by Matt Larkin
Loki swallowed, uncertain what to say to her. That it would be all right? A lie, of course, and he didn’t believe in lying, least of all to her. Even if he could never tell her everything, he’d not lie. “I bore that responsibility a very long time … for eons. So long I cannot much remember what life was like without it.”
She drew him close, arm around his waist. “We’ll figure it out. At least we’re still here, the three of us. Together.”
Yes. For now. Naught lasts forever.
And she could not yet imagine the suffering her actions would lead to. The weight Loki himself would one day bear because of her mistakes.
Such pain stung all the more—when others paid for one's own errors.
“I relied on flame to hold back the darkness and the mist. And now, for the first time, I have no power to fall back upon. How am I to protect you?”
Sigyn squeezed him tighter. “Same as the rest of us, I guess.”
Loki shut his eyes and shuddered.
Should he tell her?
No.
Knowing the future and remaining powerless to avert it, that was the worst of torments.
Author’s Ramblings
I mentioned that The High Seat of Asgard was one of the most challenging books I’ve ever written. This one is a close second, as indeed, I suspect this entire second trilogy to prove. One of the main difficulties here becomes how to structure interlaced events taking place over a span of time greater than those of typical novels and at the same time carry forth the scope of so many characters involved in these myths.
As before, my original outline went through a lot of revisions, with the essence of the story remaining unchanged, but the telling of it reorganized. Among these changes, up until I had actually begun writing, I’d intended to tell Fitela and Helgi’s stories through Fitela’s point of view. Once I was deep in the guts of the book, however, I realized that while those stories connected to the others, they way they did so was so tertiary as to risk seeming disconnected from the main narrative.
The difficult choice to remove those chapters did, however, allow me a bit more space to further flesh out some things that otherwise felt pushed to the side. Even so, there remains so much more I could develop, which I comfort myself in supposing I might someday write as another series. For Gods of the Ragnarok Era, I felt I needed to keep the tale as focused on Odin and the Aesir’s struggles as possible.
Which said, fans of the Runeblade Saga no doubt see numerous callbacks to it.
Additionally, of course, this second trilogy sees significant focus placed upon Sigmund and his son Sigurd (as arguably the greatest heroes of Norse myth). Sigmund’s tragic death was always a part of the inspiring myth and thus had to become an inevitable destination for this arc, even if Odin only realized it later on. What we see of Sigmund’s (and forthcoming Sigurd’s) saga will naturally be the parts that best relate to his interactions with the Aesir and his uses to Odin.
Relating to the Aesir, one thing that I—and others attempting to retell myth—have sometimes find necessary is amalgamating originally distinct characters for the sake of a cohesive narrative. For example, Gridr is the female jotunn who warns Thor of Geirrod’s treachery. She is not, however, originally a daughter of Geirrod (those were Greip and Gjalp). And while there is reason to believe Thor may have had an affair with Gridr as well (as did Odin), the mother of his son was actually Jarnsaxa. This convoluted mess of giantesses served to create a narrative jumble without any cohesion. Consequently, I merged them into a single jotunn female.
Other aspects of the tale also required adjustment based on the tenuous and sometimes contradictory chronology of Norse mythology. For example, a great many poems make reference to the death of Balder (Baldr), including the one involving Vafthrudnir. Balder’s death is usually the first spark of Ragnarok and thus Odin might have gone seeking all this wisdom after it. Logistically, though, it becomes questionable that the father would go off on all these adventures after his son’s death but before his funeral or the consequences of the murder.
On a thematic level, The Well of Mimir dives deeper into one of the underlying conceits of Norse mythology (also found in many Indo-European myths): that of fate. Knowing the future does not allow mythic heroes to avoid it. Indeed the very knowledge may often create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has been argued that the moral decay and compromises the Aesir make as their desperation grows ultimately lead to the beginnings of their own destruction. Along with an idea in the Prose Edda regarding the “gods” being human, this idea became one of the fundamental conceits I relied upon in retelling and re-conceiving the story of the Aesir. The characters in this series are most often responsible for their own tragedies and—in Odin and Loki’s case—perhaps all the more so because of their foreknowledge of the future.
And no character comes out unscathed. Every mistake or misdeed necessitates another, leaving no one’s hands clean. There are no saints. We see this in the desperate and often despicable actions Odin, Sigyn, and Tyr take.
With the fifth of nine planned books complete, we are now more than halfway through that tragic end. I have sometimes thought that a good book (or movie) is one where you’re still thinking about it the next day (or for several days longer). In that vein, I hope you’ll be thinking about this tale for a while more.
For unwavering support, I want to thank my wife. I couldn’t have gotten here without you, Juhi. Thanks to Clark for helping me work out some of these tricky plot points. Also, special thanks to my cover designer (because holy shit!) and to my Arch Skalds (in no particular order): Al, Tanya, Kimberly, Jackie, Dale, Missy, Grant, Lisa Marie, Bill, Rachel, Barbara, Bob, Kaye, Mike, and Regina.
Thank you for reading,
Matt
P.S. Now that you’ve read The Well of Mimir I would really appreciate it if you’d leave a review! Reviews help new readers find my work, so they’re very helpful. Thank you in advance for helping me build and grow my author career!
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The Radiance of Alfheim
Prologue
Yggdrasil’s majestic canopy brushed the sky, seeming almost tall enough to drink from the clouds, while its roots wormed their way to the farthest reaches of the world. On the bridge leading up to the great tree, Loki paused to admire its grandeur. Naught else in the world truly compared. It was the tree that bound all the realms together, that perpetuated the Wheel of Life, and that had first engendered the myriad creatures of the world.
Its leaves held a tether to the souls of every living person. Those must fall, of course. The end of this era marched ever closer, as it must, as urd demanded.
Loki’s role was to ensure that happened.
Sigyn’s hand fell on his shoulder. His wife had extraordinary intuitive abilities, enhanced by her acute senses, that oft allowed her to discern a person’s emotions by the shift in their posture, their facial muscles, or perhaps even by more subtle means. Even Loki could not always disguise his discontentment from her keen observations. “I wish you’d tell me what you fear.”
“No, you do not.”
“Do you mean to imply that I wouldn’t want to know what it is you fear, or rather that I enjoy unraveling your mysteries too much to let you spoil them with straightforward answers?”
He glanced at her.
She had a wry grin spread across her face, as if to say she well knew he meant both answers.
“History doesn’t oft allow us to do what we might wish.” He drew her into an embrace and she leaned up to kiss his cheek.
“Maybe you worry too much over history. The present matters, too.”
How was he to answer such a statement? He could tell her the truth—that the division between past, present, and future could well become blurred for an oracle. Separate, in the sense that currents in the ocean were separate, and yet, hopelessly entwined in a system of complexity beyond the scope of human comprehension. The web
of urd reached out into infinity, connecting all the days of all the eras into the ultimate puzzle.
His heart felt it would burst from desire to speak thus. To unburden himself by sharing with her the terrible truths of existence, the weight of his role as a slave of urd. But he could not see how sharing such knowledge would do aught save press her down as well, and she was the last one he wanted to see suffer.
Of course, she would suffer. They all would. They’d pay for their mistakes a thousand times over, and for the mistakes of others. As would he.
“Sometimes you seem almost ready to explode, despite no longer having that Fire vaettr inside. I just wish you’d let me …” Sigyn broke off abruptly, looking to Yggdrasil, where Odin now emerged from within the tree. “This conversation isn’t over.”
It never truly was. She always thought she could save him. Or maybe she had already saved him, was saving him, simply by being here, by his side.
Watching the world die.
Again.
Odin’s gait was slow, his weight heavy on his walking stick. Time was less kind to him than to Loki and, in truth, the better part of the blame for that might also fall at Loki’s feet. Odin had foreseen the same end Loki had. The two of them would not part this era as brothers, the way they’d lived. So desperately did Loki wish to turn away from that. To sever the strands of urd, to abate the fall, to deny fate.
But there was no denying it. Even time could not last forever. So what hope did brotherhood have?
No, Odin would soon be gone.
“You’re leaving again,” Loki said when Odin drew nigh and paused in front of him.
Odin nodded. “I only came back to see to a few things. I’ll be needed in Reidgotaland soon.”
Loki forced his face to remain impassive. He had a role to play, however much it pained him. Some things could not be changed. “Your machinations will hurt a lot of people.” As if Loki was one to speak of such things. As if his hands were not drenched in blood and plastered with the suffering of more lives than Odin could even imagine. “You treat Sigurd as but a tool, a sword fit only to serve your ends.”
Odin’s gaze darted to Sigyn for an instant. “I’m doing what I have to. I’d expect you of all people to understand the burdens of foresight.”
Oh, Loki understood all too well. Odin had become a stronger oracle than even him, but his prescience was not tempered by the experience of millennia upon millennia, of watching the world die in an unending cycle of destruction. One that Loki could not break, no matter how he tired of sifting through the ashes. “Are you sure you’re doing what you’re doing for Ragnarok? Or is it but to get back to Freyja?”
Still, even knowing the price he risked for trying to subvert urd, did Loki not have to try? It was a shadowed move, a subtle tug on but one strand of the web. A chance, however small, that his prodding might create a better future, unnoticed by the others.
He knew better, though. Fate shackled him, as it shackled them all.
Regardless, Odin didn’t deny Loki’s accusation, instead, just clapped him on the arm and ambled his way on, across the bridge.
“He’s going to sacrifice more people,” Sigyn said.
It wasn’t really a question, so Loki offered no answer. Aught he might have said would have tasted of bitter hypocrisy.
Besides, she was right. Odin’s plots would unravel a great many lives in the days to come.
And Loki would let him.
Part I
Year 69, Age of the Aesir
Summer
(18 Years After The Well of Mimir)
1
There is a darkness, deeper than the mere absence of light, festering in the hollow places beneath the world, where dvergar carved out tunnels long before the rise of the Old Kingdoms. Before the Vanir broke empires so ancient man has forgotten they ever existed. In such places, the Veil grows thin and Midgard draws perilously close to the Otherworlds.
Into such a tunnel, arms caked in dried blood, Sigurd descended, bearing a great sack of plunder over his shoulder and a sputtering torch in one hand. While the better portion of the dvergar had retreated to Nidavellir—those not driven from the Mortal Realm entirely—still one yet remained here, beneath Cimbria in Reidgotaland, where mountains broke the landscape.
Their peaks had naught on their neighbors further north nor to the south, or so Sigurd had heard, though they had a feral beauty of their own. They jutted along the Cimbrian highlands, rocky, but in summer, covered in moss too tough to surrender to the snows. In a few places, fjords carved out paths between the mountains, giving access to the sea and an abundance of fish.
At night—some nights—Regin let him wander the banks or swim or catch food for them. Regin himself scarce ventured beyond the network of tunnels dug into the rocky slopes, and with good reason. Thanks to the liosalfar, no dverg could tolerate the rays of sunlight and thus, none dared trek much beyond the safety of their warrens.
Sigurd’s foster father sent him out instead, to bring back food or news or on a few occasions, slave girls to sate the dverg’s lusts. Sigurd’s too, these days, for he had seventeen winters behind him and a powerful need to spend himself as oft as possible.
But this day, those traders fool enough to venture into the untamed lands had brought no women with them, laden instead with sacks of silver minted in Valland and no doubt carried on through Hunaland and into Reidgotaland. Perhaps they traded with the South Realmers, though Sigurd knew precious little of such things. Hunaland though … from Hunaland Sigurd’s forebears had come and there he must one day return.
With the tip of his tongue, he could already taste the blood of those who had wronged his kin. With the clenching of his fist, he could feel their slowing pulse as he squeezed the life from their wretched throats. His kingdom waited for him to reclaim it.
His torch cast the winding tunnels in a dance of shadows that seemed to flicker in response to his musings, writhing like his foes would soon writhe. More like than not, Sigurd could have walked this route blind. How many times had he navigated this path? More than he could count, that much was certain.
After following the route a good deal longer, he came into a hall carved out beneath the mountain. The tunnel ended in it, framed by columns engraved with coiling serpents that seemed to stare at Sigurd in the torchlight, and leading into a much higher-ceilinged chamber not so very unlike the hall of a mortal king. If such a king could have a roof stretching ten times his height and a hall so vast the braziers at its entrance failed to illuminate its breadth.
Sigurd jammed his torch into one of those braziers and continued onward. The clank of hammer on anvil greeted him as he passed beyond the great hall. This place might’ve once housed a hundred or more dvergar, but now it belonged to Regin alone, and he used little of it. Mostly just sleeping chambers and the forge.
Sigurd tossed the sack aside with a clank and started for the archway that led down to the deep forge.
The dverg had regaled Sigurd time and again about the wondrous craftwork of his kin in Nidavellir. The sons of Modsognir had crafted the ancient runeblades gifted to the princes of the Old Kingdoms, in their, perhaps vain, attempts to forestall the dissolution of their own empire. Those great works had changed the face of Midgard. Regin had long studied such arts, fancying himself the equal of the princes, or even of the accursed dark smith Volund.
Dverg pride, no doubt, but still Regin slaved away at his forge, crafting swords and helms and claiming one day his name would be whispered with awe throughout Midgard and beyond.
The deep forge lay beneath the great hall, down a narrow path that descended over a precipitous drop down one side that—were Sigurd to fall—would see him plummet a hundred feet or more. This path ended before a circular structure with no roof and but a single archway to enter it. Within burned fires heated from deep beneath the world, blazing hotter than any human forge could hope to achieve.
Sigurd paused at the threshold, peering inside as Regin hammered away at a sw
ord of—unless he missed his guess—dverg steel. Preciously rare, the metal was stronger than aught known to the realm of men. From it, dvergar crafted arms and armor that kings would’ve emptied their treasuries and sold their own children to possess. Armaments with which they might easily win new kingdoms, in fact.
Regin had forged mail of dverg steel for Sigurd not so long back, and it had turned blades and arrows on more than one occasion when he ventured out to prey on caravans.
“I found men bearing South Realmer silver,” he said when Regin at last deigned to look at him.
The dverg sneered, then spat over his shoulder, the spray sizzling in the flame for an instant. “Pittances, no doubt.”
Sigurd shrugged. A decent haul, in his estimation, but Regin was not one to praise any success. “Banditry has limits in lands most men dare not wander.”
Always, some tried the overland route, perhaps hoping to avoid pirates on the Morimarusa while venturing toward the northern cities. Large groups came, sometimes too large for him to ambush, dverg armor or no. Mostly, he sought out small parties who thought themselves bold in testing the forest.
Sigurd stalked the woodlands around Cimbria, hoping to catch such brazen wayfarers, and considering women as good or better prizes than any troves of silver. While the dverg seemed to lust after all that glittered as much as any female, Sigurd found it hard to stick his cock in a bag of coins. And girls tended not to last nigh so long as Sigurd might’ve liked down here. Regin had declared the last girl he’d brought of noble blood, and thus—after using her once and allowing Sigurd to do the same—had insisted they eat her heart and consume the power inherent therein. Pneuma, Regin called it, a vital energy that suffused all beings but concentrated itself more strongly in some few.