Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  All of the others were there as well, as always. The vast multitude of the dead, thousands of souls collected from every nation and every era, hovered in the distance like pale stars, ringing Omar on every side and pressing in with hungry and pleading stares. There were even a few Yslanders among them, plague victims set free of their curse as the shreds of the fox-soul dissolved within the seireiken, as all animal souls did. And they too gazed hungrily at Omar, eager to speak and be spoken to. But he held them all at a distance, as always. He could search them and question them at will, on command, as he had on many occasions searched through this vast library of humanity for answers time and again.

  But not today.

  He sighed. “For five years, we’ve been trying to unravel this little riddle, haven’t we, dear friends?”

  The physician and oracle nodded solemnly.

  “We need to try something new, something different. We know the reavers cannot be treated with herbs or leeches, or even with sun-steel.” Omar stood up and took a few steps toward the rusting hulk of the drill. “We can’t pull the fox-souls out of the people. So if we cannot take the contagion out without killing the patient, what can we do?”

  “Kill them quickly,” said Daisuke. “Hunt them down, and kill them all. It is the only solution and the only mercy they can hope to receive.”

  Omar shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”

  “You know,” said the physician, “simply because none of the medicines have worked so far does not mean that no medicine will work in the future. You had only the crudest of instruments and materials in that cave behind the falls. Surely with the help of the valas, with their tools and their knowledge of the plants here, a balm can be created that will soothe both the minds and the bodies of the victims.”

  “I doubt that, old friend,” Omar said.

  “Perhaps we can bind them,” said the oracle. “Trap them. Control them. Even cast them into a deep sleep, to hibernate until you can find a true cure, if ever. At least then they might find some peace in oblivion, or even in dreaming. Perhaps their lives in this world cannot be salvaged, but in the dreaming world they might live a hundred better lives before their bodies expire.”

  Omar smiled sadly. “We’ve been over this before. Even if we could sedate the reavers, even if we could grant them that peace, as soon as the warriors in Rekavik learned that their enemy was vulnerable they would hunt them down and slaughter them in their dens. That’s not the answer I want. I want a real cure. I want to give these people back their lives. All of them.”

  “If you can’t get the fox-soul out,” said the Aegyptian girl, “then you should put something else in.”

  Omar turned slowly to look at the little ghost lying on her back, wiggling her bare feet through the thin snow without troubling a single white flake. “Put what in, exactly?”

  “I don’t know, something nicer. Like a fish-soul or something. Foxes are hunters, right? Kill or be killed. Fighting over the spoils of the hunt. Always competing for things. Food, mates. That’s what’s driving the reavers crazy, isn’t it? All those wild instincts creeping through their brains. Especially mating, I guess. So put something else in there. Maybe a deer-soul. Or even a tree-soul.”

  “There are no trees in Ysland,” the oracle reminded her. “But the idea has merit.”

  “Put something else in.” Omar nodded thoughtfully. “Something to balance the vixen. Something calm, controlled, stable.” He ran his thumb slowly down his stubbled jaw.

  “Trouble.” The samurai stood on the western edge of the pit looking out over the slopes of Mount Esja and the bay below. “Two figures.”

  Omar trotted across the frozen earth and snow and stood beside the ghost. Over a league away at the base of the mountain he could see shapes moving in the deep shadows, almost hidden from the fading daylight.

  “One is a man with long hair,” said Daisuke. “The other is a reaver. A large one.”

  “What?” Omar squinted. “Are you sure? I can barely see them.”

  “Strong eyes. The advantages of youth,” the samurai said.

  “Your eyes have been dead for over eight years,” Omar said with a grin. “But I believe you. Are they fighting?”

  “No. They are standing very close together, but the man has not drawn a weapon. I think they are speaking to each other.”

  Omar tightened his grip on his sword.

  With Ivar dead, what reaver could possibly be talking to a man?

  “Can you see anything else?”

  A sharp howl split the silence, and Omar stepped back from the edge. He grimaced and looked at the samurai.

  “Strange.” Daisuke paused. “The man is heading back along the edge of the bay toward the city now. The reaver is running in the opposite direction.”

  “A meeting?” Omar turned away and walked back toward the hole and his other dead companions. “Could Skadi actually be working with the reavers?”

  “If there are other reavers that can speak, then they must also have larger portions of the vixen’s soul,” said the physician. “Enough to have clear fox-instincts and clear human-thoughts, and not the muddled madness of the simple reavers.”

  Omar shook his head. “I suppose so, but who?”

  “Hey!” The Aegyptian girl sat up, leaving no mark in the snow to prove she had been there. “I want to talk about my idea some more. What are you going to put in the reavers to make them nice again?”

  Omar felt his boot knock against something loose on the ground, and he knelt to pick up the hard brown lump dusted with ice crystals. Several tiny mosquitoes were crawling on the lump and buzzing their wings.

  “I have an idea of what to use,” Omar said. “And I have an idea of how to deliver it. But we should work quickly. If Skadi is somehow in league with the reavers, then God only knows what she could be planning. But whatever it is, it will not be pleasant for our lovely young friend with the silvery hair.”

  “You like her? The huntress?” The little girl scowled. “Her tattoos are ugly.”

  “I think they’re quite nice, actually.” Omar picked up a second brown lump covered in mosquitoes. “Now help me look for more of these. We’re going to need a lot of them.”

  Chapter 21

  Freya stood at the top of the steps looking down at the iron door of her sister’s cell. The sun was resting on the western edge of the world, setting the sea and sky afire with crimson and molten gold as the eastern heavens draped themselves in princely violet and frozen stars.

  My sister is a monster, and I keep her in a cell.

  Freya shivered.

  Wren shuffled through the snow to her side and stood with her, looking down at the door. She said, “I wish I’d had a chance to know her. If it hadn’t been for the reavers, I wouldn’t have been trapped in that tower. I would have been out in the world, learning and studying. I would have met your sister and traded secrets with her. Stories. Herbs.”

  Freya nodded. “You would have liked her. She was always the funny one.”

  Wren sniffed.

  “You’ve been awfully quiet all afternoon,” Freya said. “Come to think of it, I haven’t heard you talk to the Allfather once since I got back.”

  “No.” Wren sighed. “No, we’re not speaking right now.”

  Freya glanced at the girl again. She was sweating and shivering, with dark shadows under her eyes, and her breathing sounded just a bit labored, and wet. Freya grabbed Wren’s shoulder and yanked her thick red hair up and away from her face, revealing the tall and pointed ear beneath it. Wren tried to pull away, but Freya held her still as she stared at the ear.

  Wren too?

  “When did this happen?” she asked as a lump began to form in her throat.

  “Last night.” Wren wrenched herself away and Freya let her go. The girl stepped back and kept her eyes on the ground. “I was guarding the cell, and a good thing too, because some men came to kill Katja. But after they left, I went to check the door because it looked rusty. I s
hook the handle. And I shook the bars on the window.”

  Freya glanced at the iron door. “And she bit you.”

  Wren nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Wren.”

  “It’s all right.” The girl sniffed and dragged her sleeve across her nose, revealing her hairy hands for a moment. “It probably would have happened anyway, right? I mean, back in Denveller. They would have gotten me sooner or later. At least this way, I get to live. Instead of being killed by the reavers, I’ll be one of them. I can run away. Far away. I’ll live in the north, and I won’t hurt anyone, I promise.” She dropped her chin to her chest and began to cry.

  Freya held the girl to her chest. “Maybe not. That man I told you about, the one who cut off Leif’s arm and Fenrir’s head, he’s working on a cure, a real cure.”

  “There isn’t time,” Wren said hoarsely. “I only have another day or so. I should leave the city now, while I still can.”

  Freya stared down into the wild nest of red hair resting on her chest, and she saw one of the tall white ears poking up through the girl’s ragged braids.

  She’s right. I can’t protect her, even if I lock her up in a cell, she won’t be safe as long as she’s in the city.

  “Okay. You’ll go tonight, during the feast. It’ll be loud and dark, and everyone will be drunk, and I’ll make sure you walk out of here and no one will notice. All right?”

  Wren nodded. Together they walked back around the side of the castle and saw the men building up the bonfires in the courtyard and setting out benches and tables made from whale bones and tightly bound leather sheets. They continued inside past the cooks and butchers arguing about the food, and they were nearly back to Wren’s room when the girl paused and pointed to the end of the hall. “There’s something else. Something you should know about,” the girl said.

  Freya followed her down the hall, and then down a narrow stone stair. When they reached the bottom it was so dark that Freya couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, and she was about to suggest that they fetch a torch when a faint orange glow lit up Wren’s face. The light came from the ring on her finger and it gleamed just barely bright enough to reveal the dim outlines of the stones of the floor and sacks of potatoes around them. They crossed the room, and Wren stopped, pointing to the corner. There in the darkness, Freya saw a gaunt woman with dark skin and curly black hair.

  “Who is she?” the huntress whispered.

  “Her name is Roosa, or something,” Wren said. “She’s the one who was flying the skyship when it crashed in Hengavik eight years ago.”

  Freya darted forward, dragging Wren and her light with her to inspect the woman. “The pilot! Omar told me about her.”

  “Omar? Is that the old man with the dangerous sword?”

  Freya grinned. “Very dangerous. It’s solid rinegold.”

  “What!” Wren stared at her. “There isn’t enough rinegold in the entire world to make a knife. How can he have a whole sword of it?”

  “Apparently, there is quite a bit of it out in the world. It’s just very hard to find. In fact, that’s why he came here in the first place, eight years ago. He was looking for more.” Freya turned her attention back to the woman in the corner. “Omar seemed to think the pilot was living in the city. I don’t think he knew about this, though.”

  “Skadi said they put her down here because she was sabotaging the drill, stealing parts to build a ship so she could leave Ysland.”

  They both looked at the stranger, and the stranger stared back at them with her wide, sunken eyes. She sat at an awkward angle, leaning against the cold stone wall in her ragged, colorless clothes. Her bony hands trembled in her lap, and her breaths were short and shallow.

  “I think she’s dying, very slowly. No thief deserves to suffer like this.” Freya reached behind the woman to yank on the chain clasped around her ankle, and found it quite sturdy. “But even if we set her free, I don’t think she’s in any condition to escape, much less survive outside the city on her own. We’ll have to leave her here, for now.”

  The dark woman blinked at them. “Morayo.”

  “What’s that mean?” Freya asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think it’s someone she doesn’t like,” said Wren. “Maybe you should ask Omar. Maybe he knows.”

  After a few more moments holding the stranger’s hand and trying without success to coax her into speaking, Freya and Wren left the cellar and returned to their room upstairs. Wren eased into bed with a violent shiver, her teeth chattering.

  “Does it hurt much?” Freya asked. She touched the girl’s forehead and found her burning up.

  Wren shrugged. “Only when I’m awake.”

  “Then get some sleep. I’ll come get you tonight when it’s time to leave.”

  Freya spent the rest of the evening in the courtyard as more and more people came inside the castle walls to eat, drink, and sing. The bonfires burned brightly, the people shouted and stamped their feet, and even though she found herself within reach of Skadi or Leif, Freya found herself almost enjoying the evening as stranger after stranger rushed up to embrace her and praise her and thank her.

  The sheer noise and movement and press of life, the parade of smiles, the echo of laughter, and the smell of the food stampeded through her. She was a creature of the hills, of long silent nights lying in wait, and long sultry nights lying with her husband. The sound and fury of the celebration swept her along on a current of human joy and relief, the likes of which she had never felt before.

  Countless men, women, and children thronged around her to hear the story of the great hunt and the great battle with the demon Fenrir, and she found that with a little encouragement and a little mead, she could tell the story quite well. And she told it truthfully, for the most part.

  She let Erik stand for Omar, whom she never mentioned at all, and at the very end of their battle in the snowy ravine she gave Erik a death so heroic and godly that people were soon singing the praises of the Silent Stalker of Thaverfell. But after telling the story three times, others were able to take up that duty, and she found a seat among the guards to watch the festivities and eat, and to keep an eye on the queen.

  The women sang songs of love, and the men sang songs of war, and then the women and the men sang in a battling round that ended with more drinking and laughing and more than a few couples stumbling around the corners and shadows to celebrate with even more vigor.

  A brief lull settled over the crowd at one point. There was a moment when everyone seemed to be wiping a merry tear from their eye at the same time, when everyone was reaching for a glass at the same time, and everyone was thinking about finding an outhouse or ditch at the same time. And in that moment a small, elderly man stepped forward into the clearing between the tables and cried out, “I sing the song of Ivar Ketilsson, King of Rekavik, warrior, father, and hero to his people.”

  As the skald began to recite the epic life and deeds of the dead king, Freya slid over to Halfdan and said, “Father? Ivar and Skadi have children?”

  “Not with Skadi. He had a son with his first wife, the one who died. Pretty little thing, too,” the man said. “I liked her. She was nice to me.”

  “Where is his son? I don’t think I’ve met him.”

  Halfdan shook his head. “Young Magnus led the very first war party into the north after Fenrir killed Ivar, and Magnus was the first to fall. Precious few men returned from that raid to tell the tale.”

  Freya felt a cool wave of understanding wash through the ale-mist in her brain. “Was Leif one of those precious few?”

  Halfdan paused to think. “Yes, I think so. Lucky little coward.”

  Or a lucky little killer. With Ivar gone, Skadi still needed to kill his son for her to take the throne.

  “I suppose Ivar didn’t have any other family.”

  Halfdan grinned. “Well, except for me. He was my cousin on my father’s side.”

  “But then, shouldn’t you be king now?”

  “I’m
just a soldier.” He shrugged. “What do I know about kingcraft?”

  “Highness!” Freya called out over the din, and a few faces turned to hear what the heroine of the hour wished to say to the queen. “Have you had any luck with the ring of Rekavik? Have the valas taught you a cure for the plague?”

  The crowd fell a bit quieter still as more faces turned to hear the answer.

  Skadi smiled and raised her silver cup. “A worthy question. And the answer is that I have spent the day learning to speak to the souls of my ancient seidr-sisters dwelling in the ring. But there are so many of them, reaching back so far into Ysland’s distant past, that it may take some time for me to find the one who can help us. But be assured, all of you, that I will not rest until I have found the cure.”

  Her words earned her a few raised cups and quiet cheers before everyone turned back to hear the skald’s melodic retelling of one of Ivar’s duels as a young man. Freya frowned into her cup.

  Omar was right. She already knows the ring is useless, but she’s going to play for time, for months or maybe even years. She’ll use the ring and the possibility of a cure to keep these people serving her for the rest of her life.

  Evening turned to night, and the joyful celebration of life and victory slowly descended into a drunken search for a lover to grope or an old grudge to fight over. Somewhere between the beatings and the humpings, the queen excused herself along with Thora and Leif. By that time, Freya was long since tired of the feast and longing for bed, for sleep, for oblivion from all the madness and politics and fear, and even to escape the aching sense of her own betrayal. She felt Erik’s absence so keenly it made her arms ache that she couldn’t grab him and crush him against her at that moment.

  The crowd thinned and the last of the songs and stories were told, and the last of the good ale was drunk, and all that was left in the courtyard was a mess of bodies, torn clothing, half-eaten food, and crackling fires that were slowly dying down into smoldering coals and ash.