by Matt Larkin
“Who is?”
Agnar scratched his head. “Way up north, there’s a uh … a vitka?”
“A wizard?”
“The kings from around Jotunheim pay him homage, ask his advice. One thing nobody never sheds blood over is that. Vafthrudnir, he ain’t on nobody’s side, but everybody wants to be on his. They say he knows things. They say he came in the first mists.”
“Where does he dwell?”
“Northeast, maybe two moon’s walk if you don’t have no sleds. Up on the plateau, before you reach the sea. Ain’t never seen it myself, mind, but Father talked of it.”
Two moons? How large was this land? Was Odin to spent the entire summer crossing it and then find himself forced to wait out the winter? Odin shook his head. Urd demanded this. It demanded so very much. “Tell me of Vafthrudnir.”
“Kings have to go there, seek his blessing. Don’t much recommend you humans go, though. With Ymir gone, ain’t no one who could match Vafthrudnir. But I heard some claim the Great Father spawned Vafthrudnir. Thrym keeps his kingdom on that same plateau, up on the mountain. Claims to be the king of all jotunnar, but even he don’t dare interfere with Vafthrudnir or those what come to see him.”
Geri and Freki both paused in gorging themselves at the mention of Ymir. The very name sent a twisted knot through Odin’s stomach. Ymir had bargained his soul to Hel and, because of her, come out to murder Odin’s father as a test. The Queen of Niflheim knew Odin might prove a threat to her and had seemingly intended the Niflungar to win him over to their side.
None of that had gone quite the way she’d intended, Odin imagined.
Strange, how he could now go a great many days without thinking of his father. And still, it would hit him like a physical blow to his gut.
“Reconsidering?” Agnar said. “For the best, really. I was a fool to have mentioned him anyway. Best keep to searching on your own.”
Odin looked to Geri then to Freki. Both nodded. “No,” Odin said after a moment. “No, I will seek out this Vafthrudnir and test the limits of his wisdom.”
And if he too had sold his soul to Hel, then he too might soon be sent to meet his goddess.
36
Passing through the Midgard Wall had left a hollow pit in Sif’s gut, a feeling of profound dread that had dogged her every day they walked and grown twice as bad in the nights. Nigh to a fortnight they’d traveled. Each night, they’d seek shelter in a valley, or later, atop a hill, or amidst a grove of evergreens.
And the oppressive darkness would settle in. The howls, far off, but too many in number to hope to count. Like all beyond the world of men, those howls sounded larger, fiercer, more savage than the wolves she knew in Midgard.
Vargar, Loki called some of them. Giant wolves the size of mammoths. Predators that could hunt most aught foolhardy enough to travel these lands.
Yet Loki led them true, taking turns that oft seemed senseless to Sif and yet managed to keep them from blundering into the hunting lands of those fearsome wolves.
In the evening, one night, she caught Thor staring across the fire to where Thjalfi and Roskva slept. The prince had his head in his hands, obviously beset by another of those headaches. He’d confided once, during a long march, that sometimes he felt as if a jotunn had struck him in the head with Mjölnir.
Lacking drink or fighting to distract from his pain, perhaps his mind wandered to other entertainments. Loki appeared already asleep, bundled in his furs beside the fire.
Sif leaned in close to Thor. She sympathized, truly, but some things were not to be borne. “No one touches your cock but me. Don’t forget it.”
Thor flashed her a grin that seemed more than a little forced. “All right. Might make pissing an adventure. Best you stand well away when it comes time for it.”
Sif groaned and rolled her eyes. “Obviously you can touch your own—”
“Glad to hear it.” At once, he rose and wandered off into the mist, as if talk of relieving himself had brought it on.
He’d wanted it, when he came back to their tent that night. Rougher, and more desperate than had been his wont in times past. Sif didn’t mind overmuch.
After so long in the mountains and then the hill lands, past a frozen river, they came to great snow-covered expanses, wastelands that stretched into infinity. They passed a herd of fur-covered mammoths, several score of them, trudging through the plains in search of feed. What they ate in this harsh land, Sif could not guess.
She lost track of the days.
Another fortnight, perhaps. They passed into a forest, this one larger than those on the other side of the wall. Trees stretched up, punching above the mist line, seeming the size of small mountains themselves. As if even the trees grew larger in Utgard. Many so large she and Thor could not have wrapped their combined arms around the trunks.
The feeling of having entered another world became so strong here she found herself looking every which way for vaettir, as if she could actually see them walking here. Strange lands, filled with alien beings, not like to be keen on the trespasses of man.
“Our food runs low,” Thjalfi said. The young man carried nigh all their rations, never complaining, and oft rushing ahead to scout the way. He was quick on his feet, Sif had to give him that. And maybe a bit too fearless, too eager to impress his new master. “We should hunt here.”
Loki nodded slowly, seeming—as he so oft did—lost in thoughts Sif suspected she couldn’t have understood had he bothered to share them. And he never did.
They passed deeper into the forest. By dark, they came to a slight clearing, one in which a large hall sat.
Loki frowned at it, then shook his head. “I’ll go set some snares.”
Thor shrugged and went to pound on the door. Only, the door swung in at his blow, unsealed. The prince glanced back at Sif. And what was she to say? Any chance to sleep under a roof was welcome. If they’d somehow found an abandoned jotunn hall, she wouldn’t turn away unless Hel herself dwelt inside.
Inside, they found the place undecorated and unfurnished. Naught but the walls and several long hallways that seemed to go nowhere. Odder still, the hall had no fire pit. Did frost jotunnar not need it to cook? To see?
“Rest there,” Thor ordered his new slaves.
Sif slumped down against the wall. Clearly they’d find no food here, but at least it got them out of the winds. Those seemed to grow bitterer with each passing day. Was summer truly already waning?
She settled down to sleep and Thor came to lie beside her, plopping on the floor with a great huff.
He grunted. “I ugh … I know I’ve been difficult of late. It’s these pains in my head. They rob my thoughts and befoul my dreams with twisted bitterness.”
Sif looked at the prince a moment. Her husband. Beautiful. Strong. Fearless. And now being destroyed, betrayed by his own mind. Wordlessly, she pulled his head down into her lap, then stroked his long red hair. She massaged his brows, careful not to draw too nigh the still swollen red lump on his forehead.
“Is this who I am now?” he asked.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I do not think that overmuch comfort, as my memories fade and my mind falters.”
A strange thought struck her then. Odin, Thor’s father, should have been around the same age as Sif’s father. But somehow—and she’d never gotten a clear story from anyone—some experience Odin had had with sorcerers had aged him. It had changed him beyond all repair.
Yet Frigg stayed with him, by his side, the loyal wife.
Sif would do the same.
She continued massaging his head, even when his breathing shifted in the rhythms of sleep. It didn’t matter that he’d changed. If this was who Thor was now, still she’d stay by his side.
If she couldn’t do that, it had never really been love.
A tremble shot through the ground, sending the walls rumbling and jolting Sif awake.
Thor was on his feet first, hammer in hand, slowly spinning about as i
f an earthquake gave him a foe to slay.
“Over here,” Thjalfi called. “There’s a window.”
Sif ran to where the boy and girl stood, down one of the side halls. The window he spoke of was clouded over, frosted perhaps, and she could make out naught save the drifting of mist. Either way, the quake seemed to have stopped.
Thor strode in after them, then took up position at the entrance, clearly intending to guard them with his hammer. But when naught else happened, everyone sat back down to rest.
Sif had no words for how much she misliked Jotunheim.
Giant wolves and earthquakes. And jotunnar.
In the morn, they returned outside. Amid the trees, a jotunn many times the height of a man slept. The beast must have stood forty feet tall or more. Never had she seen or heard of a jotunn growing so large.
Despite the size, he lacked much in the way of the deformities oft found in the man-eating jotunnar. Just some small horns growing from his forehead.
The immensity of the creature created a kind of vertigo in her, making it hard to walk for even imagining it standing upright. Some profound wrongness with this jotunn left her wanting to run for Midgard and never look back.
The trees themselves thundered with the sound of his snores.
Roskva clutched Sif’s arm with one hand, using the other to cover her sobs. As Sif looked to the girl, she caught sight of Thjalfi, also holding tight his sister’s shoulder.
Without a word, Thor crept over to the sleeping jotunn, hammer raised. Oh, Hel. Thor was going wake the fucking monster.
Thor reared back the hammer and let fly.
The blow resounded as if a thunderbolt had crashed down, echoing through the wood while sparks of lightning jumped from the hammer’s blow. What the fuck? Since when did Mjölnir—
The jotunn groaned and slapped a hand against its forehead where Thor had hit it. The prince barely evaded being squashed, and only by flinging himself prone. Rubbing his head, the jotunn rolled over, sat up, and blinked.
Sif pulled free of the brother and sister and snatched up her spear. Fuck. They were all dead.
“Something stung me,” the jotunn rumbled. His voice sent the trees shaking, the very ground trembling.
Thor pulled himself up and hid his hammer behind his back.
Sif would have laughed. If she wasn’t about to piss her trousers. Jotunnar did not get this big. They sure as the gates of Hel didn’t shrug off blows from Mjölnir. Reality, however, seemed to disagree with her assessment.
“Greetings, jotunn,” Thor said. “We are travelers from Midgard. May I ask your name?”
The jotunn ceased rubbing his head and peered down at Thor, squinting. “Skrymir. You’ve come a long way from Asgard, little prince.”
Sif gaped. The jotunn knew who Thor was. He knew. How could anyone here know that?
“Ugh …” Thor glanced back at Sif. “Yes.”
“Well …” The jotunn leaned his face closer to Thor’s. With his hand removed, Sif could see a welt rising where Thor had struck, much as if an oversized ant had bitten him. “I might suggest you head back toward Midgard, little man. You see, the way you head leads you on toward my stronghold. You may think me large, but there you’ll find jotunnar larger still. You might feel uncomfortable.”
Thor snorted. “Is that a challenge?”
Oh, Hel. “Giant rocky cock of a troll,” Sif mumbled.
“A challenge? Would you like to challenge yourself? Then come to my hall, tiny man. Come and watch the greatest of Asgard’s sons be humbled before the might of the jotunnar. You might then think twice before you so blithely antagonize the brood of Aurgelmir.”
Skrymir rose, sending fresh trembles through the ground. Standing, his face was so far above the mist Sif could scarce make it out. He pointed away, to the east where, Sif had to assume, his stronghold lay.
Then he went tromping off in the same direction. Every footfall was a small quake, one that threatened to send Sif and the others spilling down to the ground.
Slowly, the jotunn vanished into the mists amid the trees.
When the last shocks had passed, Thor set to packing up the camp, ordering his slaves to assist.
“We’ll reach his Utgard stronghold,” Thor said. “We’ll see who gets humbled.”
Though she opened her mouth, Sif could scarce form words at this. “A-are you … Have you … lost your fucking mind? Mjölnir itself barely harmed that creature.”
Thor growled at her, forcing Sif to fall back a step. “I’ll not have anyone disparage the power of Asgard! Honor demands we overcome this challenge!”
Not even waiting for an answer, Thor stormed off after Skrymir.
And Sif could not wake from her nightmare.
They met up with Loki along the way, who, this time, had caught and cooked a reindeer. Thor refused to stop for the day meal, so they ate while walking, even as Sif explained to Loki the madness of Thor’s attempt to challenge Skrymir.
Loki offered no answer, but his eyes shone with ire that did not quite reach his face. “We have no time for this.”
Sif couldn’t have agreed more.
And yet they pressed on, leaving the forest and coming into another great plain.
This they followed most of the day, until a mountain came into view.
At least, through the mist, Sif had first thought it a mountain. As they drew nigh, though, the truth hit her. It was a fortress the size of a mountain, stretching so high she could not make out its tip above the mists, despite it resting on level ground.
The great gates reached up higher than the peak of a king’s hall and stood open, allowing a constant—if light—stream of snowfall to pile up inside the gatehouse.
Roskva’s breaths became heavy gasps, panicking. From the corner of her eye, Sif saw the girl’s brother comforting her. If he was no fool, he was no doubt terrified himself. So hard Sif had fought to gain an apple of Yggdrasil. But even immortality could be snatched away by such foes as could have built this place.
Thor paused in front of the gatehouse, craning his neck up in a no doubt vain attempt to take in the breadth of the fortress. No such place could have existed. Certainly it ought not to have existed. And yet here they stood.
Thor strode inside.
At the far side of the gatehouse, a portcullis barred their passage. Thor grabbed it with both hands and heaved, clearly straining. The iron creaked and bent, but the gate refused to rise.
Madness.
But he’d never be dissuaded.
Sif drew up beside him, then pulled upon the apple’s strength. With a nod, they heaved together. The iron groaned, warping beneath her fingers. But still it did not lift more than a hairsbreadth. As if they tried to pick up a house.
Gasping, Sif gave it over and collapsed against the portcullis.
“The bars are wide enough we can squeeze through the grate,” Thjalfi said.
Sif looked to Thor, who snorted, shook his head, then did so.
No choice now, really. In it was.
Beyond they gatehouse they passed into a massive courtyard, one so wide that, with the mist inside, Sif could not make out the far side ahead. They trudged across snow-dusted ground for a time. Almost long enough she could forget they were inside a compound.
Finally, they came to another hall, this one with great iron-banded doors, one of which stood slightly ajar. Thor slipped inside, and Sif followed, coming into a hall supported by columns the size of rooms. The ceiling disappeared so far into the darkness above Sif could scarce make it out given the paltry light from a handful of braziers scattered around this place.
Long stone benches ran the length of the hall beyond the columns, and on these at least two dozen jotunnar sat. All were larger than Sif believed the race could get, some taller than even Skrymir had been.
And him, too, they saw, sitting at the head of one stone table, laughing among his own kind.
“I’ve come here to accept your challenge!” Thor spat at him. “I’ll
prove no jotunn is a match for a man of Asgard.”
A few jotunnar laughed at the prince’s boast.
They hadn’t gotten to that size without eating men. A lot of men, probably over the course of centuries. Millenia, maybe, perhaps even since the coming of the mists. What stopped them from making a meal of her and Thor and the others? Traditions of hospitality that jotunnar might not even share?
Skrymir rubbed the welt on his forehead, grinning too wide and revealing slightly pointed teeth. Indeed, through the blue tint in his flesh, she noticed he did seem more animalistic than she’d first thought. As though a bear tried to burst through from beneath his skin, like a berserk. A berserk jotunn. Among the most horrifying things she could imagine. “Very well, Thor Odinson. Since you come in times of a feast, perhaps you’d join us in an eating contest? Or your companions, even? You?” He leaned in, looking at Loki. “How fast can you devour a feast of mammoth flesh?”
“I’m not interested,” Loki said.
“I’ll do it!” Thor blurted.
Sif rolled her eyes. Thor thought he was going to out-eat a jotunn? One the size of a mammoth, who’d obviously eaten men the size of Thor. That whetstone was obliterating whatever sense of restraint Thor had ever possessed. She opened her mouth to talk him down, but he was already striding across the floor.
The lip of the bench towered over him, but he leapt up, caught the side, and pulled himself onto it. From there, he jumped up to the table amidst the chuckles of his jotunn audience.
Opposite Thor, a jotunn sat. Two great steaming plates of mammoth meat were laid out before the contestants.
From her vantage on the floor, Sif couldn’t catch a good look at them. But then, she didn’t need to. Little could go on up there she truly wished to see.
“Now eat,” Skrymir commanded.
A thick, squelching sound immediately ensued, followed an instant later by bones crunching and snapping. A spray of blood and bits of gristle flew off the table as the contestants gorged themselves on their feast.
