Iduna's Apples (Valhalla Book 2)

by Jennifer Willis

  “I offered to partake of the fruit with her, so that she might feel more at ease,” Geirrod replied.

  The second man said something in an angry tone that Maggie couldn’t understand. Echoing through the twisting corridor, the voices died away and then suddenly grew louder and more clear.

  “. . . have to be careful with the stockpile we have. Our stores must sustain both us and them. Who knows when there will be another harvest, with Iduna so pouty and uncooperative. And why all the courteous formality with the young goddess? This not Audumbla with giant udders of frozen cream.”

  Geirrod made a choking sound that Maggie guessed was laughter—not as painful to her ears when contained in the outer corridor. “But if Heimdall has not yet taken her as his bride . . .”

  “Mmmm,” the second voice growled darkly. “You have a point.”

  Not yet Heimdall’s bride . . . ? Maggie certainly did not like the sound of that.

  She jumped when Geirrod entered the dim chamber carrying a tray of five apples, two pewter goblets, and a pair of crystal pitchers encrusted in silver and semi-precious gemstones. He smiled at Maggie and lifted the tray with a friendly shrug.

  Maggie strained to see who might be standing behind him—the owner of the second voice—but Geirrod had entered the room alone.

  “I, I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

  Geirrod stepped further into the room, looking for some place to set down his tray. “I was speaking with Valthrudnir. You might remember him from the park . . .” He froze and studied Maggie. “Or perhaps not. Did you by chance sustain a head injury from your abduction?”

  Maggie didn’t like the way he used the word abduction so casually. Still, she ran her hands over her scalp and face. “I don’t think so.”

  Geirrod shrugged. Still carrying the tray, he moved about the room and then sighed in frustration. “This will never do. What inhospitable quarters, with nowhere to sit, or simply to eat and drink!”

  He glanced at Loki, and Maggie watched as the giant mentally calculated whether the slumbering god could be pushed to one side to allow enough room for food and beverage. Geirrod shook his massive head.

  “I suppose you must come with me, then. If you will?” He turned back toward the corridor, nodding to Maggie to follow. “I will have some proper furniture brought into this space, and into your chamber as well. I will request to have the light increased in this room, also. Should you find anything lacking, please inform me and I will see to it.”

  Maggie hurried across the stone floor to keep up with the giant’s long strides in the dim corridor. They took a sharp turn and headed down a similarly darkened passageway. “My chamber?”

  “Yes. The room in which you awakened.” Geirrod took another turn and led the way down another identical corridor with its network of mirrors lighting the dim tunnels. “Do you know the way from here?”

  After following the giant through only two turns, Maggie wasn’t honestly sure she could find her way back either to Loki or to her own room.

  “Doubtful,” she replied.

  Geirrod began to chuckle, then seemed to remember how she’d cringed before, and immediately stopped. “Very well, I will make sure you have an escort.”

  “Am I not free, then, to wander alone?” Maggie’s voice was tight in her throat. She hoped her words sounded less strangled than they felt.

  Geirrod slowed for a moment and glanced quickly over his shoulder, then continued forward.

  “You certainly enjoy particular freedoms here, Lady Maggie.” Geirrod turned another corner. They passed a locked door and headed down yet another dark corridor. Maggie had stopped trying to keep track of the many turns they were taking.

  “So I’m not a prisoner?”

  Geirrod stopped and turned to face her. Maggie unconsciously backed away from the giant, who was even more imposing and intimidating in the smaller confines of the stone-walled corridor.

  “We must leave such questions to my king, my lady,” Geirrod responded grimly. “I will do whatever I can to attend to your comfort and make you feel welcome here, but such matters as those of which you speak should be addressed only by Thrym.”

  Geirrod turned around again and continued down the darkened hall. “It is not much farther, my lady.”

  Maggie followed closely behind Geirrod. Thrym. A king to these giants. Her head swam with their names. Geirrod. Valthrudnir. She didn’t recall any such names—or beings—from the stories Heimdall had told her as he got her up to speed with the history of his kin and their place in the world, ancient and modern.

  Geirrod took another turn and led her down one more identical, tight corridor. She ran her fingers along the wall as she passed. The stone was cool to the touch, but not damp as she anticipated from the way the light danced on the surface. For the first time, she thought to use her nose to gather information. The air smelled clean, if somewhat close—not at all the dank mustiness she would have expected from such a dungeon.

  Because this certainly was a kind of prison, wasn’t it?

  And where was Heimdall?

  5

  Heimdall sat in a cushioned chair near the fireplace. The knot above his left eye, just at the hairline, was still painfully tender and likely would be for some time. He’d never gone up against a Frost Giant before, single-handedly or not, and he felt fortunate to have come out of it alive—even if the entire altercation consisted of a single sucker punch that had left Heimdall out cold on the pavement.

  It was June in Norway, but modest fires burned in the hearths dotting the secluded nooks in the hotel lounge. With his pounding head, Heimdall was grateful for both the warmth and the dim lighting. Every inch of his body ached.

  And he had no idea what had happened to Maggie.

  “It could be worse.” Standing on the opposite side of the fireside coffee table, Thor nodded at the lump on Heimdall’s brow. “You were lucky.”

  “Lucky,” Heimdall grumbled. Ordinarily, watching his hulking brother try to wedge himself between the armrests of a normal-sized chair would have at least elicited a smirk. Instead, he looked into the fire, wishing the flames would yield some answers.

  Divination was not among his talents. He was desperate enough to brave international calling rates through the hotel operator to dial the Norns. But the Norse Fates of legend were once again useless when asked to prophesy plainly by Odin’s kin. After listening to his concerns, the Mystic Sisters screeched and howled and carried on with their usual histrionics, before they finally told Heimdall that the Jarlsberg cheese was especially good in western Norway and that he might enjoy it on a sandwich.

  They charged him $54.89 for the consultation, on top of the hotel’s transatlantic calling rates.

  There was the sound of tearing fabric as Thor pushed himself firmly into the chair. “Not a word,” he growled at Saga in the next seat. “Unless you want a century of picking frogs out of your tea.”

  “Hmm,” Saga mused with a smile. “Your cooking is improving, then?”

  Heimdall ignored them both. He glanced to the far corner of their fireside nook, where Sally sat against the wall as she pored over her journal and shuffled a deck of playing cards. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  Saga pushed herself forward in her seat, ready to object, but Thor cut her off by raising his hand.

  “We’ve been over this,” the god of thunder replied with remarkable calm. “The witch may have skills that will be of use against our foe.”

  Heimdall felt an uncomfortable shiver at the base of this neck, and hoped the others didn’t notice. He reached for the glass of lemonade on the table and held it against the lump on his head. “Yeah, about that. Where did these guys come from? Last I checked, Odin hadn’t set up a work-release program for Frost Giants.”

  Saga picked up a hotel brochure from the coffee table and glanced at the map of Norway drawn on the back. “Can either of you pinpoint where they were imprisoned? I honestly don’t remember.”

  Thor lea
ned forward to grab hold of his large mug of piping hot coffee, and dragged the chair several inches across the floor with him. “Not a good sign, the goddess of history forgetting things.”

  Heimdall closed his eyes and let the chilled glass go to work on his tender skin. From his own fatigue to Saga’s forgetfulness and Thor’s uncharacteristic composure, they were all feeling the usual waning just before the apple harvest. Even Loki’s unbridled chaos would likely be worse than usual.

  Heimdall’s eyes snapped open. “Has anyone heard from Loki?”

  Across the table, Thor answered with a tight shake of the head.

  Heimdall put down his drink and leaned forward. “He’s the one they’d go to. Why are we sitting around here? If we strategize with him, we can nip this in the bud before whatever the giants have planned even gets started.”

  He picked up Saga’s cell phone from the coffee table.

  “You’re not going to be able to reach him, I don’t think,” Saga offered.

  Heimdall started dialing. “Obviously.” Loki’s unrestrained entropy had a nasty habit of melting phones, wireless or otherwise. “But if Frigga and Odin go talk to him . . .”

  Saga reached across the table to take the phone away from Heimdall.

  “What are you doing?” Heimdall rose half-way out of his chair, but then was forced back down by a wave of unpleasant wooziness.

  “At first, we just thought it was Loki being Loki—you know, doing his recluse thing.” Saga disconnected the call and placed the phone back on the table. “We tried looking for him in earnest after Frigga got that call when you were attacked . . .”

  Heimdall watched his little sister’s gaze wander to the knot over his eye.

  “Odin drove out to his place in Joseph while we were in transit,” Thor said. “Loki isn’t in Oregon. Looks like he left town a few days before all this began.”

  Heimdall felt his jaw tighten. “You’re saying he’s involved.”

  Saga lifted a placating hand. “We don’t know that.”

  Heimdall looked back and forth between Thor and Saga. Neither seemed particularly eager to meet his gaze.

  Heimdall sighed. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t be here with me if you already had Loki in hand.” He sank back into the cushioned chair. “If I find out that good-for-nothing vortex of chaos had anything to do with this, if Maggie’s hurt—”

  “Hang on a minute,” Thor said. “You’re the one who’s always preaching peace and tolerance as far as Loki’s concerned, aren’t you?” He hooked a meaty thumb toward his own chest. “Being suspicious and angry is my job, brother.”

  “Right. I forgot.” Heimdall smiled in spite of himself, then pointed at his brow. “Head injury.”

  And an increasingly dire need for apples. Heimdall winced.

  “For all we know, the Frost Giants grabbed Loki just like they took Maggie,” Saga offered. “These guys have been under the ice a long, long time. They don’t know anything about our truce with Loki, and how he’s helped with Fenrir . . .”

  “We don’t know that he’s not involved,” Thor cut in. “And we don’t know where he is. We’re hoping the witch can help us with that as well,” he cocked his head in Sally’s direction. “Since she seems to feel particular empathy for him.”

  “And Freyr,” added Saga, pretending to cover a cough.

  Heimdall smiled. “Is that still going on?”

  Saga leaned closer as she pulled a folding map out of her bag. “Worse than ever. She’s practically been sitting on her hands, trying not to ask about him.”

  Heimdall took a sip of lemonade. “Naturally, Freyr’s completely oblivious.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Sally looking up from her distant seat at the mention of the nature god’s name.

  “Oh, not completely.” Saga unfolded the map and spread it out on the coffee table. “Judge for yourself. He and Freya should be landing in a few hours.”

  Thor blew on his coffee, then took a sip and yelped as the liquid burned the inside of his mouth. He put the coffee mug down and wiped at his tongue with a paper napkin.

  Heimdall had never seen him do that before. Saga had regaled him—or tried to, over Heimdall’s throbbing headache—with tales of Thor’s awkward airplane exploits, but now the usually blustering god of thunder was almost calm, slow to anger even, and suddenly sensitive to hot beverages.

  “We’re fading,” Heimdall whispered to the fire.

  Thor looked over the map and grunted. “It’s probably not going to be on there. Political boundaries were different then.”

  “Well, it was above the Arctic Circle, right?” Saga leaned over the map and pointed to the dashed line that bisected Norway. “Show me where they were.”

  Thor scooted his chair across the tile floor and grabbed at the map, nearly knocking his coffee mug off the table and into his lap. Saga caught the mug and quickly pulled her pastry plate out of the way before Thor could push it to the floor.

  Thor worked the map’s folds until only the northernmost regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia were visible, then slapped his fat finger down on the paper. “There.” He hunched over and squinted down at the map. “Svalbard. That’s what they’re calling it now?”

  Saga leaned forward and lifted Thor’s index finger off the map. “The Svalbard archipelago? That’s where Odin imprisoned the Frost Giants? On some islands?”

  Heimdall closed his eyes and carefully probed his swollen brow with his fingers. “It’s not just a bunch of islands. It’s mostly glacial up there. Ice and rocks. The perfect place to stash them away. Permanently.” He opened his eyes with a shrug and sipped his lemonade. “Of course, I hear it’s inhabited now.”

  Saga took a bite of her lingonberry scone and frowned. “So they’re locked away for thousands of years, and then just suddenly pop up in Oslo to kidnap your girlfriend?”

  Heimdall fished a couple of pieces of ice out of his glass and held them directly against his forehead. “Apparently.”

  Saga studied the map. “Are there flights going that way, or maybe we can hire a boat?”

  “Svalbard is halfway to the North Pole.” Thor took his coffee mug back from her and swallowed a long gulp, now that the coffee had cooled a bit. “Even if it’s only a few Frost Giants on the mainland, our time’s better spent focusing on those already here, rather than taking off on some wild hare into the Arctic Ocean.”

  Thor sat back in his seat—rather, his chair relaxed back onto the floor as he leaned into the cushions—and tried to remember the last time he’d had a decent adventure at sea. A worthy longboat would be difficult to come by in this day and age, but there were plenty of modern rigs he wouldn’t mind trying out on the open water. It was early summer yet, and the northern seas would be rife with bergs to dodge and to travel with for camouflage. He imagined he could round up a rowdy band of hearty sailors easily enough. Maybe scout out and even storm a Frost Giant stronghold on the islands, attack the scoundrels in their own feasting hall, force them to their knees after a long, bloody battle—and then settle down to a nice leg of roasted lamb.

  Thor glanced across at Heimdall. “Although . . .”

  “No. No ships.” Heimdall waved him off without even looking at him, though he was pleased to see that at least some of his brother’s impetuousness remained. “If they’re here, let’s deal with them here. I doubt they would take Maggie all the way back there.”

  He glanced across the table and saw the pout growing on Thor’s broad face. Heimdall sighed. “Fine. When this is over, we’ll see about a ship. But not a moment sooner.”

  Thor smiled and elbowed Saga. “You got a city map in that bag?”

  Saga smacked him in the shoulder. “That hurt, nimrod.” She reached for her bag and started digging through the contents.

  Heimdall gazed into the fire and tried not to think about Maggie, where she might be, what might be happening to her, whether he’d ever see her again.

  A nearby door swung open, and a cool breeze swept in
to the nook, fanning the flames in the hearth and rustling the pages of an abandoned newspaper on the floor by Heimdall’s feet. As the front page lifted, Heimdall looked down and caught sight of a photo on the third page. He reached for the newspaper, opened it to the photo and accompanying text, and exclaimed. “Are you kidding me?!”

  Thor and Saga frowned across the table at him. Several yards away, Sally froze in place.

  “I know how the Frost Giants are here.” Heimdall folded the newspaper and slammed it down on top of the map. He pointed at the black-and-white photo of stone ruins encased in thawing ice and surrounded by a half-dozen excited archaeologists.

  “Global warming,” Heimdall growled as he rose to his feet. “Retreating glaciers. The freaking ice melted. That’s how they got out.”

  “Jormungand’s bladder!” Thor shouted, then sat back and sipped his coffee. “So Al Gore was right?”

  Sally shuffled the deck of playing cards they’d given her at the concierge desk. She wasn’t trying to listen in on the conversation Saga and Thor were having with Heimdall, but they weren’t exactly whispering.

  As the 52 cards slid through her fingers, she wished Frigga had let her bring the Yggdrasil Runes on this trip. Not Managarm’s runes—Frigga and Freya had destroyed that abomination immediately after the Battle of the White Oak the previous October. But Sally was still getting acquainted with the new set they had fashioned from the new World Tree specifically for her, and she hated to be apart from them.

  But Frigga insisted that Sally should travel to the Old World without any tools of divination or spell casting. The Moon Witch needed to be able to feel her own magick and the forces of nature without external crutches. Sally had tried to hide the Yggdrasil Runes in her knapsack when she was packing, but the elder goddess had easily sniffed them out.

  Now, against Frigga’s orders, Sally sat in Norway without her runes, candles, herbs, or other supplies. She’d even forgotten her wand on the ledge of Frigga’s hearth. And from what she was overhearing from Heimdall, Saga, and Thor, she was apparently responsible for tracking down Maggie, Loki, and a bunch of ominous-sounding creatures called Frost Giants. Given what one of them had done to Heimdall with a single blow, Sally was pretty sure she’d prefer to be anywhere else on the planet but here.