by C. L. Werner
Thirty-One
Twilight’s flaming edge swept past Tyr’s eyes. Too weak to move, he braced himself for death. Instead, a pained cry rang out and Sindr staggered back, pawing at her face with one hand. The fire that rippled about the giant’s fingers was snuffed out and a frigid paleness crept into them. Tyr gazed in amazement at her eyes, for they’d turned from burning pits into icy deeps spattered with hoarfrost.
Lorelei’s magic! For he was certain it could be no other who could blind those eyes of fire and turn them to ice. Sindr roared in fury and struck with Twilight, lashing the great sword from side to side in her blind rage. The monstrous blade ripped through the pillars around her, hewing through the stone as though it were butter. One collapsed as the giant’s swing cleft it in twain. A second swiftly crumbled, the damage rendering it incapable of enduring the strain of supporting the castle above. The whole vault shuddered and shook as the roof cracked and slabs of rock came crashing down.
“This fight is over,” Bjorn told Tyr. The wolfhunter appeared suddenly at his side and reached his arms under the Aesir’s shoulders. “You might take a hero’s death being struck by Twilight, but you’ll finish like a worm if you’re buried under all this rubble!”
Bjorn dragged Tyr across the chamber, back toward the hidden stairs. After a few moments, Tyr rallied enough that he was able to aid the huntsman’s efforts and speed their progress somewhat. Nor was even a slight measure of haste wasted. Huge blocks of stone came crashing down now as Sindr continued to rake Twilight back and forth, hewing through the pillars. Twice they were nearly crushed beneath sections of the castle that spilled down into the vault.
“In here! Swiftly!” Lorelei shouted. She was still bloodied and pale, but she’d recovered at least somewhat from the stunning blow Sindr had struck her. Her hands made arcane gestures, and Tyr thought he felt strength rush back into him. Certainly, he wasn’t mistaken that Bjorn’s pace increased and the huntsman’s grip became stronger.
The flailing giant continued to batter away at her surroundings, intent on bringing down the ceiling to prevent her enemies from escaping. In Muspelheim she’d shown such a collapse would be only a momentary obstacle to her, but if the Asgardians were crushed she wouldn’t need to see them to bring their destruction. Not that her blindness would last much longer. The icy hue around her fingers had already burned away. Steam rose as the hoarfrost around her eyes evaporated. Tyr could see the glow of Sindr’s fiery eyes shining from behind the frigid veil that covered them and knew that it would be only a matter of moments before her vision was restored. Before that could happen, a swing of Twilight toppled one pillar too many. With a roar more terrible than anything before it, the whole roof came down. The giant was lost beneath tons of crashing stone.
Tyr should have been lost too, but at that moment Bjorn reached the stairs. “This way!” Lorelei shouted and spun about. Her foot kicked against a block in the wall, triggering some hidden catch and exposing a dark tunnel. With the castle collapsing into the vault, this was no moment to hesitate. Tyr stumbled after Lorelei as she ducked into the tunnel with Bjorn hastily following him.
The passage was old and crudely constructed, but it was firm. Tyr could hear the hideous tumult from the vault behind them, but the tunnel’s walls barely trembled. He wondered if this might be the work of rock trolls, so stoutly did the place defy the tremors that pulsed through it. Certainly, Gnagrak and his ilk had some way up from the Realm Below.
When Lorelei led them down the tunnel, the slope angled up, not down, relieving somewhat Tyr’s worry that they’d trade escape from the collapsing vault for the manifold dangers of the troll kingdom.
“You’ve ruined everything,” Lorelei hissed as they made their way through the dark tunnel, the only illumination rising from clumps of phosphorescent moss clinging to the floor. “Your recklessness brought that monster into Asgard!”
Tyr glared at her. “If you’d not plotted treachery from the first…”
Another shudder rolled through the passageway, mightier than those that came before. The walls and ceiling resisted the tremor, but the ground under them cracked and split. Tyr caught himself against the wall before he was thrown to the floor by the uneven footing. Bjorn was sent sprawling. He looked up, his face cut by flakes of flint. “We argue later,” he said, brushing his hand across his bloodied cheek. “Right now, we’ve got to get out of here.”
Hostile silence held them as they continued along the tunnel. A few more tremors rippled through their surroundings, but nothing like the magnitude of what had come before. Tyr wondered how great the destruction must be to still be producing such shocks. Lorelei’s castle wouldn’t be quite so beautiful after Sindr’s rampage. He knew it was a petty thing, but after what the sorceress had tried to do, he was pleased that her home had suffered because of her intrigues.
How greatly the castle had suffered was yet to be revealed. Not until the steeply angled tunnel reached a set of steps that climbed up to a door in the ceiling. Tyr judged that they must be a mile or more from Lorelei’s castle now. She was no fool. Aware that some of her enemies might take it into mind to besiege her fortress, she’d prepared an escape route that would put her well beyond their reach.
“Let Bjorn open the door,” Tyr said when Lorelei started up the steps. Her eyes smoldered with indignation, but she acquiesced and moved aside so the wolfhunter could remove the heavy bar that secured the portal. Harsh sunlight streamed down into the tunnel when Bjorn threw the door open. He peeked his head over the lip, then ducked back down.
“I don’t see anyone,” Bjorn reported, giving Lorelei a wary look. “If any of her swains are lying in wait for us, they’ve hidden themselves well.”
Tyr shook his head. “I doubt you shared this secret with anyone,” he said, fixing his gaze on Lorelei. “You’d never be sure that someone wouldn’t betray you out of jealousy. That’s the pitfall when you play upon someone’s emotions. When you bind a confederate to you with wealth, you simply have to make sure they can’t do better with another patron. But when you use affection to hold someone in your power, you gamble with the fickleness of the heart. No hate is deeper than that held against someone once loved.”
“You think you know so much,” Lorelei replied, disdain in her tone. “What experience have you had, Tyr, with the notoriety of your own bloodline? Growing up in my sister’s shadow, tarnished with an infamy I had no part in, what kind of chance do you think I had? To always be treated with suspicion by those around me. I learned very early that I had to fend for myself because no one else would help.” All warmth vanished from her eyes, supplanted by cold bitterness. “I did whatever I had to do to improve my situation and I didn’t scruple about who I took advantage of to get what I wanted.”
Tyr returned her steely gaze with a look every bit as cold. “I could almost sympathize with you, Lorelei. I know what it is to be in the shadow of a sibling. That sense that you can’t measure up, that quiet envy that is so pervasive you don’t even recognize it after a time. But instead of harnessing that feeling to push yourself to great deeds of your own, you’ve let it fester like a wound. You use the pain you feel to justify whatever you do, no matter who you hurt. Maybe the reason nobody cared about you is because you never cared about them.”
Lorelei’s face curled in a sneer. “You needed little persuasion to sneak away for the sake of your own pride. It would have been easy enough for you to tell Odin of my plan.”
“You told me we would take Twilight to protect my father,” Tyr reminded her. “Not that your only interest was in taking it to use in your designs to compel Thor to wed you.”
“It wasn’t me who brought Sindr to my castle,” Lorelei snapped back. “Only a fool would have expected the fire giant’s daughter to be overcome by flowing lava. You know the giants can alter their size and shape...”
Tyr jabbed his finger at the sorceress. “Your spells didn’t uncover Sindr�
�s disguise when we were in the forge. Then you only had eyes for your prize and nothing else!”
Lorelei’s lip trembled with fury. “There had to have been something that warned you what she was! I saw it when the dwarf’s boots scorched the floor while fighting the trolls. It was no great feat of magic to pierce her disguise and see what it was you brought into my castle!”
“There’s not much of a castle left,” Bjorn called down to them. He nodded when Lorelei and Tyr stared up at him. “Come see for yourselves,” he invited, climbing out through the door.
Tyr thought he knew what to expect from Bjorn’s words, but he wasn’t prepared for the destruction that greeted him when he emerged from the tunnel. Lorelei’s castle, that beauteous structure, was nothing but a pile of smashed stone gleaming in the sunlight. A cloud of dust slowly rolled away from the rubble, sinking down into those parts of the moat that hadn’t fallen in upon themselves. The gatehouse and drawbridge were the only parts of the fortress still intact, though a section of curtain wall and part of a tower on the eastern side were still mostly standing. The rest had fallen inwards, sucked down when Sindr’s rampage knocked out the foundations.
Lorelei stood and gawked at the devastation. A tear rolled down her cheek. “All ruined,” she muttered. “There’s nothing left.” She rounded on Tyr and slapped him across the face. “You brought that monster here!”
Tyr wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his arm. “And you abandoned me to rot in Muspelheim.” He regretted the guilt he saw on Bjorn’s face when he spoke. That had been the subtlety of Lorelei’s enchantment, that it made her commands seem things of her thrall’s own volition. For the wolfhunter to have resisted her at all was enough to absolve him of any guilt in Tyr’s eyes, if not his own.
“I couldn’t take the chance that you’d use Twilight against Thor,” Lorelei told him. “You say you understand how I feel about my sister, well maybe I know how you feel towards your brother even better than you do yourself.” She smiled when she noted the doubt she provoked in Tyr. “Instead you’ve done even worse. Somehow you brought Sindr into Asgard.”
“Without her I could never have escaped,” Tyr said.
Lorelei laughed at him. “She used you every bit the way I did, but with far more terrible intent.” She tapped her finger against Tyr’s chest. “I brought Twilight across, you brought Sindr. Do you know what that means? The giant and the sword both together in Asgard?”
“It means your castle lies in ruins,” Bjorn said, waving at the rubble. “It means they’re both down there, buried under tons of stone.”
Tyr’s gaze lingered over the destroyed castle, doubt gnawing at him. They’d already seen Sindr pull herself free from one pile of stone. Grimly he watched as the fractured stone shifted. A few blocks at the top of the heap fell away. Then a few more. Steadily the agitation spread further and further through the mound.
“I think you spoke too soon,” Tyr advised his friend.
The pile continued to tremble until the whole heap was in motion. Shattered towers and collapsed walls broke apart into smaller aggregations of stone, sliding away into what remained of the moat. As the mound shifted, flashes of light could be seen boiling up from below. Tyr was reminded of the molten pits of Muspelheim, and not without good reason.
“Sindr lives.” Tyr spoke the words in a subdued whisper. Though he wasn’t as weak as he’d been in the vault, neither was he so hale that he could look to another fight against the giant with confidence. And then there were the dark powers of Twilight to take into account. His only hope was that she’d been wounded by the castle’s collapse and that in the mayhem she’d lost the sword beneath the rubble.
Thirty-Two
The rubble heaved upward and then went crashing down into the moat. Sindr didn’t climb from the pit into which Lorelei’s castle had fallen, she grew from it. The giant’s body was wreathed in flames as she emerged from the depths. Clenched in her right hand, still increasing in size to match her own, was Twilight. The very atmosphere around the blade was distorted by the heat emanating from it. When Sindr finally stopped growing and pressed her hands against the ground to lift herself from the vault, where the sword rested the debris bubbled and smoked, stone changing to molten streams of glowing mush.
Lorelei sank to the ground, transfixed by the horrible sight of the giant rising above the rubble of her home. “Tyr, by trying to save Odin from his doom, you’ve brought doom to all Asgard,” she muttered.
Sindr turned her horned head to the sky, and a peal of steaming laughter, like the roar of a dragon, seethed across the landscape. Tyr looked down at his sword and his expression was grave. Tyrsfang had vanquished countless enemies and monsters since it was given to him, but he wondered if it could be enough to contest with the fire giant’s daughter and the malignant blade she bore. Still, he wouldn’t run. Whatever the reasons for doing so, however he’d been tricked, Lorelei was right. He’d brought Sindr into Asgard.
“You must alert the city and the All-Father,” Tyr told his companions. “I’ll stay here and hold Sindr at bay.”
“If you were so eager for death, you should have stayed in Muspelheim,” Lorelei declared. She pointed at Sindr. “Even your brother would be hard pressed against such a foe. What chance would you stand?”
“This once I must agree with Lorelei,” Bjorn chimed in. “What could you do alone against that?” He perked up and smiled. “Look! She’s walking away!” It was true, the giant had turned and was striding off across the plain to the north. “Either she didn’t notice us or she didn’t care.”
“Or she has more important things to do,” Lorelei said.
Tyr tore his eyes away from the spectacle of Sindr marching out into the grasslands, her footsteps smoldering behind her and threatening to set flash fires in her wake. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “You’ve some idea of what she’s after. More than just recovering Twilight. You knew the moment you saw through her disguise. What is it? What is Sindr’s purpose here? Does she seek to assassinate Odin with her father’s sword?”
“Note the direction she’s headed,” Lorelei told him, shaking her head. “North across the plains.”
“The City of Asgard.” Bjorn swore. “With Twilight she could break down the walls. Cause untold damage.”
“Not the city,” Lorelei said. She hesitated before continuing, fear in her eyes. “Beyond the city is Himinbjörg and Bifrost.”
The moment he heard those names, a knot of cold dread formed in the pit of Tyr’s stomach. “The Rainbow Bridge! She means to throw open the gate to Muspelheim!”
“She’ll set loose an army of fire demons upon Asgard!” Bjorn exclaimed.
“Far worse than that,” Lorelei stated. “I had a chance to study Twilight after it was safely stowed in my vault.” She looked aside at Tyr. “Believe me, what I told Gnagrak was only what I had to tell him to make use of him. After studying Twilight, after discovering what it is, I would trust no one to carry it.”
Tyr was unconvinced by her appeal, but he motioned for her to continue. “What did your magic tell you? For I can tell you what I’ve learned. Sindr revealed to me that Twilight is much more than Surtur’s sword! The fire giant has invested the blade with a part of his own essence. It is a part of him, an aspect of the fire giant’s spirit.”
Lorelei’s eyes were wide with shock. Whatever her own study of the sword had exposed, she hadn’t suspected this truth. “Then the sword is an externalized piece of Surtur himself. Made still more malignant by the poisons and spells the captured dwarves have added to it with each reforging.” The sorceress staggered against the wall, color draining from her face. “It is more awful than I dared fear.”
“Twilight isn’t merely bound to Surtur,” Tyr said. “It is part of him.”
“You keep saying that, but what does it mean?” Bjorn demanded, trying to decipher the exchange. He waved his hand at th
e distant figure of the marching giant. “We waste time better spent in pursuing the enemy bandying words. Tell me plainly what it is that Sindr plots?”
“I’d never have dared bring Twilight here if I knew what it was,” Lorelei stated. She looked from the wolfhunter to Tyr. “Understand, by bringing it into Asgard part of Surtur was brought here. Should Sindr bring the sword to Bifrost, she can use it to draw her father through! The resonance between sword and master will be strong enough to penetrate the barriers that imprison Surtur in Muspelheim!”
Bjorn shuddered at the image Lorelei conjured. “The fire giant set loose upon Asgard even before Ragnarok unfolds.”
A ghastly thought came to Tyr. “Surtur let us take Twilight.” He looked at his companions. “Sindr noted the passage we withdrew down when we escaped from her. That was enough to suggest to her what we were after. When she reported to her father, he hatched this scheme to break free from Muspelheim.” Tyr groaned as he appreciated another factor. “Surtur is bound to the prophecy of Ragnarok as well. A doom hangs over his head as it does Odin. What if he were to force the issue ahead of the appointed time? Just as I thought to spare my father from the fate foretold by stealing Twilight, so Surtur might do the same by storming Asgard before Ragnarok.”
“We have to warn them!” Bjorn shouted. “Warn the All-Father so the greatest heroes in Asgard can help Heimdall guard Bifrost and prevent Sindr–”
“It would only delay her plans, or force her to even more devious means,” Tyr said. “Sindr deceived me by changing herself into a dwarf. She’ll try to use some similar ploy against Heimdall rather than stride past the city in her own giant shape. If she sees that a guard has been raised, then she’ll never try for the Rainbow Bridge while they’re there – and if we tell Odin what has happened, he is certain to set a guard. She’ll lie low and bide her time.” He shot Lorelei a stern look. “Or seek allies of her own to help her. The rock trolls would make common cause readily enough if they saw a way to bring down the Aesir.”