by Matt Larkin
“W-what! Why are you turning on me, uncle?”
Sigmund shook his head and advanced. He did not owe the son of Wolfsblood any explanation.
After cutting off the boy’s head to ensure no draug would rise, Sigmund left the boy’s corpse in the muck. Unfortunately for the child, Sigmund doubted he saw any valkyries this day. If aught at all came for Kettil, it would be the servants of Hel.
As they must soon come for all the brood of Siggeir Wolfsblood.
45
In daylight, Audr’s power was weakened, making it harder to grasp onto. Odin strolled along the street outside the tower, casting a glance back at Loki where he lingered in an alley. This was the only chance they had, yes, but the thought of it left a sick, empty pit in Odin’s stomach. Just reach down into the back of his mind and grab hold of the wraith. That was all he had to do.
That, and welcome darkness into his soul, choking on it as it smothered him. To bear witness as his soul and his humanity withered away into husks as empty as those carried by the Niflungar.
He cast a glance around to make sure none would see what he was about. Using his own power he might have projected his consciousness into the Astral Realm, true, and even passed into the tower. But that allowed him no way to interact with the Mortal Realm. No, he needed the wraith to physically pull him through the Veil and back, and that meant accepting the taint that came with it.
Odin’s mind touched Audr’s power. A surge of bile scorched his throat as his gut lurched at the feeling of the wraith’s simmering, oily hatred of life. His stomach roiled again as that power tugged him across realities, like falling headfirst over a cliff and straight into a maelstrom. Astral currents tore at his consciousness as his body and soul began to shred.
Falling.
Falling upward, outward. Inward.
Vertigo seized Odin, and he plummeted to his knees. They cracked down on hard stone steps, the impact sending a jolt of lightning coursing through his body.
He was back in the Mortal Realm.
The thought fled as fast as it had come, as he toppled down stairs inside the tower. His hip banged one step, his foot slipped. His wrist twisted as he tried to arrest his fall. He pitched over backward and toppled.
His skull slammed against the floor when he finally stopped falling.
Everything blurred, spun.
Almost no light in here.
A serpent slithered along his intestines, crawling up his bowels, into his stomach. Coiling around his heart. Audr was squeezing it. Taking control.
They had a deal.
They had a fucking deal!
Of course the wraith could not be trusted. The Otherworlds were the worlds of lies. Of deceit. Corruption. Not that the Mortal Realm was so much better. No! That was the wraith’s natural ennui grasping him, dragging him into oblivion to smother all hope.
Lying on his back, gasping for breath and nigh to blind, Odin beat at the wraith as it coiled around him. His hands flailed wildly, slapping stone. His one good leg spasmed, pounding again and again into the side of the tower.
Not like this. His body was his body. His mind his mind. His soul … He could almost feel pieces of it shred as Audr feasted upon him. He opened his mouth to scream, but his agony swallowed even the sound, leaving him writhing in silent torment.
A memorial. Vili had died because of Odin’s mistakes.
Except the berserk … the man … his brother …
Memories of him evaporated like Odin had fallen into the Lethe. There one moment, then gone. For an instant, he knew what he had lost, then even that fell to a haze. Something was torn from him. Something precious.
And yet, at last, Audr receded into the interminable darkness.
Odin sucked down a long painful breath. Fuck. He hadn’t been able to breathe this whole time? And he had pissed himself. He gasped, moaned, unable to sit. His knee was throbbing. Damn this aged form! He might well have cracked the bone.
He had expected to age a few more years for this. Not … whatever had happened to him. Maybe that was the true horror—never knowing what price you’d pay for calling upon the Art.
Odin coughed, barely able to turn his head to spit out the phlegm. Sorcerers lost their humanity and their souls. Or perhaps it was all part of the same thing. Souls, memories. Humanity.
His brother. He had lost memories … of his brother … He knew he’d had a brother … two brothers? It ought to pain him, this knowledge, but he just felt empty. At last he managed to push himself over, coughing and gasping against the pain.
He embraced the Sight, illuminating the darkness with astral light. He lay on a landing beneath a winding staircase. It no doubt delved down into some hidden basement. Other stairs rose up into the tower.
So—up or down? If Odin were a creature denied his powers in sunlight, he’d head toward the darker place.
You are always bound for darker places …
Standing sent fresh jolts of agony through his knee, and he collapsed against the side of the tower, sputtering with the effort. Grunting, fumbling around, he managed to pull the butt of Gungnir under him for support. Descending stairs was not like to end well. But then, none of his choices ever did.
Not that urd had truly allowed him choices.
We are all trapped by fate …
Or perhaps men preferred to think thus, as if that might absolve them of their responsibility for their own situations. But was that truth, or was that Loki’s wordplay at work in Odin’s agonized mind? It didn’t matter.
What mattered was taking one slow, painful stair at a time.
It felt a long way he descended, though it could not have been more than twenty steps. This opened into an underground chamber, circular. In its center stood a pedestal atop which a copper goblet rested. Odin paused on the threshold, looking around the empty room.
Where were the guards? Surely the Patriarchs would not leave their greatest treasure unattended. And yet, no one was here. The walls bore engravings, both carvings of wicked, fanged faces of monsters and of strange glyphs. Some of those might have resembled spirit glyphs, but others Odin could not identify. Alcoves retreated into the back of the wall, so perhaps, behind those …
Odin took a step forward.
Then another, still supporting himself on Gungnir.
Still, naught happened. He advanced toward the goblet. Could it be so easy? Could he claim his prize and leave without …
Dust wafted out of the one of the alcoves. Then another. And another. It began to flow from them like a waterfall, raining over the floor and rising up in great clouds that slowly began to take shape.
Hel take these Miklagardians.
Odin surged forward, snatched up the goblet—it was filled with blood—and leveled Gungnir at one of the rapidly solidifying dust clouds.
He could use Audr to escape … at a price more terrible than could be borne.
A hint of red eyes gleamed in the darkness for a moment before fading. One of the other dust clouds broke apart and raced toward him. Odin swept Gungnir in a wide arc at it while trying to fall back. Putting weight on his knee nigh sent him toppling to the floor with pain and forced a gasp out of him.
The first dust cloud had become a man, dressed in a tattered shroud, and that man advanced on him with a steady gait. Odin glanced over his shoulder. The other dust cloud had moved behind him, cutting off his escape, and it too had solidified into a man. The third closed in from his left.
Odin spun, whirling Gungnir around him in an attempt to keep these creatures at bay. His movement put weight on his knee, almost sent him plummeting to the floor.
The one to his side lunged at him with superhuman speed. Odin seized the power of the apple to make himself stronger, faster. Blocking all pain.
Rather than turn to face his attacker, he twisted backward, jutting the spear out behind himself and impaling the vampire mid-air. Gungnir punched through the creature’s chest, eliciting a mind-rending shriek from it.
The one
before Odin froze in place, mouth agape, as if unable to comprehend that a living man might accomplish such a thing. Odin whipped his spear back around, flinging the impaled vampire off at its kin. The two collided and stumbled to the floor.
Odin spun on the remaining one and thrust at it. The creature broke apart into dust and shadow, reforming as the spear passed. Again and again, Odin attacked, and each time the creature dodged, becoming dust with uncanny speed, denying Gungnir any solid purchase.
Roaring at his foe, Odin lunged forward, sweeping the spear blade in a descending arc. With only one hand, his swings were wild. To easy to avoid.
The vampire solidified beside him, caught the spear haft and jerked Odin around. Its strength exceeded even his own. With one swift motion, it had lifted him off the ground and flung him against the wall.
The goblet clattered from his hand.
And then the vampire was on him. One hand pinned his spear to his chest. The other snared his hair and jerked his head around. Icy fangs sunk into his neck. At once the chill of the grave hit him, draining his strength even as he felt his blood siphoned out. Awakened by the apple, he could almost see his pneuma vanishing, sucked out through his blood. And with each swallow, the vampire grew stronger, and Odin’s power diminished. His legs kicked helplessly in the air, unable to find purchase.
Breath wouldn’t come.
The one he had wounded—that ought to have killed it!—was crawling over to him. It bit him on the thigh, sucking down great gulps of his blood. As it did so, the hole in its chest began to seal over.
Thought wouldn’t come.
Except … Audr.
He touched the wraith and fell through the vampire’s grasp, his form no longer in the Mortal Realm. Just for an instant—a single heartbeat—and then he plummeted back into reality. Long enough to rise behind the vampire. It turned but not fast enough. With another bellow, Odin drove Gungnir through its back. The spear bit through the stone and embedded itself in the wall, pinning the vampire in place. Odin kicked the other one in the face, sending it spinning end over end through the air.
Audr’s icy claws clutched his heart, trying to take control again. Odin threw his faltering will against the wraith. Something impacted him from behind and drove him to the ground. The third vampire.
It spun him around. Its fist snapped into his face, smacking his head against the floor. Odin reeled, unable to move. Blows rained down upon his face and chest and ribs with lightning speed and enough force to crack bone with each hit. Odin jerked his knee up, trying to catch the vampire in the stones. He either missed, or it didn’t care, because it didn’t halt its assault in the least.
It took all of the apple’s power to block out the pain or dim it to the point he could even think. And all he could think of was the same solution, over and over. The wraith was his only chance. The wraith was … going to devour his soul.
But Odin had been other men. Men who could fight even unarmed, even against a stronger foe. He caught the vampire, shifted his weight, and twisted, instinct telling him just how to move to reverse the hold. The surprised creature slammed into the ground. Whether stunned by the impact or the fact that Odin was now atop him, it faltered for an instant. Long enough for Odin to launch powerful blows of his own. He shattered the creature’s nose, slapped his hands on its temples, and crushed its throat.
Too much to hope that would kill the dead thing, but Odin rolled off it and scrambled for the goblet. Somehow, the blood had not spilled from it. In fact, even as Odin lifted it, the liquid seemed to shift to maintain its position, as if possessed of its own will.
The other vampire rose up, lurching toward him, the hole in its chest half closed and obviously agonizing the monster. It surged forward, clawed fingers reaching for Odin. As he fell back, that hand slapped the goblet, knocking it aside. That was their priority. Make sure the goblet couldn’t leave this tower.
And Odin just needed to get the goblet outside, into the sunlight.
Sunlight … Accursed …
Odin feinted left, then dove around the vampire in a roll. His knee felt like it would rip off with every motion. He was burning through so much pneuma to fight the pain he wouldn’t have much left to fight these bastards. He caught up the goblet.
Sunlight … may destroy the blood’s power …
What? The wraith couldn’t have told him that sooner?
The fell vaettr cackled inside him, the sound like a child in pain.
The vampire with the crushed throat had risen. The one impaled on Gungnir was working his way off it, heedless of the gaping hole in its chest. And the third was already swinging at Odin.
Odin grabbed Audr’s power again, this time, shifting himself onto the steps. The wraith’s claws were in his skull now, shredding bits and pieces of Odin’s past. His life, his past lives. Memories. Hopes. Dreams. All of it torn and dragged down into the dark oblivion in which Audr dwelled.
The anguish of it sent Odin stumbling to the ground. The vampires were dashing for him.
He could use Audr to escape the tower, but it all meant naught without the blood. And he had no easy way to conceal it from the daylight. Cover it with his cloak? Would that work?
Perhaps …
Again, that mad cackle. Memories of his brother, his father, his mother, they disappeared, consumed by the wraith. Odin had had a family but … what had happened to them?
He was weak from blood loss. Not thinking clearly. The vampires had drained his pneuma through his blood.
They drank it.
Drank it.
Oh … Precious …
Before he could think better of it, Odin took a long swig from the goblet. Acrid, iron taste scorched his throat. It burned his stomach like acid. And then his heart beat. It coursed through his veins like tar, like a poison he felt devouring him from the inside out.
One of the vampires flung himself at Odin in a rage. Odin was past caring. He seized Audr’s power again, this time shifting himself outside the tower.
The wraith vanished the instant he reentered the Mortal Realm, driven into dormancy by the sunlight. Light that now stung Odin’s eyes and left him coughing, gagging. It stung his skin. Too bright.
He tried to rise, but everything hurt. Everything. From the top of his head right down to his knees, he was a ragged, bloody mess of wounds and broken bones. Worse still, the damage inside. His heart pulsated oddly, like it struggled to pump this foreign substance.
Odin rolled over onto his back, shielding his eyes with his forearm. Everything inside had become a haze. So many memories gone. And his body seemed more ragged, more aged than ever. His battle with these creatures had cost him more than he’d expected. If only Gungnir had been able to … shit. Damn it! He’d left the spear embedded in the tower wall.
He had to reclaim it! The spear was his legacy! A gift from … from …
What the fuck?
Where had that spear come from?
Odin opened his eyes as hands dragged him away from the tower into the shadow of an alley. A sandy-haired man looked down at him.
This man … “Loki?” his voice came out as a rasp.
“What did you do?”
“I drank it. It’s in my blood now.”
“Y-you what!” The man looked like he might retch. Had Odin ever seen him so discomfited?
“I am losing myself.”
Loki slapped his cheek. “Concentrate, Odin. The price of the Art almost always exceeds its gain. But you knew that before you turned to the wretched ghost inside you. Now. For what you have done, the Patriarchs will turn this city upside down looking for you.”
“We have to escape.”
Loki pulled Odin to his feet, then wrapped a cloak around his shoulders. “You have to escape, or all this was for naught. Use the swan cloak and fly from here.”
His brain felt like it was underwater. Everything seemed distorted, confused. “You?”
“They will be searching the ships. I’ll have to go by land, find a w
ay to hide in the mountains until an alternative route presents itself. Fly, Odin. As soon as the sun sets, these creatures will be everywhere. Do what you set out to do, brother.”
Brother.
Brother … Odin had had other brothers. Gone now. Dead? Fuck, he couldn’t remember their names nor faces nor aught about them. He was lucky he even remembered Loki. For now. And he hated the man … had he not? No, not hated. Mistrusted. But here, his brother was sacrificing his cloak all so Odin could escape from his own mistakes.
Odin clapped Loki on the shoulder, and his blood brother nodded.
“You have lost some things you would not have parted with for any price in the world.”
“I don’t know.” Maybe that was the worst part.
Odin pulled up the hood of the swan cloak.
46
Eighteen Years Ago
Rough hands seized Odin, jolting him awake. A pair of dvergar hefted him to his feet, and before he could even open his mouth, one cracked him across the jaw with a stony fist. Odin’s vision reeled, and his knees gave out.
He had not intended to sleep. So much lost blood … and where had these dvergar come from? Below the ground?
Shaking his head, he glanced about for Gungnir. A third dverg had claimed it, now leveling the dragon spear at Odin. “You killed my son.”
“Your son?” Odin glanced at the dverg corpse still lying on the riverbank.
The same dverg punched him in the gut.
“For such temerity, your life is forfeit, human.”
Irony …
Irony? That Odin had fought jotunnar, trolls, dragons, and all else and would now die because of dvergar.
Or give me … control …
Give himself over to possession and let the wraith feast on the souls of his enemies. Except, once down that path, he might never again be himself.
You already become me …
