Bohemian Rhapsody

"The past is almost a living thing. It writhes around each of us, tormenting us with the 'what ifs' and maybes, destroying our hopes with our past failures as much as it celebrates our victories. None of us can ever be free of it, not entirely, and because of it, nothing is certain."

moment one: the absence of light (1950.)

The frostbite was....inconsequential, and that was a sign of how bad it was. The young man gripped the robe more tightly around himself, almost mummifying his body in the process. Fingers barely functional, possibly even black and gangrenous held his wand rigidly against the storm, pointing vainly into the whiteness before him.

He´d been climbing for...days? Weeks? Simon Magus, it seemed like forever, and the guides were all dead now, dead and frozen under snow: their limbs convulsed, the bodies like husks from where he had drained the energy from them.

Tom hadn´t regretted it. Oh, there was the old twinge of pain, guilt, conscience, and irritation bordering on rage that he still somehow possessed the former qualities. They were so human, so weak; the products of an unfeeling deity. Such emotions were meant to put fetters on His creation, to chain them so they wouldn´t pick up the power lying around for the taking and challenge Him, cast Him down like the bitter old sadist He was, and create a world without pain, or sadness, or the bitter tang of death.

He whispered a word, a brief incantation, and felt heat surge through his wand. It burned the skin. A brief burst of white light spanned forward and around him, creating a shield from the snow, and allowing him to make better progress forward - at least for a few minutes before it failed against the inexorable force of nature. It didn´t matter anyway; the only thing he could see for an eternity was white, white snow glaring in every direction, the snowstorm raging around him that hampered every sense, and taunted him with his own mortality.

Tom Riddle placed one foot slowly, torturously, after another, and cursed his feeble body. No wonder the Portal had been placed here, high amongst the Himalayan peaks, a test and a challenge - near impossible to get to, and equally as impossible to remove. It was a test of one´s worthiness, he reflected. It was not merely to have ambition, but one must be prepared to sacrifice in order to achieve it as well. He gritted his teeth, maintaining the stiff pace. It was all very well to be a hero. Heroes were as numerous as pence, or holidaymakers heading to Brighton in December. It was so easy to be a hero; save a cat from a tree, rescue a child from its own stupidity, help someone out in their time of need, with food or clothing. Half the world must be heroes, if only because feckless humanity could never get enough of congratulating itself.

And so it took...persistence to become a true servant of the Darkness. Like his persistence, right now. One needed no accolades, no public adoration: merely the quiet satisfaction of a goal achieved, of power and control. The overthrow of this torturous realm was his one purpose, in following those who would help him kill Death itself, and the enemy, Time.

Just one step.

And one more.

Pushing himself beyond the breaking point. Not questioning his reward, or his faithfulness.

It seemed like an eternity as the cold bit into his skin, his bones, his soul. Even the new sunlight wasn´t a relief, nearly blinding him due to the glare. But he wasn´t going to die on some bastard mountain in the middle of nowhere, an abject lesson in the frailty of the flesh. A relic for the monks and sherpas to point out, and shakes their heads at, a case in point of the futility of serving the dark powers.

He would be better than human.

He would prove them wrong.

And then finally, he saw it...

A cave entrance, black highlighted against the blinding white, an impossibly arched cave entrance at that. Obviously created, manufactured...built.

He had heard the stories, hidden away in ancient manuscripts. It had taken him nearly three years of searching amongst the papers in the library of St. John the Beheaded, but finally one old Norse saga spoke of this place.

One mad Viking wizard had foreseen it in a dream, and set off on an expedition deep into central Asia to find it, going beyond the usual line of Viking influence, which by the 11^th century was Russia. They had moved through barren cold land, and reached the fringes of Asian-influenced territory, ringing with the peals of bells from Buddhist temples.

The monks had warned them not to go up the high mountains, to where it could be found, but the wizard persisted, splitting his company in two with the decision. And so, having beggared himself to buy supplies, he and his small group had made their way into the peaks. They had found the cave, and restructured the entrance to make it safer.

There were four keystones set into the rock. One at the top of the arch, one on either side, and one directly under one´s feet as you passed. Tom spent a brief moment perusing them, finding them exactly as the fragment had described.

On the left was Thurisaz, reversed, warning of an unpleasant journey. Tom snorted; he knew by now what price his dedication demanded of him, and was prepared to pay it. On the right was Wunjo, also reversed. Self-sacrifice and delay. Hardly surprising. At the top was one he could never remember the name of, also reversed. Isolation and detachment lay in store if he entered, which was exactly what he hoped. It would be a time spent in dark places, separating himself of his hated humanity.

And lastly, as he stepped across the threshold, the rune forecasting fate, karma, the inevitable implacably stared up at him. There was gentle torchlight, coming from lighted faggots that ringed the room, but it was what lay at the centre that drew his attention. The warmth spread throughout his body, triggering aching pain, a painful remnant of the humanity he hated so. His flesh was finally waking to the realisation it nearly died from the cold, and screaming in protest, and Tom collapsed against to the floor. After what seemed like an eternity, Tom Riddle managed to control his frail body, and looked around, every movement a further stab of pain.

It was raised on a dais, a series of stone steps leading up to it. It emerged upright from the stone as if it had grown there, a frame of white gold, oval, and taller than any man. The frame was grooved, but with little ornamentation.

Inside it, darkness lived. An impossible black that seemed almost to eat the light from the torches, it swam with flashes of colour if one looked too closely for too long. It sang to Tom´s soul like a mother to a lost child, wanting to embrace him and never let him go.

This then was the Portal of Bifrost, a gate between worlds, crafted by ancient Powers in time immemorial. It was the absence of light, more than its death; as if the sun had no place here.

The Viking wizard had entered that, and never returned. His party had waited three days before the portal had ejected his robe, empty, and then they´d decided to leave. Most of them had died on the way down, victims of sudden coincidences - ground suddenly turning unstable where once it was solid, or storms blowing up out of nowhere.

Only one had survived to return to the Himalayan foothills, and gathered his fellows who had stayed. They had all departed back to Europe, only to find the same bad luck haunted them, as one by one they died, taken into the mist that surrounded them at night.

The survivor from the journey to the portal was the only one left in the end, and he had written this account down in a frenzy upon reaching Moscow. Eventually though, certain of his own fate, he had chosen to determine it himself and drowned himself in the river Rus. Before he died, it was claimed he had cried a final, mysterious epitaph:

I could not fight myself, and thus I am worse than dead...

The story had been fragmented, and parts lost, but enough had found its way to the Library of St. John the Beheaded, and when Tom had read it, he heard the call.

According to another half-debunked Norse legend, it was from the Portal that Fenrir the wolf would escape to eat the sun in the last days. The local monks spoke of a scar in the world, where Mara retreated to after he failed to tempt the Buddha.

Tom faced the portal, knowing his own worth. He alone would find out the truth of these myths. He had come here well aware of his own inexperience; he might have power, and knowledge, but what good were they without direction, without purpose? He appeared before the portal as a supplicant, and taking out his wand, he chanted an old spell with a wry smile. It was oddly appropriate, this reminder of his past life, the skin he tried so hard to slough off.

"Alohamora," he whispered, and the torches dimmed suddenly, before returning to their natural brightness. Tom stood for a moment, silent, before bending closer to inspect the inky blackness in front of him. Ripples seemed to cross the surface, crisscrossing and rebounding over each other and the oval frame, like night given form. Tom stepped backward, uncertain, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste to remove himself to a safe distance as the ripples pooled themselves together, and slowly stretched out, like a shape being pushed through tar or molasses.

The shape gained features - a nose, mouth and eyes, all hooded by the inky black. Its mouth was open - in placation, Tom wondered, or was it silently screaming? In fluid motion, the neck pooled out, followed by shoulders, arms and a torso, as if the portal was giving birth. The features grew in definition as the body extended itself, still emerging from its cocoon. The portal too, seemed to be making this being without any cost to its own mass, a fact Tom stored away for later study.

Tom could see the beginnings of shoes emerge from the bottom and noticed the shape standing up, as if it was merely walking through a waterfall. With a sickening realisation, he recognised the features carved into the liquid ebony: the cold brow and firm jaw, the high cheekbones. His own obstinacy looked back at him.

I could not fight myself, and thus I am worse than dead...

With no sound at all, the figure stood separate from the blackness, and at the last moment of separation, the inky liquid pulled back like a coating over the shape, revealing pale ruddy skin, black hair and an infinite air of condescension behind the murky green eyes. The head snapped to attention, and the figure stretched its fingers gently, as if trying out shape and sensation, eyes that mirrored Tom´s own locking onto him as those lips curved into a sardonic smile.

Tom scuttled back, this time tripping and falling down the stairs, landing on his behind. The thing that wore his face laughed, and stepped from the dais, offering Tom a hand up.

"So this is the esteemed Lord Voldemort," he chuckled, easily pulling the other man up. Tom noticed with deference that it wasn´t an exact copy, by any means. The dark power that had assumed his form had gone back in time, taking the appearance of Tom in his sixth year at Hogwarts. He even had the most minuscule details correct: the cut of his robes, the polish of his Prefect´s badge in the soft light. The creature noticed Tom´s glance and responded with a cool one of his own. "I suppose you would be impressed. You´re like a child playing with candles, Tom. You´re going to burn yourself and have your matches taken away."

This cold mockery make Tom swallow nervously. "I came," he began, voice quavering, trying to recover some of the strength that used to cower his housemates. "I came...as a supplicant, bound in ancient ties of shadow and fire, seeking knowledge and beseeching a boon."

The thing waved its hand dismissively, and Tom found himself pinned against a wall. The comparison to being an insect under a dissection charm was not a pleasant one. "The old forms, yes...I suppose you nearly died in the journey to get here."

Tom nodded, dumbly, before finding his voice. "Why...why do you wear my form?"

He was rewarded with a bitter smirk. "Because I can." The other self leaned forward suddenly, and Tom gasped at the cold, dead breath upon his cheek. "I could not fight myself, and thus I am worse than dead...That is what it said, does it not, Lord `Voldemort´?" Suddenly, Tom was released. He slid down the surface of the wall to thud against the floor, pain blooming from his coccyx up his spine. "All those scrolls you´ve been studying." The dark power turned from him then, to gaze around the room. "All men fear themselves, ultimately. They fear what they have been, what they are, what they will or can become. You fear your own youth: that you have left it behind, and will never again grasp it - that for you there is only faded dreams and lost ambition, a pale march to death."

Tom struggled to his feet, wheezing and spluttering, trying to ignore the fear that seized his chest like a vice. "That is why I came!", he implored, knowing all too well that the situation was far out of his hands. "I came to seek your aid against the mad God who let death into the world."

"You think you know what´s to come, Tom? Think you know what price will be asked of you, what you can be when we´re finished with you?" There was quiet fury in those green eyes. "You haven´t a clue."

"Please," Tom begged. "Show me."

Faint laughter. "Tom, you are not the first to reach us, even here, and at other secret places in the world. If we showed everyone, what distinction would lie in that? No. Better that you return, and prove your worthiness. Go, Tom. Live. Show us what a child of the darkness, a real son of Chaos would do. And then perhaps you´ll be worthy." With that, the apparition disappeared into nothingness, and Tom scrambled for the exit.