The Songweaver's Vow

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

  “Vidar was not in danger,” Urd said. “He only wore an illusion, and that only when your eyes were upon him.”

  The dagger of her words twisted hard in Euthalia’s gut. “I know. It was my eyes alone which were affected, and if I had only listened to him—if I had not told the story of Apollo and Hyakinthos—if I had not told Odin the tale of Prometheus—all of this has been my doing.” She tried to swallow past the stone which had appeared in her throat. “All of it is my doing.”

  “And again,” said Verdandi, “again you do not understand your power.”

  Euthalia looked at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you think you can goad the All-Father with a stick of words and direct him like an ox?” demanded Skuld. “You did not make him kill the boy Nari. Do you believe you have the power to sway the Lie-Smith to your will? You did not convince Loki to kill Baldr. They are responsible for their actions, just as you are responsible for yours.”

  “What does it matter who is responsible?” asked Euthalia desperately. “Does it not matter more that we stop it?”

  “If it is stopped,” asked Skuld, “and no one knows their responsibility, then it will start again. It is not enough to stop disaster if all remain as children.”

  Skuld gestured to the pool beside them, and Euthalia saw that it reflected not only the great roots and the women around it, but faintly showed also a silent battle raging, translucent against the peaceful reflection of the tree. She leaned to look down at it, trying to peer around the surface glare, though the pool was in shadow. “Is this—is this Ragnarok?”

  She could see a long line of einherjar forming along a rocky shore. On the horizon floated the nail-ship Naglfar, with Loki standing visible at her prow. Arrayed below and on either side ranged all the dead and all the fearsome Jötnar, a spread of dark armies.

  Euthalia dropped to her knees and leaned over the pool, her stomach clenching. “No,” she whispered, her face near enough for her breath to disturb the water. “No, please.”

  “Songweaver, come away,” said Verdandi. “You—”

  And then Euthalia fell. She plunged into the pool and instinctively twisted to find the surface—but she was suddenly so near the einherjar, and she was floating just above Odin, and she felt she could reach out and touch him.

  She did.

  The water shifted around her, becoming air, and she fell hard to the packed earth behind the one-eyed god. She scrambled to her feet, looking around at the ranks of Æsir and Vanir and einherjar.

  The einherjar had formed a shield-wall, overlapping each shield with the next in line to form a sturdy barricade, and they beat their spears and swords upon the wood and iron as they shouted defiance and taunts to the approaching Jötnar. Some gods joined their line, linking shields, while others stood alone, ready to make independent stands or charges.

  Someone shouted and pointed at a massive black shape rushing along the coast, sweeping toward the nail-ship Naglfar. A shout went up along both opposing lines, one cheering and one despairing, as Fenrir came near enough to be recognized.

  He ran directly to Naglfar and reared up, putting his front paws on the side of the ship and stretching inside to greet his father. Nari shrank from his terrifying half-brother and the memory of a wolf tearing him apart, but Fenrir and Loki spoke for a moment, and then Fenrir turned his great head toward the Asgardian line and curled his lips into a snarl.

  Euthalia, standing on her toes behind the shield-wall, felt her stomach shift within her as the wolf turned his malice on them. The warriors in the shield-wall, trained and seasoned though they were, shifted their weight and changed their grips on their sweat-slicked hafts and handles.

  “I will take the wolf!” shouted a familiar voice, and Euthalia’s heart sank. She turned and saw Vidar, his face safely hidden within his helmet, pointing with his sword. “I will take the wolf! He is mine!”

  Vidar, no! But she could not reach him through the thronging warriors.

  Odin rode Sleipnir down the shield-wall, shouting instructions and encouragement. The two ravens followed, grim reminders that death came close this day and it would be victory if ravens remained to feast on the dead. If Loki’s warriors prevailed, not even scavengers would remain.

  The clattering of weapons on shields began to synchronize, falling into a steady pounding rhythm. Thor raised Mjöllnir to the sky and bellowed defiance. Across from them, Euthalia recognized the enormous rock-colored figure of Angrboda, wielding a massive tree like a club.

  The rhythmic pounding increased in speed, building to a crescendo which would ultimately launch the wall of warriors forward, intent on destroying their opponents for the survival of the very worlds.

  And then the sea foamed like a maelstrom opening without warning, and a towering form rose out of the water. Jörmungandr opened his mouth to bare his fangs, swaying above the waves, and writhed forward onto the rocky shore.

  The pounding of weapons on shields faltered and broke. Euthalia’s heart sank.

  “For Odin and Asgard!” roared Thor, his voice cutting through all other sounds. “I swear by my hammer Mjöllnir that you are my opponent this day, and you shall fall!” He leapt into his two-wheeled cart, drawn by two powerful goats, and drove directly for the serpent.

  A cry went up as he charged, and the defenders of Asgard recovered and started forward. Battle closed.

  Thor met Jörmungandr as he promised, swinging his hammer as the serpent struck at his cart and knocking the great mouth enough aside to spare his goats. Fenrir howled his fury and leapt forward, and Euthalia’s heart throbbed in her throat as Vidar raced to meet him.

  And then the lines were closing and she could see nothing but a clash of bodies and weapons like seas crashing together, a tumult of shouting and weapons clanging. She hung back—she had neither shield nor spear, she was useless, no, worse than useless, she was responsible for it all.

  Lightning cracked as Thor and Jörmungandr struck one another, and the battlefield opened about the two of them as they entered combat.

  Euthalia covered her ears and ducked, looking desperately around for Vidar. If she could reach him—if she could help him—Fenrir was so large, so powerful, so dangerous—

  A coil of Jörmungandr’s long body rose and fell across the stony field, crushing warriors of both armies.

  Something seized Euthalia from behind, twisted in her dress and apron and hair, and hauled her upward. She pulled against it, stretching toward the battle and Vidar, but something close and muffling and invisible pressed around her face and eyes, smothering her, so that she gasped for air and choked on water.

  She burst into air, streaming water, and was deposited beside the silver pool. The Nornir looked down on her with concern.

  “The Well of Destiny is not for mortals,” cautioned Verdandi. “Nor most immortals.”

  Euthalia coughed and spat water. “Was that—I was there—the fighting—”

  Skuld shook her head. “You were not there,” she said. “You only saw.”

  “But I—I felt—”

  “You saw what will be.”

  In the pool, a dark wolf leapt into the air and seized the sun in its jaws, savaging it as it fell again to earth. The light dimmed as it tore pieces away from the whole.

  Hot tears slipped onto Euthalia’s cheeks to mingle with the pool’s water. “Please,” she said. “Undo me. Remove my thread, if that’s what it takes—take me out of the weaving. Save Vidar, save everything.”

  “You cannot barter with Fate,” scolded Skuld gently. “What we decide must be, must be. What you decide to do, is yours.”

  “And Ragnarok? Is that what must be?”

  “It must be,” Skuld answered, holding Euthalia’s eyes. “It is a debt. The future must be paid. But there are ways and ways to pay a debt.”

  Euthalia shook her head. “Tell me clearly—can this be stopped?”

  “No,” Skuld answered. “The future must be paid.”

  “But it need no
t be paid now,” said Verdandi.

  They watched her, waiting. The words caught at Euthalia. “Then it can be put off?” she asked breathlessly.

  “It is not hard to change the pattern of a cloth not yet woven.”

  “How can I stop it?”

  Urd smiled, calculating. “How was it started?”

  Guilt lanced Euthalia once more. “I released Loki.”

  They waited.

  “Then I must—I cannot bind him again! Even if I wanted to, I could not—I don’t have that kind of power.”

  “Come with me,” Urd said. “Let us speak of power.”

  Verdandi stooped and dipped a cup into the pool, and then she and Urd turned and started away along one towering root. Euthalia followed. Skuld remained where she was.

  They walked along the gentle undulations of the root, turning so that the pool fell in and out of view behind them. Euthalia looked up and saw that rows of wooden slats hung from the root of the tree, each etched with runes. She could not read them, but she knew they must be powerful talismans—no, not talismans, for it was not the piece of wood itself which was the charm, but what it represented. The runic words it held.

  Urd pointed at one as they passed. “This one has Freyja’s name,” she said. She traced the runes. “Do you read them?”

  Euthalia shook her head.

  Urd pointed elsewhere on the wood. “This is the name Odur,” she said, as if that explained something. If it did, Euthalia did not understand it.

  Verdandi crossed her arms. “How do they know you? The Æsir and the Vanir?”

  Euthalia still did not understand. “I am Vidar’s wife.”

  Urd shook her head. “No—what do they know you as? What did you present to them first?”

  “What? I told a story.” She had told the story of Prometheus, had tried to entertain Odin and the others with only moderate success. She had not guessed how that story would haunt her later.

  “Exactly,” said Verdandi, pointing a rune-carved fingernail at Euthalia. “They know you as a storyteller, a songweaver. They knew you first for your skill.”

  “And?”

  “Is that how they think of Freyja?”

  Euthalia started to protest that this meant nothing, but insight came to her. “No—no, they don’t. But she is very skilled. She can work very powerful magic.” Even to curse a god.

  “How does Freyja present herself? What is her pride?”

  Euthalia’s breath caught. I am beautiful. I am desired. Men desire me, men strive for me, and that is more than you can say.

  Urd nodded at Euthalia’s expression, understanding before she spoke. “She was not always like this,” she said. “But after the war, when she feared her own power—she found the simple magic of allure to be easier. Easier to wield, and easier to blame. She did not realize the trap it would become.”

  “She should have avoided beauty?” asked Euthalia faintly.

  “What? No!” snapped Verdandi. “Have we said beauty or desire are wrong? Does not your husband think you beautiful? Do you not lie with him and take hot pleasure in each other’s touch?”

  “But….”

  “But he knew you first for yourself and he loves you for that. Not for the gap between your legs, nor the hope of it.”

  Euthalia was silent.

  Urd smiled to soften the bite of Verdandi’s words. “Freyja was once loved and respected for her skill. It was fear which changed her.” She paused. “And grief.”

  “Grief?” echoed Euthalia.

  Verdandi passed her the simple cup, half-filled with water. Euthalia looked into it, seeing nothing but water, and then closed her eyes and took a drink.

  Instantly she saw Freyja, stumbling by night, her hair unkempt and her clothing muddy. She was sobbing, repeating one name over and over. “Odur,” she wept. “Odur. Odur.” Golden tears fell from her contorted face to the ground.

  Euthalia opened her eyes and stared at Verdandi. “She loved him?”

  The Norn gave her a sad smile and took the cup, and then she walked on ahead.

  Euthalia looked at Urd, who shrugged. They continued down the row of wooden slats.

  “That one has Vidar’s name,” Urd said casually. Her eyes flicked to Euthalia, and her manner was so light, so indifferent, that it felt anything but.

  Euthalia turned her head and looked at the indicated wooden slat. She could not make out the meaning of the rigidly carved runes, much more than Vidar’s name alone as they wrapped about the long surface. She reached out and touched it, and she looked tentatively at Urd.

  Urd was examining her fingernails, tracing the runes there with the pad of her thumb, her eyes carefully away from Euthalia. Verdandi had gone ahead, not waiting for them.

  Euthalia grasped the slat and pulled it free. It was half the length of her forearm and about as wide, and carved runes lay thick over it. She tucked it into the torso of her dress.

  Urd seemed to come to herself. “Oh, Urdarbrunnr is this way,” she said. “Follow me.”

  They started again, and Urd wove back and around until they came again to the silver pool and the two waiting Nornir. Euthalia glanced around, trying to determine if this were a trick or illusion, but all seemed as it should.

  “This is Urdarbrunnr,” said Urd, indicating the pool. “The Well of Destiny.”

  The pool lay quiet, but Euthalia did not look into it, not wanting to see Ragnarok raging.

  “The water is an endless cycle,” said Urd, dipping her fingers into the pool. The runes in her fingernails seemed to brighten. “It has already fallen and pooled here. It is the past. But it is drawn into the tree Yggdrasill, where it becomes the present.”

  “The past always shapes the present,” said Verdandi. “But it does not enslave it.”

  “We can still make the present,” breathed Euthalia, a faint sense of relief coming to her though she felt no nearer to solving the puzzle. The knowledge that it might be solved was enough. “Then fate—fate is not absolutely destined?”

  “The dew falls again,” said Skuld. She touched a leaf, jarring silvery droplets into the pool. “The present will become the past, and it will shape what becomes the present.”

  Euthalia nodded. “But are we not bound to the past?”

  Urd looked at her and turned away. She took several large stones from the ground and set them among the sloping smaller roots of the great tree. “If I pour water above these stones,” she said, “the water must flow around them, yes?”

  She demonstrated, dipping a pitcher into the pool and pouring steadily above the highest stone. Water ran smoothly about the stone, splitting into two streams which met briefly a handsbreadth below before separating again around the next two stones.

  Euthalia nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  Urd handed her the pitcher. Euthalia hesitated and then mimicked her action, pouring a thin stream above the stones and watching the water take the same path through the already-dampened earth.

  “And you might think that, since those stones have already been placed, there is no possibility of changing the water’s flow.” Verdandi reached out and lifted Euthalia’s wrist, stopping the fall of water. Euthalia looked at her, and the silver-blue eyes gripped her more tightly than any chain. “But you choose where to pour the water.”

  Euthalia stared at her.

  Verdandi shifted Euthalia’s hand a few inches to the side. Euthalia tipped the pitcher again, and water ran out onto a stone, splashing outward in a spray over the roots and stones and showering the ground.

  Euthalia took a shaking breath. “Then it can be changed,” she said. “It can all be changed.”

  “This is magic,” said Skuld. “There is great magic, in the weaving we do. But there is small magic in the daily choices of every living thing. The past is the stones in the path of the water, but you choose where to pour the water.”

  Euthalia nodded. “The great magic,” she said. “How do we perform the great magic?”

  Verdandi smile
d indulgently. “You do not,” she said. “That is the task of the Nornir, and occasionally of those who practice seidr. It is not for the untrained.”

  “But I have to change it,” Euthalia said. “I have to break Vidar’s curse. I have to stop Ragnarok. It is my fault Loki was freed, my fault they are fighting. The gods are dying, and it is my doing.”

  Urd looked to her fellow Nornir, and for a long moment they seemed to be sharing a thought without any regard for Euthalia waiting anxiously beside them.

  “Please,” Euthalia begged. “Not for my sake. For theirs. All of them. Please.”

  “You set Loki free to lead an assault upon Asgard,” said Urd.

  “And I must stop Loki,” Euthalia agreed. “But tell me how.”

  Verdandi turned a palm upward. “Move a stone.”

  “What?”

  “Find a rock to set in Loki’s way.”

  Skuld spoke next. “What does Loki desire above all else?”

  “Revenge,” Euthalia answered without hesitation. “Ragnarok.”

  “What does he want above revenge?”

  She thought. Honor? No, she could not imagine it. Sigyn? No, he had shoved her aside even when she had borne the venom for him.

  His sons. Loki had been genuinely grieved to see them destroyed and genuinely glad to find Nari again in Hel’s domain. “His sons! Sigyn’s sons!”

  “Odin bound him with a son,” Urd said. “So will you.”

  Euthalia tried to bend her mind around the Norn’s words. A son…. “Nari is with him, and I don’t know—Narfi.” She looked around at them. “I believe Narfi is not dead,” she said. “But where do I find him?”

  One corner of Verdandi’s lips curved in a cool half-smile. “Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?”

  “Because I do not know the answer,” Euthalia answered, frustrated. “Or I do not know that I know the answer. Can’t you tell me?”

  Urd answered. “Why do you believe Narfi is not dead?”

  “I did not see him in Helheim,” answered Euthalia. “Hel kept Nari, knowing him for her half-brother, but she did not have Narfi with them.”