by Matt Larkin
“Games?” Saule chuckled, the sound like music and yet somehow filling Freyja with a profound unease. “The want to play games?” The liosalf licked her lips.
“It’s not for games. They want us to join them in war.”
“Oh! They want to fight us? That sounds enthralling! We could Stride them into the sky and let them fall into the sea.”
Freyja forced her face to neutrality. One wrong word might offend Saule, preventing any chance of Odin’s entreaty from working. “They don’t want to fight against us. They want us to help them fight a coming war.”
“Meh. Also could be entertaining. What if we blinded both sides and let them flail around trying to kill each other! The songs we could sing of such a sight!”
“Saule. They believe forces loyal to Niflheim are planning to try to claim their world. The mortals look to us for protection.”
Saule twisted her face and rolled her eyes. “Boring.”
“No one is saying you cannot amuse yourselves with human bodies. Only, make certain we are there to help stop the forces trying to enslave or eradicate them. How much fun will mortals be if they’re all dead?”
Saule chuckled. “Lots. Dellingr can send the valkyries for their souls. Imagine, whole legions of dead flitting about the Penumbra, waiting to feed us.”
“We’re talking about the end of the mortal world.”
Saule abruptly pulled her dress over her head, tossed it aside, and slid down into the pond. “It happens. I’ve seen it happen. When you’ve been here long enough, you won’t worry so much over it.”
Freyja flinched at Saule’s casual disdain for human life. It was like trying to convince a human that the life of an animal mattered in the long run. They might care about a particular animal, but animals in general seemed to exist only to serve their needs. Freyja sighed.
“You fret too much,” Saule called. “Come and swim.”
“I care about the mortals.” Some of them, anyway. Oh, she wanted to worry over all mankind the way she knew she should. She could feel a lingering guilt, inside her at not caring more. It niggled her, the absence of decency that might have once motivated her. But even if she could not motivate herself to more general beneficence toward humanity, she could at least care deeply about a few out there.
Od. And those following him, including now her own brother.
Frey.
Saule liked Frey. They were lovers, oft enough.
“You realize my brother could die in this war. I could die. Ullr. Others. We are physically in the Mortal Realm. If we lose this war, we’re gone. You, you lose a host and get sent back here. Not me.”
Saule turned back to her, face no longer lit with glee. “So don’t go.”
“I’ve already given my word. You’re not suggesting I break a bargain.”
Saule rolled her eyes, not bothering to answer. Of course, no spirit would ever consider breaking a bargain, even one made with a mortal. “This is why you watch your words when making a pact.”
“I told Odin I would fight beside him. Frey made the same agreement. We’re doing this, even if you refuse to help us. You say you’ve seen these era-ending wars before? How does it end?”
Saule frowned. “Fine. I’ll call those loyal to me and we’ll come to aid the mortals. But you should never have made such a bargain. I don’t know that I can protect you from what will happen, if this truly is the forces of Niflheim unleashed. Her power … She will bring the Mistwraiths, snow maidens, and who knows what other fell creatures from that icy world.”
Freyja nodded. She had Saule, now. She could almost see it as the battles played out in her friend’s mind. Glorious entertainment, she would think it. Well, let her think as she would, so long as she brought warriors of the liosalfar.
“Thank you,” Freyja said.
Saule shrugged. “One way or another, I’ll see you back in the Mortal Realm.”
Yes, and Freyja should get back there. Little time might remain, and whatever was left to her, she’d want to spend with Od.
3
As ever, Syn guarded Yggdrasil against any trying to steal the apples, though so few of those grew these days. Perhaps that made protecting them even more needful. Men he’d have judged well deserving had not received apples, and had thus withered and died, ravaged by time. Hermod pitied them, of course, though sometimes he wondered if immortality was as much a blessing as they had first thought.
He endured, while many of those he’d loved had vanished into shadow.
Sif.
His parents.
And so, so many friends.
Syn sat against the root wall, half dozing, but she rose when he drew nigh, frowning. “What is it?”
He grunted, hardly sure how to relay the magnitude of Odin’s request. The sheer temerity of it bordered on hubris. On madness. If he truly believed Baldr’s death would cause Ragnarok, and that bringing the man back might avert this war, then Hermod had to try. No matter how mist-mad it seemed. How perilous to his very soul.
“Odin …” He shook his head and grunted again. To give voice to the idea was to make it real. “Odin wishes me to … Oh, fuck me.” He sighed.
Syn folded her arms over her chest. “If Odin wishes to fuck you, remind him you are already married.”
He grimaced but didn’t bother responding to that. He had no mood for levity. “What if it was possible …” He raised a finger. Pointlessly. A jitter rumbled in his stomach. “What if it was possible to bring someone back?”
“Back from what?”
Just say it. Say her name. And draw her gaze upon him. That was what völvur used to say. Don’t name any vaettir, for names held power. To name a thing was to attract its attention. In the years he spent training Hermod, Odin had not precisely contradicted that. Indeed, sometimes he seemed to imply a grain of truth lurked behind the fear.
“Back from the gates of Hel.”
Syn’s hands dropped to her sides and she took a faltering step toward him. “That’s impossible. The only things that come back from death are draugar.”
Eh, well. Draugar were ghosts, in truth, still dead, just possessing their own corpses. At least, that was how Hermod understood such things now. Much the same as vampires, in fact.
“Suppose someone could be given a body and returned to the Mortal Realm? Actually living.”
“Y-you mean Sif?”
Hermod gripped his wife’s arms tight. Odin wanted Baldr back. But if that was even possible, then so too should it be to recover Sif. Hermod had to believe that.
“Odin wants his son returned to him,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Well, I want my daughter!”
Hermod nodded. “Before now, I never imagined … never thought anyone could do this. But Odin believes I can. So I have to try. If … If I don’t return …”
Syn traced a palm along his cheek. She didn’t speak, but her eyes said enough. Promised that her heart went with him. Begged him to return. Said … all their hopes lay in his hands.
Hermod kissed her, and pressed his forehead against hers. “I don’t know how long it will take. Maybe a long time.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
A hollow terror writhed in his gut. More profound than even what he’d felt in deciding to go after Odin in Svartalfheim. Overwhelming dread.
And if he did not start on the path, he feared he’d never have the courage to do so.
Odin himself brought Sleipnir to Hermod, on the bridge before Yggdrasil, below the city of Asgard. Sparkling towers and gilded roofs stared at him. A final beacon of light before he descended into shadow.
The king grasped his forearm in his own, tight, and offered him a nod of encouragement. “You alone can do this. I know you can.”
“You’ve seen the future?”
Odin grimaced. “I dare not look.”
Which was to say, Odin didn’t know that Hermod would succeed. He didn’t know even if he would live out the day, much less make it to Niflheim and back
alive.
Behind Sleipnir’s saddle, the king had stocked extra furs and numerous torches. Plenty to stay warm—in mortal cold. Would aught ever prove enough to hold back the icy bite of Niflheim?
“I’ve placed a kingdom’s worth of gold, silver, and jewels in the saddlebags, and plenty of dried food. Eat naught you find beyond this realm, son.”
The look on Odin’s face had Hermod’s stomach lurching in a jumble of emotions. He, more than most, understood some fragment of the burdens Odin had taken upon himself. And if Hermod had possessed the ability, he’d have lightened those burdens far more than he had. Odin had chosen Hermod, even over his own true sons, as a protégé and apprentice. But Hermod had never done enough, not to avert Ragnarok, not to help Odin save Midgard.
Maybe this ride was the only way he could ever make up for that failure.
The old man drew him into an embrace and patted him on the back. “I’ll keep you no longer, my friend. Ride swift and stay safe.”
Hermod suspected his destination precluded the latter, but he nodded, and swung a leg up over Sleipnir’s back, then patted the horse’s mane, grateful for any companion on such a sojourn.
It was almost dark. Twilight would make the passing easier. While Hermod would seldom have concerned himself with it, trying to pull a horse—even one of Otherworldly heritage—across the Veil would add a complication to his passage. Better to wait out these last few moments, watching the sunset.
Indeed, who knew if he’d ever see the sun again?
He was alone on the bridge when the sun had finally dipped below the horizon. Odin had left him to his thoughts, and Syn had retreated inside Yggdrasil, perhaps not even wanting to see him leave this world. Most people couldn’t handle the idea.
With a long sigh, Hermod nuzzled Sleipnir behind his ears. “I suppose we’ve delayed long enough, yes?”
The eight-legged horse neighed fiercely.
Hermod supposed it was as much answer as he was like to get.
Kicking Sleipnir into motion back toward the city, Hermod allowed himself to push sideways, through the Veil and into the Penumbra. All warmth bled from the world around him, colors muted into shades of black and blue, and shadows came alive, dancing at his periphery. The buildings remained ahead of him, finely wrought halls and columns carved with facades, but the pale half-light of the Penumbra seemed to infuse them with a sense of decay, and, at the same time, to give the carved faces a hint of malevolence that belied their inanimate nature.
Sleipnir neighed in disquiet, shaking his head so furiously Hermod feared the horse might try to buck him free.
“Easy …” He stroked the horse’s neck. “Easy.”
Ghosts were always fewer in Asgard, but here and there, shades flitted about, some drawn to him now that he had entered their realm. Most did not dare approach as he rode forward, though a few trailed him, bemoaning their urd in senseless whispers that seemed to carry on a non-existent wind.
The hairs on the back of Hermod’s neck stood on end, and a chill had him shuddering. This place was always cool, and not even the apples of Yggdrasil offered much protection against it. It was the chill of the grave.
He rode forward further, seeking for a deepening of the shadows that might present ingress into the Roil. Despite his many treks through the Penumbra, he’d never really found a way to wrap his mind around the geometry of the Astral Realm. It was a place of shadow, divided into at least two layers—the Penumbra and the Astral Roil. The Penumbra was a dark mirror of the Mortal Realm, that much was obvious, while the Roil was a nebulous domain of seething darkness that seemed to exist between the Mortal Realm and the Spirit Realm.
Exactly how the two Astral domains related, he couldn’t say, except that moving from the Penumbra to the Roil seemed akin to how he thought of entering the Penumbra itself. More a step sideways than up or down. Hermod doubted even Odin understood much more than that.
Sheer force of will allowed Hermod to cross the Veil and move between the Mortal Realm and the Penumbra. But the Roil … well, for that, he needed a liminal space. And those spaces always seemed like a darkness within the darkness.
The city had grown to such an extent that some halls seemed practically built atop one another, with small alleys running between them. Finding one such alley that seemed to repulse him—the moans of the restless dead grown deeper, the darkness more oppressive—he turned Sleipnir toward it.
The horse balked, pulling away.
“I rather mislike it, myself,” Hermod admitted. “But Odin has commanded us to travel to far darker places than that.”
Again, Sleipnir jerked his head to the side, trying to take Hermod down another path.
Hermod sighed. “I have no choice, and I know you can understand that. If you will not accompany me, I’ll return you to the Mortal Realm and press on myself.” Not a choice he relished. The horse’s presence, even if he could not speak, at least served to mitigate the pervasive loneliness that filled this realm.
Another snort, then Sleipnir finally turned down the alley.
Hermod’s breath frosted the air, though even that lacked color—as if he breathed out faint smoke.
Sleipnir’s hoofbeats clapped on the hard-packed dirt of the alley. Slow, almost timid. Hermod swore he could feel the horse’s heartbeat pounding through his legs. Never could he recall Sleipnir showing such trepidation. Odin had ridden Sleipnir against an army of trolls and the horse had not faltered. But this … this the animal clearly misliked.
Nor could Hermod blame him.
All the hair on his arms stood on end. His stomach lurched and his ears popped, the deeper he rode into the alley. Reflexively, one hand went to Dainsleif’s hilt over his shoulder. Yes, they had drawn nigh to the liminal spaces that bounded the layers of the Astral Realm together.
Dust began to swirl at the bases of the surrounding buildings. It gathered beneath Sleipnir’s hoofs. It swirled, melding with shadows to give the illusion of a column of billowing black smoke that rose up in a choking cloud like the sandstorms of Serkland.
Sleipnir snorted frantically, trying to back up, his head snapping up and nigh catching Hermod in the face. Hermod squeezed his legs, guiding the horse forward, into the darkness.
It rose up around him, obstructing his view. It felt like a physical substance—lighter than water—yet still washing over his skin, cloying and oppressive as it seeped in through his eyes and ears and nose.
They passed into a twisted landscape that no longer resembled the city they had left behind, but rather seemed carved from stone that had warped back on itself at impossible angles, like some nightmarish reef beneath the sea. A profound sense of having stepped into an alien landscape settled on him, as it always did when he began to enter the nebulous Roil. He could not even say for certain that the ground itself did not move—he suspected it did, though he’d never dared to linger long enough to be certain.
The billowing smoke had not dissipated, but rather formed up ahead of him, a column of it that dwarfed the obscene stone formations, rising to ten times his height. Atop it, a purplish light crackled within the smoke cloud, like a hundred eyes all gazing down at him. Was it … alive?
“Fuck me,” Hermod mumbled, jerking Sleipnir aside from the cloud.
Indeed, a tendril of it almost looked like … an arm. Ending in a clawed hand bigger than he was.
Hermod kicked Sleipnir into a trot, the fastest he could manage given the rocky outcroppings that jutted up at so many perverse angles. The horse’s fear became an almost palpable thing. Or perhaps Sleipnir sensed Hermod’s own dread. The horse darted between rough-edged stone coral, not half so agile as a man, and unable to bring the whole of his speed to bear in this place.
“Shit.” Hermod glanced over his shoulder.
That enormous smoke thing watched him. Seemed to watch him—hard to say where it looked when its whole head seemed a mass of eyes. But it spread its clawed hands wide, almost as if welcoming him into this nightmare.
&n
bsp; Sleipnir broke free from the reef, into an expanse of rolling, obsidian hills that stretched out into the distance. Without prodding, the horse broke into a wild gallop.
“Wait, wait!” Hermod shouted, but Sleipnir kept running, so fast that the wind of his passage tugged on Hermod and threatened to yank him from the saddle. All he could do was lean forward and hold on.
Somewhere, a bridge should span the space between the outer edge of the Penumbra and the true Roil. An entity called Heimdall watched that bridge, but he’d never barred Hermod’s passage, and by taking the bridge, he might have hoped to orient himself. After all, he didn’t actually know how to reach Niflheim, though he’d heard it lay beyond the nether river Gjöll.
None of that mattered, as Sleipnir ran and ran, his hoofs clattering upon the obsidian ground. They drew nigh to a river—which one?—but Sleipnir just kept charging forward, riding over the water as if it were solid ground.
Hermod’s gut lurched at it.
Yes, he’d known the horse could do that.
Didn’t change the profound unease that seized him on riding atop a liquid surface. He clung on all the more tightly, as vertigo took hold of him. More than aught else, he wanted to close his eyes. He dared not, though.
Only when the horse’s hoofs again clacked on a rocky surface could Hermod even allow himself a full breath. A gasping pant. “Whoa, whoa, easy!”
At last, the horse slowed to a walk, allowing Hermod to gather his bearings.
This side of the river, the landscape looked more like a cracked, dusty wasteland, empty save for rocks, some of which … were flying? Yes, a few pebbles and some larger rocks hovered ever so slightly off the ground, driving about the dust clouds.
“Ugh.” What madness had created this realm? Was it, as Odin had once mused, possibly formed literally from the nightmares of the living and the dead?
A cloud of dust and shadow melted up before him once again, taking on the head and torso of a man—and man-sized this time—while its legs remained half-formed and fluid, merging in and out of the darkness around him.