The Goddess Embraced

by Deborah Davitt

  Lassair walks her own path. As she ever has. Saraid’s tone was oblique. We do not go there to defeat the world-serpent, but to treat with him.

  A wise decision. He is the essence of that which devours. I would not stand against him, if I had any choice in the matter, and that is not cowardice speaking. It is certainty.

  You are of his kind, and not. You have an understanding of what and who he is. And I am grateful that you have agreed to be our guide today. The voice was powerful, rocking Visionweaver back on his heels, and yet kindly. He spun to look as a woman, surrounded by a golden nimbus of light, entered the glade. It took him a moment to be able to look squarely at her, and perceived her as young and fair of face as his wife, Cinderrose, but with long golden hair, and eyes that blazed gold, too. A long necklace of golden links and gems hung from her neck to her waist, and the cloak around her back was feathered . . . and yet, as she rolled her shoulders, Visionweaver saw it move, the optical illusion dispelled. Whatever the cloak was in the mortal world, here, these were a hawk’s wings, perfectly proportioned to the woman’s body. There was also a massive sense of presence to her, and Niðhoggr and Sigrun both inclined their heads in deep respect. The goddess turned to weigh each of them with her gaze. And to his surprise, she smiled at him. Visionweaver. I have longed to meet you, and your mother, Hiddenstar. It is good to see you at last; you are concealed from my sight in the mortal realm, but not here. You have a good heart, young one. And have more of your father in you than I think you know. Stormborn has trained you well, but you will require more lessons, I think, before the end.

  Ah . . . thank you, my lady. Visionweaver swallowed, shaken to his core. He had never expected to meet any of the gods of his mother’s people. He wasn’t even convinced that he would ever meet his father, though Loki had, apparently, made an appearance at his wedding, years ago. He didn’t know what to say or do; for his own protection, his mother had told him not to pray to any of them, though, when he’d come of age and entered the Legion, he’d periodically prayed to and cursed at his father. It probably did no good, but everyone needed something to focus on when they were being shot at.

  Before we leave . . . Worldwalker, I understand that you have canvassed the Veil, looking for Loki, as we ourselves have done. There may have been replication of effort, but . . . what have you found, thus far?

  Exceedingly little, I am afraid. I have found places I did not know existed. If Emberstone were alive, he would be talking to me, as Truthsayer has done, of quantum realities and parallel worlds. I have seen Britannia dead, no sign of my people's past in it, and the entire world shrouded by ash. Mad spirits, fragments of humans who have lost themselves, inhabited it. But no sign of Loki or Reginleif.

  Stormborn raised a finger. He said in his message for Hiddenstar, that he would come when she called him, and that she should do so from the place where he left the world of mortals. He is bound to her. Does that define how . . . far he might be away?

  Freya frowned. Distance is a wholly mortal concept that does not much pertain to the Veil, save as a metaphor by which you might comprehend, not physical distance, but . . . separation. There are folds and realms and distortions, and wild areas that are vast and trackless. In the mortal realm, there are no known limits to how far one might be, and still be able to sense a tug on a soul-bond. It transcends the usual buffering of your distance, and buffering agents such as saltwater.

  Which is why Saraid and Lassair can hear me from across the world, Worldwalker put in quietly.

  Correct. Freya paused. Again, using distance as a metaphor . . . I will once more canvass the regions of the Veil that relate to your world. Metaphorically, I can search a region of space equivalent to the diameter of the solar system, but . . . Loki is adept at hiding. I would not put it past him to be here, cloaked in illusion, listening to our counsel. Freya appeared to sigh. We need him. We need him to come home. She looked around. But, to work. Is all in readiness? Does anyone require my aid to traverse the Veil?

  Saraid can help me in and out of the Veil, Worldwalker replied. I think all others have their means of conveyance at hand.

  Then let us depart.

  An eyeblink later, most of them hovered in mid-air over a white-gray expanse that went on seemingly forever, in every direction. Rig had dressed as warmly as he could; he didn’t own any arctic-weight uniforms or clothing. Usually, cold didn’t bother him much, as he’d proven by straddling Nith’s neck; his testicles wanted to crawl up into his abdominal cavity, but he wasn’t losing patches of skin to the dragon’s frozen scales. Nevertheless, the air here was like a knife in his lungs, and Rig coughed once or twice as he tried to adjust.

  Zhi expanded back out to his usual pillar of smoke; Freya had taken the form of a hawk, and her wings cut cleanly through the air just above Niðhoggr. Rig looked down, and found Trennus and Saraid below them, on the pack ice, just as Nith furled his wings, and came in for a landing beside them. “Can you get a look at the ley-line from here?” Sigrun called down to Trennus.

  The man lifted his head to shout back up to Sigrun, “Yes! Morrigan's mercy.” He looked momentarily abashed as Freya circled down to the ground beside him and Saraid, and took her human form once more. “It’s . . . tangled. Ley-lines shouldn’t be able to do this. A single line can be closed, a loop. That’s known. They can intersect, they can split, and they can and do oscillate in resonance with other lines. This has become . . . compactified. It has to do with the sixth and seventh dimensions in which a ley-line actually partially exists.” He grimaced. “I’ll . . . see what I can do. But I’m looking at something that looks as if it were . . . severed, and then recoiled, and then melted in on itself. It makes no sense.”

  It is still emitting energy intermittently. I can sense it, but I cannot shape it. Freya’s voice was interested, and a little uneasy. I will give you what I can sense, Worldwalker. Perhaps that might be of assistance.

  The ice shuddered under them, and Rig looked down, apprehensively. “Was that from the ley-line?” he called down.

  Trennus sank to a crouch. Here in the mortal realm, he was dressed in thick wool and a fur cloak, and his breath puffed out around him. “No. Beginning work . . . now.” He closed his eyes, and Saraid moved up behind him. Demanifested partially, and overlapped him. His skin sprouted thick white, shaggy fur, or seemed to do so, antlers sprouted from his forehead, and a faint green glow suffused his body. And the world shook again, as Trennus raised both hands, and delicately began to work his fingers in the air, as if he were . . . untangling an invisible ball of twine. Rig shifted uncomfortably as a fizzing sensation, not unlike electricity, swept over his skin.

  “That feels like . . . something,” he offered, weakly, and shifted into othersight. Trying to see what only a trained ley-mage could really understand.

  Energy seethed through the air around them. It looked like an electrical wire, writhing on the ground, reacting to a puddle. Crackles and sparks. He just couldn’t see how it all fit together.

  “I’m too damned far from the lines,” Trennus called up, eyes still closed. “There’s a weak line in the air that might have once oscillated with the broken one. That’s about four miles up. There’s a secondary, transverse one that might have intersected with this one . . . and it’s about three miles below us, so beneath two miles of ocean and ice, and one mile of rock. I’m trying to hook into that one for power. I don’t think I should be using Veil energies to try to affect the ley-line. Mixing the energy that binds and holds this universe together with power from another universe . . . let’s just not, unless it’s a last resort. The energies from god-deaths have been bad enough.”

  Minutes passed, and Trennus exhaled, sharply. “All right. Progress. I think I’ve managed to untangle it, but it’s like . . . wrestling with a very powerful spirit while doing a puzzle. It’s . . . stretched out now. I just have no idea where its other end is, to attach it.”

  It still leaks energy, but at a substantially reduced rate. Several of us a
re concerned that such energy leaks will not only damage the earth, but the actual dimension in which this world resides. Tears could develop. Flaws. Fractures. This is now a seep, rather than a torrent. Freya appeared to exhale. An improvement, at least. And that gives us time to consider what else might be done to repair it.

  Ware! Zhi’s voice was a crackle in everyone’s ears. I sense heat approaching. Deep in the earth.

  I do not sense it. Freya’s voice was concerned. Are you sure?

  “I feel it,” Trennus acknowledged, gritting it out. “Seismic tremors. Down at the level of the ley-line I’ve been tied into, trying to fix this one.”

  Freya’s eyes went distant, and she hissed after a moment. Mad god fragments, she assessed. They wish to feed from the line, I think. And Jormangand has been hunting them. But now, he senses us, and comes!

  Another shake, and this time, the ice cracked beneath their feet. “Nith! Grab Tren!” Sigrun shouted, and the dragon reached out with one paw and wrapped his talons around Trennus’ waist, preparing to launch himself. Rig lurched back, and was damned grateful for the leather straps that kept him in place as Nith surged up into the sky, and the ice shattered under their feet, rising upwards in vast chunks and plates. Steam expanded upwards in a searing cloud, and Niðhoggr hissed in distaste, climbing higher. Rig looked down and saw an enormous head breach the surface, like a snake poking its way out of its burrow, and two enormous eyes, the exact color of fresh-spilled lava, stared up at them . . . and then Jormangand leaped upwards. The enormous black-red jaws opened, and Rig looked directly down into a miles-long gullet completely lined with fire as the mouth chased them up into the sky.

  They pierced the clouds and kept going, straight up, like a rocket, Nith’s wings tearing at the air, and Rig could see, vaguely, that it wasn’t just his wings that propelled him, but the creature’s very will. Raw magic carried them aloft, at incredible speed, and it was all Rig could do to hold onto Sigrun as the breath was torn out of his lungs.

  Rig couldn’t even estimate how high in the air they were now, but his lungs hurt from how thin the air was as Niðhoggr settled into a flat plane of flight at last, and left the towering pillar of stone, fire, and rage that was Jormangand behind them. But the baleful eyes still glared after them, as Nith began to circle. “I thought . . .” Rig wheezed, “that he was supposed to be wrapped around the earth’s core . . . and that you,” he thumped the dragon’s side with his fist, “were supposed to be devouring the world-tree. Shouldn’t you . . . be the same size . . . as he is?”

  Am I now meant to say something pertinent about size mattering not at all? He is ten miles in length. Yet I can fly higher than he can reach. If I were his size, I would be as earth-bound and cumbersome as he is. Also, do not believe everything you read, young one. Nith sounded aggravated, and then, he raised his physical voice in a roar that shook the air. Uncle! I am not here to do battle with you! Hear us! We are here to aid you!

  Sigrun looked back over her shoulder at Rig, as a few strands of her hair lashed his face. “Do what you can. Try to communicate with him.”

  “I don’t think he’s going to hear me,” Rig said, dubiously. The creature was so vast, he couldn’t fathom it.

  “Make him hear you,” Sigrun told him, crisply, but not unkindly. “Amplify your voice. At the moment, there is no one better suited to speak for your father. Hel, Sleipnir, Jormangand, and Fenris were and are his children, too. But I think it obvious that you are his heir. Jormangand is your brother. And if you are Loki's heir, then your brother is one of your liegemen.”

  A very interesting point, my friend. Niðhoggr sounded inexplicably amused.

  Rig shuddered. "This feels presumptuous," he muttered. "How can I possibly go demanding fealty from someone two or three thousand years older than I am?"

  Start by offering respect, and don't accept anything less in return.

  Rig concentrated, and formed an illusion of himself, hovering in mid-air right in front of Jormangand. No tricks. No emulation of what Fritti and Sigrun had told him his father looked like over the years. Just himself, short-cropped hair and a Roman uniform. As real as he could make it. And he put his will into it, the force of personality that let him, occasionally, bend weaker minds. He didn’t like doing it, and held no misconceptions that he could bend this creature. But he had to show as much of his power as he could, little though it was. “I am Rig Lokison, Jormangand,” he said, and amplified the words in the thin air just in front of those enormous eyes. “It is said that you were the second of the four children of Loki. I am the youngest-born of his children. I greet you . . . brother.” Rig winced a little on Nith’s back. He couldn’t even imagine being kin to this . . . thing. Nith was far more of a person. Then again, how long has he been with Aunt Sig? Twenty-two years or so? “Hear me. Hear Niðhoggr, your kinsman. We are not here to fight you. Your enemies are our enemies. The mad gods are the enemies of all. We are here to render you assistance. Nothing more.”

  From far below, in Nith’s claws, Trennus called up, “I don’t know if he’s in any mood to bargain. He’s still bleeding along all of his flanks.”

  “He’s sensitive to the ley-lines in a way most spirits aren’t,” Sigrun shouted back down, over the roar of the wind, and then shook her head as her voice was torn away. Her next words were stumbling. Hesitant. But clearly audible. That is because his body, his manifested form, is made of the earth itself, correct? He is attuned to it.

  Rig darted a glance at Sigrun. He hadn’t known she could use mind-voice like that.

  “That seems to be the case,” Trennus shouted. “He’s certainly agitated because of it, and might have been injured by the ley-line energies, as well as by the mad godlings.”

  Then he should be able to sense that you have done your best to begin repairs. He might be too angry to think it through right now . . . but he must sense it. Sigrun turned towards Jormangand. Hear me, Jormangand, I beg. I am Sigrun . . . There was a pause, and then with a sense of tired inevitability, she finished, Stormborn. We have brought one here who has begun to repair the damage that the mad gods have wrought. We would heal you, too, if it is possible. Freya can heal your wounds. Or if you would not allow her, then let me tend them.

  Stormborn, your method of healing is to take the wounds on yourself. Even touching him will wound you. Any one of his wounds would engulf your whole body. Nith’s voice was dark.

  “Of that, I am keenly aware!” Sigrun called back, out loud. “But we will not get anywhere with him while he’s maddened with pain, will we? Freya says that I can use her . . . lessoning . . . with seiðr to amplify my healing. To repair without taking the hurt.”

  And have you practiced this skill? Nith retorted, sharply.

  Before Sigrun could reply, Zhi rose unexpectedly into the air beside them, his cyclone form elongating further than it normally did, and keeping pace with them, easily, though his winds buffeted the dragon’s wings. We will hunt the mad ones, the devourers, Zhi offered, unexpectedly, his gaze fixed on Jormangand. We offer alliance, great one.

  And I give you my oath that none of us will seek to bind you against your will, Freya offered, spiraling up through the sky. Do not force me to pit my power against yours. You will lose, but at a great cost to us both. I would far rather battle our mutual enemies, than fight you.

  Jormangand had been calming, but at the sound of Freya’s words, he hissed, a sound like steam escaping a volcanic vent, and then roared, belching fire and smoke at the goddess’ form. Defiance, anger, and pain, all at once. “Hold on,” Sigrun shouted to Rig, and slipped off Nith’s back, causing the dragon’s head to swing in her direction as she flew directly towards Jormangand, her hands empty of weapons and raised in the air. Hear me, spirit of earth and fire. My friend has already begun to heal the earth. Let me offer you healing, so that you might know our good intentions. I ask nothing in return. This is a gift.

  Rig swore. He knew Aunt Sig didn't lack for courage, but this was insane. He also knew that
his illusions might be the only thing that gave her a fighting chance to get closer to Jormangand without being snapped out of the air like a mosquito. Rig bent his will, building layers of illusion. Wrapped Sigrun herself in invisibility, and crafted an effigy of her, flying fifteen feet above her. It took all his concentration, trying to craft the essence of her, how she looked in othersight, the blue-white blaze of a levinbolt shrouded by clouds and night. She was bigger in othersight, too, which helped; as he erased her from reality, and constructed her anew, it just looked as if she’d deviated slightly in altitude. “Hear her,” he said, directing his attention at the world-serpent once more. “There is no need for violence. Once we have healed the land here, there will be no more volcanoes, or cracked ice. If you wish to continue to hunt the mad gods, we would understand and not prevent you . . . .”

  But you cannot pursue them through the lands of man. You would bring death and destruction to hundreds of thousands, and we will not permit that, any more than the gods of Rome would. Freya’s tone was stern. Rig wasn’t sure that Jormangand would take that well. Freya’s words were a leash, a check on the enraged creature.