“Heimdall!”
The alarm in his sister’s voice finally cut through Heimdall’s daze, and he tore his gaze away. Focused solely on the center of the design, he’d missed seeing the outer edge put forth an arm like a bramble with points of ice for thorns. The tendril reared up out of the iron container to slam those spikes down into his body.
He swung the two-handed sword and caught the ice bramble halfway up its jagged length. The tendril broke apart at the point of impact, and the end section shattered into three smaller pieces when it cracked down on the tabletop.
He looked around for other threats. The design had put forth two more arms, but these had snaked past him to snag one of the oversized clay jars on the table rack. They then jerked it over with sufficient force to knock off the lid. The silvery powder inside billowed forth as though borne by a wind, or as if it was a living creature in search of prey. Heimdall just had time to hold his breath, and then the cloud engulfed him.
The glittering powder was stinging cold on his face, and for a moment he wondered if that was the point of the attack, to freeze him and stop his heart where he stood. But in fact the dust wasn’t cold enough for that, and after a moment his vision dimmed, and the shapes before him blurred, stretched, or flattened. At the same time, the intensity he ordinarily felt when fighting for his life was warping into screaming, flailing terror.
He struggled against the fear and, when he succeeded in pushing it down, had a moment of relative clarity. The powder was some manner of drug that was affecting both his sight and his emotions.
He mustn’t let himself succumb. He hadn’t overcome so many previous dangers, honed his courage, his wits, and his swordplay, only to die like this. Not when his sister needed him. He struggled against the unnatural panic that had taken hold of him, and meanwhile the arcane symbol in the basin put forth more thorny arms to strike at him. He pivoted, spun, and cut.
Sif called, “I’m coming!”, and he caught a glimpse of her as he turned to shatter an ice bramble curling around to rip at him from behind. Broadsword in hand, she took a running start, leaped across the space between the tables, and dashed on in his direction.
After that, he had to turn back toward the iron basin and the ice brambles spouting over the rim. He smashed three of them, and then running footsteps thumped behind him. He whirled, cut, belatedly saw that the approaching figure was Sif, and stopped the attack just short of her head. With his mind faltering, he’d forgotten all about her rushing to help.
By the Tree! It was terrible enough that he’d accidentally killed the guard back in the citadel of Asgard. If he’d murdered his own sister –
“Fight!” she bellowed. Heimdall realized she was slashing furiously to protect both of them while he stood appalled and paralyzed at what he’d nearly done.
He smashed the ice bramble that had been about to claw at his head. “Back to back!” he said.
“Yes.” She positioned herself behind him. “That way, you won’t kill me.”
“Sorry,” he said, shattering another thorny arm. “It was the dust. It’s a drug.”
“If you say so. How many of these arm things do we have to break?”
It was a good question because there was seemingly no end to them. For every one the Asgardians shattered, the thing in the basin simply put forth more. Maybe the magical symbol was vulnerable at its core, but a hedge of glinting, clinking, waving ice brambles now rose high above the rim of the container, preventing any attack on what was inside.
Unless…
“I have an idea,” he gritted, “but the state I’m in, I don’t trust it.”
“I trust you,” she said. “What do we do?”
“You hold here.” He chopped a bramble in two. “Keep the thing occupied as much as you can.”
“Right. Go!” She attacked savagely to give him the opportunity to withdraw without being clawed down from behind. He ran and jumped into space.
The leap was supposed to carry him to one of the tall bookcases facing the worktable, but it was farther away than it appeared and he fell short. He landed with jarring force but without injury. The latter was fortunate considering that he would now have to climb all the way from the floor to the top of the bookcase.
It wasn’t difficult to scramble onto the bottom shelf, but after that he had to stand at the very edges facing inward – his raw nerves and pounding heart making him painfully conscious of the drop at his back – jump, catch hold of the shelf above him, and haul himself up. The ascent took him past enormous pottery jars, moldering books, rolled parchments, a frost giant skull with a sword or axe cut in its frontal bone, and pieces of ivory and ice either etched with runes or carved into squat figurines.
Some of the books and scrolls hissed like snakes as though to warn him not to peruse their contents. Others whispered invitations to do precisely that. Both the forbiddings and the attempted seductions rattled him and fed the fear the frigid powder had induced.
Repeated cracking noises from the tabletop revealed that Sif was still fighting, still smashing the living sigil’s icy arms. He kept imagining the moment when she’d scream, and then the sounds of battle would stop. It was a fear keener than any he felt on his own behalf, and it kept him springing, clutching, and climbing despite his newfound fear of falling.
As he stood on the brink of a shelf and flexed his legs for another jump, phosphorescence glimmered in the eyes of an ivory figure with the body of a frost giant and the tusked head of a wooly mammoth. The statuette rushed him with the daggers in its fists upraised.
Heimdall dived forward onto his hands and knees. The animated statuette tripped over him, pitched forward, and landed at the edge of the drop-off. Heimdall kicked it over and flinched to hear it smash on the floor far below. He tried not to think about how close he’d come to being the one knocked off the shelf.
He ascended two more levels to the top of the bookcase. The tall piece of furniture wasn’t quite flush with the wall. There was space enough for someone the size of an Asgardian to brace his back against the stone and push with his legs and feet provided he was willing to brave the inevitable drop when the shelf tilted outward. Heimdall had been afraid of falling as he climbed to the top, and now he strained once again to put that dread out of his mind.
He got himself into position and shoved. The heavily laden shelf didn’t move, but he refused to accept that it wouldn’t. He had the strength of an Asgardian warrior and was applying it where it should topple the bookcase most easily. Teeth gritted, snarling with effort, he kept pushing and finally felt the shelf starting to go over. He shouted, “Watch out!” and then, just as he’d foreseen, with the piece of furniture falling outward, there was no longer anything to hold him in place, and he dropped, scraping and bumping down the wall.
He slammed down feet first and rolled forward onto his shoulder. It was still a brutal jolt, but maybe that helped to clear his head. As he sprang to his feet, he was no longer in fear for his own life. He was, however, in fear for Sif’s.
Dropping behind the bookcase, he hadn’t been able to see what was happening in front of it, but his imagination painted gruesome pictures. Sif hadn’t registered his shout of warning or, pressed hard by the ice brambles, had been unable to heed it. A giant book or some other massive item had plummeted on top of her, either killing her outright or pinning her long enough for the thing in the basin to tear her apart. Or else the bookshelf itself had crashed down, caught her, and crushed her.
When Heimdall rounded the fallen shelf, what he saw did nothing to quell his fear. The shelf had smashed the worktable into two pieces, and books, scrolls, and pieces of shattered figurines and jars littered the floor. So too did scraps of ice. No new frozen tendrils were sprouting and coiling about, evidence that he’d succeeded in obliterating the vulnerable heart of the living sigil. But, sprawled in a pile of reddish powder next to the broken vessel that had spille
d it out, Sif wasn’t moving either.
Horrified, Heimdall ran to her and dropped to his knees beside her. “Sif! Sif!”
Her blues eyes fluttered open, and she sat up. “Next time,” she groaned, “I want to hear the whole plan.”
“Are you all right?”
“More or less, if I can find my sword.” She looked around. The blade was several paces away sticking up from an enormous book that had opened as it fell. The broadsword had come down point first atop the right-hand pages and impaled them, with the result that the tome was flopping feebly, like a dying fish at the bottom of a boat, and the pierced spot was bleeding ink or some dark ichor. Seemingly unbothered by the peculiar sight, Sif rose, walked to the book, and yanked her weapon free. Only then did she set about dusting the crimson powder from her person.
“I’m sorry,” Heimdall said. “It was the only tactic I could think of.”
“It was a good one,” she replied, albeit in a grudging tone. “I’m still in one piece, and the thing from the bowl isn’t. What do you think it was?”
He shrugged. “A spirit Skrymir bound into his service? Something he brought to life with magic? Truly, I have no idea.”
“Then here’s a more practical question. Do you think anyone heard the crash when the bookshelf fell?”
He listened for hurrying footsteps thumping up the stairs. “I don’t hear anybody coming.”
“Nor do I. So I guess we keep looking for the head. If there’s anywhere else to look.”
That, he realized, was the question. They’d already inspected the tabletops and shelves. It didn’t appear there was anywhere left.
“It could be,” he said, “that while the chamber is generally what it appears to be, Mimir’s head, being the treasure that it is, is here but concealed in an illusion that makes it look like something else.”
Sif scowled. “There are books, trinkets, and whatnot on every one of these shelves. Do we climb up on each in turn, lay hands on every object, and hope touch will reveal what sight doesn’t? I’m game, but it’s going to take a while.”
“To say the least. But before we climb any more furniture, let’s start with what’s fallen on the floor.”
Sadly, as best they could determine, Mimir’s head wasn’t there, and in due course, pointing, Sif said, “You take the shelves along that wall. I’ll finish the other worktable and then search the ones over here.”
“Right.” Heimdall surveyed the bookcases anew in the forlorn hope of spotting some hint as to which tome, scroll, or figurine might actually be Mimir’s head, some clue that would spare Sif and him the necessity of clambering to and examining every single item in its turn. The hour was late, but Skrymir still might walk in on them while they were about it.
He didn’t find any telltale imperfections in any object’s appearance or any odd blurring or flicker to suggest magic was at work. But just as he was about to abandon the effort, he noticed that one bookshelf stood a bit farther away from the wall than the others. “Hold on,” he said.
Sif stuck her head over the edge of the surviving worktable. “What?”
He walked to the shelf he’d spotted, peered around the back of it, and felt a surge of excitement. “Come look at this.”
Sif sprang off the table – now that he was in his right mind again, Heimdall could see it wasn’t that far for a Vanir or Aesir to drop – and hurried to his side. She sucked in a breath at the sight of the little door – which was to say, an Asgardian-sized door – set in the wall. The shelving stood a couple paces out from the wall to provide easy access to people of their stature.
“It makes sense,” Heimdall said. “Magic shrank the frost giant I fought in the Realm Below. Skrymir likely supplied the talisman and can shrink himself as well.”
“But it wouldn’t occur to many of his subjects that their proud king would ever deign to reduce himself to our size,” Sif said, “and even if it did, a common Jotun thief couldn’t steal what’s beyond the door because he couldn’t fit through.” She clasped Heimdall’s shoulder and gave him a grin. “Brother! You did it!”
He grinned back. “We did it. Maybe. We can’t be sure until we look inside. So, shall we?”
The wooden door was arched at the top and had a keyhole in the center. He tried the handle and found the door was locked.
For all he knew, it might have more than the usual bolt securing it. Trying to force it might trigger a burst of destructive magic or wake another guardian like the ice-thing in the basin. But, his pulse ticking faster with eagerness, he told himself that he and Sif had come too far to hesitate now. He booted the door, and it broke away from both the bolt and its hinges to bang down on the floor.
Beyond the doorway, they found luxurious apartments. One room contained high-backed leather-cushioned chairs and other furniture and had embroidered tapestries adorning the walls. A bedchamber contained an enormous bed heaped with pillows and covered in furs. A music room contained several flutes and lyres.
As Heimdall and Sif explored, the spaces felt familiar and strange at the same time. They were finally back in a place made for people their size, but after a sojourn in the hugeness of Jotunheim, what should have been natural took some getting used to.
Once Heimdall adjusted to that, he noticed another peculiarity. As he and Sif had had ample opportunity to observe, while items the frost giants fashioned weren’t necessarily ill made per se, they were often utilitarian and graceless, and when the Jotuns did strive for ornamentation, the adornments like pendants, arm bands, and engravings on axe heads tended to be simple if not actually crude.
In contrast, the furnishings in these chambers – the tapestries, the intricately carved furniture, finely crafted golden goblets – reflected a subtler taste and might well be plunder from Asgard, Vanaheim, or Alfheim. Perhaps, Heimdall thought with a twinge of humor, Skrymir had another reason for hiding these rooms away. If his warriors discovered his tastes ran to such elegance, they might deem him too effete to wear the crown.
He forgot all about such musings, however, when he and Sif passed through yet another door. The object of their long search was waiting on the other side.
They were standing in another large conjuration chamber rather like the one they’d come from, had the former been scaled to Asgardian size. The mystical designs, however, were inlaid in the floor in black amber and red carnelian, and, like the furnishings in the adjacent rooms, the ritual staves and swords in the wall rack exhibited more refined workmanship than the ones Heimdall and Sif had seen hitherto.
He barely noticed these details, however, because he couldn’t look away from Mimir’s head. Leathery and sunken-eyed, the brown flesh shriveled tight to the skull beneath, it reposed on a stand in the center of the room. It didn’t move or speak when the intruders entered and in general looked as dead as – if not deader than – any other severed head.
For a second, Heimdall stood frozen. After he and Sif had struggled so long and overcome so many obstacles to arrive here, the moment felt unreal. Dreamlike. But then a surge of joy shattered his incredulity, and he rushed to the head with Sif striding along beside him. She was grinning like a fool, and he imagined he was too.
He wanted to bask in their triumph but told himself that would be premature to say the least. They still had to get the head out of Skrymir’s castle and all the way back to the citadel of Asgard. But maybe the relic itself could help with that.
He felt an instant of reluctance to try invoking power, the reluctance stemming from worry he’d be meddling in matters that were beyond him. But he’d dared far too much already for the feeling to make him hesitate for more than an instant. “Speak,” he said.
To his disappointment, the head remained silent.
“You’re not a sorcerer,” said Sif, her impatient tone making it clear that she too had refocused her thoughts on practicalities. “So it won’t talk to you. Just
take the thing.”
“Maybe you have to be touching it,” Heimdall said. He rested the palm of his hand on top of the head’s few remaining wisps of dry hair and the withered scalp beneath. “Mimir, wake!”
The dull, yellowed eyes rolled sluggishly back and forth in their sockets. “I am here,” croaked the head. The jaw barely moved, the teeth scarcely separated, but the sepulchral words were discernible nonetheless.
Pushing awe aside, Heimdall said, “We need guidance to escape Utgard. Can you help us?”
“Ask,” said Mimir’s head, “and I will answer.”
Sif frowned. “We just did ask.”
It took the head a moment to respond, perhaps because she wasn’t the one touching it. “Ask as you go along the way.”
“Fine.” Sif looked to Heimdall. “Let’s go.”
“Just one moment more.” Now that Heimdall was finally in a position to have his curiosity satisfied, his suspicions confirmed or disconfirmed, he discovered there was an urgency to doing so as compelling as the need to escape. “Mimir, did a sorcerer cast a spell to prolong the Odinsleep? And then steal you?”
“Yes,” groaned the head.
“Was it a traitor inside the royal court?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Before Mimir’s head could answer, a dulcet soprano voice spoke behind Heimdall and Sif to do it for him.
“That’s an easy one. It was me.”
Twenty-Four
Heimdall and Sif spun around. Clad in green as usual, her three-pointed headdress confining her golden hair and framing her face, and her tight boots rising above her knees, Lady Amora stood in the doorway leading to the apartments beyond.
For a split second, Heimdall stared at her in amazement. Though he’d speculated that there was a traitor in the royal court of Asgard, he never would have suspected Amora. He’d never spoken to her and had barely even seen her from a distance before he dared to approach the queen in her throne room, but by all accounts both Odin and Frigga trusted the sorceress and had given her considerable honors and responsibilities, and she’d served the Realm Eternal conscientiously and effectively.
The Head of Mimir Page 20