‘The Tree,’ he whispered, clutching at the wood. ‘The Tree – the World-Ash, Yggdrasil. Oh Jess, Jess, if you could only see this –’ A faint tremor ran through the thick bark, as if in answer. The great tree of Viking myth, Upholder of Worlds, Pillar of the Universe … He stared up the vast arch of the root and saw faint bluish sparks dance and flutter there, like distant will-o’-the-wisps. Did he dare set foot on that?
Then out of the dark behind him drifted a sound that set the hair on his neck bristling, an eerie, distant howl as cold and shimmering as moonlight. Another joined it, rising and falling, a hungry, yearning sound it was not good to hear alone in a narrow place. And nearer, much nearer, just at the limits of his vision, there was a terrible grinding sound, as if one or both boulders were stirring like an awakened animal, stretching out stiff limbs across the gravel. Hal slid warily back into the shadows. Probably not his pursuers – more likely Hela’s sentinels, back on watch. But either way, this was no place to hang around. He hoisted himself onto the great curve of the root and began to scramble upwards, very quietly.
Once at the top, he found he could stand and walk easily enough. Like the rock below, the bark was worn quite smooth. The tormented twistings and gnarlings of the living wood formed a natural stair that led high into the hazy distance. Up here, the roaring sound was suddenly much louder – the whole air seemed to be quivering. And as he climbed he felt other, fainter tremors underfoot, echoing his steps as if he were walking across the top of a gigantic drum. The rocky path had seemed lifeless, sterile, but up here the whole place felt alive, aware. Of him? Maybe. Were those lights flickering again, high in the shadows above? It didn’t matter. There was nothing he could do but stay on his guard.
That became difficult. The climb seemed as endless as before, and the sound was hypnotic. Thinking against it was an effort, and he found himself continually drifting off into waking dreams, formless images in which the sense of menace lurked like a monstrous shape at the limits of vision, always retreating as he came on, but always there. Then he would stumble, his foot slipping on the coarse bark, and be jolted awake again, tensed to face something that was never there.
And then, once, his foot slipped out into empty air, and he had to clutch frantically for a handhold as bark crumbled and slithered away under him. He hung there, gasping with the shock, and saw that the last turn in the path had led him too near the edge of the root. He looked down –
The world seemed to drop away under him. The gigantic root did not rest on the ground: it arched out like a bridge over an appalling gap, filled only with night and tumult. A glittering streak of water cut across the darkness under him and fell crashing into its depths, a waterfall deeper and wider by far than any he had seen or dreamed of, an immense green column plunging down a wide wall of rock like black glass. He could see no end to it. Sharpened by distance to a needlepoint, it plunged straight down amid foam and thunder into the secret heart of the world. Frothing spray erupted over the jagged rock walls on either side; it left them glittering with green phosphorescence, and filled the air with fine mist. The bark beneath him, the whole exposed face of the root, was wet with it –
Hal tore his glance away, clinging to the unstable bark. Panic could end only one way here. He felt carefully for a secure foothold, tested it, and slowly shuffled his way onto a safer part of the path, swearing murderously at himself for dozing off and doing his damnedest not to look down again. Fanden i helved, I really do need Jess along – as a keeper! I am not fit to be out on my own … He was at the top of the stairway now. Beyond it the root rose smoothly to a high, arching crest, and the path led right across the top of it. He stopped and looked warily around.
Out on either side there was nothing but the night, and the glimmering river. Looking back along it he thought he could make out its distant source, a great shadowy cavern-mouth hung with stalactites, like the jaw of some fantastic beast. He tried looking up, and was startled to see how close he now was to the great canopy. Through its loose mesh he could clearly see the vast grey wall it sprang from, curving limitlessly from one dark horizon to the other, and beyond. Against it even the great root he stood on looked absurdly small, a tightrope to a sky-scraper. Looking along it, he thought he could see where it joined the trunk. Not far now – at least, not compared to the way he had already come. If he could only make it that far without trouble.
He took a deep breath and stepped out into the open.
The moment his foot hit the wood it jumped and quivered under him like a startled animal, and the crash of a giant’s footfall echoed through the emptiness below. Specks of blue light danced and flickered behind the crest of the ridge. Off balance, he stumbled forward. There was another ringing, rolling crash, and the bark shuddered, sending him sprawling. He struggled back on his feet, buffeted by echoes. If they would only stop for a minute, let him think! He knew what this place was – the bridge out of Hela’s realm, the bridge that only echoed when – when …
A wisp of blue light crested the ridge and hung there, trembling in the vibrating air. Another joined it, another and two more, and like wind-blown flames they came sweeping down the path towards him. He stood frozen, and they halted a few feet from him, blocking his path with a curtain of cold light like a winter aurora. Strange outlines formed in the play of the cold flames, half-substantial shapes of deep shadow and bright highlight that seemed to fade in and out of solidity. Human shapes, writhing, distorted, slack jaws open in soundless howls. Behind them, through them, he saw the upward path fade into darkness. The blue balefire turned his out-thrust hand stark and clawlike. Like the hands on the beach – like the creature at the Farm.
One of the shapes moved out of the line and glided slowly forward. After a moment’s hesitation, another followed. Hal stood frozen, unable to form a single word. The ghastly faces, level with his own, he could see clearly, so clearly he could almost make out the features –
‘Oh, no,’ he breathed softly. ‘Oh no – no, not you, too …’
The sunken cheeks worked, the mouth moved, the voice came like a distant, mocking echo. ‘G’day, Prof,’ said Latimer. ‘Nice job you gave us, that one. Really appreciated that, we did, Wilf an’ me.’
‘That’s right, Hal,’ sighed the echoes. Hal shuddered as the sunken eyes met his own. ‘Tom and me. They tore me apart, you know, Hal? Limb from limb, literally. The way you’d pull off a chicken leg, or something.’ The twisted mouth fluttered. ‘You got off lightly, Hal – as usual. Exposure, that’s an easy death. But we got you, all the same. You’re one of us now.’
Hal swallowed. ‘Wilf – Tom – if it is you, I am sorry. I warned you as best I could. But you did not get me – Hela did, and I am her messenger. Let me pass and perhaps – well, perhaps all this can end.’
The echoes rang with harsh laughter. ‘Hela?’ chuckled Latimer’s voice. ‘It was our storm sent you to her – you’re ours by right. What’s she got to offer but the Beach, anyway? Death. Not even that, not any more. You want to see your own world again? She can’t send you – only the einherjar can do that. It’s life we’re offering you – new life, endless life, always renewed. And the power, the strength you’ve never had –’
A pale hand lanced out, clutching. He met it with his own – and was seized. A spurt of cold fire raced up his arm and fountained out into him like a million darts of ice. The blood in his veins, his very thoughts, seemed to gel and congeal. Frost clouded his eyes. And suddenly he was seeing, feeling, what Latimer described. A vision of fighting, taking, tearing, rending, endlessly glutting insatiable appetites – himself a hunter now, stalking live prey across an unliving white landscape, the chosen body broken beneath him and the hot, sudden brightness of blood on the clean snow –
‘No!’
The prey was Jess.
A violent shock whipped through his body, and he fell on his knees, feeling the bridge sway beneath him. The river and the falls swung across his distorted vision, but he saw them very differently now.
A river not of water but of human shapes, the falls’ thunder a vast, discordant chorus of howling despair from the streams of souls as they fell threshing and tumbling over and down into the dark, to become scattered shreds of the identities they once had, washed up and eroded away into the sands of the Corpse Strand.
‘Like it?’ snarled Jackson’s silky voice. ‘That’s the way you sent Tom and me.’
‘The hell I did!’ gasped Hal, struggling frantically against the icy hand.
‘The hell you did,’ said Latimer softly. ‘But you, you get a choice. Wise up, Prof. There’s just two ways you’re gonna get off this bridge – with us, or with them!’
Hal kicked out furiously, fighting to stand.
‘Be sensible!’ hissed Jackson. ‘Forget what you used to feel, what you thought was good or bad, that’s irrelevant now! What other choice have you got? There’s no going back – you’re dead, man, dead!’
Hal felt the word echo thinly through the darkness around him, like a judgement. ‘Dead … dead … dead … ’ At last he managed to find his balance again and kick down hard. down hard. There was a crash of metallic thunder, the bridge bucked violently, for an agonised instant he felt his arm tearing out of its socket – and then the grip broke, and he was stumbling upright on the swaying surface. He saw the figures quiver with the movement, and felt a great laugh bubble up inside him, quenching the cold burning. He stamped again, hard, and the bridge swung and crashed under him like a vast tocsin, a great brazen clang rolling out into the chasm. The balefires bent and fluttered like candle flames in a wind.
‘Dead, am I?’ raved Hal. ‘Thought I would forget – nearly made me forget! The Bridge of Echoes, yes – but only when the living pass! And you, my friends, make no sound at all –’ The three other figures came rushing down on him, and he saw pale weapons spring up in their hands, axe and sword and spear. He plunged to meet them. Fingers clutched and weapons thrust, and the same heart-stopping chill skewered agonisingly through ribs and forehead – for an instant – before it faded like a breeze. With the bridge thundering under him he passed through spear and spearman alike and sprinted for the crest. He turned to face his pursuers. ‘You are the ones who cannot pass here! Back to Hela with the pack of you!’
The echoes caught his voice, and for a moment it sounded unlike his own, massive, rumbling, metallic. From infinite distance something answered it, a rising whistle of wind that came whipping past him on the unsteady crest and swept down on the advancing lights below. Then there was a mighty crackle, and the darkness was riven in two by a vast streak of glaring red-white light that came hammering down on the wood of the bridge and blasting across its surface. Hal was flung sprawling on his face, seeing only the abyss. Into it, like sparks from struck metal, fell a scatter of blue specks, slowly twisting and whirling away into the shimmering water far below.
Hal raised his head cautiously, a little dazed. What had he said or done to cause that? He stood up, shakily, acutely aware of how immense and alien the universe around him was, and how small and powerless he must be. He had been saved by something he didn’t understand – by coincidence, perhaps even by mistake. It could easily have been him whirling away into nothing. After his brief moment of triumph all the laughter was knocked out of him. Whatever he’d once thought of Latimer and Jackson – He shuddered. Nobody deserved that. Could they be called up again? Probably. But what could he do to help them? He stared moodily down into the depths, back along the great river to its source –
And froze, staring. Out of the dim distance a pair of eyes stared up at him, immense eyes, awesomely aware. Ahead of them, shining in their own light, a vast expanse of shield-like scales, and two great pits just above the fanged cavern-mouth. They were nostrils. The cavern really was a mouth, in a serpentine head vast enough to swallow up falls, bridge and all. The river ran out from between the unmoving gape of jaws.
‘Fanden i helved!’ he breathed. ‘The Serpent – Jormungand –’
The eyes blinked once, with slow reptilian malice, as if – there was no ‘as if’. It knew he was there. The membrane flickered over the rounded green eyes, large as a mountain. The hiss of the river grew suddenly louder, and the same chill wind came whistling out along it and whipped around him once more.
A living tread awoke me. You go to give me back my rightful prey. Pass, creature – for now.
Hal turned and fled down the last slope.
It ended in a high, dark crevice, and he scuttled into it like a frightened animal, thinking only of shadow and concealment from that vast, cold, malignly intelligent gaze. He had encountered a power, and one that did not choose to cloak itself like Hela. Beneath those eyes he and everything human dwindled away to insignificance, no more than spray from a waterfall. It looked at him as he might at an ant in an anthill, or a microbe on a slide. There was nothing even remotely benign about it. And without its help what did his petty victory amount to? What chance did he have in this terrible world? He shrank back into shadow as if the weight of humanity was on his shoulders.
The crevice seemed to be in a high grey cliff, but the wall behind him was almost warm to the touch, rough-textured but soft and crumbling. It smelt musty and ancient beyond measure. Wood! Living wood, at that. On top of the shock he had just had, the thought made him slightly giddy. The Ash Tree, the Upholder of Worlds – here he lurked, like some maggot or bark-beetle, inside its trunk, and the wood of it crumbled in his fingers. ‘Jess …’ he sighed, and shook his head. What did it matter whether she would believe him or not? The important thing was getting back to tell her. He was alive, at least. He had some kind of chance. But if he wanted to keep it he had better get going.
The crevice opened deep into the wood behind; the darkness there was almost impenetrable, but he took a few steps forward and felt the upward slope of the floor. This had to be his way – into the heart of the tree. But the darkness of it daunted him. Compared to this, the gloom outside was dazzling. Yet there was nowhere to go but up, and the only other way would be to climb the bark outside. He bit his lip, swore softly, and began to walk.
Darkness. The warm air smelt resiny, stale, hard to breathe. Slight claustrophobia pressed in on his chest. He hoped the crevice ceiling was sloping to match the floor – he had visions of the tunnel closing in around him to an impassable point, forcing him to go back and climb the bark after all. And there were noises in the dark around him, little pattering sounds he ignored at first. He thought they might be wood fragments scuffed up by his feet, bouncing back down the slope – but they came too often, too clearly, sometimes from down the slope, sometimes far ahead. He’d heard sounds like that before – where?
He chuckled. A kindlier memory came to him, a place of light and colour – the Vermont woods in autumn, and chipmunks scurrying among the fallen leaves. Naturally a tree this size would have little creatures scrabbling and nosing about in it. If they were going to be any trouble, they’d have done something by now –
The pattering rose to a sudden crescendo. He whirled round, and saw an outline prance across the dim glow of the distant opening, a spidery, apelike silhouette, long arms held straight out from the hunched shoulders. In the same instant thin limbs whipped like a wire noose around his legs. He staggered where he stood, and something thumped onto his back and hung there, pinioning his arms. He tried to wrench it away; other hands grabbed at his and began forcing the fingers hard backwards, against the joint. Another weight hammered into his ribs with bruising force, and scrabbling claws clutched violently at the neck of his sweater, clawing through to the skin and twisting together sweater, T-shirt and chain with strangling force. For an instant, ice-cold, bitterly foul breath played across his face, then there was a yipping howl and that attacker fell free. With a yell of disgust, Hal twisted till his back was to the wall, then hurled himself backwards, hard. There was a thudding impact, a sickening, popping crunch, and his back was free. He flung up his hand and felt a body lift with it and go whirling away to crash against th
e wood. He grabbed downward, but his ankles were abruptly released. Something went pattering off into the dark ahead. He ran after it, kicked out, but connected with nothing. Faint blue glimmers hung in the darkness for a second, like the unblinking eyes of some nocturnal animal. Then they vanished, there was a single malevolent hiss, and nothing more. Hal lunged, collided with the wall, and fell sprawling in a cloud of wood fragments.
After a moment he got his breath back, sat up and shook himself, with a certain grim satisfaction. He hadn’t had any help this time! And small as they were, these attackers had been a real threat – that one clawed hand had ripped right through his sweater and his shirt. It could have been his throat next. He stood up, dusting off the worst of the wood. Too bad one had got away, gone on ahead of him, but now he’d be listening, ready. They wouldn’t catch him off guard a second time.
He set off again, trudging on upward through the musty, stifling air and the unending night. The darkness was bewildering, depressing – he felt as if it was invading his mind, dimming memories of a time of light and open air. He heard nothing but his own footfalls on the smooth tunnel floor; he smelt nothing but the wood around him. Only touch – his feet on the floor, his hands grazing the invisible walls – could tell him anything meaningful.
The Ice King Page 22
