by Suzie Wilde
The shock punched her: how could she be so stupid? Her brain must be mazed by the fumes, or she would never have lost it. Or did it choose to fall? A belching cloud choked her and she stumbled away downhill. Had she put it back after seeing all her failings? Did one of them steal it?
The mountain was roaring, exulting in its rage and ready to blow. It had won; she could not stop it now, so must get back to the others. Bera swayed and staggered, frightened and lost. Surely she should be back at the place by now. Then, through the yellow steam that was seeping from every crack and crevice, she saw Egill’s linen veil lying on the ground. She was right; this was where they had stopped. She cast about, willing Obsidian to be waiting for her there. It was not – and Hefnir and Egill were gone.
Bera sank to her knees and howled. The mountain was so loud that she could not hear herself. To have come this far, when she could have stayed at home and died with her own folk. Her baby, Valdis. Sigrid – how sorely she missed her bustling friend, full of life and strong. She, like Faelan, Dellingr, trusted her to save them.
‘I need you, Mama.’
Only her skern was there. Her knees were burning yet she didn’t move. She deserved to suffer. Obsidian had shown her what an angry, unforgiving, boastful fool she was. She would die here alone, a failure, while the greedy ones below were probably already fighting over it, killing each other. They could not stop the chain of events that would end in death for the whole precious blue globe hanging in space and time.
Bera got up. There was one last chance. With or without Obsidian she would enter Hel’s gate. Sacrifice. But that would leave Heggi with the Serpent – with the looking-glass.
He is in danger.
She had always known it, but now the threat was real and present and there was no choice to make. The world must take its chances, for she must save her boy.
Then hurry!
Nothing was moving below her, though spurting fumes and sudden fires hid parts of her way. Bera slithered down the loose skree when she could for speed, determined to get one thing right.
At last there were voices, so she must be close. Bera fought her way through a mix of rough boulders and startling yellow-green grass. She could hear Hefnir. A scrabble of stones fell. She hid behind a huge boulder, heart pounding. Had they seen her?
‘Not even biggest stone. Look!’ It was the Serpent King’s thick voice for sure. His forked tongue. ‘Don’t insult me.’
‘Then take all of them,’ Hefnir said. ‘There’s plenty here, man.’
‘Obsidian is what I want, not some toy.’
Bera had to know if Heggi was still alive. She flattened herself against the rock and edged closer. The nearest to her was a crewman with tattoos. The marks were the same as the man in the tavern: Keep Away. Marks made in Iraland. The rest of the group were standing on a wide ledge. Hefnir with Egill, the Serpent King… Where was her son? She risked a quick glance out, then back. Nowhere to be seen, so Bera hoped he was the other side of the crewman.
Her skipping heart was unsteady. Breaths too short to calm. It was the air. So near the gateway to Hel. Bera shook her head to make her scalp prickle. Surely she would know if Heggi was dead?
‘If the Serpent kills me, Hel will accept my sacrifice, won’t she?’
We are already dying, together.
Their small life was the squabble of midges. The mountain roared again and the men’s voices were lost. It was irrelevant. It was not their fight but hers.
Bera whispered, ‘Keep me strong, Vallas. Let me get this right.’
If the Serpent had already killed Heggi then life was not worth living. If he was alive she would save him. All she had on her side was surprise, so she planned to seize the crewman’s sword and plunge it into the Serpent King’s black heart. Was he still a man, or had his dragon body made him immortal? Whatever she faced, she found her strength.
‘ALU.’
Lightning crackled overhead as another cloud of ash mushroomed up into the sky. The world tilted, sharp and strong. On her side. Bera braced herself and stepped out.
The crewman was on his back, unmoving. She kept to her plan with determined fury, dragging the heavy sword to the Serpent King, who was the only one she could see. She must strike while he was down and she lunged at him. The blade missed his thigh as he painfully rolled to his feet. The poison air weakened them. Bera used the hilt like a crutch to take her weight. Her enemy turned, slow and sluggish, like being in a nightmare, then was gone. The stench was visible and made eyes deceive. And then, through the brymstone fumes, a shadow Serpent King returned with Heggi, holding a black knife at his throat. The sight of her boy alive gave Bera strength and she risked looking at Heggi to share it.
He was bloodless with terror, his lips invisible. He thought he was about to die, unprotected by parents who had traded his life for Obsidian, and she could not make him look at her. She looked round for help. Where was Hefnir? Or Egill?
She must prove her love.
Could she deny her own fate, her Valla ancestry, and condemn the rest of the world to death in order to save one boy? A willing sacrifice here might do both.
She lay down the sword. ‘Let him go, Serpent. I take his place.’
The monster laughed. ‘Gladly. When I have the stone.’
If the Serpent thought she had Obsidian and must kill her for it, he would have to let go of Heggi.
‘Come and get it.’
His forked tongue flickered over black lips while his cold eyes judged her. Once, she had thought him stupid.
Here they stood at the highest place of the known world at the very point of its destruction. Birds had long since gone; no creature stirred and Bera pictured the three of them as graven rune stones. Why did the Serpent King not want any of the black stones that were all round him? Because Obsidian had made him desire it. Bera understood now. The glass had been fashioned to lure minds into gazing at what they needed to see. Perhaps only her mind could bear what it saw, although it had driven her half-mad. Was it even now tempting frail Egill? Or Hefnir? She had to keep the Serpent thinking she had it. Perhaps she could save her life by saying she was the only one who could use it to scry. Would it be enough to bargain with?
‘No.’ The Serpent King put out a hand. ‘You bring to me.’ His four rows of teeth leered.
She saw her mistake: he wanted her alive. He was claiming Bera as his prize, with Obsidian as his power. Still, she traded for Heggi’s life.
‘Let my son go first.’
He laughed again and gave Heggi a shove. ‘Run to little Bera then. You can’t go far, either of you.’
She opened her arms and Heggi ran to her. Fierce love.
‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she kept saying into his hair.
He did not say she was forgiven but he clung to her. How could she keep her boy safe and the Valla world too? Her mind was addled.
The Serpent King beckoned her. ‘I’ll have that kiss now, and then Obsidian. Together we will rule the known world.’
From behind them came a deep-throated battle cry. With raised sword, Hefnir jumped down from a ledge and thrust at the Serpent King, who had his axe ready. He swung – and chopped at air. Hefnir stumbled and turned. They were breathless and clumsy; they twisted away from each other at the last moment, staggering, their weapons weighing them down. But they rallied, brothers-in-law and sworn enemies, and came on. Bera saw bloodlust in their swollen eyes. The Serpent King was a murderer and if he killed Hefnir, he would come for them in his rage.
She pulled Heggi back towards the large rocks. Heggi collapsed as soon as they reached her hiding place.
‘Will Papa…?’
‘We’re safe here. Safe together,’ she lied.
And then the whole land slipped, taking Heggi with it.
31
Bera’s eyes were so sore that she was peering through slits. She had to find Heggi. The ground was pitching like a stormy sea and whenever she tried to stand she fell again. Unlike a boat, there
were no handholds here to help, so she crawled. Her throat was raw, she was parched and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. She tried to shout his name but could only croak. The heat blazed, but she willed herself on. Time unreeled backwards and the darkness was below deck in her father’s boat, the Raven, and the small figure, hugging itself and rocking, was Egill, half-mad, down in the foul, dark bilge. Poor, frail Egill, her false friend; the ruin of all Bera’s plans. Then she knew why the memory was sharp: the shock of white hair was really there, in the shadow of disaster. Perhaps, even at the last, she could take Obsidian from Egill and restore order to the world.
Bera clawed the burning soil with bloody hands and reached the small, still body, curled like a toddler, with caffled, silver-blond hair. A flare of love told her this was Heggi, her son, and she had found him.
‘Boykin.’ Her voice was like wind through frost-dried grass.
She would trade anything on earth to let him be alive. The heat of his forehead burned her cracked lips.
‘Mama…’
‘I know, my love, I know.’
She got down next to him and they held on tight, until this moment was the only thing that mattered. Bera was with her son and with every part of her body, she gave her vital force to him to keep him alive.
Then, finally, the mountain blew.
She expected them to die. Only their dog was missing and she wished they could all be together here, at the last.
They heard the rush and fall of the eruption and when the worst stopped, Bera’s ears were ringing. It must have blown on the southern side, which she had seen from the Abbotry, but her instinct told her that this was not the end but a demand. Her life had been spared so that she could keep her promise to Hel to find and return Obsidian. This had never been the place. Obsidian had tricked her. This was where the earth was most brutal, where it wanted to stop her, not where the safe delivery of Obsidian was to be made with her death, like Sigrid safely delivering Valdis. New life for the world.
Something was digging into her side. Heggi had a water flask on his belt! She took it off, afraid to shake it and find it empty, but there was a dull slushing. She put it to Heggi’s lips and let a trickle into his poor mouth. His whole face was filthy, with burns and blisters livid under the grime. There were more lines than a boy his age should have: too many cares. Bera supposed her own face was the same. The thought surprised her; her face had never concerned her until she had glimpsed it in Obsidian. Odd, to become aware of something when it was half-destroyed already.
Bera wet her mouth so that she could speak. ‘When you fell, did you see your father…?’
Heggi shook his head, but then kept shaking it, like a horse plagued by flies.
‘There, dear one. I’m sorry, boykin. I shouldn’t have asked. There, sweet.’
The ground stopped shaking. Bera did not press him and he fell into a deep sleep. What should she do next? Was she right, and the Serpent King could not die? Was Obsidian lying amongst all the other black stones? Her plans kept changing, being bent – by Obsidian? – like holding a lodestone under cloth and watching pins jump.
What is lost can be found.
‘Is Egill alive?’
She wants to give the stone back to the mountain.
‘But that’s not what we have to do, is it?’
She always tries to be special and now thinks she can be.
‘How? She’s in the wrong place, and anyway, I have to do it.’
She is trying to save you, Bera. The one she loves. You know this. She is giving herself in your place.
Bera closed her eyes but could not connect with her friend’s skittish mind. The Fetch was hers after all. Perhaps Egill’s sacrifice had worked, though she doubted it. When she opened them, Heggi was staring at her, needing comfort.
‘Egill gave her life to stop the eruption,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to go on being so afraid, my dearest one.’
He could only make a cawing sound, like a tiny crow.
‘Your throat is burned. Don’t speak.’
Bera cradled his head and wept. She did not hide her feelings from him or try to be strong. She was crying for her failure, for falling under Obsidian’s spell when she thought she was stronger than anyone else. Obsidian had also shown her what beauty was lost, before the world had seen itself: that tiny jewelled globe in velvet blackness.
‘Sad… about Papa?’ he asked.
She was sorry about Hefnir. And she was afraid, terrified, that in whatever time they had left, the Serpent would come after them.
Heggi touched her face with the back of his hand. ‘You have… me.’
‘Then let’s meet Fate bravely, on our feet.’
They helped each other up and looked for any way through. They went in circles, trudging and confused. The sun was entirely cloaked, so Bera had to take a reckoning from the natural markings on the rocks. Then she recognised three that leaned together and started downwards but it was bad enough to turn them back. Every way was blocked. Finally, she thought that a new track had opened up but they had not gone far when they saw that below them the next gully was burning with crawling, fiery metal, like a disgusting black dragon. They stumbled away from the heat, desperately looking for any way down, trying to stay calm. Bera touched her hair, thinking it was smouldering. It was hot and brittle but not yet alight.
Then they came upon a stump with an axe mark on it.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing at a trampled furrow through sooty undergrowth.
Heggi’s eyes were huge. ‘The Serpent King!’
‘It’s our only chance, to follow him.’
Bera led the way, with Heggi behind being snagged on thorns. So it was Bera who saw the blood first. It was startling red against the ash. She tried to block Heggi but it was too late. He was staring at it and began to shake his head again, over and over. Bera held it tight between her sore hands.
‘Listen to me, Heggi. You have to be strong now.’
His teeth chattered and he would not look at her. She pushed up his chin so that he had to. Kindness would make him collapse.
‘I’m damned if we go through all this and then die up here. Do you understand? Stop looking. Stop thinking. All that matters is staying alive!’
He began to cry.
Bera took him by the shoulders. ‘You said I have you – so you also have me. I will never leave you again.’
His hands were fists but Heggi slowly blinked his eyes. He was agreeing to carry on.
Bera was terrified that the lava would soon be chasing them on this side of the mountain too, so she took them as far round it as she dared. Too far, and they would never get back to the Raven. She groaned aloud. Don’t think it! Heggi was young and strong.
Not after you poisoned him. He’s not breathed fully since. And now this!
Could her guilt get any worse? They followed the smears of blood, getting thicker.
‘Papa’s?’ Heggi asked.
‘It may not be a man’s.’ It might be a dragon’s.
Her courage was failing her. With every weary step Bera tried to convince herself that the earth had vented its anger and was growing calmer. Compared to the ledge, the air was almost sweet here. But lava was flowing and the ash cloud threatened. Up in the highest point of the sky, it was like some live thing, quickening and billowing, silvery grey like a wolf. Bera looked away, wanting to believe they were saved in the future; that gale-force winds would be strong enough to blow the ash away.
It’s too large and heading south and east.
Over the homestead.
Heggi kept stumbling, taking Bera with him. Their legs were too weak to stop the fall and they slithered, slipped, and stopped against boulders, waiting to catch their breath and then link arms and do it again, and again. Sometimes they simply tripped on a stubborn stone and fell where they stood. Bruised, shaken, worn out, Bera’s strength finally failed and when they reached ground that levelled out a little she lay flat on her back and felt Heggi do th
e same beside her.
After a while she looked around them. They were on a blackened platform with mounds of smoking stones lying in rough heaps. The sight made Bera even more thirsty. She felt ice-cold glass on her blistered lips and then sweet mead to soothe her tongue. Did they even have water? Heggi’s leather flask was filthy but not ripped. With flayed fingers she untied it and gave it to Heggi.
‘Sip. Small sips.’
‘Nearly gone,’ Heggi rasped.
Bera upended it and could only wet her lips.
‘Sorry, Mama,’ he said.
She touched his hand.
The world was clinker, so that another few whirls of grey and black did not stand out. She had been staring at the thing without knowing. She checked to see if Heggi had noticed but he was looking up at the leaden sky. The light lifted a little and Bera looked back.
The serpents danced on the body of the man who could not be killed.
Once again Bera noted that fear would reach a peak and then the body could not become more terrified of the same thing. As she stared at the body of the Serpent King, the ceaseless rumble of lava became only a low, background booming. The shifts of the quaking earth made his tattoos appear to writhe. Or was he only pretending to be dead, sleeping with one eye open like a dragon?
A long, shrill note demanded her attention.
Bera slowly traced it to Heggi, who was staring down at what remained of his uncle. It was an unearthly sound but it made her move.
She pulled him away. ‘Hide. I will call when it’s safe.’
Heggi’s single note became sobs and she sensed him backing away. She kept her eyes on the Serpent King. She slowly approached, ready to run if he made a move. His mouth was wide open, like Drifa’s strange death snarl. His carved teeth were even blacker in the furrows . One arm was splayed and the unwinking eye stared at her from his armpit. She looked back at his corpse grin, hideous as it was, because the mess of his legs made her sick to her stomach.
Then his tongue flickered out to touch his lips. She jumped back.
‘Water.’ It was an order.
She shook the empty flask. ‘None.’