Stormbringer

by Alis Franklin

  The guys flanking Rígr flinched, eyes going wide and sharing nervous glances. The one on the left was a redhead; the one on the right was dark. Their armor was noticeably less shiny than the talking guy. Sigmund wondered what kind of metaphor it was he was looking at. It had to be something.

  The son

  (“sons”)

  of Heimdallr and the daughter of Loki, facing each other down outside the gates of Ásgarðr. Oh, this would go well. For sure. Uh-huh.

  “Those are grave claims you make, daughter of lies.” Rígr’s eyes narrowed, glancing at Em and Wayne. Also, calling Hel a liar was kinda mad rude. Sigmund scowled to show his disapproval, for whatever the gesture was worth.

  “And yet I have right to make them,” Hel said. “With Hrist and Hlökk as witness. Would you question the word of those chosen by Odin himself to pick warriors from the slaughter?”

  “The oaths of the valkyrja died with Odin,” Rígr said. “Their loyalty is to death and death alone, not Ásgarðr.”

  Rude! Very rude.

  Except Em said, “The oaths with Odin stand, carried by his heir.” Hlökk, the Screamer, who fought battles with words. When Rígr didn’t answer, just sort of gave Em the side-eye, she added, “You know me, third son of Heimdallr, as you know those I stand beside. Hel’s claim of place is just. To deny it is to deny Asgard’s honor, and the oaths of your king.”

  Em was speaking English, of course, and her accent was a little off and her words a little broken by her fear. She hated public speaking, which was maybe ironic, because she hated being silent even more.

  Rígr scowled, and the other two shifted with what Sigmund thought might just be nerves rather than anger. Something Em had said, maybe?

  “If you will not honor your king’s obligations,” Hel added, “then I would see you bring him forth, that I may make my case before him.”

  More awkward shifting, and suddenly Sigmund knew the cause. Even before Rígr said, “Our Lord is not taking visitors. This is a time of grieving, not one for your vile machinations.”

  They were stalling because they didn’t have a king to bring, as it were. Gaps had said as much, with Baldr “missing” and his son and—Sigmund made himself think the word—wife fighting over the throne. Hel must’ve realized this. Had been counting on it, maybe.

  “Then bid me entry into Ásgarðr,” she said, “and I will stand before the þing.”

  “Absolutely not.” Rígr was blustering, even as he tried not to show it. Because a whole goddamn army was standing on his doorstep, its queen demanding something he could never give, not with Ásgarðr weakened and—

  Lain.

  Jesus Christ. Lain was here, somewhere, wasn’t he? And if he wasn’t coming out to greet them—all smug grin and gleaming crown—then something had happened.

  And nothing that ever happened to Lain was simple.

  In his mind, Sigmund saw the threads, saw the weave. This was it, he realized. This was the Wyrd, the story, the thing Lain talked about. Sigmund had felt it before, back in the Helbleed, and he was feeling it now, too. A building crescendo of plot all working its way up to—

  “Let me into Asgard. Now.”

  Rígr and Hel had been arguing, but they fell silent when Sigmund spoke, turning their eyes his way. Sigmund tried not to squirm under the scrutiny, and definitely tried not to look over to where Em was making What are you doing? expressions over her glasses.

  Sigmund pushed his own up his nose, swallowed, and repeated. “Let me through the gates. You can deny Hel entry but you can’t deny me.” He managed to avoid glancing Hel’s way with an added “. . . right?” but, given the nod he saw from the corner of his eye, maybe she heard it anyway.

  Rígr didn’t look impressed. “Who are you, mortal,” he said, “to ask such things of me?”

  They will know you, Hel had said, and Sigmund could feel the lie dance around the edge of Rígr’s question. Because Hel had been right. These shiny, gate-guarding assholes knew exactly who Sigmund was.

  “I’m Sigmund Gregor Sussman de Deus,” he said, proud of the way his voice broke only a single time. “And I’m also Sigyn, wife of Loki. An ásynja. And I’ve got a right to enter Asgard.”

  Rígr spat, and Sigmund didn’t miss the way his fingers curled on the hilt of his sword. “Using that jötunn traitor’s name will get you nowhere.”

  “I’m not using his name,” Sigmund said. “I’m using mine. You can keep my friends out but you can’t keep me.”

  “I can keep out whomever I want, boy.”

  But he was lying. Sigmund could feel it.

  “Try me,” he said, stepping forward.

  The sound of Rígr drawing his sword was very, very loud. So was the pounding of Sigmund’s heart, at least to Sigmund’s ears. He made himself keep walking, step after step, until the crunch of Hel’s blight beneath his sneakers was replaced by soft and spongy grass, the crackle of passing through the edge of the Bleed setting every hair on his body straight on end.

  “Put down the sword, man,” Sigmund said. “Think about it. There’s an entire army standing behind me. Don’t give them a reason to dislike you.”

  Rígr looked at Sigmund and he looked over Sigmund’s shoulder. At Hel and her “escort.”

  For a moment, nothing moved.

  Then Rígr stepped back, blade lowering as he huffed. “And what will you do within our walls, boy?” he asked.

  “Speak to Nanna.” Sigmund surprised himself with the name. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead, but: “Just . . . ask her to listen to what Hel has to say.” That seemed reasonable, right?

  Rígr at least seemed prepared to entertain it. “Which is?” he asked. Not to Sigmund, and when Hel replied, she said:

  “For good or ill, Ragnarøkkr is over. Ásgarðr has no more need for einherjar, and few mortals from whom to choose. Meanwhile, Helheimr’s cities swell to bursting. A new accord must be struck over the fates of the dead who come unto the Tree. I would seek to make it. That is all.”

  Rígr huffed and, in that moment, Sigmund didn’t envy the guy his job. TSA agent to the gods, just him and his two mates standing between Ásgarðr and the legions of Hel herself.

  “Very well,” he said. “The boy, only. If he can persuade the þing to hear you, then you will be heard. But know this, serpent’s sister. If you or yours should make move to cross into Ásgarðr’s lands, you will meet an end such that even mortals shall forget your tales.”

  When Sigmund glanced back, he was pretty sure that Hel was smiling. Em and Wayne definitely were.

  “Of course,” Hel said. “We will wait. Death is nothing if not patient.”

  That was, more or less, how Sigmund got himself a ticket into Ásgarðr.

  He was escorted through the gates by Rígr and what turned out to be the guy’s two half brothers, Þræll and Karl. They introduced themselves as they were passing through the gates, Rígr watching them all with a haughty squint Sigmund immediately distrusted.

  Maybe he just had a thing against assholeish blond Vikings. Rígr certainly looked like he could’ve been churned out of the same factory that’d spawned Baldr, even if he wasn’t quite as broad or as tall, and his hair was a bit less shiny and bright.

  Karl, meanwhile, was redheaded and freckled, and reminded Sigmund in no small part of Lain (he decided to keep this observation to himself). Then Þræll, who was dark and rough and slightly nervous, as if he expected to be kicked or thrown out at any moment.

  “You must be careful of the dead,” he’d said, thick-fingeredhands pulling open Ásgarðr’s the heavy doors. “Their Lady most of all.”

  “She’s, uh. She’s kinda my stepdaughter,” Sigmund said. “I mean . . . I guess? I don’t think she—” He stopped, realizing he wasn’t quite sure how to end that sentence. After a moment, he decided on “She cares a lot about her people.”

  This earned a scoff from Rígr, but Þræll merely nodded, gesturing for Sigmund to pass through the gate.

  He did as ins
tructed, throwing one last wave back to where Em and Wayne were watching from the far side of the blight. It occurred to him to wonder if he should be leaving them alone with Hel. He didn’t think she meant them any harm, but . . .

  Shit. Who was he kidding? It was Em and Wayne. Sigmund was more likely the one to get himself in trouble, walking into a nest of potentially hostile gods.

  No one attacked him when the door closed, which Sigmund took to be a good sign. Instead, Karl said, “It’s different to how you remember, eh?”

  Sigmund looked around, blinking, and wondered how he was supposed to answer that, exactly. “Um . . .”

  “We lost much during Ragnarøkkr,” Karl added, thumping a fist against the carved wood of the gate. “But rebuilding? Ah, that’s half the fun of it!” He grinned, and so did Sigmund.

  “I don’t, ah. I don’t really remember much about, um. About before,” he said.

  “You have too much mortal in you, boy. Or should I say girl?”

  “Boy.” Sigmund tried not to wince.

  “Right, right. Boy. Hah.” Karl seemed to think about this as they walked. “Is it a curse, then?” he asked.

  “Er . . . not really?” Sigmund tried. “I mean, I just . . . Sigyn died. And then . . . there was me.”

  “And Loki?”

  Sigmund’s heart skipped a beat, conscious of the look Rígr was giving. Cold and hard. Bitter.

  Suddenly, it occurred to Sigmund that Sigyn had, kinda sorta maybe, killed his new friend’s dad. Meanwhile, they all thought Loki had done it.

  Shit. Fuck. Shitty shit fuck.

  “Loki’s, uh. Dead, right?” Sigmund tried. There was enough truth in the not quite question that his head only ached a little. Shit. Stupid fucking inability to lie bullshit.

  “Mmm,” said Rígr, looking away. “We can only hope.”

  (shit)

  Sigmund spent the next few minutes too busy trying to keep his panic under control to pay attention to where Rígr and Co. were taking him. Along a path of some description, and by the time he’d calmed down enough to look up again, they were passing through a bunch of buildings assembled around a well. The architecture was mostly wood, fresh-carved with scrolling knots and dragons, and something about the proportions seemed too large in some strange, off-kilter way. Like someone had gotten regular buildings and just scaled them up for people three or four times normal size. Which was weird, because it wasn’t like the æsir were unnaturally tall.

  There were other people around, mostly men, dressed in Viking sort of clothes. When Sigmund started seeing scars—an ax wound here, an arrow hole there—he realized he must’ve been looking at the einherjar. They weren’t much like Hel’s people. Too dour and too serious. Sigmund would’ve expected things to be reversed, would’ve expected the dishonored dead to be the grim and lurching zombies.

  Maybe he had a lot to learn about the dead. Maybe this is what Hel had meant when she’d said things needed to change.

  Rígr and his brothers took Sigmund toward an even bigger big building, sitting on a hill and looking out over the others. It was multiple stories and had balconies, as well as a lot more stone in its construction, and while it didn’t say “castle,” exactly—it didn’t have quite enough battlements for that—it did certainly look like the place to find the Very Important People.

  Two einherjar opened the doors when Rígr approached, bowing to the æsir and giving Sigmund the side-eye. He did his best to look gormless and unarmed as he stepped over the threshold of the hall.

  Inside was a room: an enormous cavernous space, all stone and carved wood and huge fire pit running down the center.

  “This is nice,” Sigmund tried, earning a grin from Karl and a grunt from Rígr.

  At the far end of the hall, on a raised platform, was a large carved chair that could have only been a throne. And sitting on the throne was—

  Sigmund’s first reaction was to think Baldr, and for a moment his heart leaped. Because there was a man in the chair and his hair was shining blond and he was gripping what was undeniably Gungnir in his hand. And in that second, Sigmund had just enough time to think, Maybe this will work out after all, and imagined himself punching Lain playfully for the deception, and—

  And the guy wasn’t Baldr.

  Sigmund blinked, squinting to get a better look through glasses he should’ve replaced a good six months ago.

  The guy wasn’t Baldr. He looked a lot like Baldr—and not just in the “vaguely familiar” way that Rígr did, but an actual played-by-the-same-actor way—but he wasn’t.

  And he had Gungnir.

  And Sigmund’s heart felt like ice within his chest.

  “The legions of Hel are at our gates and yet you bring me mortals,” not-Baldr-guy said, not to Sigmund. What had Gaps said about Baldr’s son? Sigmund struggled to come up with a name.

  (“Forseti, lord of law and judgment”)

  Okay. That worked. Also: law and judgment, ouch.

  Rígr bowed, Karl bowed deeper, and Þræll was practically on the ground. Sigmund waved and said, “Um. Hi?” and tried not to feel like a fucking idiot.

  No way he was bowing, though. Not until he’d seen Lain and figured out what was going on.

  “This is Sigmund Gregor.” Rígr paused, shot one glance at Sigmund and added, “Sweet man of God.”

  Sigmund blinked. It was difficult, listening to the Godstongue, and some of the phrasing and idioms—

  (Sigmund Gregor Sussman de Deus)

  Shit. Because it was just a name, wasn’t it? Except they were words, too, and meant things, and Sigmund had to bite his lip to stop from laughing. Jesus. He’d never thought of that before.

  Forseti scowled, and for a moment Sigmund was back on the edge of a mist-wreathed lake, wet jeans clinging to his legs and mud caked beneath his nails.

  “And why have you come to us, Sigmund of God? Why have you brought Hel’s armies to our door?”

  (Sigmund of God, bloody hell . . . )

  “Um,” Sigmund said. “It was really more the other way around? Hel brought me here, I mean. To, um. To argue her case, I guess?”

  Forseti’s fingers drummed on Gungnir’s haft. “And why would the gods hear your pleas, mortal?”

  “Well, yeah. Um. About that.” Sigmund tired not to fidget, failed, and added, “’Cause, like. I’m pretty sure you know why you’re gonna hear me out. I think you knew it the second I walked in here.”

  When Forseti’s eyes flicked down, just briefly, Sigmund knew he’d guessed right. “And why would the words of Loki’s woman carry any weight within these halls?”

  “Hey!” Sigmund stepped forward, hand raised and pointing. “Fuck you, and fuck Loki.” Sorry Lain, but: “I’m a goddess in my own right.”

  “You were mortal,” Forseti said. “Brought unto us by marriage to one who does not share our blood.”

  Sigmund felt something inside him give. It sounded like a tooth, piercing through flesh, like the crack of stone against a skull, like a thousand years in hell and the end of the world itself, all rolled into one.

  “Yeah, well,” he said. “I’m still mortal now. And I’m still a bloody ásynja whether you like it or not. I have a right to be here. And so does Hel, because your dad? Baldr? She died to him, in combat. And she’s got two valkyrjur”—not too bad on the accent, he didn’t think—“out there who’ll vouch for her as einheri.” Ditto. “That means you need to let her in as well.”

  “Even if what you say is true, the einherjar are taken from the ranks of men, not banished íviðjur witches.” Forseti sprawled backward in his throne, free hand coming up to stroke his short-cut beard as he studied Sigmund. “If you have walked with Death you know what rot she carries in her wake. Would you have me bring this into Ásgarðr?”

  Sigmund thought of Hel, delicately drinking tea in Wayne’s comic shop, paint peeling from the walls as, all around her, brightly colored superheroes degenerated into scenes of madness.

  He sighed. “Look, I dunno. Just .
. . maybe you should talk to her? Work something out?”

  He tried to keep his voice light, but even that earned him a scowl and a “You would presume to tell me what I ‘should’ do? Boy, you are as insolent as your vile husband. And I am just as likely to take your council.”

  Shit. Shit shit shit. It occurred to Sigmund he really wasn’t good at this, whatever this was. Negotiations? Walking up to the NPC and choosing the right dialogue options except, oops. The Really Real World, even this part of it, still wasn’t produced by BioWare. Being eloquent wasn’t as easy as picking the right thing from the menu and hoping he’d stacked enough points in Persuasion.

  Sigmund was about to come up with a retort—something awesome and witty like “yeah, well . . . whatever”—when someone else beat him to it.

  “You may not, but I will.”

  A woman’s voice, and Sigmund turned. When he did, his first thought was:

  (nope, nothing like Bubbe)

  Nanna was both instantly recognizable and, well. A goddess. Tall and strong and proud, with clear pale skin and bright blond hair (Sigmund was starting to sense a theme on that one). Definitely older than her son, but in a Cate Blanchett Hollywood sort of way.

  God. Fucking perfect golden Baldr and his perfect golden fucking family. And Sigmund, who was such a schlub he was still in the same pair of jeans he’d been wearing this time last week. And it wasn’t like Lain didn’t have a cleaner at the apartment.

  Fuck.

  Forseti scowled. “Mother. This does not concern you.”

  “All affairs of my husband’s concern me,” Nanna said, gliding across the floor in a cascade of wool and gold and velvet. “While he is absent, I am regent.”

  And what Sigmund thought was:

  (oh. shit)

  And what Forseti said was “Mother . . .” And he looked away.

  (he knows! motherfucker fucking knows! And he’s got Lain’s fucking spear and)

  And Nanna was coming to a halt in front of Sigmund, staring through him with blue eyes so pale as to be almost silver. Then she bowed, just slightly, reaching out to take Sigmund’s hands in her own. “I recognize you, Sigyn, ásynja of victory and compassion. And I welcome you back into your home. No matter the mortal shape you wear, our doors for you are open.”