by James Comins
Chapter Thirty-One
Fimbulsummer
or, Sorry For Calling You a Zombie
At the edge of the waterline, Brugda held up a hand and sniffed the air. “A Change is coming,” she announced.
“What will it be?” asked Lenna.
“Bad. Up the stair.”
It was easy to climb. The steps were white with black lines and felt scratchy and slick under Lenna’s boots. Little flowers still clung to the cliff face. At the top was a field of nylon grass and bits of loose scree. All of a sudden it was glazed yellow with a spear-like bolt from the sky. Startled, Lenna looked around for the source.
“It’s only the sun,” Binnan Darnan told Lenna. She nodded.
“Another Change?” Aitta repeated.
Nodding, Brugda hunted the air with her nose like a fox. “It’s gone now, but it will be back.”
A hollow boom shook the ground.
“Eep.”
“Eep!”
It was Baldur, who had jumped up the face of the cliff and landed at the top.
“I had a horse, powered by sapphires,” Mo Bagohn told him with her hands clasped. “The angels say they’ve found the horse but lost the jewels. Would it be a lot to ask for you to find them for me?”
Baldur opened a ham-sized hand and thousands of blue stones poured onto the ground.
“Even in the hall of Asgard we have heard of your horse. After all, it was from Asgard he came. But every stone below the ocean is a sapphire.”
“Then which--”
“I can fix it!” shouted Binnan Darnan. She picked up some sapphires and held them up to glitter in the late afternoon sun. “I can weave them into perfect perfect horsepowering sapphires. But I’ll need a lot of power. The refractory back home won’t be big enough. Is there one around here I could use?”
Baldur thought. “None capable of forging jewels worthy of the gods.”
“The gods?” Binnan Darnan repeated.
“Yes,” said Baldur. “Wicklow was built for the gods by the dwarves of Svart Alpha, in a competition to find the greatest smith--I’ll tell you that story another time.
“Instead, let me explain what must happen now,” the bare-chested god went on. “When the world goes through a Change, the old magic seeps down into the well of Niflheim. The Pit of Old Magic and the World Tree were barriers, holding back the flood of magic that’s built up from all the Changes. Now that the tree is destroyed, the flood has been released. We enter a time known as Fimbulsummer. It’s our responsibility to return the magic to its vault below the World Tree and to find some way to cap it.
“The problem is that all the Powers will be able to gather the magic out from under us and use it to cause new Changes. Fimbulsummer is a race to recapture all magic. At the end of the race, we will either have restored the World Tree and the Pit of Old Magic, or we will see Ragnarok, the destruction of the world.
“I’ve heard about this day,” said Lenna. “Kaldi told me about it.”
“The day of legend,” said Baldur. “There are two ways the world can end: in fire or in ice. If the flood of magic smothers too much of the Earth, we will never be able to stop the Changes. They will burn the world away again and again until all life drowns in magic.
“At the same time, we must protect the fulcrums and axes around which the world turns. If these ideas snap, the world will stop turning.”
“Ideas?” asked Binnan Darnan.
“Happiness is a fulcrum, for example,” said Baldur. “Without the idea of happiness, there’s no reason for humans to live their lives. But happiness isn’t a magic itself, just a fulcrum. If an agent of the Power of Chaos convinced humanity that happiness was impossible, or that travel was impossible, or that knowledge was impossible, then magic would drain away to nothing. Without these big ideas, the world would freeze in place, ticking down to lifelessness. Everything would stop, and the magic would cool down until it became impossible to start again. This nearly happened during the Dark Ages, when Id, the Power of Chaos, spread plague and war and ignorance across Europe and much of Asia until the world was frozen and helpless. It was only the monasteries, with their knowledge of Aristotle and the Greek plays, that kept the world turning.
“When magic began flowing into the world once again, it flowed too fast,” Baldur went on. “In the Renaissance, it took a doubling of the world, spreading Europe’s magic across to America, to slow the outpouring. These are the two ways the world can end: the Ragnarok of Fire or the Ragnarok of Ice. And the Powers are afoot again. We have no time.”
“What must I do, Mr. Baldur?”
“We must get you to Asgard. The gods must be gathered to a great meeting, the All Thing. We’ll need all the allies we can find to see this through. Will you cross the rainbow bridge of Bifrost with me and speak before the Council of the All Thing, Lenna?”
“Yup,” she said.
Baldur smiled. “Then come. There is a refractory for you to use as well, Binnan Darnan, although the world of crystals may become something else by the time we reach Asgard.”
“I can use the something else, too,” said Binnan Darnan happily.
The sun was pulling shadows out of everyone. Pink and yellow burst across the sky behind the spiderweb of sliding wallpaper. Baldur raised three hands and snapped his fingers in a strange rhythm. Out of the clouds fell a shining rainbow, landing at his feet.
“Brugda?” asked Kaldi. “There’s something I must ask.”
Brugda went to him and lifted her veined hands to his bearded cheeks. “It has been a gift, being your stepmother, Caoilte. Go well. Look after your mother. Marry somebody, if you would. Someone nice.” She kissed his forehead. “For you are High King over Ireland now. May you rule it best.”
“Thank you.” He took a moist breath. “I’m staying in Ireland, Baldur.”
The vast head nodded.
Kaldi faced Talvi and his wife. “Look after the girls, would you?”
Talvi embraced him heavily. “I will, brother.”
Pol cleared his throat. “Looks like it’s goodbye.” He shook Lenna’s hand. “Wo’ll look after yar King Kaldi for ye. It’s been a joy to know ye, lass.”
“You too,” she said.
Andy stepped forward. “Look. Lenna. I’m sorry about--”
“Not now. Sir Andy, you’re always my friend,” Lenna told him.
“I’m glad.”
Just as she was deciding whether she was ready to hug him, he took her hand and knelt and kissed it as if she were a royal lady.
The Fomor came above the ridge. Most walked as men, one as an elephant, and on the elephant’s back rode an enormous tortoise. On the tortoise’s flat back was blind green Wicklow and a few chunks of squash. Mo Bagohn drew a breath and rushed to the horse’s side. The elephant shrank to the size of a housecat and the tortoise stepped off. It shrank in turn to the size of a walnut. Wicklow lay motionless on the spring grass. Binnan Darnan went to admire it.
The Fomor leader with the burnt fingernails said something in Irish. Mo Bagohn nodded to him. The leader spoke to his men.
They became swans. With a flap and a honk, the Fomor flew away.
The swans were letter M’s in the sunset when Annie landed on the clifftop in a black flutter. Lenna hugged the goddess and felt her hands become clicky tendons in the late afternoon shadows. She hugged anyway.
Lenna looked at Andy. “Ahem,” she said loudly to him.
“Oh. Right. So Annie. Miss Morgan, that is. I thought maybe I ought to apologize for calling you a zombie.”
Annie smiled. “And ... ?”
“Sorry for calling you a zombie.” Andy breathed out. Then he smiled. “Wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, really. Apologizing.”
“Don’t worry. It’s been fun,” said Annie.
“Miss Morgan,” said Lenna, pointing, “meet Binnan Darnan.”
The little girl looked up up up. “Eek.”
“Hello,” said Annie.
“Miss
Morgan, we’re going away now,” said Lenna.
“Then goodbye, Lenna.”
Lenna hugged her again. “I’ll see you soon I hope.”
“Me, too,” said Annie.
Brugda paced into the middle of things. “I’ve something to say.” Her eyes filled with old wet. “I’m going back to the big house. I can’t look after you, Lenna. Maybe I never should have tried.”
Lenna went to her and hugged her tears away.
“Why don’t you stay with us?” Mo Bagohn said.
“No,” said Brugda over Lenna’s shoulder with a cough. “Not this time. Look for the fisherman, Little Len. The fisherman holds the answers. You’ll find him by the end. But I won’t be there.”
Lenna held on for as long as she could. Then she let go.
Emily hugged Lenna, Talvi shook Pol’s hand, Andy shook Talvi’s hand, Aitta hugged Emily, then Andy, Mo Bagohn hugged Lenna and Binnan Darnan, Kaldi hugged Talvi again, then Aitta, and then he hugged Brugda.
Kaldi knelt before the two girls. “I am always with you. I will always think of you. You are both the best of us all. You will always find yourselves where you belong. This is my first decree.” He put his arms around both their shoulders, squeezed, then stood.
Mo Bagohn leaned over to look Lenna in the eye. “There’s a lot of things you haven’t found out about yourself, my little Cardiff wren.” She winked. “Hope you’ll come by to visit me when the world is saved.”
“I will.”
“I will too, as soon as I make Wicklow-powering sapphires,” said Binnan Darnan, nodding.
“Glad to hear it. You’ll know where to find me. The Hill of the Witch, the hearth of my soul.” She tapped a finger on the two red hats, and they vanished.
As Lenna, Binnan Darnan, Talvi and Aitta followed Baldur up the glittering rainbow, Andy said:
May you always gather friendship
May your sorrows not last long
May your tears be matched by smiles
And your voices fill with song.
Pol joined in:
May yar footsteps gain ye mountaintops
And may yar eyes be bright
May the sun shine down upon ye
And moonshine fill th’ night.
He laughed. Emily finished the blessing:
May your hearts be ever joyful
May you always find the way
May the road rise up to meet you
And may laughter fill each day.