by Matt Larkin
Perhaps that was why the king chose this place, though Sigmund suspected it had more to do with proving that, while Sigmund claimed the favor of Odin, Eylimi’s people too held closeness to the gods. Stories said Thor himself had set the first stones here, though Sigmund found that hard to credit. He did not mention that he had once met the Ás himself.
Great braziers sat between wooden columns, driving away the shadows in the lower level, or at least forcing them up into the rafters of the higher tiers. Outside, blood had stained a stone altar where these people had made sacrifices to the gods, but in here, everything remained pristine. Polished woodwork delicately carved with spirals and knots. A column engraved with a hammer-wielding man that must have been Thor himself.
Eylimi beckoned Sigmund to sit on one of the chairs he’d obviously arranged just for this purpose, himself taking the largest seat—perhaps his very throne brought here. At least he didn’t have the temerity to place his throne in the stepped up dais in the back of the temple.
The Styrian king’s daughter, a pretty young girl probably not yet in the flower of womanhood, brought Sigmund a horn of mead. This he took and raised in salute to the man. Over time, Sigmund had found carrying the runeblade enhanced his already formidable varulf constitution. He’d learned she made him immune to most poisons, a fact he used to his advantage by downing offered drinks without the least fear of betrayal, as now.
Those dishonorable bastards keen to bring him down with poison always watched him intently, never quite able to conceal their surprise when naught befell him for taking their draughts. Eylimi, however, watched him not at all, clearly quite intent on his own drinking horn. In fact, the way he quaffed it, Sigmund would have almost thought the challenge was to see who could empty his horn faster. He had to respect that. And so he chugged the rest of the mead, savoring the sweet aftertaste, then handed the horn off to the girl.
Eylimi belched and passed his own horn off, then slapped his knees. “I’m pleased you accepted my hospitality.”
Sigmund quirked a smile. He’d marched here with an army at his back and asked the king to talk. The man would have been a Hel-damned fool not to offer, though probably he’d expected Sigmund to demand he come into the Rijnlander camp instead.
“Your hospitality does your kingdom proud.”
Eylimi nodded in acceptance. The king had grown old. Older even than Sigmund, and the other man looked it, with his grey beard now gone nigh to white and creases marring his brow and cheeks. Sigmund’s skald had told him that Eylimi’s first daughter—and, at the time, only child—had died some years ago in grief at the death of her husband. According to tales, that had driven Eylimi nigh to madness.
He’d cast out his wife and lived alone for years before finally claiming a new queen. Their young daughter was heir to the throne of Styria. For now.
Sigmund cleared his throat. “I’ve no wish to step around what we both know to be true here. My son now holds the throne of Baia. This brings four of the five kingdoms of Hunaland under my rule.” He shifted in a chair that was not quite comfortable. “I have sworn to see this land united, and one way or another, I shall have that.”
Eylimi frowned and folded his arms. Still surprisingly thick and corded, despite the paleness of his beard. “You think because I’m old, you can come here and browbeat me to get whatever it is you wish?”
“I think you have to face reality, same as any other man.”
Eylimi’s scowl deepened. “Reality? Reality is, you bring your men to the field, you might take the day. But a great many of them will find themselves standing before the gates of Hel in the process.”
“So there is no truth to the rumors that trolls now strike at you out of Aujum?”
“Cocky arse,” Eylimi grumbled under his breath, probably having no idea Sigmund would catch it.
“Bring Styria willingly under my banner, and we’ll help you drive out these threats.”
The king grunted at that, then stared up into the rafters as if he expected Odin himself to show up and offer the answer. “Your terms?”
“The usual. Tribute and oaths of fealty to me and my family. Should we call upon you in times of need, you will come. We offer you the same in return. The details we can work out in the morn … unless it’s to be swords?” Sigmund cocked his head in challenge and ran a thumb over Gramr’s bone hilt.
Eylimi’s face said plainly enough that he’d have liked to have challenged him. That he’d have wanted to humble Sigmund. And that he wouldn’t dare try it. “I suspect talk will suit us both more than swords.”
“Good.” Sigmund slapped his armrests as he rose. “Then I look forward to our talks after the day meal. You’ll come to my camp.”
After all, the great king did not come to call on men. They came to call on him.
Sigmund found Keld waiting in his tent when he came back from the night meal. The thegn’s face was grim—his usual look, in truth.
“Did I not send you to Helgi?”
“Yes, great king. Your son bid me find you when word came of your march here, closer to Baia. I’m to tell you he sails for Sviarland.”
Sigmund groaned. Now what? It seemed every time he so much as left to take a piss, Helgi had some new adventure to undertake. Was becoming king at fifteen winters not enough for the boy?
With a sigh, he collapsed on the bearskin mat that served as his bed and motioned Keld to sit across from him. “I assume he gave you a reason.”
“He contests for the hand of a shieldmaiden we met here, one promised to Hothbrodd.”
“Who?”
“Son of Granmar, King of Njarar.”
Sigmund rubbed his face. Yes, he’d heard Olof Sharpsighted had passed a few winters back, and left the kingdom to his nephew. If the nephew had a son, he couldn’t have been much older than Helgi. “And all this over a shieldmaiden?”
“Sigrún is kin to King Hrethel through her father, Högne. I met her, she is beautiful and strange, though speaking overmuch like a völva for my liking. But Helgi is quite entranced. I pled with him not to pursue this woman—”
Sigmund held up a hand. There was no point in recriminations against Keld on this issue. Sigmund knew his son and the boy had a will that couldn’t be denied. Not even when he was like to start a war over a pretty girl. “He’s well beyond our reach in Njarar.”
Olof Sharpsighted had once been an ally, but neither Granmar nor Hothbrodd would know or care about Helgi’s kin.
“Take the fastest ship you can find and pursue them, Keld.” It would be too late, of course. “Send word when you know what’s happened.”
“And you my king?”
Sigmund couldn’t leave Styria, not when his dream of unifying Hunaland lay within arm’s reach. Indeed, he could do naught save pray Fitela kept Helgi safe.
28
The frozen lake stretched on and on, beautiful and white. Sigyn flew above it, above the mist hovering over it, until, on the far side, she at last resumed her human form. Villagers had claimed a hermit lived out here, a man of ruddy skin and dark hair that could have fit Mundilfari’s description. Then again, this was probably the tenth such recluse she had called upon since coming to Kvenland. Some men, it seemed, shunned the company of others in favor of the wild. Sigyn would have thought that a death sentence, lost alone in the mists, but some few persisted, seeming to prefer the horrors of the wild to the depredations humankind wallowed in.
The woods beyond the lake were equally white and equally drenched in choking mist. Sigyn paused long enough to light a torch, then took off into the forest, head down to search for tracks.
It did not take overlong to find some.
Whoever lived out here thought himself so alone he must not fear being followed back to his dwelling. Careful to remain silent, Sigyn pressed forward, quick as she could while tracking.
All clues pointed to this finally being the man she sought, but then again, she couldn’t be sure until she saw him. Some quarter mile from the lake she foun
d a hut half buried in snow, lit from inside by the flicker of a fire. Pressed up against a tree, she watched the whole area until she was certain no one lurked without. After a few moments of stillness, she drifted closer and closer, until at last she reached the door.
With one hand she applied a light pressure. The door creaked open, totally unbarred. Sigyn stepped into the doorway, torch low enough not to interfere with her vision, but high enough she could thrust it in someone’s face if need be.
Mundilfari sat there, fussing with a small cooking pot over the flame. The dark-skinned man grinned foolishly, stuck a bowl in the pot, and handed it to her.
“It’s fish. Fish. It is good for your belly. I think.”
Sigyn took the offered bowl, sniffed it, then indulged in a small sip of the soup. Too much broth and not nigh to enough seasoning, but she was cold, tired, and hungry, so it would do. “You were expecting me.”
“Expectation is the key to disappointment. When one expects naught, aught that transpires cannot leave one in disappointment.”
Sigyn tapped a finger to her lip. That had not answered her question, and indeed, she had allowed herself to hope, that like Loki, this man might know someone sought him, and so knowing, might allow himself to be found more easily. Perhaps that had happened, though she would not have called her journey here enjoyable, with every passing day taking Hödr farther from her and placing him at the mercy of a Serklander invasion.
“I need your help.”
“Ah. Oh.” He banged his thumbs against his eyebrows. “Oh, yes. I tried to help, once. I tried to make everything bright and better for everyone. I thought I could burn away the mist.” He chuckled. “Burn, burn … replace it with choking ash.”
“Yes, exactly. Fire is the enemy of Mist, so we turn to it. And I—”
“Oh. Ah. Mmmm. Like your lover, willing to embrace the flame on the theory it is better than the cold. Freeze to death, burn to death.” He flicked his fingers as if throwing off drops of water. “Still dead.”
Sigyn frowned. Fire had to be better than Mist. It had to. Fire is life. Everyone knew that. It just had to be controlled, lest it consume those seeking its protection. “I tried to contain the flame, to use it.”
“Oh. So the Firebringer shared the gift with you, did he?”
“No. You did. I found your sanctum, hidden beneath Sessrumnir.”
Now the Vanr narrowed his brows. “One hides things for a reason—the reason being worth considering before digging them up. If a thing is not meant for others, and others go and take it, who is to say whether the thief or the thieved shall suffer more …” He giggled.
“I’m not a thief! I had to do whatever I could to help my son.”
“In a dream, it spoke to me … whispered in anger like the crackle of flame, rekindled … And I dared to hope it but a nightmare born of the … the …” He flicked his fingers again. “My mind is not what it used to be. Hmm. We should all be grateful for that, I suppose.” He flashed his teeth, then mumbled incoherent nonsense under his breath.
“No, you speak the truth. I … Eldr is free now, and he has taken over my son.”
“Ash sparks again … mistakes we bury rise from the dust … I think I forgot something.”
Sigyn set down the soup bowl and crawled over to sit beside the ancient Vanr. “I am begging you to help me undo what I have done. I love my son, Mundilfari. I cannot lose him.”
“Mistakes … we are all tormented by our mistakes as they perpetuate cycles of damnation, one leading to the next and the next. Such is the agony of history. They tell me … the world has died a great many times … measured in eras.” He rammed his thumbs against his eyebrows. “And we repeat the mistakes … again and again, we—”
Sigyn grabbed the sorcerer by the shoulders and shook him. “Focus! You once told me you owed Loki more than you could ever repay, that he saved you from being lost in madness?” Though maybe her husband had only managed half that task. “This is his son we speak of. Loki’s child needs you.”
“Oh. Oh, I think the child of Loki will have me, sooner or later.”
“Then you plan to assist me?”
“Wandering, far shores, searching, waiting, watching … I was … Oh. Well, I have not set foot in Vanaheim in an age of the world. And now it is like to be changed. Everything changes.”
More changed than he could imagine, no doubt. “We don’t need to go to Vanaheim. Hödr is in Valland.”
She hoped he was yet there.
“Oh? Oh.” He raised a finger. “Ah, but I’d need something from my study.”
Oh, wonderful. Sigyn stifled her groan. “Fine. Your people are not there, sorcerer, nor any who might recognize you. I am begging you to return with me and help me make amends for this error.”
“Eyes.”
What now? Did he …? “You know this was about Hödr’s eyes?”
“A man who sees the future sires a blind son. The Norns are fond of irony. They lace their webs with its venom.” He quirked the hint of a smile.
Sigyn almost slapped him. “Do I look amused to you?”
“We the pawns, never are, when we see our place for what it is. The Firebringer is lucky in you. Oh.” The sorcerer clucked his tongue. “You wanted to grant sight where none was meant to dwell. A wish granted and then revoked must naturally take with it all the benefits it once bestowed.”
Sigyn had long begun to fear as much, and hearing it now all but confirmed left her shivering. “You mean, if you exorcise Eldr from Hödr, my son will be blind again. He would have known sight, but only as a slave to a monster. Would it not then have been better for him had he never known the visible world at all?”
“There are worse fates.” He chuckled. “Oh. Yes. And all of us, caught in this web, we shall see those too. Urd is cruel.”
So she knew all too well.
29
Ten Years Ago
Sunlight bathed so much of Sessrumnir that, walking in the shadows of its depths struck Sigyn with a malaise her eagerness could not quite eclipse. In the years she had spent delving through the tomes of this place, she had rarely come down here. Underground, free from distractions, one could find the void chambers where Freyja and other Vanir had once practiced sorcery, as well as cellars housing the more volatile of alchemical components.
Neither held much interest for Sigyn at the moment though. Some few of Freyja’s writings offered oblique references to Mundilfari’s secret study, which, given that he had been Freyja’s tutor, must have existed in Sessrumnir. And a hidden refuge of the Mad Vanr—that held all the interest in the world.
Torch high behind her head, she ran fingers along the wall as she meandered through long hallways—tunnels, really—carved into the mountainside. Many bore glyphs and runes. Some she suspected were wards against various types of vaettir or—and it was the same thing, in truth—against scrying by other sorcerers.
Mundilfari’s many writings indicated he was the first sorcerer amongst the Vanir, but, not the first in Midgard. He had learned his Art from somewhere, but he had never elucidated where. Regardless, he may have known arcana and eldritch lore he chose not to share even with his apprentices. The man himself was out there, in Midgard, wandering like a vagrant—or like Odin—searching for something. Perhaps for his lost humanity or his shattered mind. In his absence, though, Sigyn dared to hope his sanctum might solve her dilemma.
She came to a sconce and lit it with her torch, adding a touch more illumination to these tunnels. Beside the sconce was another door. Like many of those down here, they had been locked. Sigyn had taught herself to pick locks, at least until she had opened Freyja’s chambers and realized the former lady of this palace had keys to all the doors. This room housed reagents that could explode if exposed to air—a lesson that had nigh cost her life.
She frowned. She had tried every alchemical remedy for her son in the Vanir’s records, even some of the questionable formulae put forth by Gullveig, whom she suspected had fallen to madness
herself before Frigg murdered her.
Eir had helped, too, but none of them had made the slightest difference. The answers Sigyn sought didn’t lie in exotic herbs or brews.
Clucking her tongue, she pushed on, still running her fingers along the wall. A slight variation in the stonework gave her pause. Here.
Her enhanced senses included a refined sense of touch that had numerous unexpected uses. And if that wasn’t Mundilfari’s sanctum, it at least meant something hidden lurked behind this wall. No obvious markings separated one section from the next, but then, none would. The sorcerer had no doubt conjured some Earth vaettr to build this—a dverg, perhaps. Sigyn drew her fingertips over the wall, starting as high as she could reach and running back and forth lower and lower.
Until at last a segment no larger than the pad of her thumb gave way. This she pushed in. Stone began to grind on stone and a shower of dust poured out of cracks that framed a previously indistinguishable door. This door ground up into the roof of the tunnel, revealing another passage that vanished into darkness. Stale air blew out, stealing her breath and setting her coughing. Maybe no one had trod here in nigh unto a thousand years.
Sigyn pushed inward, torch at her side to keep from interfering with her night vision. No cobwebs had arisen in here. The old sorcerer had used so tight a seal not even spiders managed ingress. Her boots kicked up a cloud of long settled dust as she edged down the hall. It ended in an iron door, this too locked.
One by one she tried every key on Freyja’s ring, but none fit. Not that she had truly expected them too. Sigyn pulled out the artisan’s tools she kept in a satchel and set to fiddling with the lock.
It had been several years since she’d needed to do this, and it took her a while before her enhanced hearing caught the satisfying click of success. The door stuck, however, and she had to shoulder it. It creaked open to let out a rush of more stale air.