Managarm patted Sally’s shoulder in reassurance. “I think you and I should have a talk.”
8
Heimdall led the group through the forest as a steady rain filtered down through the canopy of tall evergreens. He loved the smell of ozone in the air and with Laika by his side, he felt energized by the cool, crisp air and the satisfying crunch of pine needles under his boots.
Heimdall, Freya, Freyr, and Saga moved swiftly among the trees thanks to their still decent night vision, one of the few strengths they retained as the rest of their powers slowly ebbed. Laika enjoyed the brisk pace and danced excited circles around Heimdall as they proceeded deeper into the woods.
Rod kept falling behind.
As he’d done every few yards since they started, Freyr reached back, grabbed Rod by the front of his jacket and yanked him forward.
Catapulted ahead into the darkness, Rod narrowly avoided smacking face-first into a tree trunk.
“All right already!” Rod pushed the nature god’s hands away and straightened his outerwear. “I’m doing the best I can, okay? You could have at least let me bring a flashlight.”
“Mmm.” Freyr patted him on the back and disappeared again into the darkness ahead, following Heimdall’s lead until the trees opened into a clearing.
“This is as far as I got last night.” Heimdall stepped into the center of the clearing as the others fanned out around him. He looked for the tiny sliver of moon overhead but found only clouds and the gentle drizzle of autumn rain. Laika leapt around the small grove and nosed under the low shrubs, looking for another chipmunk or maybe a rabbit.
“I was standing here when I felt that chill move through me.” He looked at Freya. “You think someone’s working magick?”
Freya stepped across the grass and moss to stand beside Heimdall. She turned slowly in a circle, and Heimdall watched with envy as she took in the energies beyond the sights, scents, and sounds of the forest. Even with her slipping divinity, Freya was a skilled shaman. Where others could see only trees, Freya felt the pulsing vitality of the forest itself.
“Owls.” She gestured toward one of the trees that ringed the small glade, then closed her eyes. “A particularly lazy possum, about a hundred yards to my right.” Her brow crinkled and she waved her hand to her left. “A lone coyote, stalking a young rabbit, not quite a mile to the south.”
Coming to the end of her rotation, Freya stopped and sniffed the air. “Other than that, we’ve got the obvious—rain falling on pine needles, absorbing into the soil. And, of course . . .”
Freya gestured toward the path they had followed into the clearing, just as Rod came stumbling out of the woods into the circle.
“Our friend, Rod, crashing through the forest like a drunken rhinoceros.”
Rod caught his balance and kept himself from falling on his face on the wet ground. He blinked at the others, barely able to make them out against the dark trees.
“Everybody here?” Rod cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Yeah. Thanks for checking in on us.” Heimdall knew Rod couldn’t see the smirk on his face in the dark, but there was no way to keep it out of his voice.
“Okay, then,” Rod announced loudly, overcompensating for his poor night vision. “What do we do now?”
Freyr laid a hand on Rod’s shoulder, silencing him.
Heimdall leaned close to Freya. “Anything else?”
“We’ve not been tracked.” Freya gazed up into the conifers and studied the needled branches of pine, cedar, and spruce. “Can you still feel it, standing here now?”
“The magick that knocked me on my ass?” Heimdall looked into her unamused eyes. “Sorry. You mean the Tree.”
Heimdall knelt and laid his palm against the ground. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, then homed in on the steady cacophony of vibrations beneath the soil’s surface. Filtering out the familiar chatter of domestic trees and the sharp static from the power station and cell towers several miles away, Heimdall tuned into the tender, hopeful pulse of the young sapling.
The Yggdrasil is calling.
He opened his eyes. “It’s close.” He stood and wiped his hand on the front of his jacket. “But I don’t know how close. I can’t even tell what species of tree it is this time.”
Freya rested a hand on his shoulder. “Your hunt brought you closer to the Yggdrasil than mine did, cousin.”
Heimdall shrugged. A cool trickle of raindrops slid beneath his jacket collar, and he shivered. “It’s never been an emergency before.”
Freya nodded over her shoulder at Saga, then sat cross-legged on the ground. Taking her cue, Saga gestured to the others to form a circle around Freya, facing outward to form a protective ring.
Rod watched the others take their positions at the cardinal points on the circle—Freyr in the West, Heimdall in the North, and Saga in the East. “Okay. What are we doing?”
Saga stepped out of place and took him gently by the hand, careful not to disturb Freya as she moved Rod into position. “We’re acting as sentinels of the Four Quarters. You’ll be South.”
“South. Okay.” Rod stood facing the trees, then whispered hoarsely over his shoulder as Saga resumed her place in the East. “What does South mean? What am I supposed to do?”
Saga shrugged. “Concentrate on the color red. Try to think of yourself as the summer sun. Imagine that if anyone or anything even thought about approaching our circle, you’d lash out with blazing fire. Okay?”
Rod nodded. “Yeah, blazing fire. Okay.”
Laika darted into the circle and sniffed at Freya’s face. Freya smiled and patted the wolf-dog’s head. With a wag of her tail, Laika settled down behind Freya, pressing her spine against Freya’s back and keeping eyes and ears alert. Freya closed her eyes and rested her hands in her lap.
Heimdall stared ahead into the dark forest. It had been a long time since he’d stood at the Quarters. He shuffled his feet and tried to remember if he was supposed to chant or perform any kind of invocation.
“Hey!” Rod called quietly to Freyr, standing vigil in the West. “Hey, what’s she doing?”
Even Heimdall could feel Freyr’s exasperation as he turned toward Rod. “She’s entering a shamanic trance state to delve into the Earth and locate the Tree.”
Rod frowned. “She’s doing what now?”
“It’s a kind of meditation,” Freyr whispered. “She’s directing her awareness down into the ground to scout out the Yggdrasil from below.”
“Okay.” Rod paused. “But why didn’t she do that before now?”
Freyr stepped over to Rod. “We had to find the Yggdrasil’s signal first. It’s a kind of a song that’s unique to the Tree. Heimdall located it last night, so now Freya has a beacon to follow.”
Freyr strode back across the moss to take up his position in the West.
“But what happens if—”
“Just be the freaking fire to the South, already!” Freyr hissed. “And do it quietly.”
“We’re here to keep out the stray squirrel or dragon, Rod,” Heimdall whispered across the clearing. “Leave the rest to Freya.”
Freyr snorted. “Dragons. You’d better watch out, Rod.”
Saga shushed them both. “Boys.”
North. Heimdall cleared his mind of everything but dark earth and winter. He closed his eyes and breathed in a vague hint of frosted fire. He felt a faint trickle of the power that had once flowed steadily through him. It wasn’t enough. He might still be a formidable force among mortals, stronger even than Odin, but he was a pathetic weakling compared to what he had once been.
Maybe Thor had it right. Heimdall thought about roaming Berserkers. They needed to find the Tree, sure, but not just to keep an eye on it this time. They could harness the Yggdrasil’s power to resurrect the Old Ways, and restore themselves.
A flutter of wings and swish of evergreen branches announced the arrival of a Great Horned Owl, come to get a better look at wha
t was going on in the grove. Laika whined as the owl hooted and paced up and down on a tree branch over Heimdall’s head.
On instinct, Heimdall pivoted to face Freya, turning his back on the North. The owl would hold the Quarter for him. He crouched low and pressed both palms flat against the damp earth. With a deep exhalation, he sent what divine strength he had left into the ground, trying to smooth the way for Freya’s journey.
Heimdall watched her facial muscles relax and then felt a rising tingle of energy along his spine as he connected to her through the earth. The corners of Freya’s mouth ticked up into a smile, and his envy of her abilities flared.
While the others struggled with the decline of godhood, Freya was enjoying herself. Without the pressures of the pantheon—or her duty to promote love and fertility among her divine kinsmen or mortal tribes—she was free to study and explore. She’d traveled the world these last centuries, learning from masters of every religion and mystical tradition. Freya had studied with wise men and women who revered one god, many gods, trees, rocks, space aliens, or nothing at all. She’d become a true mystic.
Heimdall felt a flash of power pass through the soil beneath his hands, and he watched a vibrating luminescence build around Freya as she sat in deep meditation. Wisps of light coiled upward out of the earth to encompass her body and then spiraled into the overcast sky. Freya was glowing from her fingertips to the roots of her hair.
Freya rested her palms on the ground by her sides. An explosion of color danced into the flickering helix of light that surrounded her.
“Whoa!”
Heimdall looked across the circle and saw Rod staring at Freya. “Rod.”
Instead of turning back around to face the South, Rod pointed at Freya and gaped.
Heimdall decided to humor him. “Each colored spark is a trace of all who walk, swim, fly over, or make their home within the planet.”
“No way.”
“Every tree is connected to every other.” Heimdall’s voice was barely above a whisper. “The oldest, deepest historical archive on the planet.”
“So you’re going to talk to the trees?” Rod stared at the delicate fireworks show centered on Freya.
Heimdall smelled the static charge building on the air—a combination of ozone from the weather and the energies coalescing around Freya. He glanced around the circle and saw the others, even the open-mouthed Rod, bristle at the power amassing in the center of the glade. The owl over his head flapped its wings in agitated excitement, and Laika whimpered.
“Best mind the South now, Rod,” Heimdall suggested.
Rod nodded and reluctantly turned around.
Eyes closed, Freya lifted her face to the sky and breathed in sharply. The tingling tickle against Heimdall’s palms shifted. He felt Freya send tendrils of consciousness down into the ground and out along the network of tree roots.
Heimdall closed his eyes, pressed his hands hard against the damp earth, and followed her.
Shamanic journeying was not Heimdall’s strong suit. As soon as he forced his awareness out of his body and into the ground below, he was lost among the tangle of roots, earthworm tunnels, and rabbit warrens, and his consciousness started to retreat in a bewildered panic. He felt nauseated and instantly exhausted.
But then Freya’s spark whisked past him as she homed in on the quiet, empty roots of the dead husk of the old Sitka Spruce. Heimdall fought his way through disorientation and took off after her.
Freya’s astral form was a shimmering, translucent replica of her physical body. Racing along the elegantly intricate network of tree roots, Heimdall followed Freya down a trail of cold, dark brown veins. He stopped short as she tried to force her consciousness up out of the soil to commune with the stump of the old Tree, but the way was sluggish and heavy. Death and decay had taken hold, blocking her path.
Freya backtracked. She retreated past Heimdall along the dark lines of dead root to a junction where the glowing, amber roots of a nearby evergreen hadn’t yet disconnected from the old Tree.
Freya launched herself along this new, living root system. Heimdall fell in behind her and felt refreshed by the vitality and springy energy of the younger tree, which he guessed was only about six decades old.
Heimdall hung back as Freya zipped up the tree’s roots toward the trunk. But the tree pushed her back. Heimdall could smell the acrid scent of the evergreen’s trepidation. Freya backed off and tried to reassure the tree, asking how she might be of service. The evergreen relaxed, but not enough to let her in.
Freya was about to try coaxing the tree again when Heimdall was knocked backward by a torrent of sense memory from the tree. He felt his physical body—miles away, back in the grove—shake with every remembered touch of the loggers’ chainsaws, every crack of wood from wind storms and forest fires, even the loss of each bit of bark peeled away by eager, ignorant children.
Then Heimdall had a vision of the deserted parking lot where the young evergreen stood. Through the downpour of rain, the corpse of the Sitka Spruce loomed on the other side of the pavement. Heimdall spotted the beat-up truck and the figure who slid out from behind the wheel, carrying a hacksaw as he made his way to the old Tree.
Managarm.
Heimdall flashed hot with anger. He tasted bile in his mouth. Managarm desecrated the old Tree? One of the Old Ones had wrought this sacrilege? Heimdall contorted his luminous hands into fists and only barely kept from screaming.
His throat tightened as he watched the slab of the old Yggdrasil being sawn off. He convulsed with every stroke of the saw. Then the image of Managarm swaggered back to his truck with his prize.
Freya reached for Heimdall and tried to hold him in place, but his mounting rage yanked him backward. He lost sight of Freya, the Sitka Spruce, and the young evergreen as he was pulled back toward his physical body. Grasping at the roots all around him, Heimdall strained to push forward again to rejoin Freya at the base of the young evergreen, but his astral fingers slipped along the network of underground tendrils.
Whole stands of trees flashed past with dizzying speed. He needed to relax, then he could regain focus and control. But the vision of Managarm and his saw loomed large, and Heimdall came to a sudden stop in his physical body. He pitched forward, landing face-first in the dirt. Coughing, he rolled onto his back and blinked up at the overcast sky. Cool rain mingled with hot, angry tears running down his cheeks, and Heimdall beat on the wet ground and screamed through clenched teeth.
Saga turned sharply from her position in the East. “Are you okay?”
She started to leave her post to assist him, but Heimdall waved her off and sat up. “Freya’s still on the hunt.”
Cursed, bloody Moon Dog! Heimdall dug his dirty hands into his hair and hung his head. If Managarm dared to steal from the old Tree, what would keep him from harming or even destroying the vulnerable new Yggdrasil?
Freya sighed loudly in the center of the circle. Heimdall climbed to his feet and faced the forest. He had to stay focused and calm for Freya—she still had ground to cover. The owl over his headed hooted softly. Heimdall uncurled his fingers and wiped tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.
The vision returned. He tried to fight off the mix of confidence and desperation that had poured off Managarm, but the young evergreen was still pushing impressions to him from miles away. Then he saw the Fenris Wolf, released from his prison. Heimdall broke into a cold sweat as the vision of the Randulfr howled up at a moonless sky and towered over the bloody corpse of Odin.
Heimdall lurched forward and retched.
“No more,” he whispered. “Please. I can’t take any more.”
His body jerked as the tree loosened its connection. Heimdall pressed his hand to the ground and closed his eyes. Thank you for being a witness, Heimdall communicated to the young evergreen.
Freya inhaled sharply behind him. Heimdall turned around and found her blinking up at him from the center of the circle. Laika sat up and yawned loudly.
&nb
sp; “That was unexpected.” Freya climbed to her feet.
Startled off of their protection duty, Saga, Freyr, and Rod turned around. Freyr took a few steps toward his sister. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Freya replied. “I’ve got a bearing on the Yggdrasil.”
Rod’s face brightened. “That’s great!” He looked at Heimdall’s and Freya’s solemn faces and frowned. “I mean, that’s good, right? That’s what we wanted?”
Freyr rested a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “What happened?”
Freya clutched at her chest. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Heimdall chuckled darkly. “I think I’ve already done enough heaving for both of us.”
Rod glanced between Heimdall and Freya. “Is that reaction normal?”
“Hardly.” Heimdall looked into the low ceiling of clouds and snarled. “Managarm.”
Saga grabbed Heimdall by the elbow. “Are you sure?”
Heimdall nodded coldly. “It’s the barbarous Moon Dog, all right. He’s after the Tree. He’s the cause of all of this.”
Leaning over and trying not to be sick, Freya raised a cautionary hand. “Maybe not all of it.” She took a deep breath and started retching.
Saga’s grip tightened on Heimdall. “With the Black Moon coming . . .”
“Should’ve known it would be one of the Wolves.” Freyr crossed his arms over his chest and kicked at the moss beneath his feet.
Rod raised his hand like a schoolboy. “So, don’t everybody jump down my throat at once, but who or what exactly is Managarm? He’s a bad guy? A wolf?”
“No ordinary wolf. Managarm is the Moon Dog, cousin to the Warg Wolves and to the Randulfr, Fenrir.” Freyr turned sharply to Heimdall. “I never liked those Wargs. Suspicious lot, always hanging out on the periphery, scheming and laughing among themselves, then grumbling about their responsibilities and about not being rewarded enough. They should never have been allowed into the New World.”
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