by Matt Larkin
Despite the scattered construction that looked much like a city, Alfheim seemed overrun by nature, as if the bountiful sunlight had caused the plants here to grow totally unbounded. So much so, Odin could almost have mistaken this place for the World of Wood whence ash wives hailed, though he had imagined that place a far murkier forest.
An enormous screech overhead ripped through the quiet and sent Odin scrambling for cover. He flung himself up against the trunk of a tree, half expecting some hideous bird above. Instead, he saw but a shadow passing over the canopy. A very large shadow.
Hadn’t he seen this in his visions? Still, his heart pounded so painfully he had to wonder if an immortal could die of a heart attack.
Again, the giant shadow soared overhead. Odin snuck to another tree trunk where he could peer up through tiny gaps in the canopy. His visions had shown this before, leaving no doubt about the monstrosity he would see, yet still he could not stop himself. An irresistible pull drew him to look upon the creature’s majesty.
As the flying animal banked and passed overhead, Odin caught a few bare glimpses of it. Though lizard-like in appearance, it had a membrane of skin spanning its wings like a bat, and a feathered frill behind its head, with a massive, elongated maw jutting from the front.
Odin swallowed, part of him wishing he could have seen the wondrous beast more clearly and the rest of him glad it could not make him out. He could not even hazard a guess as to what that thing might have been, though it had haunted his visions for years.
After taking a moment to steady himself, he pushed onward, following the sound of water and plodding through the wood until he at last came to the brook.
This he followed onward to a network of trees where the branches had grown together to form a series of platforms, like a town in the canopy. Walkways of pearl ringed around the trees, leading upward, and creating spires and balconies and walkways supported by great buttresses. Water streamed down over the sides in numerous tiny falls, collecting and running into the brook. The waters seemed to come from the trees themselves, bubbling up from the trunks above this wondrous town.
All of it glittered, sparkling in the sunlight, and so bright and warm it left Odin a bit dizzy. Knowing he must, he climbed the pearl walkway up to one of the platforms. From this he had access to a pearl and wood house. The place had no door, only an archway and windows, and light flickered within those.
As he drew nigh, the sound of people moaning in ecstasy grew louder than the murmuring of waterfalls. He knew what he’d find. Already his body reacted, his cock growing hard at the sight he’d seen so many times. And still, as he entered the archway, he gasped.
Over a dozen naked men and women lay about the floor in a great heap, their skins shining so bright they seemed to radiate light themselves. They pleasured each other with mouths and tongues, with hands or—in some cases—in the more traditional manner. The wild orgy went on and on, and he didn’t know how long he stood there, transfixed by the sight and sound of such lasciviousness.
One of the girls broke away from the group and crawled over to Odin. She had hair so pale it seemed silver and shining. She took his hand and drew him over, and Odin could not resist. It was like a dream when these people—be they liosalfar or Vanir or both—stripped away his clothes and cast them aside.
The play of prescient memory had him, and he lived an endless cycle of foreknown sensuality that stripped away time. A woman had mounted him and another had lowered her trench over his face for him to massage with his tongue. Hands were all over his body. His finger squeezing someone’s nipple.
He felt it, as his pneuma poured out from him in waves, somehow not only shared through his seed, yet bits of it stolen every time his body climaxed. And still he found himself continuously hard, finding new partners over and over.
In a daze, he realized Freyja herself had mounted him. Her body warm and slick with sweat, her sweet lips brushing his. He couldn’t stop touching her, nor find words to express his desire. At once he wanted to hold her so close that they became one soul, and to weep, for the relief of finally having found her.
On and on the orgy went, for hours. Perhaps days, as time lost all meaning. Bits and pieces of his own soul began seeping out, he felt himself losing them. His pneuma almost gone, his essence fading, withering away with each passing moment of ecstasy.
Someone else was mounted on him now, her eyes no longer a faint gleam, but bright as the sun. So bright it burned his eye to see them, yet he could not look away. Her hair was red as liquid flame cascading down her back. Her fingers dug into his shoulders deep enough to draw blood. Her mouth was an abyss, a hole of light, devouring his soul.
Odin trembled, spasming, but as powerless to stop the consumption as he had been to stop the orgy.
And that blazing light in her eyes became everything. It sapped him away and left him hollow.
It brought to him the terrifying realization that he had seen so much, yet never understood.
Thus must he finally pay for his hubris and his crimes, as the web of urd demanded.
Consciousness tugged at Odin’s mind, finally forcing itself upon him, and he realized, though he’d felt himself asleep, he’d been walking along a path. No one had bothered to restore his clothes.
An alabaster street unfolded before him, leading between buildings of pearl and gold, with gilded roofs that reflected the radiance in all directions. A city seemingly made of sunlight and peopled by scarcely clad men and women whose very skin seemed luminous.
Stepped pyramids—oft covered in greenery—dotted the cityscape.
They were creatures of Otherworldly beauty, a perfection of the human form so striking it made him want to weep and fling himself at the feet of these demigods and beg their worship. The liosalfar were as radiant as their realm. Their eyes shone with sunlight. Their hair glittered. Their visages saw right through to his very soul.
While the wilds had held wonders beyond telling, this city of light was the true glory of Alfheim, and etheric songs flitted between its rooftops and over its soaring skyways. The alabaster roads did not merely follow the ground, but soared up in graceful arcs, leading to balconies and pyramids and spires and even to the great palace at the city’s heart.
A palace of countless gleaming towers so tall they brushed the clouds. Atop the highest of those peaks sat the blinding sun itself, as if tethered to this place.
In the distance, hard to make out for the blazing sun, rose a tree as massive as Yggdrasil, towering over the jungle beyond. Not as massive, Odin suddenly realized. It was Yggdrasil. The tree grew here as well.
Blinking, Odin at last took in the men and women flanking him. A march of a dozen warriors, all clad in glittering golden armor not so unlike what valkyries wore. Resplendent and invincible, though it left sizable gaps around the thighs and hips. Perhaps for ease of movement or perhaps for airflow in this merciless heat, but either way, Odin could see slipping a dagger into the gaps and crippling a warrior.
Then Odin started at the one beside him: Frey.
The Vanr must have felt Odin’s gaze, for he looked to him now, a vicious grin on his face, and a promise of pain lurking behind his luminous eyes. He raised a hand revealing a rose gold band.
Odin gasped, grabbing his own hand. Andavarnaut. It took a fair effort for him to swallow his surprise and force himself to impassiveness.
“Your temerity in coming here has left us speechless, despite being foretold by the seer.”
“Return my ring.”
Frey snickered. “Even the queen thought herself unequal to punishing the scope of your blasphemy. You are being delivered to the Elder God of Alfheim, the great and unfathomable Dellingr, High Lord of the Sun. Concern yourself less with your foolish means of ingress and more with the probability your soul shall be charred in sacred light until naught remains but ash.”
Odin almost tripped over his own feet trying to wrap his mind around what Frey had just said.
Someone shoved him forw
ard and he stumbled, though Frey grabbed his arm and forced him up.
Odin glanced to the person who had shoved him. It was the fiery-haired woman who had sucked out pieces of his soul while making love to him. Odin could do naught but gape at her. He still felt so very weak.
“Saule,” Frey answered his unspoken question. “I believe you’ve met.”
Frey and Saule guided him up the long path toward that palace, and with each step the heat grew more intense, until the road scorched his bare feet. His skin felt on fire from the sun. His arms had turned a painful pink and even begun to peel in a few places.
If the heat or light bothered the others, they gave no indication. Indeed, if aught, their skins but grew brighter.
They reached far above the rest of the city, so that, glancing over the edge, he was looking down on the pyramids, sky roads, and numerous pearl spires.
A mighty archway led inside the palace, one large enough to admit beings taller than any jotunn. Water streamed down giant marble columns inside, pouring out from a crystal ceiling at least seventy feet above. Though a gap opened up in that ceiling, Odin could see no stairs. How did they intend—
Frey grabbed his arm and at once Odin’s vision shifted so violently his stomach lurched and he toppled sideways—only to be caught by Saule.
They now stood on that crystal floor, and looking down at it had a wave of vertigo sweeping over him.
His captors offered him no respite, though, instead, guiding him forward further.
They repeated the sudden leap in locations up to another crystal floor, and this time Odin judged they must be nigh two hundred feet above their original point of entry, which was itself probably a thousand feet above the city.
He felt lightheaded and nauseated, but Frey shoved him forward, toward an enormously wide staircase plated in gold.
Odin lifted his gaze from the stairs to the figure sitting on a mighty throne atop it. The entity stood well over human height, nine or ten feet tall. Light radiated off all his body so brightly Odin could but make out an outline. An extra set of arms jutted from beneath his shoulders. Four arms. The very figure Odin had confronted when wresting control of the valkyries from their former master.
The Elder God, Dellingr. Lord of Sun.
Above the god, the ceiling was another crystal dome, and the sun itself seemed to rest atop it, blazing down onto Odin’s unprotected flesh.
Odin found himself powerless to do aught save gape at the ancient, implacable entity glaring down at him. In deep soul memory he knew that, in some past lives he had worshipped this being, though he had probably never truly looked upon him as he did now.
“Odin Borrson.” The entity’s voice was resonant as a gong, hollow yet seeming to come from all directions, a force of nature. “The Destroyer. Welcome to Alfheim. For your crimes, there can be but one answer. Your soul is to be seared to its core. You shall beg for shadows that will never come to you again, whilst you writhe in an eternity of light. I sentence you to eternity in the radiance of Alfheim.”
Epilogue
Asgard was changing. Returning after even a single year away, Loki could not help but note the way it grew and shifted. Its towers stretched higher than ever before, its harbor was flush with ships, and its armies swelled with the ranks of immortal warriors, despite Yggdrasil bearing less fruit with each passing year.
He trod up the path leading to his hall.
Sigyn appeared in the doorway long before he reached it, no doubt having heard his soft footfalls on the road. Beaming, she ran to him as she so oft did, and leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. Giggling and drawing from him a laugh too, in the instant before her mouth was pressed against his.
Once she finally hopped down and pulled away, he placed his hands on either side of her face. “I missed you.”
“Hmm, you too.” Sigyn pinched his chin. “I’m running out of books to read in Sessrumnir.”
Loki suspected she spoke in jest, though in truth, she’d certainly had enough time to delve into the better part of the library.
Sigyn led him behind their hall, to sit on the cliff side and stare at the waves.
“Where’s Hödr?” he asked.
Sigyn sighed. “He insisted on going out into Midgard again. I think he’s in Valland, but I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that.” She rubbed his knee. “How was Narfi?”
Loki shook his head. A painful topic, knowing that had to end badly, even if so many of the details eluded him. “The jotunn tribes grow restless under his rule. He might hold the frost jotunnar together, but he’s looking at a budding war with the mountain jotunnar.”
Narfi had claimed his mother’s throne, but it had never been easy for him, not even after so many years.
“Something else vexes you,” Loki said.
“The better part of Hunaland now worships the Deathless God.”
“You were in Hunaland?”
Sigyn nodded. “Investigating for Frigg. They found an enclave of the Odinic cult and slaughtered them all.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of the Aesir casting themselves as gods, regardless.”
“I don’t. These people are … they still think he’s coming back. No one’s seen Odin in well over three hundred years, but these cults keep popping up. All it does now is create senseless slaughter.”
Loki grunted.
“Oh. Oh, damn it, Loki!” She’d read it in his expression? “You’re encouraging them, aren’t you? Why not just let Hunaland go? Why do you even care if people worship us? Do you think he’s coming back? Have you seen something?”
Loki shut his eyes and shuddered. “I wish I could go after him, but he’s well beyond my aid now.”
“So he is alive. But you didn’t answer my question.”
Loki opened his eyes but kept his gaze locked on the sea, hoping she could not read too much in his expression that way. “I cannot see him, but … He’ll return.” Before the end.
“There’s something else. Something you’re not telling me.”
There were so very many things, and he wished he could explain. He so desperately wished it.
Her hand fell lightly on his arm. “What is it?”
“I …” No matter how many times he went through this, it still came upon him with the weight of a mountain, crushing his heart, pulverizing his soul.
“Tell me.” She leaned her chin onto his shoulder. “You know you can tell me.”
“We’ve only … only a few years left.”
Sigyn pulled away abruptly, looking at him with a slightly cocked head. “You mean Ragnarok. It’s still coming? No one spoke of it again after Skadi fell. I guess I thought …” Now she shivered, rubbing her arms despite the afternoon sun. “How do we stop it then?”
“Oh, Sigyn.” Loki sighed, shaking his head. “My love. We cannot stop it … I … I’ve been causing it.”
The Saga continues with The Shadows of Svartalfheim:
books2read.com/shadowsofsvartalfheimbook
Author’s Ramblings
“To know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely. It collapses time. Present becomes future.”
— Children of Dune
Frank Herbert has always been one of my influences, if not necessarily in style, then at least in scope and theme. And while he was writing science fiction, he expressed conceits that tie in well with mythology. Namely, a rather significant portion of mythology assumes a certain or absolute degree of fate, often expressed in prophecy. While prophecy itself is so overplayed in fantasy as to become cliche, one cannot have an expansive scope in a retelling of myths—especially Norse myths—without it.
My particular fascination here comes not from the prophesied hero (the so-called “chosen one”) but rather with the prophet him or herself. In Greek mythology we’ve got Cassandra, who’s cursed to see the future and be able to do nothing to change it. In Norse myth, we have numerous heroes that supposedly had prophetic insight (including pote
ntially Sigurd and Brynhild depending on the version of the story), and Odin spends so much of his time seeking knowledge about Ragnarok.
For Gods of the Ragnarok Era, from the very beginning, I had envisioned Odin’s course as being headed in that direction. The existence of prescience, perfect or otherwise, would necessarily reveal a sort of causal determinism in the universe (albeit functioning a little different than the ideas Herbert put forth). One of the other conceits Herbert posited was the idea that oracles would create blind spots for each other, which is almost a necessary conceit for a story about oracles.
Odin sees so much, but he has to have things he doesn’t know or, as we kind of see here, things he might not have the context for. One of the reasons becomes his inability to precisely see the machinations of other oracles such as Narfi or Loki, or more prominently, the workings of non-human entities. He sees the future, but he remains a slave to fate, and cannot change what he’s foreseen.
Within the scope of Sigurd’s story, I drew my influences from the Volsung Saga, Nibelungenlied, bits and pieces of the Eddas, and some from Wagner’s interpretation for his Ring Cycle. My goal here was to present a version of a well-known myth that was both familiar and different. One of the interesting aspects of the source material is it tends to agree that Sigurd is young when he sets out, yet never is he regarded as a youth in his actions or by others. Obviously, I tried to shift this mindset a bit, while the tale remains one intended for adults.
In Sigurd, we see the culmination of Odin’s decades-long machinations to reclaim Andvari’s Ring and try to undo his mistake of banishing the Vanir. For the sake of clarity and a cohesive narrative, I did away with several of Odin’s other aliases, folding them into Gripir (who in the original myth was an actual brother of Hjordis, and an oracle himself). Similarly, instead of picking up Fjolnir (Odin) during a storm, Sigurd picks up another anti-hero (Thrain), who serves as a bit of an older foil for him.
