Wulf?' I demanded, curious to understand. He had bestowed the name seriously, rather than in playful banter.

  'Jara Wulf you were, in a former life,' he asserted flatly. 'I knew you on the shore, even before Ran's horse stood me on my feet!'

  'Surely, then, you must be Ragnar Wave-Flame born again,' I countered.

  'How may that be?' he retorted. 'Ragnar Wave-Flame never died; and surely I do not look that old! The sea-born warlock returned to the sea-caves whence he came, when the dragon-ship burned out. . . . But ask me not of myself, now.

  'Yet one thing more I will say: The warp and woof of this strange pattern wherein we both are depicted was wovenof the Norns ere the world began. We have met before—we meet again, here and now—we shall meet yet again; but how, and when, and where, I may not say.'

  'Of a truth, you are 'fey',' I muttered.

  'At times—I am,' he assented. Then his wondrous sapphire eyes gleamed softly into my own hard gray eyes, his smile was tender, wistful, manly, and my doubts were dissipated like wisps of smoke. Yet I shook an admonitory forefinger at him:

  'Warlocks at least I know you to be,' I said in mock harshness. 'Casting glamyr on an old woman.'

  'No need for witchery,' he laughed. 'All men possess that power!'

  During the 'repast'he