“A lindworm will do. Show me.”
His illusions had grown in precision and detail over the years, as she’d concentrated on making him really look at the world around him. A master of illusion had to be an expert in reality, she’d told him, echoing Reginleif’s old lessons in the Odinhall. And every time she passed on the lessons of the valkyrie who’d taught her, Sigrun had to fight down waves of memories. And the associations that followed in the wake of the memories reminded her that Brandr hadn’t been seen or heard from since Fennmark, and the knot of guilt in her gullet tightened a little more.
Unfortunately, because Rig hadn’t seen a lindworm in reality, he had no sense of scale. No sense of their menace. “More alien,” Sigrun coached. “You have seen how lizards and birds move, the suddenness with which they suddenly acquire a target, the burst of speed with which they turn their head. Different muscles than a mammal. Smooth, yet jerky motions.” I’m conveying this badly. “More sense of mass . . . they each weigh about what an elephant does.”
Rig tried, and she could see frustration starting to settle in. “They’re going to know it’s a fake,” he told her, glumly. “They’ll walk right through it and still hold my arms and hit me.”
Sigrun shook her head. There were a couple of other options. “Let’s go,” she told him. “Tell your mother we will be at the park until after sundown. You will be with me, so she should be amenable.”
In a park down the road by a mile or so, Sigrun found a bench. Watched some pigeons strut past, while Rig paced. “What are we waiting for?” he finally asked.
“For the sun to sink a little lower. I think it best for the people in the houses adjoining the park not to see this.” Sigrun watched the horizon, her legs stretched out. And when the electric lamps switched on overhead, illuminating the park, and she could see Venus on the western horizon, she stood. “Niðhoggr.”
She’d called the beast about once a month since being sent home from the northlands. Typically, Adam would do aerobatics in a small plane, while she and Nith matched him, turn for turn. This had to be done outside of the view of the city, of course, at a small private airstrip far to the south of Jerusalem. Nith seemed to enjoy the play, and after aerobatics, Sigrun would slip off his back, and they’d play tag while Adam circled and watched them. She was always surprised, and pleased, when Niðhoggr appeared. She . . . rather thought that with Hel dead, and Loki gone, control over the dead—if any of the gods truly did deal with the souls of the departed—must have fallen to the dragon. He was older than Eir, and just as much a god-born as the current goddess of healing. Couldn’t be in better hands . . . claws . . . whatever. Though I don’t see anyone worshipping or propitiating him.
Other than the Cult of the Sacrificed God, and acknowledging the death of Hel in the chaos that had surrounded Loki’s disappearance, no major changes in worship had occurred for her people, as far as Sigrun could tell. Some people seemed to believe that with Hel gone, everyone, even those who died of illness or disease, would go to Valhalla now. Sigrun considered that to be in the line of wishful thinking.
In between heartbeats, the beast appeared, looming black-silver against the fading purple sky. Rig gasped audibly. “Oh, gods. Is that your dragon, Aunt Sigrun?”
“He is not mine. He is neither slave nor servant, and you are, in fact . . . his uncle. You are Loki’s son. He is Loki’s grandson, by way of Hel.”
Rig squinted at her. “Does that mean that Hel . . . er . . . ?”
“Mated with a serpent at some point in her existence? I never found the temerity to ask her such. You may certainly ask Nith who his father was, if you wish.”
The dragon landed, the barbed wings flaring back, kicking up a gust of wind, and the ground shook. Rig stared up at him, eyes wide. “I . . . think I’ll just wonder and not ask.”
“And they say that the younger generation does not learn quickly.” Sigrun resumed her seat on the bench. “Go get acquainted, Rig. Observe how he moves. Fluid, and then jerky. He is as different from you and me as any creature can be, but I suspect he has a vast and subtle intelligence.”
“Does he talk to you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
Nith lowered his head and stared directly at Rig, his muzzle directly level with the boy’s own head. Rig swallowed. “You understand every word we’re saying, don’t you?” His tone was awed.
The dragon’s teeth bared. Sigrun interpreted this as a friendly enough expression, and explained, calmly, “He is older than some civilizations on earth today. And he has a sense of humor that only your Uncle Kanmi could appreciate.”
Nith turned and snorted at her, almost genially, spraying her with ice crystals. Rig yelped and dodged, almost dancing as he brushed frost off his clothes. Sigrun closed her eyes, registering it as cool dampness, like the tiny drops of rain that might mist down, unexpected as a spirit’s kiss, from a sunny sky. When she opened her eyes again, Rig was approaching Nith, warily, both of his hands out to his sides. Then Niðhoggr sniffed the boy, vast nostrils twitching, taking in air rapidly. The dragon pulled back for a moment, considered Rig . . . and then licked him.
Sigrun exhaled. She read that gesture as acceptance, since it was the same thing Nith had done to her in the Odinhall. Rig cringed and staggered back, trying to wipe off . . . everything, actually. Face, hair, arms, chest. “Gods, Aunt Sig, his saliva’s freezing on me!”
“I think this is one of his little jokes.” Sigrun gave the dragon a narrow-eyed glance. “Acting as a beast should. As everyone expects him to do.” The massive head turned, and the diamond fangs bared once more. “It should thaw in a minute or so.” Sigrun kept her voice placid, and watched them interact. She fully expected, that any minute now, Nith would lower his head, and let the boy climb aboard his back. Rig was a son of Loki. He was of Nith’s own lineage. The dragon, for some reason that passed Sigrun’s understanding, appeared to like her. She’d wanted to hold off on this introduction until Rig was . . . old enough to understand and appreciate that Nith wasn’t a toy, a playmate, a slave, or a servant. Nith was his own creature. And if Rig had the power to command him . . . she didn’t want Nith to be at the beck and call of an impetuous child.
Rig began to chuckle, and managed to shake some of the frost off of himself. “All right, stop it. Stop it, please. Gods. All right, I . . . don’t think I can make an illusion nearly as big as he is, Aunt Sig. But I might be able to make something the size of a lindworm that looks and acts like he does.”
Nith lifted his head, and whuffled out cold air in Sigrun’s direction. She’d learned to interpret that as a questioning gesture, so she explained the situation to him, as if conversing with any of her other friends. “So, I thought that perhaps he could base an illusion off of you. And, just to make sure that they understand the reality behind the illusion, perhaps a personal appearance, the first time? So that they’re never quite sure again, what is real, and what is an illusion?” Sigrun shrugged. “Asking you to intervene directly every time there’s a school bullying incident would be like using a sledgehammer to crack an egg. But done properly, they won’t doubt the illusion, after this.” And best to set Rig’s expectations of obedience from Nith a little low, to begin with. Else he might well summon Nith for everything. Assuming that Nith will heed him.
The dragon exhaled, the muscles under his skin jerking, in what Sigrun had come to understand was laughter. And then he lowered his head—which was longer than Sigrun herself was tall—and settled all of its enormous weight in her lap. And rumbled at her as she swore under her breath and told him “Get off!”
The next day was dies Mercurii, or Wodensdæg. And Niðhoggr, to Sigrun’s mild surprise, refused to begin the exercise until she was seated firmly on his back. “He can call you, and you can hear, even from the Veil, can he not?” she asked the dragon. Pointless, of course. If Niðhoggr could speak, she couldn’t hear him. But he whuffled frozen crystals at her, chiding her until she climbed up on
his back, holding half of a two-way radio set, and a pair of binoculars. Rig had the other half of the radio set.
From far enough up in the sky that the dragon’s body would appear a speck, like a hawk cruising in leisurely thermals, Sigrun’s chest ached at how thin the air was. Their altitude was a solid two miles higher than the tallest mountain on Earth, and she wondered if she was going to experience hypoxia shortly. Ah, well, we won’t be up here for long. She peered through her binoculars at the ground, isolating Rig’s form; she’d told him to wear a red hat today, just to ensure that she could spot him. “You see him?” she called to Nith, over the roar of the wind over his massive wings.
A muffled roar of affirmation, and then the two-way radio crackled in her belt. “Here they come, Aunt Sig,” Rig said, his voice apprehensive.
She tabbed the radio. “Summon your illusions. Make a good show of raising your hands and wiggling your fingers.” Sigrun put the binoculars back around her neck. “Niðhoggr? If you would be so kind?” She leaned forward, wrapped her arms around the beast’s neck as tightly as she could, and felt him tuck his wings and drop his head into a steep dive. His wings spread again, this time not to slow their descent, but to increase their velocity. Wind began to tear at Sigrun, threatening to wrench her away from the dragon’s body; always before, when they’d gone this speed, she’d had his slightly elevated head and neck to hide behind, as a shield. Her arms and legs ached from holding onto him. Nothing bad would happen if she let loose, of course; she’d be caught in his backwash, but flying was as natural to her as breathing. She’d recover before she hit the ground. But she still hung on, tenacious as a leech, and closed her eyes against the airflow that tore tears from behind her lids.
A body in a flight that breaks the sound barrier, continuously produces a ‘sonic boom’ that extends behind it in a cone. Thus, someone on a jet fighter, such as the ones used in the Judean Defense Forces, didn’t hear the sonic boom; they just had instrumentation that showed pressure changes over the body of their vehicle. But everyone, in every area into which the plane entered, would hear the boom, and then a continuous low roar of thunder. As such, Sigrun wasn’t really sure when they passed the speed of sound, except that it was, again, very difficult to breathe, thanks to the pressure of the tide of air, squeezing her lungs like a bellows. She managed to crack her eyes open, and peeked at the ground, which was now looming much closer than she preferred. “Nith,” she wheezed. “Backwing . . . .”
A half-second later, Niðhoggr did precisely that, flaring out his wings and tearing at the air. This kind of crushing deceleration forced Judean pilots to wear flight suits to prevent bruising. They also typically were fastened in place in specially-designed harnesses that kept them from moving around inside the pressurized cockpits of their planes. Sigrun, no matter how strong she was, couldn’t quite . . . hold. . . on. Her fingertips dragged along Niðhoggr’s scales, and once the air found an opening against her torso, it was all over. Pneumatic force blasted her backwards, tumbling headlong down the length of the dragon’s spine, past the end of the lashing tail and through the backwash. Disorienting, a feeling not unlike being inside a sandblaster . . . and then she shot out into the cone of the sonic boom behind the dragon, and it went off in her head like a bomb.
For almost a full second, Sigrun blacked out. When she came to, she realized she was tumbling in the sky, and tried to regain control. Hit a roof at a steep angle, and managed to tumble off some of her velocity there, the tiles catching at her hands and legs, slammed the side of her head against the gutter, and finally tumbled off the edge, careening another twenty feet before she landed on the sidewalk, feet spread wide and one hand down for stability. Even so, the impact hurt. The poured-stone actually cracked under her feet and hand, and the shock traveled up into her flesh and bones. She could feel the metacarpal and wrist bones of her right hand fracture. She could feel the cracks forming in her metatarsals and ankle bones, and bit down on her own lip hard enough that she tasted blood to keep from screaming, because when she’d looked up, head still ringing and her neck aching from pure whiplash, she’d realized that she’d somehow dropped right behind the pack of boys who were following Rig and Inghean and Solinus home from school that day. She lifted herself off the ground so that she was hovering, taking her weight off her traumatized feet and legs, and tried to evaluate the situation.
Niðhoggr had just touched down, himself, with a thud that set off any car alarm in the neighborhood that hadn’t been going off, already, from a sonic boom at close range. The irritating polyphonous cacophony echoed from the walls and poured-stone streets, and Sigrun could see, out of the corner of her eye, that a few of the nearby windows had cracked, too. Damn. Coming out of my paycheck. Worth every assarii, however.
The dragon simply loomed in the middle of the street, about ten feet behind Rig, Inghean, and Solinus. Inghean and Solinus had clearly been briefed by Rig about this exercise, and therefore only looked moderately terrified. Solinus had only pulled flame up and over his hands, more or less reflexively. Rig himself now conjured two lindworms, his entire face twisting with concentration, one to either side of the trio of friends . . . while the four boys who had been following them—two Judean, from the looks of them, one Nubian, and one . . . perhaps a Carthaginian?—stood frozen in absolute horror, staring up sixty feet in the air, the height of a five-story building, to meet Nith’s blazing eyes as the dragon reared up on his haunches and flared his wings. “It’s . . . it’s an illusion,” one of them said, through chattering teeth. “It’s . . . it’s just a trick . . . .”
“Don’t breathe on them,” Sigrun warned, quickly. Gods, please, no, don’t breathe on them.
Nith leaned down his long neck, arching it over Rig, Inghean, and Solinus protectively, and then exhaled on the four boys, delicately. Just a puff of cold white fumes.
Sigrun could smell urine and fouler things as the boys, previously frozen in terror, turned to run, only to find her behind them, rune-light pouring from her skin as she hovered there, healing. Truthfully, with both of her feet screaming in pain, and one hand out of commission, there was nothing short of lightning that she could have done to them, but they didn’t know that. As such, they simply screamed and ran.
Nith, for his part, lifted his head and nodded, as if in satisfaction, and edged closer, so he could sniff Sigrun. The three remaining children, looking delighted and . . . quite self-satisfied . . . ran to her and hugged her, which Sigrun endured without crying out. “That was amazing,” Rig shouted. “I didn’t know you were going to land behind them like that!”
“Neither did I.” Sigrun wanted to sit down. Now.
“That was wonderful!” Inghean told her, clapping her hands together. “We didn’t hurt them, and they’ll leave me alone forever now, right?”
“I . . . certainly trust so.”
“Did you see them run?” Solinus crowed to Rig. “I liked that! I couldn’t do anything to them, but this . . . this was perfect!”
“Yes, yes. I saw. So did half the street. Go home. I . . . have to deal with the repercussions. The gardia is surely already on its way. Rig already gave me the names of the boys. Go.”
As they ran off, laughing and cheering. Sigrun made a mental note to have Rig start incorporating more of his illusion work in his sparring practice with Adam and Trennus. The boy should be able to manifest a dozen copies of himself. And once he’d split himself off like that, he could render his real self invisible. Or he should be able to make himself invisible and simultaneously manifest a double slightly to the left or right of where he really was. That would make any punches or shots directed at him miss . . . and then he’d be able to move in from the side and behind, and look unnervingly fast in doing so.
All matters for another time, however. “Go on with you,” she told Nith, gritting her teeth at the pain in her limbs, but grateful, still. “Thank you for helping. I’m sure you have better things to be doing.”
The dragon remained motionless on
the ground. Sigrun blinked, not sure what to make of this behavior. “I mean it. Go. You’ll have them calling in the JDF and the militia and everyone else. You won’t be able to come back if they see you as a threat.” Suddenly, that was . . . very important to her. “This was my responsibility.”
The deadly tail, armed with a lethal three-foot slender barb, swept forwards, and hovered in front of her. She eyed it, warily, until he lightly brushed the legs of her pants with the tip. “You smell the pain?”
The massive head inclined. “I’ll heal. Go. Please.”
The dragon snorted, launched himself into the sky, and looked back at her, once, before disappearing into the Veil.
Sigrun dealt with the gardia, displaying her ælagol credentials, but, carefully, not her Praetorian badge. She told them that this was an object lesson that she’d preferred to bringing the boys up on charges, and . . . very slowly floated from house to house, handing out solidi to pay for the broken windows. She hadn’t thought that she’d been carrying enough coins, but every time she opened her poke, there were just enough coins to cover the costs at each residence. Going to have to visit the bank tomorrow and make a withdrawal, I suppose.
She fully expected the boys’ parents to be at her house, later, to complain, not to mention at Lassair and Trennus’ house, but she would have the benefit of being able to tell the parents precisely what their darling children had been up to of late, and what in the way of fines and potentially community service that their boys would have been facing, otherwise.
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