by Matt Larkin
Darkness shrouded the room beyond, so she trod forward with slow, measured steps. Beyond the shadows, more tables, bookcases, scrolls. All not unlike the library of the Art found in one of the towers of Sessrumnir. But, here, perhaps, she might find secrets Mundilfari concealed even from Freyja and the others.
In the corner stood a marble statue of a woman Sigyn didn’t recognize. She gave it a bare moment’s inspection. Mundilfari’s taste in sculpture meant naught. Sigyn sought a far different Art.
A brazier sat in the center of the room, the kindling in it somehow not rotted. Because the room was sealed? Sigyn lit the brazier then settled down at one of the tables. To begin pouring over Mundilfari’s scrolls.
As she had hoped, the ancient sorcerer had kept journals, though sporadic ones clearly never intended for anyone else to read, much less make sense of. He spoke of his encounters with the first sorceress, one Svarthofda, though where she had learned the Art he did not state. He did, however, indicate she paid homage to Hel …
No matter how many years passed, that name could not help but shock her anew. The thought that her husband had sired the dark goddess proved an idea Sigyn could not quite accept.
She flipped through more pages in the musty tome.
Loki had known aught was wrong with their son, even before he was born. He had fucking known and did naught to fix it. Sigyn blew out a long breath. And now her husband rarely came back to Asgard, hiding, on the excuse he had to watch over Odin. A rift had grown between the blood brothers, but at present, Sigyn did not care to work through that puzzle.
If Loki would not help her, perhaps Mundilfari’s ravings held the answer.
In a world consumed by Mist, the natural and inevitable course seemed to turn to its opposite for succor.
Sigyn tapped a finger to her lip. The Vanr scholars posited nine Spheres of Creation, each with its own corresponding world into the Spirit Realm. No neat duality existed between the spheres, per se, but many had observed antithetical relationships between multiple spheres. Mist being a force of cold and entropy, one could generally assume Wood, Sun, and most especially Fire to stand in opposition to it.
The sorcerer went on, rambling about spirits of ash and flame and how he, perhaps in error, mistook them for more benevolent than the abominations billowing forth from Mist.
For they could speak beautifully and lull one with the promises of wishes granted.
Wishes?
Sorcerers in the Serkland Caliphate made pacts with Fire vaettir. It was, she suspected, how they kept the mist at bay in their realm. And if these vaettir could grant wishes, it would explain how the caliphs maintained their hold over such a vast empire as was rumored to lie in lands beyond the Midgard Wall. And Mundilfari had perhaps come from those lands? Had he arrived at the same conclusion, or, perhaps, even led the Serkland sorcerers to reach it?
Sigyn’s stomach grumbled. How long had she been down here? She stretched, and her spine cracked. She blew out a long breath. No—she would rest when she had her answers. Her son had waited long enough for a cure to his condition.
If these Fire vaettir could grant wishes, she would find out how Mundilfari had evoked them. Then she would call one up and make whatever bargain necessary to save her child.
30
Sweat stung Odin’s eyes. It rolled down his aching back in rivers.
Red-gold chains bound his arms, keeping them apart and drawing them close to fires that blazed on either side of him. True to his word, the jotunn king—Geirrod—had kept Odin warm. He’d chained him beneath his hall, in a furnace. Twin flames roared up through grates in the floor, each enough to scorch Odin’s hands.
The small room caught the heat and held it inside like the ovens South Realmers sometimes used. That heat had wrung him out and left him feeling hollow. Faint and ready to collapse.
And these chains—orichalcum—prevented him from calling upon Audr to escape them. Had he realized with what Geirrod intended to bind him, perhaps Odin would have chanced fighting even so many jotunnar.
The cell’s door opened and the jotunn king slipped in, ducking his head. A smaller jotunn—a boy, really—follow him, his frown a stark contrast to his father’s obvious glee. The boy had not yet tasted the flesh of man and thus was not so given over to chaos.
Geirrod stalked close to Odin and grabbed his hair, hefting his head up at an awkward angle, staring into his eyes. “Who are you, wizard?”
Odin almost chuckled. What did names matter? “Call me Grimnir.”
“And what do you wish here?”
“Just a traveler passing through with my children.” Where were Geri and Freki? Did they fare better? Surely Geirrod could not have had so many orichalcum chains.
Geirrod yanked on Odin’s hair until it felt strands would rip out by the roots. “Speak truth, little man.”
Odin chortled, staring defiance at the petty jotunn king. “There is a place plated in silver, where the Aesir watch you and see your vile deeds. Do you think they know how you treat your guests?”
The jotunn dropped Odin’s hair and let his head fall. “So pray to your false gods that your soul reach them and not the true Goddess.”
“Oh … There is a place prepared for Aesir, you petulant buffoon. Where Gladsheimr once stood now rises the glory of Valhalla. Odin’s chosen gather there …”
Geirrod snarled, then slapped Odin. The blow sent a haze of white filling his vision and it took Odin a moment to blink it away. “Do you truly wish to draw this out with riddles, old man?”
“What I wish seems to matter so little. Do you know that serpents coil beneath the roots of Yggdrasil? Vile creatures beyond number devouring our world, while you sit here engrossed in your petty games, knowing naught of truth.”
The jotunn king growled.
No word Odin could say was like to secure his release. So he’d hardly give this bastard the satisfaction of his cooperation. Loki had trained Odin well in the arts obfuscation. Let the fool jotunn lord falter in his attempts to unravel Odin’s warnings.
Geirrod must have sensed he wouldn’t win this, for a dark grin spread over his face. The jotunn then revealed claw-like protrusions jutting from the fingers of one hand. He stalked around behind Odin, and Odin found himself tensing. Ready for the pain.
Or he had thought himself ready. The jotunn king dug one of those claws into Odin’s back and began to draw a wicked gouge out between his shoulder blades. Odin hissed a painful breath then clenched his teeth trying not to cry out despite the haze of red filling his vision. He shuddered with the pain, grunting with each breath.
The savage cutting went on and on, one way and then another.
And then Geirrod yanked a narrow stretch of Odin’s skin free and Odin could not hold back his screams of agony. He wailed, unable to catch his breath in the smoky, scorching air.
The king tromped back in front of Odin, a bloody hunk of flesh the size of Odin’s forearm dangling from his hand. Casually, he tore into it with wolflike teeth.
Odin felt apt to retch, his gut churning at watching the jotunn devour his body.
The king tore off a hunk of flesh and handed it to his son. “First step toward manhood, I reckon.” With a claw, he worked a piece of dangling meat out from between his teeth. Meat—pieces of Odin.
The boy bit into the flesh, looking ill as he did so.
Not nigh to as ill as Odin felt though. Sometimes, he wished the apple would have let him die like other men. Sometimes he wanted to beg for death.
The rivers of sweat had given way to tiny streams. The body held only so much moisture.
For eight days Odin had lingered here. Without an apple, a mortal man could not have survived the heat, much less the blood loss.
Mad with paranoia, the jotunn king had tortured Odin over and over. Much as Odin dared to hope his children had not suffered as he had, he could not bring himself to believe it.
The fires singed the edge of Odin’s cloak. If that caught flame, he might yet die dow
n here.
The cell’s door creaked open, but it was not the king who came in, but rather his son, a boy with perhaps ten winters behind him. With a furtive glance around, the boy drew the door shut behind him, then padded over to where Odin was bound.
Merely stepping inside this furnace had sweat already matting the boy’s pale hair to his forehead. In his hands, he bore a large drinking horn. “Water,” he said, and lifted the horn to Odin’s lips.
Odin drank greedily. The liquid stung his parched throat so roughly he gagged. The boy held the horn away while Odin choked and coughed. Then, more slowly, he allowed Odin another sip, and another, until Odin had drained the entire horn.
“Thank you.”
“It’s wrong … what my father’s doing to you. You ain’t done naught, and still he’s torturing an innocent man.”
And the boy had eaten his flesh, even if the father had given him no choice. “What’s your name?”
“Agnar.” The boy shrugged. “Agnar Geirrodson, after my uncle.”
The edge of Odin’s cloak smoldered. He kicked at it, caught it with his foot, then jerked it away from the fires and stomped out the embers of it. “My mantle burns …”
Agnar rubbed his face. Not even a hint of beard yet. “I can’t release you.”
Odin chuckled mirthlessly. Of course the boy couldn’t defy his father and king, at least not overmuch. But the water was a start. “Eight days and nights I’ve waited here between these fires. You alone offered me food or water. So you alone shall rule this land one day, this I promise.”
Agnar snorted. “Even if you were a sorcerer, you can’t change what is. Father will keep eating, and keep living a long time, I reckon.”
“I am … Odin. King of Asgard …”
The boy’s eyes widened.
“And I have already sworn you’ll find ample reward for the drink you offered me.” His mind felt sluggish. Like it pulled apart and struggled to travel in a dozen directions all on its own. “I called to Hrist for a drink … she couldn’t hear me in this place …”
“Who?”
Odin shook his head to clear it. A fresh sheen of sweat had begun to build on his brow. “Do you know Asgard? It’s … beautiful. Sacred halls for … Thor … he’s out there. I should have gone with him … But I spied the secrets from Valaskjalf. My hall … I’d welcome you there, boy …”
“You’ve got the fevers,” Agnar said. He drew a rag and mopped Odin’s brow with it. “I’ll beg father to set you free. I’m sure he didn’t know who you really were.”
“Oh, but you knew … I can see the glorious halls in Asgard. Breidablik and Folkvang and Glitnir. Great men and women … wait there. For the end. I have to … I have to … find the well. Save them … All of them. My children …”
Agnar knelt beside him. “The varulfur.”
“Geri and Freki … I raised them as my own. They are my children … The whole world is dying, boy … Yggdrasil is rotting from within … consumed by the serpents … Threats, everywhere … I don’t know how … I don’t see enough … I have to see the end … it’s coming …”
The already pale boy had turned ashen white. He backed away slowly, as if staring at a viper. If only Odin could make his mind work more clearly, he might sway the boy. But after so long without proper sleep and dehydrated, everything seemed muddled.
Agnar backed into the door and paused there. “I’ll find a way to make this right.” And he left, fleeing from sights he clearly had no desire to see.
But Odin could not flee. Strange visions bombarded his mind. Fires raging out of control, sweeping over Midgard and turning armies into ash and cinders. Earthquakes consuming entire cities. A serpent of unimaginable size waking and flooding the world with its wrath. The dead marching.
And somewhere, in the darkness, a wolf howled.
31
In a few days, they’d find the breach and—Sif hoped—Hrungnir’s still abandoned fortress. If another jotunn lord had taken over the hold, she didn’t much see how she, Thor, and Loki would find a way through. Only, Thor would try. When not drunk, he flew into rages or bouts of desperate melancholy. In neither case, though, did he waver in his insistence upon reaching his father out in Utgard.
Mist-madness. Both men she traveled with had lost their minds to the mist, leaving her no one with whom she could appeal to reason. Perhaps Odin’s blood brother could have talked sense into Thor, but Loki’s motives remained incomprehensible, save that strange visions drove him to stranger purposes.
Hel, but she missed the twins. Even driven by the wildness of the vaettir inside them, they at least remained—mostly—understandable in their motivations.
As dusk drew nigh, they dipped into a valley in the hopes of shelter. Loki continued leading the way unerringly, as if guided by fey insight. Perhaps he was.
They’d ridden the goat cart most of the way, but in the valley, they dismounted and proceeded on foot, Thor guiding the animals by the reins.
“There’s smoke rising from the mist,” Loki said as they pushed on.
From the slopes, they’d seen a small forest down here, clustered around a lake, though Sif could make out little detail through the mist. Still, it stood to reason, if people were to live in these mountains, so close to the wall, they’d choose this spot.
Either way, she prayed someone hospitable lived here. The pace Loki had set had left little time for hunting or snares—not that she expected Thor would’ve stopped for it in any event. Even the thought of something hot to eat sent her stomach rumbling. Had it really been two days since she finished the last of that wolf? Wolves were tough, gamey, poor eating. Unless a woman was starving, of course.
Guided by Loki, they entered the forest, tromping amidst evergreens and pines while the mists drifted among them, a rapidly thickening cloud.
“We need to stop and light a torch,” Sif finally said. “I can barely see.”
Grumbling, Thor stomped over, grabbed a low-hanging branch from a pine tree, and ripped it clean off the trunk. “Light it.”
“Torches need oil,” Sif snapped. And her supplies of that had begun to run precariously low. Who knew what they’d do beyond the wall. This whole mission was ill-conceived. After tossing aside the useless stick Thor offered, Sif dug out one of the last prepared torches she had, doused the rag on the end in as little oil as she could make do with, and then struck flint over it.
It didn’t light. She tried again. Already the sun had set, leaving them in oppressive darkness that felt like a noose closing around her neck.
Thor grumbled, shifting his feet, crunching pine needles and dirt beneath them. Only a light dusting of frost coated the ground now. Small blessings.
Loki trudged over and knelt beside her torch. Looked her in the eye a moment, obvious concern on his face. “Fire is life.”
“The mist doesn’t kill immortals,” Thor said, no longer even looking at them.
Loki held his hand close to the oil-coated rag and—a look of concentration on his face—snapped his fingers. Sparks flew from those digits much as they’d been flint themselves. Several landed upon the rags and it caught.
Sif gaped. Magic? She found it hard to even form words. “Seid?”
Loki stared at her but offered no answer save to take the torch and continue his trek onward.
By the fucking gates of Hel … who was this man? Odin’s blood brother worked magic Sif had never seen from even a völva. Did that make him a sorcerer? A true practitioner of the Art? The thought was a lance of ice churning through her guts.
Still kneeling, she glanced around them. Her instincts warned her to run. Loki and Thor were already pressing on, through the mists. But Sif could run the other way, keep running until she cleared the mountains and make her way back to Holmgard. Back to some semblance of sanity.
Expect … Thor. How could she leave him? How could she abandon her husband?
Men called her foster father Gylfi a sorcerer, but Sif had never seen him pull fire from now
here. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know how Loki did it. Odin worked the Art—behind his back, the Aesir called him unmanly and corrupted—but he rarely spoke of it, so far as Sif knew. And here, his blood brother did the same.
Fuck.
Having little other choice, she chased after the men, catching them shortly.
Loki led them to the lakeside, where a small cabin stood—the source of the smoke they’d seen earlier.
Sif’s stomach rumbled again.
Barely hesitating, Thor tromped over and banged upon the door. Its whole frame shuddered under the weight of his blows. “Open up. We’re men, not vaettir.”
A thick silence.
“Open the door!”
“H-how do I know you’re men?” His accent was thick with Bjarmaland’s harsh sounds.
Loki stepped closer. “We have a torch. Can you see its light seeping under the frame?”
Sif frowned. Torches were said to keep back the mist and thus some of its vaettir. But she hardly thought it impossible a vaettr in possession of a human host would carry a torch. Loki didn’t lie, but his words would bemuse whoever lived here.
Indeed, after a moment, the door opened a crack.
In the torchlight, Sif could just make out a man’s face, his sandy beard starting to go gray.
The man stared at the torch, then at Thor. The decision visibly warred on his face. The fear of all men on meeting a stranger. One didn’t turn away guests. To do so violated the laws of hospitality and risked the wrath of the gods—of the Aesir, men claimed. Ironic how true that would prove tonight. Still, who would not fear to invite unknown men into their home?
He didn’t hesitate long, though, but threw the door open and beckoned them inside.
Sif followed the others in. The man led them to his fire pit where a young man and woman sat, each perhaps with fifteen or sixteen winters behind them. His children, no doubt. Sif saw no sign of a wife, so she must have succumbed to the harsh land.