by Matt Larkin
After testing the links, Tyr backed away.
Odin looked to Sigyn who stared defiance and hatred at him. “I do not bind you, and I will even allow you to leave, and to visit once a moon—under guard, of course.”
“Where would I go?” she snapped. “All I have left in the world is in here.”
“So be it.” He looked to Loki, shaking his head. He had never wanted this end. But had there ever been a chance of avoiding it? “I can feel it. The breaking of the world. You allowed this to happen. You refused to turn your back on your vile mistresses.”
Blood still crusted around his mouth and nose, but somehow Loki yet managed to force defiance into his gaze. “You don’t understand half so much as you think you do. But you’re right … an end is coming. The eschaton is approaching. If I’d ever had a choice …”
Odin held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear it. You did have a choice. You chose to offer only the most cryptic of warnings. Now I must salve the wounds we have wrought.”
He stalked from the cavern. Wanting more than aught else to slump down against the wall and bemoan urd. To rage in the darkness and curse the shadows for all that had passed and the dark truths he could no longer avoid.
But Tyr was there. The others.
All the Aesir, and now, Midgard, they were looking to him.
So, he must be their strength.
If only a little while longer.
Epilogue
“You don’t have to do that,” Loki said.
Sigyn shifted a little in the pool, holding the bucket over his head to catch the water that incessantly beat against him. It was a slow, grating torture, designed to drive him mad as he never knew when the next drop would fall. Odin could have done worse to him, though Loki had seen this moment in the flames, long ago.
Some threads of the tapestry of time had always been clear, while others only came into focus slowly. Loki had endured more soul-crushing circumstances than this. This petty, physical torture was naught compared to the knowledge of the losses that would follow. He didn’t know them all, of course. No, he couldn’t see enough to predict every last heartbreaking end before it unfolded.
Like seeing the look of betrayal on Odin’s face. The man had called him brother, and Loki had … had followed the course of urd as he must. Given foreknowledge of a terrible future and powerlessness to act outside the constraints of urd, what was an oracle to do? Could he ever have acted otherwise than he had?
Sigyn stroked his cheek. “It’s time. Tell me it’s time.”
Were there a deity he could pray to, he would. The fear of the truth—even a fragment of it—costing him Sigyn was the bitterest of all fears. But he’d always lost her. No matter how tightly he’d tried to hold on, she slipped through his fingers and he’d had to wait until she was reborn so he could claim a few more precious moments with her.
Perhaps the universe itself judged him for his mistakes.
She mopped his cheeks with the hem of her dress. “Loki. Why cause Ragnarok?”
“Civilization is ultimately an untenable state, as much as chaos is inherently self-destructive. The needs of maintaining a society give rise to the very corruption that must invariably undermine it. If … if the world were formed of darkness, even given a tiny light within it, the darkness would compound upon itself. Corruption, left unchecked, must eventually cause civilization to crumble under the weight of its own darkness. Rather than allow the entirety of creation to succumb, instead the only solution seemed to be to find someone that could combat that corruption at its core and allow a new age to rise. Even if that battle must needs be cataclysmic.”
Sigyn backed away, hand to her mouth. “Y-you’re saying … you … created the Destroyer? As a weapon against darkness?”
Oh, how tempting was it to let her believe such a beautiful half-truth. He had needed a soul stronger and more malleable than his own, though, and she would eventually come to question why he himself had not taken on this mantle. A question that would lead her back to the Norns, and the power behind them.
“To end an era,” Sigyn said, only seeming to half see him. “To wash away the corruption and begin civilization anew … The world … you believe the world has to end.”
“There are chains on me, stronger by far than the fetters that bind me to this rock.”
“The web of urd.” Her face fell and Loki could almost see the whir of her mind behind her eyes, struggling to fit the pieces together. “You want a better future. But you cannot break the cycle of creation and destruction.”
How close she got to the truth. So desperately he wanted to give her the rest of the answers. To share the burden that weighed upon him. But the knowledge of what lay out there, beyond the Spirit Realm, it might crush her into despondency, even as it sometimes did to him. Eldritch terrors watched and fed off the cycle of death and rebirth. He could say the words—would they punish him again?—but all he’d achieve was ensuring she never slept soundly again.
He could never break the cycle of eschatons. Indeed, the thought of it breaking might hold the greater horror, given what that might impend.
“All along …” she said. “You wanted Odin angry. Tortured. Ready to take any measure in his war against … against what? Hel? Your own daughter?”
Oh. “She was your daughter, too.”
Sigyn flinched, stumbling away, balled fist pressed into her mouth as if to stop herself from screaming. Yes. Her soul. For a time, she stood there, panting, breathing so erratically he feared she’d pass out. Rather, she steadied herself, eyes closed.
When at last she opened them, she seemed calm. “What will happen now?”
“I don’t know the specifics.” Sometimes, ignorance was better, regardless. “All I can say is this … you and I will both suffer for the things we have done. As will everyone else. The final reckoning has already begun.”
“There’s more you still hold back.”
To protect her.
Because he had seen a few things more. War, and death, and pain.
And a world where all voices had fallen silent. A world buried in ash.
Author’s Note
In Norse mythology, we find two versions of Baldr’s story. In one version, found in the Poetic Edda and more-or-less retold in the Prose Edda, we have the tale as it’s most commonly told. Frigg (or Baldr himself) dreams of his death. Frigg, in a panic, gets everything in the world to swear never to harm her son, only she doesn’t bother with mistletoe because it’s so young and harmless of a plant.
At this point, even someone who doesn’t know the myth is probably thinking, “uh oh.” Yeah. So the gods are impressed with Baldr being invincible and decide to test by attacking him with all kinds of weapons. Nothing harms him.
Loki comes along and makes a spear or arrow from mistletoe, and convinces the blind god Hödr to join in the fun and try shooting his brother (you’ll note that I made Hödr Loki and Sigyn’s son, though this is not traditional). Hödr then kills Baldr, and later gets killed by Vali (a son Odin sires to avenge Baldr because he probably doesn’t want to kill his own son).
While aspects of this tale certainly made it into Gods of the Ragnarok Era, I actually drew more inspiration from the other version of the story, the one found in the Gesta Danorum. Here, Hotherus (Hödr) is a mortal hero who contends against Baldr (a demigod) for the hand of princess Nanna. Hotherus can’t win against a demigod until he claims the magic sword Mistilteinn.
From here, things go from bad to worse, and you can guess how happy Odin is to have his son murdered by a mortal.
Despite being the less familiar tale, I actually found this one much more compelling, and certainly more in keeping with the grittier and more realistic setting I’ve tried to engender here. The struggle of these two men, and having it tear apart kingdoms and families, it fit in well with the themes and tone of Gods of the Ragnarok Era. After all, the Völsupa tells us that “sisters’ sons will defile the bonds of kinship” when Ragnarok begins.
Besides the Hödr/Baldr conflict, The Shadows of Svartalfheim also revolves around Odin’s sojourn into the Otherworlds. I’ve long maintained that anything Otherworldly, when taken in a realistic manner, ought to be horrifying, whether or not it is also wondrous. The supernatural was something these cultures would have feared even as they respected it.
While other books here and in the Runeblade Saga have offered glimpses of the Otherworlds, this one gave us the most prolonged look thus far at Alfheim and Svartalfheim. Each has its own horror, of course, but Svartalfheim naturally comes across as far worse. Bad enough that aspects of it proved difficult to write, not only because of the casual cruelty, but because of the pervasive misogyny, the general disregard for life, and utter self-absorbedness of these entities.
It’s been said the writer’s job is not to look away. Which means, for writers working on stories that might get termed grimdark or horror, we’re writing things that make us uncomfortable and forcing ourselves to do it, because the story demands it.
It’s also strange to revisit Volund, over a thousand years—from his perspective—after the events of Darkness Forged have transformed him into a monster of inhuman whims and intentions. We see what prolonged submersion in a world without empathy transforms him into. It makes me hope everyone reading this has already read Darkness Forged.
As far as Odin, what we see is mostly the natural progression of his obsession with the future. It destroys him, and he—perhaps justifiably—blames Loki. I’ll point out here that, in the original sources, Loki’s imprisonment by Odin and torture by Skadi are the same instance, whereas here I separated them. This remains in keeping with the overall tortured theme of his character.
And finally Hermod … I had always known he would be a major POV character in this final trilogy. In fact, I had wanted to use him as a POV character sooner, but every time I looked into it, there was always someone else better suited. Now, he at last gets his moment to shine.
Thanks to my wife for helping me reach this point. Also, special thanks to my cover designer 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 Shadows of Svartalfheim, 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 Gates of Hel
Prologue
When Sigyn moved to empty the bucket, water dripped on Loki’s face. Erratic, unpredictable drops of it. Or, perhaps not wholly unpredictable, had he had access to more variables than he did at present. Every time Loki allowed his mind to begin to calculate probabilities, a drop would splash upon his eyes.
He knew, of course. He knew that occupying himself with such conjectures were distractions, not from his present discomfort—though he certainly didn’t enjoy having his feet stuck in water for days, beginning to rot—but rather from the more the painful eventuality that must soon impend.
Sometimes, in such moments, he allowed himself to question whether the inception of this cycle was truly born of necessity, or whether he—who, despite his prescient abilities and immortality, remained essentially a man—had allowed hubris to sway him. A desperate gambit, one that, most like, managed to but delay the inevitable.
Sigyn set the bucket over his head again, grunting slightly, her arms no doubt burning with fatigue from holding them over her head for hours on end. Pneuma might enhance one’s stamina, but even it had its limits.
“Rest,” he told her. “Please.”
“Perhaps later. Rather, I’ve been mulling over the situation.”
“Sigyn …”
She sniffed. “Well, denied access to Sessrumnir, I’m instead forced to reconstruct the texts I read. I don’t know that I’d call my memory eidetic, though it’s certainly above average, but Mundilfari made several passing references to hearing about a technique of storing knowledge in a kind of mental library. I’d never considered such things needful until now.”
“Sigyn, please …” Please do not waste the time that was left to them. “Talk to me, rather than lose yourself in these musings.”
She blew out a breath. “I’m seeking some means of breaking this chain. Even orichalcum cannot be indestructible. If it was, how would smiths forge it into aught?”
“That’s before they’ve bound souls into the metal.”
“I considered that. If the souls themselves render orichalcum stronger, it seems the key to breaking such a chain would lie in finding a way to disperse those souls. I suspect that’s how Odin broke Gramr, all those years ago. Either way, that event—and many who saw the battle agreed the sword did snap in half—proves that even orichalcum is not unbreakable.” She paused. “Alternatively, were I strong enough, I might crush the stalagmite the chain runs through, instead. It would leave the guards to deal with, but I’ve begun to wonder, if, were I able to infuse the entirety of my pneuma into a single blow, I might then snap even such a thick stone?”
“Whatever happens, I love you.”
She stroked his cheek. “I won’t leave your side, my love. That’s why I take no vengeance for what Thor did to our son.”
Eons of blood had washed over the world because of Loki’s choice. Not that he’d called himself Loki back then. So much blood, leading to vengeance, which necessitated more vengeance, and more blood, on and on, until an era at last must end in fire or flood, and always, with death on a scale no man would have imagined.
So they could start again. Buy a little more time.
“You want to talk, though,” Sigyn said. “So … you told me that Hel was our child, that I, in a previous incarnation of my soul, had been mother to her. I understand your perpetual reticence to discuss your dead wife and dead daughter, even if I was the wife.”
“Too much knowledge of your past lives is like to compound the difficulty that already exists in breaking away from the patterns already impressed upon your soul.”
She chuckled. “You mean I’d keep making the same mistakes, over and over? How am I to learn from mistakes I don’t remember?”
An eternal question of the Wheel of Life. Loki suspected, rather, that so much knowledge would weigh a soul down, as his remained so burdened. Crushed, under the weight of losses and regrets stretched over eternity. “Perhaps to begin each life with a clean slate is a blessing.” One he was denied.
“Perhaps.” She looked up sharply, at the tunnel.
A moment later, the flicker of torchlight shone within that passage, and shortly after that, Odin made his slow way over, torch in one hand, walking stick in another.
Sigyn glared at Loki’s blood brother as he approached, though the man fixed his gaze on Loki and paid Loki’s wife no mind.
Odin plodded over to stand just before the puddle’s edge, staring at Loki.
“Come to gloat?” Sigyn asked, her voice laced with venom enough to make even Loki cringe.
Odin continued to ignore her entirely. “Despite myself and my better judgment, I could not stay away.”
Loki nodded, struggling to keep his face impassive as the tumult of emotions roiled in his gut. Rage, at the awful death of his son. Guilt, at knowing he himself had wrought that, and had—at least in Odin’s mind—betrayed his brother. Relief … in knowing some part of Odin still wanted to believe in him. How fragile even Loki’s ego seemed, despi
te his eons of life, despite his supposed move beyond such petty human limitations.
“I decided to give you one last chance to explain yourself, Loki.”
Loki frowned. How badly he wished he could. But even if saying things aloud did not hold their own dangers, Odin was not ready. Not quite, though so very close. “You’re wrong about one thing. This is not the last time you’ll see me.”
Odin groaned, shaking his head. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be coming down here again.”
All Loki could do was purse his lips.
After a moment more, Odin turned and tromped away, the sound of his walking stick hitting the stone echoing in the tunnel even after the light from his torch had vanished.
Sigyn sniffed, tossed the bucket once more, and then replaced it. “The man has gall.”
Oh. Well, but then Loki had needed a man with gall. With confidence beyond even arrogance. With a willingness, perhaps even a need, to persevere even in the face of the certainty of defeat.
“So,” Sigyn said. “You want to talk, but not to Odin. And to me?”
“Of course.”
“All right. What is Tartarus?”
Loki frowned at her sudden change of topic. He’d regretted that outburst the moment he’d made it. Mentioning to Odin the torment he’d endured there so long ago, it served no purpose save to vent his wrath in petty defiance of Odin’s equally petty torture here.
“Is that a name for a place?”
“After a fashion.”
“No. I don’t think it’s a place, in the strictest sense, but rather a name for one of the spirit worlds. Except, I cannot figure out which. Black walls? Muspelheim?”
Loki pursed his lips. How badly she wanted to know everything. Sigyn’s incessant curiosity was both her most endearing and most self-destructive trait. She wanted answers to every question imaginable, never once considering that such answers would only become burdens. Waking nightmares that would serve no end save to trouble her days and leave her quivering in the night, sleepless and tormented.