The Fires of Muspelheim

by Matt Larkin

  Odin’s heart seized up in his chest then. For only one thing could have caused such a catastrophic chain of lightning. One thing, that must surely now lay within the serpent itself.

  Jörmungandr thrashed once more, and its head erupted, flinging a dark glob of something like a missile, one that slammed through trees in what remained of Asgard’s rainforest. The head itself listed to the side and then, with gut-wrenching slowness, began to plummet.

  Falling … falling …

  Prescient insight told Odin exactly what that bloody missile had been. He’d seen this moment before, ever denied the details, even as the aftermath had haunted his dreams and waking hours for centuries.

  Run!

  Run, like he had never run before. Casting aside even Gungnir. Flooding more pneuma into his legs than they ought to have held. Charred jotunn corpses littered the beaches, and twice Odin stumbled over them, growling in fury. In utter desperation. He raced forward, not even hearing whatever Freyja shouted from behind him.

  The serpent’s head slammed down onto the beach so hard it sent shock waves rippling through the land, waves so strong they hurled Odin into the air in a cloud of wet sand. He landed hard on one knee, then pushed himself up. Running again, even as a second shock wave rippled through the ground.

  Run!

  He ran, nigh flew over the beaches.

  There, stumbling from the wood, wobbling, managing a handful of steps. Fingers reaching out for Odin.

  Almost there. His son! His last child!

  Odin reached for him, ran faster still. His fingertips brushed Thor’s. And his son collapsed onto the beach. Odin fell to his knees beside Thor, clutching his hand. Blood streamed from every orifice on his face.

  “We never stopped Ragnarok …” No. No. No! This wasn’t happening! “I tried …”

  Thor’s hand was cold, mushy. His face so pale. So weak …

  Odin’s mouth wouldn’t work. This couldn’t happen. He refused to allow this to unfold. His son!

  Thor convulsed, once, and retched up a glob of blood and pulped guts turned black.

  Then he fell utterly still.

  No.

  No.

  Odin squeezed his son’s hand. Shook him, though it knew it would avail naught.

  A dam broke in him and Odin roared in wordless, fathomless rage. A torrent of anger in a maelstrom of grief, such that the two emotions became one. A flood of utter despair.

  All the foresight available to him did not in any way abate the crushing loss when it at last came to pass. Rather, foreknowledge only served to drive home the implacability of urd, to transform an already soul-devouring bereavement into one of complete impotence, stripping away not only the illusion of fairness in life, but of the meaning of his own will.

  This, he had seen, oh so long ago, and naught he had done had changed a moment of it.

  Yes … The jaws of fate close now …

  In a fit of self-loathing, Odin allowed the walls of his mind to come down, welcoming in the tide of visions in the hopes of drowning himself. But no future unfurled before him. Rather, a clairvoyant flicker of images that he instinctively knew represented the dying now across the world. The march of the fire jotunnar, their wrath unfurling across the plains, turning men and horses to ash. Cities, swept away into cinder. Burning winds that carried embers for hundreds of miles.

  These things, he’d seen long ago, and allowed himself to believe he might change them.

  “Then show me!” He almost choked on his own words, a pathetic mix of screaming and weeping that would have shamed his son, had Thor been able to see it.

  Freyja’s hand fell on his shoulder, but Odin could not bear to look at her.

  In his despair, he desperately plumbed the depths of the future, seeking some answer. For surely this all meant something. And, if the Wheel of Life were so very true, then he would see Thor again, as with all the others. But naught came to him. He could not touch the future.

  No oracle can see past his own death, Valravn reminded him.

  Oh. And Odin’s death drew perilously nigh. Almost, he felt he would welcome it now.

  Yes … we are all dead … Fate shall have its way with you …

  “Od … I’m so sorry.”

  She was there, trying so hard to comfort him, but he could not, would not look to her face. Because he sought no comfort. Caught within the snares of despondency, a man fell prey to its most insidious venom—the knowledge that despair was warranted, and that any attempt to crawl from it invited more pain. And thus, in the throes of such grief, all a man wished for was to wallow in it.

  And if there truly was no future left, then where was an oracle to turn, but in the opposite direction?

  Arms cradling his own head, Odin willed in the flow of tides, the current that would sweep him away. Welcomed it, as the temporal eddies ripped him apart and plunged him beneath their waters.

  He welcomed drowning in the sea, in the hopes he would never again rise.

  The sun was so bright, glaring down on him. No more eclipse. When he looked up, the beach had changed too. Freyja was gone, and Thor, and Jörmungandr. Indeed, the whole island was different. The sand, the trees, everything altered. He’d moved. Still on a tropical island, yes, but not Asgard.

  Above him, away from the coast, rose up the most vibrant green mountains he’d ever seen, cast against a startlingly blue sky and equally blue waters. A paradise, not so different than Odin’s home, complete with palm trees and multihued flowers … These, though … hibiscus … he knew those from some other lifetime, the memories struggling to push through the haze that clouded all the times of his distant past.

  Already, a heavy sweat made his clothes cling to him, so Odin tossed aside his hat and moved to sit beside the shore, letting the waves lap against his feet. He’d wanted to drown … and his mind had brought him here, to an island surrounded by the sea.

  The sun reflected off the seemingly endless waters, leaving him blinking, watching the depths.

  A moment, quiet. Almost quiet enough to deny the maelstrom of grief swirling inside him. The sun had silenced Audr, and Valravn, too, slept. Those Odin knew and cared for—the few who remained—were far from here. Perhaps not even born yet, depending on when he was.

  Certainly not in his own era, for he saw no sign of the hateful mists of Niflheim.

  Of a sudden, he realized locals had gathered, some few of them, watching him, and he turned to them, saying naught. The people had deep, wheatish skin tones, like those sometimes found in the south of Utgard, and jet black hair. Had he come to the Skyfall Isles? No. He had enough memories of Naresh’s life that he thought he’d have recognized those islands, though the people had similarities in appearance.

  They spoke to one another softly, in a language he couldn’t quite place, though he knew he’d heard it.

  None of them approached him, the fear in their eyes unmistakable. Because he did not look like them? Some other reason?

  Whatever it was, Odin wasn’t sure he much cared anymore. He turned back to the sea, despondent, and wanting naught more than to have it swallow him whole and never again let himself up.

  Finally, he rose, doffed his cloak, and strode into the waters. They were warmer than he’d expected, and a strong current pulled at his shins. Now he tugged his tunic over his head and tossed that on the beach too. Let the waters take him.

  Slowly, he trudged forward.

  And then, some distance away, a man’s torso popped up above the waves. He dove beneath them again, for an instant exposing a fish tail. A mer.

  Odin faltered.

  The mer rose above the waters once more, closer, and then a profound nausea seized Odin’s guts and had him almost doubling over. The mer, too, suddenly hesitated, his face a grimace that exposed a row of shark-like teeth.

  Odin took a halting step deeper in, and the discomfort compounded on itself. Like his insides were convulsing. Like every organ in his body wanted to flee in separate directions. The very air s
eemed to shimmer, as with heat, warping and writhing.

  The mer at once dove beneath the waves again, and, a moment later, the nausea faded.

  Drawing in a shaky breath, Odin stumbled back to the shore. What in the world? What would cause that?

  The locals had begun shouting now, calling for a kahuna. Yes, Odin knew that language! They summoned a priest because of how the mer had reacted to him. As if he’d scared the vaettr.

  Still thigh-high in the waters, Odin sank to his knees, letting the waves splash over his face. He had no desire to see a kahuna or anyone else. He’d come here for respite, for the chance to escape from the peril of time and its merciless, implacable predations.

  And, as if answering his call, the temporal tides seized him, yanked him free.

  He was in the mist again, watching, amid ruined temples this time. Temples that had once risen up in the Skyfall Isles, in honor of gods Odin doubted deserved the veneration. But these temples had melted.

  Amid them, Hel climbed from a molten bowl.

  Hel … Rangda.

  Across the way, Naresh stood, staring at the goddess of mist.

  “Using it takes a toll, even on you,” Naresh said.

  “I’m going to devour your soul. It should prove quite invigorating.” She advanced on Naresh, her steps growing steadier. The red light of her eyes intensified. Half her face was nothing but a skull, and the other half had turned icy blue.

  “Would you like to kneel and worship me now? Feel free. I’ll kill you after you’re done.”

  Naresh sneered. “You should have stayed in the underworld.”

  The Queen of Mist circled him, disappearing in and out of the mist. Naresh began to do the same, and as they walked, the distance between them slowly decreased. “How does it feel to watch your world end?” she asked.

  “I’ve seen the end of one era already. The world recovered and gave rise once again to the brilliant flourishing of life. To thousands of years of glory and love and hope. To redemption. As it will when you are gone, spirit. You have no place in the Mortal Realm.”

  He’d seen it?

  Naresh …

  Was Odin …

  His head was blasting apart.

  And he was seeing through the man’s eyes. He had lived this.

  The foreigner stepped into the hall some distance from Naresh. Surprise flashed over his green eyes, but only for a moment before they became resigned.

  “What are you doing here?” Naresh said. Or Odin said … through him?

  “You do not wish to be here. Turn and leave now.” The man’s voice was soft, almost emotionless. He spoke the tongue of the Isles with a slight accent.

  Naresh advanced, hand on his keris. “Not likely. I asked you what you’re doing here.”

  The man held up a hand as Naresh approached. The air seemed to tremble. A bout of dizziness washed over Naresh. The foreigner fell back a step and the feeling began to fade.

  Odin’s mind shredded. The sea of time crashed over him and tugged him under again and again, but it wasn’t the mindless reprieve he’d sought. Rather, he kept falling, seeing other men. Other lives.

  That distortion he’d felt with the mer … The same when Naresh had encountered that man …

  What was it?

  Fluted marble columns rose up to either side of him, supporting a great stone roof in some strange temple, the architecture like the wonders Odin had seen when he came to Prometheus.

  Now, the distortion wracked him, and for a moment he was both outside and inside the man he was, writhing, dizzy.

  Someone caught his arm. A woman, her face soft. “Are you well, Herakles?”

  Herakles … A warrior … His name survived in the Straits by Asgard. And Odin had been him.

  Had been Naresh.

  Had been … the mer?

  And the woman looking into his eyes was Freyja. Not her face, not her eyes, but behind them, her soul. Pure. Warm. A connection Odin could not deny.

  Even as the tides jerked his mind out of Herakles’s body.

  The maelstrom intensified, flinging him into the lives of so many men. Matsya, the mer. Naresh. Herakles. Suiren. Anhur. Ninurta. And so, so many others. His mind flitted from one to the next, allowing only heartbeats.

  Or lifetimes.

  A compounding of experiences flooding through him.

  So many lives lived. So much loss.

  So much … love …

  A thousand lifetimes.

  A thousand chances to love and be loved and embrace wives and children and friends.

  And lose them all, over and over.

  But they were there, all this time. Behind the eyes of those he knew. He saw Thor. And Tyr. And Baldr. Freyja. Everyone, drawn together in lifetime after lifetime, their souls wrapped up in a web as strong as the web of urd. A web of souls, where the deepest of emotions might transcend time and space and forge bonds that were, themselves, unbounded.

  And naught in all the worlds or all of time would ever truly separate Odin from those other souls. They were caught in his currents, as he was in theirs.

  Forever.

  Until a thousand lifetimes and thousand loves became one.

  24

  Idavollir lay in the distance, but Idunn could see no way past the army of draugar now laying siege to the ancient fortress. Within, Freyja assured her, Mother waited, while Thor’s son—little Thor had a son!—commanded his losing battle against the endless ranks of Hel’s army.

  Mother. How was Idunn to face her now, with what she’d become? Part of her longed for her mother’s embrace, true, but she could almost see the disdain sure to color the woman’s face.

  Perhaps Idunn might have clung to the shadows and used the darkness to move within, but she could not bring Freyja along thus, and moreover, she had no way of knowing if such a use of her powers would draw Volund’s attention. The last thing she needed—however much a sick part of her desired it—was to have the svartalf prince locate her while the world lay so assaulted.

  Freyja, for her part, shook her head, grim, perhaps even resigned to despair. She had taken it hard when Odin had chastised her for her relationship with Frey, though Idunn had to admit, that had never sat well with her, either. Then, when Thor had died and Odin had vanished, not returning, Freyja had claimed he had fallen through time.

  The claim still sounded nonsensical to Idunn. Time flowed in one direction only, and, by Freyja’s own admission, no Vanr sorcery had ever discovered a means of altering that flow. Yes, of course, Idunn had seen the Norns, and they seemed to bend the rules when it came to history. But for a man, even one as unusual as Odin, to simply hop through time … nonsense.

  “How are we to rejoin the Aesir?” Freyja asked. “There have to be ten thousand draugar out there.”

  Idunn folded her arms across her chest. Her guess actually placed the number at almost twice that. Draugar had apparently swept over Reidgotaland, Hunaland, and Valland, but Hel had converged her forces here, after destroying almost all of Odin’s potential allies.

  Now, they had so little reliable information out of other lands, she couldn’t guess what was going on. A war between frost and fire jotunnar, she knew that much, and it seemed as though the eldjotunnar had come out ahead. But specifics …

  Everywhere, the world had fallen into complete chaos.

  “There’s no way into Idavollir,” Idunn said. Certainly not for Freyja.

  “We could harry the draugar,” Freyja offered.

  “And kill a handful? Even if we succeeded and lived through the attempt, you cannot truly expect such tactics to have any meaningful effect on their assault.”

  Freyja threw up her hands. “So what? We stand here and watch? Give up on rejoining our allies?”

  The truth was, sadly, that they’d relied on Odin’s Sight to guide them, and with him missing, Idunn had no idea what they should do. Was all of this truly a result of her actions? Had sending Odin to overthrow Njord been the first step in this final battle? And if
so, if, as Volund implied, Idunn had done this because of discontentment with peace engendered by the darkness of Ivaldi’s blood, would that not mean her own heritage had essentially brought about the end of the world?

  With little other choice, they camped on a hill above the battleground, trusting that the fortress would hold the draugar’s—and Hel’s—attention for some time to come. How strange, really, that the empire of Brimir had fallen to a similar siege of Idavollir, millennia earlier. That the Vanir had swarmed the jotunnar, as the draugar now swarmed the remnants of the Aesir and Vanir both.

  The svartalf part of her silently reveled in the cruel irony, finding it delicious almost beyond words. Indeed, twice she caught herself licking her lips, intoxicated with the beauty of it all, and had to cast wary glances at Freyja and hope she’d not seen it.

  Her friend, however, paid Idunn no mind, her own gaze locked ever on the valley below, though they could not actually see Idavollir or many of the draugar in the perpetual gloom of this eclipse.

  Allowing themselves no fire, they sat, and they waited.

  Watching the world die.

  And Idunn, for her part, found her mind kept wandering back to the stories Grandmother had told. Grandma Chandi, wandering through the mists with a handful of refugees and finding, everywhere she went, the dead so vastly outnumbered the living as to have created a nigh empty world.

  One, where the jotunnar woke, rising to power once again, at long last. Surely, the jotunnar remembered that time. Remembered building Brimir on the ashes of the last world. Maybe that’s what they hoped to build again.