I cried bitterly. ‘Two sisters will indeed argue love’s curious rules. Like Frigg’s poem said.’
‘What?’ Dana asked, confused.
‘Never mind,’ I said and felt a stabbing pain in my chest as I tried to breathe. ‘Is there something else? Something else you have not told me?’ I asked. Euryale looked strangely intrigued by the discussion as she walked around. Dana hesitated. ‘What is it?’ I asked.
She rubbed her hands across her face. ‘That evening we left Earth.’
‘What of it?’
‘She was like Able,’ she said. ‘Grandma.’
‘Able?’
She sighed. ‘She was dead when she spoke with you, Shannon. That is why I was so surprised to see you up there on the hill. You were not even meant to follow me. I killed her to go alone, but no, the gods conspired against us, and you had a relationship with the dead,’ she said heavily, wiping her hair back from her face.
‘She was the Hand, she had to come to Aldheim,’ Euryale said calmly. I eyed past the two monsters for the door, praying for help. Euryale looked that way, amused.
‘Nothing is out there, only many guards. Almheir marched to war, Shannon, cursing Dana for taking the shield. He thinks we will all die here. He betrayed you.’
I looked at Dana. ‘You had her blood. And you could have healed the Rot from me? And saved Ompar?’ I asked. ‘Now, save Lex?’
They looked at the undead thing on the floor. Dana walked to the table where the bottle still stood. She took a hesitant step towards Lex. ‘No,’ Euryale said.
‘Let me heal her, then—’
‘I decide such things,’ she said. ‘Tell her why you obeyed me.’
She looked down. ‘For power and true freedom.’
‘And,’ Euryale prompted her.
‘For this,’ Dana said and pulled down her robe. On her shoulder, there was Rot as well. It was as bad as mine, and she had been trapped like I was. I never guessed.
Euryale smiled. She bowed at me. ‘Your sister tells herself it was all for power and freedom. But the truth is she is afraid to die. In that, Shannon, you are stronger than she is.’ Euryale nodded at her. Dana looked down, and then put the bottle on her lips. She poured the liquid down her throat and gasped, grasped the table, and I knew the Rot was gone. She looked so relieved. She stood in the midst of terrible battle, fallen friends, a traitor. And she looked relieved. She looked at Euryale. ‘Pour it to the dust. Or I will put the Rot back in you.’
Dana’s eyes filled with tears. She looked at me. Her eyes hardened, and she turned the bottle upside down. The precious liquid fell in drops to the dust.
Euryale looked at me long and thoughtfully. ‘I am sorry, Shannon.’
‘You manipulated me all along,’ I said and ignored Euryale and whispered to Dana. ‘You made me suspicious of the others when it was you and Cherry, who—’
Dana walked to me and clutched my hand. ‘I tried to convince you, Shannon, to help Euryale willingly. But Euryale was right. You were not to be trusted. You fell in love with friendship. You would not see the sanity of working with her. I tried to help you.’
Euryale tired of the game. ‘It is finished,’ she said. ‘I will not ease her death, nor save her. She might not be dying of the Rot any longer, but the Dragon Pact holds her. And that means she would try to kill me, no matter if she was healed. She hates me. She would do anything to hurt me.’
‘Mistress—’ Dana began.
‘No,’ Euryale said and stroked my helmet. ‘Now you will go.’
‘You bastard,’ I said as I writhed in pain, sobbing.
‘The Dragon Pact would have gotten you anyway,’ she said, her eyes on the Horn lying on the floor. ‘Your sister will live and conquer with us, Shannon. Be happy. She will live.’
‘Happy.’ I laughed amidst my tears. ‘No, I don’t wish that anymore. I hope she suffers and dies in shit.’ Dana’s eyes were shocked at the vehemence of my hatred.
‘Matters not,’ Euryale said and gave me a fanged grin. ‘Soon, I am the queen of this land; Stheno my co-ruler, and Dana will do what she will. Then, with the Horn? We take another of the Nine. One by one. For this, wondrous child, I thank you.’
‘What will you do with the Eye of Hel?’ I asked weakly, looking around, seeing Lex staggering around the hall, dead and alive, and I sobbed in terror as her snakes slithered around my armored throat, taking a tight hold beneath the mail.
‘Too bad Cerunnos did not die with it. You ripped his arm off. The Eye would be in Helheim now with his corpse, but it doesn’t matter. I will keep it safe, but I shall not touch it. I learned my lesson when Cerunnos was cursed,’ she said. ‘At the very least, I will not claim it. Goodbye, Shannon.’
She strangled me. The snakes slithered under my armor. Dana’s face betrayed her horror, but she did not move. I cannot say how long it took, but I remember struggling weakly, panic forcing me to fight, and then I felt the drowsiness.
As I died, I saw Euryale fly from me, screaming with rage and surprise.
I saw Dana’s tear-stricken eyes widen in shock, and then Thak grasped me, my sword in his human-size hand.
‘Take it to her and come back,’ he hissed. ‘Come back!’
He impaled my chest while placing something in my palm. I fell into the darkness and saw him flutter away as a dark raven, croaking, trailing blood from his wounds.
I died. I died while clutching a round, warm object. I plummeted and felt nothing, mourning nothing, worrying about nothing.
I awoke in Niflheim.
BOOK 5: HEL’S BARGAIN
“You said you will not send back a human. What shall you send back?”
(Shannon to goddess Hel)
CHAPTER 23
Imagine a world that was there at the beginning. It was old as age, beyond human understanding, the vast icy plains pristine. Ancient mountains rose in the horizon, and there were neither plant nor life of any kind that I could see. A bitter wind was blowing, and I was sure as I opened my eyes it had blown there for millennia, troubling rime on frozen stones, making endless particles of ice roll on the fine, crispy snow, creating a tingling sound that reminded me of tiny bells. I stared at the sky. It was so pale blue, stars were so dull, and it all felt as though I was swathed in a soft blanket, but I was not.
I got up and felt my chest and sobbed, and as I tried to sob, I noticed I was not breathing. My voice came out strange and strangled. That explained many things. Euryale had tried to murder me, Thak had slain me, and I noticed the sword was still in my chest. I stared at the gruesome sight in shock and then tried to pull at it. ‘Gods, help me,’ I cried. ‘Gods spare me.’ My voice. It was grating, strange. I was dead. I panicked and cried but then grasped at the sword with both hands.
There was something in my left hand.
I opened it.
A strange, oval-shaped rock was there. It was on my palm, and inside the rocky surface I saw an eye. It was a very ordinary eye, if yellowed and rotten. I stared at it, and the black orb turned to regard me. I shrieked and nearly dropped it but clung onto it with effort. ‘Hel?’ I said, my voice rasping and hollow. It was Hel’s Eye. I wondered at it, the brilliant, simple thing, and I was sure the goddess could see me. Thus had it stared at the thief Timmerion for long ages and slowly driven him to madness. Thak had placed it in my hand. Then killed me. Dying with the thing let me take it with me? Or it took me with it? Cerunnos had been cursed by it after he claimed it but never died holding it.
I could take it to her. I could return it to Hel?
She would reward me, perhaps.
I placed the Eye in my pouch, wondering how strange everything seemed. I pulled at the sword, felt it grating on my chest armor and ribs, sawing at bones, and then I managed to pull it away. It was reddened, but not wet. I hesitated and put it into its sheath. I stared around, trying to figure out where I should go. I heard a steady, strange rumble and began to walk over the snow-laden, grime-encrusted land. It took time or no time at all to
get anywhere. I was unsure of my bearings and finally, a strange sight greeted me. It was an ice wall, perhaps, but it was moving, bubbling and gurgling as it did. It was huge, tall as a castle, stretched far as an ocean, and I hiked closer to it. I witnessed weird, very light blue water amidst the rumbling ice and climbed a small hillock to witness what was going on there.
I got to the top.
What I saw would have taken my breath away, if I had breath.
It was the river, one of the Nine that rumbled down to the emptiness of the Filling Void, where all life had been born. It was, perhaps, the River Gjöll. It was a moving and rolling river of ice mountains. I glimpsed streams of clear ice and blue water amidst the rolling mountains of ice, and that water was so bright. I turned to look left. Far, far a cascade of ice was rumbling away, likely down an unseen wall, strangely soundless, but I guessed being dead changed such experiences. I stared at the icy streams rolling past and decided it had to be Gjöll. And Gjöll, I remembered, passed Helheim. I sat down to contemplate the strange sight, on being dead and what I might accomplish with Hel.
Would I ask to go back? Thak had told me I should.
Why?
To kill Euryale? To avenge myself to Danar Coinar and Almheir? Thak, perhaps? No, he had aided me as best he could.
To Dana?
Was that all I had left? To avenge myself on my sister?
I shuddered with indecision, trying to draw a breath, but could not. I felt no cold, nor heat and had no urges, save for a wish to have payback.
Yes, I did wish for that.
Perhaps I was like Cerunnos, devoid of love, purged by betrayal. I got up and walked to the left, then to the right, wondering how to get down, for the way I had come was suddenly a sheer drop. Then I chuckled. I jumped and fell a long, long way, feeling the whip of stinging ice as Gjöll rumbled on nearby, and I hit the ground hard, bouncing and rolling and falling some more as I ended up on the shore of the ever-moving primal ice. I grinned at the sky and laughed, hollow and grating, breathless and forced and tried to weep as I was a monster, a thing caught in undeath. I rose up, found my bones intact after the fall and stared around. Far to the north, I saw huge figures marching, a hundred or more, their beards blue as ice, their faces white as frost, swathed in fine tunics of blue and silver. Jotuns, ice giants, fourteen foot tall. An icy city was beyond them, the giants going home. I contemplated on marching that way for directions, as I could and would be lost soon. The land was very strange. Was the river even Gjöll? If I followed it in hopes of finding Helheim, would I walk astray?
‘Shannon,’ said a voice. ‘It is Gjöll indeed. And yes, it leads to Helheim. She wants you.’
I turned to see Elder Shannon and Able standing by the riverside, wearing dark robes. ‘We found you,’ said the dark-faced boy happily.
‘Grandmother?’ I asked, shocked. ‘Able?’
‘Shannon,’ Grandmother said with a sorry, tearful voice. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. I told you to live for you, not for Dana. Didn’t I?’
‘I had to walk the road,’ I told her, and she smiled with understanding. I turned to the brother of Albine. ‘And Able, thank you for your help in Euryale’s. Is your sister still in Aldheim?’
He bowed. ‘She is not in Helheim. I missed you. You died in Euryale’s tower. And you are dead again. Sort of.’
‘Do you have it?’ my grandmother asked.
‘The Eye?’ I said and nodded. ‘I have it.’
‘The goddess wishes to see you,’ she said with a nervous voice. ‘She sent us to guide you. Normally, you would know where to go, but your death is peculiar due to the eye.’
‘Did Dana slay you?’ I asked her.
She opened her mouth and closed it. ‘She wanted to go alone. She was afraid I would tell you about our family and about that day. She did kill me.’
‘She wanted to grasp power alone and not have me meddling,’ I said spitefully. ‘Murderer.’
She shrugged. ‘No, perhaps, yes. All of that. I told you; she is not all evil, but she is driven. She is also not brave, not always. Rot scared her to her core. Now she has nothing left but her selfish goals. She will not fail,’ she whispered, her face sad. ‘I know Euryale promised her to save and spare you and her, but I’m sure Dana might have guessed Euryale would lie. I think when you made the Dragon Pact, Dana felt she had failed and gave up on you. She must be suffering for her betrayal.’
‘What is Hel like?’ I asked them and ignored her comment about Dana, holding my hands across my chest, where there was a hole. It shocked me. I was dead, I reminded myself.
‘I cannot see your face, child,’ Shannon the Elder said kindly. ‘Let me see your face.’
I lifted away my helmet and nodded at her as her eyes brimmed with tears. She spoke, very sorry. ‘So pale and broken. Face burned. I cannot cry. Must not. You hold the Eye. Until the time you give it up, you won’t truly be dead. You are lingering in lands above and below.’
‘Where is Hel?’ I asked, resisting the temptation to touch my face. ‘What is she like?’
‘Hel?’ she said and shuddered. ‘She is a mad goddess. Helheim is a gray land of no hurry, Shannon. But it is overflowing with those who deserved to bask in the light of the other gods. Frigg and Freya, Odin and Thor. None can guide them there, to Asgaard or Vanaheim, not even the elves find their glory if they die in battle, and so Hel holds them, and it is an unhappy land now, where the dead feel cheated. As for her? She is rarely seen. She sits in Eljudnir, amidst her vast estates, and she is not evil, no. She is just … implacable. She wishes for revenge. And you started that by sending this Timmerion to her. He died just before you. Oh, you will see him marching across the bridge if you hurry.’
‘Are you happy, Grandmother? Able?’ I asked them sorrowfully. They looked at each other in surprise.
Grandmother waved her fat hand uncertainly. ‘Happy? We are dead. We are at peace, even if Helheim is unhappy with injustice. There is little place for rebellion in the land of the dead. She rules it through her mighty servants, and she rules Nifleheim partly as well and the dead can but complain in the shadows. We are fine, my love. It is not a terrible life. It is calm, certainly.’
‘I had hoped more of the afterlife,’ I sniffled. ‘Some sort of a reward.’
‘Peace is a reward, absence of pain and sorrow is that indeed. Not to worry about the future? That is a treasure. It is the depository of our souls, Shannon, and as it should be. And we will see soon where you belong, granddaughter,’ she told me.
‘Is my … husband here?’ I asked. ‘I hoped to see him.’
She smiled. ‘Ompar is at peace. But Hel did not let him come here to find you. He has a history of leading you down wrong paths. You will meet again, one day. Come, ride. The horse knows the way.’ She nodded at the bank, and there stood a shaggy, powerful horse, decorated with furs and two strange spears with pale pennants flying in the air. I hugged Grandmother fiercely and climbed on the beast that was sturdy and hard to sit on. It turned to follow Gjöll, and I gazed as Shannon the Elder and Able were left behind. I looked ahead at icy streams tumbling by, the pale stars glinting high in the sky and wondered as wintry wolves ran around us, sniffing the air, sensing we were there, but not quite seeing us. They were huge and beautiful, and I smiled under my helmet as I stared at them.
For some reason, the peace and timelessness of Niflheim made me happy, and I considered asking Hel to let me remain thus, riding around the land, forever. The horse followed the river steadfastly, and I stared across it. Soon, there was a rumble, and the horizon was suddenly empty, save for space and dull stars. Parts of the river were falling into a huge void. This was bottomless, vast, yet not void at all, for I sensed somewhere out there all the ice mixed with fiery fires of Muspelheim, the fire-rivers of Thak’s home, and so created everything. I heard and felt the Glory in all its clarity, sensed the wondrous source of spells of Fury and of Gift, admired the fathomless depths of its beauty and gazed across the emptiness of the
primal world’s edge until finally, the horse passed the falls and the river was diminished. Far, I saw other rivers travel across the land and then, suddenly, the horse stopped.
A throng of beings came marching past me. There were elves, humans, beings I had not seen before, even giants. The horse would not budge, and I dismounted.
The air thrummed. I turned to look across the river, and the stream of the dead halted. A strangled noise could be heard, and I realized there was chattering as the dead were whispering. They stepped to the sides. I turned to look around and saw they gave room to Cerunnos Timmerion, who was marching for a bridge, his hands cuffed with crude fetters, a brand like mine burning on his forearm, his powers locked away. Thin chains bound his mouth. He was pulled along by a rotting man, who was shuffling lazily forward, his dark robes modest, yet there was a note of power in his voice. ‘Come, come, thief. Hel has holes for such as you and our goddess hates rarely, but then with a passion.’
Timmerion was trying to protest, his armor hanging in tatters around him, and then he spotted me. Whether in hate or hope, he lunged for me but fell back as the dead old man pulled at him savagely. The man’s bright eyes flickered with amusement, his rotting brow rose in mirth, and he bowed to me. ‘Hand of Life. Frigg’s creature. Ganglari I am; the Steward of Hel, and a lord of Eljudnir. I also make the bed for the goddess, with my wife, Ganglöt. They call us lazy walkers, oh Eye Carrier, and Dead-Friend, but it just seems so as there are a great many needs to care for.’
‘You speak long and easily, Ganglari,’ I told him, ignoring Cerunnos’s begging voice, barely distinguishable under the pained grunts as Gagnlari pulled at the once great lord. ‘Do I find Hel in good spirits?’
Ganglari grunted, then barked a gruff laugh, and then laughed fully and long, and the dead around us looked down, confused by the noise. He waved a hand at them. ‘Humorless bunch, but aye, you will find her as happy as she has ever been. Modgud!’ he shouted.
A maiden of youthful face approached us from across the bridge, fast as the wind. She looked suspicious, ruddy of face, and blonde hair was twirling around her shoulders as she stopped before Ganglari. ‘Yes?’
Eye of Hel: Stories of the Nine Worlds (Ten Tears Chronicles - a dark fantasy action adventure Book 2) Page 32