by Kim Wilkins
Aud looked puzzled, but nodded and waited.
Vidar began to move around the huge trunk, eyes flicking over the knots and roots to find a familiar mark. Aud was right. He would never defeat Heimdall with his own swordsmanship, especially as it had been a thousand years since he had felt the weight of Hjarta-bítr in his hand, but if the troll-wife could be bullied into giving him just one of those poisonous teeth, he would be formidably equipped to force the bridge open. Fleetingly, he felt a shiver of guilt. For love, he had sworn away from violence, but this night he had more fears than hopes. The bark of the tree was rough beneath his palms as he traced his fingers over its swollen curves. Aud disappeared behind him. The tree had changed and grown in the last thousand years. The roots were a snake’s nest of confusion. He peered into the shadows.
To kill would not be necessary; to persuade with threats would. There would not be time for him to win Jarnvidja over with his story, as he had won Hel over all those years ago. Although he believed Victoria would be safe in the short term, locked in that steel box, Odin’s anger would intensify the longer he was frustrated in finding her. He was a powerful man, and cunning when sober. The journey to Jotunheim and back would cost Vidar most of the night. He crouched and leaned into a gap in the roots. He remembered a curious knot in the wood, like an old woman’s face, but in this half moonlight all the knots and twists of the tree were grotesque faces.
Then the clouds parted on clear sky and the moon’s full brilliance frowned down. He saw the glimmer of steel. He dived on it. His hands closed over the crosspiece and, with a mighty heave, he drew it from the flesh of the tree. Friction, a blockage, then a clang as it came free, still gleaming. The faint glow of red radiated from it in the dark.
He hurried back to Aud, holding the sword in front of him.
“I have never seen you bear anything but hunting weapons,” she said.
“I am a desperate man,” he replied, sliding it into his belt. “Where is the thread? Do the colors still shine?”
She held out his dark cloak, flipping up the lower corner for him to see. “I have sewn it into your cloak so that you don’t lose it. You see, the light of possibility is still in it. I fear if you do battle with Heimdall, it will turn black and neither you nor your mortal lover will be around to talk of your love.”
“I’m not going to Heimdall. Not yet. I’m going to Jotunheim.”
“Jotunheim? Now?”
“I have no time to explain. I will not be your master before this night is over, but I ask for one last service from you. Wait at the top of the ridge with Arvak.” He pointed up the wide, steep stairs. “I will return before first light and I need him to be rested for the journey to Valaskjálf.”
“You’ll never make it in time,” she said, then seemed to realize that her pessimism was unwelcome. “I’m sorry, Vidar. I will take Arvak up to the ridge immediately, and we will wait there for you until your return.”
Vidar pulled on his cloak, the feeling of invisibility a familiar one. Desperation lit his muscles and spine, and he began to run, to bleed into the darkness, on a frantic journey to the outlands.
Aud led Arvak up the steep stairs in the moonlight, then encouraged him to lie down in the long grass to wait for his master. She sat next to him, her back resting against his as he drew the deep regular breaths of sleep. She shrank under her cloak against the cold and gazed out at the high branches of the World Tree and beyond it to the plains that marked the border of Vanaheim.
Vidar would lose his love, of that she was sure. It was her fault, and he would find that out. Somebody would tell him: Loki, Odin, perhaps even Aud herself. So she retained no hope that he would come to love her once Victoria was lost. She worked on shutting down that part of her heart; there was no future for her and Vidar. Whatever happened on this night, she would need a new place to live. It would probably be Loki’s house.
Beyond the flat grasslands lay still fjords and gentle hills. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the long reeds at the water’s edge moving quietly under the impetus of the breeze, the moonlight’s silver glow, and grey shadows shifting over empty spaces. Somewhere, her son was sleeping, warm and curled around himself, lashes long on his cheek. The starlight that saturated her skin also glimmered above the house where he lay, and for an instant Aud felt a jolt of connectedness to him, as though sharing the same sky was equivalent to holding him. The instant passed and she dared not open her eyes for seeing how alone she was in the world.
Arvak’s rhythmic breathing and warm hide soothed her tired body and brain, and she fell at length into a light doze. The sound of hooves approaching from the east roused her, and she stood to see the shape of horse and rider emerging from the dark.
Loki.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said, drawing to a halt beside her.
“How?”
“I waited at Gammaldal for hours. Then I guessed that if you and Vidar were somewhere together, your guilt must have persuaded you to take him to the Norns. Is that where he is now?”
“I won’t tell you another thing.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he said, dismounting and setting Heror to wander. “You hated yourself for telling Odin and had to make it all better.”
“I didn’t tell Odin!” she shouted. “You did.”
“I was just the messenger,” he said, hand over his heart.
“You have ruined everything for Vidar. Odin has closed Bifrost and gone after the woman.”
Loki’s face twisted into a sneer and he threw his hands apart expansively. “What do I care? What do I care for a mortal woman or for Vidar’s heart? I care no more for them than I would care for a worm I see eaten by a bird. Life isn’t fair, Aud. Why should Vidar be the one who gets the better of it?”
Aud trembled in front of him, hearing sense in his words but unable to reconcile what she had done. “I hate that it’s my fault!” she cried. “He’s so unhappy.”
Loki shrugged.
She slid to the ground again. “He will despise me. I have to leave Gammaldal.”
“Are you asking me to take you in?”
She looked up at him, steeling herself for what she must do. “I can’t go back to Valaskjálf. Vidar says he has other relatives in the north.”
“Come to me, Aud. I’ll take care of you—until I get bored with you, which will happen very quickly if you continue pining for Vidar.”
Aud shook her head. “I won’t pine for him. I have yearned for too many things that aren’t mine to possess. I will live out my sentence in acceptance and submission if you take me in.”
Loki crouched next to her and touched her hair. His voice was cruel. “Acceptance and submission will suit you, Aud,” he said. Then his voice grew tender. “The moonlight suits you too.” He stood and gazed down into the valley. “I’d better go and see those hags before the night is over. I expect you’ve warned them.”
“No,” she said, “but they were very angry about my bringing Vidar. They’ll be on the move before long.”
He whistled for his horse. “Heror,” he said, patting the horse’s nose, “you head home without me. I’ll come back on foot.”
Aud watched as Heror galloped off into the distance. She turned to see Loki looking at her.
“You’re not going to stop me?” he said.
“No. I doubt that I could. What will you ask them for?”
He rubbed his chin. “Hmm, I’m not certain. I haven’t had long enough to think of a good favor, and now I’m so rushed, I hope I don’t do something rash.” He laughed, then pushed Aud with his toe. “Where have you hidden your sense of humor?”
“I don’t care what you ask them for,” she said, leaning her head against Arvak. She meant it; what happened next hardly mattered.
“You should,” he said, turning away from her and moving toward the stairs.
“What do you mean?” she asked, but he didn’t answer and she was left to wonder and to wait for Vidar throughout the long
night.
The sprint across the valley made his legs ache, the water of the bay was freezing, the swim gouged his lungs and made his shoulders burn, but Vidar did not slow. He called on every drop of his giant’s blood to give him the strength to continue. The big muscles in his thighs begged him to pause when he climbed out of the water, but instead he pushed himself up the slope and started running again. The cloak woven from Heimdall’s cloth was dark around his shoulders. From time to time he would pull up the corner to check that the rainbow colors still glowed in the thread of fate. On each occasion, the fear that he would see it turn black urged him on, as fast as he could go.
The cloak disguised him from the predators in the woods, and he turned off the track toward the marshy ground where Jarnvidja made her home. Given he was already dripping and cold from the long swim, the boggy ground didn’t bother him. Sedge scratched at his legs and the moon reflected in puddles and gullies of water. He sniffed the air. Smoke from the west. He pushed on. Cold and tired and lungs bursting and despair in his heart, he pushed on.
Jarnvidja’s home beckoned in the distance. A wolf howled, sending a shiver up his spine. He paused a moment to catch his breath, ankle deep in a pool of muddy water. He advanced more slowly, gathering his thoughts, allowing his muscles to restore themselves. The hilt of his sword waited beneath his frightened fingers. His hand closed over it and drew: lighter than he remembered. The house was made of mud, the roof of turf, behind it a mudbrick enclosure. The smell of animals was strong and hot in his nostrils. His blood thundered past his ears as he threw back the cloak and pushed open the door.
A round, hunched woman blinked up at him from the fire. One of her eyes was greatly smaller than the other, milky and half-lidded. A filthy scarf covered her hair. She lifted her nose and sniffed the air, an expression of contempt crossing her mouth. “Aesir,” she said.
He raised the point of his sword and pressed it against her chin. “I won’t hurt you if you give me what I want,” he said urgently.
“What do you want?” she asked, her eyes narrowing to slits.
“First, I want you to call your wolves and pen them where they can’t hurt me.”
“And after that?”
“I will tell you in my own time,” he said, dropping the point of the sword and pulling her to her feet. “Now hurry.”
Despite her appearance of age and feebleness, she moved quickly and easily, and Vidar told himself to be wary. He stood at her shoulder, sword at the ready, as she lit a lantern at the door of the house. She opened her mouth and howled, a long series of notes and yelps. Her voice echoed out over the fens and touched the trees in the distance. Dark shadows began to slink toward them.
“Come,” she said to him, “I’ll take them to the enclosure.”
One by one the wolves came, and she spoke to them in a strange, guttural half language of words and dog sounds. The lamplight reflected in puddles. The wolves eyed him suspiciously, but followed her orders as she ushered them into the pen. When the last was through she moved to drop the bolt.
“Wait,” he said, “which one is Mánagarm?”
Jarnvidja turned her face to him and growled low in her throat. “Who told you of Mánagarm?”
Vidar touched the point of his sword to the soft flesh at her side. “Bring her out.” Jarnvidja emitted another strange noise and one of the wolves split off from the pack and came toward her. She was grey and black, hunched in the shoulders, with a long, heavy tail. She looked no more dangerous than the others, but Vidar kept his distance anyway.
“Bring her inside and chain her,” Vidar said, stepping back. “I’ll instruct you what to do next.”
Jarnvidja shot the bolt and guided Mánagarm ahead of them into the house. By the firelight, she fetched a chain and chained the animal by her back leg to a carved pillar. Mánagarm seemed too placid to be the fearsome wolf his mother had told him about and Vidar grew suspicious.
“Is this really the mighty Mánagarm?” Vidar asked.
“It is.”
“With teeth and claws deadly to Aesir?”
“Yes. Because Aesir are pitiless scum and are less trouble when dead.”
Vidar didn’t respond to her insult. “She looks no different from the others.”
“Look a little closer, Vidar. First, the others are all female. This one is my son.”
Vidar allowed himself a little smile for not spotting the obvious difference. “I see.”
“Second, if you give me an object that belongs to your family, I will show you what my son is capable of.”
Vidar reached into his pack and found the carving he’d packed as a present for Victoria. He flung it to the dirt floor at Jarnvidja’s feet. “Go on.”
She spoke to the wolf, who lifted a paw and brought it down on the object. One of his claws scratched the wood lightly, and the carving suddenly blew into pieces. Vidar ducked as a flying splinter flew past his face.
“So you see,” Jarnvidja said, “that Mánagarm is indeed mighty against Aesir, though I expect you now wish to kill him.”
“No, you misunderstand me. I mean no greater harm. I only want one of his teeth.”
Jarnvidja grew pale. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We cannot anger him so.”
“That is why he’s chained.”
Her voice became plaintive. “Then let me go to the fens and gather herbs for a sleeping medicine. We can’t pull his tooth while he is conscious.”
“There isn’t time,” he said. “You are his mother. He will allow you to do it.” Vidar lifted the sword again, pointed it at her heart. “You cannot refuse, troll-wife.”
She locked eyes with him in the dim room, while the wolf waited at her feet. “So I cannot,” she said at last, “but I must warn you that anger makes him grow.”
Vidar tasted a hint of unease. He dropped his voice. “I need one tooth, then I will leave you and your wolves alone forever.”
“He doesn’t look different from the girls, but they eat chickens and he eats anger.”
“Just the tooth, Jarnvidja.”
“I give him a little every day, tell him stories about your father and brothers, even some about you. He thrives on it, it keeps him alive. But too much anger and—”
“Enough!” Vidar cried. He was tired, and brutally aware that the night was slipping away. “I don’t care if he’s ten feet tall tomorrow, for I leave this place tonight. Get me a tooth, and wrap it safely in something of yours, and I will leave you be.”
Jarnvidja crouched forward, speaking in a low, comforting voice to the wolf. She pulled a ribbon from her apron and encouraged the wolf to open his mouth. Vidar kept his sword steady on her back. The wolf snarled, the snarl grew into a yelp, into a howl. Vidar took a step back. A splatter of blood hit the floor and Jarnvidja fell backward, holding the tooth aloft.
Vidar could hear nothing over the hideous howling. The animal snapped its jaws and shook its head right and left. Mánagarm tilted back his head and Vidar could see the bloody gap where the tooth had been. His jaws opened wide, his body shuddered and, easy as taking a breath, he swelled, becoming three inches taller in seconds. A fierce yellow light crept into his eyes and he shook at his chain angrily. Outside, the other wolves had started to bark and howl.
Vidar was so amazed by this sight that his notice was momentarily diverted from Jarnvidja. Movement from the corner of his eye jolted him back to attention. Too late he saw that she clutched the bloody tooth in her hand, ready to strike him with it. A white-hot urgency gripped him. Without a moment’s shadow to think, he brought up his sword and thrust it between her ribs.
A gasp. His or hers, he did not know.
He pulled the sword out, was horrified by the slide and the friction, once so familiar to him. Blood began to flow. She dropped the tooth and clutched the wound. Mánagarm’s growling abruptly stopped.
“Fool,” she wheezed. “You set in motion your family’s fate.”
She fell to the ground with a thump, dead.
Vidar turned. Mánagarm stared at Jarnvidja, looking for all the world like the son she had claimed him for, bewildered at his mother’s death. He turned his eyes to Vidar and howled.
Vidar untied the scarf from Jarnvidja’s head. She was almost bald beneath but for some wispy white hairs. Using the scarf, he carefully picked up the tooth and wrapped it, then tied it into the corner of his cloak. The howling intensified. He glanced over his shoulder to see that the monster was growing again. Jarnvidja’s words echoed in his head and a cold sense of dread overcame him.
He turned and ran, leaving Mánagarm to strain against the metal cuff, which would pinch him and make him angrier, make him larger, and pinch him all the more. No energy could be expended thinking about the future, nor about the vow to himself he had broken. There was only the energy to run, on and on into the night, racing the sunrise.
He hit the water in the dark, swam until his muscles felt they would explode, pushing himself as fast as he could go. He refused to look up, as though the sky would stay dark as long as he wasn’t watching it, but when he dragged himself to shore, the deeper shades were giving way to blue in the distant east.
“It’s not morning,” he called to the indifferent sky, stumbling forward and falling to his knees in hopelessness, as the first beam of orange sun hit the shadowy branches of the World Tree.
Thirty-Three
Aud waited for him at the top of the three hundred and thirty-three stairs. He collapsed on the grass and stared up at the dawn sky.
“I didn’t make it,” he said, hopeless and despondent.
“The night will come again,” she said, fetching him the water flask. “Do you have what you need to force Heimdall to open the bridge?”
Vidar sat up and took a long draught of the water. “I do, but I fear Victoria may not still be alive by evening.” He struggled to his feet. “I must go to Valaskjálf and wait near Bifrost. The moment that the sun falls behind the world I’ll—”
Aud’s hand was on his shoulder. “Don’t be a fool. You need to rest. You can do nothing during daylight, so return with me to Gammaldal. Eat, sleep and prepare yourself.”