by Matt Larkin
He and Sigyn had given birth to her, and no matter how far astray she’d gone, he could not completely forsake her. Forcing the bitter frown from his expression, he stroked her cheek, heedless of putrefaction of her flesh, or where it peeled away to reveal bone beneath it.
“I should have done better by you,” he said.
Hel laughed. A single, short breath, really, that, for once, did not carry the tones of icy rage and despair that had so pervaded her voice for millennia. A solitary note, a hint of a music, that might have belonged to his lost child. A shadow of a little girl, playing by the sea, while her father struggled to hold together the fabric of history. And he, in his obsession, had perhaps missed moments he ought to have cherished.
As if suddenly aware of his reverie, as if repulsed by the realization of what it implied, Hel jerked roughly away, her hint of a smile replaced by a sneer. “I’m going to crush this world into dust, Father. Come, I’ll let you watch.”
9
The Penumbra was a world of flowing shadows, cast in shades of gray and midnight blue, and surrounded by the Roil. That latter layer of the Astral Realm kept trying to tug at Hermod’s soul, to pull him down toward whatever final end should have awaited him in death.
Having fought against the pull, he now drifted along through this netherworld, this cold, distorted reflection of the Mortal Realm. But not listlessly, nor out of rage, as seemed to be the only two options available to most shades.
Now, Hermod trod with purpose.
The seas of the Mortal Realm had no substance here, though their presence did further deepen the darkness that saturated the Astral Realm. Now, Hermod trod along what should have been the seafloor, deeper than he’d have ever imagined, and wary of crevasses and the surprisingly alien landscape down here. Above him, around him, passed countless faint shadows cast by sea life on the far side of the Veil.
Given he could no longer take a boat, walking beneath the waves seemed his only way to reach Valhalla. More than once, he’d questioned whether he’d gone mad to attempt such a crossing. Especially having seen this desolate, strange place that almost reminded him of the Roil.
He’d passed enormous coral reefs that seemed half in this realm, half in the Mortal Realm. He’d come down an incredibly steep drop-off some distance beyond the land, one that had taken hours to scale—could a ghost break bones from a fall?—and had tested his resolve.
And now, deeper than any living man could dream of reaching, he walked in a direction he dared to hope would carry him back to Asgard.
In the distance, a shadow from the Mortal Realm seemed brighter than any others Hermod had seen. Bright and very, very large.
Hermod slipped into a crouch and gazed at the thing swimming around above. If he could make it out thus, had the creature embraced the Sight? Could it see him? It was too far away to get an accurate estimate of just how long it was, but over a hundred feet, without doubt. Sinuous, serpentine. A sea serpent?
The last thing Hermod needed was some kind of dragon passing through the Veil and hunting him. If it did he’d have nowhere to …
Wait. He was already dead. For certain, he had seen very few other shades since entering the sea—most flitted about the land, lamenting their deaths—but either way, why would a dragon care about a ghost? It shouldn’t.
Still, he found it hard to make his legs straighten, hard to rise and continue his trek forward. Ever, the serpent drew his gaze, so much he twice stumbled over dips in the seafloor. Even knowing the creature shouldn’t concern itself with him, how was a man to ignore a monster effectively flying above him?
“Fuck me,” he mumbled.
Finally, the serpent drifted so far away he could no longer make out its shape, and Hermod continued to push on.
It had been a mistake, he realized while sitting in profound isolation, somewhere far from the edge of land. With no sun and no landmarks, he could not begin to guess if he was headed in the right direction. He could have been wandering in circles for hours or days or … how much time had passed, for that matter?
With no cycle of night or day, no need for food or rest, how could he measure it?
Had Loki slain him a moon ago? Or longer? Much longer?
Complete despair settled over his chest and threatened to crush him. Part of it was the nature of this realm. Hermod knew that. The Lethe stole memories and the Astral Realm itself infused a soul with a despondency so powerful it could wither away essence. Some souls got drawn back into the World Tree, into the Wheel of Life, while others … who knew, really?
In his ennui, he could feel the Roil’s pull once again trying to claim him, to drag him deeper into the Astral Realm. Why should he not let it claim him? Why continue to fight it? So he could wander for all eternity in the empty spaces between the land? So he could entertain a vain hope of reaching Valhalla and calling up the einherjar as Odin had intended?
It was hopeless.
Odin was gone.
Hermod was dead. And surely, in death, the bounds of his duty had been reached. Surely, having been murdered, he could count himself absolved of his responsibilities to continue this fight. Let the world attend to itself.
If Hermod found Heimdall’s bridge, took it, would it lead him to the peace of oblivion? Odin claimed they would all be born again, and indeed, had been born many times before. But Hermod didn’t remember any other lives. So … if he returned to the Wheel of Life, he might be allowed to then forget the horrors of this life.
Even as he stared at his hands, they began to bleed. Not blood, but rather … their very substance seemed to drift off into invisible currents, as if he became mist, blown away by the wind. The first steps of oblivion would prove a mercy. His chance to escape the madness of his quest.
“You failed.” The whisper carried across the shadows of this realm, hateful and sibilant, and, though it now sounded outside his head, all too familiar.
Hermod lurched to his feet, his disintegration abated for the moment. “Keuthos?”
A chilling mist wafted along the seafloor, trailing in from the distance. A cloud that must reach out thirty or forty feet. Hermod could make out naught in the middle of that freezing cloud, but its presence left no doubt the Mistwraith had come for him.
“What do you want, Keuthos?” Hermod’s death had forcibly shunted the Mistwraith from his body, and Hermod had dared to hope that meant he’d be free of the vile ghost.
“I’ve been tracking you a long time. I scarcely believed it, when the trail led into the ocean. I’d not have thought even you so mad as to attempt this. Would try to pass directly into the World of Water? Is that your aim?”
Hermod tried to chuckle, but found the ennui that had seized him seemed to steal even his ability to laugh. Still … Odin had taught him that in the Astral Realm, one’s body was essentially a projection of self-image. Before moving bodily into the Penumbra, he had trained Hermod to manifest aught he’d associated with himself—gear, armor, arms. And Hermod, in turn, had taught the einherjar to manifest weapons as well.
A moment of concentration, and Dainsleif appeared in his hand. Oh, it wasn’t the real runeblade, for it lacked the infusion of damned souls to imbue it with terrible power. It was, rather, simply a blade as strong and sharp as Hermod’s own will.
Keuthos’s hateful cackle seemed to reverberate through its mist. It formed up, a shrouded, armor-plated figure, half seen through the cloud of mist, bearing an axe large enough to have chopped a snow bear in half. “You wish to fight me?”
“I’ve no wish to do so at all.”
“I will hack your pathetic form to shreds and feast on the dregs of your soul.”
Hermod hefted Dainsleif up before himself. “What would you have me do, wraith? I am dead. I cannot complete the mission you wish, and death absolves one of all oaths.”
“Not all oaths.”
Did Keuthos think Hermod could somehow still reach Muspelheim and destroy the seal? Was that even possible? He’d lost his ability to project ac
ross the Veil … but he was not infused with Mist like Keuthos, so perhaps he could enter the World of Fire without being consumed by it. If he could find the way there.
Still, Valhalla seemed the far more pressing of goals. If he could find some way, any way to reach it. If he …
“Can you lead me back to Asgard?”
“The islands … You truly believe you are in a position to make requests of me?”
“If you want me to—”
A shadow dropped out of the sky, a winged form diving to land in a crouch before Hermod, sleek, and clad in gilded armor Hermod now knew was fashioned after that of the liosalfar. A valkyrie, dark-haired.
She lifted her gaze to him. Gondul.
She bore a gleaming spear and a shield and raised both in warding toward Keuthos, drawing a hiss from the wraith.
How was she here? Why? Hermod had a dozen questions, but under the circumstances … He moved up to her side, facing down Keuthos. “Leave us. I will attend to your mission if and when circumstances allow it. First, I have other matters that call me.”
Again, that sibilant hiss in answer. But the mist cloud did begin to drift away, Keuthos’s shadowy figure melted back into it. The creature’s wrath seemed to saturate the very air, so thick it made Hermod’s arms tremble even after the mist had faded from view.
He spun on Gondul. “How did you … No. Why did you come to help me?” Surely she knew he no longer bore Draupnir, could no longer compel her.
Gondul quirked the oddest of smiles. Sad, almost. “Our power came from Odin, with the ring as a conduit. Without it, yes, we might defy him. Skögul has fled to pursue her own ends, and I alone remain from our lodge.”
“Not really an answer.”
“Your mother was our sister. You knew that.”
Hermod nodded. Odin had claimed two lodges of valkyries with Draupnir, though Gondul’s lodge had almost all fallen now. Only herself and Skögul remained, and now Skögul had abandoned him.
Hermod ought to have cared more about such things, but the numbness had settled into his breast and refused to release his grip. An apathy about all things, one he fought so hard against. Struggling, to keep his purpose true, to reach Valhalla. To fulfill Odin’s wish and bring the einherjar into battle against the forces of Hel.
Hel, whom Hermod had released from Niflheim in his mad rage.
Gondul moved to his side and ran her fingers lightly over his beard, shaking her head. “I’m sorry it happened like that. Once I knew … of course I would not abandon you, of all men, Hermod. Never you. If anyone deserved to reach Valhalla and dine in peace, it is you.”
“Y-you’d take me there?” Could it be so easy? To reach his destination simply for the asking of it? After such struggle, after such a long trek through darkness, he could have made it any time, had he but found Gondul sooner?
He wanted to weep with joy, but even that seemed too much effort. How very empty he had become now. Almost ready to let himself get sucked down into the Roil.
Gondul held out her arm to him. “I’ll take you. I’ll take you to Valhalla and you will finally be able to rest.”
Rest …
Rest. No. Fuck, how he wished he could, but no … Hermod could not rest. There were yet a few things that required his attending to.
He clasped Gondul’s arm, and she drew him into her embrace. A powerful beat of her wings carried them aloft.
10
Temporal currents thrashed at the edges of Odin’s consciousness, fraying it, or, perhaps, expanding it in all directions. As if, were he able to completely let go, his mind might traverse every thread of the web of urd, might nestle into every node of time and, for a bare instant, understand the totality of the cosmos.
That way lay madness, of course.
The human mind, expanded though his might be, could never hope to process the infinite. Were he to give in to such impulses, the price must surely be his sanity, and Odin was not certain he’d want to know what shell of a man would remain where he had once stood.
And so he fought the current, struggled, not only to keep his breath and remain grounded, but to ford the tides of the sea of time and make his way back to the one node that most needed him.
Conceptions of the present had become relative things, yes, but still, surely the place in the timeline which he had fled must hold some special import. The place, the time, and the soul of the one he so needed, at the moment when she most needed him.
Curled in a ball, struggling to catch a breath, he opened his eye and saw rime-coated stone beneath himself. Howling winds—no, not mere winds, but gales—tugged at his clothes, and sent him tumbling over sideways. The force was such that he actually skidded along the ground, even as he looked up into the night, blinking.
And realized it was not night.
The moon had passed before the sun, creating an eclipse. An orb of darkness surrounded by a ring of fading flame. Völvur would have called it the illest of omens, he suspected.
Glorious, Valravn said in his mind, the vaettr’s voice louder than ever. Resonant and powerful.
Odin sat atop a high fortress, the winds whipping snow flurries around, the chill almost unbearable. Nearby, men—archers—struggled to keep a brazier burning. A vain struggle, most like.
“Od? Od!” Freyja’s voice, barely audible over the winds.
He turned to her.
It had worked.
It had worked!
For a brief instant he struggled to keep his feet against the bitter gales, then he was running to her. Sweeping her up in his arms, even to come crashing down beside a mighty staircase leading down into the fortress. He hardly noticed the impact, though he felt the breath blow out of her.
He wanted to praise some deity, some merciful entity for allowing him this respite. He wanted to praise the cosmos for finally reuniting him with her after what felt ages. No words would come to his lips, though. Just a moan of release, of relief.
Revel in it, then, Valravn said. You know fate still impends.
After catching her breath a moment, Freyja eased him down onto the stairs and out of the howling winds. Above, they continued to roar, sounding like some feral beast, stalking the night, caught in a frenzy. A bloodlust beyond description.
His love guided him down several more steps, toward the lower landing of the place.
He knew this place. Idavollir? What madness had brought Freyja back here? Indeed, many Aesir and Vanir seemed to have gathered here, plenty of them gaping at him, as Freyja led the way through the corridors and into a dining hall.
“Bring soup!” she ordered no one in particular that Odin could see.
“We hardly have—” someone began.
“Just bring something hot!” Freyja snapped, then helped Odin down onto a bench. Stroked his cheek. “What …” She swallowed. “Where have you been?”
Odin blinked, looking about the hall to make certain none drew nigh enough to overhear him. “Everywhere. Every … Freyja, I saw … The past.”
“You had visions.”
He leaned close and took her hand. “I was there. Lost in time, drifting from one temporal node to another like … like islands in a stormy sea, but the waves kept crashing down over me, drawing me back under.”
Freyja frowned, chewing her lip, then shook her head. “I think you need some rest, Od. How did you even get up on the battlements? I was just going to check on the men when I saw you.”
Maybe she couldn’t understand. Maybe just being back with her was enough. Except … the things he’d seen, even before his mind and body had gotten carried over the temporal currents, the visions. The future that impended. It was enough to choke him. Dare he imagine that his sojourn would allow him to change, if not everything, than at least one thing? The one he could not bear?
Why, why would he ever strike down his beloved Freyja?
You will lose everything … Even yourself … Fate’s jaws are upon your throat …
The why of it, Valravn said, perhaps hol
ds less import than the when.
Not to Odin. The why mattered.
He squeezed her hand, desperate for some reassurance she was real, that he was really here, in this time, this place. “I need to know how we came here and what’s happening.”
Freyja sighed. “We lost Vanaheim. Narfi led an assault and conquered the island, though Frey managed to save Andvaranaut. He left it with me for safekeeping, and went to Reidgotaland to secure the world against Hel’s forces.”
“Hel?”
“She’s … you were right, Od. All along, you were right. She’s free now, and inside Sigyn. Her, and Fenrir, too, inside Narfi. The whole world has gone mad. Two days back the eclipse started.”
“Two days?” An eclipse should not have lasted an hour, much less for days.
Glorious, Valravn said again. The moon’s presence pulses through the unending twilight.
“Since then … the draugar never rest anymore. They’ve overrun Reidgotaland, the jotunnar are conquering Sviarland. The vampires have Valland and Hunaland. And now, Fenrir, he … he’s called hundreds of varulfur. They’re everywhere, stalking the endless night. More and more refugees have come in, but we have no food to feed them. It’s like … the whole world has gone mad. Everywhere is lost, now.” She rubbed her face. “Famine runs wild and I cannot do aught for anyone. There is nowhere left in all Midgard not falling to one dread horror or another.”
Odin closed his eye for a bare instant. He’d known this was coming. He’d known it, from the first time he had come to Vanaheim, four hundred years back. He had known this end battle would find the world.
Just like Loki had always planned. Or like the man had always needed.
“I have to find Loki.”
Freyja snorted, the sound bitter and cold. “He broke in here some time back and murdered Hermod, along with Bragi and anyone else who got in his way. He was caught in a paroxysm of rage unlike aught I’ve ever seen, and no one seemed able to stand against him.”