The Stone of Sorrow

by Brooke Carter

  The rocky path gives way to wet sand, and the spray from the violent waves hits me in the face. Sneaking up the banks to the village enclave, I listen for any sounds of life, for murderous Jötnar, for the injured, for anything. All I can hear is the wail of the wind over the pounding of my own heart.

  Any fires set by the Jötnar have long since burned out or been extinguished by the heavy rains, and I find myself standing in the village center with the dead bodies of my clan piled around me, all life suspended at once, all work and survival and busyness halted.

  Each one of my clanspeople awakened this morning with the day stretching out in front of them. They were certain of the time they had, focused on the fish they needed to catch, the goats they needed to slaughter, the people they needed to love. Now that is over, and I am here. Alone. The wind wails. The sea churns. And death doesn’t care.

  Despair pours over me and chills me more than the rain. I cry out as thunder slams the sky. It is followed by a strike of lightning, too close, and I jump when I see a standing figure briefly illuminated by the light of Thor’s bolt. I crouch with my spear raised. If I’m going to die, it will be fighting.

  “Say your name,” I command over the wind. My voice comes out much stronger than I expected.

  The figure does not answer. Thor’s great show of rage and power continues to drum and flash overhead, lighting up the shape of the motionless body over and over. It makes no sound, no advance. It is as still as a dead man.

  I step toward it, moving closer to where it waits, solid and unyielding as stone, between the remains of the stalls and dwellings of my people.

  Closer I edge, and I hold up my glowing runes to give me light between the flashes. Still the dark figure looms unmoving.

  I am a spear’s length from it now.

  “What say you?” I ask. “I demand to know.”

  It does not answer.

  “By the goddess Freyja and her armies, I command you to speak,” I say, giving the figure a poke. The sharp tip of my spear squelches into its shoulder. A dagger of lightning, bigger than the rest, sizzles above me, striking the half-burned roof of a nearby dwelling, and the figure’s face reveals itself in the firelight.

  It’s one of the village woodsmiths, Sveinn Sigurdson. My father sought him out whenever he needed quality axe handles. Now here Sveinn stands, still as a tree himself, transfixed by a power I don’t understand, and I realize with horror that the tip of my spear is still poking into him. I withdraw it in haste.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, the wind howling around us, but Sveinn does not react. His eyes are glazed over, and I wonder if the strange dust Einar blew over the clan is to blame. Indeed, I spot smudges of yellow around Sveinn’s nostrils.

  I place a hand on the man’s shoulder, and even though he is one of my own, his countenance is terrifying. I give him a little shake, hoping to wake him, but if a spear to the shoulder did not jostle him, what will a gentle nudge do? I must push a little too hard, because he falls backward, thudding to the wet ground like a tree falling.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, crouching next to him. I realize now that the woodsmith is not alone in his strange state. All around me, lit by the flashing night sky, are people I know, stiff and unmoving, as if they have been robbed of their souls. Some are standing, some are lying on the ground. Some are sitting, some still holding their arms and hands out in the pose they were in when the dust hit them.

  I rush to each of them in turn, waving my hand in their faces, jostling them, calling their names. I check each one, but none of them respond to me. I am invisible to them.

  As far as I can tell, they are alive. I’ve seen my share of dead people. These villagers aren’t bloated or mottled or stinking or stiff, as at least some of them would be by now if they were dead. It doesn’t take long for the bugs and the worms to find the dead, but there are none on these bodies. They’re as they were in life, but frozen.

  Frigg! She was felled by the dust too, and I must find her. I am frantic as I search for her body. So many of my village landmarks have been destroyed, and the flashing sky makes it even harder for me to see than usual. My eyes have never been reliable at night, and now I feel near-blind.

  At last I find her, and my heart surges with hope that I can wake her. She is curled on her side in the mud, and she looks much smaller this way. I brush her hair back from her face and see that the rain is falling into her open eyes. Gently I try to close them, but no part of her will move. I try to pull her over to a half-burned shed, but she is too heavy, and I curse my own weakness.

  I will not leave her exposed, so I gather as much unburned wood and scraps of fabric as I can find and create a makeshift shelter for her. It’s not much, but it keeps the rain from her face.

  I kneel next to her under the hastily made canopy and make promises as the storm rages around us. “I will go and find Sýr, and she will help you, Frigg. I swear this to you. I won’t let you stay like this forever.”

  I hold my runes and whisper to them as I weep, begging them to undo the curse, but it doesn’t work. I use more of my own blood to make protection marks on Frigg’s forehead in hopes that it will keep her safe. After covering her in hides and blankets, I make my way through the village and cast safety spells on all my frozen people.

  “Girl.” A weak voice in the darkness startles me. I spin around, holding out my glowing runes and my spear.

  There, slumped by a swordsmith’s hut, is my grandmother.

  “Amma,” I cry, rushing to her.

  Amma is not frozen in time. She is not stiff and cold and petrified in position. Amma is dying the ordinary way, having been run through by a sword. I know this because the large, rough-hewn metal is sticking out of her belly. Dark blood seeps from the wound, and I dare not try to remove the sword.

  “Amma, no,” I whimper.

  She reaches to stroke my cheek. “Don’t cry, love. Don’t despair. I die as I lived.”

  “Please,” I say. “We can get help.” Even as I say the words, I know they are not true. There would be no saving Amma from this wound even if the entire village weren’t under a spell.

  Amma chuckles. “I tried to get to the swords. To fight them. The bastards were faster than me. But I got in a few chops, my girl. Don’t worry.”

  I can’t help but smile. My tough old Amma.

  “You’ll go to Valhalla,” I say. “And live with the gods.”

  “Pish,” Amma scoffs. “Give me a little hut on the hill. Maybe some hákarl,” she adds, coughing out the words.

  Hákarl. I remember the treat Sýr left for me, and I pull the piece I saved out of my pocket. How long ago this morning seems now. “Here,” I say, unwrapping the hákarl from the moss and offering it to her.

  Amma sniffs it. “Ah, you are a good girl. The best girl. I always knew that.”

  I am crying again as Amma takes a tiny nibble of the flesh I put to her lips. She is so fragile it makes my heart hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t,” Amma chokes out. “I am dying now, and I cannot leave this realm unless I know you will be all right.”

  I nod. “I am fine,” I lie. “I’m not hurt.” I don’t tell her about the magical dagger Katla stabbed me with.

  “Runa. My Runa.”

  “Yes, Amma. I am here.”

  “Please, send me to sea when I am dead. I want to travel to my son, wherever he is. Perhaps I will find him again in the great fog.”

  I nod, incapable of speaking.

  Amma whispers, and I strain to hear. “A true descendant of the gods may wield the moonstone.”

  “Amma, I don’t know what you mean. What do you mean?” I ask.

  Her eyes roll back into her head, and she shivers so hard her teeth chatter.

  “Amma, don’t leave me too.”

  “You must fight, my girl,” she says. “You must travel to moonwater. You must follow the red moon and the stars until you see the great green lights to the north.”

 
I shake my head. “I can’t, Amma. I’m all alone. I don’t know how.”

  “Find a way, or the clan is doomed,” she says. “We are all doomed.”

  I look around at the cursed figures of my village. My love for them breeds the tiniest of hopes that maybe, if I can find Katla and if the gods are on my side, I can undo this dark magic.

  “Runa,” says Amma, “I loved you before you were here.”

  I hold tightly to her, willing her to die soon and without pain, but that is not what happens.

  It takes all night for Amma to leave the realm of the living. It is not quick. It is not painless. She sees things, visions, that make no sense. She wails and cries and calls for her own mother. I have never felt such love and such hatred all at one time.

  By morning the storm has subsided and the dark sky gives way to a golden dawn that bathes the horror of my home in a light so beautiful it doesn’t seem fair. I carry the wasted body of my grandmother to the shore and rest her on a broken fishing raft I find there.

  After giving her a kiss, I use her own blood to write the vegvisir on her chest, and then I set her adrift in the cold waters.

  “Farewell, Amma,” I whisper. “I love you.”

  I watch her little raft until it disappears on the horizon. In the bright morning light I think I see something dark fall through the air in the distance. But I tell myself I must be seeing things. My eyes hurt. I’m tired and cold, and I feel like walking into the ocean after my grandmother. Maybe now is the best time to die.

  I hear a piercing cry and look up to see Núna flying toward me. She alights on my shoulder, and I sob, sinking down onto the black sand. I stay like that for a long time, my raven a quiet comfort.

  I don’t know if I pass out from exhaustion or if I have my sickness again, but I enter a dark dream. In it I see Katla, her eyes dead and black. She transforms into a giant serpent that swallows Sýr and Amma and everyone I know. Then the serpent comes for me. Grabak. I hear the name in my mind, and at first I am terrified, but then I become angry. I feel myself growing larger, until I am bigger than the serpent. I open my mouth, unhinging my jaw, and swallow the Katla serpent whole. It bites the inside of my throat, and I can feel it wriggling in my chest. I drink buckets of seawater to wash it down, but it hangs on, and I wonder how long it will take to die now that it is in my stomach. I feel it squirm, biting my insides until I can taste the blood in the back of my mouth. All I can do is keep swallowing and hope that it doesn’t climb back up.

  When I awake, Núna is sitting on my chest, her claws digging into me, and I am flat on my back on the black sand, the cold water lapping at my legs. I am so cold that I can’t move well, and if I don’t get warm soon, I will die. I pull myself up with great effort, the pain shooting through my chest, and I gather my shining spear, my runes, and my sheepskin.

  “Thank you, Núna,” I say, the words strangling in my throat. “You brought me back. Now we have work to do.”

  Núna squawks and flies off ahead of me toward my hut. I head up the cliff path, avoiding the scene of my destroyed village and my cursed clan, and as I walk I grow a little warmer. I feel my anger growing too. Each step I take drives it down into the center of me. I know some things now for certain.

  I will honor my amma, and fulfill my promises to my clan, by finding a cure. I will travel to moonwater and bring my sister home. Together we will set things right, and Katla and the Jötnar will regret ever setting foot on our shores. And if I find Einar, mixer of dust, I will make him eat his own poison.

  My home seems smaller in this new light, as does everything I look upon. It’s as if the world has shrunk since the Jötnar attacked. I wonder if it is my perception or if it’s a result of the strange dust Katla’s errand boy made. It has given everything a sickly yellow sheen.

  I don’t understand why Einar created that dust, for all the talk of him has been about his physical beauty and his smarts and his desirability as heir to a great clan—not tales of violence or betrayal. Despite the Jötnar clan’s history as warring giants, they’ve always been a just people. Ymir the Devourer was feared by many, but not for being a tyrant. Now he is a shadow of himself, made into a slack-faced slave by Katla. How many others is she controlling? In a moment of horror, I imagine the whole island, all the clans and magic folk alike, under her command. What if I’m the only one left unharmed?

  I push away the thoughts that threaten to spiral me into a panic. I hurry to light and stoke a fire, my frozen hands struggling to strike the rocks. Finally I am able to make a spark against the dried moss we have stashed in a basket. Once the moss ignites, I feed smaller driftwood into it until the flames lick, and then I place larger birch on top. We don’t like to have long-burning fires in our village. We warm our homes as much as is needed to make them comfortable and then conserve the wood, as our forests are dwindling and wood is not plentiful. But I want this fire to be a blaze as big as possible, for the chill inside me is growing.

  I strip off my soaked garments and shudder naked next to the flames. My chest is the coldest part of my body. I fear Katla has pierced my heart with a shard of ice. That’s what it feels like. I use a piece of scratchy wool cloth to rub my hair as dry as I can while I sit beside the fire. Violent shivers rack my body, as much from fear as the cold.

  Once I am pink-skinned again, and I can feel the tingling pains in my fingers and toes that tell me I won’t be losing them altogether, I focus on warming my insides. Sýr always says seaweed and island moss are the best healing ingredients, so I place bunches of both in our large pot and add leftover dried fish and water until the mixture is bubbling. I drink down the hot soup until it threatens to come back up.

  It feels wrong to eat and to enjoy this warmth while much of my clan lies dead and the rest are frozen outside. Even if I can find Sýr and she can cure them, I don’t know if they will die anyway from cold or starvation or who knows what else. And if they perish, what will happen to their souls? Will they be frozen too? Or will their spirits ascend to Valhalla or Freyja’s Field?

  “I vow that I will return, and if we can’t save you, I will give every one of you a proper funeral,” I say to the empty room. My heart’s pain flows out of me, and I imagine it covering my entire village with a glowing light.

  It will take a long time, if I am alone, to build rafts for each person and set them all ablaze on the ocean, but even if it takes months, I will accomplish it. I still have hope that Father will return, but he has been gone for long periods before. Once he left when I was three and didn’t return until after my twelfth birthday. I remember how he looked at me when he saw me again. I am sure I was not at all what he’d expected, for he’d left a happy sprite and returned to a gangling freak who caused nothing but problems. It’s no wonder he likes to stay away for so long.

  The red light of the sky changes its patterns on my floor. The day is getting longer, and if I am going to try to find moonwater and embark on the most dangerous journey of my short life, I must set out soon. I know it is practical to travel during the day, so as to cover as much ground as possible in the light, and leaving at dawn would be best. But I also know that I cannot stand one more night alone here with my near-dead clan.

  The wincing pain in my chest has given way to a dull ache. I try to set it aside as I get ready.

  I take Sýr’s pot of cure-all salve from the shelf and rub some on the crescent mark on my chest before placing the pot in a large pack our family used in the past to transport goods on horseback. We’ve long since grown too poor to own horses, and the Jötnar made sure to kill all the remaining animals in our village during the raid, so it will be up to me to carry the bag. I will have to be careful when I choose what to bring. First I need to find clothes.

  Both of my regular dresses are soaked through, so I put on two pairs of my own woolen leggings and socks and then scour Sýr’s sleeping area for a spare. I find an old brown knit dress that is too short but could work as a tunic. I decide to wear that and then find a heavier gr
ay dress I can bring with me. A black lambs-wool cap and rabbit-skin gloves will keep me warm, and I also grab Sýr’s spare boots, which are still a couple of sizes too big for me. Another pair of socks will help fill in the space. In a back corner I find a heavy old cloak that is much too large and must have belonged to my father. It smells awful, but it is warm, and placing it over me gives me a small sense of protection.

  On to supplies. I pack some small, sharp knives and snares for finding and cleaning game, along with some fishing lines and hooks. Though I will be venturing far from the coastline, I will still have opportunity to fish in the streams I find along the way. I will be sure to bring my special spear stick. Maybe I will use it to impale Katla.

  I will bring a small axe for chopping wood—it’s too tiny to be a killing instrument—and a fire-rock with a sack of dry moss and fine wood shavings. Some tallow to use as a candle to light the darkness, some rope, and a small cooking pot. I will have no shelter and will need to find or make it each night, but I am hoping the journey will not be too long. As no one knows exactly where moonwater will be, and I don’t know which path Katla has taken with Sýr, it could be many days. All I know is that I must follow the red moon to the green lights in the north, and I must be there before the red moon eclipses, for that is when the competition will start.

  I make sure to place my runes around my neck, as they will be my most valuable companions. We don’t trust each other yet, me and these runes, because I make so many mistakes, and they don’t always seem to listen to me, but they’re the best chance I’ve got.

  I will also need food, so I gather grains for porridge, dried fish, moss, seaweed, dried goat, a jug of whey, a jug of mead, some roots and a prized hunk of whale blubber we’ve been keeping for a long time. Our clan rarely takes in a whale, but when we do, it feeds us for years. This blubber will give me food or fire when I need it.

  Next I gather potions. Sýr has so many tiny pots with bits of herbs and powders that I can’t take them all, and I don’t know enough about her oils or tinctures yet to know which ones would be most useful on my journey. But I do know I should take the angelica in case of illness, and I also take her healing salves.