‘Excellent question,’ said Heimdall.
In the wake of Nan’s arrival, no one had really looked at the sky. Now they did, their faces upturned, their eyes alight with wonder.
The river Dream has many tributaries, both in and out of the Middle Worlds. Even Malbry’s river Strond was linked to that oldest of rivers. But Dream also crosses the Firmament, where it runs into the river of stars that the Folk call the Milky Way. And when the Sky Citadel was built, back in the days of the Elder Age, Dream had linked the earth and sky in the form of Bif-rost, the legendary Rainbow Bridge that had fallen to earth when Asgard fell, back in the days of Ragnarók. Now scarcely anyone remembered it, except the gods, the Faerie, and the old wives, who passed on the tale in skipping songs and nursery rhymes:
When the ’bow breaks, the Cradle will fall …
None of them had ever expected to see the likes of Bif-rost again. And yet there it stood before them now – a rainbow bright enough to climb – rising out of the sudden mist, while beyond it, the sky flickered and gasped with colours that shifted from ice-blue to fire-green, to amber and to marshmallow-pink, like a giant lantern-show in which, if the gods had narrowed their eyes and watched closely through the rune Bjarkán, they might just have been able to see the surprising variety of shapes and shadows that seemed to make up the edifice, swimming in and out of sight like the distant skerries of Dream.
There were fields of flowers and groves of trees; there were kittens and puppies and balls of string; there were rocking horses, forbidden fruit, antique furniture, pieces of eight; there were dreams of waking up suddenly surrounded by ladies’ underwear; there were dragons and goblins and pirate ships. There was roast beef and chocolate cake. There were angels and goblins and two-headed dogs and roads that led nowhere and castles in the sky.
In fact, all the dreams of five hundred years were floating above the plains of Hel, and even the gods found it hard to believe as they stared at the gleaming edifice.
And at the end of the rainbow was a disc of gold that reflected a thousand prisms of light back at them like a glowing sun.
‘That can’t be what it looks like,’ said Thor. ‘It has to be northlights, or something.’
Fenny, Skull and Big H turned their yellow eyes to the sky.
‘Dude,’ said Fenris dreamily. ‘No way is that northlights. Far out …’
‘The Folk call this Saint Sepulchre’s Fire,’ said Ethel in her quiet voice. ‘I suppose even they still remember. Nothing dreamed is ever lost, and nothing lost for ever. Nan knew that from the start, of course. Crazy Nan Fey, the Builder.’
The gods all turned to stare at Nan, who gave a little curtsey. ‘It’s not quite finished,’ she said modestly, ‘but – well, you get the picture.’
Loki was staring at the sky with an expression, not of awe, but of growing realization. ‘Look, I may be missing something here,’ he said in a tone of exaggerated sarcasm, ‘but it seems to me that the Seeress has been keeping quite a few secrets that the rest of us might have found useful to know. And – forgive me if I seem naïve’ – he indicated the golden disc – ‘but isn’t that the Sun Shield?’
Ethel shrugged. ‘Of course it is. You don’t really think I’d have let it go? My ravens rescued it from the river and delivered it to somebody who could be trusted to use it properly, and for the good of us all.’
‘You mean you knew it was there all along? And you sent me, knowing full well what would—’ The Trickster choked. For a moment something almost as rare as the sight that they had just witnessed occurred: Loki was totally lost for words.
Finally he turned to Nan. ‘And you … you made this? All by yourself?’ he said, indicating the Rainbow Bridge. ‘Well, it wasn’t just me,’ said Nan. ‘I had help from the Folk, of course, and the Shield – and my old Horse Epona.’
The gods followed Crazy Nan’s gaze.
‘But that’s just an old basket …’ Freyja said.
Ethel smiled. ‘Don’t you know the nursery rhyme? The one about the old lady who flies to the Land of Roast Beef in a basket?’
Loki, who did know it, pulled a face. ‘Oh, well. Why didn’t you say? If I’d known that Ragnarók was going to be fought with old wives’ tales—’
‘Old wives know more than you think,’ said Ethel, with a sideways glance at Sigyn, still linked to the Trickster by the wrist. ‘Ex-wives too, if it comes to that. In fact, I think yours just saved your life. Perhaps you should be grateful.’
Loki shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘The question is, what brings us here? Why not push straight on to World’s End? I’m assuming you didn’t bring me here to give me couples’ counselling.’
Ethel sighed. ‘You’re incorrigible. But you’re right. The Rainbow Bridge of the Elder Age was not just the road to Asgard. It was a highway that gave us entry into eight of the Nine Worlds, free and in full Aspect. But I knew that Hel would never allow us a foothold in her kingdom – at least, not without something to bargain with. Of course, I thought of you at once.’
‘Thanks. I’m flattered,’ Loki said. ‘And what if you’d been wrong, eh? What if Odin hadn’t got out? Would you have handed me over to Hel?’
‘As the Fenris Wolf might say: Tough call, Trickster, dude.’
Loki shook his head. ‘Gods. And I thought I was the devious one. So – what do we do next, huh? Or shouldn’t I ask?’
‘Well, you might want to run …’
‘Run?’ said Loki.
‘Yes, run,’ Ethel said, jumping into Nan’s basket. It changed Aspect immediately, becoming the Horse of Air once more; a madman’s dream of a white horse, with legs that spanned the sky and a mane flung out like a sheaf of cloud. ‘If you make for the Bridge as fast as you can, then we can be at Saint Sepulchre’s Gate before they manage to reach World’s End—’
‘They?’ said Loki, looking round.
And then the Trickster saw what was coming, and took to his Wildfire Aspect at once. Behind him, Thor reached for his hammer and Heimdall pulled out his mindsword, then thought better of trying to fight and took to his bird form in a hurry.
The others – even Thor – followed suit, and it was a strangely assorted group of gods, wolves and mythical birds that scattered across Death’s domain and fled towards the Rainbow Bridge.
The last time Hel had broken her word, the disruption had temporarily breached the gates of Netherworld, causing Dream to burst its banks and creating untold damage. This time the breach was more than a rift. A wall of darkness, like a wave, now emerged from the Ninth World to roll across the plain of Hel. From a distance it looked slow – just as, from afar, it seemed soundless; but as it approached, it became all too clear that the wave was moving at monstrous speed, blotting out everything in its path – ground, sky, landscape.
Hel took one look at the wave and fled. Even the dead sensed its approach and blew away like dust in its path. Then, minutes later, came the sound – so loud that it struck like a mindbolt, making the whole of the Nine Worlds resonate with its power.
In the valley of the Strond the Folk heard it as an unearthly roar that vented from the open Hill.
In World’s End Maggie heard it as a peal of bells from Cathedral Square.
Freyja heard it as the breaking of a thousand mirrors.
Thor heard it as thunder so loud that his ears began to bleed.
Tyr heard it as a clashing of swords.
Bragi heard it as a lost chord.
Odin’s ravens heard it, and grinned.
The Wolf Brothers heard it, and howled in unison.
In Hel, the Trickster, in hawk guise, half fell out of the sky as it struck, and was saved only by the intervention of Njörd’s sea-eagle, which seized him between its talons and rode the shockwave to the Bridge, where Crazy Nan and the Horse of Air, with Ethel riding shotgun, had already joined the rest of the gods, way up, over the rainbow.
THE GREAT CATHEDRAL of St Sepulchre was known throughout Inland as one of the few remaining wonders of t
he Nine Worlds. Tribulation had swallowed most of the rest: the Sky Citadel, the Rainbow Bridge, the University Library, the Hall of the Heroes, the Observatory, the Planetarium, the Hundred Year Clock, the Twelvemonth Fountain – even the fleet of merchant ships that had once sailed as far as World Beyond.
Five hundred and three years on, the skills that had gone into the making – even the conceiving – of such things had long since been banned or forgotten. What little remained commanded an almost religious respect in the minds of the Folk of the Universal City, a respect that the Order had been quick to identify and put to its own purposes.
Now this last vestige of the wonders of the Elder Age had become primarily a means of raising money – hence the invasion of traders and the increasingly high Cathedral Tax that every World’s Ender had to pay.
Maggie was in many ways a typical World’s Ender. While visitors from all over Inland queued (and paid) to see the cathedral, she had never actually been inside, preferring to enjoy the view from the square – a view that could be had for free. Pilgrims paid a premium, of course; but native World’s Enders knew better. Anyone who paid to see the city’s sights deserved to be fleeced, or so Maggie had always thought – at least until Adam had changed her mind.
But Adam was a romantic, of course. Adam had wanted them to be married properly, in the cathedral. And by a bishop, no less – Maggie had not dared think how much such a luxury would cost. But Adam had been determined; and now, as Maggie approached the square, she could not help a shiver of awe as she looked up to see the great glass dome designed by the architect of World’s End – the man who, many years after his death, had been renamed St Sepulchre.
Maggie knew his story, having read it in one of her old books from the Department of Records, but had never quite made the connection between Jonathan Gift, the mathematician, and the saint whose celebrated martyrdom (at the hands of uncanny forces which had never been fully explained) had been one of the few bedtime stories that children were allowed to hear, back in the days of the Order.
In fact, the truth was stranger than the fiction. According to records, Jonathan Gift had simply disappeared one day, following an argument with one of his chief stonemasons. The man, whose name was James Carver, had apparently disputed an order from Gift about the design on a marble frieze, and had been heard to threaten Gift on the day he disappeared. The stonemason’s temper was well-known, and when later the architect was reported missing, it was assumed that Carver had killed him. Carver denied it – but then, he would. He went to the scaffold denying the crime, by which time Gift’s legend was already half established, and the rumours were spreading like wildfire. By the end of the century (Gift’s great architectural project had, in fact, taken thirty years, and not the mere seven days of the Order’s later version), rumours and stories were all that was left, and no one remembered the man any more.
Now, as Maggie approached the square, she tried to recapture the joy she had felt earlier that morning. The encounter with Maddy had ruined all that. Even the fact that Adam would finally soon be free failed to banish her growing sense that something very wrong was afoot.
Perhaps she sensed it in Adam’s face; or in the powdery feel of the air; or even in the cathedral bells – their ringing sounding strangely off-key, like chimes heard underwater.
She glanced up at the sky. Even that had changed: a greenish light now shone from the north-east. Not the dawn, but something else – northlights, perhaps? St Sepulchre’s Fire? She could not tell. But she felt the change.
The Red Horse stopped at the cathedral gate, the group of revellers in his wake beginning to disperse at last. The brideys were gone. A little girl who had followed the carriage from Examiners’ Walk looked at Maggie and stuck out her tongue.
Adam was already climbing down from the carriage, careful not to mark his white silk.
For a moment Maggie thought she saw a curious expression on his face, and she found herself fighting the urge to ask him if he was really sure that this was what he wanted. But that would be to admit to herself that there was still a doubt in her mind; and what kind of bride has doubts about her husband on their wedding day?
Adam looked up at her and smiled. ‘Maggie,’ he said. ‘I owe you so much. How can I ever pay you back?’
He reached out a hand to help her down from the carriage. The Red Horse blew through his nostrils and stamped.
‘You really mean that?’ Maggie said.
Once more Adam smiled at her. ‘Maggie, I’m going to be free,’ he said. ‘Now we belong to each other. You and me, and our baby.’ And he put his arms around her and kissed her softly on the mouth.
In his head a tiny Voice, barely even a whisper, said: Good.
‘What was that?’ Maggie said.
‘Just my heart,’ he told her.
And with that, the two young people walked hand in hand out of the light and into the great cathedral, where the Kissing Stone of St Sepulchre – the altar that for centuries the Folk of World’s End had used and revered without understanding what it was – was now finally ready to serve its purpose.
THEY WOULD HAVE made it in time, she thought, but for the fishmonger’s barrow. A tempting array of lobsters and prawns, tastefully bedded on seaweed, on one of the many food stalls at the far end of Examiners’ Walk – precisely the kind of seafood snack that Jormungand enjoyed the most. In spite of Maddy’s entreaties, he stopped, resumed his Black Horse Aspect, and languidly began to graze.
‘You can’t do that now!’ Maddy cried. ‘You’re taking us to Cathedral Square!’
She glanced at the sky. The light had changed from sunny blue to uneasy green. It was beautiful, but ominous; a luminous curtain that hid the sun.
‘What’s that? Northlights?’ Maddy said.
Above her head, Mandy crawk-ed: ‘Quick! Quick! No time!’
The Black Horse of the Last Days thoughtfully crunched on a lobster.
Perth tugged at his bridle, but could not persuade him to move an inch.
The fishmonger, a thickset young man in a dirty white cap, eyed them disapprovingly. He didn’t much care for foreigners, or their Outlandish livestock, especially not when they helped themselves to his wares without asking. ‘I ’ope you’ve got money,’ he observed. ‘’Cos it don’t cost you anyfink to look, but what you taste gets paid for.’
The Horse whose Rider was Treachery finished the lobsters and started on the prawns.
‘I said, I ’ope you can pay fer that,’ said the fishmonger in a louder voice.
‘Of course we can, my good fellow,’ said Perth, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a handful of gold summoned by the money-rune Fé.
The fishmonger eyed it suspiciously. ‘What kind of money is this?’ he said.
‘Gold. What does it matter?’ said Perth.
‘Come on, come on!’ said Maddy, almost shrieking with frustration.
The fishmonger narrowed his eyes at them, then turned his gaze back to the pieces of gold. Fish-eating horses were one thing, he thought. Even talking birds, at a pinch. But the coins that Perth had just handed him looked like nothing he’d ever seen: four great cartwheels of new-minted gold with an animal on one side and some kind of ruinmark on the reverse.
The fishmonger had no idea what they were. Nor did Maddy – such coins had been out of circulation five hundred years before she was born. Odin, had he been available for consultation, would have told them that this type of coin – it was called an Otter – had been part of the currency of World’s End back in the days of the Elder Age. No one had used or seen such coins in five hundred years, and as for these in particular …
As the fishmonger watched in surprise, the four pieces of gold suddenly became eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Gold coins showered onto the ground. The fishmonger, no intellect, frowned at the increasing pile. The money-rune shone merrily from every single gleaming coin.
Perth shrugged apologetically. ‘I guess I’m not used to this runemark,’ he said, by w
ay of explanation.
‘Oy,’ said the fishmonger. ‘I ain’t takin’ dodgy gold …’
No one paid any attention to him. Jormungand finished the prawns and belched, then started on the seaweed. The bells of St Sepulchre started to ring. Maddy tugged at the Horse’s bridle. ‘Jorgi! Please! Come on!’ she said. ‘That means the ceremony’s about to start!’
But Perth was looking at the sky. ‘We have a situation,’ he said.
Maddy followed his gaze. ‘Oh.’
The sky was changing once again. A bank of cloud was moving in fast, obliterating the northlights. A dark and swift and ominous cloud, shot through with shards of lightning. And the worst of it was that the cloud was moving, not with the wind, but against it.
‘We have to go,’ said Maddy. ‘Now.’
The fishmonger clamped a hand on her arm. ‘What about me fish?’ he said.
‘Damn the fish!’ said Perth. ‘Let’s go!’
The fishmonger’s face took on a dangerous expression. ‘What did you just say?’ he said, transferring his grip from Maddy’s arm to the back of Perth’s neck.
Which was why, a second later, when Jormungand resumed his true Aspect, he had acquired an extra passenger. Perth had found himself unable to detach the fishmonger’s hand in time and, giving up the struggle, had simply clung on for dear life as Jorgi, making up for lost time, headed for St Sepulchre’s Square at twenty times the speed of Dream, arriving only minutes too late. The great cathedral doors were shut and barred with steel from the inside. The last few revellers had dispersed. Even the bells were silent.
‘What now?’ said Maddy.
Perth shrugged. ‘I guess we missed the party.’
He dismounted from Jormungand and went over to the strawberry roan still harnessed to the wedding carriage. The Red Horse gave a whinny and tugged wildly against the harness.
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