by Matt Larkin
A bitter chill settled over Sif at Thor’s words. In her mind’s eye, she could see armies of jotunnar closing in from all sides. Frost and fire jotunnar, intent to drag the world of men into the night. But from what she’d seen, the world was already dying. So was this Ragnarok the culmination of what they already faced? Or had it already begun? Or worse still … “What if we are the ones starting it?”
“What?”
“We go out there, hunt them down, kill them like beasts. Do we not risk provoking them?”
Freki groaned. “Well, fuck. You had to go and say that, didn’t you, Sif? Here I was, thinking we were making things at least a little better.”
Thor slapped the table again. “This is no jest! If we falter, Midgard pays the price.”
Sif winced and let her head fall into her palm. What was she to say to him? How to convince Thor that their current tactics risked everything to gain naught? How to make him see … their place was at Thrúd’s side?
Even as Sif looked up, Geri spoke. “Your words don’t really change the situation. If some great battle is coming, weakening our foes is important, yes, but throwing our lives away achieves naught. The four of us—immortals, Aesir—we are the bulwark against the chaos you fear. Dying for a lost cause doesn’t help Midgard, Thor.”
“You’d have me abandon these people? Now? After so many years of trying to protect them. And in the depths of winter, no less, when jotunn raids have only grown in frequency?”
“We’ll wait until summer if that appeases you,” Freki said. “But the three of us are in agreement. The Thunderers should return to Asgard. Either we come back here with more men and make this a real war, or we withdraw and lend our blades where there is some hope of victory. Better to fortify Sviarland or Aujum. Indeed, even Rollaugr might be convinced to abandon the colony and retreat to his homeland.”
Thor leveled a hard stare on each of them in turn. Then he rose stiffly. “I won’t hear another word of this. Leave if you must. Bring others if you can. I will stay out the winter and protect these people.”
And, of course, none of them would leave Thor here alone.
The prince stormed out, leaving Sif to look at the twins, their faces seeming as helpless as hers no doubt was.
10
High atop the tower crowning Valaskjalf, the High Seat sat, gleaming in the moonlight. An arching canopy covered half the spire’s pinnacle and overshadowed the throne, though enough space existed behind it that Odin could walk the tower’s perimeter and gaze out over his islands.
Asgard had become a symbol to the people of the North Realms. Maybe the same symbol Vanaheim had once been before centuries of isolation had rendered the so-called gods distant from the lands of men.
Silver plated the tower, so that sunlight made it gleam like a wonder, always serving as a beckon to the royal court. The High Seat itself, however, was the true treasure. A throne Volund had wrought—at great cost—to enhance Odin’s prowess with the Sight and allow him to focus his gaze anywhere in the Mortal Realm or, at times, even beyond it.
Through Andalus and beyond the Straits of Herakles lay the expansive Utgard empire—the Serkland Caliphate. Across sandy dunes where winter barely touched the world, Odin’s mind traveled. To cities replete with domed spires and white walls. Ruled by men who were no longer men at all, but sorcerers who’d freely given themselves to the vaettir of Muspelheim.
And their armies marched. Legion upon legion of mail-clad soldiers, struggling against Miklagard and Valland. Amid them, the eldjotunnar—jotunnar of fire, loyal to the Fire vaettir. Some stood at the height of a very tall man while others towered above their forces, some ten or twelve feet tall, and seeming to simmer with heat. They bore curving swords fit to fell a mammoth and the ground trembled at their passing.
Were all his forces gathered, Odin most like could not stop such an army.
With a weary groan, Odin rubbed his palms against his eyes. Flickers of prescient insight tickled his mind, as if to warn of danger. But the High Seat had never meshed well with any aspect of the Sight save gazing at distant locations. It did not—despite Odin’s best efforts—augment his ability to see into the past or future.
A shame, as such a tool would have rendered Odin’s many schemes much easier to orchestrate. Instead, he glimpsed shadows and dreams and tried to array pawns to take advantage of visions that may not have portrayed literal realities.
Perhaps such was what Loki saw in his flames. Whispers of unknown and unguessed dangers. Portents one could not easily separate from events soon to come or those years in the making. Oft as not, Odin found himself left not knowing if what he’d seen had already happened.
Ah, Loki. Odin had promised to keep an eye on his brother’s family.
That much, he could well do with the Seat. Even as he pictured Sigyn in his mind, his vision shifted, revealing her. She sat in Sessrumnir—Odin knew those halls all too well—an army of candles holding back the night as she flipped through pages in a dusty tome.
Odin saw her, though she had no way to observe him. He saw her pause on a section about Manifest Arts—the powers sorcerers gained by binding vaettir to their bodies and souls. Scholarly interest, or an actual intention to pursue the Art? Odin dared to hope she would not be so foolish.
Naught good came from the Art.
Hypocrite … Audr’s dry chuckle filled Odin’s mind.
Perhaps he was. But a sorcerer like Odin knew all too well the price one paid for the Art. Well enough to warn others not to tread down this path. Once the power lay before you, the temptation to call upon it became nigh to excruciating. Even as it slowly ate away at your essence.
It seemed he might need to speak with Loki’s wife in the morn, or to warn Loki of what she delved into, though he might already suspect. Frigg may have authorized her half-sister peruse the secrets of Sessrumnir, but binding vaettir took that too far.
And what of her son?
At the mere thought, Odin’s vision blurred, shifting to reveal a darkened chamber. Indeed, so little light filtered in from around a corner, Odin could make out very little. Rough walls of irregular shape … wood grains.
Slowly, as his eyes adjusted, the surroundings came more into focus. Hödr sat on the floor in a corner of this unconventional room, legs folded beneath him. Cradling something in his hands … in such total darkness, the object held a faint golden gleam, as if ready to catch even the wisp of light from around the corner.
Hödr raised the object to his mouth and bit down.
“No …” Odin said. “He would not dare.”
The irregular shape was the natural warp of an ancient tree. Hödr sat inside a chamber in Yggdrasil. And he had stolen an apple. Had stolen immortality itself. Few crimes among Aesir exceeded this.
Even Odin’s own son Thor had to prove himself in battle before gaining such a prize. And Loki’s son had stolen it rather than petition Frigg.
His brother’s son … His wife’s nephew.
Odin rose abruptly from the High Seat.
Sentiment or not, some actions required immediate response.
Odin’s staff crashed into Hödr’s face as the boy exited into the main chamber of Yggdrasil. The blow sent the young man toppling over backward, thrown off his feet as blood exploded from his shattered nose.
Glaring, Odin waved off Syn, who had yet to remove her hand from her sword hilt. After Annar’s failure to guard the apples from Sjöfn, Odin had put Hermod’s wife in charge of protecting Yggdrasil. In nigh to two decades, she’d never had a breach. Until Loki and Sigyn’s once-blind son had somehow managed to get behind her defenses.
The shieldmaiden had not taken it well when Odin had come claiming a thief had stolen an apple and even still remained within.
Gurgling on blood, Hödr rose, one hand to his face. Clearly, he’d finished the apple, or the blow would’ve rendered him unconscious and left him with a cracked skull.
In the flicker of the brazier, Odin studied his blood brother’s
child, shaking his head. “You are kin to my wife and my blood brother, and thus to me. Were it otherwise, I’d have fed you to Fenrir for this. I still may do so.”
Hödr spat a glob of blood and phlegm dangerously close to Odin’s boots. “You may try.” The boy lunged at Odin.
Odin brought the staff up to bear, intent to beat the boy into unconsciousness.
Instead, the flames in the brazier beside Odin flared to twice their height, casting sparks in front of his eyes and singeing his clothes. His beard caught aflame and Odin flailed about, patting out the small fires.
Before he could react, Syn had kicked the brazier over at Hödr. The flames danced around the boy, swirling and leaping toward his hands. The shieldmaiden lunged in first, slamming the pommel of her sword into the bridge between Hödr’s eyes.
The young man pitched over once more and the flames all burned away into ash.
Syn whipped her sword around and stalked over to the boy. “Thief! Traitor!” She kicked the unconscious Hödr in his ribs with enough force to lift him off the ground and send him colliding into the wall. Then she hefted her blade.
Odin caught her wrist. “Let him live.”
“My king! You would not consider sparing another who had tried this.”
Perhaps not. But Hödr clearly had gifts much like Loki’s, if not so developed. Loki, though, had millennia of life experience. Hödr did not. The young were oft more malleable and easier to control. And even those who bucked at control were at least easier to manipulate.
“He lives,” Odin repeated. “I will attend to his punishment myself.”
The Aesir faced enemies from Serkland who could control flames. Maybe it was time they had such a weapon of their own.
11
Fifteen Years Ago
For thousands of years a Vanr hall had stood upon the cliffs, before Odin’s people had torn it down in their king’s melancholy at Freyja’s loss. Gladsheimr, the Vanir had called the ruins Odin now trod among, squinting against the sunset. No one had built here since, given the rather inconvenient location. Sometimes Odin came here to think.
No one else did—save on rare occasions Loki—and the solitude offered Odin the chance to delve into the Sight and seek his answers, particularly before Volund had completed the High Seat for Valaskjalf. Today though, Hermod picked his careful way amidst stone foundations nigh as tall as he was.
“This place,” Odin said, “it had gilded shields for roofing. They caught the dawn and cast it in splendor across all of Vanaheim. It had thick spears for rafters, a testament to the mighty warriors within.”
“Why tear it down?”
Odin grunted. Because all of Vanaheim had reminded him of Freyja, though, in the paradox of his despair, he had left her hall and library intact, wallowing in his despondency. Or perhaps, as he had told the Aesir, because they needed to build their own destiny, not inherit the mistakes of their predecessors. In either case, Odin had not brought Hermod here to speak of this.
“It will be dark soon. Then we can begin.”
Hermod turned to him. “I still don’t understand what we’re doing here.”
Odin ran a hand along the weatherworn stones. “Do you know what lies under the world?”
“You mean caves?”
“Ugh.” Odin waved his hand to take in all Asgard, and Midgard beyond. “All the world we know is the Mortal Realm, Midgard and Utgard.”
“You’re talking about the Otherworlds.”
“Ah, after a fashion. I do not speak of the vague superstitions of völvur about the source of vaettir, but rather of another state of existence beyond the physical.”
Hermod winced. Yes, even Odin had once considered such talk unmanly and the sole domain of witches. Loki had shown him the truth—a king could not hope to rule with one eye always closed to the reality around him.
“We do not know the truth about existence, Hermod. Not much. But we know a little. Our world is surrounded by a shadow, a mirror, an … echo of itself expanding out into fathomless depths.”
Hermod leaned back against the wall, palpable discomfort on his face. “I thought you said it was beneath us? Now it’s around us?”
“You’re attempting to apply a physical location to non-physical existence. An ethereal one, with many names. Some call it the Astral Realm, others call it the Penumbra.”
“Which means?”
Yes, many Aesir still could not read, much less chose to do so. “The edge of a shadow that might reach deeper than what we can see. The deeper part, the Roil, it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that the Penumbra mirrors our world, but it … is shaped by memory, by thought. It remembers what was, particularly if coaxed into such remembrance. A hall that once stood for long enough, a place that saw great joy and great pain, might yet still linger like an echo even after that which cast it has fallen.”
Hermod blanched and backed away from the stones. “What are you saying? That … in this Penu ….”
“Penumbra.”
“In this Penumbra, Gladsheimr still stands?”
“Ah. I’ve been improving upon it, actually. I call it Valhalla.”
Now the man gaped. Awed, perhaps, by Odin’s temerity in appropriating the land of the honored dead. But so many mortals already believed Odin ruled Valhalla, a place, that—for all Odin could tell—existed only in stories and myth. The dead passed into shadow. Some lost themselves in hatred or despair and others were born again. Never, in all his wanderings beyond the Mortal Realm, had Odin seen sign of a glorious afterlife.
Nor had the Vanir believed such could exist.
No, but Odin was going to make one. A hall where the great warriors among the fallen would wait, free from becoming prey to wraiths or other foul vaettir, free from being drawn into the limitless darkness beyond the Penumbra.
Hubris …
Audr had expressed the sentiment before, but Odin cared little for what the wraith thought on the matter. On the other hand, Audr might well welcome arrogance.
“Why am I here, my king?” Hermod’s voice shook as he stared at the rapidly dwindling light from the sun. Afraid, perhaps, of the fall of night, and knowing, on some level, Odin would ask him to dwell in the dark.
Odin picked an open spot in the middle of the hall and sat, motioning for Hermod to take his place before him. When the man did so, Odin relaxed, hands on his knees. “Your mother was a valkyrie.” Hermod opened his mouth, perhaps intending to object out of reflex. Out of years of silence, of denying, maybe even to himself. Odin forestalled him with a raised hand. “I have a great gift for the Sight, Hermod. It tells me secrets of the past and future and of lands both nigh and far. It tells me things others cannot know or do not want to know. But it’s not perfect.” Not yet. “I don’t see everything.”
“Whatever it is you think …”
Odin shook his head. “Hermod, please. I know that your mother Olrun gave up her power to be with you and Agilaz and I suspect that happened some time around the Njarar War. Do not insult either of us with pointless denials.”
Hermod clapped his mouth shut, his expression somewhere between a glare and a plea for mercy.
Sadly, Odin could not afford to show him such. “Valkyries can project into the Penumbra, perhaps even enter it physically. The exact details elude me, but the point remains, some part of Olrun’s grace may have passed into you.”
Now Hermod scoffed. “You think I can enter the realms of the dead? My king, you are grossly mistaken in this. I’m just a man.”
“Even if you believe that, it does not make it true.” Years back, Odin had sat in the darkness of Castle Niflung while Gudrun had exposited all sorts of arcane knowledge. Later, Odin had sat in the void chambers of Sessrumnir with Freyja and learned more still. He remembered the fear of it, even then. The resistance, a natural inclination bred into every human to turn back toward the light. “Listen to me, boy … I am facing threats on all sides, forces you do not yet begin to comprehend. And I find my allies few.”
>
“All of Asgard is behind you.”
“The rest of Asgard cannot do what I ask of you. I know of no others—at least not on our side—capable of entering the Penumbra. I need you, in this, Hermod. There are forces gathering against us.”
“What forces?”
Odin shook his head. “First, prove you can do what I believe you capable of. Push your consciousness out of your body and into the shadow realm around us.”
Hermod swallowed, glanced around at the settling dark, then stared back at Odin. His breaths came in irregular pants, but he remained seated where another man might have run screaming about witchcraft and mist-madness. “How?”
Yes … Audr said. Damn him into the dark … Let him join us in shadow …
“Shut your eyes and relax your mind. Let yourself fall in all directions at once.”
Hermod grunted, sucked in another heavy breath, and shut his eyes. Then he grunted some more. His teeth clenched audibly.
“You must relax more,” Odin said. “It will not come to you if you push it too hard.”
“Easy for you to say,” Hermod snapped. “I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.”
Odin glowered. Perhaps not. Nor did Odin much know how to teach this. His ability to pass into the Penumbra was guided by Audr, and it cost him. But Hermod might make the sojourn without such a hefty price. Odin dared to hope so.
Give his soul … to a wraith …
Odin ignored Audr, instead, relaxing his own eyes to embrace the Sight and see Hermod through it. An etheric aura surrounded him, stronger than a normal man’s, but wavering as Hermod made his fumbling attempts to access the realities beyond.
For half of an hour, Hermod grunted, grimaced, and tried in vain to project. But … did he truly try, or was the man resisting? Even if Hermod’s mind agreed to Odin’s requests, some part of the man’s soul might yet oppose Odin’s purpose.
