The Mists of Niflheim (The Ragnarok Era Book 2)

by Matt Larkin

  With a sigh, he knelt beside her and placed a hand on her cheek. “You should be gone from this place, Gudrun. Do not pursue me further. If you—or your family—continue to prove a threat to mine, you will find out just who the son of Borr truly is. Today was the last of my mercy, Niflung. If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  Odin rose, turning his back on Gudrun.

  He wanted to look to her, to see her face one more time. To see her safely slink away into the mists.

  But he didn’t look back. Not once.

  Part V

  Ninth Moon, Cusp of Summer

  58

  Another night had passed without sign of troll or draugar. The Aesir had left Idavollir behind, and Odin hoped never to see the jotunn fortress again. With Grimhild fled, he and Tyr had been able to dispatch the remaining draugar.

  But no pursuit came.

  Nor had he seen sign of either Loki or his woman. Hints of the Sight told him they faced danger, but Odin could not leave the Aesir, not now, not to go chasing after them. Not even after they had done so for him. He was a king, and his people needed him. And so he marched them on, offering the king—emperor as the South Realmer fashioned himself—of Valland plunder from Hunaland in exchange for safe passage.

  And after long days and longer nights, they had come at last to what Idunn called the Middle Sea. From here, they followed the coast and passed through more mountains, to Andalus, a country sparsely populated, though torn by war.

  And at last they reached the ocean. Nigh to half a moon on the seashore, and though Odin’s people remained huddled around their bonfires, he could at last feel the tension begin to seep out of them. Indeed, a full night’s sleep had done wonders for them all.

  And though dawn had only just broken, already the shipwrights were again at work on the longships that lined the beach. Dozens of them, a fleet unlike any the Aesir had ever built or ever needed. Many of the tribes had built longships for raiding, but never before on this scale. Ships with which to cross the sea and reach the fabled islands of the blessed—Vanaheim. Odin had grown up believing it the home of the gods. He supposed it was, insofar as the Vanir were his people’s gods.

  Except now, staring over the endless ocean, it had begun to seem … real. So much of vӧlvur wisdom and legend Odin had dismissed as superstition or stories having naught to do with him. He thought himself a man of the real world. But everything they had been through since his father’s murder, that had proved far too real. The world was a wider place than he had credited, and the Otherworlds stranger and more hostile than even vӧlvur imagined. And though watching the fervent passion with which his people built these ships made him proud, it was also a subtle reminder that he didn’t really know what else might be real.

  Vanaheim. It was an idea, a myth. The islands of spring. What would that even look like? Like the tree Idunn had sent into bloom so long ago, the spark that had started this whole sojourn? The idea seemed ludicrous, nor could Odin’s mind even picture an entire land looking like that, save perhaps in dreams. And that was it—they planned to sail toward a dream.

  Another moon at most, and the ships would be ready. They would leave the shores of Midgard and with them the mists of Niflheim. And, if Odin had his way, most of his people would never see those cursed vapors again. Vanaheim ought to put them beyond the reach of the Niflungar forever.

  Well within reach of the Vanir, unfortunately.

  He felt Idunn approach. Perhaps it was his own expanding senses, the apple continuing to interact with the energies he had drawn from Frigg and Gudrun. Or maybe it was Idunn herself, the goddess of spring, of youth. Maybe she had always radiated such energy, and Odin had been too blind to see it until now, with his Sight honed by his trek beyond death, such things were laid plain before him.

  “Do they know we are coming?” he asked without looking back at her.

  “Hmmm … doubtful. I mean, most of them don’t bother paying much attention to Midgard anymore. But they’ll know when we get there. Njord does watch all the harbors and the seas and fancies them his domain. Sometimes he calls up mermaids to sing for him, grand performances. They light up the entire bay for it. My favorite—”

  “Idunn.”

  “Huh. Right. You’re not interested in the mer.”

  Odin rubbed his face. Mermaids? The idea was interesting, but he couldn’t afford to get distracted by Idunn’s latest fascination. Yesterday the goddess had been teaching his people to train snow rabbits to carry messages around camp. When Odin pointed out that a human runner could do the same task more quickly and accurately, Idunn had only said that messenger bunnies were cuter. And in those words Odin had seen something deeper in her—her mercurial nature was not all an act, but it was, in part an affected illusion much like she had used to hide from the varulfur, so long ago.

  “I’m interested in keeping my people safe. Will they be, Idunn? Safe in Vanaheim?”

  Odin had driven himself nigh to madness trying to reach the Vanir’s homeland. He had lost so much himself, and his people, they had lost even more. Fewer than half of their original number remained.

  Now, Vanaheim and Yggdrasil were the only hope to save the rest of his people, and to save Odin’s children from the world Odin would have otherwise bequeathed them.

  “Oh, yes. It’s wonderful, Odin. Blue sea and blue sky, grass so green you just have to dance in it. It’s completely safe. Other than the Vanir themselves.”

  That drew a snort from him. The home of the gods was great—as long as the gods weren’t home. Odin shook his head and made his way farther down the beach.

  He had slain his own brother. And oft as he looked into the Penumbra, never had he seen Ve’s shade. Perhaps Ve had already been drawn on to the Roil, or even beyond, to the unknown realms. Or worse, maybe Ve was still paying the price for Odin’s mistakes, suffering in the eternal torment. Life was agony, but now Odin knew, death was even worse.

  The valkyrie Svanhit’s ring was a hot weight in his pouch. He could call upon her and demand to know his brother’s fate, but, even if she knew the answer, it would change naught. And Odin could not afford to sacrifice the one favor the valkyrie might grant him on a single, vain question. Once, he would have done so, yes, but no longer.

  Solemn and bitter, he made his way to where Frigg sat on a rock, little Thor propped in her arms, staring out over the sea.

  The varulfur twins played in the sand nearby, innocent as ever. Frigg had told him he’d missed their first words. Geri had called Fulla “ma,” a scene that had apparently set the redheaded maid into a fit of laughing and tears. Freki, more amusingly, had called Vili “ma,” and that Odin truly regretted missing. He would not miss Thor’s first words. This he swore to himself.

  “Our kingdom is out there,” she said to the babe, “just waiting for us.” Frigg spun at his approach.

  Odin held up a placating hand. He hadn’t meant to startle her. “It is out there.”

  Frigg nodded at him, then fell silent, rocking Thor. Neither spoke for a long time. Odin couldn’t think of the words he wanted to say, couldn’t give voice to the feelings so pent up inside him.

  At last, he sank down to the sand beside his wife and took Thor from her. “He’ll never see him.” Odin’s voice almost broke. Pain swelled inside his chest, threatening to consume him, until he wanted to weep like a woman. To let break the dam holding back the tide, to not be king, not be the leader the Aesir had to look up to, if only for a moment. But that luxury no longer remained to him, and would never be his again.

  Frigg slipped off the rock and sat beside him, clearly sensing Odin’s mood. “Who?”

  “My father. He’ll never hold his grandson.”

  In answer, Frigg leaned against his shoulder. “Maybe. But he does see him, Odin. You who have looked into the realms beyond cannot doubt that. Borr—and my father as well—they do see us. Every day.”

  Odin had seen the Penumbra, had walked there, had fought a valkyrie, and had seen the innumerab
le ghosts that haunted all the old places of this world. But he had never seen Valhalla. He had not seen his ancestors smiling upon him. He hadn’t ever seen his father there. As he did not see Ve.

  All he had seen was darkness and hunger.

  Fuck, but he wanted to call Svanhit and ask her … ask her what? To change the nature of reality?

  He, a man making himself a god, still could not change that. He could not alter the past, could not bring back the dead, could not have back his father. He would never regain his brother. Even gods were not given all the things they might want. Not everything. Not really.

  Buri, Odin’s grandfather, had never seen Odin. His son, Odin’s father, would never see Thor.

  Maybe Loki was right, maybe the visions would consume him. But it was so easy to just … just escape …

  Borr held his newborn son in one arm, the other hand gently rubbing Bestla’s forehead. “What shall we name him?”

  Bestla laughed weakly. “You’re so convinced you can make a better world for him? He’s a sign of it, then. Call him Odin—the prophet.”

  Borr chuckled to himself, staring at his beautiful new son. Odin. Little Odin, prophet of the world Borr would build in his honor. In Buri’s honor. “Look,” Borr said. “I think he likes the name.”

  “Of course he does,” Bestla said. “I have a hint of the Sight.”

  Borr chuckled and ran his thumb over his son’s head. His son, a prophet, heir to a grand future.

  “He has your father’s hair,” Bestla said. “And his eyes.”

  Odin shuddered, clutching his heart. Was it the apple that had given him over to such introspection? Was it immortality? Or maybe the change was deeper in him, helped along by the transformation wrought by the apple, but not caused by it. How much his life had changed since then. A short time perhaps to grow from being a selfish, arrogant child to a man, a king who must lead an entire people. And a father himself.

  And he had never known his grandfather, but … But he had Buri’s eyes? As he saw his own father in Thor, his father had seen Buri in Odin. Circles, patterns of fathers and sons all just trying to do right by one another.

  Frigg, gods bless her, made no comment on his emotional display, instead keeping her head on his shoulder, eyes looking out there. As Odin so often did. “I had a vision,” she said after a long pause. “The future, I think. The day you and I first met, I saw us there, in Vanaheim, ruling as king and queen. Spring was all around us, and we sat in thrones, looking over a grand city. I didn’t understand what any of it meant. Not until you gave me the apple and told me of your plan to take Vanaheim. It was the first time I realized where we were in that vision. And we had taken the islands. We will succeed.”

  Odin handed her the babe, while she turned to face him more directly. It wouldn’t do for anyone else to see him so morose. Odin couldn’t afford to be just a man. Probably, while he’d been away, Frigg had felt the same, felt herself forced to be a symbol. Not a mere woman, but a queen. Even now, even in front of him, she didn’t show it. But he suspected her time ruling the Aesir had worn on her. Maybe that meant she alone could understand the burdens he bore. His father must have felt those burdens, albeit only as a jarl.

  “Did the apple make your visions stronger?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I still get the visions, but they’re so hard to make sense of. Once, I saw Thor grown. Big redheaded giant of a man, a warrior. I’m sure it was him.”

  “How?”

  “A mother knows.”

  Odin understood all too well. These days, he too sometimes simply knew things. Indeed, Frigg’s instincts might well prove a boon.

  “I’m afraid,” she said after a moment.

  The stark, blatant statement froze Odin. Frigg, who seemed to pride herself on poise and control—Frigg, who seemed ashamed to even hint at her true emotions, she would bluntly confide in him? Maybe that scared him, too.

  “Of the future?”

  “So many of my visions are dark, violent. Men dying by the thousands. And … Thor. Thor died in one of my visions—at least I think he did.”

  “I will not let that happen!” Odin slapped his knee. “That is why we are taking Vanaheim. I’m going to put an end to the darkness covering our future.”

  It is our children we must do right by.

  And Odin would, at any cost.

  Frigg rocked the babe who had begun to bawl at Odin’s outburst. She cooed at him, speaking to Odin in a soft whisper. “If we will take Vanaheim, why do my visions show more war, husband? Like destruction follows in our wake.”

  In their wake? Or in his? Odin was going to ignite a war between the Aesir and Vanir. But it would be the last war.

  “I’m going to build something that will last for millennia.”

  “And to do it, you’re going to destroy a kingdom that has lasted for five.”

  Odin rose, not wanting to hear Frigg’s words. She spoke the truth, sure enough. Too much of it, perhaps, or not enough. Maybe he did have to burn down the world around him. Maybe more would die before he could build his paradise. But that was the only way forward.

  The only way he could finally save his people, the only way to ensure Frigg’s vision for Thor never came to pass. The only way to protect the things that mattered the most.

  And what mattered most? People. The people he had left and the memories of those who had gone before.

  All of them, born up together in a beautiful mess of dreams and pain and hope. And blood.

  Blood binding him back to his ancestors and down into his children. Forever.

  59

  If Gudrun had not returned to Castle Niflung, Grimhild would have sent Mist spirits to find her, sooner or later. And Gudrun needed time, the chance to peruse the grimoire in privacy. Given her mother’s injuries fighting Odin, it hadn’t been hard to sneak back to the Ás fortress and retrieve the tome.

  Locked in her tower room, Gudrun stared at the mysterious pages once again. Of course, her efforts were as fruitless as always. The book was written in more than one hand, as she had suspected. The problem, however, was that many of the languages were so foreign she couldn’t even begin to guess what the symbols meant. Some looked like the runic script of the Old Kingdoms, but others, especially the older writings, featured characters unlike aught she’d known. Diagrams depicted spirit glyphs, those she could recognize. But without understanding the notes surrounding those glyphs, she’d have no way to know what spirit a glyph might call upon, nor how to perfect the spells tied to it.

  With a sigh of frustration, she slammed the book closed. All this effort, and for what? A tome she couldn’t read. Grimhild’s secrets were still denied to her. Though, watching Odin beat the woman to a pulp had granted Gudrun some small satisfaction—satisfaction she’d been damned sure to keep off her face when she returned and saw Grimhild still bearing the remnants of two black eyes and a broken nose. Healing was not one of the stronger gifts of the Niflungar, after all. Hel took life—she didn’t restore it. Grimhild could accelerate her healing by calling upon power from a spirit bound to her, but that became a spiral down toward possession.

  Hljod, whom Gudrun had been teaching to read primers, jumped as Gudrun slammed the book. Gudrun waved the girl off. “All is well. How go your studies?”

  “It’s … hard.”

  Gudrun smiled at that. Hljod had wanted power, the power to never be afraid again. Not of trolls or man. Sorcery was a step in that direction, though even Gudrun had things she still feared. Most of all, sorcery itself, she supposed, but she would teach the girl all she could, spare her whatever horrors she might.

  A rapid pounding on her door sent Gudrun’s heart racing before she could answer the girl. There was no way Grimhild could know she had the book. How could she? How had she found out? Vaettir? Would they search even here? It was impossible. Get a grip, Gudrun. Coincidence. It had to be coincidence.

  She stuffed the book behind a pillow and scrambled to open the door.
>
  Her mother stood there, glaring.

  Hel, she knew. Gudrun started to glance at the book. Was a corner sticking out behind that pillow? What was she doing? Looking right at the indication of her guilt?

  “You took so long I thought you might have another man up here,” Grimhild said. Then looked pointedly at Hljod.

  “I’m teaching my apprentice to read.”

  Grimhild rolled her eyes. “Come along.” At that she spun and began descending the stairs from the tower.

  Gudrun motioned for Hljod to wait in the room and followed her mother out. The farther they got, the more Gudrun’s heart calmed. If Grimhild had even suspected Gudrun had the book, her fury would have been immediately apparent. Whatever the queen wanted now, it did not relate to that book.

  Grimhild led her toward the dungeons, through long cells to the Pit—a hole in the dungeons, one some claimed had no bottom. Prisoners who sufficiently offended the Niflungar were cast down into that abyss, to fall, some claimed forever.

  What was the point, really? Why not just kill the poor bastards with a sword? Oh, but then, she knew the point. It was the fear—fear of the unknown, fear of the darkness, of the drop, probably worked better as a motivator than fear of something so mundane as a sword.

  As now, when iron chains suspended Sigyn over the pit. Grimhild had stripped the Ás woman naked and had draugar torture her for days on end, though, as far as Gudrun could tell, the queen had no questions for the girl. She had believed Gudrun’s lie that Sigyn had given the book to Frigg, and for it, Grimhild wanted not answers, but revenge. Given time and creativity, even this torment was like to pale before what final end the queen wrought upon Sigyn, unless Gudrun managed to convince her otherwise. Dead, Sigyn offered less way to control Loge and his Aesir pets.