The Fires of Muspelheim

by Matt Larkin

  “Ugh.” Tyr had been born to a slave girl, more like than not, one carrying Hymir’s child. Tyr figured that made him half-jotunn. Actually, good reason to sympathize with Idunn’s problems from dark parentage. Either way, Tyr didn’t care overmuch if anyone spoke ill of Hymir.

  Jotunn was a raping, man-eating bastard who’d set himself up as a brutal king. Still … Tyr also didn’t much like that the Deathless legion had gone and killed Hymir. Couldn’t say whether he wanted to do so himself. Sure as fuck hadn’t wanted those vampire-worshipping trollfuckers to do it, though.

  Sunna shifted again. Too restless, this one. “What does it really mean, the end of the world?” And bouncing around from topic to topic.

  Kind of like Idunn. Like Idunn was, leastwise. Tyr couldn’t guess what she’d be like now.

  “Means everyone dies, I suppose.” Fool question, really.

  Sunna scoffed. “Fine, yes, but what does that mean? How do you wrap your head around the end of all life? Oblivion almost, though the oldest liosalfar say it’s happened before, that it will happen again. So it’s more like a break in the continuity of history. A changing of the seasons, even. Intellectually, I’d call it that. But if I try to actually imagine the implications, it’s like the concept is too big and it keeps slipping through my fingers. Me, an immortal Vanr, a liosalf, one who’s lived for thousands of years! So how, then, does it look to, say, a fisherwoman?”

  Eh. “Suppose it looks like she’s gonna watch her children die. Watch her parents, their parents. Everything their whole life meant, just get snuffed out. Like they never were.”

  “Right. Oblivion. And if it’s inevitable, doesn’t that render the totality of that woman’s line, all their suffering—perhaps meant to ensure the continuation of her kin, maybe even to better them—moot? Everything they endured means naught at all, considering it will get wiped clean and have no further impact on the world.”

  Shit. Why did she think Tyr of all people would have an answer to that? He cracked his neck. “Lines already get wiped out, time to time. Sometimes enemies do it. Sometimes bad luck. Never made life pointless.”

  “But that’s just it—people struggled to avoid that end and there was a chance of success. Some lines would die out, yes, but many would endure. What does it mean when oblivion is all but guaranteed?”

  Tyr spit in the fire for lack of aught to say to that. “Means we best get some sleep while we can.”

  Still, even after he lay down, he could hear her, shifting, mumbling to herself.

  In Skane, the woods grew thick. Too dark, with the eclipse. Like something sinister lurked inside. Too close to the Otherworlds now, maybe. Tyr half expected to see ash wives stumbling from every other tree.

  Despite the cold, spiderwebs clung to the branches, occasionally illuminated by Sunna’s glow and her torchlight.

  “My brother came here?” Sunna asked. “You still think he hunts Fenrir?”

  Tyr imagined so. But what was the Moon Lord doing down here?

  The growl, when it came, seemed to rumble up on them from all sides. As if the wood itself snarled at them. Disdained their presence.

  A threat, issued too late.

  Tyr had Mistilteinn in hand, when the man came crunching through the snow.

  Naked. Tongue hanging from his mouth to one side.

  Mani, he realized, when the man drew closer into the torchlight’s radius. No sunlight left in him now.

  “Stones are apt to freeze off,” Tyr said.

  The man’s answer came in another growl, rumbling from his chest. Low. Feral. And still building amid the trees.

  “Mani?” his sister said, taking a step toward him. Tyr caught her arm before she could go too far.

  Because Mani’s growl wasn’t echoing through the woods. No, other men and women came stalking toward them. All naked. Some wolves, too, padding lightly over the snows. Snarling. Some of the humans began to drop down on all fours, shifting.

  Still growling, Mani bared his teeth, revealing elongating canines.

  Fucking trollshit. “Mani!” Tyr snapped. He’d been afraid of this. Last time he’d fought Fenrir, the Moon Lord had dominated even Ás varulfur. Now he had a whole pack of wolves closing in. “Mani!”

  “Brother?” Sunna asked.

  She didn’t understand.

  Tyr locked his arm in hers. “Get us out of here!”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  An instant of vertigo as his vantage changed without warning. He was behind some of the wolves, now. Liosalf couldn’t take them farther than that? Then, another wave of dizziness as his surroundings melted once more.

  Tyr felt apt to retch, truth be told.

  They’d appeared some distance away. Wolves must’ve caught their scents, though, because a howl went up, almost immediately.

  “Run!” Tyr shouted, shoving Sunna ahead of him with his forearm.

  “But Mani—”

  Not bothering to argue, Tyr ran. Raced frantic between trees. Pulse pounding in his temples. Snow concealed roots. His foot caught one, sent him stumbling. Sunna yanked him up, though, forced him onward.

  Tyr’s arms scraped against rough bark. Spiderwebs tangled in his face.

  Then a charging, snarling wolf flew at him. Tyr whipped Mistilteinn around. The runeblade sheared clean through the varulf’s skull, but its flying body continued forward and sent Tyr tumbling down beneath it. Grunting, he kicked the corpse—already becoming a man—off himself and lurched to his feet.

  Another leaping shadow flew at him, its jaws snapping down on his right forearm. The sound of his bones breaking hit him before the pain. Great waves of it, that the apple didn’t quite push down. The wolf’s weight tore at his arm, fangs shredding his flesh, mangling the bone beneath.

  Roaring in agony and rage, Tyr rammed the runeblade into the wolf’s belly. A swift jerk disemboweled the varulf. Finally slackened its jaws.

  Tyr gasped with the pain, cradling his mauled arm.

  Sunna screamed as another varulf bore her down. A pair of them. Two atop her, jaws snapped, gnashing, horrible. Blood spraying.

  Shambling in a lopsided run, Tyr charged them, sweeping Mistilteinn over the skull of the closest. The blade cleaved through flesh and bone and left exposed brain. The varulf immediately slumped off her.

  A third wolf came flying in. Tyr couldn’t get the runeblade back up. Braced for another hit.

  The varulf collided with the other one on Sunna and the two of them tumbled into a rolling, snarling fury. Snapping in the darkness. Yelps. Couldn’t see which was which, but one had to be Mani. Turned, tried to save his sister.

  Tyr looked to the liosalf.

  Who was missing a chunk of her throat. Blood bubbling up like a fountain, choking her.

  He stumbled to her side, but another varulf surged in from the darkness, forcing him to fall back and raise the runeblade in his own defense. More and more of these things.

  Children of Fenrir.

  Had the varulfur lured him into a trap? Or had he blundered after them? A fool for thinking to take on the Moon Lord.

  By now, every varulf from here to Gardariki was probably joining Fenrir’s pack.

  One leapt at him. Pulling on the apple’s power let Tyr snap Mistilteinn up, running the varulf through. Not fast enough to dodge, though. Again, the wolf sent him sprawling down in the snow.

  A haze of pain and grunts and flying fur, as more closed in on him.

  Somewhere, it sounded like Mani was being torn apart by an army of wolves.

  Tyr would die too. Couldn’t hold out against so many.

  Swiping wildly with the runeblade, he hacked through flesh and sent more varulfur fleeing. They feared it, now. Knew it killed immortals as easy as mortals. His one edge.

  Half running, half crawling, Tyr blundered through the trees, toward the sound of running water.

  Maybe they wouldn’t cross the stream. Small chance. His only chance.

  Couldn’t see a damn thing.
Faint light wafted off Mistilteinn’s runes, obscured by blood.

  Another wolf snapped at his heels, but leapt backward when he brandished the runeblade.

  They knew he was losing too much blood. A thick trail of it followed him, almost invisible in the dark woods.

  His foot struck ice. Then plunged through, sending him crashing thigh-deep into freezing waters.

  Shit!

  Had to get across. Then break the rest of the ice so they couldn’t follow.

  Had to move.

  His thrashing only served to send him plunging forward, into the river. Stunned by the shock of its icy bite. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.

  Hands seized his shoulders and yanked him deeper, into the current. Everything had become invisible now.

  Whole body going numb. Except for pressure in his head.

  His teeth were chattering.

  He was naked, lying by a too small fire, trembling. Good sign, that. Meant he hadn’t fallen into deathchill yet.

  Tyr blinked. Groaned at the brightness of the flame. Took a moment to focus his vision.

  A naked woman sat beside him. Blonde-haired, waif-thin, but not nigh to so young as her tiny form would imply. Some streaks of gray in her hair now. More than a few wrinkles on her face. Vaettr couldn’t keep a host young forever.

  “Flosshilde?” he rasped.

  She murmured something. Leaned in. Checking his arm. She’d coated it in a wet, slimy, foul-smelling pulp. Seaweed? Maybe it had eased the pain, maybe just enough time had passed for the apple to start the work on mending his bones.

  “You saved me again.”

  Flosshilde shrugged. The tips of her hair were still wet. “The nixies speak of a shift in balance. A Moon Lord roams the world once more. I knew you could not be far.”

  “Doesn’t account for why you helped me. Haven’t seen you in four hundreds years.”

  She shrugged again. “A long time ago, I owed you. Now, you owe me.”

  “Don’t have much to give.” Oh. Damn it. “My sword.”

  “I had to lodge it in the riverbed. I couldn’t carry you to safety and deal with it.”

  He grunted in relief. At least it wasn’t lost. “You can get it for me?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time one of my kind did so.”

  Tyr was too damn tired to wonder overmuch about her meaning. “What do you want in return?”

  “Hmm. A girl.”

  “What?”

  “A girl. Young, but at least old enough to have bled.”

  Oh, by Hel’s frozen underworld. “You want a new host. This one’s wearing out, and you want me to bring you a girl. Don’t see as that’s much different than murdering her.”

  Flosshilde chuckled, a sweet musical sound. Considering her request, that music churned his stomach. “Not enough young people are coming to the rivers these days.”

  “Because half the world’s dead and the other half soon to follow.”

  “You want your sword back? You want me to help you find the Moon Lord? I can do those things. But you must do something for me. Help me stay in this Realm.”

  Had he the strength, he’d have spit in the fire.

  Now, instead, he just lay there, gut churning in disgust. With her, for asking it. With himself, for knowing he’d do it.

  Because he needed the runeblade. And he needed Flosshilde’s help.

  Couldn’t let Fenrir loose on the world. Couldn’t allow it.

  Surely stopping that rampaging varulf was worth more than one girl’s life. Surely it was.

  Still didn’t stop the bile from bubbling inside him.

  A long time back, Borr had taught Tyr honor. Since then, he’d tried to live by it. Except, world didn’t seem to want to let him. So he kept telling himself, he’d keep to honor in the future.

  No more lies, or murders, or so forth.

  Now, it seemed like not so much time was left for living right.

  Maybe there never had been such a time.

  13

  Their tiny ship threaded through the mist, Odin guiding it with such ease Freyja had to wonder if he relied on the Sight for that, too, despite his rise in mistrust of his visions. Since his return, she could not well say whether he hated his prescience, had accepted it, or somewhere in between. Or rather, perhaps not even he knew.

  Nestled in the bow, she watched for signs of Vanaheim. Her whole life, the World Tree had held back the mists in a barrier ring around the islands, much like the reefs. Now, though, the mists had begun to spill through the barrier, as if the great tree—the Tree of Life, some had called it—had begun to falter. Even its power no longer held strong and, without it, she couldn’t imagine how the world could survive.

  “I keep thinking about death.” She spoke softly, not looking at him, not really even sure if she was talking to Odin.

  “That’s not surprising, given we know we face the end of this era.”

  The end of an era … the end, rather, of the race of man. Odin claimed to have memories of such things, to have recovered memories from previous lives—a concept Freyja found hard to credit, despite Odin’s obvious sincerity about it.

  “We … we’re going to die.” Saying it aloud felt like opening a void inside her chest. A hollow, born of the realization that, despite having lived thousands of years, having thought herself eternal, she was not. The very idea! How it defied words.

  Rather, it became a nameless, formless dread. While mortals out in Midgard had lived with the knowledge that life was short, hard, and only ended one way, she, an immortal Vanr, had always known differently. Since the end of the war with Brimir, she’d rarely even considered that she might not endure for the rest of time.

  Even after Odin had banished her to Alfheim—perhaps especially after that, when the Otherworldly sun had saturated her—she’d not considered that her journey might end. That she, the individual consciousness that made her up, might suddenly cease.

  A single sob wracked her chest. Unexpected, and unaccompanied by tears. Looking away from Odin, she clutched the gunwale. How weak he must think her. Losing control of herself in fear of death!

  Odin, an Ás. People who’d only ever striven to die gloriously. And when Odin hadn’t found Valhalla, he’d gone and made it.

  The man remained at the tiller, but she could feel his gaze on her back.

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” she whispered.

  Odin murmured something and she spun to look at him. A sadness had settled over his face, but not judgment. Again, he opened his mouth, but she couldn’t catch aught he said.

  “What?”

  He sighed now. “I used to think it weakness, the Vanr fear of death. When we assaulted Vanaheim, I thought that. I knew the Aesir would win because we, still warriors, could fight and die without hesitation. I was young, then, naïve. Now, having endured long myself, I understand on more than the intellectual level I had grasped back then.” He grunted. “Yes. It’s not only the love of life that holds us back—though that is there—but the fear of giving up what we have. What we spent so long building. I wish I could make you and the others believe about the Wheel of Life.”

  Freyja shook her head. “What does it matter? How am I to care if you say I lived before and will be born again … if I don’t remember it, how is that really me?”

  Her lover fell silent a moment, gazing into the mist before looking back at her. “Are you naught more than the sum of your memories? Have you lost a piece of yourself every time you forget something?”

  “Foundational memories.”

  “What?”

  Freyja cleared her throat. “My mother, Nerthus, was something of a philosopher. She posited a theory that the essence of a person was derived not from the totality of their memories, but from a handful of foundational memories. Events so powerful they shaped everything about us from that moment on. Our personalities, our essences, were built on the foundations of those few memories. It’s … it’s part of what made delving into the Art
so dangerous.”

  “Hmmm. Because one possible consequence of sorcery is the loss of memory, and you might not know what you’d lost.”

  “Yes. If a person lost a foundational memory, they had thus lost a piece of their personality, of their humanity.”

  “And that’s what you believe happened to the First Ones?”

  Freyja shrugged. It was a plausible enough theory.

  Odin, though, seemed less than convinced.

  The flooding had begun to recede, but still, many valleys on Vanaheim remained inundated, and the sight visibly unnerved Odin as he guided their boat through channels that ought not to have existed.

  They had both fallen silent now.

  In a way, the eclipse helped them. It covered their approach, for, at least on the islands themselves, the mist remained thin. Still, to remain concealed she’d been forced to burn off her stored sunlight and, until the eclipse passed, she’d have no way to restore it. It left her feeling unarmed, almost defenseless, even as she told herself she still had strength and speed much greater than a man.

  Many times, they’d heard the tumult and shouts of frost jotunnar. The creatures were calling up mist and snowstorms, transforming beautiful, green Vanaheim into some desolate imitation of Jotunheim.

  To her left, ice had built up along the slope, reaching down to the edge of the water. Ice! On Vanaheim. How was she to forgive this desecration of her precious home? How was she to endure such insults?

  The instinct—the need—however long buried, to call upon sorcery and punish these creatures rose up in the back of her mind, like ivy overrunning her thoughts. Choking out sense. Even the knowledge that the jotunnar had been among the first sorcerers and might retaliate in kind did not quite dissuade her. Instead, she gripped the sides of the boat tightly, forcing herself to take in the horror around her.

  “It won’t last forever.” Odin’s voice was a whisper. “Naught does.”

  Maybe that was what so bothered her. Freyja had helped overthrow Brimir and, like all Vanir, had come to think of Vanaheim as eternal. On losing it, on finding herself cast into Alfheim, still she found a world of greenery, and of even more endless life than Vanaheim. The Summer Court in Tír na nÓg was ancient beyond her imagining. So old, no one seemed to remember a time when it did not exist.