by Dave Freer
* * *
"So who is our hostess?"
"Ran."
"It's an odd name," said Liz.
"I wouldn't let her hear that," said Thrúd, with a wry smile. "She's quicker tempered than Papa-Thor, even if Loki does have her wrapped around his thumb. The mother of the waves is she who normally deals with drownings."
They were inside the cliff dwelling of the giantess Ran, which was where Loki had been heading with Naglfar. Liz was engaged in her least favorite pastime. Waiting.
Fair enough, Loki and Sigyn had a lot of organizing to do. And Lamont, having been handed something of a possible lifeline was trying to work out where he could track down any wisdom that might just help Marie.
Thor was training Emmitt. Jörmungand had gone off on some errand for Loki, and Fenrir had been sent off on a similar mission into the hinterland. The two younger boys were happily engaged in boy-mischief, and Ella was asleep. That left Liz and Thrúd to entertain themselves, as their hostess was off about her watery business.
Thrúd embroidered. It was what a noble Scandinavian lady did. Liz's mother would have approved too, so Liz had carefully avoided learning any of that type of art. Which left talking and being irritated. Liz and Thrúd were swapping stories of very different worlds—with strong similarities in places. Hunting, for one, wasn't that different.
The window—no glass, just a sturdy shutter—was open to provide Thrúd with light and Liz with the fresh air she craved. But she'd been advised not go out, alone. This was Jötunheim. Mortals walked here with trepidation.
A raven came to perch on the sill. "So this is where you are." It hopped from one leg to the other looking at them with intelligent dark eyes.
"Close the shutters," said Thrúd urgently.
"Too late," said the bird with a clack of its big beak. "Hugin saw you already. Clever Hugin, even if Munin doesn't think so."
Liz smiled at it innocently. "Want some more meat, bird? I gave you that delicious heart before."
The bird nodded greedily. "More dragon heart?"
"On the table." Liz pointed to the far corner, sitting calmly on her chair.
The raven looked suspiciously from one of them to the other, cocking its black head from side to side. Then it launched into the room—and quick as a flash, Liz swung the shutter closed.
"How do you feel about grilled raven, Thrúd?"
"I prefer them boiled."
"I'll peck your eyes out," said the raven crossly.
"And what good will that do you?" asked Liz. "You'll still be stuck in here. Now where is your other half? What's his name? Moron?"
"Munin," said the raven. "He's around somewhere. Odin gives him all the best tasks to do."
Ah, thought Liz. This was the greedy one who didn't remember too well. "I really do have some food. Not dragon heart, unfortunately. If you were hungry I might give you some."
"I'm always hungry," said the plump raven in a self-pitying tone. "But I don't trust you."
"Oh, come now," said Liz. "What have we actually ever done to you?"
"Threatened to throw sticks and stones at me. Shut me in a dark room. Promised me food you didn't give me."
"Well, you've threatened to peck our eyes out. And we'll let you out now. We just didn't want you to have to share with moron, uh, Munin."
The raven clicked his beak. "Would you believe that he found a stag that got killed by a runaway log-wagon, nice and mature, and he didn't tell me about it. So what food have you got?"
Liz turned to Thrúd. "You packed half a larder. All I have is multi-flavored jelly beans. And that could make enemies." She thought of the rakfisk jelly bean experience and felt decidedly unwell.
"What about some smoked salmon?" said Thrúd.
"How do you feel about that, bird?" asked Liz.
"Too salty and not ripe enough," said the raven.
Well, if it wanted ripe...
The jelly bean had been pink. She dug out the box from her shoulder-bag, and found a pink sweet in the new wooden box. She cautiously sniffed it, and then held it out to the raven. "Try that."
Hugin's greed exceeded his common sense by several orders of magnitude. He snapped it in half with his beak—and by the bouquet Liz knew she'd got it right. The other half of the jelly bean fell to the table.
The raven stood stock still, ruffling all its feathers up and closing its eyes. For a moment Liz thought she'd killed him. Then the bird opened his eyes wide and stabbed the remaining half of the jelly bean with such ferocity that he left a quarter inch dent in the table.
Hugin stood there with his raggedy black feathers all fluffed out, with a raven expression of absolute beatification on his ugly beak. He stayed like that for at least three minutes. Then he shook himself back to normal, and eyed Liz and the box with his black eyes full of unalloyed greed. "Would there be any more, oh kind and generous and lovely and wonderful lady?"
Liz looked. There were six more pink essence of rakfisk raven's delights. "Some," she said. "Not too many."
"Could I perhaps have another one?"
"Perhaps," said Liz. "Definitely, if you can tell me where someone is and what is being done to him."
"I'm your raven. I can find out anything."
So Liz described Dr. Jerry Lukacs as best as possible.
Hugin nodded. "Odin's got him. He's got plans for him."
"I need to know what they are. Then I definitely have another one of those... delicacies for you."
"Open the shutter," said Hugin, impatiently. "And look after those things until I return. Guard them very carefully."
He flew off making as much haste as a plump raven could.
"I think we have our spy," said Liz.
Thrúd nodded. "That's powerful magic that. What are those things?"
"Believe it or not, it is a sort of sweetmeat for children. I don't think we know what we're giving them sometimes. I wish I had a few more."
Thrúd looked thoughtful. "Well, let us see if the raven returns. And then we can talk to Ran."
"I'd just like to know what the other raven is up to," said Liz. "I think we'd better go and tell the others about this, eh? Especially Loki and your father."
Loki proved elusive, but they found Thor coming back from the sauna, looking glum.
"I need to get back from giantish parts," he said. "The Jötun are laughing at me for not drinking. And water will kill me soon anyway. I want to die in Bilskríner."
Liz absorbed the fact that he was perfectly serious. Well, Jerry had said as much about water in myth-Greece. "It's time to introduce you to tisanes. And maybe you need to lift a few boulders in public or do something Thor-like to put off laughter."
"It's in his head," said Thrúd. "The giants are all terrified of him. None of them would dare laugh. If anyone can give up drinking and not be laughed at, it's him. So. Show us these 'Tisanes.' If Papa-Thor has to drink them, so will I. Will they protect you from the bloody flux?"
She turned to her father. "You may not realize this, but this woman is a powerful witch. She bespelled one of Odin's ravens."
"Oh? Thought or memory? Hugin or Munin?"
"Hugin."
Thor nodded. "A pity it is isn't Munin. Hugin's prone to forget what he's been sent to do if he spots something tasty and dead."
"I can believe that. He has carrion-crow tastes," said Liz. "Now, to make tisanes I need some herbs. Any chance of such things in your stash, Thrúd?"
They found some mint, and after an expedition, some boiling water, a small pot and some honey. The end result was fragrant, anyway.
Thor sniffed it doubtfully. then tasted it. "It's not exactly Kvasir's mead is it?" He took another cautious sip. "But you can drink it."
"It's a very sophisticated drink," insisted Liz, hoping her amusement didn't show.
"Sophisticated?" Thor looked as if it wasn't a word that had been used in his presence too often.
Liz raised her nostrils at him in the way her pretentious mother cultivated so carefu
lly. "Yes, you know, something that someone of refined culture and intellect would drink. Like you. Chugging ale and mead is all very well for the uncultured ones without any finer feelings. But this takes a true connoisseur."
Thor looked warily at the clay bowl. "Oh."
* * *
It was a little later in the day, just before sundown, that Loki accosted her. He had a very angry trussed raven under his arm.
"Liz, I just want to know why Thor is wandering around drinking that vile smelling stuff with a sort of constipated expression and his pinky-finger stuck out straight. He looked at me as if I'd crawled out of a piece of cheese when I asked him about it. He said I had no appreciation of the finer things in life. He said I should ask you about it."
"I would have thought you of all people would have a grasp of the intrinsic philosophical Zeitgeist and angst that are symbolized by the delicate nuances in bouquet."
Loki grinned crookedly. "Don't let Sigi hear that rubbish or she'll have me drinking it too."
Liz grinned back. It was hard not to like Loki. "It was just a joke. But Thor took it seriously, and to be honest I think that it gives him an excuse to refuse drinks. I told him that alcohol dulls the palate. And it makes him feel good to think he's got such refined tastes. Play along, will you?"
Loki's shoulders shook. "Oh, certainly. But you do realize that Thor is still the greatest warrior of the Æsir? And that many fighters still look to him as a role model?"
Liz smiled. "Culture and an appreciation of the finer things didn't exactly blunt the edge of the samurai. We'll have to introduce him to a tea-ceremony next. Now what are you doing with that raven?"
"It's one of Helblindi accursed spies," said Loki, cheerfully. "I was thinking of baking it in a pie and sending it back to him."
"Um. Which of the two is it? Hugin or Munin?" said Liz.
"Hugin, I think. All ravens look alike to me. It thought it was faster than Loki the wild cat."
"Can we find out which one it is? I reached an agreement with Hugin. He was going to find out where Jerry was and what Odin was doing with him."
"Ah," said Loki. "Let's untie the beak, then."
"This is going to cost you at least two of those magic beans!" said Hugin, crossly.
"I'm sorry. It was a mistake," apologized Liz.
Loki eyed her. "You speak raven. A woman of many hidden talents."
"And some of them even useful," said Liz dryly. Loki brought out the sarcasm in her. "You better untie him, Loki. If he has news, that is?"
Hugin looked affronted. "Of course!"
"Oh?" said Liz.
"Odin's decided that he'll use him in his quest for wisdom. He said he was damned if he would hang on the tree again or part with his remaining eye. Now where is my reward!"
"He's going to hang Jerry?"
Loki nodded.
"We need to get moving then," said Liz. "Or at least I do. A dead boyfriend is no earthly use to me. I'm not into necrophilia."
Loki held up a calming hand. "You're not the only one with spies, you know. Although," he said, looking at the ecstatically shivering Hugin. "Mine does it for a love of gossip not for some kind perverse gastronomic reason. In one way we are too late."
"What!"
"Jerry already hangs from the world tree like rotting fruit." Before Liz could fall over, Loki put an arm around her. "But he will survive. Odin did, and Ratatosk has seen to it that your Jerry will."
"Ratatosk?" said Liz weakly.
"Drill-tooth. The squirrel who lives on the world tree carrying happy little spite-messages between the eagle that lives at the top of the tree and the Nídhögg serpent that gnaws at the bottom of the tree. A friend of mine."
"This is a crazy screwed up universe," said Liz, shaking her head. "Humans die if they get hanged, Loki. We're not built the same as you."
Chapter 25
On a limb of the great tree, an ash tree so large that its branches split the sky and its roots went down into the very bones of the earth, Jerry Lukacs was learning how you kept someone in suspense. The spear-wound in his side didn't help either. Hanging by his hands on a rope over nothingness, Jerry wondered if it was going to be his nerve or his arms that gave way first.
And now here was a squirrel climbing down his rope. It had unpleasantly big orange-yellow front teeth. A detached part of his mind said that there was something terribly undignified about having your throat torn out by a rabid squirrel. Another part of his mind said that worrying about dignity when you were about die was just incredibly dumb. But it was so surreal that it cut through the panic. Maybe he was already dead. The events of the last twenty-four hours gave him a sort of detachment about it all.
The squirrel seemed very amused by his predicament.
"Let your feet down," it said.
Very cautiously Jerry did as he was told. If he was already hearing squirrels talk it was probably too late to clutch at the rope around his neck. His hands and forearms couldn't have lasted much longer, anyway. They ached.
Feeling something to stand on under his feet made him feel really, really stupid. And so incredibly light and relieved that he felt as if he could float cheerfully up into the cold blue sky.
"I suggest you adopt the attitude of the corpses around you."
"Attitude?" Their attitude seemed to be... dead. Maybe the squirrel meant laid-back? Dead-pan?
"Position. You are being watched," explained the squirrel.
Jerry hung his head. It was a lot better than having his body hung. Ever since he'd been marched out onto a branch which led out over the cliff-edge, and was wide enough for three to walk abreast, he'd known that he was going to die. There were too many other decaying remains hanging there for him to reach any other conclusion. Why they had dressed him in a wide hat and blue cloak was another matter. They'd put the rope around his neck, and then Odin himself had come forward and sliced the ropes that bound his hands. Jerry's first instinct had been to grab the rope around his neck... which had been exactly what Odin had planned. A sharp jab with that spear, and Jerry had fallen into space, clinging frantically to the rope.
A great laugh for the Æsir, no doubt. It had been a slight payback to see a large snake drop onto the branch and send them scurrying back to the cliff. It would have been more satisfying if the snake had eaten them.
But what it had actually done was far more satisfying and more terrifying. Jerry finally had the courage to look down. He was standing on the snake's broad back. It was stretched between the branches. He only curbed his normal reaction just in time, or he would have been hanging... by the neck.
The squirrel on his chest chuckled nastily. "Góin likes you standing on her back as much as you like standing on it."
"Tell her I am intensely grateful, and I apologize profusely," said Jerry. This was not the time to let ophidiophobia get the better of him.
"Tell Loki. You're going to have hold on again later, when the snakes change shifts."
"Shifts... How long do I have to stay here?"
The squirrel switched its tail. "Nine days."
Jerry took a deep breath. "I might as well jump. I don't think I'll manage nine hours."
"Hmm," said the squirrel. "And if I got you a little extra rope and you actually stood on the branch? We could probably get away with that. They can't see that well. They must be oh, twenty-thirty leaps away. And there is a shred or two of fog blowing. Odin cheated a lot. I saw him."
"I... I think I could manage to stand for a while on the tree-branch. I'm not sure about nine days. That's a long time without food or water, even if I could stand still long enough. I'm sorry to be so difficult." Jerry felt foolish to be apologizing, and still incredibly glad to be alive.
The squirrel shrugged. "Well, there is some joy in putting one over the Æsir. The problem is thus. There are two branches accessible from the cliff. Both are guarded, night and day. They put the ropes on the upper one, and bring the sacrifices along the lower one. I can run up the trunk, the snakes can w
ind their way up it, and the great stags can leap between branches. But even if they would carry you, the stags are loyal to Odin. So there is something of a problem in getting you away from here. And before you ask, a fair number of those sacrifice-hanging ropes are rotten. A couple of them broke under my weight."
Jerry hadn't even thought that far. A drift of cloud was blowing cold and damp around them. "Can we try moving onto the branch, and talk about it from there?"
"Surely. I think Góin would appreciate that," said the squirrel.
The huge snake—which made a python look like blindworm—arched its back, lifting him. "Put your legs either side of his body," said the squirrel. "You humans have absolutely no sense of balance."
So Jerry knelt and then put his legs around the snake, and shimmied his way the few yards to the huge branch. He wouldn't have said no to guard-rails, but compared to where he had been, the branch seemed as wide as a six-lane highway. And even if it meant certain death, he wasn't going to endure that thing around his neck one instant longer. He slipped the noose free, and stood with in his hand.
"Slip it down the front of your shirt and tie it around your waist," said the squirrel. "That's what Odin did. Not with the noose though. Even without a noose I think it will cut you in half after a while."
Jerry was willing to bet that it would do a person damage a lot faster than it would cut them in half, but it had to be more pleasant -- and more secure -- than a noose around his neck. With painful fingers he set about unknotting the noose that had nearly killed him. There was enough rope to do as the squirrel had suggested. And actually, once he had it snugged around his waist, tight, but not going to tighten any more, it did make him feel a lot more secure. Even if he did fall, the worst that could happen was a three yard swing—on a rope that he'd proved could hold him.
There was a knot, he noticed now, just above his head. That was how come he'd managed to hold so long. Doubtless it was there for just that reason—to prolong the agony. and letting the victim cling to life for a few extra minutes. Jerry stood there absorbing the situation for a while as the cloud broke, letting him look onto a vista of distant branches and still more distant nothingness. He took a deep breath, relishing being able to do so. "Maybe," he said to the squirrel on the branch in front of him, "You'd like to tell me who you are, and just what is going on. I owe you my life. And I gather that Loki is involved."