“We know that bit already,” Rose said, groaning in pain as he straightened out his body. Gods, if he’d broken a bone, we’d be completely fucked. “Where are we in Niflheim?”
Diaval shook her head, her eyes still blazing electric blue. “I’m not sure. It takes time and ritual to create a traditional portal that will take you exactly where you want to be. We didn’t have that. I had to do something quick and hope it turned out okay. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Diaval,” I said. “We all understand.”
Seppo, Rose, and Soren agreed, though Soren’s was more of a low grunt than any words.
Lydian sat looking in the distance with his eyes squinted. “It seems congratulations are in order. You might not have known where we were going, but it’s in the right direction.” He pointed slightly right in the distance. “There’s a line there, a boundary. If we follow it, it should take us to the liminal entrance of Muspelheim. Fjalar lives there. We have to walk to it, and I have to lead. If any of you try to, you won’t reach it; it’s between space and time, and other than Janneke, who doesn’t know how, I’m the only liminal thing here.”
“Never thought this day would come,” I muttered under my breath. The absurdity of being led anywhere by Lydian was almost enough to make me laugh. But it wasn’t like we had much of a choice, anyway. We were little, blind rabbits led on by a wolf we could only pray wouldn’t eat us.
“Can Soren stand?” came the reply.
“Of course I can.” Soren stood, staggering to his feet. He swayed back and forth, and when he walked, he couldn’t manage a straight line. A sinking feeling struck me as he tried to clumsily straighten the quiver that made a mess when we fell, missing the opening each time. Soren was good at archery enough when he could use it to save his life, but the skill quickly diminished due to not being able to take in much light through his lilac eye. Functional archery, hunting with a bow and arrow rather than a spear would be near impossible now that he only had one eye left.
No one brought it up because it angered him so badly in the first place, and now the sinking feeling told me he would probably never shoot a good arrow again. For anyone, that would be a big blow, but for Soren? His skill at hunting and fighting was his life, and losing the advantage of two eyes instead of one would fiddle with his depth perception until he got used to it.
“I can help you if you want,” I suggested.
Soren shook his head. “Janneke, we’re over one foot apart in height. It would be physically impossible for you to help with.”
“Good thing Rose and I are here, then. We can split the duty so we don’t get overly tired with you leaning against us,” Seppo said.
Soren sighed as his dignity and pride fought against the feelings of uselessness. I tasted it on my tongue as we spoke. So far the link to each other hadn’t been severed, at least emotionally, since I could feel his pain.
Focusing on the bond, I tried to send him waves of comfort, waves of peace, but if they worked, he didn’t seem to react at all. There was a certain dullness in his eyes—eye—that lay heavy in his face, and it made my heart hurt to see it.
When we had a moment together, we would need to speak, alone.
With Rose and Seppo helping Soren stay steady, and with Diaval close to my side, we braced ourselves for the unthinkable—being led by Lydian. My stomach clenched at the thought of it, and I forced myself to think of something else because otherwise I was sure I’d get sick.
“We need to leave,” Seppo said, “before Hel catches up to us.”
Diaval snorted by my side. “Hel won’t dirty herself with hunting us; she will send something. It will be horrible but it won’t be her.”
“The witch is right,” Lydian said. “But so is the jester. We need to leave as fast as we can. Remember that the mists of Niflheim will mess with your head eventually. Don’t, for Odin’s sake, leave the path that I create. If there’s one thing I ask of you, it is to please trust me about this. Niflheim is dangerous.”
And so, with no other choice, we trudged along after Lydian. Icy wind sprayed on our faces from all directions, and we huddled in our parkas the best we could to hide against the blasts. I pulled my hood up immediately and pulled the mask up that covered the bottom half of my face, so only my eyes peeked out from underneath. Even then, the blasts of cold and mist made me squint.
One by one, everyone copied me, feeling the cold as well as I had. Even Lydian pulled up his hood, despite showing no signs of being bothered by the weather. I’d been sympathetic enough to pack him clothes before we journeyed to Hel, knowing that his were most likely ragged and full of gore. Other than the practical reasons why I did it, I hadn’t wanted to smell that rotten stink for days. When he originally appeared in Hel, I was glad of my decision.
In the cry of the wind, voices called out to me in the echo of my family, the people I loved who were dead. It brought back memories of the last trial, and my chest squeezed until it hurt. People sprung up in the misty air, not that I could recognize any of them, but I knew they were lost, wandering souls that took the wrong pathway to Hel and ended up in this desolate place.
Someone’s hand caught my wrist. I tore it away when I found out who it belonged to.
“Don’t get distracted and stay on the path.” Lydian thumped his boot on the ground and swept aside some of the ice and snow. It was barely a flash in my eyes before I noticed it—the red tinge of the ice.
“I see it,” I said, rubbing my wrist like I could rid myself of his touch.
“Good, you might actually be good for something as the stag after all,” Lydian said.
“Don’t you dare talk to her that way,” Soren growled from where Rose was supporting him. “I may have one eye but I’ll kill you just the same.”
Lydian huffed and turned back onto the path. Diaval placed a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right? You’re shaking.”
I took a second to compose myself enough to speak coherently before I nodded. “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Just some jitters.”
I didn’t have more time to ponder what it meant as Lydian stopped and put his spear down to mark the point on the ground. “All right, as Janneke has wonderfully shown us, the effects of the mist can be lethal to even a strong goblin or the stag. Time for a few rules. Do not ever look behind you. Whatever you hear, whatever drips down your neck, don’t look at it. You may see people who look similar to others you’ve known, friends, family, enemies, both dead and alive. Do not talk to or interact with them. If the person looks like one of us, check to see if it has a shadow. If it has a shadow, it isn’t us. Niflheim doesn’t have enough sunlight to make actual shadows. Last, but most important rule—sleep. You’re going to need it these next few days. We’ll all sleep for an allotted time in a place that’s safe from the mist. I’ll point them out, but soon you’ll know as well where to find them. You may feel the urge to wake up and stay awake all night due to anxiety, dread, fear of someone watching you, voices you keep hearing, etcetera. You must sleep. It’s the first defense we have in the mist. A tired mind is a vulnerable mind. If it’s not time or if it is time to sleep, I’ll say so, but assume if I don’t mention sleep, then you’re probably gonna have to stay awake. Do anything you can to help you stay awake, got it?”
Soren scowled, and I was sure I had a similarly displeased look on my face. Diaval nodded silently, and Rosamund grunted his response. Seppo cheerfully took the advice, gave Lydian a thumbs-up, and said “Got it!” in his usually chipper voice. Part of me wanted to hit him.
As we walked farther into Niflheim, the breeze got colder but luckily, less loud, and we were able to talk to one another if we raised our voices almost to a shout. But everyone was too tired, stumbling along with sleep in their eyes despite not getting very far at all; the cold itself tried to lull us into its warming open arms. Tempting us to stop and sit for one moment in its embrace as it curled around us tighter and tighter like a snake until it squeezed the life from us.
&n
bsp; Everyone, but Seppo. Who, true to form, was making it a requirement to annoy the piss out of Lydian as much as he could without the spectral goblin lord killing him.
“Hey, so you know my mom’s with child again, right?” he called, as if he were speaking to all of us and not the goblin he wanted to torment.
“Everyone knows your mom’s with child again,” Soren growled. With his teeth gritted into a terrible snarl and his single eye shining from both pain and humiliation one might mistake him for an incredibly pissed-off cat.
“Not Lydian!” Seppo said cheerfully.
Lydian winced. “I must have missed the memo.”
“Well, yeah, with you being in Hel and all,” he said, beaming. “It’s with a guy she’s been with before. First kid turned out human, but we think this one is going to be a halfling.”
“Pass along my congratulations,” Lydian said, “in case I don’t survive this journey.”
“Yeah, I guess one kid is enough for some people, huh?” He shot a look at Rosamund who gave him the finger in return. “Why did you hide that tidbit, anyway, Rose?”
“I thought I made it clear that I desire no contact with him, deny any relationship with him, and all he is to me and my mother is an unwanted sperm donor. If I didn’t consider him my father and wasn’t raised by him, he’s not anything but someone who happens to share blood with me,” Rosamund said, green eyes glaring. “The only good thing about this is that I have a cousin.”
Soren half smiled at that, and my heart warmed at the sight. “It was a shock, but you’re really not so bad,” he said. “Your taste in males is questionable, though.”
There was a long beat before Seppo got the joke and gave an undignified “Hey!”
Lydian simmered by my side. “I’m finding it really hard to be calm right now,” he said. “I would very much like to rip his throat out, and I can’t imagine saying this, but thank the gods I never got with Satu.”
“Everyone thanks the gods you didn’t partner with Satu,” Soren said. “And welcome to the group, if you’re calm and not about to pull someone’s intestines out, something’s very, very wrong.”
* * *
THE SKY OF Niflheim neither got darker or brighter as we moved on, only an endless gray sea of mist that rose into the sky, going on forever into the void of space. We could’ve been walking in this silent realm of cold and mist forever until Lydian stopped us and pointed out a shelter we could sleep in.
It wasn’t anything special, a snow burrow that stood frozen as ice.
“Looks a bit small,” Soren commented, eyeing the burrow.
“It’s bigger on the inside,” Lydian said.
And so, on the words of a murderer, we slowly slid into the den, and to my surprise, it was a lot bigger on the inside. Big enough for all of our group to fit, plus one or two bodies. We set our packs down and began to get into a tight formation that would hopefully keep us all warm enough over all our clothing and the furs we’d brought with us. Except, of course, for Lydian, who was sleeping on the other side, away from everyone else. No one dared ask him to come near the huddle and he never demanded it.
I had my head on Soren’s chest, listening to his slow heartbeat and he had an arm wrapped around me, pulling until not just my head but half my body covered him. Behind me was Diaval, whose back was pressed to me and whose head was cradled into Rose’s shoulder, while Rose lay with his back to her, his legs and arms tangling with Seppo’s.
When the sounds of sleep came from everyone but us, I turned to Soren. “I love you, you know.”
He smiled, though winced in pain when the movement affected the muscles around his lost eye. “Do you think I’m beautiful even with one eye?”
“You’re gorgeous,” I said, kissing the tip of his nose. “Now go to sleep.”
* * *
NOT LONG LATER, I woke up while everyone else lay in the huddle around me. Unsure, I looked around, but there was nothing other than the snow den and the icy air outside. I put my head back down on Soren’s chest and closed my eyes, but there was something itching in my head and I needed to clear it out. Slowly, I climbed out of the pile and crawled out of the den, making sure not to wake anyone else. I stood with shaking legs as I stared into the distance. The ice particles in the air were swimming, dancing, twirling around and around in a series of colors; bright blues, dark reds, purples from soft lilac to dark indigo and even darker still as they meshed with the grayness of the mist.
I took a step forward; there was something glowing golden in the distance and it sang to me. Want filled me and I took another step, trying to find where the glow was in the mist and hearing it sing out to me in response. The mystical tune got louder and louder as I stumbled in the darkness. Something shimmered in the air around me as I reached out to the golden light, knowing in my gut it was the source of all my questions about the stag’s powers, that if I could find it and hold onto it, I’d finally feel what I’d been missing.
The shimmering lines around me became like an upside down whale carcass, like the ribs we used back in my old village in many ways so there wasn’t waste. A little part inside of me was screaming, but I ignored the screaming, knowing the light would have every answer possible.
“Janneke!” a voice yelled, followed by another. I turned as the monster closed its trap, encaging me in its long, bone-like fingers.
I ran to the sound of the others calling me as quickly as I could, hoping the fingers had a weak spot or an empty place somewhere I could get free. The warm, calm feeling in my chest turned into an icy fire in my lungs as I ran toward Soren’s and Lydian’s voices and as Lydian told Soren exactly where to strike. Meeting him somewhere between the tips of the fingers, I screamed out, “I’m here! I’m here!” and thumped on the wall of bone.
Soren turned immediately in the direction Lydian pointed and brought out his swords. Unsteady and shaking in his grip, fighting against a monster no one but Lydian and I (to a lesser extent) could see, he lunged, and the goblin-forged steel cut through the bones like sliced cheese. I burst out of the opening he made for me and into his arms.
The monster that got to me was wailing in pain and the ground shook as it stomped away to look for another meal. Lydian nodded. “And this is why you don’t leave the path.”
Shaking and out of breath, I took a moment to respond. “What—What was that?”
Soren shrugged. “Most likely some type of lure for a giant or something equally as chaotic. Let’s hope we scared it away and it’s not coming back with more friends.”
“You could see it, couldn’t you, Janneke?” Lydian asked. “Not well enough to avoid walking into its trap, but well enough to direct us to where you were stuck.”
“I didn’t see anything but shimmers,” I said. “Just outlines shimmering that something was there. Otherwise, like Soren, I didn’t see it at all.”
Lydian shook his head. “No, it’s something. Your use of your stag powers earlier are probably breaking down whatever is covering your third eye and taking down the wall between you and the stag until you’re one being. Your powers are coming in.”
18
THE GAUNTLET
“HOW DO YOU know so much about the stag?” I asked as Soren led me back into the snow den and back into a warm position. My body trembled and shook even though it was nearly entwined with Soren.
“Because I know everything,” Lydian said.
“That’s a shit answer,” I muttered. “I want you to tell me what’s going on with me.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “There’s still a few hours of sleep we can reach if we want.”
“Tomorrow, then,” I said, as I buried my head into Soren’s chest, hoping for sleep to come.
It did, agitated and broken, but it did come, and I woke up last that morning with Soren handing me a bowl of pemmican. I had to hold back a sigh. The pastelike combo of seeds, plants, and berries always stuck to the roof of my mouth. The taste was terrible—bitter and chalky—and lingered in my mouth
all day long, no matter how much I tried to rid myself of it.
But it was travel food because none of us would be able to hunt or gather in Niflheim, and other than pemmican and strips of sun-dried meat and assorted types of salted jerky, we had no food. It wasn’t very appealing as a meal, but it would keep us going and give us energy through the day.
That didn’t mean I didn’t have a grossed-out face when trying to stomach the first spoonful, though. I shook my head and winced. “Bleh, that’s terrible.” I barely stopped myself from wiping my tongue on my sleeve to get rid of the flavor. Someone tried to put more fruit in the mixture to counteract the bitterness, but instead, it tasted bitter with a sickly sweet aftertaste.
Soren smirked at me, his remaining eye shining with fondness. “I can’t get over how cute that is,” he said. “Over a hundred years and you still make the exact same face.”
I was still trying to get the taste out of my mouth and unstick my tongue from the roof of it. “I don’t understand how you can get that to move from your mouth to your throat, much less swallow it completely. It has to be some goblin thing,” I said when I got my tongue free.
“Technically,” Rose butted in, “it’s a human creation that we’ve adopted for situations, well, not like this but similar.”
I rolled my eyes. “And I hated it back when I lived in my home village too. I’d even take raw meat over this.”
There was a snicker from the corner. Diaval, who somehow supernaturally had almost finished her bowl, said, “I’ve seen your attempts at raw meat, Janneke. You’re good for many things, but not for that.”
“It looks like trying to feed a small, alive cat to a fussy yearling,” Seppo said, “and believe me, I have experience with this. Half of my siblings are younger than me and I have to help feed them.”
“It is pretty funny,” Rose said.
“She once cried when I fed her balut,” Soren said, lips twitching. “Which was probably my fault because you can’t throw balut at someone who’s only been in the Permafrost for a few months.”
Goblin King Page 18
