Ravens' Will

by Terry Graves

  “But what will I do if the night is cloudy?” she replied.

  “Then sing for the orb I have given to you. Sing now and see it for yourself.”

  And Skaði had hummed a little song she knew and the orb had suddenly shone with the light of a thousand minuscule stars. She had held the orb and looked at the stars, tiny wisps of eternal fire that would burn until the end of days, and for the first time in her life she had felt a warmth inside her chest.

  At the beginning of times, the world had been created from the corpse of Ymir, father of giants, after being killed by the sons of Bor. They had turned his flesh into earth. His bones were turned into mountains, his teeth were made of stone and, from his blood, the seas and rivers came to be. The sons of Bor made the sky vault from the skull of Ymir and used embers and sparks from Múspelheim to make the stars and bring light to the world. In the same way, Thjazi gave shape to the skull of that unknown giant to please his daughter, a small reproduction of the sky-dome above them.

  Sometimes Thjazi left Skaði and her mother in Thrymheim and went away in the hope of finding a cure. Once he came back with a Jötunn from Múspelheim who claimed he could melt the ice in her guts. He was Skaði’s opposite: redheaded, active, and quick-tempered. He could invoke fire from his hands and once he spit and lava came from his lips. But he tried and failed, and in the morning he was gone. Another time, Thjazi brought a sorceress troll from Ironwood, a creature with cracked lips and no eyes. She killed seven human virgins on the snow during a full moon, and her mother did not get better but the stale smell in Thrymheim’s chambers persisted many weeks after she left.

  Skaði also remembered the mage who convinced Thjazi that her mother had been poisoned by her and, as was the case with serpents and scorpions, the venom held the cure. So he took a lock of Skaði’s hair to make a potion, and when that didn’t work, he took her fingernails; but that did not work either. The mage then took her blood, then a wisdom tooth, and when he claimed only a finger from his daughter would save his wife, Thjazi broke his neck and threw him from the highest peak and into the abyss.

  Then, one day, her father left and never came back.

  Skaði tended to her mother as best she could, but she worsened fast, withering in her presence like a flower in winter. She tried to feed her but all food turned to ice in her hands and her teeth chattered when she entered her chambers.

  One cold morning, three men descended from Bifröst. They were dressed in battle gear and their armor shone like embers under the pallid sun. Skaði had been aware of the end of the bridge since she was little. Thjazi had told her never to set foot on the stones and, so far, she never had. Once she had seen two frost giants climbing up and she had heard the noise of a battle horn, and the giants had been killed on the spot.

  The three men walked toward Skaði, and the old one — who only had one eye — said: “Your father flew over the bridge in the shape of an eagle, and this is forbidden. He burst into our domains and convinced Loki to lure Iðunn out of Ásgarð and then he kidnapped her. But because Iðunn is the goddess of youth, the moment she crossed the limits of our realm, we started growing old. And when he was flying away with our sister in his claws, we made him fall and burned him, even old and wasted as we were, with our trembling hands and our failing eyesight.”

  Iðunn, the one-eyed god told her, could cure any ailment or illness in the world. And when he said this, Skaði understood what had happened. Why her father had risked his life climbing the rainbow bridge to get this woman and why he would not leave without her.

  “So now your father lays dead in my hall,” said the one-eyed god. “We won’t retrieve his body for you, because we want him to find no solace in his next life. But you deserved to know the story, and this was it.”

  While he was saying this, one of the other men had entered Thrymheim. He was larger than the other two, with a long untamed blonde mane. He came out with his hands full of treasure, golden rings and bracelets and a richly decorated helmet that had belonged to her father, and he proclaimed that her mother was dead. Skaði still remembered the stench of ale on his breath when he spoke. He walked back to Bifröst and left behind a trail of golden coins and pendants.

  “I will kill all the gods of Ásgarð for what you did to my father,” Skaði said, while the three men started to climb the bridge back to Ásgarð. “I will wipe out the Æsir race from the world.”

  That day, Skaði buried her mother on top of a peak. She plowed the snow until she found the rocks and the soil below, and worked her way down until the hole was deep enough and large enough to hold her fragile body. And then, for the first time in her life, she hugged her and cried over her chest and kissed her on the cheeks and on the forehead. She could not do any further harm to her.

  When everything was done and her mother was buried, Skaði sat on the snow while the sun disappeared behind the never-ending mountains. She looked at her hands and wanted to saw them off, and tried to understand why she had caused so much pain to her mother, why her touch had been so noxious for her when nothing bad had happened when she had held the hand of her father or kissed him. And she found no reason for this, the same way some days she could pet the white-furred hares for hours, and some days, as soon as she held them, the creatures would drop dead.

  It was just a disconcerting curse and perhaps it held no meaning at all.

  Skaði came back to Thrymheim and roamed through the empty chambers during the night, all alone. When morning came again she put her armor on, crafted in white silver and steel and platinum. She took her shield and her sword and, after a bit of thinking, she also took the orb with the stars. She left the stronghold where she had lived all her life and jumped on her father’s sleigh. She shook the reins and soon she was racing across the Bifröst Bridge. She heard the frightening noise of the horn being blown at the other end and thought she was going to die, the same way the two giants she had seen perished on the same spot. She reached Himinbjörg at the other end and a storm of arrows darkened the sky, but she was much faster and the missiles did not find her.

  After the arrows, the gods came. She fought, but she was just a girl, and one against many, and the battle did not last long before they seized her.

  The Æsir called an assembly to decide her fate. She stood in the center, stripped of her armor and with her hands and feet fettered, while all around her, gods and goddesses argued if she should be burned like her father or torn apart by horses. One of the gods even seemed to find the blood eagle punishment fitting for her, given that Thjazi had committed his crime in the shape of the bird. But Heimdall, who was of the race of the Jötnar on her mother’s side, had interceded for her, and so did all the female Jötnar that lived in Ásgarð, the second wives and lovers of the gods. They mediated and calmed them.

  After listening to the bloodthirsty Æsir and to the Jötnar that tried to placate them, Óðin Almighty, who was the one-eyed god who had turned the day before in Thrymheim, spoke with his thunder voice. “You should be punished,” he said to her, “but because your father was an important Jötunn and because he tried to keep your race away from the bridge, we won’t kill you and we’ll offer atonement instead. You will be granted the privilege of marrying one among us and you will live here in Ásgarð and you won’t leave ever again.

  “Do you agree? You can either take this or die.”

  And Skaði found out that she did not want to die, so she said yes when she should have been brave and said no.

  “But her touch means death,” said one of the Æsir, “and nobody would ever take the chance of bedding her. She’s worthless as a wife. Who would take her?”

  Óðin laughed from his golden throne. “We will let the spinners decide.”

  He made all the gods take off their shoes and boots and pushed Skaði’s head down so she could only see their bare feet and nothing else, and he made her choose. And she understood that this marriage was not atonement but punishment; a jest. With her eyes in tears, she tried to find He
imdall’s feet, because he was the only man who had spoken on her behalf during the assembly and she thought he may be kind to her. Among the ugly and tanned feet, she found a pair that were as white as hers, with short nails, and thought they must also belong to a Jötunn, or to a half one, as was the case with Heimdall. She picked them, but she was wrong, and she ended up married to a Vanir, a hostage from the old war. A god named Njörð.

  Óðin took her sword and her shield and gave them to his wife, Frigg. He took the orb of the stars her father had given to her and threw it away with his other treasures, which piled in heaps as tall as hills in one of his chambers. And then he took the eyes of the corpse that lay on the polished floor of his hall, the body of Thjazi, all black and charred and knotted, and put them up high in the sky.

  Two new stars. So she would never forget.

  Skaði finished her story. Meanwhile, the light had become dim in Himinbjörg and the reindeer had moved away to the other end of the hill, seeking better pastures. Kai had asked to hear this, but now he would have preferred not to know, to keep guessing. He turned his head and, from there, even on opposite sides of the oak tree, he could see her left shoulder blade under her dress, the line of her spine following her neck until the hairline, her hand leaning on the grass, so close to him he could just extend his arm and grab it.

  “There must still be enough happiness left in the world for you to get your share,” he said.

  Skaði did not agree or disagree with this, but it sounded dull and uninspired, because words of comfort were still words, and things that may or may not happen haven’t the same effect as things that have already taken place.

  And so, they both lay there in silence till the day burned away.

  That night, Kai barely slept. He lay awake hearing the wind whipping against Himinbjörg’s walls and thinking about Skaði’s story. He did not light a fire, but shivered under Gerda’s old cloak and, when the storm passed and the girl left the tower and the clouds dispersed, he gazed at the two stars, until the eyes of Thjazi grew blurry. Beside him, the sparrow dozed off on the pillow.

  Kai had barely known his parents, but his life had been happy. He never harmed them in any way and was too young when they died to really miss them, albeit sometimes he still missed the idea of them, the concept of parentage, of that idea of love. He had never been sold as a thrall or forced to marry, and his responsibilities could not be compared with that Skaði had: to protect the realms from Ragnarök.

  Unless, of course, it was his duty to give up his life for them. For the first time, he thought about agreeing to the sacrifice. Not to save the world; just so the girl who had shared that sad story with him was happy.

  But she would not be happy, thought Kai, for this had happened many times before. Poor Ivar had died, just a child, and they still were on the verge of destruction. There must be another solution, a better and more definitive one.

  Kai wondered what Gerda would do. She was the bravest person he knew and, despite she did not always make the best decisions, she always followed her heart and seemed never to hold doubts about what needed to be done. He was a little surprised, because he had not thought about his friend in quite a long time.

  “I love her,” he muttered, aloud, just to see if it sounded like truth. And it did.

  Gerda would be seeking him, because she had promised Kai she would. She would be crossing the world to find him and bring him back. But Kai did not want to return to Veraheim. He wanted to stay in Himinbjörg, with Skaði, and spend time with her and make her laugh. And kiss her.

  Kai rolled over in bed and faced the sparrow and looked into its black beady eyes. He had practiced a little and, sometimes, he felt as if he was leaving his body and could see the chamber from the ceiling. He could feel the magic from the stone-heart Skaði had somewhere in the stronghold, and believed that the spell was almost working. He would soon to be ready; but not yet. And by then it was dawn and he did not want to risk his chance.

  Soon, Kai decided, he would use the sparrow to find Gerda, wherever she was. He would tell her to turn back because he did not need to be rescued. He loved Gerda, there was no question about that. But Kai had discovered that there were many different kinds of love. And there was something he had to do first.

  At dawn he got up and, as stealthily as he could, snuck out of his room, climbed down the stairs, and left Himinbjörg. All the trees on the hill were covered in hard rime, but there was no snow on the ground, so his steps wouldn’t leave footprints in it. He did not want Skaði to know where he had gone, because she would try to stop him. And he wanted it to be a surprise.

  He peered at the massive wall that surrounded Ásgarð and, while he walked, wondered how he was going to find a way to climb it.

  THIRTY

  “That’s as far up as I’ve been,” said Hrímnirm. He stared at Útgarð, by then a small shamble of houses carved in white rock at the foot of the mountains. The stronghold, with its tall twisted towers and spikes, was the only recognizable spot. Further away, a white desolate plain extended, snow and more snow till his sight grew tired of it.

  “We must take shelter as soon as the sun sets,” said Mögthrasir. Strong winds roared about them, deafening their ears, so they had to scream.

  Hrímnirm looked up at the blue sky but tried to not be deceived by it. No matter the weather, the storm would come.

  “I see no place around.”

  “Then we must go forward. There’s still some light left.”

  They kept ascending, the five of them and the four thralls right behind carrying all their belongings and their food on their backs. Hrímnirm and Mögthrasir were used to the mountains. They had spent all their lives in steep terrain, crossing crevices and climbing. And Kâri was light-footed. His feet did not leave marks in the snow, as if he did not sink into it. Logi complained about the nasty weather and the freezing wind and the cold, but that was to be expected. For Bára, however, it was more difficult. She was not used to walking for so long.

  They found a place when the light was almost gone. The glow of Logi’s hair was the only thing that saved them from making a false move and tumbling down. It was not perfect; not exactly a cave, more like as if the mountain had opened a mouth to yawn. Inside, the place ended abruptly in an almost perpendicular wall twenty paces away, but they would be sheltered from the worst of the storm and that was all that mattered.

  They had brought some kindling, but not much. By the time Logi had built the fire, heavy clouds were gathering above the mountains. They huddled around the flames, which thanks to the Muspell magic burned effortlessly on the snow, and ate a light dinner. Then Hrímnirm peered at the human thralls. They had crowded together so their soft warm bodies did not freeze during the night. He had ignored them until then — they were beasts of burden after all — but now he noticed that there were two men and two women and they all seemed old and reedy and wasted, skeletons and skin covered in rashes and scars from old lashes. He tried to remember how humans were, if their eyes had always been so dull and their hair so thin.

  “They will die,” he said in a low voice. To survive in the mountains you needed meat on your bones, and grease. He knew that much. He was speaking to no one in particular, but Mögthrasir heard him.

  “I’m counting on it. It’s been a while since I’ve tasted human meat. It has become such a rare treat these days.”

  Bara picked a dead sea-snail from one of her dreadlocks, crushed it between her index and middle fingers as if it was a flea, and tossed the shell shards away. Hrímnirm split his loaf of bread into two halves and offered one to the humans, which proceeded to eat it eagerly. Their eyes were of a pale brown and he wondered if they were members of the same family, or if all humans shared the same color.

  “Why don’t they speak?”

  “These thralls, they have been bred in Útgarð,” said Kâri. He was more accustomed to them, because he was from nobility. Since the Fimbulvetr started, isolating them from Miðgarð, the Jötnar tha
t stayed in Útgarð had not had human slaves. At first, they had tried to breed them. But human offspring were too weak, and they grew very slowly, so they found that it was not worthwhile. These days, they had become a symbol of status. “They’ve never met humans that were not slaves. They have no names, no culture of their own. They listen, but they barely know how to speak.”

  “Humans don’t speak underwater,” said Bára, “but you must listen to them after a shipwreck. Then they scream and shout, and they don’t shut up unless you drown them.”

  “Perhaps these ones also speak, but they feel there’s nothing to say to our kind,” said Hrímnirm.

  “Or perhaps it is because they know that, if they speak too much, we rip their tongues out.” Logi laughed. His eyes were boiling and fumes rose from his skin. “When we send the arrow and kill the witch, we will retrieve the damn stone-heart and you frost giants will enslave thousands of them to do what you please.”

  “When we get the stone-heart, we will bring Ragnarök,” Kâri objected, and there was a hint of reproach in his tone, “and our times of enslavement and war will be over. We will go back to Ymir and we’ll have peace at last.”

  “Perhaps I don’t want peace,” said Logi, “and certainly not that kind of peace. And regarding Ragnarök, I find myself divided. Sometimes I think I would just do it for the rush of that last battle, when we truly march on the Bridge and send the Æsir back to oblivion. But other times... Don’t look at me like that. Have you never considered these things before?”

  “Everything that has a beginning has to end, Logi,” said Kâri.

  The fire giant grimaced, but chose not to answer. Hrímnirm listened to the wind and caught some Vindsval words in it. Past their shelter in the rock, snow swirled about in flurries. Everything that has a beginning has to end. He had heard that same kind of talk endlessly while he lived in Útgarð, but for the first time, he felt compelled to reply. “I understand what you mean, Lord, but should we be pursuing our own end so feverishly? Are there no beautiful things to look at and do in this world?”