Stormbringer

by Alis Franklin

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “Playing video games in Travis’s office,” Sigmund replied. Partly because lies made his teeth hurt but mostly because it was Em and Wayne.

  “Where is he?”

  “He went back to Asgard last night.” Sigmund took up residence against a filing cabinet. Wayne, meanwhile, had perched herself on a desk, huge boots swinging even as her hands clutched an oversized sketchbook.

  Em made a noncommittal noise. “That’ll end badly,” she said. Em and optimism were only the most casual of acquaintances, but, more important, she also knew more Norse mythology than anyone else Sigmund knew, Lain included. So he didn’t think she was wrong so much as he was hoping for her predicted damage to be done in degrees. Small ones.

  “So why the secret meet-ups in the comic shop?” he asked instead. Whatever trouble Lain was getting into, Sigmund couldn’t do much about it.

  Em looked up. “We have a proposal for you,” she said, “and want to hear your thoughts.”

  (uh-oh)

  “What are my thoughts?”

  “You love it, but we’ll get to that part in a minute. It’s about Gangleri—”

  “Saga,” said Wayne.

  “—whatever. It’s about the game. You know the Spark goes obsolete in a few weeks, so we don’t think there’s much point continuing with the dev. We’ve got a better idea instead.”

  Sometimes, less and less frequently as the years rolled by, Sigmund cut code for a video game of his very own. Em did the writing, Wayne the art, and the three of them had been pecking at it for years.

  Probably still would be, if not for the fact the console they’d developed it for was about to be replaced.

  “Show me your better idea,” Sigmund said, hangover scratching behind his eyeballs.

  “Promise you won’t freak out,” said Wayne, fingers tight around her sketchbook.

  “Uh . . .” Sigmund said.

  Wayne turned the book around.

  Sigmund blinked.

  Then blinked again.

  “Well?” said Wayne.

  “That’s me,” Sigmund managed, when Wayne’s wide, pink, anxious gaze got too much.

  “Girl you,” Em corrected. “Rule 63.”

  Except Rule 63 Sigmund already existed. Or, rather, Sigmund was already Sigyn’s Rule 63. But Sigmund knew for a fact he looked nothing like his past self. Not like the way the woman in Wayne’s sketchbook looked like him. She was even dressed in the sort of clothes he’d be dressed in, were he, too, an inhabitant of a dystopian cyberpunk future.

  “Tell me her name’s not—”

  “Her name’s Sigga,” Em said, confirming Sigmund’s fears. “She’s a mechanic, working for the Intra-Solar Mining Company. They build spaceships to ferry mining cargo between Earth and the other nine planets.”

  “Pluto isn’t a planet,” Sigmund muttered. He wondered when the catch was coming.

  “Never said the ninth planet was Pluto,” Em said. Then, “The way the ships work is a mystery; some technobabble about the flight calculations involved being too complex for a human, blah blah blah. Everyone assumes it’s an AI doing flights.”

  “It’s not an AI,” Sigmund guessed.

  “Correct. Our Heroine, Sigga, via some plot quirk, finds out what’s really controlling the ships: a powerful psychic, imprisoned and permanently plugged in to the system. And, moreover, said psychic turns out to be—”

  “Oh god,” said Sigmund. Appropriately, as it turned out, as Wayne flipping the page in her sketchbook to reveal—

  “Sigga’s childhood sweetheart, Luke.”

  Except it wasn’t Luke, it was Lain. Naked and thin, blind and plugged-in, wrapped and chained and tied by an HR Geiger nightmare in rusty Cat-6. And for a moment—just one moment—Sigmund was back in that awful cave beneath the World Tree. A dank, dark eternity of pain and degradation, standing with trembling arms and a hardened heart, waiting for the world to end.

  “He hates it.” Wayne’s voice slapped Sigmund back into the present. “I told you he’d hate it.”

  “I don’t hate it,” said Sigmund. He looked at Em. “I just—the point of the game?”

  “Rescue the prince, obviously. Free him, take down the evil empire, get married, and live happily ever after, roll credits.” Em’s eyes were bright green chips behind her glasses. Watching.

  Sigmund looked back at the sketchbook. There were other, smaller pictures scattered around the large central image of Luke imprisoned in his machine. Head shots showing him healthy, free of wires and cables. Smiling and grimacing. Afraid. And, in one larger image, sharing a passionate kiss with Sigga.

  Sigmund swallowed. “Why?” he started. Then, “I mean . . . I just—”

  “For her,” Em said. “For Sigyn. Because some thirteenth-century asshole didn’t think she was important enough to bother remembering her stories. I can’t get them back. But I can write her a new one.”

  Something curled beneath Sigmund’s heart, the flutter of a second beat, not quite in time with his own.

  “All right,” he said. “What do I need to do?”

  Em wanted to go big-screen, to move off mobile and into living rooms and into desktops.

  “There’s been a lot of movement in dev kits and APIs,” she said, leaning forward on her milk crate, elbows on her knees and hunger in her eyes. “We’ll need to pick one, and you’ll need to learn it.”

  Sigmund nodded, chewing on his lip. “It’s a lot of work.” Em was talking an action RPG shooter. Guns and powers and inventory and crafting. Dialogue and companions and morality choices. It was big. Really big.

  “No,” Em said. “It’s a little bit of work we have to do real fucking smoothly. Get one level down perfect—gameplay, story, characters—then we go pitch it to your boyfriend. Then he gives us Utgard, and we’re home free.”

  Utgard Entertainment, one of the most prestigious video game companies on the planet and, not so coincidentally, a subsidiary of LB.

  “What makes you so sure he’ll agree?” Something about Em’s plan didn’t sit right. It felt . . . cheap. Even if Sigmund was and adult and he knew this was how business was done, out in the Really Real World. Not the what you know but the who, and Sigmund just happened to be dating one of the biggest whos around.

  “C’mon, man,” Em said. “It’s about his fucking wife. Of course he’ll agree.”

  “That’s no—”

  “He’s sentimental.” When Sigmund looked up, Wayne was twirling one long pink dread around her finger. “Well. He is, right? He has that painting of Sigyn in his office.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “‘So’? Dooder, the painting’s not for him. He’s blind. It’s for everyone else, for their reactions.”

  Sigmund opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. It would explain why the painting was so god-awfully ugly, all soft-focus oils set inside a carved gilt frame. Totally unsuited to the rest of the decor in the room, but that would make sense. If being conspicuous was precisely the point. And Lain—Travis, whoever—couldn’t see per se, but the Wyrdsight gave him a different sort of vision, one of emotion and of narrative.

  “He wants people to think about her,” Wayne was saying. “Even if they don’t ask and he never tells, he doesn’t want her forgotten. And, if we do this”—Wayne gestured to her sketchbook—“she won’t be. At least for a little while.”

  Sigmund looked at the sketchbook and he looked at Wayne. Then he closed his eyes, reaching down beneath his heart to find the ice.

  (“you . . . your life is your own. you are not beholden to my shadow”)

  When Sigmund’s eyes opened again, he locked gazes with Em.

  “I’ll do some Googling,” he said.

  “See.” Em was grinning, triumphant. “I told you you’d love it.”

  They left the back room about ten minutes later, Wayne showing Sigmund more of her sketches, Em talking excitedly about themes and foreshadowing and quest structure. Sigmund nodded and said “
uh-huh” and tried not to think too hard about the giant wall of effort looming ahead of him, taunting him with all the things he didn’t know about game programming. Art was art and story was story, meaning Em and Wayne’s gear shift wasn’t really much of one at all, as far as Sigmund could see. But his, on the other hand . . .

  Still. His friends believed in him. It was hard not to believe in them in turn. Meaning he was just as excited when he pushed open the staff door, head turned to Wayne and saying something about thematic color schemes when his foot stepped out and landed not on utilitarian tiles, but rather in a three-inch-deep pile of ash and rot.

  For one terrible, awful second, Sigmund felt the gyre turn.

  (no no no not again . . . )

  Two months ago, during the end of the world, the land of the dead had invaded Pandemonium. Sigmund had been caught up in it, crawling through a crumbling nightmare of draugar, of fears and neuroses made into bruised and glistening flesh.

  The Helbleed had swallowed the city, but Lain healed the Wound and had supposedly set things right.

  Except not. Not when the lights in the comic store flickered and rivulets of black ink seeped from the covers of the trades. Sigmund’s heart shuddered and his hands clenched and he couldn’t. Not again. Not ever again, with the stink of meat in his nostrils and the grit of ash against his eyes and—

  —and there was someone in the store. Something. A tall, dark shape, standing by the counter.

  “Uh . . .” said Em. “Guys?”

  “It’s real,” Wayne said. “Sig, what—?”

  The dark figure turned at the sound of their voices. Sigmund saw twisted horns and black feathers. A rich brocade robe with sleeves that trailed to the ground yet left shriveled black corpse-flesh exposed on the creature’s belly and thighs and scaly, raven-clawed legs. A black silk veil—embroidered with a symbol that could’ve been an eye but might have been a barrow—covered the upper part of the creature’s face, obscuring eyes and nose and revealing only the broad, skeleton grin of jag-edged teeth beneath.

  Frozen beneath the regard of those hidden eyes, Sigmund startled when he felt Em’s hand wrap around his elbow. “Dude!” she hissed, leaning close into his ear. “That’s Hel. It is, right? It’s her?”

  Sigmund blinked, then exhaled. The crea—Hel was still there, looking at them from across the crumbling store. Because Em was right, it was her: the queen of the dishonored dead, in the black and twisted flesh.

  Half beautiful woman, half corpse. That’s how the stories went. Sigmund couldn’t see any of the former, hidden as it was beneath black fabric.

  Funny how everyone always assumed it would be the corpse-skin Hel would cover.

  (“the living rejected her, and so she rejected them in turn”)

  Sigmund swallowed down his fear and began to walk forward. As he did, Hel bowed, just slightly.

  “Stepmother,” said a voice like the last light of midwinter. Hel turned slightly to Em and Wayne, repeating the incline of her head. “Honored valkyrjur. I am Hel Lokadóttir, keeper of the dishonored dead. You know me, I think.”

  Sigmund had no idea how Hel was forming the words without lips. Yet there they were. It wasn’t magic; she was speaking heavily accented English, and he could see her jaw and throat work when she spoke. Could see the flick of her black tongue and—

  Jesus. He should probably stop staring. It wasn’t like he’d never seen a jötunn before, and up close, Hel didn’t even look that different from her father. Thinner, female. Ravens and bone instead of flames and vultures. But obviously related.

  Sigmund’s heart slowed. “Um,” he said. “Yeah. Uh . . . hi.”

  She’d called him “stepmother,” and Sigmund felt the echo of Sigyn’s love at the words. Hel might’ve been a seven-foot-tall grinning fanged skullmonster who spread rot and entropy with her very presence, but she was family. Alive family, at that.

  “You, um. You look . . . well?” Sigmund tried. The last he’d heard, Baldr had dismembered Hel and scattered the chunks across the city.

  It was hard to tell, but Sigmund thought he saw Hel’s cheeks twitch beneath her veil. It might’ve been a smile. He hoped it was a smile. “And you,” she said. “Forgive me my intrusion, I would not normally come into your Realm, lest dire business drew me from my own.”

  “Uh.” Sigmund pushed his glasses up his nose, wondering if he should offer Hel a cup of tea. “Lain’s, uh. He’s not here, sorry. He went back to Asgard last night.”

  “Yes.” Hel nodded, a slight incline of her head that sent black feathers ruffling. “I know this. But it is not father with whom I wish to deal.”

  “Oh,” said Sigmund, and got halfway through wondering what Hel could possibly want with him when she added:

  “It is your friends whose aid I seek.”

  “Oh.”

  Chapter 3

  There are three of them, all men, lined up in a row along the Bifröst, and I pull the car to a stop to avoid running them down. It’s been a while and they’re older than I recall, but I still recognize the faces. The two on the outside are Thor’s brats, Magni and Móði. Magni looks like his father, huge and broad, with a glare that’s both vicious and slightly vacant. Móði takes more after his mother, smaller and slighter than his meathead older sibling. Both boys have hair that gleams like burnished copper beneath the sun.

  They’re trouble enough on their own, yet nothing compared to the man standing between them.

  Forseti, god of law and justice, as bright and blond and self-righteous as his useless asshole of a father, Baldr.

  Shit. I am so, so fucked.

  Forseti’s sword is sheathed and Móði looks unarmed, but Magni’s holding a hammer like it’s his baby and all three of them are armored. It occurs to me, as my claws hit the glimmering surface of the Bifröst, that maybe this wasn’t the right skin to be wearing when I made my entrance.

  Behind me, the car’s engine rumbles.

  “Hey, kids,” I say, stepping forward. “Long time no see.”

  Magni growls, hands clenching the grip of his hammer. He gets halfway through raising it when a gesture from Forseti has him stepping back.

  “You should not have returned to this place, Usurper.” Forseti’s shoulders are thrown back and tight with a rage and sorrow that pours from him like molten gold. “You will find no solace here, only death.”

  And, okay. It’s not exactly like I was expecting a happy reunion, but still. Death? Harsh.

  I hold up my hands, trying not to notice the way Magni’s looking more and more like he’s sitting on coiled springs, waiting for his lid to pop.

  “No need for that,” I say. “I’m here to tie up some loose ends, that’s all. But I’m not gonna do it standing in the middle of the road.”

  “You will not enter Ásgarðr,” Forseti says. “It is done with your vile ways.”

  I take an experimental step forward just to see how Thor’s brats itch to do the same. The only thing keeping them at bay is Forseti. “Look,” I say. “Whatever you think’s happened, whoever you think I am, I can assure you it’s not—”

  “You are my father’s murderer, twice over,” Forseti snarls. “You, who ate his heart and defiled his legacy. Who brought Ásgarðr to its knees with your dishonor, the níð of Hveðrungr and Ginnarr made flesh. I know what ruin you bring, waste of the old era. You who are the last of the filth not burnt clean by the fires of Ragnarøkkr, the last of Odin’s deceit. Ásgarðr renounces you, demands justice for your crimes. And justice will be had. I, Forseti, son of Baldr the Betrayed, will see it done.”

  And then he draws his sword.

  I have just enough time to think, Oh shi— before Magni’s war hammer connects with the underside of my jaw and the world turns into a rainbow spin of pain.

  The front fender of my car stops me, my spine cracking across the chrome as I hear the engine roar. I don’t get time to right myself, instead feel thick fingers wind through my feathers as I’m hauled upright.

  �
�Come quiet, jötunn curr,” Magni snarls.

  “Unlikely,” I reply, and it isn’t until my elbow is already connecting with the bastard’s gut that I realize his answer was “Good!”

  Escape leaves me with a throbbing skull and Magni with a fistful of orange-red feathers, and I scramble into a crouch before he can descend on me again. I get halfway up before the point of a blade presses against my throat.

  “If you have any honor in you, you will submit yourself to justice,” Forseti says.

  “Fuck you” is my response. Sharp and succinct and punctuated by the snap of unfurling wings. Forseti is knocked back by one, Magni startled by both, and I leap, great gusts of wind whipping across the Bifröst as I propel myself away.

  “Ground him!” I hear. “He will not escape!”

  And then a third voice, Móði, shouting words like gravity, syllables with weight and mass and pressure, that pull the air from underneath my feathers.

  Ah. That’s why Móði wasn’t armed; the kid’s a sorcerer. Shit.

  He might know the runes, but I was born from them. I’m better, I should be better, but for the fact that I’m slamming back down against the road, the shimmering rainbow cracking along with my bones. Before I can mutter a counter—before I can think of a counter—the car’s engine roars again, this time sounding less like a machine and more like a monster.

  “What is—” I hear, right before the heavy smack of flesh on steel, and my limbs break free of the force that held them.

  I stumble, but it’s too little, too late. My head is spinning and my bones are shattered, and when Magni’s hammer slams against my flailing wing, my scream is enough to shake the bridge.

  “Time for your cage, little bird,” Magni says, right before his knee descends into the small of my back.

  There’s another snap, deep inside, but my howl is interrupted when something thick and hard is wedged between my teeth. The haft of Magni’s hammer, I think, and he holds it like a rider would a bridle, pulling my head back even as he bears his weight down against my spine.

  Somewhere, behind the pain, Forseti is saying: “—leash! Capture the beast unharmed.”