Heimdall shook off his stunned astonishment. He didn’t know what had drawn Amora to this place at this moment, but if he and Sif were to avoid capture, or worse, they needed to act and act now. The thought flashed through his mind that rushing a powerful sorceress might be tantamount to suicide, but Amora was only a few paces away. Perhaps he could reach her before she could cast a spell, or maybe she’d turn tail as she had when he’d charged her in the forest.
Leaving Mimir’s head where it sat atop the pedestal, he drew his sword and dashed forward. Sif did the same.
But before they could reach Amora, she snapped her fingers, and a racing shimmer traced the black and red lines in one of the designs inlaid on the floor. Fire roared up to form a wall separating the enchantress from her foes.
Heimdall leaped. For all he knew, magical flame might incinerate him in an instant, but if the barrier was no hotter than ordinary fire, perhaps he’d make it through all right. There was an instant of dazzling brightness and searing heat, and then he landed on the other side, maybe a little singed but essentially unscathed. Sif sprang through a split second after.
Amora’s green eyes widened in alarm. She clearly hadn’t expected the Asgardians to brave the blaze.
“Surrender!” Heimdall said, advancing. Even knowing she was a dangerous mage, he was reluctant to strike down an adversary who didn’t have a blade in her hand.
Unfortunately, his instinct to show mercy gave her the moment required to collect her wits. She thrust out her hand, spoke a word of power, and an unseen force bashed brother and sister and sent them reeling backward toward the flames. Amora scurried through the doorway and out of sight. Evidently, if the blaze failed to neutralize her foes, she didn’t want to remain this close to their swords.
Heimdall caught his balance an instant before he would have stumbled back into the flames. He looked to the side, and Sif had recovered her equilibrium as well. They charged after Amora.
The sorceress wasn’t in the next room, and it had two doorways leading out of it. Heimdall turned toward the one on the right while his sister pivoted toward the one on the left.
He heard a rustle and a startled curse at his back and knew it was Sif who’d gone in the proper direction. He spun around. A rug had reared up to wrap itself around his sister and carry her down to the floor, where she was struggling to free herself. Peering up at him, she yelled, “I’m fine! Get Amora!”
Meaning to do precisely that before the traitor could cast another spell, he raced across the room, but not fast enough. The ritual swords and staves flew out of the conjuration chamber, surrounded him, and assailed him.
Steel rang as, pivoting, Heimdall parried one weapon and then another. He was outnumbered and had no adversaries made of vulnerable flesh to cut at, but, he judged, his situation wasn’t hopeless. The animated blades and rods made straightforward, rudimentary attacks, the level of skill perhaps reflecting the level of ability Amora would display if wielding one of them with her own hands. Maybe he could knock a hole in the ring, lunge through, and reach the sorceress before the swords and staves overwhelmed him.
He parried a slashing sword forcefully enough to slam it aside, and the way was open. At the same moment, however, Amora stepped into view, framed in the doorway opening into the next chamber. “Think carefully,” she said, waving her hand.
Heimdall looked at the place she’d indicated. Not all the ritual swords had flown to menace him. Two were hovering over Sif, one poised to thrust into her eye and the other aimed at her throat.
Still trapped inside the rug, which writhed and bunched to counter her efforts to free herself, Sif said, “Get her!”
Amora smiled. “You might manage that,” she said, “but not before the swords kill your sister. If you care about her, I recommend you drop your own weapon.”
Heimdall tried desperately to think of an alternative, some unexpected action that would turn everything around, but his head was empty of everything but fear on his sister’s behalf. He laid the two-handed sword on the floor and straightened up again. Sif cursed.
Amora shook her head in mock disapproval. “Some people just don’t appreciate the things we do to help them. Now, we’re going to do the same thing we just did only the other way around.” Positioning themselves only a finger-width away from Heimdall’s body, the swords poised themselves to deliver killing thrusts. “Now, Sif, the carpet is going to release you, and as you stand up, you’ll leave your blade on the floor. Unless you want to try for me and sacrifice your brother as you seem to think he should have sacrificed you.”
The rug stopped squirming and tightening. Sif extricated herself from it and rose with her broadsword left atop the shaggy pile.
“I thought you’d be sensible,” Amora said. “Now, let’s go back to the summoning chamber. It’s roomier – roomy enough to keep a safe distance between us – and witchcraft is especially easy in a place of power. I know you wouldn’t want me to get a headache.”
Brother and sister returned to the space in question with the floating swords and rods herding them along and Amora sauntering in their wake. The wall of fire had disappeared without even leaving a smoky smell behind, and the two warriors halted by the head of Mimir. It was maddening, Heimdall thought, that they’d come so close to seizing it only to fail at the last.
“How did you find us?” he asked, partly because he was curious but mostly because while Amora was talking, she wouldn’t be putting him and his sister to death, and maybe that would give him time to think of a way out of this situation. Fortunately, now that she was firmly in control, the enchantress seemed to enjoy gloating and preening. “Was it just bad luck?”
“No.” The sorceress raised her forefinger. A bead of blood clung to the tip. “I helped Skrymir make the entity in the bowl. I put a bit of my life in it, and when you killed it, I felt the death like a pinprick. Now it’s my turn for a question. Does anyone else suspect there’s a traitor in Frigga’s inner circle?”
Perhaps, Heimdall thought, he should lie. Maybe the right falsehood would keep Sif and him alive. But Amora’s green eyes gazed into his, he felt lightheaded, and the truth slipped out before he could stop himself. “Not as far as I know. It was just a possibility that occurred to me.”
Amora laughed. “Well, that’s a relief. From the moment I sensed you trying to find signs of my enchantment in the vault of the Odinsleep, I’ve been fretting about who might suspect what and berating myself for not sealing the door when I slipped out with the head. You forget one little detail, and a whole elaborate plan threatens to unravel.”
“But your magic sealed it after we came out again,” said Sif, “so no one would believe we’d ever been inside.”
“Yes,” the sorceress said, “and I used my magic to kill the sentry you struck unconscious so everyone would be good and angry and even less inclined to listen to you.”
Heimdall gaped at her. “You murdered the guard?”
Amora studied him for a moment, taking in his manifest surprise and relief, and then smirked. “This whole time, you thought you did it, didn’t you? And oh, how it weighed on you. It must be awful to have such a tender conscience.”
Though Heimdall certainly didn’t forget that he and Sif were in dire danger, for a moment he felt a profound relief that he wasn’t a murderer after all. Then came a surge of anger. “You’ll pay for what you did.”
“Seriously? Depths of Ginnugagap, what’s the life of one little nobody in the middle of a war? Anyway, it’s silly for you to threaten me when you’re helpless.”
He supposed she was right, and in any case he shouldn’t bluster and berate her if his goal was to keep her talking while he tried to think of a way out. If he bored or annoyed her, she might respond by commanding the floating swords and staves to kill Sif and him immediately.
Though he was doing his best to come up with a tactic or trick, he was still bereft of
ideas. It occurred to him that the head of Mimir could almost certainly supply one, and after being herded back into the conjuration chamber, he was standing right beside the relic. But of course he couldn’t stretch out his hand to touch it, let alone converse with it, with Amora watching. Any attempt to do so would surely provoke a violent reaction.
“You’re right,” he said, “it’s stupid to threaten you. But can I reason with you? Why side with the frost giants when you’re an Asgardian? When the All-Father has given you so many honors?”
“The problem” Amora replied, “is that he’s given about all he can, and I’m not content to be a mere lady of the court forever. I’m better than that. I want to be a queen, and the peace treaty that ends the war will carve out a piece of Asgard for me to rule.”
“And for that,” snarled Sif, “you’ll betray your homeland and your oaths to the crown.”
Amora laughed again. “You’re so dramatic! This war isn’t Ragnarok. That’s still far in the future. So what does it matter if Asgard loses, cedes some territory, and, for an age or two, pays tribute in gold and slaves? What does it matter even if Odin has to bend the knee to Skrymir and call him master for a while?”
“What you’re overlooking,” Heimdall said, “is that an Asgardian like you can’t trust the frost giants.”
“Oh, I don’t,” Amora said. “Why do you think I didn’t just murder Odin when I had the chance? Because I don’t want Jotunheim to crush Asgard beyond any hope of ever regaining its strength. It’s by playing one off against the other that I and my new realm will survive and prosper. Truly, there’s only one thing I haven’t quite figured out yet, and that’s whether there’s any point to keeping the two of you alive.”
Heimdall had the ghastly feeling Amora was about to decide there wasn’t. He’d chosen not to attack her at the cost of Sif’s life, but if the sorceress was about to kill them both anyway, that had been a bad decision. He’d thrown away his only chance to avenge the murdered sentry and save the people of Asgard and Vanaheim from the misery that would follow upon defeat.
Or perhaps not. His furious promise that Amora would pay in full measure seemed a hollow boast, but maybe he and Sif could at least wreck the enchantress’s scheme by depriving the Jotuns of Mimir’s head and so changing the outcome of the war. It all depended on whether Sif could distract Amora long enough for Heimdall to make his move.
He looked at his sister from the corner of his eye. She was looking back at him, and from the set of her mouth and the general grim cast of her countenance, he perceived they were of the same mind. For whatever reason and despite the threat of all but certain death, she too had decided they must act.
With Amora standing within earshot, Heimdall couldn’t tell his sister what he intended, but she didn’t need to know he was planning to attack the sorceress. She was plainly aching to do that anyway. Telling himself he wasn’t absolutely ordering her to her death, that she might survive the next couple seconds somehow, he gave her a tiny nod.
Sif dropped low, onto her hands. Startled, sure her prisoners were helpless, Amora took a moment to react. That meant the floating implements guided by her will were slow to act as well. Swords thrust and staves clubbed, some of the weapons clanging and clacking together, but all the attacks passed harmlessly over the white wings of Sif’s helm.
Sif scrambled up and rushed Amora with the ritual weapons hurtling in pursuit. Unfortunately, they were flying fast enough to reach Sif before she laid hands on the sorceress.
Still, Sif had given Heimdall the distraction he needed. He raised his fist and slammed it down on top of Mimir’s head, pulverizing the crumbling, desiccated relic. Blinding light exploded from the point of impact.
Twenty-Five
Heimdall reeled, fell to one knee, and, still blind, threw up his hands in what he expected would be a futile attempt to ward off thrusting swords and battering staves. In this instant, he didn’t fear for his own life – at least he and Sif deprived Amora and the frost giants of Mimir’s head before he perished – but hated it that his sister too had to die to accomplish their purpose.
To his surprise, nothing pierced or struck him, but after a moment came the loudest crashing he’d ever heard. Even the storm giant’s thunder hadn’t been as loud, and he reflexively clapped his hands over his ears. But even though the noise was painful, it didn’t deafen him. He knew it hadn’t because a moment later, he heard Sif’s boots pounding the floor. That thudding was almost equally loud.
The dazzling glare before him coalesced into a view of the summoning chamber, his sister, and Amora, but to his amazement, he was seeing everything differently than before. He could make out the tiniest rotten flecks of Mimir’s shattered head littering the floor, every individual strand of black hair sticking out from under Sif’s helm, every minute scratch on her armor and Amora’s green leather boots, dress, and headdress.
The onslaught of hundreds of what should have been imperceptible details made it impossible to comprehend the broad strokes of what was happening. But he had to understand to know if Sif was still alive. Trembling, afraid for both her sake and of the strange condition that had overtaken him, he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. Finally, after what could only have been a moment or two but felt like an age, he did.
To his vast relief, Sif was still alive. He didn’t know what magic he’d released by smashing Mimir’s head, but the explosion must have in some measure affected Lady Amora as well. She’d fumbled her psychic grasp on the flying weapons whereupon all of them, those threatening him and Sif alike, had fallen to the floor. Apparently, that had been the prodigious crashing of a moment before.
Amora was still staggering, and Heimdall felt a surge of hope that Sif would close with the sorceress and dispose of her. But when his sister was nearly there, the witch collected her wits sufficiently to draw herself up straight and stare, and her green eyes glimmered with an inner light. Sif cried out as her limbs locked in position and her running momentum spilled her to the floor. As if the magic had taken a great deal out of her, Amora stumbled through the door and out of sight.
After several grunting, straining moments, Sif broke free of the paralysis and ran after the sorceress. Her footsteps thumped as she prowled from one room to the next, and the breath sighed in and out of her lungs. Heimdall found that the noises kept him aware of her exact location.
She returned to the doorway, spied Heimdall kneeling on the floor, and rushed to crouch beside him. “Are you all right?” she asked. Her voice was intolerably loud, and he flinched.
“Can you whisper?” he asked, doing it himself.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice now hushed and likewise full of concern, “but what’s wrong? Did Amora bewitch you too?”
“It wasn’t Amora. From the sound of things, you didn’t get her.”
“No. She whisked herself away. Or turned invisible. Something. Brother, I can see you’re not right, and I promise we’ll find help for you. But we can’t do that if we’re still here when Amora sends the Jotuns after us. We need to take Mimir’s head and…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed the scraps of broken bone and withered flesh on the stand and the floor around it.
“I didn’t think we could get away with the head,” Heimdall said, “so when you distracted Amora, I smashed it.”
Sif gave a nod. “Good. Now it can’t counsel the frost giants any more. But we still need to go. Can you walk at all? I can carry you if I have to.”
“Yes,” he said. “Walking’s not the problem. When I destroyed the head, something passed from it into me.”
“Amora too, I think. Suddenly she was weaker.”
“As she has mystical perceptions, I think the release of magical forces pummeled her. But since she wasn’t touching the head, I suspect she didn’t get what I received. I hope not.”
“What did you get?” asked Sif. “You make it sound like a boon
, not an affliction.”
“Well, it might be if I can master it,” Heimdall said. “Mimir was said to be wise and likely was. But it turns out that many of his insights came from seeing and hearing what others couldn’t, and I think his powers of sight and hearing have passed to me. As I look at you, I see every pore. Every tiny chip or dull spot on one of your teeth.”
She snorted. “I must look ugly.”
He smiled. “If it’s any consolation, I always thought so anyway.”
“This coming from a man with a face like a horse and a colicky horse at that.” Her expression turned serious. “You said if you can master it.”
“Mimir can’t have walked around all the time seeing and hearing the way I am now. Life would have been unlivable. He must have been able to control his perceptions. Give me a moment, and I’ll see if I can do the same.”
Heimdall willed Sif’s face to look as he was accustomed to seeing it and for all the sounds of respiration, heartbeats, and the whistling wind outside the tower to fade to inaudibility. At first, nothing changed, and, with an upwelling of anxiety, he wondered if the moment when he’d previously controlled his sight had only been a fluke. He insisted to himself that it hadn’t, told himself that Sif couldn’t possibly escape nursing a helpless companion along, and perhaps it was the desperation underlying that thought that finally helped him bring his perceptions under control.
“I think that’s got it,” he said in a normal voice, and it was normal, not a thunderclap buffeting his head.
“Thank the Fates.” The first two words sounded as they should, but Fates was a bellow, and he flinched. “What’s wrong?” his sister asked, her voice still booming.
“Nothing,” he said, straining to hear normally. The effort succeeded. His own voice didn’t sound painfully loud, and besides, they had to move regardless. “I just lost control for a moment.”
The Head of Mimir Page 21