by Matt Larkin
He drew a deep breath, then started forward, still leaning on the staff.
“Eightarms,” Volund said.
Starkad looked back at him.
“Pain and suffering are the crucibles through which greatness is forged. I would know …”
It was hard to say whether he ought to hate the svartalf or thank him. Instead, Starkad just offered him a nod.
Then he trudged into the mist.
26
As Hervor had hoped, beyond the edge of the village, the others had regrouped. None had much wished to discuss what they’d seen within, leaving her to imagine they had each faced their own nightmares. Maybe Loviatar was playing with their minds. If so, it gave Hervor all the more reason to want the witch dead.
The hills gave way to mountains, and they pushed on until exhaustion drove them to collapse. And as soon as they were able, they were up again, pressing ever deeper. They had finally crossed beyond the storms and here, the sky swirled in a dance of color and light more miraculous than even what she’d seen on Thule.
“Glorious,” Höfund mumbled.
Hervor felt too fatigued to even bother answering.
And then, as they crested the peak of another mountain, it came into view. At first, she took it for an obelisk the height of a mountain. But the alabaster column twisted and wound about itself. Even from here, she could see its surface seemed gnarled with knots. The tip of it pierced the clouds and scraped the sky beneath the North Star.
“Odin be praised …” Ecgtheow said.
“What is that?” Hervor asked, unable to swallow.
Pakkanen huffed up beside her, shook his head while he caught his breath, before finally staring up at the column. “Never thought … I’d see it … the World Pillar. Some say … it is a root of the World Tree, connecting Midgard to the heavens above.”
World Tree? Odin’s magnificent stones! “I …” She had no idea what she even wanted to say. Ecgtheow was right, praise Odin. Praise all the Aesir. She squinted at the pillar. It grew out of a valley. Just above the mist, some construction rimmed its surface, a balcony running around it.
“You see it, don’t you?” Pakkanen said. “Loviatar’s palace.”
She had built onto the World Pillar? The very thought seemed audacious to the point of blasphemy, as if she proclaimed herself a goddess above the land.
“Reckon that’s who you want dead,” Höfund said. “Don’t look like a weak one, though, whoever built that place. Ain’t gonna be easy to take the fight there.”
Hervor sniffed, rubbed the chill from her cheeks. “Never thought it would be.”
She started down the mountain slope.
The sheer scope of the World Pillar boggled the mind and defied imagination. From the mountain peak, it had seemed massive. Now, approaching its base, no word seemed sufficient to sum up its magnitude. Hervor was an insect beneath an endless cliff.
Unable to focus on the scope of the pillar itself, she instead locked her gaze on the balcony that rimmed it. A walkway spiraled around the root, rising up to the balcony itself, which stood maybe thirty feet in the air. It might have been wood, but it gleamed like polished stone in the same alabaster color as the root itself.
What she hadn’t seen from the peak, though, was the campfires scattered around the base of the root, nor the huts from which now poured a small army of tattooed warriors. These people wore no clothes other than animal skins, with the skulls of bears or reindeer as masks. They bore crude spears and axes, looking no less horrifying for having weapons made from bone or rock.
It was not the warriors circling their small party that drew her eye, however. From some room beyond the balcony a woman had emerged, drawn up to the rail and stared down at them. Stared eyelessly, as it were. Where her eyes ought to have been rested only pools of inky blackness. Dark hair billowed about her, made her seem almost radiant in the night, especially against the gleaming backdrop of the World Pillar. Maybe Loviatar would have been beautiful despite her missing eyes.
Maybe, if Hervor weren’t so intent on killing the woman high above her, staring down. Seeming to look right into Hervor’s soul. Naught good ever came from sorcery or witchcraft, if there was even a difference between the two. The whole world would be better off if every worker of the Art just dropped dead.
For now, Hervor would have to settle for ending just one of them. Meeting the witch’s gaze, she slid Tyrfing free of its sheath. “Come down and face us, witch, and your people may yet live.”
Hard to say whether the savages understood her words, though they did hoot and brandish their weapons when Hervor addressed their queen. Either way, Loviatar spoke to her people in some strange tongue, her words lilting and discordant.
And those words seemed to break a dam holding back the savages. Warriors burst forward in a wave, screaming high-pitched war cries and flailing their weapons with enough ferocity to make up for any lack of discipline. Almost enough.
“Take them,” Hervor rasped to the others. “Clear a path to the witch!”
A warrior jabbed at her with a spear. Hervor jerked out of the way, cleaved through the haft of his weapon and whipped Tyrfing back around to tear through his jaw. The man fell screaming, hands over his split face. Probably didn’t even realize he was already dead.
Hervor stepped around him, cut down another man.
Höfund charged past her, shoulder-slammed a warrior woman, and buried his axe into the sternum of a man. The others crashed into the army of savages, more than occupying them.
Hervor broke into a run, dashing for the walkway that led up to that balcony. Maybe the crew could hold off the warriors long enough for her to reach the top. There was a troll-sized serving of the fuckers, though, and none of her crew were Starkad, able to fight off a dozen men at once.
So she’d best be fast about this.
Running so hard she almost didn’t see the shimmer flying through the air. At the last moment, she twisted, tried to dodge. The creature impacted her in the chest and sent her sprawling in the snow. Its momentum carried her away several feet, the hiisi atop her like she was a sled.
She lost her torch but just managed to hold on to the runeblade.
The creature bellowed a hideous croak at her, reared back and yanked at her mail with both claws. Then it bit down, rending metal links with its teeth. She flailed as it jerked its claws apart, shredding her armor and leaving naught but leather padding to protect her.
Hervor jerked her fist up, punched it in the throat. Even as it fell backward, one of its claws slashed into her chest, shredding leather and tearing deep into her left breast. She shrieked in pain, jerked Tyrfing up and drove the runeblade through the hiisi’s eye, coating her hand in gore.
Hand to her chest, she yanked the blade free.
Turned. More hiidet were leaping atop her crew, laying into them. Nowhere nigh to the numbers they’d faced in Ajatar’s dale, but too many. She glanced back at the walkway. The path was clear, but if she left her people to fend for themselves … she might have no allies to come back to.
Then again, they were all like to be dead before the next sunrise. She had to finish Loviatar to save Starkad. Make all this mean something.
With a gasp of pain and frustration, she grabbed up her torch and blundered forward again. The snow was lighter on the walkway and her footfalls echoed on the wood as she raced upward. A long run, round and round the massive pillar.
Panting, she caught her breath by the rail for a heartbeat or two, then plodded on. She had to do this. She had to get it done. Naught else mattered until the witch-queen was dead.
Her legs ached. Her feet kept trying to turn over. As she circled round, more sounds of battle came from below. Screams of pain. Men and women dying. Shrieking croaks from the hiidet.
Don’t look.
She couldn’t afford to take her attention from the task at hand. Just keep running. Ribs were aching. Arm burning beneath the bandage. Just keep moving …
She rounded the n
ext bend.
The witch turned to her, as if able to see despite having no eyes. Looked right at Hervor. Hervor fell short, panting. Maybe she should have said something, but naught came to mind.
And then Loviatar stepped backward, disappearing into a building built up against the pillar’s side. The edge of the doorway bore an elaborately carved relief, like Loviatar had indeed intended this place as a palace on the very ends of the world.
Beyond lay darkness, so Hervor strode forward slowly, torch out before her. “There is no escape, witch!”
Careful, watching for the shimmer of hiidet, Hervor strode inside. The witch stood before the edge of the pillar itself, hand on its surface, mumbling something under her breath.
As Hervor entered, the witch turned, stared right at her. “It is as you fear …”
Her voice hit Hervor like a blow to the gut. Hervor stumbled forward, Tyrfing’s point dropping low and scraping the wooden floor, leaving a scar in it. Hervor opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her head was filled with mist. Everything around her swayed and spun like the deck of a ship. She stumbled a few steps forward.
“You are a pestilence upon all who know you.”
Loviatar’s words carved through her brain, a searing blade driven through her skull. Hervor staggered, dropped to one knee. She retched out rotten, black oil like the blood of the hiidet. It poured from her mouth, from her nose, from her ears. Her eyes wept the viscous, toxic fluid.
“You are corruption. A disease that spreads rot across all the land.”
The sound of those words drowned out the noise of battle, of everything, save Hervor’s own retching. Fits of coughing seized her and she spit out blood. Chills ravaged her body, drove her to the ground where she collapsed into the mix of her own vomit and toxins she spewed out with it.
“You touch darkness and, now, it consumes you.”
Spasms shot through her limbs and sent her convulsing onto her back. Rolling around in the putrid filth she’d spread over the room. Her muscles seized up so tight they sent her head banging against the floor. White lights filled her vision.
“I touched the dark.” A male voice. A hand on her shoulder. “Focus on why you are here. Your own mind makes her curses more real. You do the witch’s work for her.”
Hervor blinked the lights away. Wudga knelt beside her, one hand on her, the other clutching his blade.
Loviatar was there, too, sneering at him. “You think you know the dark?” The witch leaned back, put her hand against the root once again. And it folded around her, became a gaping void of utter blackness broken only by starlight. The witch stepped into that abyss and vanished.
Hervor fell back on the floor.
Everything went dark.
“Wake.” Someone shaking her. Forcing her to open eyes that burned and did not want to see aught.
Hervor cracked her eyelids. Wudga was still kneeling over her. He gently slapped her cheek, then rose and moved to examine the pillar where Loviatar had disappeared. All at once, he backed away, shaking his head and frowning.
“She has gone,” Pakkanen said.
Hervor turned to see the shaman standing in the doorway, clutching a wound on his side. Clearly in pain.
“The World Tree binds our world and the Otherworlds,” the shaman said, then stepped aside to allow the others inside.
Höfund entered, bearing a half dozen cuts and scrapes, the deepest a long line on his back, dribbling blood over the floor. Ecgtheow followed him, looking even worse. Kustaa had his share of wounds too, though his face looked more angry than pained.
Hervor pushed herself up, then spit out the foul taste in her mouth. Had the witch actually infected her with some rot, or was that all in her head? She rubbed the back of her hand against her mouth. “What does that mean, Pakkanen?”
The shaman now examined the root where the witch had fled. “The pillar is a root of the great tree and thus connects it to other realms. I believe she fled into Tuonela, the Land of the Dead.”
“How do we follow?” Hervor asked.
Pakkanen shook his head. “A shaman might undertake deep meditation to go there in spirit, but to travel there bodily as Loviatar has done … I had not thought it possible. Certainly, I have no such powers at my disposal.”
Wonderful. “Wudga?”
“No. A spirit journey—some kind of astral projection—is our only option now, assuming Pakkanen can bring us along for such a sojourn.”
So not even Volund’s son could do what Loviatar had. Hervor shook her head. Still felt like it was full of cobwebs and poison. “We’ve no choice, then. Take us on the spirit journey. Whatever it takes, send us after her.”
The shaman grimaced, shut his eyes a moment. “I can try to bring you along on such a vision quest, but it will take a lot out of me … and of you. Your bodies will remain here, helpless, while your souls become untethered. What happens to you … on the other side … it will be real. Maybe more real than this world.”
What did that even mean? Hervor worked her jaw, uncertain what to say to that. Finally, she grunted. “Whatever it takes.”
Höfund spat, folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Ain’t much for spirits, me. Reckon I’ll stay here and keep watch against any more of ’em showing up while you’re sleeping.”
“It is … best that someone remain. Someone who could protect our bodies. If aught should befall them in the Mortal Realm, our souls would have naught to return to.”
Odin’s stones. This plan seemed drawn right up from mist-madness. Of course, if Hervor let on about that for even a moment, who knew how many others might back out. She needed them to take on Loviatar. So she nodded, face as impassive as she could manage.
Pakkanen set about tracing a circle inside the chamber, smearing his hands in blood from the numerous wounds Hervor’s crew had suffered, the shaman himself included. Then came those awful runes, sigils that made Hervor’s head hurt to even look upon.
Next, the shaman set torches in a ring around the circle, and beside them, bowls with some herb he pulled from his satchel, burning, casting a sickly-sweet smoke into the air. Finally, the last bowl in place and smoldering, he looked up, staring right at her. His eyes were bloodshot, but maybe that was just exhaustion. “Those who would journey must sit within the circle.” The shaman himself stepped inside, carefully avoiding smudging the blood paintings. He sat just beyond the inner ring, holding a waterskin.
This was it. This was the moment she left all sense behind and embarked on quite possibly the most mist-mad trek she’d ever made—and that was saying something. Last chance to turn back …
Hervor took a long step over the painted circle, then sat down beside Pakkanen, legs folded beneath herself just like the shaman. She looked to Wudga, who followed her, taking a place beside her.
Ecgtheow groaned, glanced about, then shook his head and sat down beside Wudga.
Finally, Kustaa spat. Grumbled something under his breath. And joined them.
Pakkanen took a draught from the skin—probably not water—then passed it to Hervor.
Odin’s thrice-damned freezing stones. This was starting to look an awful lot like how things had started with Gylfi, back when … when that thing had … Hervor couldn’t quite force down the lump in her throat.
“Drink,” Pakkanen said.
Fuck.
The ash-wife and her companion … They had …
“You must drink.”
Walk … into the gates of Hel. Hervor took a swig. Smoky, acrid stuff stung her throat as it went down. The herb smoke had already made things hazy. The moment she drank, the room began to sway.
Coughing, she passed the skin on to Wudga. Didn’t even see if he’d drunk it.
Everything was spinning. Going dark.
She shut her eyes.
Pakkanen had begun chanting or singing or …
Everything faded into swirling shadows.
And she was lost.
Part III
T
uonela
27
Hervor opened her eyes. She still sat on the floor, in the circle, along with the others, but things had changed. Color and light had bled out of the world, leaving her reality a miasma of cool shadows. The torches around the circle, their flames, they had become ethereal reflections. Höfund, too, had turned translucent and wispy, barely visible at all. Like looking at him through a sheet of ice, and the fires were on his side of it.
The others in the circle, though, they seemed distinct, Kustaa’s form becoming clearer even as she looked at him.
Pakkanen stood, his motion leaving faint afterimages in the shadows flickering around him. “Behold Tuonela.”
Hervor groaned, pulled herself to her feet, followed shortly by the others. It was the same room, yes, but twisted. The angles were wrong, like a garment wrinkled. And everything seemed so dark.
She made her way out onto the balcony. The landscape before her was even more twisted. The same, but ever-so-slightly wrong. Shifted into shadow … “The Otherworld.”
“One of them,” Pakkanen said. He pointed up at the sky.
The brilliant lights from before had been replaced by a dark sky suffused with starlight and a faint iridescent shimmer in the distance. If she squinted, she could almost fancy a bright crystal moon glittered among that shimmer.
“We’re in the land of the dead?” she asked.
Pakkanen leaned on the rail, frowning at something down below. Hervor followed his gaze. Figures moved there, shadowy but clearly real. Clad in animal-skull helms and skins. The same warriors they had slain to reach Loviatar. Dead warriors. Ghosts …
“No shaman truly knows how far Tounela reaches or what lies beyond. Just that the dead go farther than we can ever see, and the vaettir come from a realm farther still beyond—the Spirit Realm, some call it. Everything beyond our realm, shades and spirits alike, they are made of hatred and lies. They would happily feast upon our souls. And by coming here, we cast ourselves upon their very tables.”