Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  There was a muffled banging and shuffling inside the tower, and then a bundle of woven grasses flopped up from the roof and a figure emerged, silhouetted against the pale gray sky. The wind whipped up the girl’s hair, a long curling nest of dark red locks. She stepped up onto the roof and peered down at her visitors. The slender leather strap of a sling hung from her hand. “What’s wrong with your sister?”

  “She was bitten by something. Is Gudrun here or not, little girl?”

  “Little?” The girl smiled. “Well, I suppose I am little compared to some, but not compared to all. The good lord Woden never minded walking the earth as a fellow of modest size.”

  “Woden also lost an eye, as I recall.” Freya shook her spear. “If you’re looking to be more like the Allfather, I’d be happy to help.”

  The girl laughed. “Oh, thank you, but I am merely a humble apprentice and not worthy of such a holy offer.”

  “Apprentice? To Gudrun? So she is here?”

  “Of course she’s here,” the girl said cheerily. “Where else would she be? The good lord Woden has seen fit to unburden my mistress of the use of her legs, so she’s less inclined to wander the moors of late.”

  Freya frowned and glanced at Erik, who merely shrugged. She said, “Can we speak to Gudrun now?”

  “Of course you can, although I wouldn’t expect her to hear you very well, what with you being all the way down there and she being all the way up here, and asleep.”

  “Then wake her!” Freya snapped. “My sister is dying!”

  “Is she now?” The girl’s good cheer faded from her rosy cheeks and bright eyes. “What bit her?”

  “A beast.”

  “Like a fox?” the girl asked. “A fox as big as a man?”

  Freya hesitated. The general idea was right enough so she said, “Yes.”

  “Then I’m sorry. I’ll be sure to pray to the Allfather for your sister’s safe passage to the next world. But you need to turn around and take her away from here, right now. And when the sickness takes her over, you must be ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “To kill her.” The girl sniffed and glanced warily to her left and right, staring out at the distant hills before looking down at them again. “Go on now. Quickly.”

  “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen Gudrun.” Freya left Arfast in the road and she strode up to the tower’s curtained doorway, which was nearly hidden under layers of mud and clay and gravel plastered over the face of the building. She reached out and clawed a small handful of filth from the edge of the door, and threw the muck down in the road. A small stone shrieked out of the sky and smashed her hand, leaving a thin red tear down the side of her thumb. Freya flattened herself against the cold tower and wrapped her fingers around one of her bone knives. Out in the street, Erik grabbed Arfast and pulled the white elk back behind a crumbling stone wall of an old cottage.

  “I’m sorry that I have to ask you to leave,” the girl called down. “Woden has little love for a poor hostess, and I really would love to share some stories with you over some dandelion wine and roasted lamb, if you’ve brought any of either, but I won’t let you bring the plague into my home. I’m sorry about that, but there it is. And if you don’t believe that I’m sorry, then please believe that I have a lot of stones up here, and I’m pretty good with this sling.”

  Freya glanced at the blood tricking down her thumb and then up at the lip of the tower’s roof shielding her from her attacker. “Maybe, but you can’t hit what you can’t see, and I won’t be coming out from under here until I get this door open!”

  A second stone whistled down, ricocheted off a nearby cottage wall with a sharp crack, and struck Freya in the shoulder. She swore and darted to her left along the grimy black wall.

  Above, the girl muttered to herself. “Well, I’m sorry, lord, but I tried being nice to them and you can see where that’s gotten me. You might have intervened, you know. A bolt of lightning or a valkyrie or two. I understand that you’re quite busy, lord, with the frost giants and so on, so I don’t fault you for leaving this business in my hands. It’s a wonderful show of faith on your part, I realize. Just don’t fault me for this when you’re measuring out my soul, if you could, Allfather. It’d be mighty decent of you.”

  Freya slipped around the side of the tower, trying to catch a glimpse of Erik, but he was still on the far side of the crumbling cottage. She was about to dart across the road around another house when a third stone snapped off a distant wall and caught her in the hip.

  “Nine hells! What are these, magic stones?” Freya muttered as she ran across the street and slid around a corner through the soft mud just as a fourth stone flew down, impaling itself in the roadbed by her foot. Freya called out, “What plague?”

  “What?” the girl answered.

  “What plague does my sister have?”

  “There’s only the one these days. The reaver plague,” the girl said.

  “Reaver plague? Never heard of that before.”

  “It never existed before. But they raid our villages just like our sea-reavers used to raid the villages of Alba. And besides, do you know the old word for fox?”

  “No.”

  “It’s refur.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. And if your sister’s been bitten, then she’ll be one of them soon enough. Rabid, crazed, and burning up with hunger. She’ll tear you to pieces. You, your elk, and your very quiet man-friend over there.”

  Freya peered up the lane and saw Erik crouched at a far corner. He was gazing intently up at the roof of the tower, and he held a knife in his hand. “Is that what happened here?” Freya asked. “Was this village destroyed by reavers?”

  “Yes, it was. They came last spring. We’d heard the stories, heard them for months, but no one believed them, of course. And then they came.”

  Freya looked over at her sister lying limp on Arfast’s back. “There has to be something we can do for Katja. Has Gudrun ever tried to heal someone bitten by these reavers?”

  The girl paused. “No. But then, we’ve never had one to heal. When was your sister bitten?”

  “Last night. Midnight, maybe.”

  “Oh, is that all? It takes a couple days for them to turn. Wait there a moment.”

  Freya peeked out and saw the girl slip back down through the hole in the tower roof. The silence in the dead village spread out around them. The cool wind fell and the grasses stood motionless and the little waves on the lake dropped away, leaving the water as smooth as glass. Then the girl called out, “Hey! Come around this side!”

  Down the lane, Erik nodded at the tower and waved Freya to go on. They led Arfast back to the tower and on the far side they found a knotted hemp rope dangling from an open window. The girl leaned out. “Climb on up. Gudrun’s awake and she says she’ll take a look at your sister. But at the first sign of trouble, I’m throwing you out.”

  “Fair enough.” Freya climbed the rope and swung inside the room at the top of the tower. The space reminded her of home. The same bone and leather stools, the same pegs and nets along the walls and ceiling full of little tools and trinkets and clothes, the same little hearth against the north wall, and the same wool mattresses stuffed with grass.

  And on one of the mattresses sat a little old woman wrapped in tattered blankets. She sneezed.

  Freya waited for Erik to haul himself up through the window with Katja folded over his shoulder. He carried the feverish young vala to the empty bed and gently set her down.

  The girl with the sling watched them from the far side of the room. Her wild red hair stood up and out at every angle, and her face was streaked here and there with mud and soot. She wore black from head to toe, and in the shadows of the tower room Freya couldn’t tell exactly what sort of shirt or trousers or skirts she might be wearing. “Do you have a name?”

  “Wren.” The girl glanced at the sling in her fist, and then shoved the woven strap inside her sleeve. “It’s Wren. You?”


  “Freya. Erik. Katja.” Freya nodded at the window. “Arfast.”

  Wren nodded at the tiny crone on the bed. “Gudrun, holy vala of Denveller.”

  Freya came over to kneel before the old woman. Gudrun perched on the edge of the mattress with her clawing, blue-veined hands resting on her knees. Her jaw hung slack, her lips parted in a tiny, silent O. A few thin shreds of pale gray hair clung to her spotted scalp, hanging over her clouded, milky eyes.

  “Mistress Gudrun?” Freya touched her hand. “I’ve brought your seidr-sister, Katja of Logarven. She needs your help.”

  A thin rasping sigh escaped the old vala’s lungs. A bright bead of saliva gleamed on her lip. The stink of urine filled the room.

  Wren nodded. “She does that. Go on, she’s listening. Sooner or later, the good lord Woden will get her talking back to you. Go on.”

  Freya frowned. “Gudrun? My sister Katja was bitten by a beast, a reaver. She has a fever and won’t stop sweating and shaking. I gave her some herbs to help her sleep, and she’s still sleeping now. The last thing she said to us was to bring her here to you, and that you would know what to do for her.”

  The tiny crone’s mouth opened a bit wider and her pale tongue poked out, curling and trembling as though tasting the air. Freya leaned back, wincing. She glanced over at Wren. “Are you sure she can understand me?”

  The girl nodded, her wide eyes fixed on her mistress.

  Freya gripped the old woman’s soft hand and positioned her face directly in front of the vala’s unfocused, bleary eyes. “Gudrun, how do we heal a reaver bite? Mistress? How do we cure a reaver bite?”

  The crone moaned softly and a thin trail of spittle fell from her outstretched tongue.

  Glaring, Freya stood up. “This is a waste of time. She’s no vala, she’s a corpse that doesn’t know it’s dead yet.”

  “REAVER!” Gudrun reached up and snatched Freya’s wrist, digging her filthy broken nails into the huntress’s smooth flesh. The bent little woman staggered up, pulling hard on Freya’s arm to keep her balance.

  Freya grabbed the woman’s hand, trying to help her stand while prying the sharp fingers from her skin. “Yes, a reaver. She was bitten by a reaver. What do we do?”

  Gudrun lurched forward three paces to the center of the room and pointed a crooked finger at the unconscious young woman on the other bed. “REAVER!”

  Wren came forward to separate her mistress from their guest, and then she half led and half carried the old woman to the patient’s bedside. Gudrun peered down at Katja with her clouded, crossed eyes and her sagging lip dripping with saliva. “Skadi.”

  “What?” Freya stared at her. “What did she say?”

  “Skadi,” Gudrun whispered. “Skadi. Skadi! The queen is a witch is a queen is a bitch is a Skadi!”

  “Skadi? Who is that?” Freya asked. “What does that mean? What about Skadi?”

  Gudrun cackled, her shriveled head lolling back and to the left as the drool ran down across the side of her face. “Skadi knows, she knows, she knows!”

  Chapter 3

  Wren helped the shaking old woman back to her sodden mattress on the other side of the room. “Come along, dearie. That’s enough excitement for now. Let’s just sit down again and rest for a bit.”

  Freya watched the girl carefully undress her mistress and change her skirts. The wet ones were thrown into a corner, on a pile of several others just like it. “Well? Who is Skadi? What was she talking about?”

  Wren shoved her thick red hair behind her ear, and it promptly came free and fell in her face again. “Skadi was Gudrun’s apprentice, a long time ago. She left here to become the vala of Hengavik. That’s who Gudrun must mean.”

  “Why would Gudrun think Skadi has something to do with the reavers?”

  “From what I’ve heard, Skadi liked the old stories a little too much. Trolls and dragons and elves and such. She was a dreamer. Spent her life with half her mind someplace else, telling tales of Fenrir and Grendel. And when she was older, some people said that Skadi was actually looking for those creatures, trying to find their dens in the earth, their nests and whatnot, like they were real. Apparently, she spent a lot of time on Mount Esja, and in caves and holes.” Wren picked at her lip. “I can’t imagine the Allfather would be too happy with that.”

  “Why?”

  Wren looked up sharply, her eyes wide with confusion. “Because the good lord Woden spent ages killing off those beasties and locking them away. He didn’t go to all that trouble just so some witless vala could go about digging them all back up.”

  Freya shrugged. “Fine. Whatever you say. So do you think Skadi might actually know how to help my sister?”

  “Maybe, if you can find her.”

  “You said she’s in Hengavik. My father took me there once when I was small. That’s not too far away.”

  “You’re assuming the city is still there at all.” Wren crossed to the open window and looked down. “And that is a very large piece of meat you left standing down there. The reavers don’t wander around much in the daylight, but they might make an exception for your shaggy friend.”

  “Forget about Arfast,” Freya said. “Tell me about Hengavik. Are you saying the reavers are there too?”

  Wren grunted a humorless laugh. “This village used to have a hundred homes, with a hundred more spread out along the edge of the lake. It only took the reavers a few months to kill everyone or carry them off. And they pulled down half the cottages doing it, too. If this tower wasn’t so heavy and strong, it wouldn’t be here anymore, and neither would we.”

  “How many are there?” Freya joined the girl at the window and peered out over the hills. The world stretched on and on in rippling waves of grass and stone and snow, in layers of muted grays and browns, and icy whites.

  “More than I could count,” Wren said softly. She pointed at a set of rusty iron bars at their feet. “I keep the window barred except when I go out to find food during the day. At night we hear the reavers howling off to the north. But some nights I hear sounds down in the village by the water. Footsteps and breathing and sniffing and grunting.” The girl shivered.

  A heavy hand grabbed Freya’s shoulder and Erik turned her to look at Gudrun. The old woman was standing up again, her legs bent, her back hunched, her arms crooked like a raven’s talons. Her mouth still hung open, the tip of her pink tongue visible between her toothless gums, her chin shining with drool. But she blinked her colorless eyes, and again, and again. Each time that she opened her eyes, they were a bit clearer, her irises a bit darker.

  Her eyes shifted to Freya and the two women stared at each other. Slowly, Gudrun pulled her tongue back inside her mouth and closed her lips, and wiped her chin with her hand. She smiled a hideous smile that twisted all the loose flesh of her cheeks like curling smoke rolling up inside itself on a windless night.

  “Reavers,” the old vala said. “There are reavers in the hills of Ysland. The last time such things prowled these lands, the Allfather came down to earth to slaughter Fenrir, the demon wolf, and left the beasts lying thick upon the heather in bloody heaps and piles. Now the reavers have returned, but the demon wolf is still dead in his cairn and the Allfather isn’t coming to save us.”

  “Mistress!” Wren rushed to the woman’s side. “You shouldn’t be fully awake, you need your rest.”

  Gudrun shook the girl off her arm and limped back to Katja. “I remember this one. Nordasdottir. I met her when she was barely able to walk. So much promise. Heh. But she can’t walk at all now.”

  “She’s a very wise vala,” Freya said. “A good healer. A good ghost-talker. She’s helped a lot of people since her own mistress died.”

  The crone nodded. “And now look at her. Burning up from the inside out, and well on her way to becoming one of them. A reaver.”

  “No!” Freya grabbed the old woman’s arm. “There must be a cure. Katja thought you would know of one.”

  Gudrun bared her naked gums in another
hideous smile. “I don’t.”

  Outside, the white elk whickered and thumped his hooves on the soft mud.

  Freya stared at the woman’s withered face. “So that’s it? She’s going to turn into one of those things?”

  “Unless you kill her first,” the vala said.

  Freya grimaced and swallowed. A sharp snapping drew her attention back to the window where Erik was looking down at the ground. He snapped his fingers again, and started signing rapidly.

  “What’s he doing?” Wren asked.

  “He says there’s something out there, in the village, around the north side of the tower, out of sight.” Freya gripped one her bone knives and thought of her spear down on the ground, leaning against the tower’s wall. “It’s one of them. A reaver.”

  Wren dashed to the far wall and scrambled up a crooked rope ladder to the ceiling and pushed her way up through the grass thatching to the roof.

  “Stay or go?” Erik signed.

  “Go.” Freya grabbed the knotted rope, slipped out the window, and climbed down to the ground. She snatched her spear from the wall and crept to the corner to spy out at the northern ruins of Denveller. The broken walls already looked more like a graveyard than a village, and with no one to maintain the houses, the heat of the lake would no doubt draw every last stone down into the soft mud within a few years, leaving no trace of Denveller but the defiant black tower.

  Erik padded up softly behind her. Together they moved along the wall of the tower, peering down the muddy lanes and listening to the dim wet sounds of feet creeping about unseen beyond the broken homes. The morning sky was a perfect skin of pale blue, mottled only by the thinnest of white clouds hanging in the motionless winter air.

  At the corner of the tower, yet another lane came into view. And there in the clear morning light stood two hunch-backed reavers. They had the bodies of men, stretched and crooked as though they’d spent a year on some torturer’s rack and had every bone in their bodies broken and mended poorly. Their pale gray flesh stretched tightly over their sharp ribs and shoulder blades, and every bit of them was covered in a thin coat of black and white and red fur.