Limestone walls cascaded downward along the vault of the immense cavern. The stony pastel-colored folds and suspended waves of rock were a wondrous sight, their hues enhanced by the light of hundreds of orbs, burning collectively like a star-field with the same flaring intensity as the fire-globe Aurelius had borrowed from Fenris.
He glanced at Clarinda. The sight of her chagrined smile elicited recent memories and he tried to focus on recalling the last few hours as a distraction from the lift’s downward movement.
He’d awakened earlier to the sounds of serving staff setting tables and an ice-storm beating against the shuttered windows of the great hall, thankful for the warmth of the common room and its burning lamps and fires. Seeing the blizzard outside made him realize that, between Hela’s citadel and the wastes of Niflheim, he’d become too used to the whites and grays of the death queen’s realms, and almost forgotten what color was like.
Aurelius and Clarinda pleasantly discovered that they were in each other’s arms on the same couch before the hearth where they’d fallen asleep. There’d been an awkwardness as they detached themselves, leaving the cozy warmth of each other and the furs to rise and start the day. They were mutually unsure of what to do about their feelings, but not denying that those feelings were there.
Aurelius mumbled something about trying to stoke the fire, while Clarinda said she’d find fresh coffee in the kitchen. She’d found a full staff of dwarves busily tending the ovens, and preparing a variety of breakfasts for the guests who’d soon be coming from their rooms for the descent into Nidaveller or (more rarely, according to Fenris) to venture forth across the nearby Giöll Bridge that led to the Port of Niflheim.
Later, when the company had again gathered, Aurelius clarified a point about that day’s travel plans.
“So, although you’re advising we take the dwarf caves to reach Mount Glittertind,” Aurelius asked Fenris at the breakfast table, “there is a Rune Gate on the Sea of Niflheim?”
“A runeporte that’s only a half-day’s journey from here,” Clarinda added, “and not the week that we’ll be traveling under the earth?”
Fenris nodded. “Ja, it’s possible to cross there, if you can secure a craft and get to the emerald gate that hovers over the water. In normal times, it’s the main passage to and from Niflheim for trading. As you can see from the occupants in this inn, not everyone is dead who travels through these lands.”
“But, these aren’t typical times,” Skade observed.
“No. My sister’s been planning something for years now, and just recently she’s restricted much of the usual traffic through the port. Hela’s building a large ship at the harbor on the Shoals of the Dead — she’s no fool, three garrisons of her fiercest orcs, goblins, and frost giants guard that rune gate.” Fenris grimaced. “I know you have need of haste, but, trust me, the extra days in Nidaveller will be well spent: you’ll both reach Mimir alive and well.”
“Couldn’t we somehow find a way to disguise ourselves and sneak to the Niflheim Gate to get to Mount Glittertind?” Clarinda persisted. “I feel as if we need to get to Mimir as quickly as possible.”
Skade shook her head. “We’d still have to retrace the path we took yesterday… and then get past the goblins and orcs that patrol the entire sea there. If we take the lift down to Nidaveller, though, we then use Andvari as a guide to get past rock giants or goblin gangs. Trust me, the dwarvish ways from our house are much quicker”
“I think you’re leaving a lot out,’” Clarinda commented with a smile.
“There are many leagues underground ahead of us,” Skade rejoined with a shrug. “I’ll not lie to you; I don’t look forward to the crystal cave nor the underground rivers.”
“Well-guarded?” Aurelius asked.
“No,” Skade said, shaking her head with a sympathetic cast to her eyes, “those places have no need of guards. Their very nature is defense enough.”
He returned his attention to the present.
“Austri, Vestri,” Fenris said, introducing the two dwarves, who stepped forward and bowed. “You know everyone here, except for our guests. This is Servius Aurelius Santini, and Clarinda Trevisan, Urd-Yet-to-Be.”
Both dwarves were long-bearded, with black leather overalls tucked into heavy work boots. They wore safety belts and harnesses slung across their barrel-like torsos, and helmets that looked like steel caps. They looked like twins, different only in that Austri wore a bright blue tunic under his overalls and Vestri a crimson one.
“You took your time,” Austri grumbled after he and Vestri curtly returned introductions to the small company. “Fenris, Andvari’s doing you a favor because you said—” he peered upward haughtily at Aurelius, his bushy white eyebrows considering the youth disapprovingly over pince-nez glasses, and repeated, “—you said that the Codex Lacrimae was back in the Nine Worlds.” He sighed as if the disappointment he felt in looking at Aurelius exhausted him. “Hmph,” he sniffed. “I’d say that if he’s the Codex Wielder, the Dark Book should’ve stayed lost.”
“Well, we’re here, Austri,” Skade interrupted, her tone cold. “Will you lead, or shall I?”
“Forgive us,” Vestri said, “my brother speaks boorishly sometimes, but he means well. You know, in the way that a novice wants to prove himself by digging a new mine, but forgets to frame it as he goes along?” The dwarf mimed a cave-in by steepling and then bending his fingers inward.
“Says the dwarf who’d rather bake cookies then lift a pick-axe,” grumbled Austri.
Vestri rolled his eyes. “Please. Even the first ten recipes in my cook-box are more lore than you’ll ever be able to memorize as an apprentice to Andvari —”
“Gentlemen!” Fenris roared. “Speaking of Andvari, ought we not get to him soon? Let’s go!”
Taking a cue from Fenris and Skade (who ended up leading the way), the company ascended a path that led into a cave whose floor rose steadily upwards.
Soon, the company entered a brightly lit tunnel.
“Through there is the capital city, Niđafjöll,” Skade told the youths, “and we’re going to come out right on top of it. The city’s enormous, so we’ll still have a bit of a walk once we’re there to reach Andvari —”
“No tours today, Skade,” Austri interrupted in gruff officiousness. “Andvari might be interested in your group, but only for so long, I predict.” The dwarf looked at Aurelius and shook his head, speaking again to Fenris. “I sense nothing in this one, Fenris, so perhaps, Loki-son, you stretch the truth like your father does?”
“Oh, that one had to hurt!” Ratatosk quipped.
Fenris started to reply angrily, but Skade held up a restraining hand. She glared at the dwarf, then grabbed his arm and swung him toward Aurelius. “You’d do well to take another look at the lad before spouting off again.”
The dwarf inhaled to retort, not caring for the damage to his ego, but then his eyes widened. “Oh. How’d I miss that?”
“Miss what?” Aurelius and Clarinda said at the same time, she looking the knight up and down as he tried to do the same thing to himself.
“Codex Light, oh my,” the dwarf said, shaking his head. “Apologies all around. Now, onward, onward. Best not to keep Andvari waiting, eh? This way…”
Aurelius looked at Clarinda. “Do you see what they’re talking about?”
She shrugged. “We should be used to some mysteries by now.”
“That’s a bright comment,” Ratatosk chirped, his small voice laden with disgust as the group began moving again. “So much for three months of training and studying the secrets of the Nine Worlds. I’ll hate it if we’ve wasted our time with you, Clarinda. You showed so much promise.” He scampered after Fenris and Skade, but his words floated in the air behind him: “Ignore the Codex Light, hmmph ! What’s next? Mistake the Midgard Serpent for the Watcher of the Gods? How about Thor’s hammer for…”
The rest of the squirrel’s words were lost as the company passed through the threshold cavern and found t
hemselves at the outskirts of Niđafjöll. Both young people gasped at the sight of the city because the capital of Nidaveller lay beneath a subterranean dome so vast that the population seemed as ants from the group’s vantage at the entrance.
Or, rather, Aurelius noticed, one of the many cave entrances, for he saw a multitude of roads leading in all directions from Niđafjöll. Hundreds of ox-driven vehicles were coming and going on those roads, arriving from and disappearing to points unknown through the shadowed arches of tunnels at the base of the dome. Thousands of the fire-globes dotted that curved ceiling, producing enough light for the plant life abounding along the stone roads.
“The wild life and lights are gifts of the Light Elves,” Vestri said, when he saw Aurelius’s head snap as some dunnock birds took flight from some nearby fir trees, their tinkling songs the last thing he expected to hear this far beneath the earth.
“How?” the knight asked, watching the birds head toward some other trees down the road. “How can birds live down here? the trees? how’s this possible?”
Vestri laughed. “Ages ago, the elves took a century of their long lives and helped make Niđafjöll the great capital that it is today — they brought all kinds of wildlife and flora from the surface. In return, we went to Alfheim and fashioned the buildings for their forest kingdom. ‘Stone above, and trees beneath,’ is one of the ways that we describe the exchange.”
“It’s beautiful,” Clarinda breathed, taking in the mossy ground cover beneath the trees.
As they started to descend the road, Aurelius kept trying to absorb everything he could about the city. The grid-like plan of the streets and complex system of aqueducts caused his eyes to widen in surprise. What he’d mistakenly thought to be an abyss at the edge of the city was, in reality, a great subterranean sea, with boats sailing upon it, and an entire waterfront along its edge. Even white gulls circled above the waters!
They followed Austri and Vestri down a marble road into the city, heading for the wharves. The knight glanced at Clarinda, expecting that the familiar sight of boats and marine craft would cheer her up, but instead she had a concentrative frown on her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It...seems impossible that we can feel sea breezes down here and see such a body of water,” she replied. “Look at that ship — it’s on a port tack heading back to the harbor with a full wind in its sails!”
“That sea goes far beyond the dome and for hundreds of leagues beneath the worlds until it joins the Sea of Niflheim,” Vestri commented.
“Joins it?” she asked. “How?”
“The Rune Gate of Niflheim doesn’t just let hundreds of beings cross through it each day,” Vestri answered, “billions of gallons of sea water also flow there. The seas are everything in the Nine Worlds, and a force that can’t be denied by such things as ‘ancient covenants’ and the Great Rifts.”
“Except for Muspelheim,” Clarinda murmured, recalling the conversation with Urd about the barrier to the Fire World and the demon, Surt, who ruled over it.
“Not at all,” Vestri said, “the seas flow there, too, albeit more hot than one would care to sail upon, perhaps!”
Clarinda frowned at yet another contradiction she’d discovered. Were the Norns possibly not all-knowing, or were they intentionally not telling her a multitude of things?
They now passed through the city proper entering a thoroughfare that passed cottages and even two story apartment buildings before opening onto an enormous square where hundreds of dwarves seemed to be busily going about their business.
“We must make haste,” Austri repeated, waving at the group for what seemed the fiftieth time since they began their journey. “Really — I don’t think you realize how much his services are in demand.” He snorted. “You’re quite lucky that he’s even making time for you lot.”
“Fortunately,” Fenris interjected calmly, “his house is on the far side of town, and close to the exit tunnel that we’ll need to reach Alfheim Way.” He looked down from an intimidating height at the sourpuss dwarf. “I don’t need much of his time, either — just enough to request a team to guide us through the Kristallhöllen and the Døkk River.”
“That’s what everyone wants from Andvari,” Austri sneered. “I hope you’ve got something to trade — he won’t take gems or gold.”
“We’ve got payment,” Skade said, “just get us through the front door and we’ll do the rest.”
“It sounds as if we’re visiting a king,” Aurelius murmured to Clarinda.
“Skade said something about him being a wizard of sorts —”
“More than a‘wizard,’ young lady,” Vestri commented, as Austri ran after Fenris to keep pace with the swiftly moving man and the wolf pack that loped at his heels. “Andvari’s an arch-mage, who, I dare say, is wiser and more patient than my brother would lead one to expect.”
“And, all who’d seek the weird of Mount Glittertind need his help to get through this ‘crystal cave’ and the ‘dark river’?”
Vestri nodded. “Without Andvari’s starglassen or maps, no one could get through the obstacles to Glittertind’s entrance.” He explained further when he saw the teenagers’ confused expressions. “The Kristallhöllen are caves so bright they’d blind anyone within seconds of entering, and the torrents of the Døkk River move so quickly that a wrong choice of ways…” he shrugged and drew a line with his finger across his throat. “Even so, the waterways of the Underjordisk Elv — the Underground Rapids — they’re nasty, and the crashing waves have even taken even some of those who entrusted themselves to Andvari’s care.”
“Thank you for the advice, Vestri,” Aurelius said, not sure if he preferred Austri’s gruff manner compared to this brother’s very rationale explanation of possible dooms. He glanced at Clarinda. “Are you sure you don’t want to give the Brisinga another try?”
Clarinda shook her head regretfully, but privately wondered if she should speak with him about the Codex Lacrimae. There seemed to be an unbelievable amount of danger involved in reaching Glittertind, and perhaps it was worth going against the advice of Mimir, Grimnir, and the Norns when they’d told her to absolutely not discuss her assessment about Aurelius and the magic book.
Untrained, with the elven and jotun magic at his command, Santini might fracture the worlds. Bring him to us so that we might speak of these things with him.
Mimir, ever the teacher, hadn’t bothered to explain all that his words implied, trusting that Clarinda, the student, would do as instructed and bring Santini to the Well. Clarinda, however, was always of the mind that a good schoolgirl should always be questioning.
She lost the opportunity to talk to Aurelius about any of her guesses, though, when Skade asked the young knight what he thought of Nidaveller thus far.
“As with your ‘hut,’” he said, smiling, “its bigger and busier than I expected.”
Clarinda couldn’t disagree with that assessment — within moments of entering the city, the Norn realized that not every dwarf was involved in mining. As they walked down a broad, onyx-paved avenue, male and female dwarves were bustling through the streets, and wooden signs dangled from a multitude of storefronts.
The company made its way to the underground sea. Strong breezes blew onto docks with no shoreline, and flaming orbs on high poles revealed a line of houses alongside the quay. This area reminded Clarinda of palazzi in Venice, some of the homes rising as high as three stories.
Andvari’s house was the last on the row, notable primarily for its tremendous waterfall spilling into the sea, the waters a shimmering cascade of rainbow colors. Two dwarves rose from a bench below the sign, both wearing glasses pushed to the bridge of their noses.
The action startled some gulls on the causeway to take squawking flight. Willow shrubs lined the small brook that led from the house’s pond at the base of the falls, and brown-feathered bluethroats flitted to and fro, competing with shore larks and black birds for food in the rich hunting ground.
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The sounds of birds seemed to be everywhere, the songs a peaceful counterpoint to the waterfall and lapping of the sea against the piers.
Austri looked at the two dwarves and then nodded his head with some satisfaction. He turned to the group with a knowing look and introduced them as his brothers, Norđri (in a yellow tunic) and Suđri (in a green one).
“He’s left hasn’t he?” Austri asked, casting another “I-told-you-so” look at each of the non-animals in the group.
“Yes, he’s left,” Norđri replied, “and he was none too happy to begin without you.”
“What?” Austri blinked.
“Yes,” his brother replied. “He told us that he’d meet you all at the crossroads on Alfheim Way, and —” the dwarf pulled out a handheld device that showed him something, and he looked up crossly at Austri, “you were supposed to be there a half hour ago!”
“But…,” Austri sputtered, and Aurelius had to admit that he slightly enjoyed seeing the belligerent dwarf made mute, “Why ? He never leaves the house, and certainly not to lead a group through the caves?”
“Come on, Austri,” Suđri told his brother as he put a hand under his arm, “we’re wasting time. He wants all of us to come, and he’s serious about it. We packed all the mules with supplies this morning. He took them as well, along with Delling.”
Vestri barked a laugh. “Excellent!” He looked conspiratorially at Aurelius and Clarinda. “You’ll like Delling, he’s Andvari’s cook.” He pointed at the path that wended behind the house and led to an exit cave at the bottom of the great dome. “I’m not pleased about this, but at least we’re going to eat well during the three days it’ll take to get to Mount Glittertind!”
“But,” Clarinda asked, confused. “Why aren’t you pleased? Isn’t it a good thing that Andvari’s escorting us?”
The Codex Lacrimae Page 39