A Reign of Steel by Morgan Rice Page A

it could sink its teeth into Thor’s
face.
    Thor
watched in amazement as the man squeezed the snake by the throat, harder and
harder, the snake hissing and gasping. Thor felt the snake’s muscles slowly
relax around his body, as the man squeezed the life out of it.
    As
the snake began to loosen, Thor wiggled one arm free and raised his sword and
chopped its body in half.
    The
half of the snake wrapped around Thor fell limply to the ground, but the other
half, which the man held, still struggled to live. The man squeezed it harder
and harder until finally, the snake’s eyes bulged open, then closed, and its
body went limp in the man’s hand.
    As
the man threw the snake’s carcass down to the ground, Thor looked up at him in
disbelief. It was a man he recognized; a man he’d loved; a man he’d missed
dearly; a man he thought he would never see again.
    King
MacGil.
    *
    As
King MacGil dropped the snake’s head, he looked at Thor, smiling broadly
through his beard, and stepped forward and gave him a hug, embracing him as a
father would a son.
    “My
King,” Thor said over his shoulder, as MacGil pulled back and looked at him.
    “Thorgrinson,”
MacGil said, clasping a warm hand on Thor’s shoulder, smiling down with
approval. “I told you we would meet again.”
    Thor
was speechless. He did not understand what was happening. Had he died and gone
to heaven? Or was he losing his mind?
    “But…how?”
Thor asked. “How are you here? Are you alive?”
    King
MacGil smiled, put his arm around Thor, turned, and began to walk with him,
leading him down a country path.
    “You
always had so many questions.”
    “Have
I died?” Thor asked.
    King
MacGil laughed in delight, and Thor was elated to hear it. The King’s laugh was
a sound he had missed dearly; indeed, he hadn’t realized until this day how
much he had missed seeing him. In some ways, though he had known him so
briefly, King MacGil was like a father to Thor, and seeing him was like having
his father back.
    “No,
my boy,” King MacGil answered, still laughing, “you have not died. In fact, you’ve
just begun to live. You are about to truly live.”
    “But…you
died. How are you here?”
    “None
of us die, really,” MacGil replied. “I’m no longer in the physical plane, that
is true; but I’m very much alive otherwise. In the Land of the Druids, the veil
between the living and the dead is thinner, more translucent. It is easier to
cross. Your mother sent me here to find you. To guide you to her.”
    Thor’s
eyes opened wide in surprise and excitement at the mention of his mother.
    “So
she does exist,” Thor said.
    MacGil
smiled.
    “Very
much so.” He sighed. “One cannot traverse this land without a guide. I shall be
yours. You should have waited for me patiently, at the gate, to come get you. Then
you wouldn’t have gotten yourself into all this trouble. But you were always impatient,
Thorgrinson. And that is why I love you!” he said with a laugh.
    They
wound their way down a path, and Thor took it all in, wondering.
    “I
don’t understand this place at all,” Thor said. “It feels so familiar…and yet,
so foreign.”
    MacGil
nodded.
    “The
Land of the Druids is different for each person who enters it,” he said. “It is
a different place for me than for you. We might even see two different lands.
You see, Thorgrinson, everything you see here is merely a reflection of your
own consciousness. Your own memories, your own hopes and needs and wants and
fears. Your desires. You might pass through here and see your hometown; see
your first love; see any place that was of importance to you; see the peak
moments of your life play out before you. You might encounter your most
glorious times, your highest ambitions—and you might also encounter your
darkest demons. In that way, the Land of the Druids is the safest and most
pleasurable place on the planet—and yet also the darkest and most dangerous. It
all depends on you. On your mind. On