by Lentz, P. K.
"Might not a hundred Valkyriar also be sent?" she asks.
Freya steps forward. "Essa speaks wisely, All-Father, if out of turn. I should like to go myself. My sorcery may prove of use."
Thor swiftly protests, "No slight intended to the Lady, but—"
"Agreed," Odinn cuts off his son. "Fifty Valkyriar."
His will made known, the hoary Aesir lord resumes his descent of the creaking stair.
Thor turns to Freya, smiling through his bright beard. "Ever do I welcome your fair presence at my side."
Freya gives a polite nod, at which time Thor spins and raises his right arm, its outstretched finger pointed at Thrym. He bellows at the giant: "Take heed, Thrym! Whilst we share a common foe I shall defend you as I would my brothers. But cross the Aesir, and the jotnar will need a new king forthwith, for the great empty skull of their old shall be split by Mjolnir!"
The lip of the blue-skinned colossus curls, uncovering jagged yellow teeth. He growls, a deep sound that vibrates the wooden planks on which we stand. Thor lowers his arm, wheels and makes to follow his father down the stairs, as Tyr has already done. Hel and Hodr follow, brushing past me without a glance. The latter aims a friendly smile at Freya, who I begin to gather is almost universally liked in the eight realms.
"Lady Freya," Ayessa says with downcast eyes, "it would be my great honor to be among the fifty."
"Aye, it would be," Freya concedes, but from her tone, I know what her answer shall be. "But it is an honor unearned. You alone have battled the Myriad before, but only lately have you joined our ranks. I cannot set you above others. But fear not. Before we embark, I would have you teach us all you know."
I witness Ayessa's disappointment as she answers, with head drooping lower still, "As you command, Lady Freya."
The Lady moves to leave, and Ayessa falls in behind her. I long to call out to her. I would ask her outright why she does not recall our last encounter this night. More than that, I wish to ask whether what Sigrid said is true about the day Ayessa's hunting party was attacked by jotnar. Did she choose the unknown over a return to Neolympus, that the gulf between us might be widened? Just as I always knew in my soul that she was alive, did she likewise sense that I yet lived and would seek her out? Did she flee to Asgard to escape me?
But I do not ask. I know Ayessa would only choose the answers that hurt me most. More than that, I know the truth already. Looking back, I should have known from the start. Having survived the giants' attack, she could never have failed to find her way home. From the moment I began my pursuit of her, I have been chasing someone who did not want to be found, least of all by the one she now knows as her murderer.
As I watch Ayessa vanish from sight, I know that I am nothing to her, worthy of no goodbye, not even a glance.
A hand settles onto my shoulder. It is Baldr's; he and I are the last two remaining on the scaffold.
"Valkyriar, eh?" he says. "They are rarely worth the trouble." He ponders briefly, then laughs. "I lie. Yes, they are."
I am rather less amused than he, but I appreciate his effort to cheer me. And, it occurs to me, he may be of some use. I wait until Freya and Ayessa are well down the stair before addressing him, then say quietly, "I shared words with Ayessa earlier tonight, but she seems to have no memory of the encounter. Do you know why that might be?"
Baldr is slow to answer, which immediately makes me think that he does know something.
"I should not tell you..." he says in a hushed tone, proving me right. If such a preface failed to announce his intention to tell me regardless of the wisdom of it, then the smirk which follows does not. He leans in close and whispers, "I would lay wager it was not Ayessa you met earlier at all, butLoki, Odinn's blood brother. He is a shapeshifter. Your girl has been helping him learn how to impersonate her. Odinn will soon dispatch him to your city—as a spy."
37. To Vanaheim
"I truly should not have told you that," Baldr laments more than once as we return together to the city gates over the fading thunder of the departing Thrym's giant stride. "I did so only because I hate to see you suffer more than you already have on account of that woman. It's not as though you can do much with the knowledge, so long as you remain confined to Asgard."
"Actually," I inform him, since he seems not to know, "Odinn suggested sending me with Gaeira to Vanaheim." I elect not to tell him of the vision that led Odinn to that decision.
After a moment's consideration, Baldr concludes, "A step closer to your home, but still—if Gaeira has been told to mind you, you won't slip away easily. You'd be a fool to try to traverse her hunting ground with her on your tail."
"I wouldn't dream of it," I concur. "Anyway, I don't know that I can call Neolympus my home. My people are there, but..." That thought has no simple ending, and so I ask of Baldr instead, "Will Odinn destroy Neolympus?"
Baldr snorts. "That is only for him to know. If he is sending Loki, then his mind is not yet settled. He is not one to act without ample consideration. He spied upon the Vanir for many years."
"Before deciding to crush them?"
"No, he first offered them peaceful vassalage. They accepted and betrayed it. He will likewise try to spare your people, if at all possible."
"Why bother, if we really are so much weaker than you Aesir?"
"Weaker allies one can trust. And father desires allies for Ragnarok."
"I thought Ragnarok was the end of time," I say, recalling what I have heard during my stay in Asgard. "Why should he need allies for that?"
First light has just broken over Asgard. Our steps carry us in the direction of Freya's place.
"Ragnarok is the last war," Baldr corrects me. "It is both end and beginning. The present order will be shattered, but some few shall survive to build the world anew." He touches the fingers of one hand to his breast. "I am to be among those few, and inherit my father's throne. To reign over what, even Odinn knows not. But he does know that his every decision may affect the outcome. And so he considers each one carefully, that the Aesir might be strong when Ragnarok comes."
"But what if..." I probe, carefully, "what if the visions granted by the Well are..."
"False?" Baldr snorts. "Whatever it is you are to have done in that past life of yours, you sure are eager to see it proved untrue."
"It's not that," I protest. "Not exactly. Ayessa and I... our visions differed. In my own, my crime against her was not nearly so... heinous... as it was in hers."
Baldr's brow furrows. "I am keen to better know that tale," he says. "You must promise to tell it to me one day. As for your divergent visions..." He shrugs. "Are the events of the past not ever colored by the minds of those who witness them? You are eager to see the old Thamoth absolved, while she would make of him a beast."
"Ought not the Well's magic be able to find a deeper truth, stripped of what the seeker might wish to see?"
Suddenly Baldr stops walking, turns to me and frowns. "I see the direction of your thoughts, Thamoth. Honestly, I cannot speak to the matter of whether old Mimir's pond gives good oracles or bad. Mimir was of the Vanir, and my father slew him, so perhaps it is his final revenge to make us think our doom distant, when in fact it lurks close. Still, I favor our chances. The Aesir will not be easily vanquished. And should some proof emerge that my father's visions are false, I have faith that he will do what is needed."
"Unless—" I begin, but opt not to finish. Unless, by then, it is too late.
As he is wont to do, Baldr again laughs. "Thamoth, I know you have seen a world destroyed, but..." He claps my shoulder. "Cheer up, friend. If any world is safe, it is the one you now inhabit."
With that, Baldr takes his leave of me.
"Two," I correct him in a voice too low for him to hear as he walks away. "I have seen two worlds destroyed."
Alone I complete the path to Freya's. Before I can knock, her door opens and behind it stands Gaeira. On her shoulder is the pack of hers that I bore through Jotunheim. She has her ax and furs, and I
gather immediately that she means to begin her trek home to Vanaheim. That she has not left already tells me that I am to accompany her. Freya is absent, presumably having gone to Folkvang to assemble her Valkyr. There are therefore no goodbyes for me to make.
Gaeira and I leave the city by the side gate we have previously used, freshly opened for the morning, and strike out across the plain. We go on foot, Gaeira in the lead and I keeping up, as before. One thing is different: she carries her own pack. Strangely I miss the burden, but I do not ask for its return. If she wished me to bear it for her, she would have flung it into my arms the second Freya's door was opened.
We take an indirect route to Bifrost, and along the way, I learn the reason: the visitors from Niflheim sit encamped alongside the main path from city to bridge. Our route bypasses them, and Gaeira pointedly spares not a glance for the towering form of Thrym in the distance. A short while later, the guard tower is the last thing we pass before the ground falls away under our feet and we appear to tread upon nothing more substantial than rainbows. Mist enfolds us, and Gaeira and I become inhabitants of our own silent world. My companion never looks back, but I watch her when I grow bored with the dance of shimmering lights around us. I stare at the golden braid bisecting her cloak and at the notched ax which has claimed the lives of eighty-seven mountain jotnar and five frost jotnar in exchange for those of the two Vanir most dear to her.
I wonder whether she has any family left living. Freya did not say. As we walk through formless void, with no sights on which to focus, I try to focus on Gaeira's problems, which make my own seem small by comparison. In the silence, I speak to her. I relate to her what I have learned this night: of the Myriad's incursion into Niflheim, and of Odinn's dispatch of Thor and Freya to combat it. I tell her that I do not believe they will succeed, that in spite of what Odinn believes, we soon shall be called upon to fight against the obliteration of this world.
Gaeira proves as poor as ever at conversation, and so I am left trying to direct my thoughts toward Crow or Iris or Ares or whatever else I can think of that is not Ayessa. But my current life has been short, the freshly awakened memories of my past life are as nightmares, and Ayessa is omnipresent in both. Even as I try to occupy my mind with other things, my heart continues to ache in constant reminder that she whom I feel should be my everything counts me as nothing and nobody. I wish to be happy that she has found for herself a place among the Aesir... that she has found love. But I am not. I feel only bitterness and jealousy and, afterward, shame toward myself for being so petty.
Would that Enyalios still held this body instead of having surrendered it to a soul so unworthy.
38. Of Hel and Hodr
Heimdall welcomes us warmly. It is twilight on this side of the chasm, so we shall stay the night with him. In her silent way that offends no one, by simply retiring to her room, Gaeira refuses the offer to dine with Heimdall and his cadre of warriors, but I am glad to accept. For a few hours at his table, I am able to forget who and what I might be. I drink mead and eat of the delicate pink flesh of a fish as big as a man. Since my last passage through his fortress, called Himinbjorg, Freya has scalded my ears with the magic herbs that let me comprehend Heimdall's speech. He and his men are glad to have a guest who has never heard their stories before and so they regale me with tales of battle that may or may not be exaggerated. It is hard for me to tell truth from fiction when a few days ago an accurate description of a frost giant would have struck me as far-fetched. But I care as little as they do what is true and what is not in their stories; I simply enjoy the distraction.
Because the delegation from Niflheim passed through here on its way to Asgard, Heimdall and his men are aware already of the Myriad's attack. Like Thor, they see the brewing conflict as nothing more than a fresh opportunity for glory. I choose not to dispel that notion. I shall not be one to rob others of their high spirits, particularly when I am sharing in them.
During the banquet, I ask Heimdall to tell me of Hel and Hodr. The first thing I learn from him of Hel is that I have met her father, even if he wore a false face at the time: she is the daughter of Loki, Odinn's shape-shifting blood brother. Loki sired Hel, through guile, upon a giantess, Heimdall tells me, a coupling which confuses me until I decide to assume that Loki can drastically alter not only his appearance but also his size. When he saw that his offspring was puny, the giantess's enraged mate threw the infant Hel into a fire. But the giantess saved Hel and sneaked the half-dead infant across the border into Vanaheim by night, leaving her there. She was found and cared for by Vanir who brought her to Freya, who was able to restore Hel's health, but not her appearance. Loki took responsibility for raising her, and loved her in his harsh way, but she has ever resented her father for having cursed her with the burden of life.
Even before she came of age, Hel began endeavoring to kill Loki by increasingly devious and magical means. Her efforts always failed, only earning her Loki's pride, which further infuriated her. By the time Hel came of age, her feuding with Loki had nearly embroiled Asgard in more than one war, and Odinn opted to keep the peace by casting her into exile. When next the Aesir heard of her, years later, she was ruler of her own hall in Niflheim, the wasteland inhabited by her kin the frost giants.
"And Hel's legions?" I ask of Heimdall. "Are those Aesir who went with her into exile?"
"No," Heimdall answers darkly. "Her golden guard are the slain, whose spirits she has learned to summon back from the slumber of the otherworld. It is an army of the dead, bound to her will by dark magic."
My borrowed blood runs as cold as must be the air of Hel's own hall. Heimdall probably takes my momentary pallor for nothing more than the typical unease of anyone hearing such a thing, though it is more than that. I myself am a dead soul reborn. How easily might I have awakened in icy Niflheim a thrall.
"How did Hodr come to dwell with her?" I inquire.
"He was the youngest son of Odinn, admired by all. The All-Father dispatched him one day as emissary bearing some threat or other in response to one of Hel's many attempts to meddle in Asgard's affairs. When Hodr was too long away, Baldr was sent after him. He found Hodr not only alive and well, but in good spirits and acting as Hel's companion and consort. He had fallen in love with her, or so he claimed. Baldr immediately suspected trickery and convinced Hodr to return with him to Asgard. Hodr did so reluctantly, for the purpose of explaining himself. Furious, the All-Father commanded Freya and every sorcerer and witch among our people to try to cure him of Hel's enchantment. Day after day they tried, but Hodr's devotion to Hel never wavered, nor did his determination to return to her side.
"Finally Hodr was sent before his mother, Frigga. No man knows what words were shared between the two in private, and none ever will, but Hodr emerged with his mother's blessing on his love for Hel, and that was not a thing even the All-Father could ignore. Set free, Hodr turned his back on Asgard and flew straight back to Niflheim and the arms of Hel. He is still ever welcome among the Aesir, and he returns from time to time to visit his mother. Surely he is with her now."
The hour grows late. The number of Aesir in Heimdall's hall dwindles as men set down their cups and retire. Taking my own leave, I climb the stairs to the chamber adjacent to Gaeira's in which I am to pass the night. Before opening my own door, I knock on hers, and shortly she appears, fully dressed except for armor and showing no sign of having been asleep. Why should she? I am not tired, either, our day having been truncated by the crossing of Bifrost.
"I should like to remain here to await Thor's and Freya's passing," I tell her. "The Aesir have been good to me. I find I cannot stand by and watch them commit a grave mistake. It is foolishness for them to challenge the Myriad with so few. Thor will never listen to me, but Freya might. Perhaps, together, she and I might convince the All-Father—"
Suddenly my cheek is pressed against the cold stone wall of the hallway, held there by Gaeira's palm. Her other hand pins my right wrist behind my back. My good eye faces her, allowing
me to glimpse the look of iron on her face.
Yet again, without need for words, she has made her meaning clear.
"Or..." I quickly concede, "perhaps we should just continue on as planned."
Gaeira releases me. I am hardly pleased to give in, but at the same time I know my thinking is wishful at best. My efforts would be fruitless. Where the self-assured, battle-loving Aesir are concerned, my voice may as well be the howling wind.
I go to my room, and Gaeira to hers. I rest, but do not sleep. I do not get to witness Thor pass through with his army of Einherjar or Freya with her Valkyriar as they journey to a battle I feel certain they must lose. By the time day breaks over Heimdall's fortress, Gaeira and I have already left.
39. Homecoming
Our route is different that the one by which we came to Bifrost days ago when Gaeira led me to Asgard. We never approach the great wall which I have since learned separates Jotunheim from Vanaheim. The air never grows chill or the ground frosty. Instead, the rugged hills give way to a green and pleasant country that I have not yet laid eyes upon. It rather resembles the land I glimpsed the Myriad invading in my vision from Mimir's Well. But then, parts of Asgard also looked thus, and for all I know, so do several of the other realms that I have yet to visit.
This is Vanaheim, the realm of Gaeira's and Freya's conquered people, the Vanir. In the first village we come upon, the folk come out of their simple cottages to greet Gaeira. She returns none of their friendly greetings, but as with everyone else I have encountered, they are neither surprised nor offended by her lapse in courtesy. They crowd around her with great exuberance, particularly the children, clamoring to learn how many giants she has killed. Gaeira cannot answer them, but she carries something which can....
"Show us your ax!" a boy cries.
In no hurry, so that the action might not even be a direct response to the request, Gaeira halts, removes her long-handled ax from its sling on her back, stands it head down in front of her and proceeds to pay no heed to the many villagers who scramble closer to count the notches.