by Matt Larkin
Odin nodded to Fulla, who came and took Thor from him.
As he turned back to his people, Loki strode up to him. Odin clasped his blood brother’s arm. “I suppose I owe this birth to you, in a way.”
Loki smiled, shook his head.
“I wish that I … well, of course he’s far too young for an apple, anyway.”
Loki nodded. “Undoubtedly. But, my friend, if it would ease your mind …” Loki produced a golden apple from a pouch on his belt. “I might have saved one more for just this occasion.”
Odin took the apple, his hand almost seeming to shake. A hollow opened in his chest. No words seemed worthy of such a boon. “Brother, I … You did this for me?”
“You’re welcome.”
“But if you had an apple to spare,” Odin asked, “why did you not give it to Hadding?”
“It would not have saved him. A man cannot change his fate.”
Odin grunted. He had mused over and over on that very topic. Perhaps Loki blamed fate, but Odin could not. Still, it was always hard to know his brother’s thoughts. This brother, at least. Vili raised a drinking horn in salute, before downing the whole thing in one swig, earning him raucous laughter and cheers from those about him. Odin nodded at him, then passed among the rest of the hall, accepting the well-wishes and embraces of men and women from nine tribes.
Nine tribes, bent to his will, united under his rule, as Idunn had bid. And the Vanr woman herself? She moved in and out of the light of braziers, eyes watching him like a weight on his soul.
Once satisfied all here had seen him, Odin drifted away, followed Idunn down the hall and down stairs. The Vanr goddess led him to the room Frigg used to brew her potions and salves and stood there, staring at the wall.
The brazier down here cast the room in heavy shadows that tightened around his throat like a noose. Long ago, someone had worked the Art in these depths, and the foulness of it still tainted these stones.
Odin was about to ask what she did here. But something was … odd. Those runes on the wall. He couldn’t read them, but they … looked much like some of the runes now wrapped around his chest and arms. After pulling away his tunic, he looked down. Yes, some of the same verses marked his body.
His stomach lurched. His palms had gone clammy. He did not want to ask the question he knew he must. “What is this?”
“Five thousand years ago, the Vanir were a tribe much like the Aesir. Not quite so primitive, but similar.”
Primitive?
“This was before I was born, of course. My grandmother came to them, after the breach to Niflheim released the mists and their chill. She thought she could lead them to a better future. So she led them across the world and to the island we now call Vanaheim. She was looking for something—the Tree of Life. Her people had called it Djambo Barros, but to the Vanir it was called Yggdrasil.
“Imagine a tree stretching up to the heavens, with roots reaching far down into the earth. And imagine it had golden fruits. The tree itself held the mists and the chill at bay, giving my people—including my mother, who was nigh grown by then—a shelter from the Hel-cursed place the world had become. And when they ate the fruits, it changed them. It made them immortal and gave them insights, along with powers much like you yourself have begun to develop.
“My mother ate the fruit, and I was given one when I was old enough, too. By that time, we already knew the apples didn’t grow quickly. There would never be enough for everyone in the world or even all of our own people. My grandmother, she never took one. I guess … I guess she missed my grandfather and didn’t want to face eternity alone.”
Idunn hugged herself, and Odin couldn’t stop himself from taking her hand. The goddess knew more of loneliness and despair than even Odin. Facing long centuries as she had, he would no doubt endure the same heartache. And if he survived as long as Idunn, would his hope have finally withered, or would he become what she was now? Lost and alone and clinging to one last, desperate dream of redemption?
“It was a long time ago,” she said, but shut her eyes for a moment. “When she was old—very old—she called for me and told me all the stories of her life. Wonderful stories of the world before the ice and the mist, a world I’d never known. She spoke of beautiful islands so hot you had to rest in the middle of the day, of waters so warm and clear that swimming was a pleasure … And she told me she feared she might have made a mistake in bringing the Vanir to Yggdrasil. She’d wanted to save mankind, not elevate a single tribe to godhood. And the Vanir jealously guarded the tree and its fruit, denying other tribes the warmth of the lands of spring.
“I don’t know. Maybe if they had tried harder, they could have found a way to banish the mists. But they didn’t. They cast themselves as gods. And they fought the chaos, yes, but eventually they cut themselves off from the rest of the world and let it languish. Our king, the king before Njord, he walked away from his throne and vanished, and the rest of us, we just withdrew. And for a long time, I watched. I watched with the eyes my grandmother had opened, as Vanir society became so isolated from the rest of Midgard we might as well have lived on another world.
“And maybe that was my fault. I let centuries, millennia pass, lost in doubt and unsure what to do. And then I started making pilgrimages to Midgard, determined to see the people who lived there. To find the strongest.”
Odin shook his head and released her hand. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this, Idunn. Or why you wanted me to take this throne, but I held my oath. I made myself king.”
She shuddered, then tapped a finger on the runes branded on his chest. Her touch left him tingling, and he backed away, pulling his shirt closed.
“I told you once you had become king I would give you one more task as the price for those apples.”
“And what would you have me do?”
Her eyes flashed with intensity he did not often see in her. “You will gather the tribes, all the Aesir people and march them to the west. Far, far west, beyond all lands you know. You must march on Vanaheim itself, and there, dear Odin, you must fulfill the greatest of your tasks. You must cast down the gods, overthrow the Vanir … and take their place.”
Epilogue
The town could not hold all the Aesir, and thus a thousand fires dotted the land around the hill, warding against the mist. The revelries carried on long into the night, ringing out the cheer of the moment, the people unaware of the tribulations so soon to befall them. Loki drifted among those fires, just out of sight, never quite one of the Aesir, never quite able to allow himself such an indulgence.
Instead he claimed a lone torch and wandered out into the wild, climbing the next hill over from Halfhaugr. There he kindled his own flame before settling down beside it.
The woman made no sound as she approached, though he felt her presence. She flowed about the hill like the wind, circling as if waiting for an invitation, even as she knew he would not offer one. Nor did he flee from her. The time for that had passed. Were they to march across Midgard together, as her plan entailed, he could not avoid her forever.
And so finally Idunn drifted over to his fire and knelt before it, the flame separating them, as it ever had.
“You do not savor the festivities,” she said.
“I’ve seen a great many festivals. One is not so different from the next.”
Idunn nodded slowly, then looked off in the direction of Halfhaugr. The fortress was just visible, rising out of the mist. “It is he, is it not?”
“You suspected that quite some time ago, I imagine, even before you first came to him.”
“He’s not your puppet, you know.” Her anger, so carefully concealed before the others, now simmered just beneath the surface, so palpable he could almost taste it.
“Nor yours, Idunn. You play a very dangerous game if you think to manipulate the Destroyer.” Loki might have searched for words to placate Idunn and still the flame burning in her breast, but anger, held long enough, became a poison one misto
ok for a shield. And no word, least of all from him, would drive Idunn to cast away her beliefs.
The Vanr woman grew silent for a time. “I know who you are, Loki. I know why you had an apple left. You had no need to eat the one Odin gave you, not after you tasted one long, long ago.”
“Longer than you can imagine.” She wanted to blame him—people always needed someone to blame for the tragedies of fate, as if, by pointing a finger at a cause, one might somehow obviate the result. Loki was used to it. Sometimes, it served to allow oneself to become the subject of rage. Sometimes, no other choices remained.
“My grandmother never forgave you for what happened to my grandfather. You know that, don’t you? I’m not going to let you do it again. Not here.”
“Ch—” Loki stopped and cleared his throat. He would not let her draw him into an outburst, especially not with their audience, lurking in the shadows. “Your grandmother was an amazing woman. But she saw the world as a simpler place than it really is. As someone who has lived as long as you have, you ought to realize that. And Idunn … if you come between me and Odin, you will regret it.”
Idunn rose, glaring at him. “How many worlds must burn before you?”
Loki shook his head. “Fire is life.”
The Vanr snorted and stalked away, back into the night, casting a last, spite-filled glance his way as she went. Her anger, her shield, would carry her far. At least until some final catastrophic event forced her to acknowledge the agonizing truth that it had protected her, had only allowed her to accumulate more wounds that, unnoticed, were left to fester.
Loki waited until she had drifted out of earshot. “You can come out now.”
At first, no one responded. Then, with a sigh, Sigyn rose from where she lay on her belly nearby and sauntered over to the fire. “I was trained by a master woodsman. How did you know I followed you?”
“Is that the best question you have?”
Sigyn snorted as she sank down beside him. “Tell me what burden you carry.”
Would that he could. “Take comfort in knowing your mere presence eases all burdens.” He stared into the flames, watching the dance, the pattern. Such an excellent medium for the Sight and all the terrible weight that accompanied it. The flames could speak to those who would listen, could reveal the past and future to those willing to suffer blindness and agony for it.
Sigyn slipped her fingers into his hand. So warm, so filled with life … and so much like her, so very clever, perhaps even more than Sigyn herself realized. She was putting pieces together in a puzzle she had only just begun to understand. And to not tell her everything was like having a serpent gnaw at his heart. But to tell her all … that would be worse, not only for him, but for her. He would not cast her into the ocean of darkness he was forced to look upon, not while any choice yet remained to him.
“I saw Yggdrasil. The first night we made love, I saw a vision of it, in my mind. Are you one of the Vanir?”
“No, Sigyn. I am … something else.”
“A god?”
“No. Nor truly are the Vanir. The space between gods and men is perception and arrogance, pride and foolishness. Naught lasts forever. All empires fall; all eras burn down to cinders.”
She squeezed his hand. “I love you. I do. But I want the truth.”
“Some things cannot be given, only taken.”
She tapped her finger against her lip. “I know what you did in that tafl game, but I can’t see how you did it, planning so many moves in advance. But now I’m left to wonder, if you have not done the same thing here, moving pawns here and there, down through the ages toward an endgame no one else has yet glimpsed.”
“Tafl has a finite number of moves available at any given junction. Life offers much more intricate designs.”
Sigyn sighed and fell silent a moment. “Tell me what it meant, your conversation with Idunn. Try to explain.”
He returned the squeeze of her hand. So clever, so certain. But missing some of the pieces and never imagining how excruciating uncovering the obfuscated truths might prove, not only to herself, but to all the world. As always, one faced the choice to shelter one’s loved ones and earn their ire, or weigh them down with knowledge they fooled themselves into thinking they desired. And as always, the middle path offered at least the illusion of asylum from either extreme, if only a temporary one. A half truth, to spare her the depths of despondency.
He sighed, but she squeezed his hand, demanding an answer. “It means the past cannot stay buried forever. It means the future will haunt our every step. We are, all of us, set on a path that has only just begun. A spark ignites embers in the darkness that, tended well, become a flame. The flame spreads like a living being, writhing and feasting, engorging itself into a conflagration that sweeps across the land and swallows all in its path until only ashes remain.”
Before she could ask more, he reached into the campfire and from it drew forth a fistful of flame, dancing around his hand, illuminating the awe on her face. “The fire is lit. Now we tend it. And we wait, for the inevitable inferno.”
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The Mists of Niflheim
“All I’m saying,” Fulla said, “is if you didn’t take so much mind about the doings of others, you’d have more mind for the minding of yourself.”
Sigyn rolled her eyes. Forests covered so much of Hunaland the Aesir had no real choice but to break up into bands. They walked in one such band, guards on all sides. Geri wiggled in Sigyn’s arms, but they had no time to let the varulf girl walk about on her own. “You seem to be intimating that the mind is some finite thing, as if my having studying some small portion of Hunaland’s history prevented me from learning something relevant to the Aesir. Forgetting for the moment that, as we are now in their lands, the history of Hunaland is relevant to us.”
Fulla huffed, no doubt more exhausted from holding Freki. The maid hadn’t had an apple, after all. “There now, you see that there? I’m not intimidating anyone, am I now? But you don’t mind yourself, so I have to do it for you. If I left you by your ownness you’d probably be emptying your chamber pot without warning the alfar afore you toss it. Sure as sure, a way to vex an alf is by tossing hot piss on them.”
Sigyn snorted. “I think that’d vex anyone. But that’s just folk superstition. If the alfar exist at all—”
“How can you still doubt it?” Frigg asked. “After everything we’ve seen. After tasting the very fruit of Yggdrasil, how can you yet doubt the reality of the Otherworlds?”
Sigyn shrugged. “I’ve seen golden apples, and I’ve seen trolls. Agilaz has seen draugar with his own eyes. Not many—” she looked pointedly at Fulla, “—not many reliable men claim to have seen an alf. But let us say your Alfheim exists and the alfar live in it. You think they spend their time standing about, invisible, waiting to have piss thrown on them so they might have a reason to take offense? Does that seem a likely use of a vaettr’s time?”
“Oh, Sigyn,” Fulla said. “Sure as sure, they’re not just awaiting having the chamber pot thrown. But you can’t rightly know what business they may be about. Could well be a dozen vaettir in these very woods, watching us carry on about them. All listening close like to your non-respecting tongue.” At that, the maid looked around the trees and frowned, as if she might suddenly spot these invisible watchers.
Before Sigyn could form an appropriate answer, Frigg spoke. “So these lands belong to Volsung. And you were saying Agilaz knew his father.”
“Knew of his father, anyway, yes. Rerir’s uncles murdered his father, Sigi the Swift, and stole the kingdom. A wanderer—some say a friend of his father’s—came to him and helped him retake that castle we saw a few days back, all in one bloody night. But Rerir didn’t sit overlong on the throne. He fell ill while campaigning against his neighbors, and he died before the birth of his son.”
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“Hmm.” Frigg didn’t seem to be truly listening. The Queen of the Aesir often remained preoccupied—hardly a surprise—but she ought to have paid attention to such details. A great many kings reigned in Hunaland, and Sigyn did not have tales of all of them, but they should use what knowledge they could.
“Something else troubles you?”
“Oh.” Frigg cradled Thor in her arms, looked to his face a moment. “Naught at all.”
Sigyn scoffed. If Frigg didn’t want to talk, she should not have asked Sigyn to join her band. Right now, Sigyn could have walked beside Loki, who surely would have engaged her in interesting conversation. No matter how many hours they spent talking, Sigyn could never quite figure the man out. There was always at least one more secret. Loki never lied to her—not that she could tell—but he cultivated mysteries and half-truths, manipulating Odin and the Aesir as effortlessly as breathing. To what end? He seemed to genuinely care for all of them, to want to save them. And yet, her lover still concealed so many things.
And Loki had shown her something she could not shake from her mind. He had reached into fire and commanded as though it were a part of him. Such sorcery would have sounded a skald’s fancy, had she not seen it with her own eyes, but the man’s only explanations had been evasions that revealed naught.
A sharp, brief scream rang out in the woods to her left. Followed by another.
If you liked The Apples of Idunn, you’ll love the prequel. See the dawn of the Njarar War and the tragic adventures of Agilaz and Volund.
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Thanks for reading,
Matt Larkin