by Matt Larkin
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“Come inside, please.”
He joined her in the house, and she settled down on the one of the bed shelves.
“I cannot believe Odin would marry my sister only to invite war with our people.”
Odin did a lot of things Tyr couldn’t believe. Unsure what to say, he watched the girl.
She tapped a finger against her lip. “You asked me what’s going on. I was fostered with Agilaz and Olrun. But Jarl Hadding is my father, and I can try to speak with him and with Frigg, try to persuade Father against this course. War benefits no one.”
“The losers least of all.”
“If you intended to take Halfhaugr by force, I think you would have done it already.” She leaned forward now. “Why did Odin ride off to Reidgotaland? What does he hope to gain in the north?”
“Odin keeps his own counsel.” A half truth made one nigh as bad as a liar. What was he becoming? “You share a bed with his blood brother. Why not ask the foreigner about Odin’s mind?”
Sigyn neither flinched nor denied sleeping with Loki. Smiled even. “Was that supposed to distract me from my question? Or do you not even know the answer?” Sigyn tapped her lip again. “It’s no matter. While he is away, you seem to want to prevent bloodshed, yes?”
Tyr folded his arms.
“The Hasdingi stand on edge because of the Godwulfs.”
“I’ve heard.” A tribe ruled by varulfur was apt to bring chaos. Tyr’s spy among them should have reported back to the Athra. But from here, Tyr had no idea if that had happened.
“We sent my foster brother among them, in marriage, hoping to secure peace. Only now we learn the jarl there conspires with the King of Njarar to seize some or all of Aujum. Perhaps this makes Jarl Alci a common enemy.”
“He’s your uncle.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes the family who chose you matters more than blood.”
Tyr did not even know who his blood relatives were. Some had whispered Hymir himself had spawned him on a human woman. Tyr refused to believe, save in his darkest moments. “What would you have me do?”
“You’re Odin’s champion. If you were to aid the Hasdingi in this issue, it would go far toward smoothing over the injury Odin did here. The people only know that Odin angered Father and Frigg both and then fled. But you and I know about the apples. My father is going to die because Odin would not part with one. If that happens as matters stand now, Frigg will be like to divorce him in her grief.”
He grunted. Such a divorce would cost Odin any support among the Hasdingi. Maybe cost him the throne. “So you want me to go to Alci.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think Jarl Alci wants to hear of peace now. He is drunk on dreams of glory. No, find Hermod—my foster brother—and Agilaz. They are among the Godwulfs now. To have peace, the Godwulfs must have a new jarl. And you are known among all the tribes as a champion of Borr. They cannot turn you away.”
To murder a jarl. Tyr groaned. “Your father approves of this?”
“My father would not act against the bonds of brotherhood. But Alci leaves us with little choice now. Do this, Tyr, stop Alci. And I will stay here and do all I can to maintain the alliance between our peoples. My father and sister both are ill disposed to the Wodanar at the moment, but I can sway their minds. But you must save …”
“Save?”
She shook her head. “Just save us all.”
More schemes. Plots. A warrior ought to meet threats with a sword in hand. A song in his heart. Instead, to make a king, Tyr worked in shadows and lies. Betrayals. He’d ask Idunn, but he knew what she’d say. Odin must become king. And it sounded like that meant Alci must fall.
40
More than a moon had passed since Odin had come to her, and they now had fallen into an easy rapport. He had not yet managed to evoke or bind any spirit, but he would. He would learn the Art and become a sorcerer of Hel, as Grimhild had commanded. He needed only a bit more time.
They walked through a garden of ice sculptures in the central courtyard. Gudrun did not know where these statues had come from, for they had rested here her whole life, but she knew what some few of them represented. The nine sons of Halfdan the Old, the progenitors of the Old Kingdoms as Odin called them. He drifted along beside her, a man half dreaming and so eager to escape his life she needed fewer and fewer of her potions to keep him here.
Without a sense of time, he murmured about all the things he would do, how he would become King of the Aesir, how he would stop his brother Ve from transforming into a troll. The former, perhaps, he could have done, and made a better life for his people. The latter … no. Probably not even this Odling ghost could stop the changes the mist wrought in Odin’s brother.
Gudrun’s own brothers, her two younger brothers, sparred through the garden. Hogne leapt upon the fountain’s lip, flipped around, teasing their youngest sibling to chase after him. Gunnar did so with admirable gusto, never showing the barest hint of fatigue. Ten winters. Very soon the boy would be inducted into the mysteries of the Art and, if he survived at all, would lose what remained of his childhood. She drew to a stop, watching as her little brother laughed, running, playing, though he’d have called it training. And she could no more save him from his urd than Odin could save his own brother.
But she could dream of it, as Odin dreamed.
“You love them.”
She turned to Odin, unable to quite find the right words to explain to him. “Love is … complex. They are my brothers.”
“And you love them. I know, I love my brothers. They … they should be here too. We’re all family.”
Gudrun stiffened and ground her teeth. Oh, to have a family where love came so simply. Odin had no idea how much fate had blessed him. Could she even afford to love her brothers? Guthorm, her half brother and Grimhild’s eldest—he was their mother’s favorite, for which he had suffered almost as much as Gudrun, though he did not seem to realize it. He and Gudrun shared a bond, true enough, though she would not have called it love. More a mutual devotion to the pursuit of the Art and the return of the days of glory.
“Hogne still treasures Gunnar,” she said. “And I … care for them.”
“Why do you hesitate to embrace the bonds of family? What greater connection exists between people?”
She swallowed. “You do not yet understand.” Each of them was, or would become, a tool in Grimhild’s arsenal, a weapon aimed at Midgard and the descendants of the enemies of the Niflungar, all while the queen plotted and schemed to claim all the world in the name of Hel. “You would be king of a single people. My … mother will take the throne of all Midgard.” And her father, too, of course, by her side.
“You are lucky to still have your parents.”
Gudrun chuckled. “You have not met Grimhild. But you soon will. Tell me then, if you still think any of us lucky to have her.”
Odin paused then. “You … hate her.”
This Ás was more perceptive than a man under her spell ought to be. He had a strong will, an iron in his soul that would bring him all the more pain as Grimhild broke that will, ground him beneath her heel. The thought of it opened a hole in her stomach as deep and dark as the Pit beneath Castle Niflung. What had come over her? She grieved at the thought of Hogne and Gunnar slowly falling into the abyss of darkness that consumed all sorcerers. But thinking of Odin like that, of him becoming one more victim in Grimhild’s unending machinations to claim all lands, it hit her like a physical pain, squeezing her heart.
A disgusting sensation, as if … as if she had drunk of her own draughts. In Hel’s name … She had let herself feel for this man. Grimhild had sent her to him as a whore, intent to capture this king, though why she cared so much for one more pawn, Gudrun did not know. Except, Odin was not a pawn—he was a king on the tafl board, and Gudrun could no longer bear the thought of losing him.
Hel damn her for her weakness.
As the Queen of Mist would damn
Odin and devour his soul.
41
Loki had an inexplicable love of high places. That and fires. Often when Sigyn sought him out, she found him either staring into a flame or perched atop a building, a rock, or some other precarious place. Actually, she sort of loved that about him. This time, he stood at the cusp of the spiked wall surrounding Halfhaugr, staring out north so intently she’d have almost thought he could see something she couldn’t.
And she could see farther and clearer than ever since he had given her the apple. What else would the apple do to her? Would she gain magic powers like stories claimed Freyja or Idunn had? Would her other senses enhance to match her vision?
He didn’t turn at her approach, but his posture loosened almost imperceptibly. How did he know it was her? One more mystery she’d have to unravel. And now she had all the time in the world to do so.
“He’s been gone too long,” Loki said at last.
Odin. After the fight Odin had had with Frigg, part of Sigyn expected him to never return. Indeed, part of her hoped he never would. Already the Wodan jarl had brought such upheaval to her life, and though grateful for the bounties he had endowed her with through Loki, she feared the greater changes he seemed to have in mind. Perhaps that was selfish—after all, if not for Odin, she would not have become an immortal, nor found someone to share this new life with.
Instead of answering, she slipped her arms around Loki’s and tucked her chin over his shoulder. “What do you see out there?”
Through her embrace, she felt him swallow hard before answering. “The future. Always.”
What did that mean? Did Loki also fear Odin’s plans? Or could he mean it more literally? The apples seemed to affect each of them a little differently. Was it possible Loki now suffered the visions as Frigg had?
“And what is the future?”
“He is.”
“Then why didn’t you go with him?”
“You know the answer.”
Sigyn suspected she did. Loki seemed inclined to see himself as a teacher to his blood brother, though he looked little older than Odin. He obviously wanted Odin to learn some things on his own. Agilaz had often said a lesson learned for oneself was worth ten lectures. Did Loki then send Odin off alone on this sojourn as a means of preparing him for something grander still? If so, the lessons seemed cruel and lonely. But then, maybe all the strongest lessons were like that.
“I have to go after him.”
Sigyn sighed. Somehow she’d known it would end with that. “I’ll come with you.”
“I wish you could, but I need to travel swiftly, and I can best do that alone. I cannot allow Odin to fall into the shadows or succumb to the mists, however alluring their calls might seem.”
She squeezed him tighter, savoring his warmth. “You’d better come back to me.”
“Naught would stop me from it.”
At that, he slipped from her arms, kissed her forehead, and leapt over the wall. Sigyn leaned forward to gaze at where he had landed, crouched in the snow nigh fifteen feet below. Damn. Could she do that? Would the apple prevent injury if she tried such a foolhardy maneuver? Part of her wanted to try it, to feel the rush. Yet enough people in the village thought her mad already.
A chill wind swept over her, as Loki disappeared off into the mist.
Sigyn’s father had forestalled his decision to cast out the Wodanar at her behest, though his patience seemed nigh at an end. As did his life. The ever creeping thickness clouded his lungs and his eyes while Frigg and Fulla fretted over him like the invalid he was fast becoming. And Sigyn had no more words of comfort for her sister.
She sat upon the low stone wall surrounding Agilaz’s house in Halfhaugr, staring out at naught and somehow still seeing more than she ever had. Her eyes kept getting stronger. Her ears too. Footsteps crunched snow as someone made his way around the corner of another house.
Shortsnout rounded the bend and took off at a trot when he saw her, drawing a smile from her even as the hound leapt about below her knees. A moment later, Hermod slogged forward, burdened with a heavy pack and Njord knew what other weight.
Sigyn leapt from the wall and raced over to her foster brother, pausing just long enough to cuddle the hound. “What are you doing here? Where is Agilaz?”
“Father remained at the Godwulfs to keep an eye on things.” Hermod embraced her, then held her by the arms.
He still held her like a brother, and yet, somehow, that no longer hurt. She was happy to see him well, for certain, but … it had changed. Or maybe she had never really loved him like that. Maybe she’d convinced herself that any mutual affection between her and a man who accepted her must represent a romantic connection, and, in so doing, had failed to acknowledge the value of other bonds. Because being loved as a sister did matter, after all, and not every woman had that.
Loki had opened her eyes even as his apple had enhanced them.
“I feared for your safety.”
“I know. I met your friend Tyr on the road and sent him on to meet Father.”
Sigyn guided him back toward the house. Olrun had gone out wandering the town in an unstated but obvious hope her mere presence would induce calm and prevent another altercation between the tribes. The longer the strife went on with the Godwulfs, though, the more likely her hope would prove futile. The Wodanar had not lit the first fires of the Hasding anger, but their presence fanned those flames.
Hermod dropped his pack inside and slouched down, warming his hands by the fire. “I cannot stay long here. My wife awaits my return.”
“I didn’t think to see you here at all.”
“Alci himself sent me, Sigyn. He thought, given my connection between the tribes, I would prove the perfect emissary.”
“Emissary to what end?”
Hermod glowered at the flames as though he could avoid whatever he intended to say. And he need not say it, for his coming could only portend a single end.
Sigyn sucked air through her teeth and shut her eyes. “He sent you here to demand his brother surrender Halfhaugr to him. He’s coming to take our home.”
Hermod’s wary gaze offered all the answer she’d need.
42
When they spoke of sorcery and the Art, they did so in nigh total darkness that frayed Odin’s nerves and invited in the sibilant whispers of the vengeful dead. Shades were so thick on this isle that Odin could all but choke on their invisible rage.
He and Gudrun sat huddled in a windowless room below Castle Niflung, the only light from a dwindling candle on the floor between them. Odin’s legs ached from sitting with them folded beneath him for hours. Bare chested, he shivered in the cold. Not even the apples of Yggdrasil completely blocked out such chills. Or maybe it was not the cold alone that froze him this night, try as he might to block the sensation of being watched. And hated.
“Tell me,” Gudrun said.
Odin cleared his throat. “On the far side of the Penumbra lie the nine worlds of the Spirit Realm. Each home to vaettir, timeless beings of thought and power.”
“And?”
Odin cleared his throat. “And malice. They are not friends to mankind.” That ire settled upon his shoulders now like heavy mail dragging him under a river.
“But they can be bargained with, cajoled, or dominated, whence comes the power of a sorcerer.”
He almost could not swallow. Hearing this over and over did not make him inclined to want to bond such a vaettr to his flesh and soul. Gudrun knew more of the vaettir than he’d have ever thought a mortal could know—or should know. She herself had bound more than one to her flesh, making a pact with beings she knew were powerful and hateful beyond human ken. And yet, even she admitted her knowledge was but the surface of a sea of unknown, of beings ancient long before the rise of the Old Kingdoms, even before the coming of the mists. With the Sight, they could see into the Penumbra, true, but not into the Spirit Realm beyond it. What they knew of those worlds came from hints and intimations of the vaettir themselves.<
br />
And the vaettir lied.
Seething in timeless enmity, they manipulated, used, and possessed mortals foolish enough to cross their path.
And now Gudrun wanted him to call one forth, pull it through the Veil and let the formless, hostile entity into him. Through a pact with a servant of Hel—there is none greater—he might come closer to his goddess and, indeed, gain some measure of mastery over her domain. The Niflung sorcerers thus controlled mist and cold, used it to conceal themselves, to spy, to kill. To wield influence far beyond that allotted to humankind, at a price men could not begin to fathom.
A man’s soul would shriek from it, at least until it withered into a useless remnant. Such was the price for the godlike power of true sorcerers.
Gudrun had painted a complex symbol on Odin’s chest. She called it a glyph, though it looked to him much like vӧlvur runes, only more intricate in design. Other such designs decorated this room, forming a circle of arcane symbols designed to ward against the very vaettir she wanted to evoke.
“Are you quite certain this is wise?” he asked.
The princess sighed and shook her head. “Wisdom factors little into powers from beyond the Mortal Realm. Every use of the Art comes with risk—every time you pierce the Veil, you might lose yourself. Even after you bind a spirit and gain its power, using that power gives over more and more of yourself to the spirit. The wise sorcerer uses the Art as the last resort, not the first. It is, however, better to have a last resort to call upon in desperate extremes.” She placed a reassuring hand on his wrist. “Now. Do you remember the words?”
Words of a bargain, a pact to make with the unknown, spoken in language that meant naught to him and everything to vaettir. He would call out names of fell vaettir. To name a thing was to evoke it. Even common men knew that much, or thought they did. Still they invoked the name of Hel in feeble curses, not realizing the goddess—there is none greater—might actually catch it. She was not always listening, but she might be, and only a fool would invite the eye of the Queen of Mist to fall upon him.