by Lentz, P. K.
"Twelve hill!" the first youth to finish cries out. "And a frosty!"
A cheer goes up, and the villagers offer congratulations, which go ignored.
"Only three hill jotnar left," I hear someone say, "and four more Frosties!"
"Why didn't you just stay and finish it?"
The asker of that question surely does not expect an answer, and he gets none as Gaeira restores her ax and resumes her even stride. Eventually, the villagers walking in a cluster around us turn their attention to me.
"Who are you?" is naturally their first question.
"Thamoth," I tell them.
"You are from Asgard?"
"No. Originally a place called Atlantis."
"Where is that?"
"It is gone now. Very few of us are left."
But a stranger's life evidently does not much interest these Vanir. They want me to talk about my companion, who will not speak for herself. Gaeira, apparently, is a hero of sorts in these parts, a fact which fails to surprise me in the least.
"Were you with her on the hunt?" I am asked by a small boy. Most of those still with us are children, the adults having headed back to work.
"Part of it," I answer.
This excites them. Of the many simultaneous questions hurled at me, the one which I most clearly discern and elect to answer is, "Did you see her kill the frosty?"
"Aye."
"What was it like?"
As I answer, I am keenly aware of Gaeira walking within easy earshot ahead of me. "I have seen nothing like it," I tell them. "It was magnificent."
The children proceed to re-enact the fight with imaginary swords, each delivering death blows to their own unseen giant. Unlike Gaeira, these young warriors fight loudly.
It occurs as we walk that if I can get a word in, I might ask questions of them. This world is new to me and my most frequent companion is silent; I would do well to treat every encounter with speaking folk as an opportunity to learn. And I have been wondering something which I neglected to ask Heimdall.
I pick one of the less rambunctious boys and ask him, "Why are there frost giants in Jotunheim? I was told their realm is Niflheim."
It might be a stupid question, but the boy gives no sign of thinking so. "Hill jotnar are dumb," he seems glad to explain. "Frosties built the frontier wall for them and stay there to guard it. That's why it's so cold near the border. They use magic to make it more like their home."
In between the battle roars of the mock fights around us, some of which are in danger of becoming a touch too real, I manage to carry on my conversation. "Gaeira goes over the wall to hunt jotnar. Do giants not do likewise to the Vanir?"
The boy shakes his head. "They lost their last war with the All-Father, like they always do. In the truce, twelve Vanir got the right to hunt jotun in revenge. If they got caught, the giants could do with them whatever they wished—no consequences. That's what happened to seven, including the only other girl besides Gaeira. Four others finished their oaths. Gaeira is the only one left still hunting, because her oath was the biggest. No one else but her swore ninety and nine!"
"That's because she's better than all of them!" a girl pipes in, swinging a stick. "And I'll be just like her one day!"
"You should shut your mouth like her!" a boy taunts—and narrowly avoids the swift reprisal of a stick upside his face.
A mother calls out from somewhere behind us. Small heads whip round to look, and in an instant the cloud of children around me dissipates as they run off home. I have let Gaeira get more than her customary distance ahead of me and so must run myself briefly to catch up.
***
We walk for hours across country filled with farms and pastures, the houses of which remain always small black shapes in the distance, none proving to be our destination. Finally we set our course for one of them, drawing nearer and nearer. When we get close enough to see and be seen by its occupants, two figures emerge and begin moving towards us. I know then that we have reached her home. Gaeira does not speed her pace. I cannot see her face, only her braid of dirty gold, but I know the expression upon it is unchanged; it would not tell me, if I saw it, whether homecoming is for her a sweet or a bitter thing, a happy return to what remains or a sad reminder of what was lost.
The two figures are a man and a woman, both quite old. The man has dark spots on his bald pate, and the woman's long hair is the color of ash. He is tall and thin, she short and full of figure. I know that Gaiera's father is dead, so this cannot be him. By his age, he might be her grandfather. The woman is also, I think, too old to be her mother, if Gaeira's mother is alive, which I do not know.
We reach each other. The man stops, looking at us both, but mostly at Gaeira. A faint smile appears on his thin face. Tears of joy stream down the old woman's cheeks as she she runs straight into Gaeira, throwing stout arms around her midsection and pressing plump cheek to the breastplate of Gaeira's armor.
In receiving the embrace, Gaeira remains a statue. At least, she does at first; after a half a minute, her stony arms bend, rising just enough to touch the woman's ribs on either side in a bare return. Then her arms fall again, and the woman releases her, wiping tears with the collar of her plain dress.
The man is first to speak. "Welcome home, child," he says warmly. "You have brought us a guest." He looks at me, as does the woman, taking a break from smiling tearfully at my companion. "Who might he be?"
"Thamoth," I answer with a bow. "Gaiera has been a kind and patient guide. I am honored to visit her home."
"You have not the look of Aesir or Vanir," he remarks, not unkindly. "From whence do you hail?"
"My city was called Atlantis," I say. "It is not in your eight realms."
While we converse, Gaeira resumes walking in the direction of the farmhouse. Casting me a smile, the woman sets off after her.
"Not in the eight realms?" the man says in puzzlement. "Midgard, then?"
I shake my head. "I do not understand."
"Midgard," he repeats. "The lost land, the ninth realm. Is your city there? Did you find a way across the sea?"
I search the memories that Mimir's Well granted me of my prior life but find no occurrence of the term Midgard. I tell him as much.
He shrugs. "Then you must tell me of your home, wherever it is." He sets a hand on my shoulder, urging me on toward the house. "I am Afi. I oversaw this farm for Gaeira's father, and now I do the same for her. That is Dalla, my wife, who was Gaeira's nurse from the night the girl was born. We hold Gaeira as dear as though she were our own child. We are glad to have her back. And glad to have you, too, as our guest, Thamoth of Atlantis. Welcome."
40. Of Midgard
Afi and Dalla are perfect hosts. They feed me, offer every comfort, answer my questions and ask questions of their own about me, and listen intently to the answers. I am given a room on the second floor of the main house, Afi and Dalla making their residence in a separate, smaller dwelling. On learning that the room assigned to me was that of Gaira's late brother, I protest the placement, obligating Afi to take great pains in assuring me that it is fine. In the end, it is one of Gaeira's subtle looks, hardly different from the one she wears perpetually, which convinces me to relent and accept the arrangement.
That night, Dalla unwraps my gouged eye, cleans it and applies some medicines and a fresh dressing. I sleep well, and come the dawn I venture outside and pressure Afi to task me with me some farm work. Reluctantly, he does. Gaeira has already risen and is also at work, though not near to me. Thus I see little of her until we convene for a midday meal, at which an invisible observer might take me for the family member and silent Gaeira the stranger.
While we eat, I ask Afi about the place he mentioned, Midgard.
“An age ago,” Afi tells me, “beyond the memories of anyone but perhaps the All-Father and the most ancient jotnar, there was across the great Sea a ninth realm called Midgard, whose people were fierce and savage. Well, I should say that Midgard still does lies across the Sea, sin
ce it is not likely to have moved. But the Sea can no longer be crossed, for Odinn, in his youth, banished a serpent into its depths and bound it by magic. It is why we call the sea the 'Serpent's Sea'. There the serpent has remained, growing ever larger while dreaming of taking its vengeance on Odinn and devouring the vessels of any fool enough to try to cross the Sea in either direction.”
“Jormungand,” I whisper. In my mind's eye, I see the fang-filled maw, the splashing venom, the cloud-breaking wings of my Well-given vision...
Afi confirms it. “Aye, that is the serpent's name. The Aesir believe that when the final battle comes, their Ragnarok, it shall fly free and join the hosts of Niflheim and Muspelheim in storming Asgard.” He shrugs. “And maybe that is true. I reckon I shall be long dead by then. But what of you? If you did not come across the Sea, then where did you come from?”
I give Afi a brief account of my awakening in Hades, our battle with the Myriad and flight into Jotunheim. I tell him that I have since learned that I was prince of a city called Atlantis in the final days before it was laid low by a deluge. When I am done, Dalla chuckles and takes to addressing me teasingly as 'Highness.' Afi asks me to tell him more sometime, but for now, our meal is done and it is time to return to work. I attempt to do just that but am stopped by a tap on the shoulder from behind on my blind left side. I turn to find the point of Gaeira's sword in my face. She grips in her free hand a second sword—mine—and she hands it to me hilt-first. The moment I accept it, she attacks.
Her attack is deliberately slow. Were it otherwise, I would be dead.
She steps back and takes to circling. Her next attempt will not be as gentle. I do not entertain for more than a second the idea that I might have offended her somehow. I understand that she but intends for us to spar. For what reason or whose benefit, I am uncertain.
As soon as I take a ready pose, she advances and attacks me from my blind side. I barely parry. Had she not held back, my head likely would have been severed. Backpedaling, I make ready again, and understanding comes.
I must practice at fighting one-eyed.
We train for hours. Sometimes Afi watches us, laughing once when I end up in the dust. Then he is gone, back to work. I do not notice his comings and goings, for all my attention is needed to defend against Gaeira's strokes, almost every one of which comes from the black void on my left. My neck soon grows stiff from the constant whipping round of my head in that direction. She holds back, I can tell, but even still, she matches the description I gave her back in the village. She is magnificent, and more than once I falter in our fight because I am too much in awe of her ability.
Late in our second hour of practice, when I know I cannot sustain much longer the exertion—my opponent showing no signs of slowing—I throw down my too-heavy sword, smiling in defeat, and lower myself into an unarmed fighting stance. Gaeira tosses her sword aside, accepting the challenge. She lands the first blow, an open-palmed slap to my left cheek. It is followed by three more of the same, while I lay not a finger on her.
Had I not spent so much time with her, I doubt I would have spotted the glint her eye. I am not quite certain what it is. Not satisfaction, exactly, but... I believe her to be enjoying herself. I also know, in the same way, that it would embarrass her if I were to point that out. Knowing that takes some of the sting from her blows, such that by the sixth or eighth time she hits me in the face, I am laughing.
Soon after, I get serious. I finally block one, and a few more. Before another hour is up, I decide I have had all I can take of lessons for the day, however much I enjoy the tutor's company. By way of ending the session, I duck under one of Gaeira's swings and throw my full weight at her with the intent of bringing her bodily to the ground. We have not yet practiced grappling, and it is not my intention to start.
I do not precisely know what my intention is, only that it is neither violent nor educative.
My intentions cease to matter when Gaeira slithers from my grasp and uses my own momentum to throw me onto my back. I find myself lying staring up at her, sun gilding her mussed hair.
I laugh and tell her without shame, “Enough!”
I wonder for a few moments whether she will allow me to quit. Then her hand extends and opens, offering me aid in rising, which I accept. Her hand is warm and strong and smaller than mine.
As soon as I am on my feet, the instructor takes her hand back, picks up her sword and walks away.
41. The Answer
The next two days follow the same pattern. We rise early, work separately harvesting fruit and hauling water, breaking hard soil with metal tools and performing various other tasks about which I lack knowledge in two languages. Fortunately, my ignorance proves no barrier to doing what needs to be done. Near midday, we take a meal that Dalla has prepared, and afterward Gaeira and I swing swords and fists at each other. We grapple a little, with Gaeira forever ending up on top of me with her sharp knee digging into the small of my back.
During our third of our sessions, I grab her long braid and yank it rather harder than intended. Her hands break the impact of her resulting headlong fall, but Gaeira's face nevertheless lands a patch of the farm's soft red clay. As she lifts her muddied face to look at me, I hope to see no anger in her eyes—but anger there is, and it is well-founded. I open my mouth to apologize but decide against speaking. I rarely ever speak to her. There is ample communication between us without the need for one-sided words.
I set myself to receive her inevitable counterattack. When it comes, it is vicious—not by giant-slaying standards, of course, but by ours. Or maybe it is not so vicious, and I just fail to put up as much resistance as I should. After a few blows to my midsection, Gaeira grabs my hair, which is only just long enough to grab, and uses it to force-march me to the same patch of clay in which she fell. She rams my face into it, rubbing it around to ensure it gets plenty covered.
Vengeance exacted, she helps me up, and that is the end of our practice for the day. I wipe my face and set off to complete a few farm chores before twilight. Later, when those are done, I walk into the farmhouse to find Gaeira and Dalla in the open hall that comprises its first floor. Gaeira sits on the floor with her back to a large clay water basin. At the basin's rim, Dalla kneels, unraveling Gaeira's long braid. The nursemaid looks up at me, and I smile, but she does not. That is strange, even if her look is not unfriendly.
As I proceed inside, she resumes her work and speaks to Gaeira in a voice too soft for me to overhear. Weary from the long day, I take a seat on a bench well away from them, that they might have privacy if that is their wish.
Muttering, Dalla finishes unbinding her foster daughter's hair and separates the kinked locks which she proceeds to lower into the filled basin. She picks up a pitcher, which I expect her to dip into the water and pour over Gaeira's hair, but instead, she rises from the floor with the moderate difficulty of age and starts in my direction. Reaching me, she holds out the pitcher.
“She wishes for you to do it... Highness.”
Without accepting, I ask, “She told you that?”
Dalla purses her creased lips and scoffs. Rightly so. “You think I'm any worse than you at hearingher?” She forces the pitcher into my hands. “I know what she wants. And it's only fair, you being the one who got her so filthy! I have a meal to prepare.” Skirts swishing, Dalla heads for the door and leaves.
Left holding the pitcher, I am reminded vaguely of my stint as Gaeira's pack animal and boot-remover in Jotunheim. I stand and start across the hall to my assigned duty. Until now I have remained outside of Gaeira's field of vision, and she, unsurprisingly, has not spared me a turn of the head. I have become accustomed to these slights, which are not slights at all. I admire her for not acting or reacting as others would. It is in our natures to communicate with those around us always, in various small ways, even when we think we are not. Gaeira's vow would have her stamp this out and communicate not at all. She holds her vow remarkably well.
But not to perfection.
I come up from behind the basin, where her loose hair trails down over its rim into the water inside. Kneeling behind her right shoulder, so as best to use my one good eye, I dip the pitcher in the warmed water, raise it and pour a gentle stream down the curtain of dirty gold. My other hand finds a bone comb lying on the floor at my knee. I pick it up and run it down the wetted locks, careful not to let it snag. Gaeira's head sinks back a bit farther, lowering more of her hair into the water, implying that she had not fully relaxed until now. Did she think I might empty the pitcher over her face or wield the comb with deliberate harshness, as I might rake dry straw on the farm? Yes, I played dirty today as we sparred, but I am slightly hurt to think she would doubt that I would treat her with anything but respect in this hall of her late father, where I am a guest.
Does she not know...
Know what? I myself know nothing.
Inches from my arm, her white neck lies stretched so taut that I can see blood pumping in it. Hers is deadly blood, to be sure, yet even she could not stop me from taking her life now, if I had a mind to.
My hurt vanishes to know that she trusts me so.
Gaeira is no delicate creature, but as I run water and bone slowly down her silken hair, I treat her as one. After a few dozen careful strokes, I put aside the comb and set to work cleaning her scalp with my bare fingers, that I might better keep the water from streaming into her eyes. They are closed, but my own single eye is very open and does not stay where it should. It finds her neck and follows it down, watching the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest under the loose gray linen of her tunic.
She is so very alive, even though, by all rights, she ought to have been slain many times over by now at the hands of her deadly prey. And so am I alive, even though I once was dead and now I wear a dead man's flesh. We two are alive and together, in this moment, in this tranquil corner of a place called Vanaheim.