I took it. It had been opened, the seal with a mask cracked.
“I dropped it.”
I scowled.
He rolled his eyes. “I read it. It is for you. It has been sent from someone who claims he knows everything there is to know about this enemy. See, therefore, I don’t think negotiations will work, even if I claimed they might. This man knows his business. It says he, the Mouth of Lok, has long worked against both the draugr and Morag, who was an equal enemy to Midgard. He has had plans, he has had allies, but he says he has failed. He asks you to go to Aten, and to seek a adopted horse. I bet it is a tavern. His allies, this man’s have—”
“Those allies have turned on him,” I finished for him, reading a part of it. I looked down at him with fury and rolled the scroll away. “My father was not evil,” I snarled. “He was not enemy to Midgard. He turned his back on Hel, once.”
Saag looked dubious. “Turned his back on Hel? The goddess? Did he also bend over? No, wait, don’t answer. I know not what you speak of, but a man … a jotun might easily be an enemy to Hel and still also an enemy to Midgard.”
“No, I—”
“Did you speak with him a lot?” Nima asked softly. “You know nothing of your kin. They say the draugr raised you.”
“Wife,” I said coldly, “he was a jotun, but also a good man.”
Nima stepped forward, her hand raised in a calming manner. “What my brother is trying to say, is that we know little of the past. Morag brought the law, and rule of justice. But he might have benefitted from law and justice more than others.”
“I have a book—”
“The famous Book of the Past, written by nobles,” she said, “in noble city, full of rumors of the past, but the book doesn’t know Morag, does it?”
I hesitated and refused to agree.
Nima stepped closer and put a hand on my arm. I looked to the darkness that hid Quiss and tried to chase away the fear I’d lose her. “Did you ever manage a word with your father?”
I looked down at her strong face and couldn’t lie. “I spoke to him once. I know he served Hel in Hel’s War, but also changed his heart about the service. He trapped Baduhanna … and ruled well. He—”
“It is so,” she whispered, “that he ruled well, though we disliked him. Bandits, pirates, and smugglers hated him, for a reason. For the rest, he was a good king.” She touched the scroll. “But this scroll has been sent around the land to many others or our kind, so someone with a purpose is seeking you and is truly worried over what is taking place in Midgard. This Mouth of … Lok sounds a rather ominous character. He is famous in the south, and you should seek him out, if we can. He has risked much. This scroll and the others might fall into enemy hands, after all. They have been seeking him for a long time down south.” She gave a withering look at where Quiss would be hiding. “Ask her.”
“I know the story,” I said. “The enemy seeks to restore an undead Queen of the Draugr, a monster of the old times. To do that, they want Mara’s Brow, and they have those who were there once and can open the prison. We must row after them, winter or no winter, and we must stop them up there in the north before they do to Falgrin and Ygrin what they did to us. They have my father’s corpse, that of my mother, they have an artifact of power only my kin can use, and still, here I am, a king, trying to find a way to both save us and to thwart the evil that threatens us, and I am failing.”
Nima squeezed my hand. “But that must change now. You need a plan to beat the enemy first. And I think, because I’m a rogue, that if you wish to be the thief of Midgard, the one who steals the land from Hel, you should heed what this Mouth of Lok says. You might not know all of the story.”
The law-speakers moved, handed me one leather bound scroll, which I placed in my bag. They left.
Saag smiled. “I shall go and make ready the people. I assume you wish to speak to them? That is, of course, if you have a plan.”
“I do,” I told him. “I have a plan.”
I sat down, and he left, singing. Nima sat near me, and servants brought forth food. Many archers, ten and more, emerged from the shadows, apparently overjoyed by the marriage, but I wasn’t. Quiss was walking back and forth, just out of sight, and I knew she was furious.
I was too.
And still, I now had an army.
It was full of rogues and throat cutters, ill-suited for open battle, but I had a plan that would not require, with luck, such a battle before things were more equal. I thumbed the scroll of the Mouth of Lok and knew Nima was right about reading it and considering finding the person who had sent it. It could be an elaborate trap, but it could also fill in some blanks.
Like the fact, Sand was serving someone who took no heed of Balic.
Nima leaned forward, and I looked at her. She opened her mouth to speak, but right then, a party of men came in and carried with them a small cauldron of stew. The archers proceeded to clearing a space for it, and soon, they were all chatting happily around it.
Nima smiled. “You want a serving? I suppose a king cannot get his own plate.”
I smiled ruefully. “I’ve not had food in a day, but for some reason, I feel entirely full. I’m not sure I can afford to eat here.”
She leaned on her hand and giggled softly. She was shaking her head. “It was a rude trick, I agree, Maskan. It was a very nasty bit of extortion.”
I glowered at her. “A jotun might not have minded chopping off some heads before leaving you lot to your dreams. It is a risky business to make someone like me mad. A bull with bee-stung nut would not react differently than a cheated jotun.”
“It was a deal,” she said softly. “A deal you needed to make. You are a man rather than a jotun, are you not? You make deals, and do not think yourself above us. I guessed it was so. That’s why we are all breathing and happy. I’ll be helpful. You need someone who understands archers, after all. I’ll fight hard for the crown, and for you.”
I nodded, suspicious.
“I’ll prove my worth,” Nima insisted. “I know I might die. I don’t expect anything else. I’m not my brother, am I? I’m brave, and I plan our raids, and I know the men. I have a mind of my own, but I can also serve you, and Midgard. What are you planning?”
I smiled. “We shall find a way to beat Lisar Vittar. Here is what I need. Listen.” I leaned on her and whispered for a long while.
She listened, and then, she nodded. Her powerful muscles were twitching as she was thinking. Her eyes went to Quiss, who was still pacing the darkness.
“It is a terrible risk,” she said finally.
I lifted my eyebrow. “Yes. And still, it is how you win. You risk all. You need to win your throne, Queen of Red Midgard. It takes more than extorting kings to sit in the Temple of the Tower.”
She grinned. She was ferocious and practical, and still somewhat likable.
“I will find my scribes, and I will do it,” she said. “My brother won’t disagree. He will only be a nuisance, when I actually sit on that throne next to yours.”
“Aye,” I said. “I know.”
She looked at Quiss briefly, then at the men lading food onto their plates, and she was silent as she was thinking. “We can make it work. Will the Regent,” she wondered, “try to murder me?”
I gave Quiss a look. “She has been unhappy since I gave her the title. She was happy to fight for Dagnar, and she led men in the Pass, but something broke her when I elevated her to this role. I’m sorry I did. I need to speak with her, but now is not the time.”
She nodded. “So. Will we stay the night?”
“We must move in the morning,” I told her. “Can you prepare everything?”
“I can,” she told me. “My brother … expects we will act like a pair.”
I chuckled tiredly. “Your brother expects … and what do you expect?”
She shrugged. “I expect to earn that throne. I do not earn it in bed. And I am not in love with you, or any other man. I bed whom I want, as will you.”
> I leaned closer. “You cannot bed anyone you wish when you are the queen. It would smear the throne. It would be like taking a shit on someone’s doorstep.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I will be very discreet and give you a full accounting of such activity, so the shit can be cleaned up quickly. You shall give me the same courtesy, of course.”
“And if you get pregnant off some other … man. They will find out it is no jotun soon enough, eh?”
She slumped. “This requires some thought. I will have to be very careful, at least.” She tugged her braid furiously. “I’ll not easily settle for one cock, but I’ll consider it.”
We settled back on our seats, and both chuckled. She was ferocious as a ferret, and the jotun in me found her amusing.
“In the morning, then,” she said, and got up. “I shall give the orders and may Lok dance in our favor.”
“You pray to Lok?” I wondered.
“Nött and Lok,” she said with a smile. “No rogue has forgotten the old gods. We all still ask for a boon from them. Do you not have one?”
“I used to pray to Odin,” I told her. “Though, perhaps, I have recently found something else. I don’t know. It might have been nothing more than a wood spirit. I can handle it.”
I suddenly slipped away, and the odd, willow voice tried to invade my mind.
You fool.
A jotun. You are a jotun.
The voice had been gentle when it had guided me to pray on winter. Now, it was full of anger, and it made my head ache. I raised my head and heard Nima speaking. I nodded to a question I had not heard and held my head as the powerful, spiteful voice came back.
You think you prayed to the winter? To some fairy spirit of the woods? Something a jotun might be able to handle. Twice the fool. Think, Maskan. Would the spirits, unnamed and cold, need and heed prayers? Are they not truly uncaring and would they even hear a jotun? A life for them, means nothing. You understand not a single thing.
I shook my head, and tried to stand up, but the voice stayed in.
What are the gods, and what are the jotuns? They were carved of the same flesh, all part the very roots of Yggdrasill, ancient and powerful, and still … two sides of the coin. They are the devourers, and the keepers.
“I am no—”
The voice pushed me back and spoke on.
Jotuns are the devourers. The gods, the keepers. One is irrational, terrifying, a power for chaos, and the other holds and creates the balance, the good, the laws, justice. Once, a great being called Ymir was born in the Filling Void, in the great Ginnungagap, and the race of jotuns was born of him when he fed on the milk of the cow, Auðhumbla.
They ruled, they invented magic, they built and prospered, and then, they warred. Tribes and tribes of lesser jotuns were born of them. They were, those ancient jotuns, the true gods. And yet, they lacked vision.
I got up and saw Nima next to me, holding my hand, and guiding me to the corner for a bed, worried. Some men were helping her, and Quiss was there as well, walking near me, her eyes on me.
So, it was that the great power, a lord none knew, a god of gods, the one who sits over Ginnungagap unseen and feeds Yggdrasill, gave birth to another race of gods. They were no lesser jotuns. They were born of the very strongest of the jotun kin, the sons and daughters of the kings of all the jotuns, of those who are the most ancient ones. Where the mothers and fathers of these jotuns were chaotic beings, these ones had a vision of a balance, of a need to limit, instead to devour. What that difference of a jotun and them was, I know not. It is there, nonetheless.
I was sitting on a bed and held my face.
Quiss was next to me, considering my eyes. Nima was giving orders to find men skilled in poisons.
Both were frantic with worry.
The voice went on.
Few of them, Odin, Vil, and Ve rebelled. They changed everything. They killed Ymir and doomed most of their fellow jotuns into destruction and pain. They isolated the jotuns to the primal worlds of Muspelheim and Nifleheim, and many they chased to Jotunheimr, and claimed many other worlds to rule with justice and law. They chose the best out of the uncountable worlds the death of Ymir had spawned, and they pushed away the dragons and other First Born, all spawned from Ymir’s dead corpse, as they set to make their vision true.
I groaned and tried to get up but couldn’t. I fought the voice, and it pushed back brutally.
They, jotuns, no matter if they called themselves the Aesir and the Vanir, squabbled, created, and struggled, and finally ruled. Their adventures were many, their justice swift, and the true jotuns and the chaos they represent was pushed away. While wars, plagues, famine, and these battles of Aesir and Vanir amongst themselves seem truly threatening, the great balance is still tilted for justice. One day, balance will swing back. The prophesies speak of it. As Lok is released, and jotuns and their rebellious kin will battle and make things anew, perhaps it is jotun again, who rule. Perhaps none shall.
The voice paused, and I was trying to win my thoughts back. I failed again.
Now, you, a jotun, would rule Red Midgard like a man? Fool, fool. You are the blood of the old jotuns, not of the gods. You are the son of Ymirtoes and kin to the most ancient of jotunkin. Be one! You need no allies save for your kin. Pray not to Odin. Do not heed the men. Forget Maskan. Pray to our god, the old one, the grandfather of Odin and his ilk. Guard our old ways and let the chaos reign, Maskan. Fight Hel but only to conquer. Guard your kin, o royal jotun, guard those the rebel Aesir and Vanir captured and defeat Hel, but do it for our kin, not for the humans, elves, or the gods. Let Lok slumber still and let Hel rot in Helheim.
But do not forget. You are also enemy to those who serve the Aesir and the Vanir. Humans are your meat.
When you pray, do not pray to winter.
She never answered your call.
Pray for the great Bolthorn. He did. Touch ice and snow, and pray for him aloud, and know you must pay a price. Do not ask for too much.
Stop living Morag’s life.
It disappeared. Then I slumped, and went to sleep, my head aching.
***
It was late that night, when I awoke. I sat up on the bed, my armor jingling. I held my face, and my neck, which was throbbing. I looked around and saw the ten men from a crack in a curtain that had been drawn to hide the bed. They were playing dice.
I shook my head, and I was terrified the voice would invade my head again. I rubbed my temples and thought deep. I tried my best to focus, but I felt sick. It was as if someone had held my face under water for too long, and I had nearly drowned. It had been terrible, terrifying, and still …
Bolthorn? An ancient jotun, near a god?
And I, his distant blood, above most jotun?
I smiled at the thought, and I was sure I was mad.
Then, a hand touched me, and I found Nima sitting on the bed. She held my face and looked into my eyes.
Humans, my meat.
The vicious thought fought with the human morals in my head, the cruel voice telling me to use them and never look back. The human in me, Maskan, put a hand in hers and another on her face. She looked shocked, trembled and tried to get up, but then stopped and settled back.
“Where is Quiss?” I asked her.
“She sleeps,” she said. “She sat here for a long time and then went to sleep.”
“My orders?” I asked.
“Wait,” she said softly. “What happened? You looked possessed. You fell on your knees and held your head. I had to check you are not hurt and bleeding out in some other place.”
She let her eyes go down briefly, and I smiled.
“No. It is … a jotun’s issue. You cannot heal or aid me. It is gone.”
She didn’t look sure. “I was about to become the only royal in Midgard,” she said. “The orders have been delivered. The men, all the army, is awake and waiting. Are you going to go down? We are all ready.”
She was wearing an armor of chain, and leathers, and a cloak of
fox fur.
“Yes, I shall.”
Humans, my meat.
I pushed away the thought, hesitated, and pulled Nima to me. I kissed her lips gently and closed my eyes as I devoured her love, and not her meat. She hesitated only for a moment and pressed against me. She pushed me back and climbed over me, strong and greedy, and began pulling up my chain skirt, her hand trying to open the leather laces beneath.
I saw a vision of Quiss, and loved her, but Nima was there, and she was mine. I let her work, and then she managed to open the laces, and she, gasping, pulled and touched me with passion. She slid over me, and I felt her warmth as I entered her.
And then, the men in the room all got up.
We stopped, and she jumped up and rushed out. I saw her put a hand over her mouth, and then, I was there with her and saw what they all saw.
On the dark way out of the chambers, there stood a troop of men and women.
Formerly, that is.
They were draugr, and they had found me.
There were ten of them, they all wore the familiar midnight black chainmail and, on it, was emblazoned a white snake twisted around a skull. They all held the best of weapons, but their bedraggled skin, rotting flesh and wounds, and filthy hair made the men and Nima flinch from disgust and fear.
Quiss was up and staring at them as well, backing off.
I knew two of them.
With them, was Silas Barm Bellic, his face unusually smooth. There, too, was Sand.
He grinned, like he once had, missing half his flesh in his face. An unholy light burned in the eye socket, surrounded by blackened skull. “Maskan,” he said. “I told you we’d meet again, soon.”
I walked to stand before the men, and Nima, my sword out. They were spreading around, eyes round with fear. Quiss was pulling a sword and picking up a round shield behind us.
“Sand,” I asked. “You found me again indeed. How?”
“I have my ways,” he said softly. “I will find you again, should you get away. I have no other goal. You killed half my boys before, but this will be different.”
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