by Matt Larkin
He stood on a windswept cliff, looking down at a town below. Even now, late a night, he could see through the mist—for the town was aflame, a pyre that engulfed every living being within it and continued to spread. The flames leapt outward, surging over hills and into valleys, turning forests to cinders. They passed through mountains, reducing them to clouds of choking ash that buried entire kingdoms as Baldr watched, in helpless thrall to the unfolding cataclysm around him.
“You can’t stop it.”
The voice came from behind him and he turned to see Nanna there, watching him. As eyeless as Hödr—just burned out, gaping voids where her beautiful eyes should have been. Blood oozed between her teeth and dribbled down over her lips. Her mouth was a well of blackness. “You cannot stop aught, Baldr Odinson.”
“Is this Ragnarok?”
“It was never your destiny to stop it.” Her voice was a razor, digging through his mind, shredding it and leaving him gasping.
Now, blood oozed down over his chin as well. It dribbled from his nose. From his ears. He opened his mouth to try to speak, to demand an answer, but all he managed was a choking gasp.
Something pressed against his wounded ribs. A pressure that grew and grew until he was grunting in pain. Then screaming, as he tore away at his shirt, yanking it off. His flesh protruded as if something swam beneath it.
By the gates of Hel! What … what the fuck was that? Like a massive worm, burrowing just underneath his skin.
Like it was ripping him apart in twisted agony.
Open-mouthed in horror he looked up to Nanna. She flashed him a pointy-toothed grin, venom dripping from her fangs.
Baldr slipped to his knees, hands pressed against his side as whatever it was slithered around in there. “G-get it out!”
With trembling fingers he pulled a knife from his belt. His breath had become ragged, wild. Uncontrolled panting, as the point hovered over the awful bulge. “Gah!” He drove the blade in and gouged his flesh, exposing a sinuous black tendril beneath it. A moving, slithering tendril.
It was tearing him to pieces from the inside out.
Still moving, still writhing in there. A serpent’s head poked out from the wound, yellow, murderous eyes. The snake launched itself at his throat like a missile from a bow, ripping through his skin in the process. Its fangs closed on his neck, punching through. Searing venom coursed through him with each agonized beat of his heart.
Baldr woke screaming. The fire had dwindled down to embers, leaving him in darkness. So dark, it took him a moment to realize someone was in the house with him, sitting in the shadows.
He gasped.
Nanna leaned forward, sneering. “Don’t sleep well, my lord? Is your conscience heavy? Is it black with guilt for the arrogance of your crimes?”
Still unable to catch his breath, Baldr yanked up his shirt. His skin had turned red around the bandages, and reeked of vile rot. Shit, he had to know. Cringing, he tore away at the bandages, heedless of the pain unwrapping them caused. Pus and blood mixed with a green poultice to create a gooey mess that had him ready to retch for just looking at it.
Nanna crawled over to him on her hands and knees, her tongue lolling out to one side. “The fevers have you. Your brain bakes inside your skull. How does it feel, being mortal like the rest of us?”
“Is this real?” His voice sounded like a child’s. A weepy, pathetic child.
“You won’t know until the end.” The woman thrust herself upon him, bearing him down with her weight. She licked the sweat from his forehead. Then lashed his face with a tongue as rough as fish scales. Licked it over his eyes.
He tried to throw her off, but he was pinned beneath a mountain, helpless.
“You wanted me? You wanted me?” her voice had grown dark, deep as a jotunn’s, and masculine.
Nanna reared up and yanked away her dress to reveal an erect cock made of stone.
“W-what?”
With Otherworldly strength she flipped him over, yanked down his trousers. “You wanted me!” she roared.
That stone cock rammed up his arse with a terrible rending pain.
Baldr shrieked, lurching awake, flailing around wildly, until he pitched over to the side. Sweat absolutely drenched him. He whimpered, casting about the house, but there was no sign of anyone else.
At least until the door bust open and Thor blundered through, completely unclad. “What the fuck happened?”
“Is this real?” Baldr managed.
Thor groaned. “What’s real is you woke me up from a dream where I didn’t have a fucking stone in my brain. You’re supposed to be the clever one, aren’t you, little brother?”
Nightmares. Fell, awful nightmares. Oh, Hel. What had happened to him? How could his mind even dream up such twisted mockeries?
He wiped his face with his shirt. “I … saw … I don’t know. A shade of Nanna. Like she was haunting me. I … should I release her?” To do so was to allow Hödr’s crimes and temerity to go unpunished. But the terrible things he’d beheld in his slumber seemed … seemed to forebode some unspeakable urd.
“Release her?” Thor asked, then scratched at the scab on his forehead. “Fever really has baked your brain, hasn’t it?”
“Perhaps. But what if this is a sign, a message from the Otherworlds not to hold on to Nanna?”
“Oh, fucking damn it, Baldr.” Thor collapsed on the floor in front of him. Then his brother slapped him.
Hard enough that Baldr fell over, and saw spots when he opened his eyes.
“First you come to me begging me to help you reclaim this girl because you have to have her. Can’t say I overmuch minded the chance to put that trollfucker Hödr in his place, so I agreed.”
“Maybe I made a mistake …” Baldr mumbled, struggling to sit up.
“Then you go and murder the girl. Now, what, you having a pang of conscience?”
“Wait, what? Murder her?”
Thor grabbed both sides of his head and hefted him up, to look in his eyes. “Wake up, brother!”
Oh, no. Another nightmare?
Thor shook him, sending the whole world teetering. “She spit on you, threw herself on your sword. Her whole body burst into flame like a fucking funeral pyre. You can’t tell me you don’t remember that awful stench.”
“No.” No, that never happened. This was another nightmare.
“It happened,” Nanna said.
Baldr spun around to look at her. Now, she stood, naked, her flesh charred black, bits of it flaking off and drifting about the room. Her eyes were still empty, her nose gone, her hair burnt away. Baldr gaped, hand to his mouth. “No …”
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Thor demand. His brother grabbed his head and jerked it back around to look at him. “Look. We leave for Asgard in the morn and Mother or Eir or someone will see to you. But you’ve got to live that long first. I brought Sleipnir, he’ll carry us quick. But you need to get ahold of whatever … the uh … whatever’s going on in that skull of yours.” Thor thumbed a finger against Baldr’s forehead as if to make his point.
“I’ll carry your soul straight to Hel,” Nanna said behind him.
Baldr flinched. He could see it, in his mind. The scene Thor had described. Hazy. Painful.
Nanna’s screams as she died, immolated by the runeblade’s terrible fire
“You’re not real …” he mumbled.
“You need me to slap you again?” Thor ask. “Because I’ll do it. Won’t mind a damn bit. Felt good the first time and it’ll feel even better the next. I can even tell Mother it was for your own benefit. Fuck, I’ll slap you left and right ten times a day if needs be. But you go dying or going mist-mad or any other such … uh … what do you call it? Nonsense? Yeah, no fucking nonsense, Baldr.” His brother grunted. “Right. And don’t wake me again, you understand. Or you will feel my fist.”
Thor rose, and tromped out of the house.
Baldr slumped back down, looking to the fire.
Nanna’s burnt face
leaned down, close to his. “Hel is waiting for you.”
Baldr clenched his eyes shut, willing her to be gone. A desperate plea for it.
31
Ages ago it seemed now, petty dverg princes had awed Volund as they trained him in the smithing arts and taught him secrets of the Otherworlds. Now, he counted himself among the Otherworldly, making his shambling way through shadowed corridors in a palace he had taken from his uncle. Time moved like a serpent, slithering in strange and unknowable gyrations. Such was the way of the world, Volund’s old mentor had been fond of saying.
Ah, but blood ran true, and given the right prompting, the darkness in his veins had come out. The bitter irony of it all was, the dvergar had failed to bring it out of him. It was the cruelty of men that had finally succeeded.
For if svartalfar knew one thing best, it was cruelty.
The lamentations of the damned were but music, a symphony that one could deny or embrace, and neither made a whit of difference to the cosmos. The Wheel of Life turned, and torment was made manifest, forming the very fabric of reality. Life is suffering. Death is worse. And the line between the two fades as the cycle turns and turns.
Volund snickered. How easy to become lost in such melancholic musings. So many lifetimes ago, Dvalin had forged him, yes, but a prince of the svartalfar learned things others would not have wished to dream of. Truths, whispered in the darkness, carried on the shadows as if from Nott herself. The Queen of Night predated them all, by whatever name she was known.
In sleeping chambers lit by twin flickering candles that the shadows had almost managed to snuff out, he found Idunn sitting with her legs crossed beneath her, hands closed in fists, trembling slightly.
“They speak to you,” Volund said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chuckling, he eased himself down across from her and stared into her eyes. “You have beautiful black hair. Has it always been black?”
“It’s dark brown.”
He snickered at that. “Not any more, it’s not.”
The woman frowned deeply, as if refusing to speak.
“Imagine my surprise, to learn grandfather had spread his seed on your world. Tell me, did you know your father?”
“He did not come to Vanaheim.”
“Ha! No, I imagine the sunlight there would have come as rather harsh for him. Unpleasant.” Volund reached a hand over to stroke her cheek, though she flinched away. “You did not, I see, deny having met him.”
“If I wished a friend to confide in, it would not be you. Nephew.”
Well. “Did you know, that females of our bloodline, those no more than one or two generations removed from Gugalanna, are exceptionally rare? Oh, I suspect Fjalar must have told you such things.” He leaned forward. “I need to know, of course, if his seed has taken hold in you. There are … ways to have it rooted out.”
For a moment, she looked like she might spit on him.
“I had always heard of you as almost ebullient. The Vanr who walked Midgard for ages, trying to help mankind when the rest of your kin turned their backs. Who chose Odin to overthrow your own people. Who gifted him with the dark spear?” He chuckled. “Or was it just that you found yourself ever drawn to the dark places beyond the hateful sun? Did the war and chaos and bloodshed call to you, in secret whispers you allowed no one else to know of?”
“No.”
“Did you, perhaps not even knowing the reason yourself, undo your own civilization out of a nameless need you could no longer deny?”
“No!” Idunn lurched forward her hands going for his throat.
Volund caught her wrists and shoved her back. “Does Fjalar’s seed quicken in your womb?”
Idunn snarled at him. “I’ll make you eat your own stones, svartalf! I’ll shove your shriveled cock so far down your throat you choke on it! I’ll leave your corpse to rot in this vile world, and never look back.”
He licked his lips and squirmed as he grew hard. “Your rage is delicious. But I truly need an answer. Do you carry the spawn of Fjalar? If you do not give me my answer, there are ways to take it from your mind. The shadows can reach in and claim what I need … but I will spare you that for now if you cooperate.”
“How kind you are, with your guests. You ask about his seed only because you wish to fill me with yours, nephew.”
Volund chuckled. “I admit, I look forward to pounding into your trench with a fury that will leave you screaming in pleasure.” He leaned forward to blow his breath upon her face. “You will writhe in ecstasy you cannot begin to contain, even as torment transforms into thrill. I’ll have your arms and legs suspended by chains and you shall feel as though you fly whilst I fuck you senseless for hour upon hour.”
He could see it, as she warred for control of her expression. As she lost, and scrambled away into the dark corner of the room, far from him.
“We are kin,” she growled.
He shook his head. “Your blood has power that could allow me to sire a glorious heir. Kin does not mean what it does among mortals. Fjalar was your brother, after all.”
“Half-brother. And he raped me!”
“Is that what you prefer? I have no qualms over it, if it excites you. If it arouses you, I can call in a half dozen or so ritters to use you at the same time. They’d have to use your arse, of course. I cannot allow the seed of another to—”
“You are sick, you trollfucking bastard!” She screamed at him, yet pressed herself closer against the wall, clearly disinclined to attack.
He snickered. “Conceptions of sanity and morality are meaningless in the fathomless darkness of existence. Our very souls are fuel to a twisting crucible that serves but to feed the dark. The only truth, and thus the sole measure of lucidity is, power is a choice, and the only choice that matters. Our wills, subject though they are to predations of fate, remain all that define us. I am offering you a singular chance to grasp real power. To be mother to a purebred descendant of Nott, a future marquess who could help us crush those who stand in our way. Together, we might even overcome Mantus, and claim the whole of the Gloom Hollow or beyond.”
“I don’t want to be mother to aught, least of all your spawn.”
The shadows around her twisted, whispering their sweet and damning song, confirming his supposition. After all, Fjalar had no doubt used her on every possible occasion to ensure the conception of progeny.
Volund offered her a smirk, one he managed to maintain even through the pain of standing. “Well. Allow me to apologize in advance for what I must do. I cannot allow Fjalar’s spawn to draw breath.”
“What?”
Volund reached a hand toward her, palm outstretched, then slowly curled his fingers. The shadows responded, tendrils of them writhing, lurching toward her.
Idunn blanched, trying to push herself further against the wall, as if there were any place for her to go.
“I am heir to the power of the Dark King, and thus of Nott herself, you see.” Volund shrugged. “Oh, you will be too, once you embrace your heritage. I can help you with that.”
“No …” Her voice was almost breaking.
The shadow tendrils wrapped around her ankles and jerked her forward, yanking her legs apart. Idunn shrieked, for an instant, before another tendril of darkness wedged itself inside her mouth. The screams didn’t much bother Volund, but no reason to take the chance of the Aesir overhearing this.
Idunn thrashed, wriggling around even as other shadows yanked her trousers down. Then her eyes bulged as another tendril slithered up her trench. Volund closed his hand into a fist, wrapping around the fetus, then yanked it backward, out of her with a slight pop.
The woman wailed, tears in her eyes, as blood seeped from her.
A twist of Volund’s wrist had the fetus floating up before him. So tiny. Unlikely to have much pneuma yet, but no sense in wasting it. He flicked his hand and tossed the morsel into his mouth, swallowing without bothering to chew.
He licked his li
ps. “Yes, well … as I said. I apologize for that.”
The shadows drew back from her, but she wasn’t screaming. Just lying on the floor, staring daggers at him in her delicious rage, enough to almost mask the tears. Yes, she would make a fine svartalf, and soon. The darkness already began to waken in her.
“Suffering forges us into stronger metals,” he said. And limped from the room.
How very fitting that Idunn should join him, all the more so because Odin had once relied on her so heavily. The Ás had no one but himself to blame for Idunn’s urd.
Every once so often, a flicker of pity tugged at him, a remnant of his long abandoned mortal life, when he’d still believed in petty conceptions of mortality. At such times, it served best to remind himself that he did only what had been done to him, and made him greater for it.
Still thinking of her, he shambled down the corridors of his fortress, leaning on his cane, until he came to find Odin himself, standing in delightful discomfiture with Freyja, as the two of them looked on their daughter. The three stood before a balcony overlooking the dining hall where several dozen female warriors now drank their fill.
Probably, Odin and the others knew he approached, but still he clung to the shadows, allowing them their moment of despair with Hnoss, who continued rebuffing any attempt either made at familial bonding.
“I don’t know you at all,” Hnoss said to Odin. “All I know of you is that you sold me to a man you had every reason to believe might torment me.”
“I didn’t know you existed—”
Hnoss snickered. “Must have been easier, that way. I don’t blame you. I’ve embraced my urd. You must accept that yours does not include me. Neither of yours does.”
Oh, they wilted as if covered in frost, wretched, pathetic things.
Their suffering would make them stronger, in the end. In truth, they should thank him for what he’d made of Hnoss. She was surely far stronger than the frail flower he’d dragged from Alfheim, long ago.
