Runelight

by Joanne Harris

  Loki sneered. ‘That’s rather vague …’

  The pale young man showed his teeth. ‘Oh, I haven’t finished yet. I name you Sky Traveller, Farbauti’s son, Begetter of Serpents, Father of Wolves—’

  ‘Father of Wolves?’ Loki frowned. The words were beginning to take effect – words or Word, he did not know – although what a trio of boys of the Folk would be doing with one of the secret texts from the Book of Invocations he could not at present begin to guess.

  The three were not members of the Order. Of that he could be certain, he thought. But the words alone were powerful. A named thing is a tamed thing. Not that they stood a snowball’s chance of actually taming Wildfire. But in his present Aspect, subject to all the weaknesses and imperfections of his human form, they could perhaps come painfully close.

  ‘Look here,’ said Loki, playing for time. ‘This really won’t get you anywhere. But if you’ll just tell me what you want, then maybe we can do a deal. I can get you anything – gold, weapons, runes – women …’

  The hairier brother – the one called Big H – looked up at this with some interest. Loki guessed that the three of them hadn’t had much luck with women – not entirely surprising, he thought. Their social skills were hardly impressive, and one – or maybe all – of them smelled.

  ‘Women,’ he went on silkily. ‘Oh yes. I know ways to make you irresistible to the sweeter sex. I can teach you cantrips you wouldn’t believe – runes to melt an ice maiden’s heart. I swear, by the time I’ve finished with you, they’ll be queuing up halfway to the Ridings to see you. Redheads, blondes, brunettes – or if you like exotics and you’re not too worried about the progeny, then I know some demons who’ll blow your mind and spoon it up like ice cream—’

  ‘He can talk, can’t he?’ said Big H.

  ‘He sure can,’ grinned his friend.

  The pallid youth ignored them both. He simply went on with the canticle as his two friends watched with eager eyes, nudging each other in suppressed excitement, and Loki felt what was left of his strength ebb slowly away into the dark.

  ‘I name you Trickster, Father of Lies. I name you sire of Half-Born Hel. I name you Fire-Bringer, Architect and Destroyer of Worlds. I name you Archangel, Fallen One, Opener of Forbidden Doors, builder of the Citadel. I name you Dogstar, Lighter-than-Air …’

  The ritual words rolled over Loki like stones onto a burial mound, and once more he struggled against the ropes that held him, pointlessly chafing his sore wrists. He didn’t even know all these names; but there was no denying their power. ‘Please,’ he begged. ‘Just tell me your name. Tell me who you’re working for—’

  The force of the Word pinned him again, making him writhe in anguish. Where in Hel was it coming from? The Order was gone, its followers dead. The Nameless was a spent force. Besides, these boys were not Examiners; they lacked the power to cast the Word. So – who was the one supplying the glam? And how could he negotiate if he didn’t know who he was dealing with?

  ‘Tell them they’re making a big mistake. Hurt me, and my people will— Oww!’

  Now the force of the Word was unspeakable; a loathsome, crawling sensation, something far worse than mere pain. It seemed to reach right into him, and he screamed aloud – or thought he did – helplessly, without calculation, just because he had no choice.

  ‘You haven’t got any people,’ said the youth. ‘All you’ve got is some tired old gods and a handful of noobs. How pathetic is that? I name you Wildfire, son of Laufey—’

  ‘All right! I’m sorry! Whatever it is you think I’ve done—’

  ‘I name you Loki, wielder of Kaen—’

  ‘Please,’ gasped Loki. ‘I’ll do anything …’

  The pale youth smiled. ‘I know you will.’

  IT TAKES A certain strength of mind to force a promise from a god. Even the Seeress had found it difficult – which had once led to the death of Balder the Beautiful and to the unfortunate chain of events that had ensued in the weeks that led up to Ragnarók. Even now, it wasn’t easy; but out of Aspect and with no glam to speak of, Loki was at his most susceptible; and the force of the Word, along with a powerful combination of the runes Úr, Naudr, Isa – and some others he couldn’t quite make out – was enough to force him into sullen acquiescence.

  But a god’s sworn oath is binding, as Hel had found out four years ago at the End of the World, on the shore of Dream, and to break it would have disastrous effect. Basically, the nasty truth was this, the Trickster realized: whatever the pale young man told him to do, he was bound to do it now, or face the cosmic consequences.

  ‘So what do you want?’ he said at last, when it was clear that he was trapped. He felt uneasy, as well he might: the last time he’d been caught like this, it had been by Thiassi, Skadi’s father, who, after three weeks of none-too-gentle persuasion, had finally wrung a promise from Loki to kidnap Idun, the Healer, and to deliver her into the custody of the Ice People. Such an oath, once made, cannot be broken without incurring the most serious cost, and it had taken all Loki’s guile and glam to find a way to avoid both payment and retribution.

  ‘Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. Just tell me what it is, OK?’

  The pale youth shrugged. ‘We’re waiting,’ he said.

  ‘Waiting? For what?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  It occurred to Loki once again that perhaps Skadi was behind all this. Perhaps she hadn’t gone home, after all. Perhaps she’d been planning this all along. His young captors might be her creatures; although they looked to be of the Folk, there was something feral about the three of them, an animal gleam in their golden eyes, their mouths crammed with too many teeth …

  ‘So – won’t you tell me who’s in charge?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ came the reply.

  The pale youth who had cast the Word now turned to his companions. ‘Watch him for me, both of you. If he tries to move, hit him.’

  Loki gave him a hurt look. ‘Who, me? What did I do?’

  Big H squinted down at Loki, looking, if possible, even bigger and more menacing than before. A faint rank scent of rotting meat seemed to emanate from him. Loki sensed that personal hygiene was not high on this young man’s list of priorities.

  ‘I’ll give him a belt of my glam,’ said Big H.

  Glam? thought Loki. What glam?

  More than ever, he wished for the truesight, which would show him what he needed to see. But his own glam was still burned out, and the brothers showed no colours at all, nor any sign of a runemark, though now that he looked more closely, he could see that they bore matching tattoos: a flaming sun on Big H’s arm, a full moon on his friend’s, each flanked by the symbol that Loki knew as the Wolf Cross. Not a runemark, exactly, but a sign of allegiance to Chaos in one of its darkest, most sinister forms.

  Their leader had moved to the back of the cave, apparently waiting for someone. Loki, seizing his chance to gain information, turned to the smaller of his captors and gave him his most innocent smile.

  ‘So, Big H—’ he began.

  ‘No, I’m Skull,’ corrected the youth.

  ‘Dude …’ Big H gave him a nudge.

  ‘Oops, sorry.’

  Loki said nothing, but grinned inside. Now, at least, he knew their names. Nicknames, both of them, he guessed; but every piece of information was valuable. He put on his most guileless expression and turned to the brothers once again.

  ‘So – what happened to your thumb?’ he said, indicating the bandage that adorned Big H’s hand. It seemed rather too much of a coincidence that all three of his captors should meet with identical accidents; and now that he came to think of it, wasn’t there something strange about all this – something that rang a distant bell?

  ‘We – uh – like, we swore an oath.’

  ‘Blood-brothers, man,’ said Big H.

  ‘Really?’ said Loki. ‘So – you’re not actual brothers, then? I mean, you both look – very alike. What does the H stand fo
r? Handsome? Hairy? Hefty? Huge? I said handsome, right? I meant handsome. Oh, and I don’t think I caught your friend’s name?’

  ‘Don’t talk to him,’ warned the voice of their leader from the far side of the big cave. ‘Didn’t she say not to talk to him?’

  ‘She?’ said Loki apprehensively. Once again, images of Skadi and her runewhip took unsettling shape in his thoughts.

  ‘Dude,’ said the hairy youth. ‘You heard what Fenny said. Shut up.’

  Loki hid a triumphant grin. Fenny, he thought. So that’s your name.

  Names, as he knew from experience, were words of power, not lightly given. But it wasn’t a name he recognized, and he squinted across the cavern once more, trying to see if there was anything at all in the young man’s face that could give him any kind of clue as to the nature – as well as the scale – of the trouble in which he had landed himself.

  Nothing. Just the light of the lamp and the shadows that leaped like flung spears against the rock walls of the cavern. Then …

  Just for a moment he saw something. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but it brought the gleam back into his eyes and a flicker of recognition into his mind. There was something about that profile. Something about those matching tattoos. And something behind that human form – a hint of colours imperfectly concealed, a distant thread of violet …

  Ah. Hello. There it was. A trace of a signature in the air, so faint that Loki had missed it at first. Now, as his spent glam began to recover, the colours also slowly returned, filament by filament, bracketing his silhouette with their fleeting rainbow sheen.

  Loki fingered the runeshape Bjarkán and, through it, tried to see Fenny more closely, but his hands were tied too tightly for that, and the momentary impression he thought he’d had – of someone else behind the boy – was gone in a blur of light and shade.

  ‘Stop that, you,’ warned Big H.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  Frustrated, Loki shook his head. It was no good, he told himself. There was nothing he could do. Unless …

  I’ll give him a belt of my glam, he’d said.

  Now Loki considered Big H’s threat. If he could persuade him to use his glam – or whatever he counted as such – then the explosion of runelight that would inevitably follow might well be enough to identify his signature, or at least to find out how strong he was. Of course, Loki had no wish to be belted by anything – but sometimes you needed to take a risk.

  He gritted his teeth. ‘You stink,’ he said.

  Big H looked at him. ‘You talking to me?’

  ‘Well, duh,’ said Loki. ‘Who do you think? It’s bad enough having to look at you both without having to smell you too. I mean, don’t you people wash?’

  ‘Dude, his ass is so dead,’ said Skull, not without admiration. ‘No one disses the Brotherhood. I don’t care whose father he is—’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Fenny from the far end of the cave.

  Loki ignored him. ‘Brotherhood? What Brotherhood? Brotherhood of BO? And what kind of dialect is that, anyway? The North Ridings? Sheep country? You look to me like the kind of man who might be lucky with his sheep—’

  ‘Lucky with his sheep?’ Big H’s face was dangerously congested.

  ‘Well, you do look like a—’

  The whack, when it came, was every bit as powerful as Loki had feared it would be. It caught him squarely across the side of the head, knocking him sideways into the rock wall. The only problem was that Big H didn’t use glam, just one of his big, hairy hands, and the only colours Loki could see were the stars that danced in front of his eyes.

  Not such a great plan, after all.

  He lay on his side, breathing hard, trying to link the few facts he had. Fenny. Skull. Big H. The Brotherhood. Those matching tattoos. Those colours. He’d seen them before, he knew he had. If only he could remember where …

  Loki’s flame-green eyes opened wide in the darkness.

  The Wolf Cross.

  Father of Wolves.

  I don’t care whose father he is …

  ‘Oh no,’ he whispered.

  And then there came a thrashing of wings as something large flew into the cave. Some kind of bird, thought Loki, and once more he thought of the Huntress – but Skadi, he knew, would have chosen a form that reflected that of the natural world. A hawk, perhaps, or a mountain cat, or her favourite Aspect, the snow wolf.

  This creature was something like a bird, but no bird Loki had ever seen. Instead it looked like a child’s drawing of something only glimpsed in dreams: its wings were a violent purple, its head a fiery scarlet. It settled on an outcrop of rock, sparks crackling from its fiery tail, and fixed Loki with a piercing stare.

  Behind it came running a small, bandy-legged, aggressive figure, rather less than a goblin in height, but with a squarish, massive head that gave it a look of the Tunnel Folk.

  It gave Loki a look of contempt. ‘Oh, it’s bloody you,’ it said.

  LOKI LIFTED HIS head from the floor. ‘Should I know you, or something?’ he said.

  The dwarfish creature shrugged. ‘Who cares? The important thing is, you know my lady. And my lady needs to have a word with you.’

  Loki swallowed. ‘A word?’ That sounded ominous. In his experience, a word often turned out to be something that hurt. ‘Who’s your lady?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ The female voice was deceptively pleasant, and it took Loki several seconds to identify it as that of the firebird, now perched on a rock above him. ‘I thought you were smarter than that, Loki.’ It opened its long, sharp beak and gave a very human yawn.

  ‘Poor sweetheart,’ it went on. ‘Have my boys been rough with you? Untie him, Jolly. If he tries to run, break his legs.’

  Jolly was the dwarf, it appeared. A somewhat inappropriate name – Loki had met jollier people in Hel – and he glared and grimaced at Loki as he cut through the ropes that secured him, leaving the Trickster even more certain that he and Jolly had met before.

  But there was no time to think of that now. Fenny, Skull and Big H were closing around him menacingly, and Loki knew the firebird was right. Trying to run would be a mistake.

  ‘Thank you.’ Painfully, he stood up.

  The firebird watched him unblinkingly.

  ‘Looking good, Angrboda,’ he said. ‘Feathers always suited you.’

  The bird lifted a careless wing. ‘So you do recognize me,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Angie. How could I not?’ he said. ‘You know you’re the love of my life, right? And Fenris …’ He smiled at the youth who called himself Fenny. ‘One minute he’s a cute little wolf cub, gambolling happily through Ironwood, chasing squirrels and disembowelling birds; the next thing you know, he’s hit puberty and he’s into the whole released-from-Netherworld, kidnapping-Dad, aligned-with-the-forces-of-Chaos thing. Doesn’t it make you feel proud?’

  Fenris growled. ‘Shut up, Dad.’

  ‘Articulate as ever,’ said Loki. ‘And your little friends, Skull and Big H – Skól and Haiti, by any chance? Demon wolves with an appetite for celestial bodies?’

  The hairy brothers grinned. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Dude. We’re the Devourers.’

  Loki sighed. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘So – to what do I owe the pleasure? Not that I don’t appreciate this little family reunion, but did you have to send a snake after me? Wouldn’t a postcard have done just as well?’

  The firebird spread its purple wings and fluttered down from its perch on the rock. The moment it touched the ground, it changed, appearing now as a slender young woman dressed in a close-fitting black tunic and sporting big boots and purple hair. She looked to be in her late teens. So much for appearances. Loki happened to know that Angie was as old as the hills – actually, rather older than that – and that behind her look of innocence there beat an ancient, savage heart. Her eyes were heavily circled with kohl, and there was a row of purple studs going through her left eyebrow. One arm was bare. The other was intricately slee
ved with tattoos: stars, birds, concentric patterns, and something that looked like a runemark, amethyst against her skin –

  Interesting, Loki thought. She’d never had a rune before. And this one was somehow different; not a rune of the Elder Script, but brighter than a bastard rune. A new rune, then? Was it possible?

  He indicated the mark. ‘Nice. Is this what they’re wearing in Chaos these days?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Angie said. ‘And I didn’t send that ephemera. In fact, we were all set to rescue you when your funny little friend intervened.’

  ‘Really? How touching,’ Loki said. ‘I should have known you were on my side when you ordered Shorty to break my legs.’

  Jolly gave a little growl.

  ‘Dude,’ said Skull. ‘Don’t call him short.’

  But Loki was thinking furiously. The fact that this was family didn’t mean he was home and dry. Quite the opposite, in fact. This was Angrboda – otherwise known as Angie, the Witch of Ironwood; the Temptress; the Mother of Wolves; cruel as a mountain cat, wily as a snake, unpredictable as – well, Loki.

  Now Loki, looking back, wondered how he could ever have been so rash as to get involved with the Temptress. She was very alluring, he thought. That, he supposed, was his only excuse. But you don’t fool around with Chaos. Five hundred years, three demon children and two Apocalypses later, it still sounded like a bad idea, and his absence had clearly done nothing to make her heart grow fonder.

  Still, he wasn’t dead yet, which probably meant one of two things. One: she needed him alive. Two: her plans for his execution involved something more elaborate than three wolf brothers and a sulky dwarf.

  Of the two possibilities, Loki much preferred number one.

  He grinned at Angrboda. ‘So – first of all, I’d like to say how happy I am you made it here. I’m guessing you left the Black Fortress during the little fracas I caused there, and managed to enter the world through Dream.’

  Fenris gave a low growl.

  Jolly looked disgusted.

  ‘That little fracas, as you call it,’ said Angie, ‘damn near ended everything. Chaos was breached, Death was wide open and Dream was awash with ephemera fighting to get into World Above. Fortunately, Jormungand had already made his way out of Dream and back into the One Sea, from which he freed us – no thanks to you.’ She shot Loki a scornful glance. ‘Yes, we escaped. But only just. And as for your contribution to events – Loki, don’t you ever grow up? I’ve never seen anything so irresponsible.’