by Terry Graves
“I don’t remember being your thrall,” Gerda replied, and threw the broom away.
“Come on, don’t be lazy. I will help you.”
Runa picked up the broom again and pushed the leaves and the bones away from the door and into the forest. Sigrún explained to them that there was a small hill behind that acted as a windbreak, and pointed out the best place to make the hole so that the smell would not carried toward the cabin again. Runa nodded. With some effort, they made a hole in the frozen soil and buried the largest bones. Her friend was a hunter and must know these things, but she was polite with Sigrún, and that surprised Gerda.
At last, they walked back to the cabin, took some food and utensils from Gyllir’s saddlebags and got inside. Gerda closed the door and secured it with the board and the nail from inside. As soon as she was finished, she took off her wet cloak, left it on the back of a chair, and sat next to the fire with her legs crossed. She had never walked so much in her life. Her muscles were stiff and hurt and when she took off her boots she found that her feet were covered with blisters. She moaned when she tried to move her toes, which had turned numb because of the cold.
Runa boiled water in a pan and added herbs, fat, and some pieces of dried meat. The soup was not very thick and hadn’t much substance, but they were used to frugality anyway. Meanwhile, Sigrún combed her long hair with her fingers before braiding it again. Outside, the tree branches rattled against the roof. Nobody spoke for quite a long time, which was not good, because Gerda got lost in her thoughts and everything came back to her mind. She was about to speak when Runa said:
“I wonder if it will be too late already.”
It was merely a murmur. She had her eyes fixed on the boiling water and the light from the fire did strange things with the scars on her face; it turned them into fire serpents that coiled and slithered over her skin.
“Don’t say that,” replied Gerda, more angry than she had wanted. “It’s pointless. Besides, if something happened to Kai, I… I would know.” The words turned out childish and stupid. She was not sure why she had said that, but she wanted to believe it. She and Kai shared a bond, and it didn’t matter how far apart they were, she would feel it.
“There’s no reason to think that is true,” Sigrún observed.
“You say lots of things and we have to believe you. You imply that you’re older than we are. Wiser. But you look our age and we don’t know anything about you.”
“I’m a goddess. That should explain almost everything.”
“That is what you claim. But I haven’t seen proof, have I?”
“But I have,” said Runa. “I’ve seen proof. She was about to die in that byre and then she exchanged bodies with this other woman.”
Gerda snorted.
“That’s not proof, Runa. That’s magic. For instance, in the story of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer, Sigurd and Gunnar exchanged shapes so Sigurd, in the shape of Gunnar, could ride his horse Grani and cross the fire behind which Brynhild awaited,” she said, quoting the old saga, “and Signy exchanged shapes with a sorcerer so she could go into the forest and have sex with his brother. For all we know, she may just be a crazy witch.”
“Your friend has a point,” said Sigrún, and laughed, “and I see you know plenty of stories. Perhaps you could tell us one.”
Gerda thought about her father, about how the people of Veraheim mocked him. She threw Sigrún a resentful gaze. “Maybe another time.”
Runa’s cooking did not smell half-bad and had enough taste to trick their stomachs. The three ate slowly until there was nothing left. Sigrún lectured them about the marks that wild boars and bears made on the trees with their claws and how to avoid those paths when you were out in the forests. Runa nodded again, as if she did not know already. Apart from this, they did not talk much.
Afterwards, Runa went outside to feed the horse. Sigrún covered herself up with her mantle, laid down facing the wall and, very soon, her breathing was regular and Gerda concluded she had fallen asleep. She had been waiting for this moment. Barefoot, she tiptoed to one of the corners and peered at the wooden wall, covered with marks and scratches and mold spots.
The drawings were still there.
That day, after swimming, they had tried to fish their dinner from the lake, fruitlessly. The fish were too shy and did not get close to the surface, or there were none, or perhaps Kai was right when he joked and said that Alarr’s deep manly voice had scared them all away. But then they had gathered up their things and had walked to the cabin. They knew it would be there: Gerda’s father had told them, and Alarr’s mother had confirmed it. They had got in long before dusk, and Runa had had enough time to hunt a bunch of squirrels in the forest, so they had skinned them and cooked them for dinner.
That night, Gerda and Kai had laid down next to each other and had remained awake, whispering, long after the others had fallen asleep. She did not remember what they had been talking about, but it was a small, unimportant conversation. At some point, Gerda had taken out her father’s knife, the one they used for oaths, and had drawn a squirrel, and four stick figures to represent themselves, and a sun, and a forest. Then Kai had picked up the knife and had carved a snowflake: a sort of tree with six arms and branches coming out of them forming a radial pattern.
That is not a snowflake, Gerda had said, and laughed. Of course a snowflake does not look like that. It is very small and looks like nothing at all, just a white speck. But Kai had claimed that he could see the true shape of snowflakes. He had said that most of them were not perfectly symmetrical; that, in fact, each one was different from the others.
But sometimes, he had concluded with a glint in his eyes, sometimes they are perfect.
Gerda had not made much of it. It was Kairan talking, and sometimes he just made no sense.
Shortly after, he had fallen asleep, and their faces had been so close that they almost touched. After a while, Gerda had gotten even closer to feel the warm air that came from his nostrils and from his slightly ajar lips. And she had imagined that he had done this on purpose, that Kai was not really sleeping but faking it so he could be close to her.
Gerda sighed and turned away from the wall. She looked for the map her father had given to her and peered at it under the dim firelight. Since their departure, she had been trying to guess where they were and how many days it would take them to reach the foot of the Thrym Mountains. She followed the cattle route with a finger until she reached a series of trembling lines that perhaps marked the presence of rivers, and noticed a series of vague circular shapes. Maybe the lake they had just passed by was one of those, she thought. She measured the distance from there to Veraheim — roughly the width of her thumb — and then the distance to the mountains.
She could not believe how far they were. According to the map, it would be summertime before they could reach Thrym. The map had to be wrong.
She folded it again, put it back inside the hide and tried to sleep, but couldn’t. The drawing of the snowflake lingered next to her head like a large ugly spider. Now, Gerda knew that night Kai must have been thinking of the Snow Queen all along.
The Snow Queen, beautiful and perfect as a symmetrical snowflake.
And still, she drew her finger over the scraped wood, following the marks Kai had made, trying to recapture that moment, the way he had looked at her, the sound of his laugh.
NINETEEN
Most of them arrived in Útgarð throughout the afternoon. They came flying through the skies, crawling the narrow tunnels of the deep earth, or swimming across subterranean pools and streams, crawling up the branches of Yggdrasil from one realm into another. Frost giants could not, would not do that; not without the stone-heart. It was because of this that they were trapped in Jötunheim.
The first one to get there was, unsurprisingly, the wind.
An eagle of the size of a longship, its wings spanning many feet, obscured the sun. Hrímnir and Mögthrasir saw its magnificent entrance from their hammering place in
the mountains. They raised their heads and squinted their eyes.
“Hræsvelgr,” said Hrímnir in awe. “The Corpse Swallower.”
The creature glided over them twice. It flapped its wings, and the strong gust of wind made them fall on their backs before it flew away to land in the city’s outskirts. After witnessing this, they dropped their tools on the spot and rushed down the slope.
“Hræsvelgr is here!” Mögthrasir exclaimed when they ran by Vafthrúðnir, who was kneeling in the same place. Vafthrúðnir shook his head and frowned, still immersed in his deep thoughts.
When they reached the city, a giant named Kâri had descended from the eagle. He was like a bird too. His mane was made of feathers, his eyes were large and round, and his skin shone with iridescent greens and blues and reds.
“Greetings, sons of the north,” Kâri said, addressing the audience that had congregated around him, and he made a flourish with his hands. “May the winds be favorable to you all.”
“He’s beautiful,” said Mögthrasir in such a low voice that Hrímnir wondered if he had just imagined it. “After seeing him, I feel like I could die.”
Kâri walked briskly toward the Jötnar reception that had come to greet him. Hrímnir saw Bergelmir among them, Father of Giants, with his long white beard and his back full of ice spikes. Bergfinn, king of Jötunheim, was there too. Kâri leaned his head to greet them and they corresponded. Then they walked together to the palace. The eagle stayed outside, caressing its brownish feathers with its beak.
“We should get back,” said Hrímnir, but Mögthrasir grunted.
“Many more will come as the day passes.”
“So what?”
“So I’m not going to miss them,” he said. “Besides, the work is pointless now. No more hammering, no more burrowing. We can all jump on the back of Hræsvelgr and leave Jötunheim by flight. I wonder why we did not think about this before.”
“You cannot fly on the back of Hræsvelgr if you’re not as light as the wind,” Hrímnir replied. “And no frost giant is as light as the wind. Our feet are heavy and strong and are anchored to the earth.”
Mögthrasir grunted. “It doesn’t matter, see? Because Hræsvelgr and Kâri can now fly by themselves, and reach Ásgarð and kill the witch so the Fimbulvetr is over.”
“You cannot reach Ásgarð by flight, as it is not really in the sky. The only path in or out of Ásgarð is through the bridge. Don’t you know anything?”
Mögthrasir shrugged stubbornly. “I don’t care. Either way, I’m not coming back. Nobody thanks us ever, and no one is going to notice anyway with all this buzz.”
The argument continued for quite a bit but, in the end, Mögthrasir convinced Hrímnir and they both stayed. They sat in front of the castle, rubbed their hands for warmth, and waited.
They did not have to wait long.
Soon, they heard a clomping noise, as if a thousand wild horses were stampeding through the streets of Útgarð. The two giants exchanged confused looks and stood up just in time. A wave of water came down the street, flooding everything to the height of their knees, washing the buildings’ foundations and tinging the bone-colored rock a couple of hues darker.
“What is the meaning of this?” Hrímnir exclaimed, but Mögthrasir was sniffing the liquid and then he licked it with his rough tongue.
“It is salt water!” he exclaimed, and he licked some more.
By then, a procession was descending from one side of the street, led by a giant unlike any Hrímnir had seen before. He was mammoth, with hair and beard so long that they dragged behind him, so it was not clear where the foam from the water started and his thick white hair ended. There was something primal and strange about him, not entirely Jötunn.
“Ægir,” Mögthrasir whispered, and he knew he was right, despite never having seen him before.
Ægir stood on top of a golden chariot, and with him there was his wife Rán, and behind them their nine daughters, the waves of the sea. They had weedy hair, the eyes of hungry sharks and skin the color of drowned maidens. Hrímnir had forgotten their names because it had been a very long time since he had seen the ocean and bathed in its waters.
The chariot slid through the water until it reached the stairs up to the front doors of the castle. The sea giants had kelp on them, and old dead barnacles and seashells and corals and polyps, as if they had been standing at the bottom of the sea for too long and the sea had reclaimed them for itself, conquered their skin and their flesh as if they were sunken wrecks. They all got down and walked, leaving puddles behind, and disappeared into the dark corridors. The water was sucked into the earth again. Soon the soil was dry again, leaving not even a trace of snow.
“I’ve changed my mind,” said Mögthrasir. “Now I can die in peace, for I have seen all there is to see.”
But he had not yet finished the sentence when a fireball came from the sky and the sons of Múspell arrived with it in an explosion of charcoal and ashes.
Hrímnir recognized Logi among the fire giants with his beard ablaze. He had not seen him since that ill-fated night. He remembered the flames of their bodies, and how uncomfortable he had felt when they got close together. He also remembered how they had lit the darkness while they walked through Bifröst, climbing higher and higher, an army like none the Nine Realms had witnessed since the times of the war between the Æsir and the Vanir. At the end, of course, it had not mattered how many or how strong. It had not mattered at all.
The sons of Múspell followed the previous retinue and soon they were gone, leaving nothing behind but a subtle sulfurous scent. Mögthrasir and Hrímnir waited in front of the castle for someone else to come, but time passed and night fell, and no one did.
“From the air, Hræsvelgr and Kâri,” Hrímnir recapitulated. “From the sea, Ægir and his family. From the fire, Logi and Glöð, Eysa and Eimyrja, but not Surt.”
“That is quite strange, don’t you think?”
“Shut up, you’re making me lose track,” he complained. But it was strange indeed. The one who had started all and the one who would finish all had not attended. Hrímnir ruminated briefly on what the meaning of this could be, but he hadn’t a clue, so he kept counting. “We got the air, the sea, and the fire. The giants of mountains, cold and frost are already here, and so are some Jötnar and other creatures from the forests, including their queen, Angrboða.”
“Former queen,” Mögthrasir pointed out.
“Never mind!” Hrímnir roared. He raised his hand and started counting with his fingers. “Fire, cold, water, air, and… what? Wilderness?” He showed him the hand, with all its fingers extended. “The sixth family is missing.”
“Yes, well. That was expected,” Mögthrasir sneered. “Still, five out of six is very impressive. Never has such an important meeting taken place since the beginning of the Fimbulvetr. I wonder what they will be discussing.”
“You will keep wondering, I suspect.” Hrímnir took a long gaze at the doors of the castle, which had been closed a while ago. “And while you wonder, I’m going to get me something to eat.”
Angrboða did not bother to make a grand entrance. She slid quietly behind Bergelmir and took a place of distinction between him and Bergfinn, then bowed her head to the nearby guests in acknowledgment. She gazed at the long table and congratulated herself on the gathering. From the wind and the sea they had come, and from Múspelheim too. She could not have expected more.
The feasting had started at once, as was customary, but there was no way to know how long it would last, when it would end. There was word of Jötnar banquets that had lasted for a whole moon cycle and never-ending weddings that had made the supplies of wealthy cities run low, their resources depleted by the giants’ voracity and their peasant population decimated by starvation as soon as winter struck.
On the table there was mutton, pigs, and reindeer meat with crisp skin. The giants ate eagerly, barely pausing to gulp down jar after jar of warm ale. Angrboða stood in her place, her back
straight, her hands folded and a subtle smile on her lips. She barely touched the food, but studied the guests’ behavior. She noticed that Ægir and his family remained apart, and that they did not joke or laugh. They seemed uncomfortable and disgusted with the whole display. They had shrunk so they could fit inside the hall, but they were still larger than Bergfinn, and being larger than a king in his castle was disrespectful, according to the old customs.
Careful now, Angrboða thought. Not all of them are allies. Just because you share your blood with them and your food and drink with them and even your roof with them, doesn’t mean they are your friends.
She shifted her gaze to the sons and daughters of Múspell, measuring their strength. She laughed with one of their jokes, made a comment about the roast, and listened intently to the areas of the table that were farther away from her. And waited.
That night the waiting was not so bad, as the giants were tired after such a long journey and the food was scarce because of the winter. Still, they ate until all that was left was ribs and skulls, not even marrow on the bones. Bergfinn gave a long speech about family, and bonds, and how good it was to be reunited at last, even in such dreadful times. He needed no jewels or crowns to mark his royal blood, because the skin over his shoulders was full of precious stones and large antlers grew from his forehead, and so everyone who looked at him knew exactly where he came from and what he was. He explained that the rules of hospitality would be in place during their stay and that he would procure anything they wanted, and as much of it as he could, whether that meant food, drink, or company. He said many things, but none of them were really of note.
When Bergfinn had finished his boring discourse and had leaned back on his throne, Angrboða raised her hands and asked for silence.
“I know the cost of traveling from one branch of the ash tree to another these days,” she said. “I know the effort, the sacrifices, all of you have made to be here tonight. You have not sent messengers or heralds, but you have come yourselves, each of you a king or a queen or a princess in your own right, with a kingdom to rule. So for being here today, the lot of you, listening to what I have to say, I am extremely thankful. And I guarantee that your journey has not been in vain.” She paused. Kâri smiled openly at her, but he was the only one. Everyone else remained silent. “This last blood moon,” said Angrboða, tired of preambles, “has marked a new beginning.”
