“That’s when it became Saturday,” Mary said excitedly. “Saturn’s day.”
The squirrel nodded. “Thing yer got to understand is that Saturn is proper old,” Ratatosk warned. “Been around from the beginning. That makes him as wise as time itself. It also makes him a tricky customer to deal with. He likes to play games.”
“How do we find him?” The words slipped out before Buzz could stop them, and he braced himself for another scary squirrel telling-off.
“How’d yer expect me to know that?” Ratatosk was so angry he was shaking.
No, hang on a minute, Buzz thought. He’s laughing.
In fact, the squirrel was laughing so much, tears were running down his furry cheeks.
“I’m just pulling your leg.” Ratatosk guffawed. “Yer should have seen yer face. I ain’t that fierce, am I?” He tilted his head. “Up the tree we’ll go and find the right branch. The tree can take you to any hidden realm there is.”
Without Buzz even realizing it, Ratatosk had led them right to the glade where the World Tree waited for them. It was just as big as Buzz remembered, its branches reaching upward to the sky. The tree was so tall you couldn’t see the top, and the ground seemed to fizz beneath his feet.
“Wow! I can’t believe we’re really going up there,” Mary breathed. “It’s so big.”
Buzz’s knees felt like they were made of clay. “How will we know which branch to choose?” he asked. Please let it be one of the bottom branches.
“Yer’ll need to tell the tree where yer want to go, and then it will show yer the branch.” The squirrel’s furry face went grave. “It’s no game traveling between realms. Yer can get lost in more ways than one. Truth is yer most reliable guide, but yer heart must be open to listen to its advice.”
Buzz nodded and placed his hand on the tree. “Show us the path to Saturn,” he requested, and the bark answered by pulsing with power beneath his fingertips.
Mary grinned at him. “Time to go up!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rift
Do not look down, Buzz told himself, climbing farther and farther up the tree. Just don’t do it.
But Buzz’s eyes were magnets, and the ground below was a sheet of iron with an irresistible pull. He gazed down past his feet in their battered sneakers, through the silver branches and their tangled leaves, all the way to the ground, which looked very, very far away.
He began to tremble, and the backpack he’d slung carelessly over his shoulder slipped off his arm like soap suds off a plate. “Watch out,” he cried as the bag tumbled downward, taking a swathe of twigs and leaves with it.
He heard Mary curse. “I told you I should have gone first.” Her voice came from somewhere beneath him.
Buzz tried to get his breathing under control. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Mary’s voice sounded less annoyed. “There was nothing important in that bag, was there?”
“No, not really. Some money. A drink.” Buzz didn’t want to mention that his mum had bought the bag for his last birthday. A burning pain in his arms made him catch his breath, and he realized that he’d wrapped them so tightly around the trunk of the tree that the bark was cutting into his skin. He wondered how he was ever going to move from this position. His arms were locked into place, his feet were clumps of concrete, and his heart beat so furiously against his ribs that he could almost hear it tapping out a rhythm on the bark.
“Hey, Buzz, you’re not moving,” Mary called up. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Buzz insisted. “Just give me a moment.” But still his arms tightened around the trunk.
He heard a familiar scrabbling sound, and then Ratatosk was dangling beside him, his tail securing him to the branch while the wind made him sway merrily back and forth.
Just looking at the squirrel made Buzz feel dizzy. “Ratatosk, unless you’re a flying squirrel, I suggest you hold on to this tree properly.” He said the words through gritted teeth.
“Just take a breath, mate.” Ratatosk’s voice was soft. “Don’t feel bad about being scared. Yer scared because yer want to live. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But how am I going to do this?” Buzz asked, and he knew he wasn’t just talking about the tree. He was talking about all of it. Finding the runes, waking the sleeping gods, defeating Loki.
And Ratatosk understood that, too.
“Yer’ll do it because yer and Mary are the only ones who can do it. Yer’ll do it because this world will go kaput if yer don’t. Yer’ll do it because even though yer haven’t realized it yet—yer and Mary were born for this.”
Buzz looked into the squirrel’s dark eyes. What had Ratatosk said earlier? Truth is your most reliable guide, but your heart must be open to listen to its advice.
The concrete he imagined around his feet crumbled into dust, and his arms loosened around the trunk.
“Thanks, Ratatosk. Come on, we’ve got a Roman god to find.” Buzz pushed upward, his arms and legs working to pull his body farther up the tree. Ratatosk was right by his side, leaping from branch to branch.
“Hey, Buzz, slow down,” Mary squawked from below.
“I thought you were good at climbing trees!”
“I am, and if I knew it was a race, I wouldn’t have given you a head start,” she shot back.
Buzz slowed down, but only a little bit.
As he pulled himself up onto the next bough, he saw a sliver of light between the skeletal limbs of the tree. It was a solid silver branch as bright as a sword’s blade. It gleamed in front of them. Thin, but as long as the path that led up to his front door. The bark was silver, not just in color but in its metallic texture as well. At the far end of the branch, the air was split in two, leaving an absence. Something had been cut away and not replaced. It wasn’t a door—not really—but Buzz knew that he and Mary would have to pass through it.
He stepped out onto the metal limb to get a closer look, but his foot immediately slipped on the cold metal and he fell backward against the trunk with a thud. His arms and legs splayed in a lucky tangle of limbs that somehow kept him from falling.
“Buzz!” Mary cried. “You all right?”
The fear that he thought he’d left much farther down the tree rushed back again, but this time Ratatosk was not next to him to calm him down. Buzz swallowed hard, trying to bring back saliva to his dry mouth.
“I’ve had better days,” he said, getting himself into a safer position. He managed to look down through the foliage, and he saw that Mary was just a few branches lower than him. But the squirrel was nowhere in sight.
“Where’s Ratatosk?” he asked. “I think I’ve found the right branch.”
Mary pulled herself upward so that she sat on the tree limb just below his. “He said he could hear something from farther down the tree. He went to check.”
Buzz wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”
Mary inhaled. “Smoke?”
With a swish of branches being thrust aside, Ratatosk appeared, his sides heaving. His delicate, furry head, which poked up through the leaves, glistened with sweat. “He’s back.” The squirrel panted. “And he’s coming up here.”
“Who?” Buzz asked.
“Loki?” Mary said at the same time.
The squirrel nodded. “Loki and his dragon. He saw yer bag, Buzz. He knows someone’s on the tree. Yer’ve got to get out of here.”
Buzz felt a bead of sweat roll down between his shoulder blades. “I’ve found the branch.” He pointed upward. “It’s right there.”
Suddenly, they heard branches cracking, and Ratatosk looked over his shoulder and then back at them, his eyes wide. “So what’re yer waiting for? Go!”
“But—”
“Go! He won’t follow you into Saturn’s world—not without more backup. He can’t be working by himself.”
Mary had clambered up past Buzz and was now scuttling along the solid silver limb toward the rip in the sky. It did
n’t seem to affect her movements at all that the branch was made of slippery metal.
“Hurry up, Buzz.” Her voice was almost completely snatched away by the wind that was coming through the rift.
Buzz climbed onto the first part of the impossibly smooth branch but stopped to look back at Ratatosk. “Come on, then,” he said.
The squirrel shook his head. “I ain’t coming. Someone’s got to stop Loki and Nidhogg from getting up here until yer through.” His red fur rippled in the wind, and he glowed so brightly in the morning sunlight that he looked like a ball of flame. He raised a paw in farewell even as the smoke behind him began to snake around his body. Plumes of black grasped at him like shadowy fingers.
“Go!” the squirrel demanded again. “I’ll be fine.” He then turned and leaped into the heart of the smoke.
Buzz tried to call out the squirrel’s name, but the word couldn’t get past the knot in his throat. Instead, he pulled himself farther onto the silver branch, moving carefully and slowly toward the rip in the sky. Mary was some distance ahead of him now, and Buzz held his breath as she stood up gingerly, balanced for a moment like a ballerina in tortoiseshell glasses.
“I guess this is the bit where we start our quest,” she shouted over to him. The wind coming from the rift buffeted her strongly, and she swayed back on her heels. “Cross the threshold and all that.”
“What are you going on about?” Buzz yelled. “Just get through the rift before you fall off that branch, will you?”
“We’re going through together.” Mary’s expression was stubborn.
“I’m right behind you,” Buzz promised as he pulled himself along the slender limb. He was doing his best to focus on the simple movements of putting one hand in front of the other, but he knew he was making painfully slow progress. “Just go. It’s not going to help either of us if you lose your balance.”
As if in answer, a gust of wind howled out from the rift and rocked Mary back on her heels once more. Her mouth was an O of surprise as her toes curled around the branch and her arms shot out to balance herself.
She took a quick breath. “You’re right, Buzz. See you on the other side.” She edged right up to the rift. “Saturn, here we come!” she yelled. “The Runes of Valhalla will be ours.” And she threw herself into the ripped air.
There was no noise. No flash of light. Mary was simply not there anymore, and Buzz was all by himself on the silver branch. He got carefully to his feet and stepped toward the rift. The air coming from it smelled damp and dark, but there was another smell as well and it crept toward him from behind. Smoke. So strong now that it made his eyes water.
“Who are you?” A voice that seemed to burn all the oxygen from the air snarled from behind him. “Why do you seek the Runes of Valhalla?”
Buzz whipped round, instinctively throwing out his arms to keep his balance. A figure who was both solid and not solid had ascended the tree. Loki. His cloak glided over the branches in a billow of smoldering mist.
Buzz couldn’t really see a face through the smoke, but he glimpsed a slash of a mouth and cayenne-colored eyes that slanted upward like the flame of a candle.
“Who are you?” the voice asked again. “Are you kin of Odin?” The smoky figure seemed to expand his volume and spread toward him. “Answer me.”
“No, I’m not,” Buzz shouted back. “Where is Ratatosk?” He needed to know.
The figure crept closer, until the heat coming off him singed Buzz’s eyelashes.
“My dragon has a new pet to play with. Come down with me and watch. It’s quite a show.”
A hand shot out at him, the skin pale and scarred. Buzz leaped backward. The wind from the rift tore at his shoulders.
He stared at Loki, straight into the candle-flame eyes. “We’re going to stop you,” Buzz vowed.
“I look forward to seeing your try.” Loki’s burnished blade of a mouth opened to show sharp teeth, and then he sprung forward.
Buzz didn’t hesitate. Half falling and half throwing himself backward, he passed through the rip in the air.
PART II
THE RUNES OF VALHALLA
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Chase
He felt himself being torn out of the world and plunged into a void. He was falling . . . upward? He was in complete darkness, and his eyes ached with the strain of searching for any pinprick of light.
“Buzz!” Mary’s voice sounded like it was traveling across centuries, and it was tiny and scared. “Buzz.”
“I’m here,” he called back.
“I thought you weren’t coming.” He could swear that he heard tears in her voice. “I wasn’t scared, you understand. I just hate the dark.”
“I got a little bit held up,” Buzz explained. “By our resident furious trickster god.”
“You met Loki?” Mary almost sounded jealous. “Did he say anything about the rune—” But she broke off with a gasp.
“Mary?”
Silence.
“MARY?” He screamed her name over and over, his voice filling the void but never receiving an answer.
Then he felt it. Hands guiding him upward—or was that downward? They reached out from the darkness, covering every inch of his skin, including his mouth. The hands were not gentle. Not rough, either. Just methodical. Hands passing him along the darkness until he was placed gently on his feet. He felt a pressure on his back that pushed him forward through another gap in the air and into sunlight.
He was standing at the edge of a field filled with rippling wheat. The golden stalks stretched off in every direction, but around the perimeter he could see the sheer face of mountain rocks. He guessed that the fertile land must be set inside some kind of crater.
Buzz squinted. In the distance he could just about make out Mary. She was racing after an impossibly tall figure who was wielding a scythe and cutting a path through the wheat.
Buzz set off in pursuit, through stalks of gold that were so tall they grazed his chin.
It felt good to be on solid ground again.
In no time at all, he had caught up with Mary. She’s fast, but not as fast as me. Her cheeks were puffing in and out as she ran, but she managed a smile.
“Why are we chasing after this guy?” Buzz asked.
Mary took a gulping breath. “He was here when I arrived. He told me that time waits for no man, then just strode off.” She frowned. “It’s pretty sexist, actually, as clearly I’m not a man, but I didn’t even get a chance to say that because he was already halfway across the field.”
“Okay,” Buzz said slowly. “So we’re chasing this guy so that we can tell him that he is being sexist.”
Mary laughed. “You are silly, Buzz. Saturn is also known as Father Time,” she explained patiently. “Plus, the Romans believed that Saturn was the god of the harvest as well as time.” She pointed up ahead. “Do you see that huge scythe he’s carrying? Trust me. He’s the guy we need to talk to. I’m sure of it.”
“All right, Sherlock, I’m convinced.”
Mary grinned. “It is just a process of deduction and dismissal. No big deal.”
Suddenly, the landscape around them changed. A fierce wind picked up, the wheat began to shrivel, and snow began to fall.
Buzz and Mary still ran, but it was harder going through the snow, and the cold wind cut through their clothes.
They were at the edge of the field now, where the terrain turned rocky and soared above them.
The tall figure traversed a narrow path that wound up to the sky, his strides slowing. Mary and Buzz were finally gaining on him.
“Go get him.” Mary panted. “I know you can run faster than I can.”
Buzz dipped his head and charged forward, taking the bends and the turns of the mountain path easily into his stride.
The cloaked figured was just ahead of him now, and Buzz reached a hand out to grab the cloak. But his hand went straight through the material. It was as if the figure was made of air.
“Hey,” Buzz
called. “We need to talk to you.”
The figure reached the front of the rock face, stepped forward, and disappeared into the mountainside.
Buzz leaped to the place where the hooded figure had just vanished. His hands combed the mountain face, but it was solid beneath his fingers.
“Where’d he go?” Mary asked, arriving at his side. She put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
“Right through this wall.” Buzz pointed at it. “The thing is—”
“What are you waiting for, then?” Mary strode forward and gave a little yelp as she crashed into the wall.
“If you’ll let me finish, Sherlock,” Buzz said. “Saturn isn’t solid like us. That’s why he could pass through the rock.”
“But there’s got to be a way for us to get through.” Mary grinned. “I’ve got an idea.” She held up her enormous watch and tapped two of the buttons on the side.
“I don’t think your GPS is going to be able to help,” Buzz said. His eyes darted across the mountain face, looking for some kind of gap or entranceway, but he could spot nothing.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Mary said, as a dark blue ray beamed out of her watch and illuminated the mountainside. An area of lighter blue immediately revealed itself a few feet upward. “There’s our entry. Right on that ledge.”
“Holey pajamas!” Buzz exclaimed. “How does your watch do that? Darth Vader I get, but this?”
Mary lifted her chin proudly. “My classmates used to pelt me with water balloons. Said it was just a little bit of fun. I designed my watch so that it could assess the density of solid objects.”
“So you could spot whether they were carrying water balloons or not?”
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