by Matt Larkin
“It’s a bad idea.” The voice came from Aunt Sigyn, standing in the doorway to his room. “Let Eir treat him and push her pneuma into him. Believe me when I say using sorcery will exact a price higher than whatever it grants you.”
Mother turned to her sister. Baldr couldn’t see her expression, but Sigyn frowned at it, so it couldn’t have been pleasant. “If you believe Eir incapable of the proper incantation, then you should do it yourself.”
Sigyn scoffed. “I wouldn’t touch the Art again. No.”
“I’ve had a vision of Ragnarok.”
“What?” Baldr said, now managing to sit despite Eir’s objections.
“In my dream, Baldr …” She glanced at him. “He died. And Ragnarok began soon after. His death would serve as a catalyst for the end of man.” Mother’s normally calm voice had grown frantic. “I will not allow that to happen. You must call upon whatever vaettir you learned of from all those years in Sessrumnir. Do whatever it takes, but save his life. Protect him from any form of weapon or illness. Baldr must never die.”
Sigyn tapped a finger on her lip, staring hard at him. Did she know already? He’d already spread the word of Hödr’s banishment. Maybe that alone would have her refuse. Or worse, agree, but invoke vaettir without the intent to aid him.
After a moment, Sigyn looked to Eir, and the other woman sighed. “I’ll help you,” Eir said. “If that’s how it’s got to be.”
Sigyn threw up her hands, shaking her head. “You don’t understand what can come from this. It’s mist-madness. Have you forgotten—”
“What your son did to my granddaughter?” Mother snapped. “Hardly.”
“It wasn’t my son! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. If I do this … what happens if something like that gets inside Baldr? Or me? Or Eir?” The other woman flinched at Sigyn’s words. “These are forces we cannot understand, cannot control, cannot predict, and you want to invite them into our world and hope for the best. Sorcery is madness. Loki always called it the last resort of the desperate.”
“I am desperate!” Mother shouted. “We are all desperate! The world is. Fail in this, and Asgard and Midgard will both fall. I’ve seen it.”
“Assuming your dream means what you think it mean.”
“As your queen, I order you to fortify my son by all means at your disposal.”
Sigyn stared openmouthed at Baldr’s mother, head slightly cocked. Her gaze darted to Baldr for a moment, but he couldn’t guess what went on in her mind. “So be it. Have the slave ready two hours past nightfall. We do this at midnight.”
“Thank you,” Mother said.
“I need to prepare.” With that, Sigyn slipped from the room.
Baldr couldn’t help feeling like a fish caught in a current too powerful to avoid, swept out into deeper waters.
Nanna leaned down over the back of his bed, her bulbous tongue slathering over her lips, eyes a burnt out ruin. “Soon.”
Sigyn and Eir had thrown everyone else out of his room, save for the slave who knelt, manacled and gagged—because he wouldn’t stop pleading for his life or at least for a clean death—and for Baldr. Who couldn’t stop himself from staring at the slave. They were going to kill that man for his sake.
“He’ll be better off than you,” Nanna purred at his ear.
Baldr couldn’t swallow. His throat was so dry. “Aunt Sigyn?”
“Oh,” Nanna said, snickering. “Do tell her. Tell her how you tried to kill her son. How you murdered his wife. I’m sure that will improve her concentration on the Art.”
Sweat plastered Sigyn’s blonde hair over her face when she looked up from where she was painting strange runes in a circle around his bed. “What is it?” She mopped her brow with her wrist.
“Thank you.”
Sigyn frowned, ever so slightly. “That isn’t what you intended to say.”
Oh, by the damn Tree. Others, they feared Sigyn, and not only because of what had happened long ago with Hödr. Baldr had heard young warriors claim she and her husband could read minds. Mother had assured him it was only that she was too clever for her own good. Still, he’d seen her figure out what people meant or thought just by looking at them. That bespoke some fell seidr, in his mind.
“I … I have terrible dreams. Hallucinations while I wake, even.”
“Fever dreams aren’t surprising,” Eir said. The healer hadn’t been painting the runes, though she inspected Sigyn’s work, crawling about the room on her hands and knees. “You’re lucky to be alive at all, in truth.”
“Not for long,” Nanna said.
Baldr flinched. “I cannot wake from my nightmares.”
“This is a mistake,” Sigyn said.
Eir clucked her tongue. “Given that you’ve already promised the queen, I don’t see …”
“A real sorceress would have practiced for years for this sort of thing. Developed her mind to the extent she could look through the Veil and see the vaettir coming. I can’t do that, and neither can you. We are fumbling in the dark whilst inviting forces of unknowable intent and power in here with us.”
Nanna cackled, drawing a grimace from Baldr. “Oh … if only she knew how right she was.”
“We have to do as we promised the queen.”
Sigyn shook her head, then bent down to resume her work.
She’d made no mention of Baldr banishing her son. She had to know. Why hadn’t she said aught about it?
The hour grew late when Sigyn crawled over to the trembling slave. “I’m sorry.”
Wetness spread out along the man’s trousers and pooled on the floor.
Sigyn must have noticed, but she didn’t look at it. Instead, she took the back of the man’s head in her hand. And drew a knife up to his throat. “I wish I did not have to do this.” In one swift motion, she jerked the blade along his neck. His skin parted and peeled away, even as the man gurgled, and blood began to stream out in an irregular waterfall.
His aunt scrambled over to where she’d left a tome sprawled on the floor, then began speaking discordant, nonsensical sounds that seemed to send crawling insects inside Baldr’s brain. Itchy.
“Oh …” Nanna cackled. “Oh, yes …” She reached a hand for him, and it seemed to push against a membrane, almost like she came from underwater. She leaned forward, her face coming into starker relief than before, fangs dripping venom.
Something was wrong. Was she … interfering with Sigyn’s spell?
Baldr opened his mouth to object. But Nanna’s hand closed over his lips. Her fingers dug in between his teeth, pried them further apart. He thrashed against it, as her arm began to worm its way down his throat. Clawing fingers tearing his insides loose.
He wailed in mute agony, unable to throw her off. Her arm had reached down until her elbow rested on his tongue. Her fingers were brushing against the inside of his stomach.
Fuck! Hel, somebody help him!
“You’ll see Hel soon.” Nanna promised. Then drove her arm deeper in. Up to her shoulder. It felt like she was ripping him apart, unhinging his jaw.
Sigyn’s voice bombarded against his skull, her chaotic and alien words a cacophony that drowned out all other thoughts. Save the pain.
He couldn’t force air into his lungs past her form blocking the way.
Nanna had dived inside him up to her waist now, and was slithering down his throat, wriggling like a worm burrowing into him. Baldr grabbed her hips and tried to yank her free, but she just kept forcing her way down.
Couldn’t breathe …
Everything went dark.
35
Sigyn’s steps came unsteady as she made her way back to her hall, swaying as if drunk, though she’d attribute it more to complete lassitude than aught so gratifying as a feast. A cool breeze swept over the mountain, chilling the sweat that had her dress sticking to her back.
Trembles ran through her hands. Her senses felt dulled, as if underwater, the sounds and smells muted. Maybe the incantation had drained her pneuma, and if so,
it ought to return in a few days. It was hard not to feel like she’d lost something more, though, some part of herself now missing, ripped out, and worse still, she could not identify that part.
Her legs gave out beneath her and she stumbled to the ground, banging her knee on the rocky slope and eliciting a groan. Frigg should not have asked for this. But then, her sister listened to her less and less, since what had happened with Hödr so long ago. Yet somehow, the irony in it seemed lost on Frigg. Her sister had justifiably blamed her and pushed her aside for her misstep in calling on the Art to aid Hödr, but now Frigg had forced her to walk the very same road on behalf of her own son.
Not that Frigg had ever much seemed amused by irony. Or any other form of humor.
Oh, but the troubles went deeper than this. Frigg had insisted that they needed Baldr to win Ragnarok, or that his death would ignite that very final battle. But Loki had admitted to her not so very long ago that he’d maneuvered events across the world to ensure Ragnarok arrived, though he’d evaded any questions as to exactly why, offering only unilluminating platitudes about necessity or the demands of history.
She could guess, though. Though he’d never confirmed it—and had fervently demanded she relinquish that line of questions—she’d become increasingly certain over the centuries that he was bound to the Norns in one way or another. In the most obscure Vanr texts, she’d come across a word used without context: Nornslave. If the Norns controlled the web of urd, and if Loki was their servant, then, did they use him to maintain that web? It did not truly explain why they’d need someone to do so, though.
That problem, she had never been able to work out.
Sigyn blew out a breath and pushed herself back to her feet, then trod up toward her hall.
She had not gone so very far when someone came plodding down toward her, footfalls soft, almost unnoticeable without her enhanced senses. “Loki. I’m glad you’re back.”
“It’s me, Mother,” Hödr said. “You didn’t recognize me?”
In the darkness, he seemed but a silhouette, and she could have easily mistaken him for his father. “Sorry. I’m exhausted.” True, if hardly the main reason she could not recognize the sound of him. And how had he come back here? Baldr had banished him. Treading on Asgard would have meant death for him.
Indeed, Sigyn had planned to travel with Loki to find Hödr, just as soon as her husband had returned.
She shook her head. “Hurry inside. I’m coming. You can’t be seen here.”
Her son nodded, and slunk up the path, seeming almost invisible. His abilities in stealth had increased. No wonder he’d managed to sneak into Asgard. Still, they could afford no chances, least of all with Frigg so overwrought about her son …
Oh. Well, fuck.
Baldr claimed Hödr had betrayed him and he had thus banished him. Betrayed him over a woman. A couple moons later, he showed up with a wound that could have killed an immortal.
“Oh, Hödr … what have you done?”
Forcing down her fatigue, Sigyn rushed up to the hall she and Loki had built on the cliff.
Her son waited for her behind the fire pit, staring at it almost as if he still had eyes to see it, though, as usual, he did not care to sit too close. Always a little afraid of fire.
Indeed, as she drew nigh, she realized his face and neck bore burn scars. It would take a blisteringly hot flame to do that to an Ás immortal and have it not heal within a few days. Flames like those of Laevateinn.
“Damn it, Hödr,” she said, sitting down beside him. “What were you thinking?”
He snickered. “I take it you guessed what has unfolded.”
“I’ve surmised enough, yes, though I still prefer to hear the details from you. I expected to get the tale after I came to find you out in Midgard, not here where you’d be killed on sight.”
“It doesn’t matter. Some things cannot be borne.”
She patted his knee. “Tell me. There is no mistake you could make that I have not done worse.” Sigyn’s crimes oft kept her from sleeping deeply. Her error with Eldr had wrought so much chaos. Had led her to … murder her own kin. Even after centuries, she sometimes still dreamed of Thor kicking in her door and coming to smash her head with that awful hammer.
“Ah,” Hödr said. “I never blamed you.”
That was a lie, though Sigyn didn’t bother calling him on it. He did blame her—how could he not?—at least on some level. He had forgiven her, loved her, but he knew she’d made his life far harder than it ought to have been, no matter how pure her motives. Besides, he didn’t know about Sif.
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Baldr and I quarreled over the daughter of King Gevarus of Gardariki. He believed that, because he was the prince, he could have anyone he desired, even if I loved her first and loved her more. And I … I made the mistake of lashing out at him.”
“So he banished you.”
“Yes. I resolved to reclaim Nanna from him at any cost. And I set out to find a runeblade capable of …”
“Of murdering him?”
Hödr grunted. “Of overcoming him, given the one he wielded.”
Sigyn snorted, and patted his knee again. “Let me give you some advice. Be honest with yourself. You didn’t go claiming a runeblade because you thought it would scare Baldr into giving in. You’re smarter than that. You knew, all along, you’d kill him with it. And you nearly did.”
“More’s the pity I failed in that.”
“How did you learn of this blade?”
“I … heard a tale of it.”
Loki. She’d figured as much, but now Hödr’s reaction left little doubt.
“Regardless, I claimed it, wounded Baldr, and married Nanna.”
“So what are you doing here now?”
“He attacked during our wedding, injured me, and murdered Nanna.”
“He what? I thought you said he loved her?”
Hödr let his head slump into his hands. “I found her funeral pyre. Her father was dying, but, before he passed, he told me what had happened.”
“And you came here for vengeance.” Sigyn groaned. “You can’t, Hödr.”
“You would have me spare the man who murdered my wife? Allow her shade to rot in agony, unavenged? Baldr deserves death for his crimes.”
Maybe he did. Maybe they all deserved it. Who on Asgard had not killed in passion or desperation? Who had not broken faith, committed crimes, betrayed … Certainly, Sigyn could not count herself among the innocent.
“If you go after Baldr, he will kill you.”
“I don’t care. He took everything from me. I cannot allow it to stand.”
“And if you kill him, then what? How do you think Frigg will respond?”
“She’ll have me tortured to death, no doubt. If she catches me.”
Sigyn flinched at her son’s casual acceptance of a terrible end. “She believes Baldr’s death will precede Ragnarok.” Oh … what a steaming lump of trollshit. Had Loki … had he aided Hödr knowing this would happen? Knowing that, if Hödr killed Baldr, it would bring on Ragnarok?
“What are we, Mother, if we break with all honor for fear of the end? Do we not then deserve our ending?”
Why would Loki do this? Had he seen something else? What did he mean by urd? It clearly compelled him, trapped him. So … had the Norns forced his hand? Did they order him to take such terrible measures?
“Mother?” Hödr asked. “What’s happened?”
Sigyn gaped at her son. So hard to find words. This couldn’t be happening. Her stomach seemed to drop out from beneath her, as if she stood upon a precipice and stared down into a fathomless abyss. Right now, she was looking at the end of time. A crushing coldness settled around her.
“Mother?”
“I … I beg you not to do this.”
“You know I must.”
“Please, Hödr. I’m asking you for the sake of me, of your father, of yourself … of the entire world. Do not go. Just lay down and sleep, and when the ne
xt nightfall comes, leave Asgard forever. I’ll come with you, we’ll find your father, we’ll do whatever it takes, maybe even join your brother in Jotunheim. Only forgo your vengeance.”
Hödr reached up and stroked her cheek. “I’ll sleep on it, as you ask.”
Almost ready to weep, she threw her arms around him and pulled him close. Yes. Let them save themselves and maybe the world.
And Loki owed her an explanation. No more evasions. He owed her the truth.
Hödr shook her awake, and Sigyn sat up with a groan.
Only, it wasn’t Hödr, but his father who knelt beside her, hand on her shoulder.
Sigyn sat bolt upright and let her gaze dart around the hall. Oh, no. No! Where was he? “Where’s Hödr?” she shrieked.
“Not here. It was only you when I arrived just after dawn. Hödr came here.”
Oh, fuck.
Sigyn lurched to her feet, pulling Loki up after her. “We have to go after him. Loki, please! Whatever you foresaw, whatever is coming, if we don’t stop him, we’re going to lose our son!”
He blanched. He really didn’t know what was happening.
Or … or he hadn’t known it was happening now.
He nodded once, and then ran from their hall. Sigyn pulled on her pneuma to run faster, but found it faint, hard to grasp. Weakened by her invocation the night before.
“Go!” she shouted at him. “Go! Save him!”
Her husband raced ahead of her, faster than she could hope to match being so drained.
Please, let it be fast enough.
36
The sun warmed Freyja’s face, a blissful boon after too long in the dark of Svartalfheim. How easy to bask in it. As soon as her injuries had healed enough to rise, she’d lain naked on a grassy knoll outside her house, soaking in the rays and letting it replenish her. The sunlight accelerated her already rapid healing and restored the energy she’d burned away in the darkness.
Yes, easy to rejoice in it. If she could have blocked out the guilt that crept into her thoughts. Not that she deserved to ease her conscience, though this place had that effect. It could strip one of things one ought to have felt, allowing those here to lose themselves in sensual pleasures and forget bonds that should have held stronger than steel.