“If what?” I snapped.
“If you were itla sem yetur. That is part of the reason for this feast. To see if you would eat.”
That hit me like a bucket of cold water and washed most of my anger at his deceit away. “I see,” I said with a sudden calmness. “What have you sworn to do?” I felt wrung out, exhausted. I felt more fatigued than I have ever felt, illness be damned.
Meuhlnir looked me in the eye for a long moment and then nodded curtly. “I swore to redeem my brother if possible.”
“And that is all of it?”
“All of what?” he asked in a flat voice.
“All that you were keeping from me? Everything?”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Fair enough. I believe you’ve been open and honest in what you’ve shared with me. The least I can do is the same. There’s one more thing.”
As I stared at him, his features began to move—like his skin was melting. His boney shoulders swelled with muscle. His thin white hair thickened and reddened to a bright rust color. His hands stretched and grew. When it was all over, the slight, bent old man was gone, and I was sitting next to a muscular, middle-aged man with red hair and a red beard.
“This is how I truly appear,” he said. “I was younger when my brother and I visited the early Vikings.” He held up one thick hand and pointed at a ring of yellow gold with a large turquoise stone set in it. “I worked a glamor on this ring many years ago—a kind of defense, really. A test for the many supplicants who come to my door.”
“A test?” I asked.
“Yes. It helps me decide who can be trusted.”
I shook my head.
“I have many supplicants. I need to know who has a good heart and who has…otherwise. I—” He cleared his throat. “I once taught someone I regret having taught. The Black Bitch herself.” He shook his head. “This glamor helps. It is hard to intimidate people as a little old man, but as I truly am, I find many people try to tell me what I want to hear. People find it easier to drop their guard and act as they really are around a little old man.”
“Am I a supplicant then?”
He shook his head. “I had to know your heart before I decided whether to help you or send you on your way.”
“So, my people need to be tested, but your people feel justified in manipulating mine?”
“I’ve said most of us came to regret that.”
“You and your brother? All those others? The Midnight Queen?”
Meuhlnir looked away. “I said most of us,” he said.
I shrugged. “If the queen was so evil, why was she exiled? Why wasn’t she killed?”
Meuhlnir’s gaze strayed to the fire. “Even then,” he whispered, “she was powerful. She must have been breaking the Ayn Loug long before we knew about it. It took many of us to even banish her. And to make it stick. It was a powerful shunning. It had to be, or she would just break our spell and do as she wished.”
Meuhlnir shuddered and hugged himself. “I was sick for months after that vefnathur strenki—that weaving of the strings of power. The failed war to depose her killed so many. It was perhaps the deadliest war since the Geumlu—the old ones—broke the world. She made us pay a heavy price, and in the end, we decided the price would be too high to continue to fight.” He turned toward me with a stricken look in his eyes. “Can you understand?”
“She and your brother remained free to come to my side, and hundreds of people have died that I have personal knowledge of. That was the result of your decision, so I’d say the price was high either way.” His shoulders fell, and his eyes left my face. “But, yes, Meuhlnir, I think I do understand.”
He looked back up at me and put his hand on my shoulder. “I think you are starting to.”
“Do you understand my side of this?” I asked, holding his eyes with mine.
Meuhlnir nodded, slow and deliberate. “Yes,” he breathed. “You are here for them—for your wife and boy.”
I nodded.
“But are you also here for vengeance?”
This time, it was me that couldn’t meet his eye. “I…I really don’t know. I don’t want to be.”
Meuhlnir looked at me in silence for a long time. In the fire, bits of sap trapped inside one of the burning logs popped and snapped. “Vengeance against Luka? Against my brother?”
I couldn’t read his expression—his face seemed flat and still, as frozen as the lake I’d so recently gone face first onto. “He—”
“He killed your friends. The ones you told me about.”
“More than that. He killed innocent people. He killed people whose only crime was playing cards with the queen. He’s kidnapped my wife and son and inflicted who knows what terrors on them.” I shook my head. “Can you tell me he shouldn’t pay for what he’s done?”
Meuhlnir chewed the inside of his cheek. He pursed his lips and tilted his head to the side. “Are you the one who decides?” he countered.
I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know, Meuhlnir. I just don’t know.”
“But you do know what you want to do.”
I shook my head. “I really don’t. I am conflicted as hell. I’ve spent my life as a law enforcement officer—I tracked down criminals and helped put them in prison. But even then, my job wasn’t to punish them, I only found out who they were and documented their crimes. A judge and jury decided if they were guilty or not, and a judge passed down the punishment.
“Do I have the right to play judge and jury? I can’t say. I just know that he can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
Meuhlnir stared into my eyes. The atmosphere in the great hall started to feel rather ominous. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck felt like they were standing on end. There was a kind of pressure building that I could feel in my chest. Abruptly, Meuhlnir looked away. “It’s late,” he grunted. As quickly as it had come, the malefic pressure and grim atmosphere disappeared.
He stood and clapped me on the shoulder. “You are a good man, Hank Jensen, and you are welcome in my house.”
I stood, and only then did I realize how big of a man Meuhlnir was. He wasn’t as tall as Luka, and he had more flesh on his bones, but there was a resemblance.
One corner of his mouth twitched upwards into half a grin. “Yes. Everyone always said how much we looked alike.”
I nodded. “The kinship is still there, but your brother…”
“Yes,” whispered the big, red-headed man. “Breaking the Ayn Loug takes its toll.”
I looked at my feet, feeling somehow guilty.
“Come, let me tell you a story of how things were before the fall.” He led me out of the great hall, and back to that cozy room in the front of the house.
We sat in the comfortable chairs in a companionable silence for a while.
“Oh, I forgot,” he said, getting up. “I’ll be right back.”
When he came back, he was holding what looked like an overgrown rock hammer in one fist. The hammer’s head was forged as one single piece and looked brutal. The handle was about eighteen inches long and sculpted so that it looked like the neck and head of a dragon, the haft cross-hatched in the shape of dragonscales to provide grip. At the bottom of the haft, the head of the dragon leered, mouth open as if it were ready to breathe fire. The head of the hammer was maybe three inches tall, ten inches from the tip of the spike to the other end of the head and maybe two and a half inches thick. It had a sharp spike sticking up about two inches from the top of the hammer’s head, like an extension of the haft. Inset in gold on both sides of the head was a set of runes.
“My name, written in the Gamla Toonkumowl,” said Meuhlnir.
“Ah, the reason for confusion on my klith.”
“Indeed,” he said. “Here.”
He handed the hammer to me. Because of how it looked, I’d expected it to be heavy, in spite of the way Meuhlnir tossed it around, but it wasn’t. It was light, weighing less than five pounds. “It’s light,” I said with a grin. “It’s
nothing like what I expected, I have to say.
“In fiction and movies, warhammers are always great big lumps of metal that look like they weigh a hundred pounds. And your myth says this is so heavy only you can wield it.”
Meuhlnir smiled. “Warhammers aren’t much good in battle if they are so heavy you can’t swing it more than two or three times. Same thing with swords and axes.”
I traced the engraving on the haft, following its sinuous curves with my finger. “It may sound strange, but it’s beautiful.”
“It was made for me in my youth—commissioned by the Dragon Queen herself as a reward for valor. Before she…fell. She was a good woman, once.”
I thought of the crazy woman standing on her porch with that cigarette bouncing in the corner of her mouth and shook my head. “If you say so.”
“In the beginning, she was a fair ruler. In the days that she still went by the name Suel and named her empire Suelhaym.”
I shook my head again.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine such big swings in character when your life span is so short, but when you live a long life, things can change. Even if just out of boredom.” He got a faraway look in his eyes and sank back into the chair.
“She was beautiful, then. I think we all loved her. Well, everyone did really. But we of the Vuthuhr Trohtninkar—the Queen’s Guard, that is—we saw her every day. We heard the music in her laughter; we saw the strength of her bones. She was grand.” Meuhlnir turned his gaze toward the fire and slumped his shoulders. “How different things might have been if only…”
“It sounds as if you miss those days.”
“What’s that?” he asked, shaking himself out of his reverie. “Oh.” He frowned at the hammer and took it back gently, standing it on the hearth, head down. “I told you she gave me that for valor.”
I nodded.
“She was loved by her people, and in general, it was an easy thing to be a Vuthuhr Trohtninkar, but there are always…”
“Crazies,” I said.
“Just so. There are always crazies who are not content. On this occasion, it was a very rich man who didn’t think he should pay taxes to the crown. He was a merchant, you see, and traded goods far and wide, spending much of the year out of the empire.
“He became quite bitter and decided to take Suel to task.
Sixteen
Meuhlnir had guard duty through the night, but he didn’t mind. It was easy enough, and despite the feeling of nausea he got from staying up all night and trying to sleep through the next day, it had its rewards. Queen Suel was up most of the night, and bored. She often spoke to her Vuthuhr Trohtninkar or asked them to play a game of tafl.
She had a light way about her. Even though she was the queen of a large empire, she acted as if every man was her equal. No one ever felt that they were beneath her station—even when they were. She was kind, and soft, and easy to spend all night looking at.
That evening, after all the courtiers had gone to their chambers for the night, and all the Trohtninkar Tumuhr were in their lace covered beds, dreaming of meeting a prince from some far-flung province, Queen Suel sought him out.
“There you are, you great oaf of a man,” she said with a crooked smile.
“Where else?” Meuhlnir asked arching an eyebrow. “I’m the only one worthy of standing in one place in this hallway all night.”
“So brave,” she laughed. “Are you protecting me from the shadows?”
Meuhlnir put on his war-face and growled at the shadowy corner at the end of the hall. “Stay behind me, my Queen,” he said. “I shall kill the bastard with lightning.”
Her laugh was like the tinkling of glass bells. She slapped him on the shoulder like a playful kitten. “Why isn’t your brother as funny as you?” she asked.
“He’s not as good looking, either,” Meuhlnir said. “Everyone knows this.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“Nor is he as modest.” She smiled up at him, but he could see the worry written in her face.
“More stupidity from the court?” he asked.
“Ah,” she sighed, “seems like that’s all there is these days.”
“Shall I change my rotation? I could growl and mutter at your signal. I have quite a fierce glare, too.”
She smiled, but it was brief. “I bet his Highness, the Grand Lord of Merchants, Rikur, would cower before you.”
“Taxes, again?” asked Meuhlnir.
She waved her hand. “What else?” she asked. “He is fine using our materials to create his goods, our labor to craft them, our horses to transport them, but feels put upon to pay taxes on the income he derives from all that.” She looked pensive for a moment and then tried to shrug it off. “Walk?”
“I am yours to command, my Queen.”
They walked to the gardens in a comfortable silence, but Meuhlnir could feel the strain his queen was under. He hated that people mistreated her. She was such a fair ruler—taxes were low! That anyone would begrudge paying them spoke to greed more than any fault of the queen’s.
The night was cool, but not cold, just a relief from the heat of the summer. Even so, the air in the gardens was warm and smelled of the sea. Tropical plants and flowers lined the paths through the queen’s gardens—a cornucopia of color and shapes and sizes.
“I love it here,” she whispered.
“I do too,” he said.
“Am I a good ruler, Meuhlnir?”
He scoffed. “You might as well ask if the sun shines and the sea feels wet.”
She chuckled. “May I take that as a yes, then?”
“Might as well ask if I’m prettier than little Luka.”
That got a laugh from her—a full throated laugh. “I’m going to tell him you said that.”
Meuhlnir chuckled. “Do. He should learn to accept his failures with equanimity and grace.”
She laughed harder, a tear trickling from the corner of her eye. “Ah, Meuhlnir, my friend, what would I do without you?”
“Be bored?” Meuhlnir shrugged and affected apathy, but he was pleased.
“Indeed, sir. If I asked you to, would you beat Rikur with a stick?”
“Hmm,” said Meuhlnir. “Would said stick have a sharp and pointy end?”
The queen put on a pensive expression and scratched her chin. “Is there such a thing as a stick that is not pointy?”
“Ah, my Queen, I am but a lowly warrior. I can’t follow these deep philosophical discussions.”
“Always want to have the last word, don’t you?”
“Might as well ask if Takmar’s Horse Plains smell of horse shit.”
“Meuhlnir!” she laughed. “Such language in front of a lady!”
“Oh, my,” he said. He turned to face a palm with wide green fronds and bowed at the waist. “I apologize, Lady Palmfrond! I didn’t see you there!”
“Cad!” said the queen, pretending to slap him. “Misogynist!” Another pretend slap swished by his nose accompanied by the glass tinkle sound of her laughter. “Bounder!” Another swish, this time with the opposite hand. “Cur!” She play-slapped him on the chest. “Friend,” she said, suddenly serious.
“Loyally so, and forever, my Queen,” he said.
“How is it you always know just the thing that will make me feel better?”
“Might as well ask why the Forest of Kvia is in Kvia,” he said, affecting arrogant disdain.
“Is this another veiled geography lesson?” she asked pretending at petulance.
“Might as well ask if the Darks of Kruyn—”
“Are dark!” she shouted, her face full of glee.
“Well, if you want to be obvious, I suppose that works…”
She sighed. “Oh, Meuhlnir, do I have to go through the cad synonym list again so soon?”
“Might as well ask if Suelhaym is where you live, Queen Suel,” he said.
She made a funny face and shook her head. “What a silly name for an empire,” she said. “What kind of person wo
uld have so much hubris that she would name her empire after herself?”
“One never knows,” said Meuhlnir. “Perhaps a great, beautiful ruler, well worth the title of queen?”
“Might as well ask if Fankelsi smells of swamp gas.”
Meuhlnir sighed and shook his head. “And I had such high hopes after the Darks of Kruyn incident.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t quite work, does it?”
“Might as well ask if the sun is cold and snowy.”
“Oh, you! You think you are so smart.”
“And pretty,” he said, pretending to have hurt feelings.
“Oh yes, pretty.”
“Well, for a start. There’s also strong, brave, good looking, smart, awesome, brilliant… Feel free to stop me at any time.”
She smiled at him. “No, no. I want to see how long you can keep going.”
“Oh. Uh… Well, did I say smart already?”
“You did,” she said.
“Pretty?”
“Yep.”
He scratched his beard and pretended to tick things off on his fingers. “Ah!” he said. “Pretty!”
She pretended to swoon. “I am overcome with your wit. Or was it your smell?”
“Might as well ask if the Sea Dragon Islands are surrounded by water.”
“I feel so much better,” she said with a laugh. “Rikur can just rot.”
Meuhlnir looked at the ground and let his shoulders slump. “I was so looking forward to finding the right stick with a pointy end for the beating.”
She laughed, her voice booming across the garden, a real belly laugh.
Meuhlnir started to laugh with her, but something flashed in the corner of his eye. He tensed and spun in that direction, one hand going to the hammer in his belt, and one pushing the queen behind him, turning her laugh into a squawk.
“What is it,” she whispered.
“To me!” he bellowed. “Queen’s gardens! Protect the queen!” His voice echoed through the still night air.
“Too late, clown,” grated a voice from behind him.
Meuhlnir whirled and stepped between the queen and the darkness beyond. “Face me, then, coward.” He slid the hammer from his belt and began to focus his mind to vefa strenki.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 15