by Matt Larkin
And then he passed from the cloud, back into the hideously bright light of Alfheim. They actually trod through the sky, amid other clouds, descending a graceful arc down toward … toward the foot of Yggdrasil, within the same city he’d just escaped.
“You built this at the Tree?” Freyja asked.
“We had to,” her brother answered. “The ring is a catalyst designed to open the roots. They are what flows between worlds. For centuries we worked to stabilize it so that we could move more than one person across the expanse.” The bridge shuddered as they descended. Frey grunted. “You can see it’s hardly secure. Hurry.”
Needing no further prodding, Odin drew his pneuma to allow him to walk faster, and without the normal pain in his joints. Yes, they needed to hurry. So many thoughts kept trying to encroach into his mind. A turbulent sea of temporally dislodged memories that sought to drown him in its wild embrace. Mercurial and maddening.
Had to focus on the now.
“You can’t do it,” he said.
“What?” Frey snapped, casting a glare over his shoulder. “How can you possibly know aught of such things, old man?”
“Brother,” Freyja said. “Let him speak.”
No. Not now. “Later. On the ground.”
Frey sneered. “First intelligent thing I’ve heard from you.”
They followed the Bilröst down to the base of Yggdrasil. As it did in Midgard, the ground around the tree had fallen away, though the liosalfar had buttressed the tree with pearl arches. A circular stone platform in front of the great tree served as the point of origin for the shimmering bridge.
They were about forty feet above that when the Bilröst vanished.
The wind stole Odin’s scream and he scarcely managed to brace himself against the impact. The ground slammed into him like a fist.
All light vanished.
Everything hurt. Odin opened his eye, tried to sit up, then thought better of it when it felt like his insides were apt to rupture. He lay on a bed inside a large room capped by a marble dome with lattice work breaking around its edges.
Overhead, thunder rumbled. Maybe that had woken him. A few drops began to slap against the roof, rolling down, some water breaking through the lattice and apparently carried through a gutter inside the walls. Within the space of a few breaths, the light rain became a downpour, a fierce one, sounding as if the building stood beneath a waterfall.
With a groan, Odin turned to the side. Hermod lay in another bed a dozen feet away, moaning slightly.
A female liosalf entered through an archway, water glistening over her skin and making her sheer dress cling to her. “You’re awake. Do not try to leave this facility. I suggest you take your rest while you can. Frey will speak to you once his own convalescence is further along.”
All he could really offer in answer was a grunt.
Rest sounded ideal. Speaking with Frey, somewhat less so.
How many days had passed since he’d fallen? At least three of four. Odin could move about now without too much pain. The confinement did not overmuch help his burdens, though. With little to do save sit and think, he could scarcely help allowing the visions to intrude into his consciousness.
Flickers of them he tried to suppress. A fear he didn’t want to give voice to.
Loki panted, hands on his knees, shaking his head, even as blood dribbled down his face. “Not everything is clear in the distant future.”
“Not an answer.”
“The only one I can give you.”
“They won’t let you, you mean. Your visions … mine, they gave them to us, didn’t they? A lie! A trick, to show us the things we cannot change whilst setting us on a course from which we could never return! If you would ever have told me all you knew, Baldr might still be alive! Hödr, too! And how many others, brother?”
“You asked me to keep you grounded in the present.” Hermod’s voice yanked Odin from his painful explorations. Odin’s apprentice paced around their prison.
Damn, but part of him wanted to weep and the rest of him wanted to curse urd, curse the Norns, and defy the very cosmos. This wasn’t how it was meant to unfold. Everything was falling apart and all his schemes, all his plans, all his efforts had not served to avert the end in the least.
Because … because he had relied too heavily on the visions? Odin shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself. No. No.
“Odin?”
“We were always headed here. I thought … I thought if I could see enough, I could change the future. Save us. But there was never any hope of that. There was no stopping Ragnarok. It comes on us as sure as the tide rises. I thought the visions my gift … they are worse than a burden.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Prescience accounts for itself.” Odin had taken to walking circuits around the perimeter.
Hermod grimaced. “You always told me that seeing the future didn’t mean you could change it.”
“The immediate future, yes. But I allowed myself to believe that, given enough forewarning, I could … could …”
The other man grabbed Odin’s upper arms and jerked him to a stop. “You always knew we might not be able to stop Ragnarok. You said, if we couldn’t, we at least had to win. That’s why we built Valhalla. It’s still there, my king. I maintained it for your return. The einherjar await you.”
Oh, how had he dragged Hermod down into this madness? What if … what if Ragnarok would unfold not in spite of Odin’s prescience, but because of it? But he wasn’t the only oracle in the world. Damn, how his head hurt. He didn’t want to believe this. Couldn’t accept …
“Should I give you two some time?” Frey asked, leaning against the archway.
Odin turned to the liosalf, part of him wanting to glare. Yet even that capacity seemed buried under the weight that now crushed him. It was a betrayal. That was the answer. The one he had loved over his own brothers … had known. Had … caused it all?
“Come with me,” Frey said, when Odin didn’t answer. “My sister wants to speak with you and—for reasons I cannot understand—I’ve agreed to grant her the chance before we throw you back into the Tower of the Eye.”
Odin pressed a palm against his forehead. This, he had seen not so long ago. Just one more step on the path. What if he turned away here? What if he refused the call, chose to remain on Alfheim, even if the price was returning to his prison of light? But that did not change what had been set in motion.
The things he had begun, long years back, when he first learned of Ragnarok. The machinations. The wars. The ancient relics he’d thought might save the future. Or damn it.
“Without Baldr … my son …”
Frey rolled his eyes. “You truly are a madman, now, aren’t you? You’re not the first to utterly lose himself in the Sight. When my sister helped cast out the First Ones, ages back, sent them here, some few of them had also suffered such maladies. Mundilfari raved and raved about the future, about having seen it coming, heard it from an oracle that drove him mad.” The liosalf shook his head, almost seeming sad about it. “He should have come to Alfheim, himself, though, in truth, many of those we sent didn’t survive this world. Some … found their way into the darkness.”
Even back then … back when the Mad Vanr reigned, and looked in the darkness, what he saw had shattered him. As it crushed Odin.
Maybe the future was written because, even when faced with a terrible choice, one option still became the more desirable alternative. Always the option that led forward. The choice to turn away from oblivion, even if it meant looking into the darkness. Losing oneself.
“You have no idea the malady I suffer,” Odin said, finally looking up at Frey. “And I pray you never will.”
With a disdainful snort, Frey turned, leading Odin and Hermod out through the city, and back toward the World Tree.
Freyja was waiting there, standing on the same platform where they had fallen, along with Saule and a few others. Odin half expected to see dozens of blood splatters,
but the rain had washed such things away. Besides, no such splatters had appeared in his visions. Things kept snapping into place. Choices he hadn’t meant to make, but perhaps had already made, long ago. Before he was even born.
Fatespinner. Nornslave. Was that what they had called him?
“So,” Frey said. “My sister has begged our lord for your release, and the Elder God has granted a stay of punishment for you. Conditional on your cooperation. Release the valkyries.”
“No.”
“What? How truly mad are you, old man? You would defy an Elder God? Do you not understand the power Lord Dellingr wields? He could snuff you out like—”
“I have something better to offer you than valkyries. I can fix the Bilröst.”
Frey glanced to his sister, then back to Odin. “How?”
By reliving prescient memories of having done it before, a paradox that remained redeemable only so long as he acted as he’d seen himself acting. Were he to tell Frey how to do it, the liosalf might create a divergence in the timeline. And, oh, how very tempting that thought was. Any change in the timeline would prove escape was possible.
Odin sighed. “That’s not something I can explain.”
Maybe such a paradox was exactly what he needed now. The break in reality might be preferable to the future of damnation that waited upon the threshold. But … again, what if everything collapsed? Too many variables. Forcing him back to choosing the lesser damnation.
“I alone can attune Andvaranaut and stabilize the Bilröst.”
“If you think I’ll give you the means to escape—”
“I’m not seeking escape. I came to Alfheim to reunite the Aesir and the Vanir, this time as allies. I will make a permanent bridge between our worlds, and you and the others shall return. We must hold a council, all of us together. Aesir and liosalfar.”
Frey had already begun shaking his head. “I’ve no reason to trust you.”
“I trust him,” Freyja said. “I believe him when he says he wants to return us to Midgard. He talked of it oft, when I or Idunn visited him in the tower.”
Her brother folded his arms across his chest. “In a thousand years of tampering we never managed to create a traversable bridge to Midgard, or anywhere else save the other spirit worlds. You want me to believe this man can do it in what? A few days?”
“Two days,” Odin said.
Frey scoffed. “The arrogance of you. I’m tempted to let you try just so I can watch you fail, save I know you’d use the ring to flee.”
How tedious this hatred had become. Not that Odin did not deserve it for his crimes against the Vanir, but then, the Vanir had deserved their urd as well. They had cast themselves as gods and failed the people of Midgard. Of course, the Aesir had done much the same. Because no one could have succeeded. Or because … perhaps … even Odin’s methods had not proved drastic enough.
If he pushed himself harder, could he complete the device sooner? Or had his visions already accounted for that?
“I would never leave without Freyja or Hermod. Besides, I need all the Vanir back. A war is coming, Frey, a war for all Midgard. I still don’t have all the details, but I do know it’s far too late to stop it. Just that … Hel will make another play for the Mortal Realm.”
Maybe, had he not been delayed so long in Alfheim … No. No, this had always been his urd, even if he had not managed to see it clearly. He’d been caught in the web since the beginning. Destined toward this end. Plunging headfirst toward a final destination.
“Give him the ring,” Freyja said. “Let him make this right. Loathing the man forever achieves naught.”
With a grimace, Frey looked from her back to Odin, then yanked Andvaranaut from his finger.
Odin held out his palm.
“If you betray us again,” Frey said, “no barrier in existence will save you from my wrath.”
Oh, if only he lived in a world where Frey was his greatest fear. No, all Odin could do was nod.
The liosalf dropped Andvari’s Gift into Odin’s waiting hand.
34
Consciousness slipped from Baldr’s grasp too oft, as Sleipnir raced across land and water, miles melting behind them in a blur. In those bouts of nightmare, she was waiting for him. But then, he also sometimes saw her when waking, especially when they stopped for rest or a meal.
Sometimes, Nanna looked burned. Sometimes, whole. Sometimes, somewhere in between.
In the throes of a particularly brutal nightmare, when he’d seen all of Asgard ablaze and men everywhere turning to ash, she’d come to him like a shadow, drifting through the smoke, her eyes gleaming.
Baldr couldn’t say whether he’d lost his mind, if the fevers brought on these hallucinations, or if Nanna had actually become some kind of ghost. Perhaps even a mara, a nightmare spirit that would eat away at him until naught remained of his soul.
If the ailment was one of his body, Eir should be able to attend to it. The bitter irony came if Nanna truly had become a haunting shade, seeking after his soul. Because the one person who knew a damn thing about such Otherworldly matters, the one who might save him, was Hödr’s mother Sigyn.
And he could not imagine her lifting a finger to aid him.
Atop Father’s horse—Thor’s since Father had vanished so long ago, really—they passed through a cloud of mist and into a warmth Baldr hadn’t felt in so long. The sun blazed overhead, burning his eyes, forcing him to shut them. Even if doing so meant he …
“The time of man draws to a close.” Nanna stood upon a small, rocky island in the middle of a river.
Baldr was on his knees, staring up at her. On one bank, the world blazed, an inferno unlike aught he’d ever imagined. An ocean of flame and smoke that burnt away all creation.
On the far side, the mist had frozen solid, creating a lifeless wasteland where even the air seemed cold enough to kill.
“None will survive, this time.”
“No. I’ll stop Ragnarok.”
“You’ll be dead.” She cackled, the sound far too deep, like a wail from the damned behind the gates of Hel. “Your soul is seeping out.”
She grabbed him with boney hands, her strength uncanny, and drove him onto his back.
His trousers vanished and she knelt. A tongue as long as her arm lolled out, colored like a bruise, then wrapped around his stones and cock, wet and lathering, slithering like a serpent. Baldr cringed, wanting to object, wanting to throw her off, into the river. But his own body responded to her attentions despite his objections.
Nanna tore her dress off, then lowered her dripping trench over his face. As if commanded, he felt his hands reach up, grab her arse. His mouth rose, his tongue lapping against her, drawing shudders from her, even while his mind desperately rejected it. Tried to pull away.
He failed.
Her mouth closed around his cock, sucking so viciously it hurt.
He wanted to force down his erection, but his body betrayed him. Nanna sucked and sucked, until he climaxed. Sharing that with a woman always drew out some of his pneuma. But in these fevered visions, more than that fled him.
Like pieces of himself, pulsing out with each throb of his cock, drained from him and leaving him less than he’d been before. Even as he so desperately wanted more. Wanted to cling to her forever.
“Revel in the destruction of your soul.” Her voice was like a snake, hissing in his ear.
“Brother,” Thor said, as he guided Sleipnir up the mountain toward Valaskjalf. “If that’s your cock pressing against my arse again, my elbow will be knocking out at least nine of your teeth. And no more of that warm, wet, stickiness either.”
She was killing him, he knew. One lascivious dream at a time, one fevered vision after another, Nanna was draining his life force. Permanently depleting his pneuma. Oh, perhaps it might recover, given enough time, but that could take years.
How could she thus not be real? A mara, for certain. Eir might treat the wound on his side and thus abate the fevers … but how would B
aldr ever be free of this dark vaettr?
Eir hissed as she prodded at the wound on Baldr’s side. Her touch was like an icy needle, lancing through his ribs and twisting his insides into knots.
Baldr’s mother sat in a chair beside his bed in Valaskjalf, hands folded in her lap and face so blank she could have passed for a statue. It hardly fooled Baldr. She’d fretted over him before Eir arrived, bemoaned foreboding dreams she’d had for him—praise the Tree she hadn’t seen his dreams—and sent for Sigyn, as well, despite Baldr’s protests. His aunt had not yet arrived.
“What could cause such a wound to an Ás?” Eir asked.
“A runeblade,” Baldr said, stopping himself before mentioning Hödr. If Aunt Sigyn was to be his sole hope of recovery, he couldn’t afford to let slip that her son had inflicted the very wound in question.
Eir rose, brushing her gray-streaked hair from her face, and looked not to him, but to Mother. “I have to cut away the rotting tissue and hope the apple allows it to regrow clean. Were he a mortal man, I’d call him beyond all hope. This … I’ve never seen anyone live through this much putrefaction.”
Baldr groaned. Eir planned to saw off his skin. That sounded pleasant. A treatment more painful than receiving the wound had proved.
“What of the Art?” Frigg asked.
The other woman hesitated, then shook her head. “There are … I can call upon vaettir to try to aid the recovery. But there're dangers to that, and I’d need a sacrifice.”
The queen nodded as if of no consequence. “Animal, or human?”
“Human is more likely to draw the interest.”
“Fine,” Mother said. “I’ll have a slave selected.”
Baldr groaned at that, and tried to sit up. Hand on his shoulder, Eir pushed him back down. “Must you …?”
“The life of a slave is naught compared to an Ás immortal,” Mother said. “Much less the Prince of Asgard. The world needs you. I need you, and I’ll not let aught befall you.”