by Meg Trotter
A noise from the other side of the room pulled Maera’s attention. Luka lay, still sleeping, in the nook across from hers, however it was not a peaceful sleep. His eyebrows twitched and he let out a grunt of distress. Valka jumped when she noticed him. She frowned, as if she couldn’t remember if he should be there or not. Finally her kind nature won out over her confusion. “Poor thing,” she murmured. “We should wake him.”
She stood and approached his bed, but before she could reach out a hand to shake him, Maera picked up her empty food bowl and tossed it at the bed. It smacked Luka’s shoulder, narrowly missing his head, and sent him sputtering awake, flailing his arms. He blinked up at Valka, who froze in shock.
The goddess pointed at Maera. Maera smiled sweetly at him. Luka glowered a moment before running a hand through his mussed hair and flinging off his furs in annoyance. He stood and walked toward the door with a stretch and a yawn.
Valka blinked at the space where he had been for a moment, then turned back to Maera, looking flustered. “Sorry,” she muttered, running her hand over her forehead. “I don’t know what I was- ... Oh, dinner, right.” She came back to Maera’s bedside and continued the conversation as if Luka had never been there, though he still stood near the door, wiggling his feet into some type of covering. Shoes, her mind told her helpfully. “Do you need help to get there?” Valka asked. “It’s not far. We passed it on our way here — the big longhouse.”
Maera slid her own feet to the floor and eased her weight onto them. They didn’t ache as badly as they had before. Without the distraction of the pain, it was easier to find her balance. She looked up and smiled at Valka with a quick shake of the head.
The goddess returned her smile. “All right then. Once you get yourself cleaned up, head on over. I’ve left you a pair of my old shoes here. I’ll save a seat for you.” She didn’t even give Luka a second glance as she passed in front of him and slipped out the door. Maera frowned at this, but when Luka looked back at her, expectant, she renewed her dedication to ignoring anything about the witch that she didn’t understand.
Maera smoothed down her hair as best she could and slipped on the shoes with a little fumbling. She crossed the distance to the door with barely any trouble and gave Luka a smug smirk as she passed in front of him and out the door without stumbling once — only to be met with the sight of the steps that went up to ground level. She huffed. She’d forgotten about those.
Maera eyed them a moment, considering the best way to approach them. In the end, she just headed for them and hoped for the best. It was an imperfect strategy. She stumbled on the second step. Luka’s snorts echoed from somewhere behind her as she made it the rest of the way up on her hands and knees. Without the aid of a supporting wall, it proved impossible to get back on her feet again. After several moments of struggle she huffed and grudgingly accepted the hand Luka offered her with a smug smile. He pulled her to her feet and released her as soon as she was steady.
Maera dusted the dirt from her hands as she scanned the area. She spotted the large structure in the distance that must be Freydis’ house. However something else pulled Maera’s attention. Halfway between her new quarters and Freydis’ home rested a collection of large stones set in a circle. Maera shuffled toward them. The largest was nearly as big as she was, and flat on one side.
There, an image was carved into the rock. In the center, a godly figure stood, legs splayed, chest out, holding some kind of tool that was narrow at one end and then expanded to something twice the size of his hand at the topmost end. Around the god floated various creatures that Maera didn’t recognize, all contorted in uncomfortable shapes with their mouths open, displaying sharp teeth.
Around the edges of the rock were short, sharp lines. Some intersected, some were side-by-side, but they all flowed around the whole outer rim. Maera stepped closer and ran a finger along them. They were words, she realized. Words caught from the air and preserved here in the stone. Her mind didn’t immediately provide the translation, however she picked one small grouping of marks and ran her finger over it several times. Finally, whatever magic Luka had used offered up something to her waiting mind: “Aesir.”
She jerked her hand away from the markings and touched her fingers to her lips. The word had come from her mouth, like the gods spoke. She didn’t know what the word meant, or even how she had spoken it — when she tried to do it again, she couldn’t figure out how to get the air up her throat high enough to produce the sound.
A strange, watery noise broke into her thoughts, and she looked to her left to see Luka, still male, leaning his hips close to a similarly shaped, though smaller, rock nearby. It wasn’t until the scent drifted her way that she realized that he was relieving himself on the side of it. She wrinkled her nose and glanced at the rock — it had another figure, this one with a large nose and rather crazed grin, along with creatures that looked something like a pair of eels twisting around the figure’s body. Luka gave her a lazy smile when her gaze moved back to his face. She turned away, still determined to ignore him.
Noise further down the path drew Maera’s attention. Up ahead two gods were hanging something on a tall wooden structure over their heads. When she got close, she realized that they were young. One was an adolescent, and the other was the young boy who had brought her food — Dromi. Both boys had been laughing at something as they worked, but when they noticed Maera approach, they paused. Dromi looked her up and down in a mixture of confusion and wariness. She smiled at them, and the taller of the two had the tips of his ears flush a bright red.
She hesitated, wondering if this was a signal from the young male for her to not come closer. Anything under the sea that flushed red like that was giving a clear warning to back off. However his posture wasn’t echoing this signal. Maera wasn’t sure the meaning of it.
Instead of approaching him, she walked over to the structure they were working under and peered up at it. Four beams held up a crisscross pattern of smaller beams overhead. From those, hung dozens of dead fish — some looked freshly killed, while those on the opposite side had been dead for some time, and had a shriveled look about them. Under the shriveled ones was a basket half-filled with fish that had been recently cut down from their posts overhead.
“My father caught most of these,” Dromi said. When Maera looked back at him curiously, he gave her a small, shy smile. “He’s been having to work hard, with my two brothers being out on raid this month. He’s managed to keep up though.”
The older one scratched at the back of his head. “You’re the girl who washed up on shore this morning. Everyone’s been talking about you.” Maera smiled. It was as good an introduction to the settlement as she could ask for. Curiosity and mystery were things she could work to her advantage. “They say you can’t talk though,” the older boy added.
She nodded at this and touched her throat, as she had for their leader. They seemed more compassionate about her situation than Freydis had been. The younger boy’s eyes went wide. “Can’t talk? That’s terrible.”
“Ah, trust me, it’s a blessing,” Luka said, strolling up to the group. “She just goes on and on about finding herself a man. These two, by the way, are too young for you,” he added to Maera. “Just so you know.”
The older boy’s whole face turned red this time, and Maera finally understood that he’d been secretly hoping the opposite. Dromi, oblivious to the glare Maera was throwing at Luka, stepped in between them, and grinned up at the witch. “Oh, I thought I saw you this morning!” the child said. “You’ve been gone for a long time, haven’t you? I’d nearly forgotten what you looked like. I wanted to show you — look!” He dug something out from a pouch on his hip and held it up for the witch to inspect. Luka crouched down and accepted the trinket with exaggerated seriousness. It looked like a small version of the instrument Luka had used when they were in the Rift — a knife. Luka twisted the blade this way and that, inspecting the sharpened end and then the roughly shaped handle. He nodded. “You ma
ke this yourself?” he asked.
The boy nodded. “My father helped a bit, but-”
“I like this part right here,” Luka interrupted, pointing at some part of the handle that Maera couldn’t see.
The boy grinned. “I did that part!”
Luka’s eyes darted up to the boy’s before settling back on the knife. “That’s impressive craftsmanship for someone your age. You need to get yourself apprenticed to the blacksmith. Tell your father I said so. He’d be lucky to have someone with such obvious talent.”
The little god beamed as he accepted the knife back from Luka. Maera regarded the witch curiously as she tried to decide what had brought on this unexpected bout of gentleness toward the child. Dromi looked from the witch to Maera and then grinned at Luka with a gap-toothed smile. “She’s pretty,” he said at a whisper, though he was still clearly audible.
“Thanks,” Luka said, without hesitation. “Made her myself.” Maera swatted at him, though he dodged her hand. Luka gave the boys a wave as he turned back toward the path to longhouse. “Looking forward to tasting your father’s catch. Keep up the good work.”
Maera smiled at the boys and gave them a little wave before following Luka’s lead. She followed behind him slowly, wondering what kind of reception the witch was likely to receive. He hadn’t gotten an invitation to this meal. However Dromi had appeared to know him. Maybe he was a familiar face around this settlement. He reached the house before she did and slipped inside without waiting.
Maera arrived a few paces behind, but paused to catch her breath. The aching in her legs had returned. She feared if she didn’t take it easy, the pain would bloom brightly again. After a moment to collect herself, she pulled open the door and stepped inside. The low murmur of voices wrapped around her as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark space.
Freydis’ home looked similar to Maera’s own sleeping quarters, yet on a much larger scale. Little nooks lined the corners, filled with furs just as Maera’s was. Instead of sleeping, the gods were sitting in the nooks in twos and threes. All heads were turned toward the other end of the large room where Freydis sat on a carved wooden structure — a chair. On either side of the chair were two thick beams of wood carved with intricate designs. Maera caught a fleeting glimpse of faces and weapons carved into the pillars before Valka appeared at her side and tugged her toward an empty platform on the end opposite the high seat.
Once seated, Maera cast a look around at the others. They were all male, except for Freydis and Valka, as well as one other female sitting close to a fire burning in the center of the space. All but a few were old, looking to be somewhere around her own father’s age. None of the males looked to be even remotely promising targets. She caught sight of Luka sitting with a couple of these older gods. Luka murmured something, and they erupted in laughter.
Valka, seated beside Maera, was involved with her own conversation with one of the gods on her other side. Maera tried to follow the conversation, but was distracted when someone handed her a bowl filled with bits of fish, along with other things she had yet to try. Remembering Luka’s mockery from earlier, Maera waited to watch how the gods ate their food. She copied their dignified restraint as best she could, though she wished she could just tip the contents of the whole bowl into her open mouth.
The lone older goddess began distributing small vessels to each of the guests as they continued to eat. Each god nodded in appreciation and brought their vessel to their lips as she moved on to the next guest. When the goddess handed one of these to Maera, Maera nodded like the others had done and reached for it. Peering inside, she saw water ... or something like it. The smell was wrong for water. She looked around again. Luka paused to watch her, smirking.
Maera frowned at him and raised the mug to her lips as the others had done, though she wasn’t sure what she was expected to do next. Was the liquid to wet their lips? Her skin was feeling a bit dry. She tipped the liquid toward her and let it lap up against her mouth. When she pulled it away, she instinctively licked at her lips. Another instinct kicked in, and she brought the mug back to her mouth, this time opening it to let the liquid inside. She grimaced at the bitterness of it at the same time being grateful for the cool liquid that somehow turned warm when it hit her stomach. When she looked back over at Luka, he was still smirking at her as he took a drink from his own cup.
Maera turned her focus back to the conversations going on around her and listened while popping food into her mouth and taking sips from her cup. After a while she started feeling sleepy again. She wondered when they would dismiss them to go back to their beds.
“Freydis!” called one of the gods, making Maera jump. The noise of dozens of conversations lowered and Freydis looked up from her own conversation she was having with one of the gods nearest to her. She raised her eyebrows in question. The god who had called out smiled at her and raised his mug and lowered it again before speaking. “Heard you went down to Kaupangen today. Any new news of King Harald floating around their ports?”
Freydis set down her drink. The surrounding conversations trickled away until they were nothing but murmurs. She looked unbothered by the eyes of everyone turning toward her. “Gossip, but nothing solid,” she said. “His health is still good, but he’s getting up in age. He’s yet to name one of his sons his successor though.”
“It’ll be Erik, surely,” said another god.
Freydis shrugged. “He still seems to be the favorite of his father, though I’ve heard several chiefs talking highly about Haakon.”
One man snorted. “The boy he fostered out? I heard he was going soft, turning away from the old ways.”
Maera looked back to Freydis. The goddess didn’t seem at all intimidated by the questions the gods kept shooting her way. Maera would have been on edge if she’d been expected to sit in on her father’s council and answer questions from elders. Freydis took a lazy drink from her cup before answering. “Well, that will be something for us to worry about when my father gets back from the raid,” Freydis said.
“Any sightings?” piped up an older god who sat close to high seat.
Freydis shrugged. “In Kaupangen some fishermen told me they’d heard a trader say he’d bought slaves off of a raider ship further north not long ago. I’d bet that’s them. They’re probably selling off the last of the captives before heading home. So it should be any day now, I’d say.”
“Chief Orm will return to us soon. That is cause for celebration!” rumbled another god further down the table. He pounded the table with his mug.
“Celebration might be a little premature,” Freydis cautioned. “Odin might still yet cause them misfortunes if we get too cocky.”
“Not a celebration then,” said a short, squat god sitting a few seats down from Maera. “What about a good story to wash down our suppers?”
Freydis smiled a little at this and nodded. “Well, I’m not very good at telling the old stories, but I know your daughter can spin a good tale.”
Beside Maera, Valka tensed as all eyes turned to her. Her cheeks slowly turned pink. “Um…”
“Oh, come now,” Valka said with surprising gentleness. “In all our years growing up together, you’ve filled my head with a million versions of the familiar stories. It’s just the elders here. You’ve known them all your life too.”
Valka gave an embarrassed smile and fiddled with a strand of her golden hair. “Well... okay. Are there any requests?”
“The mead of poetry!” someone shouted.
“The theft of Sif’s hair!” called out another.
A few gods laughed. They called out a few more things that Maera didn’t quite catch. As the gods argued over the title of their story, Maera waved off the goddess who tried to refill her cup. She’d only drank half of hers, but even that was enough to make her feel a little like she was floating. She threw a longing glance toward the door.
“No, no,” cackled an old god. “I’ve just the one. The conception of Sleipnir!”
&
nbsp; If Maera hadn’t been glancing Luka’s way, she would have missed it. His head snapped up at the god’s words, and the mirth washed from his face like a retreating tide. He dropped his gaze into his cup for a moment and then took a long drink as the room erupted into laughter.
Valka stood, crossing to the fire to the encouragement of the elders. When she turned to face the small crowd, her eyes were bright with mischief. “You’re in luck. That one happens to be my favorite.” She waited until the chatter of the gods died down. Once it was quiet, she smoothed down the front of her clothes and smiled out at the gods waiting for her to start. “Well,” she said, “It all started when the Aesir decided they needed to build a new home.”
The use of the word from the rock piqued Maera’s attention, however from the other side of the room, she noticed Luka looking increasingly annoyed. He set down his empty cup and picked up a neighbor’s full one before muttering something to his seatmates and excusing himself from their midst. Without so much as a glance at anyone else, he passed along the far wall and headed out through the door into the night.
Maera shifted in her seat, torn between wanting to stay to hear Valka tell her story and wanting to know where Luka was going. After a moment’s hesitation, she set down her own cup, slid off of her seat, a little more wobbly now than when she’d entered, and followed silently after the witch.
Chapter 7
Outside it was dark, almost as dark as back in the Rift, and for a moment Maera was disoriented. Overhead only a handful of speckles shone down like they had the first time Maera had broken through to this world. They were faint now, and as she watched, the stars faded out, as if someone was pulling a thin layer of furs between her and them.
A gust of wind blew, making Maera shiver. She eyed the sick-house in the distance, briefly considering just going back to her own fire and warm bed. However, curiosity tugged her attention back out toward the horizon. A shadow slipped through the opening in the wall, heading back down to the shore where she’d first left the sea. Maera frowned at the distance, but shuffled that way on aching legs.
