“I sort of noticed that. At the Table.” Ian shook his head. Torrie had been willing to step forward and face the Pain, rather than Ian. And it wasn’t just an impulse, either; Torrie wasn’t impulsive. He had thought about it, and decided on it well in advance. “Thanks,” he said.
“Well, I do owe you one.”
“You did.”
“You can’t give an inch, can you?” Torrie laughed. “Well, look,” he said, lowering his voice, “Ivar and I’ve been doing some talking. If you want to come with us to the Dominion, that’s fine. But if you don’t, that’s fine, too.” He clapped a hand to Ian’s shoulder.
“When are you leaving?” Ian asked.
“First light,” Torrie said. “Maggie’s agreed to go home with Dad; I’m going to slip away before she changes her mind. Let me know, either way, eh?”
“Sure.”
Torrie tossed and caught one of the apples, then took a bite out of it. “I’d better go feed these to Silvertop,” he said from around a mouthful, “like I said I would.” He walked off into the dark. The sounds of gravel clicking and grinding under his boots diminished in the distance.
“Ian.” He hadn’t heard Freya’s footsteps, or seen the flash of light from the opening door, but she stood next to him, Giantkiller in his scabbard in her hand. “May I?”
“May you what?”
She apparently decided to take his question as permission to belt Giantkiller about his waist. “The world’s a dangerous place, Ian,” she said. “You need to be ready for it.” She patted at the hilt of the sword. “It’s a good sword. You choose your companions well, perhaps better than you know.”
“You mean Arnie.”
“Certainly.” She nodded. “In part. Among others. What did you see in him?”
Ian shrugged. “He was there, and he wanted to come along.” He spread his hands. “I didn’t have any idea.”
Her laughter was quiet music in the darkness. “Ah, not an idea in your head. I don’t think I would have believed that, not even when I was young.”
“So how can he—”
“Hold Mjolnir without harm?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I know what the maker of Gungnir bound that spear to, but when he made Mjolnir, he was interrupted, and I don’t know how the geas he laid on it ended up. I suppose you could ask him, but I doubt he’d remember. He’s lost—no: he’s given up much of what he knew, much of what he was.”
Ian wasn’t in the least surprised to hear that Hosea had made Gungnir and Mjolnir. “Happens when you get old, so I hear.”
“Mmmm… so it does. And some is taken away from you,” she said, “sometimes by those you trust.” Her voice was colder. “I… am not used to living alone, and you have chased my husband away.”
From anybody else Ian would have taken the words and the tone as a threat, but somehow he couldn’t find it in him to feel that way with Freya. “You want me to fix you up or something?”
“No,” she said. “And I’m not very angry; Harbard and I see some things, some important things, differently, and I think we need a short vacation from each other. Maybe only a few years; perhaps a few centuries.
“But right now, I don’t want to live alone, either. I’m going to ask Arnold to stay here, with me, at least for a while. He will resist the idea at first, but he will agree, if I have enough time to persuade him.”
“Fertility goddesses know much about men, eh?”
“Why, of course we do.” She laughed. “Although only the important things.”
At first, Ian was surprised, but he thought about it for a moment. Not a bad idea, really. Freya might be ageless in body, but she was almost unbelievably old. And Arnie was, well, Arnie was just about used up in some ways. “Feed him apple pie every day and slough some of those years off, eh?”
“Yes.” She touched him lightly on the shoulder. “I knew you’d understand. Thank you.”
“But…”
“But you don’t think,” she said, her hand sweeping up and down in front of her body, “that Arnie’s really ready to take on a young woman. You think that how I look might scare him away.” She caught his gaze and held it, unblinking, like a snake with a bird. “But I’m not a young woman, Ian. I’m older than you can imagine, and I don’t mind looking it.”
She looked away, releasing his eyes. She was now an old woman, body bent and skin wrinkled with age, her white hair limp, the shift that had clung tightly to her now hanging loose. “And I’m wise enough,” she said, her voice ever so slightly weak and reedy at the edges, “to look nothing like Ephie Selmo at all.”
Ian must have blinked again, because she was, again, as he had first seen her, as Freya would always be in his mind: young and firm, ageless.
“But Harbard. Won’t he… ?”
“No, he won’t.” Her voice was clear as water from a mountain stream. “Arnie is perfectly safe. Harbard would no more want to face Gungnir in my hands than in yours, I assure you. And Arnie holds Mjolnir; he’s no one to trifle with.” Her smile was warming, reassuring. “Harbard has been known to stray from time to time, as have I,” she said. “One gets used to these things.”
“And the diamond? The ruby?”
She shook her head. “Where they are is something you don’t need to know,” she said, her voice icy and distant. “Just remember that I’ve vowed to keep them safe until the time is right, and that while I am older than the hills around us, Ian, I’ve never been known to break my word.” She sighed. “But enough about me. What about you? You seem so weary, so tired in spirit.”
“Yeah.” Ian nodded. “That I am.”
“Would you be angry with me if I offered some advice? Old heads are wise heads, sometimes. Would you be offended?”
He shook his head. “Nah.”
“Then go back to Hardwood. Relax until you’re tired of relaxing,” she said. “Take some time to yourself. Study some more with Thorian del Thorian; he has much to teach you. Let Karin Thorsen apologize to you, in her husband’s presence. It will be good for her, and better for you. It will be good for you to hear an apology. You’ll probably never get the apologies your father owes you, but…”
“I worked that out years ago.”
She nodded. “I know.” Her hand stroked his back once, twice. “So go back to Hardwood.”
“I just might.” Why did the idea of going back to Hardwood make him feel like he’d dropped the weight of the world from his shoulders? “I think I will.”
“Good.” She nodded. “And then, when you’re ready, the work awaits. If that’s still what you want. Do something for me, though, while you’re in Hardwood, while you live in Arnie’s house.”
“Yes?”
“Pack up all the pictures, all the knickknacks, all the memories of her, and put them away. Do it gently, carefully—always treat them with respect—but put them away. Paint the walls; put in shiny new sinks and tile and a new kitchen. Make it yours, instead of his. It will be best for both you and him.”
“I can’t.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that without Arnie’s permission.” He wouldn’t do that behind Arnie’s back. Sure, the changes would probably be good for Arnie—it wouldn’t shame Ephie’s memory for him to have a life, after all—but Ian couldn’t do that, not without asking Arnie.
“Well,” she said, “then stay with us a few days, and I’ll get that permission for you.” She smiled. “I’m very good at that.”
“I’ve noticed,” Ian said.
“You could help, if you’d like.”
“Oh?”
“You could use this.” She tapped Harbard’s ring, where it rode on his thumb, a perfect fit. “Believe, concentrate, and while you wear this, you’ll find yourself more persuasive than you ought to be.” She tilted her head to one side. “You don’t have to lie. Don’t you truly think that Arnie would be better off living here with me, in a world live with possibilities, than huddling in a musty museum dedicated to his dead wife, waiting to die?“
He
fondled the heavy ring for a moment, where it rested on his thumb. He removed it, and slipped it on each finger in turn, and without seeming to change at all, it fit each finger in turn, as though it had persuaded both the fingers and itself that it would always fit. It would pulse only when he was trying hard to persuade somebody.
No.
Ian removed Harbard’s ring from his thumb and tucked it in his pocket. He would surely have use for it again, but not here, not now. It would be a good thing to keep, yes; but Ian knew somebody who sold his soul for a ring, once.
Ian shook his head. For the first time that he could remember, Ian found himself pitying his father, and not just hating him.
Freya was waiting for his answer.
“Yes,” he said, “I do think Arnie would be better off here, at least for now. And I’ll be happy to tell him that,” he said, slowly, carefully, knowing that he was probably about to give offense, but not caring. “But I’ll only do it with my own voice, my own persuasiveness, whatever that is. And that’s all I will do.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “I knew you would say that, Ian. I did, after all, say that you could use the ring, not that you should.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Come back into the house when you’re ready.”
“Sure.”
She turned away.
“Freya?”
She stopped, turned back to him.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
She nodded. “You’re most welcome, my Silver Stone.”
And then she was gone, and he was alone, again.
He took the ring that Count Pel Pelson had given him out of his pouch, and slipped it on his ring finger.
It fit well, but not perfectly, as Harbard’s ring had; there was, after all, nothing magical about it.
But Ian looked again at the way that the ring’s two inscribed hands supported the round green stone. A reminder, perhaps, that the fate of the world is supported by many hands, and held in each of our hands. That was a good thing to keep in mind, and maybe it would be a good idea to keep that reminder on the ring finger of his left hand, the hand nearest the heart.
Just a little more time, he thought.
Just a little more time to himself now, and a few days here, while Freya worked on Arnie. Then Ian could leave for the Hidden Way, perhaps managing to spend another night on Bóinn’s Hill en route. He still had the apple seeds in his pouch, and perhaps Bóinn would appreciate him planting a nice apple tree or two. He’d have to ask her.
“And then,” he whispered, quietly, to himself, “and then, then I can go home.”
Author’s Note
A couple of real people appear in this book. Greg Cotton is a pilot and a friend. Once, while flying a borrowed Lance from Minneapolis to Winnipeg, he and I set down at the tiny airport outside of Northwood, North Dakota. Rick Foss, of Ladera Travel, has been my travel agent for years. I thought it would be kind of fun to share him with Torrie and Maggie. The shooting-the-burglar story Arnie Selmo tells of Bob Adams was told to me, almost exactly that way, by the late Robert Adams, on more than one occasion. Any errors in the retelling are mine—or maybe they’re Arnie’s.
With those exceptions, the usual disclaimer applies: this is a work of fiction, and all the characters portrayed in this novel are fictional.
Going to Northwood, North Dakota, the town on which I’ve modeled my Hardwood, North Dakota, to find a Hidden Way, would be a real bad idea.
Particularly if you found one…
During the writing of this book, I got a lot of help from Jim Drury; Beth Friedman; and, particularly, my wife, Felicia Herman, who is always willing to chase down some obscure fact that I need, and usually comes up with half a dozen more that I needed but didn’t know I needed. Jeff Schwartz was kind enough to go over the fencing and swordfighting scenes, and give me the benefit of his knowledge of both the broad and fine points of both, which is pretty darned encyclopedic. Lisa Freitag, M.D., gave me a much needed lecture on the nature and treatment of epileptic seizures; and Elise Matthesen spent many hours running her sharp eyes over the whole thing.
I’m always grateful to my agent, Eleanor Wood, for things both obvious and subtle.
Needless to say, many things right about the present work are due to their efforts; the blame for any and all things wrong should be laid squarely at my feet.
One of the many nice things about this job is the people you get to know. Sometimes, in publishing, there’re more of them than you can count, but I’d like to thank the folks now and formerly at Avon Books for their patience, confidence, and support during the writing of this book and the one before it.
I think that sounds kind of maudlin, but if so, it’s maudlin that’s been come by honestly.
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