by Matt Larkin
The stench of fish guts mixed with the salt of the sea covered scents, so he didn’t notice the king until the man came around the corner looking for him. Alone. Hödr had half expected to find Baldr and a small war band come to arrest him. Or murder him.
He climbed to his feet. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course, my lord. I’d never refuse you.”
“Does Baldr know?”
The king grunted. “The prince returned to Asgard, saying he needed to make arrangements before the wedding.”
“I … I still wish to wed your daughter.”
Gevarus sighed. “I cannot go against the wishes of the prince. Surely you—”
“I know. I aim to change his mind. But first I need something from Kvenland. Mercenaries loyal to your rule are wintering here in Agnafit, led by a man named Andrik. I know you cannot lend your thegns without risking Baldr learning of it. But mercenaries …”
Gevarus grunted. “I remember the man, Andrik, though I’m not so sure he’s loyal to me anymore. He wanted me to ban the Deathless from the city, but of course I couldn’t do that. It would have invited invasion. I didn’t know he’d come here, though.”
“Go with me to meet him and convince him to hire his band with me.”
“Kvenland is in chaos these days, but I’ll not deny you, lord.”
Andrik’s band turned out to be five men and a shieldmaiden. Hardly an army, but Hödr could see the violence in their auras. These were killers, men who loved the life of raiders and refused to surrender it.
Gevarus himself promised them each ten pieces of Miklagardian silver for accompanying Hödr.
Doubt and greed warred in Andrik’s aura as he scratched at his neck. “Kvenland’s thick with unnatural things. Witches and draugar and what all. Never heard of so fell a place, tell you true, and I don’t suppose we want aught to do with the place.”
Hödr still had a fair amount of silver on him. After all, his role in Baldr’s service had oft required him to bribe a jarl or a king. “Suppose I throw in another five silver pieces? Each.”
The shieldmaiden chortled. “Fifteen silver pieces apiece? I’d kill a godsdamned linnorm for that.”
“You couldn’t kill a dragon if it was still inside an egg, Kasmira,” one of the others said.
“Please. I’d fry the little bastard up for the day meal.”
“Now your cooking—that’s like to kill someone,” the man retorted.
Kasmira made a gesture but Hödr couldn’t catch such a subtle motion.
“Seems we have a bargain,” Andrik said.
“Good,” Hödr answered. “Get us dogsleds. The fastest ones in Sviarland. I care naught for the cost.”
The mercenary snorted. “Get the feeling we’ll be getting on well, you and I.”
Hödr nodded at Gevarus. Yes, he’d retrieve the missing runeblade. And then he’d force Baldr to give up his claim to Nanna. The prince thought he could have aught he wished.
He was wrong.
10
Odin dragged himself onto the riverbank, chest heaving and hair plastered over his face. The current grew even swifter ahead, beating about rocks in rapids he suspected would kill even an immortal.
Beside him, Idunn groaned as she rose to her knees. Wet, the sheer fabric of her dress stuck to her like another skin. The rains had stopped though, so Odin imagined they’d both dry out in less than an hour.
Idunn swept her hair back from her face and spit out water. “The Radiant Falls are up ahead. We can follow the course of the river, but we can’t use it to hide our scents any longer. We’d never manage to get clear of the currents.”
“How tall are these falls?”
She rose, wobbled, then blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. Hundreds of feet, maybe clear out of Alfheim.”
Out of Alfheim? That sounded like a very long drop. Odin found his legs even more unstable than Idunn’s had seemed. Damn but he missed that walking stick. “How do we get back to the Redwood Grove?”
“I … I don’t know from here. I think we could follow the cliff south until we spotted the Spire of Magec, then turn back into the rainforest. But that way would take us through wetlands claimed by the feathered serpent and we have no sacrifice to offer.”
“Feathered serpent? Like a dragon?”
Idunn nodded, still looking about as if confused. Indeed, Odin wondered how she even knew which way was south when the sun always stayed at its zenith.
“I’m not sure we have another choice,” Odin said. “We risk running into this dragon or else we take too long to get back to her, right? Ullr is already hunting us and we cannot afford any delay.”
Idunn groaned. “I know she’s all you care about, Odin, but—”
“That’s not true. I care about you, as well. I … did I ever tell you who you are to me?”
Now she chuckled and started off along the riverside. “What, that you’re my grandfather born once more from your Wheel of Life? You realize that’s utter nonsense. You hung yourself and had visions prompted by asphyxiation, Odin. Your dying mind conjured up bits and pieces of the tales I told you and melded them into some narrative that cast you as a lost hero. My grandparents are long dead. And if you knew who I really was, you might not be half so keen to consider us family.”
Odin frowned. He remembered pieces of his past lives, though those memories had grown so very hazy. Still, Idunn couldn’t be correct. She couldn’t. He’d based all his decisions on the veracity of whatever he gleaned from the Sight, forward or backward, past or future. But the Vanir hadn’t believed in such things, or had lost their faith during the long stretch of their immortality. Odin would have expected Idunn’s time in this world to have shifted her mindset, but it seemed to have had other effects.
“You have changed,” he said. “Your skin glows now, yes, but somehow I feel like you lost some of the lightness you had when we first met.”
Idunn stiffened in front of him, then walked on without looking back at him.
She’d taken offense, though he hadn’t meant to hurt her with those words. Rather, it seemed like, because of his actions, Idunn had lost a part of herself here.
“If we had more time, I’d sunbathe and reabsorb the light so I could Stride again. Unfortunately, we have to keep moving.”
That was all too true.
More high-pitched howls sounded from the rainforest.
Odin flinched, then quickened his pace even as Idunn cast a nervous glance back at him. “Keep moving!” he snapped. They couldn’t afford to let Ullr catch them. He didn’t even want to know what made those howls, and naught he could recall from his visions seemed to match up with this moment.
Idunn broke into a trot that Odin needed to use pneuma to match.
As she’d warned, the river grew swifter the farther they followed, until a roaring waterfall drowned out all other sounds ahead. When at last they broke through the tree line, Odin faltered, gaping.
The Radiant Falls earned their name because of the almost blinding gleam of sunlight reflecting off a curving fall that stretched at least a quarter mile across. Mist rose up off the waters, partially concealing a narrow stone bridge spanning the river. On either side of the falls rose painted marble statues a hundred feet tall, a male and a female, both armored and with drawn swords pointing out over the drop.
“We have to cross!” Idunn shouted.
“What?”
“We’re on the wrong side, we have to cross the bridge.” She dashed for the stone bridge, but paused on the edge. “It looks slick. Watch your step.”
Oh, damn it. The bridge barely had a lip to stop him from pitching over the side. It was just a drop right onto the falls. The path was no more than five feet wide, either. Maybe whoever built this expected people to be taking their time, enjoying the view.
Unfortunately, circumstances didn’t allow for that.
Idunn spread out a hand in front of her as she made her way across, and Odin followed behind her, casting the occ
asional glance over his shoulder for fear of his pursuers.
Partway across, Idunn let out a yelp. On the far side of the bridge, a pair of hounds had begun plodding toward them. Hounds the size of small horses, with green fur in plaited braids, wolf-like ears, and gleaming eyes.
Behind them, a blond bearded man with a bow in hand emerged from the rainforest, flanked by two more of the strange hounds.
Idunn faltered, hands out before her. Frey joined the other two hounds, looking almost as feral, with a shining sword in hand.
“I should have known you’d betray the Sun!” Frey shouted at Idunn.
Panting, Idunn slowly raised her hands in surrender.
No. No, Odin was not going back to that damn tower. He had a duty to Midgard. Urd called him back. His fists clenched at his sides, but he had no weapon to draw.
He turned his gaze back and forth between Ullr and Frey. Both Vanir closed in, the hounds plodding before them. He might overpower one of them barehanded, but to fight both and the animals wouldn’t end well.
“Jump.”
“What?” Idunn demanded. “You have no idea where we’d even—”
Odin grabbed her shoulder. “Jump!” And he leapt over the side of the bridge, dragging Idunn along with him.
For a gut-wrenching instant he was weightless, wind whipping over his face. Then water seized him, crashing over him and stealing air and sight and time. Idunn’s hand snared around his wrist, but the power of the falls threatened to strip her away. He pulled on his pneuma, clutching onto the woman in desperation.
Stark terror clawed at his mind as they just kept falling.
So far that, if they hit water below, it would shatter bone. It would have to.
And then a vertigo more powerful than he’d ever felt seized him. Down was no longer down, and direction lost all meaning. A current snared him, and he was underwater, engulfed in blackness.
When the swirling around him finally abated and some sense of direction returned, Odin desperately kicked for the surface. He broke free, Idunn beside him, gasping down painful breaths. Light and color had vanished, replaced by the fathomless shadows and endless starlight of the Astral Realm.
The river was cold, almost freezing, and his teeth set to chattering before he’d even caught his breath. Idunn clung to him, seeming even more disoriented than he felt. Swimming with her arm wrapped around his shoulders took more effort, but he dare not release her. Wherever they had wound up, he couldn’t take the risk of the currents separating them.
Numerous such rivers ran through the Astral Realm, he knew, though most seemed inaccessible in his forays in the Penumbra. Were they in the Roil? Were they in the sky? Or did such notions of up and down fail within this nonphysical space?
Idunn’s teeth were chattering as well, and she’d started moaning. “What have you done? Try not to swallow any of the water! We don’t know—”
A sudden undertow snared them and water splashed up over their faces.
When he came back up, ice shelves crashed together, crunching and bouncing apart. Oh, damn it. They’d get crushed between two of those.
“We have to get atop a shelf!” he shouted.
That sounded almost impossible, unless these were more like tiny icebergs, with a larger portion under the water. Hoping for the best, Odin swam to the nearest surface, grabbed the edge, and heaved with pneuma-enhanced strength. Rather than flip over as he feared, the ice shelf just bobbed a little and allowed him to roll onto it.
Flat on his back, he extended an arm to Idunn, and she grabbed his wrist. He heaved her up, and she rolled over him and onto the ice.
“Just like the damn Ylgr,” Idunn mumbled.
Odin was too exhausted to laugh.
The nether river carried them through shadows so thick they seemed alive on the banks, nameless horrors grasping at the air as if intent to consume all creation. Odin had always tried to avoid the Roil. Here, the Lethe stole memories and transformed souls into wretched things, while timeless entities sought to devour trespassers.
If one spoke with the dead, they would sometimes mention cities out in the Roil, where shades congregated under the unflinching gazes of dark powers. Odin had heard the tale oft enough he’d begun to believe it.
Thus, he peered into those writhing masses of shadow, wondering if he might spot the fabled walls of those necropolises. But all he saw was more darkness.
Idunn shivered. She had her arms wrapped around her knees. Her eyes were opened too wide, as if she’d seen something he had not.
Odin patted her elbow, but she only flinched. “I had only assumed you would have seen this before. That you might have tried to leave Alfheim.”
“I have seen it.” Her voice had become a whisper.
What terrors had she suffered? Now, thanks to him, he brought her to this again. Naught he could say to her would offer much solace, so instead, he returned to watching the nebulous banks.
A cracking sound shot through the ice shelf on which Odin sat.
Idunn sucked in a deep breath and held it.
Oh. Well, damn.
Odin mirrored her, holding his breath.
An instant later, a crack rent through the center of the shelf, pitching them down into chill waters of utter blackness. Even the starlight vanished, gone when he surfaced once more. He gasped down another breath.
A fierce undertow seized his legs and jerked him underwater, and down, far deeper than the river ought to have stretched. Like he was falling into an abyss.
Where was Idunn? Odin flailed, grasping all around blindly in the hopes of catch her, but found naught. The current whipped him around, as if in a maelstrom, spinning him beyond any hope of knowing where it carried him, save, ever downward.
All at once it shot him forward, propelled like an arrow from bow. Water shot up his nose and filled his lungs. His momentum carried him to the surface, at least for a bare instant, before his weight pulled him under once more.
With wild gyrations he swam upward again, sucking down a breath that burned his raw throat. Panting, coughing. Flailing around.
There was Idunn, maybe two score feet away, looking almost as overwrought as he felt. Her skin still held a faint hint of radiance, making her seem to glow like a torch in this gloomy place.
Odin coughed again. Above them spread out a canopy of night with stars but no moon. He was no longer in a river, but a lake, or a gentle sea. He couldn’t make out land in any direction.
Was he still in the Astral Realm, or had they passed back into the Spirit Realm?
Still short on breath, he made his way slowly to Idunn. “Are you all right?”
She blinked, staring at the night sky, then moaned.
“You know where we are?”
She coughed. “This is Svartalfheim.”
The World of Dark.
Part II
Year 399, Age of the Aesir
Winter
11
Hermod had not returned to Asgard for several years, so his first stop was to Yggdrasil to see Syn. Odin had warned him, long years ago, that serving as his protégé, walking his dark path, would not endear Hermod to his loved ones. Frigg had chided and disdained Odin for his own long absences, and everyone had known it. Still, Hermod could not turn from the calling Odin had placed on him.
Besides, sometimes, when he looked on Syn he saw …
His wife was inside the World Tree, working on sword forms. She turned abruptly at his approach, then spat over her shoulder. “I’d begun to think you dead.”
Hermod frowned. He’d deserved that, of course. “You know better than that. I’ve sought after Odin in every land on Midgard.”
Now his wife sheathed her sword. “We’ve been here before, Hermod. You know I was loyal to Odin. I’ll never forget the honor he bestowed upon me in granting me this trust here. But the king is dead. He’s never coming back.”
“He entrusted me with the care of Valhalla.” A secret he’d told no one save his wife. So many times Herm
od had walked the hall, somehow hoping to see Sif’s face among the einherjar. But she wasn’t there, and never would be. She’d died so very long ago and if any valkyrie had claimed her soul, she’d have come to Valhalla back then. But still he looked for her, there, and everywhere else in the Penumbra.
“You change the topic. If your duty is to Valhalla, fine, see to it. That doesn’t require you to wander the whole damn world hunting after the fallen king.”
“Loki says he lives.”
The look on her face said plainly that she had no intention of having that conversation again. Few Aesir trusted Odin’s blood brother, who knew too many things, saw too many things in his flames. It was unmanly and strange. It unnerved warriors, though, considering his wife lived in a tree that granted immortality and bound the worlds together, it ought not to have felt so very odd to her. Once, though, Hermod would have thought as she did.
She would never really understand the way he had to see the world now, having embraced his heritage as the child of a valkyrie.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” he said at last. “I just wanted to see you.”
“You mean you wanted a quick fuck before you head out again.”
Hermod spread his hands. Admittedly, her suggestion would not go amiss.
Syn burst out laughing. “Get over here, then.”
There was a peace on Asgard, and those who stayed too long here tended to forget how the rest of the world seemed to be decaying. Walking the streets of the golden city, Hermod saw people laughing, lounging about. They swam in the streams, perhaps not even realizing that, elsewhere, winter had stretched on across the entire summer. That, now, once again, winter was unfolding, and naught had changed.
The seasons were askew, and badly so. No one here knew it, or cared. Nor much cared that every day another king or jarl was murdered. Hermod could not remember any time in his long life he’d seen so much bloodshed as had unfolded in the past two decades.
