Liesmith

by Alis Franklin

  Lain was downstairs. The bird hadn’t been lying about that part, at least.

  The elevator stopped moving. Sigmund’s hands shook and his palms were slick enough to make holding on to the spear and the phone difficult.

  He had a bad feeling about this.

  Baldr didn’t leap in, screaming, when the doors opened, which Sigmund took to be a good sign.

  “I’m here,” he told Em.

  “Good luck, man.”

  Upstairs, Dad had spent at least three minutes hugging Sigmund and stating how proud he was. Sigmund tried not to think of it as good-bye.

  He put the phone back into his pocket, then left the elevator.

  “Ah. Alone and with my spear. So you do have some honor left within your heart.”

  Sigmund turned.

  Baldr was there, just beyond the rows of elevator doors, beside the foyer’s garden. Standing, feet apart, chin up, hands behind his back. On the ground, beneath him, was a crumpled shape that Sigmund recognized.

  “Lain!” No response. Sigmund took a step forward, looking back up at Baldr. “What have you done to him, you asshole?”

  “Very little, I assure you,” Baldr said. “And far less than he deserves.”

  “I brought your bloody spear.” Sigmund’s feet were walking forward. Baldr watched, head tilted. “Now let us go.”

  “Look at you.” Taunting. Sigmund could deal with taunting. Sigmund had dealt with taunting, every day of his goddamn life.

  Baldr’s expression wasn’t quite a sneer when he continued, “Such honor, such loyalty. Such betrayal. A thousand years I waited. I brought you freedom, a future. And this is how you squandered it? For that?” A gesture to Lain, sharp and angry.

  Sigmund still had no idea what the hell Baldr was talking about.

  Sigmund didn’t, but someone did.

  “Do not talk to me of betrayal, husband,” said Sigmund’s voice. Except it wasn’t Sigmund who was saying it, and he wasn’t even sure he was saying it in English. Nor was it Sigmund who was moving his feet forward, who’d changed his grip on the spear to something strong and sure. “Not when it was you who sold our family, our love, over and over to the beast you called a brother. That jealous, vicious monster. Who took everything of you, right unto the end. You speak to me of waiting. You know nothing of waiting. Not the cold and lonely nights I spent alone. Knowing you would not share my bed, my love, devoted as you were to one who never saw you as aught but a wicked tool to work his will.”

  (oh. holy. shit)

  Not adultery, then. At least, not Sigyn’s.

  Sigmund, meanwhile, couldn’t stop walking. Not even when quite-possibly-not-Baldr moved forward as well. Until they were within arm’s reach of each other, circling.

  “I loved you,” not-Baldr was saying. “I gave up everything for you! For our family.”

  “Liar! You gave us up because he asked, paid to him his price. And how well that served us in the end.” Sigmund’s voice sounded strange. Cold, hard. “Our sons, cursed and murdered. Our daughter, lost.”

  “Daughter?” And there, in Baldr’s eye. That was…pain? Hope?

  Behind Baldr, on the ground, Sigmund caught the twitch of one long, feathered tail.

  “Esia,” Sigmund heard himself say. “I held her for but a day. A day until the bitter shell you left us was bound and banished for his deeds. I gave our child to your eldest, went into exile with the thing that bore your name—”

  “Why?” And that was anguish, pure and true.

  “Because he did not deserve to suffer for your foolish choices! And because he was my husband. Is that not what you had wanted?”

  “He was to care for you! He failed, by his own jealousy and pride. You were not to pay for his mistakes!”

  “When his mistakes were yours as well? Tell me, my awful burden, when have I ever not paid thus? What other choice could I have made?”

  “You could have— No!”

  Sigmund was trying not to look, he really was. He couldn’t move anything else, but he could move his eye. Just a little, just enough to watch Lain. Not dead, just unconscious. Or he had been. Now, he was slowly levering himself onto his feet, ready to pounce.

  But Sigmund did look, did think. And Baldr noticed, face falling into a sneer.

  Baldr got halfway through a turn when Sigmund felt his laptop bag lurch, a huge dark shape emerging from beneath the flap, aiming straight for Baldr’s face.

  In the next instant, the god screamed.

  Sigmund didn’t stick around. Just broke into a run, praying Boots would be okay. That Baldr—or whoever he was, and Sigmund was starting to get a really sinking suspicion on that one—wouldn’t hurt her too badly.

  Even if she did just bite him in the face.

  “Lain!”

  “Sigmund!”

  Lain was on his feet, running. Sigmund held out the spear. Felt it wrench out of his grasp as Lain grabbed it.

  “Get to safety!”

  Except where was safety, really? Especially when Sigmund heard Baldr (whomever) scream again, in outrage this time. Lain roared in response, and when Sigmund turned, hidden behind a potted plant, he saw gods clash.

  Baldr and Loki. Sun and fire. Law and chaos. Good and evil.

  The fact that the teams seemed a bit confused as to who, exactly, was whom didn’t make the fight any less vicious.

  “You were supposed to care for her!” Baldr-who-was-possibly-Loki cried. “Then die. We would be free!”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Okay so Lain—who was, at minimum, definitely Lain—hadn’t yet caught up on all the spoilers. Sigmund winced, especially when oh-Hel-let’s-just-call-him-Baldr roared, not pleased by this development.

  “You spoiled, mindless fool!” He was unarmed, but when his fist connected with Lain’s face, the latter went flying backward from the force. “Everything you have been given, squandered! I had a deal with your father. To fulfill the prophecy, to keep you safe within his reach.” Lain tried to stumble upright, which earned him a boot to the jaw. “All you had to do was die! That’s all you ever had to do. Die, then die again. Release us from this loathsome fate. Free us all.” Another boot, this one slamming onto Lain’s hand. It uncurled from Gungnir, and Baldr went to grab the spear.

  Lain was faster, driving his horns up into Baldr’s gut which, okay. Ouch. For both of them. Then they were rolling over and over, each trying to gouge the other’s eyes or bite or kick. Anything. Lain’s tail thrashing wildly.

  Thrashing right into Gungnir, sending it skidding across the ground. Right toward Sigmund.

  (“now, boy. end this madness. free us, and your love”)

  Over by the elevators, Baldr slammed Lain’s head into the floor, hard enough to crack the tiles. Lain cried out, clutching at his horns.

  Baldr went to stand.

  Sigmund got there first. Grabbing Gungnir as he did.

  In the end, it wasn’t even very hard. Sigmund thought it should’ve been. For a lot of reasons, not just the physical. Stabbing a man through the chest, with enough force for the tooth of the spear to come right out the other side. Sigmund wasn’t sure he managed to get the heart. He wasn’t sure it mattered. Not with the strange, blood-choked gurgle that Baldr gave. The way he staggered, half turned to look at Sigmund with a single, golden eye.

  “S-Sigga? No…” he said. Venom from Boots’s bite turning his skin a familiar shade of charcoal.

  Then, with one final roar, he lunged forward, toward Lain.

  Lain, who tried to scramble out of the way. Not fast enough for Baldr, though, who grabbed Lain around the shoulders and pulled him into a crushing hug. Right onto where the wicked point of Gungnir protruded from his chest. There was a horrid sound—a soft sort of crunching—and then Lain’s eyes went very wide. When he coughed, blood spilled over his lips, burning where it fell onto Baldr’s armor.

  “Lain!”

  Sigmund saw the exact moment when the strength went out of Baldr’s limbs, the exact moment
when his weight caused Lain to stumble. When gravity took over, and the pair of them crashed down against the tiles.

  Sigmund was screaming Lain’s name, over and over. Jolts of pain ran up his knees when he fell to the ground, hands scrabbling against Baldr’s tunic, trying to push him off. To make sure Lain was okay. Lain had to be okay. Because that was how these things worked. That was how the story ended. Happily ever after, always.

  Lain coughed again. Sigmund could hear the hissing of the tiles where poisoned blood was eating them away.

  He had to get Baldr off. He had to free Lain. Lain could heal. He’d been speared before, right? He’d been fine, then. Eventually.

  “S-Sig. Sig, stop.” A huge, red-taloned claw, pushing gently on Sigmund’s chest. “Don’t. The…the blood.”

  “No!” Sigmund didn’t care about the blood. Didn’t care if it burned, if it poisoned. He had to save Lain, he had to—

  (“hush, fool boy. all will be well”)

  Except how could it be? Not when Lain was bleeding out and his eyes were dull and flicking closed and he was saying, “ ’S over, Sig. This’s the w-way the world ends.”

  Then he was gone.

  And it did.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  (“vituð ér enn, eða hvat?”)

  —

  People aren’t the only things that die. Sometimes stories do as well, when there’s no one left to tell them. Here, now, in the space between the turning of the page, everything comes unraveled. And, for one bright moment, I see.

  This is what it looks like: the high vaults of Éljúðnir, the sleet-soaked hall of the Queen of Death herself. And there she is, standing, sword drawn, before a man. Before Baldr, who carries a spear and someone else’s twisted snarl upon his features.

  In the language of the gods, Hel says, “Your plan will fail, Bright One. We have made sure of it.”

  Baldr sneers. “Too late, girl. You cannot protect your father now. He will die.”

  “Yes,” Hel says, her mouth a lipless, rictus grin, eyes obscured by a veil. “And yet your plan will fail.”

  Baldr hefts his spear. “Pity then,” he says, “you will not be here to gloat over my demise.”

  They fight. It’s long, and brutal, and bloody, and a metaphor. Life and death, struggling for control.

  This time, life wins, and Baldr’s spear pierces Hel’s breast. As Baldr looms above her, eyes mad and lips split into a blood-soaked grin, a hand raises to caress his cheek.

  As she dies, Hel says, “I free you, Father. Free your mind from the chains you placed upon it. Forgive us for what we have done. Trust us that all will end as you desire.”

  With her own blood, Hel traces runes upon her father’s cheek, and, from them, truth worms into his mind.

  In the end, life is a fleeting, fragile thing, and death rides victorious in its wake.

  It takes only a moment until the thing wearing Baldr’s skin is screaming his daughter’s name.

  It is not himself he blames for her demise.

  —

  This is the memory death gives: another hall, Valaskjálf, and another god of death within.

  “My wife is a childish fool.”

  “Mm. I would not say such things within her earshot. Lest you favor your bed as cold and empty as your heart.”

  Odin growls, hands clenching about the edge of the balustrade. He leans forward, looking out over Ásgarðr as the sun sets beneath the Tree. Behind him, Loki lounges in a chair, whittling wood with a small knife.

  “The time of Ragnarøkkr is upon us,” Odin says. “My son dreams of his own death and the very Fates themselves conspire against me. Frigg’s petty games will not prevent this.”

  Loki does not lift his eyes from the shape within his hands. A toy for his unborn child. “Prophecy is her domain. Perhaps her ‘petty games’ mean more than you know.”

  Odin scoffs, pride burning in his gaze. “I will not entrust my son and my kingdom to the sentiment of a single, fretting woman. The future has been spoken. Baldr will die, it cannot be avoided.”

  “Then why fret yourself? Let him die. You have other finer sons. What matters the loss of one?” Beneath Loki’s knife, a wolf emerges. This one has no fetters.

  “If Baldr falls,” Odin says, “he will go to Hel. I will not have a son of Odin held prisoner by that fleshless íviðja hag.”

  The knife stops, and eyes as green as poison look up for just one moment. Just one. Then, “So send another in his place.”

  Odin turns, looks to his blood brother with furrowed brow. “What do you scheme, Loki?”

  “The prophecy is as it says.” Loki does not meet his brother’s gaze. “Baldr will die. But perhaps if your son were not wearing his own skin when it were to happen…”

  Very slowly, Odin begins to smile. Very soon, Loki will cease to do the same.

  —

  And then this, the last piece. Not a hall, this time, merely the inside of one small house.

  Someone screams. The thing is curled up in a corner, and it wears the skin of Loki. It is not him, and Sigyn, who stands behind it, knows that this is so.

  “My children,” it howls. “What they did to my children. To me. Monsters, every one of them!”

  The thing that now wears Loki’s skin is a soft and coddled soul. It knows nothing of pain, of heartache, of injustice. Knew nothing. Not until it pulled the tunic from its borrowed flesh and saw the scars beneath.

  Remembered every wound that made them.

  Sigyn watches the beast that is not Loki. The beast that is her husband. Its agony is a tangible thing, bleeding through the small and ill-kept house, sending the fire leaping.

  “Husband,” Sigyn says. The title seems the most truthful of any she could use. “You must not dwell upon such things. They happened long ago.” The lie burns upon her tongue, and it does not convince.

  “Monsters,” the thing that is not Loki hisses. “Hypocrites, liars. I will make them pay. Reveal their rotten cores.” When he stands, madness burns in bright green eyes.

  When he leaves, it is with hatred set in his new hearts. Yet, beneath that, he is a soft and coddled soul. And, ultimately, it is not his enemies who pay the price.

  Not yet.

  —

  Between the turning of the page, in the flicker of the frame, it all falls into place: Loki’s scheme, Odin’s plan, Sigyn’s victory. And Baldr, trapped between all three. The perfect patsy, pulled apart and made anew as, stitch by stitch, the Wyrd unravels.

  It was supposed to be a simple trade, a soul for a soul. Baldr held safe in Ásgarðr, beneath his father’s all-seeing eye; Loki given pride of place within his daughter’s grave-cold hall. When things were over, with “Loki” dead, Baldr’s soul would be restored to his true self, ready to take his place upon the throne.

  That was the plan. Until Sigyn usurped it, in love and revenge. Mixed it up. Extended the Ragnarøkkr out half a century or so, giving Baldr the freedom to get used to Loki’s name, away from Odin and from Ásgarðr. Sigyn reforged herself while she was at it, using her soul to weave a different ending from words writ into the first.

  Here, between the turning of the page, I have to make a choice. The outcome was supposed to be preordained.

  Loki and Baldr. There’s so much of both of them trapped inside, too much for a single heart to hold. Around us, the world begins to crumble, and still all we can think about is soft brown skin and nervous laughter. Of eyes like ice and a heart of frozen steel.

  In the end, it’s not Odin they call Victorious, and only the æsir are stuck with a single beat within their chests.

  I make my choice, take Loki’s fate, and eat his heart.

  —

  The first thing we do is breathe. Huge, painful, gasping breaths. The gasps of a newborn. A chorus of agony, kept in time by the discordant feel of rib-caught drumming.

  We’re alive. For the first time in centuries. Properly alive, not the awful half lives we’ve had since the cave. Since the arrow. Since
everything went wrong. Since it started going right.

  “Lain!”

  Curled up on the ground, coughing, we feel cool hands against our shoulders.

  “Lain!” Someone saying our—saying my name, over and over. “You’re alive!”

  “In—hnngh. In a m-minute.” Maybe.

  Opening my eyes does nothing, so I feel out with the Wyrdsight. The first thing I hit is Sigmund, a blaze of relief, of joy, of love. And something under it, too. A core of ice-cold certainty. Of victory.

  When I try and sit, he helps me up. We’re in the foyer at LB, just near the elevators. In the middle of a big, cracked hole of half-melted tiles. Gungnir is lying on the ground, next to Sigmund. Forgotten. For now.

  Sigmund is holding me like someone plans to take me away at any moment. Breathing still hurts and the beat of my hearts is still not quite in sync, so I just sit still and let him do his thing. He’s happy. I’m alive. All is well.

  “We won,” Sigmund says. “We did, right? I mean, Baldr, he just sort of…burnt up. Vanished. He’s…he’s dead, right?”

  “Uh,” I say. “Yeah, about that…”

  Sigmund goes very, very still. “Loki?” He knows when I lie. Right.

  “Sort of,” I say. Then, “It’s, uh. It’s complicated. I’ll tell you later. But…yeah. We won.” Everyone did. Everyone who matters, anyway.

  Somewhere deep inside, past the flames, something new coils against my mind. Something dark and vicious. Slippery and ancient.

  “Hey, Sig?”

  “Yeah?”

  I kiss him.

  It’s good. Really good. He thinks so too, if the pepper flare of lust and the way he grabs my head is anything to go by. He’s still not a great kisser, but he’s getting better, enthusiasm and near-death experiences working wonders.

  Deep inside, the dark thing stirs. Bubbles to the surface. Spreads through my hands and lips and tongue. As it does, the cold core in Sigmund soars to greet it.

  See? Everyone wins.

  When Sigmund pulls back, he’s flushed and blinking. “Wow,” he says. There’s fog on his glasses.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “What was that?”

  I grin. “Do it again and find out.”