Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  She broke off, her eyes straying to the girl at her side, and then out across the faces watching her. “Ivar told me to get back as he drew his sword. The screams grew louder. The workmen all stood at the edge of the pit with tools and ropes. Some wanted to go down to help their friends, and others wanted to run, but they stayed at the king’s side. They stayed, right up to the end. The beast came up from the tunnel, and, well, you’ve seen them. Fenrir is a reaver, like the others, only worse. He’s larger, and darker, and faster. He’s…”

  Skadi swallowed and gripped the arms of her chair tightly. “Ivar ordered Leif to take me back to the city, and we fled. Over my shoulder I saw the demon tearing the men to pieces, scattering their limbs on the mountainside and spraying their blood into the air. I saw Ivar fall, and I saw the beast lift his broken body to feed on it.” She pressed her lips tightly together and stared down into one of the braziers.

  “When we returned to the city, I called out the house carls to kill the beast,” Leif said. “We searched the mountain for hours, but found no trace of Fenrir, and no survivors either.”

  “Yes, and a great pity that you didn’t stay to fight the beast when you had the chance,” Halfdan said. “Or Ysland would have surely been rid of its vermin that day.”

  The black-haired youth and the bearded man exchanged vicious glares, but neither one moved or spoke.

  The queen cleared her throat. “In the months that followed, we began to hear the stories of a creature attacking the farms in the north and the fishing villages along the coast. And soon it became clear that there was more than one reaver running loose. The plague had begun to spread. Almost every day we would hear of another village completely destroyed by the demons. So we built up our walls and sharpened our spears, and now we live at war with Fenrir and his beasts. Halfdan keeps our walls safe, and young Leif leads one of our war parties to patrol the hills. The reavers give us a wide berth now, and we have few attacks near the city. They seem to prefer easier kills.”

  The queen fell silent for a moment, and then looked up abruptly at Wren. “You have Gudrun’s ring? The rinegold of Denveller?”

  Freya stepped back so that Wren could stand before the queen between the braziers. The girl said, “Yes, I do. I’ve been learning to speak to Gudrun and the other dead valas of Denveller. It’s a very strange thing, seeing their faces and hearing their voices all the time, but I suppose I’ll get used to it eventually.” The girl paused to glance down at the ring on her finger, and then she looked up through her tangled, dirty hair. “Do you want the ring, my lady? Would it help you cure the plague?”

  Skadi smiled as she gazed down at the slender girl, and for a moment Freya thought she might say yes, that she might take the ring. And she felt the sting of knowing that there was no such ring for the valas of Logarven, as there wasn’t for most of the small villages of Ysland. The rinegold was rare and precious, and greedily sought by both valas and thieves.

  But instead the queen sighed and shook her head. “No, that ring is for you, for Denveller. I’m already wearing the ring of Hengavik, given to me by my second mistress, Sigrid. I don’t think I could manage two of them. But…” Her eyes widened. “…but there is another ring that might help us. The ring of Rekavik is very old, perhaps older than all the others in Ysland. And now we know that the den of Fenrir was just to east of Rekavik under Mount Esja.”

  Wren stepped forward eagerly. “Then perhaps the vala of Rekavik, an ancient one, perhaps the first one, maybe she knew about the den! Maybe she was here when the Allfather sealed Fenrir under the mountain!”

  Skadi nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

  “Where is the ring?” Wren asked. She looked from the vala queen to her apprentice and back again.

  “When the last vala of Rekavik died, her apprentice was too young to wear the ring.” Skadi gestured to the girl Thora beside her. “So the king took the ring for himself. I didn’t think it wise or proper, but it was his right. I thought that when Thora was older she would take the ring, but he never offered to return it. And Ivar died before I could ask the question of him again.”

  Freya shivered despite the heat. “So the ring of Rekavik is lost?”

  The queen shook her head. “I thought as much myself, until last autumn. We hadn’t seen or heard of Fenrir in many months, but one day a group of farmers came into the city, describing a giant reaver that attacked their wagons on the road from the northeast. Leif and his hunters went out to search for him, and they found him.”

  “We found him in the hills to the east of Mount Esja,” Leif said softly, his eyes flashing with a cruel bloodlust. “I had twenty young carls with me, all fast runners and faster blades, and we chased the demon up into a rocky crevasse in the mountainside. We thought we had him trapped in the dark ravine. But it was he who trapped us. The demon climbed the walls, circled around us, and fell on us from the rear.”

  The youth hesitated and licked his lips. “He tore two of my men in half before we realized what was happening, and soon the ground was swamped with blood and flesh and piss. The screams echoed so loudly in that place that my ears rang with meaningless noise. We could barely stand on the slick rock, and every time the demon killed a man he would fling the body at us, knocking down two or three men at a time. But we stood our ground and cut the beast, made him bleed, made him howl, and after a few minutes, we made him run as well. We stood our ground and we taught that animal to fear us. We earned more than mere songs that day. It was an hour for greatness, for glory.”

  Freya watched the youth’s face as he spoke, his eyes wide and fixed on her though he seemed to be staring straight through her. His lips barely moved, and a strange smile lurked in the corners of his lips, twitching as though eager to blaze across his face with wild and furious joy at the memory of the battle.

  “Thirteen died,” Leif said. “All in a moment, a few terrible breaths, a few last heartbeats. Fenrir shreds and grinds men as a miller grinds grain, and he paints the earth in blood wherever he goes. He is a flesh eater and a blood drinker. And even the survivors are victims. Two of my men were bitten, and began to change on the march home. I killed them myself.”

  “The ring, Leif,” the queen said loudly.

  “Yes, the ring.” Leif blinked and the dark revelry faded from his eyes. “I saw it on his finger, as did my men. Fenrir wears scraps of clothing around his shoulders and waist, like most reavers, but his arms were bare and we could easily see the golden ring on his claw. It shone in the light against his dark fur. He must have taken it from the king, along with the silver torques he wears on his arms. The reavers seem to like silver. But the gold was unmistakable.”

  Freya found it all too easy to imagine the demon, a reaver larger than all the ones she had seen before, tearing grown men to pieces, the air sick with blood and piss and fear. She steadied her hands by gripping her knives. “Lady Skadi, is there really nothing you can do for my sister?”

  The woman on the throne shook her head. “I can ply her with herbs to keep her calm, to make her sleep, to dull her madness. But nothing more. I have tried everything I know to cure the plague and I have failed at every turn.”

  “But with the king’s ring, the rinegold of Rekavik?” Freya stepped forward again. “Do you believe there is some knowledge in that ring that can help my sister?”

  “It’s possible, but I can make no promises. The ring of Rekavik holds the souls of countless wise women, and if the reavers once roamed these lands in ancient times, then one of those dead valas may know how to cure them.”

  Freya nodded. “All right then. I’ll go. I’ll get the ring for you. I’ll do it.”

  Erik gently took her arm and began to sign, but she turned away to face the queen, already knowing that her husband wouldn’t want her to go, and would at the least insist on her staying behind while he went on alone.

  “It’s very hard to find Fenrir,” the queen said. “And almost impossible to face him and live. Leif’s hunters were all deadly swordsmen and t
hey fell like children, helpless, before the demon. I will not send any more of my warriors to that end.”

  “I’m not asking you to send anyone else. But I’m no warrior, and I’m not going to fight this demon in some sort of glorious battle,” Freya said. “I’m just going to hunt it down like any other animal. Stalk it, snare it, and spear it.”

  “That’s not much of a plan,” said Halfdan.

  “I know.” Freya nodded. “But it usually works just fine.”

  Chapter 9

  When their audience was over, the queen’s apprentice Thora led the three visitors to another wing of the estate, to a pair of rooms furnished with very large mattresses and very soft blankets. Thora gestured to the rooms in silence, her dark and haunted eyes staring at them each in turn. She looked exhausted, as though she’d been crying all night and day and had only stopped because her body simply couldn’t cry anymore.

  “You’re going to hunt Fenrir.” The apprentice spoke very softly, her eyes straying toward the floor. “You’re going to kill him.”

  Freya nodded.

  “The reavers are victims, you know,” Thora said. “They all are. They were people once. Our people. Our families.”

  Freya nodded again. “I know they were, just like my sister. Did you lose someone to the reavers?”

  Thora nodded and whispered, “Yes, I did. And he didn’t deserve this. None of them did.” Then she pulled her black shawl tightly around her shoulders and strode swiftly down the hall. Freya watched her go, wondering what the other girl had been like before she lost everyone.

  She was probably just like me. Content. Even happy. Looking forward to the future. And now look at her.

  Wren said her goodnights and drew the curtain to her room, and Freya followed Erik into theirs. Starlight spilled through the barred window onto the bed, and thunder rumbled across the sky as the soft patter of icy rain began to fall on the heavy turf roof.

  Freya and her husband shed their clothing, letting their knives and coats and shirts and trousers all slip to the floor in furry, leathery piles. She watched him move to the bed, his bare chest and arms distorted by the shadows, his muscles rippling like a snow lion’s in the night. Erik stretched out on top of the blankets and closed his eyes.

  Freya paused, then untied the tight cotton stay from around her small breasts and let the cloth fall away. She walked slowly onto the mattress and stood over her naked husband as she stared out the window at the storm growling and pouring on the dark city outside. The cold air swirled over her skin and she felt the gooseflesh pricking down her back.

  The black marks inked into her arms seemed to ripple and come alive in the shadows, and she ran her fingers over them. Katja had made them, working the ink into her skin with a single needle, one prick at a time, to create the ancient icons for bears, and elk, and eagles, and snakes, and everything that Freya had ever hunted and killed. And woven around the black animal heads were the runes, the words of strength and faith and health and luck that her sister had given her, years and years ago.

  Warm fingers played on her ankles and she knelt down on Erik, feeling the heat rising from his bare skin as his hands traveled up her legs and belly and breasts. She sighed and closed her eyes as her husband gently massaged her tired muscles, and she felt his thighs begin to rock beneath her. Freya looked down at him, at the faint smile on his lips and the icy blue glimmers of his eyes. She said, “You know, there are times, not often, but sometimes, when I wish I could hear your voice, not much, but just to know what it would sound like. To hear you laugh.”

  He nodded seriously.

  “Or maybe sing?”

  He shook with silent laughter as he plucked at her nipples.

  “Or just… say my name.”

  Erik took one hand back to sign, “Me too. Sometimes.”

  “But back there, tonight.” Freya sighed again as his hands pressed hard into her thighs and buttocks, and he began shifting her down lower onto his hips. “Tonight, back there, I wish you could have spoken for me. Just that one time. Just because… seeing Katja like that was just, you know, I kicked her.”

  Her lip trembled and she felt the corners of her eyes burning. “I kicked her in the head. In the face. I kicked her so hard. I looked at her and it wasn’t her. Not anymore. And I was scared, and I wanted to get out, and I kicked her in the face, and… a part of me wished that she would just die right there.”

  The tears spilled down her cheeks, and Erik reached up to pull her down against his chest, and she huddled there against his warm skin.

  “I wished she was dead, so it would all end, so we could go home.” She lay very still in her husband’s arms, staring at the wall. There was a blazing knot in her chest and she forced herself to keep breathing. “And then that bastard Leif made me think she was dead for a moment, and as much as I wanted to kill him for it, I was almost grateful to him. And then I told Skadi I would… that I would hunt that thing for her. For her ring. So that maybe she could help Katja. Maybe. All for a maybe. I’m going to hunt a demon for a maybe.”

  Erik’s hand reached out in front of her and he signed, “We. We will hunt it, together.”

  “I know. We. I just keep thinking that soon it will be over. When we get to Gudrun. When we get to Skadi. But it just keeps going.” She whispered, “I don’t want to keep going, Erik. I want to go home. I want it to be like it was before. And what if we can’t save her? What if we have to drag Katja home and lock her up like that man in the mill with his brother? I can’t do that to her. I won’t do that to her. I’ll kill her first.”

  Freya gasped quietly as the pain in her chest grew tighter, and then she let go, and she sobbed a little. She wiped her eyes and said, “I will kill her. I’ll do it. I won’t ask you to. I’ll do it myself. I’ll kill Katja, when the time comes.”

  Erik wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head. Freya closed her eyes and felt her body relaxing one muscle at a time, the aches in her chest and back fading gradually, the tension in her neck and shoulders unbinding bit by bit, until she finally fell asleep.

  She awoke in the dark, still lying naked on Erik’s bare body on top of the blankets with the freezing rain drumming on the roof. He was snoring.

  Freya shivered and climbed off her husband, smiling in the dark as she felt his erection rubbing along her leg. Fumbling in the dark, she peeled back the blankets and crawled under them beside Erik, and closed her eyes.

  A woman’s wail rose outside in the night.

  Freya opened her eyes, listening through the noise of the rain. The wail faded away and did not return, but another sound drew her gaze back to the doorway. A familiar soft grunt came from the hall. She stood and crossed the room, feeling the cool air moving over her warm bare skin, and she pulled back the curtain to look out into the corridor.

  A dozen paces away she saw the queen’s apprentice Thora pressed up against the wall with her skirts held high around her waist. Her legs were hidden by the youth kneeling before her, his long black hair obscuring the darkness between her legs. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, her small white teeth biting down on her lip as she quivered, every muscle in her body straining to remain perfectly still. And slowly, the youth on the floor stopped moving his head, and he sighed.

  That’s Leif! He’s a bold one, right out in the hallway like this. But good for her, I suppose. It looks like she took what she wanted from him.

  Thora opened her pale lids and for a moment the two women stared at each other over Leif’s head, and Freya saw the flat, dead emptiness in the apprentice’s eyes. The brown-haired girl leaned her head back against the wall, no longer biting her lip, no longer straining, without any hint of joy or release or pleasure in her face. She just stood there, holding Leif’s head to her bare flesh, staring at Freya with no expression at all.

  For a moment, the huntress wanted to go to her, to say something, but Thora lowered her eyes and turned away.

  Freya closed the curtain and went back to bed, crawled unde
r the blankets, and was soon asleep. In the morning, she found Erik just as eager as he had been in his sleep, and she took her pleasure of him. He was still groggy when she started, so she led him through the motions, smiling at how naked his expressions were as he shivered and grunted beneath her.

  Afterward, they dressed and left the room, and found Wren loitering in the hall with a strange pout on her lip. The girl fell into step behind them. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Instead of talking?” Erik signed.

  Freya smiled and said, “About what?”

  “That I should stay here and keep an eye on Katja for you, while you’re out hunting. I mean, if the Allfather wanted me to come with you, then I would, of course, but there’s been a shortage of divine signs lately that the good lord Woden wants me to see the natural beauty of Mount Esja anytime soon, and so I was thinking—”

  Freya laughed. “Of course you’re not coming with us. And thank you for offering to watch my sister. I’ll feel much better knowing you’re here to keep her safe.”

  “Oh. Right, good, then that’s settled.” Wren smiled nervously.

  “Something else on your mind?”

  “No. Well, not much. Nothing of importance, I’m sure. Just a noise I heard in the night. It sounded like a woman crying, and not in a happy way.”

  Freya nodded. “I think I heard it too. Maybe the reavers killed her husband.”

  “Maybe. It’s just that, well, it sounded like it was inside the castle.”

  They found the dining hall after a moment of peering down the wrong corridors, and they nodded their good mornings to the handful of guards standing around the smoking fire pits with their bowls of mash and crusts of bread. Wren fetched a few bowls of their own and they ate standing over one of the smoky pits apart from the men of Rekavik.