Stormbringer

by Alis Franklin

  Oh Jesus fuck she was really nice! Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck—

  “Um. Thanks?” Sigmund swallowed and tried not to be a total loser. “I mean, it’s been a while, and I don’t—I don’t really remember much. I mean, listen to me. I don’t even speak the bloody language anymore.” He winced at the swearing. “Um. Sorry.”

  But Nanna just smiled, letting Sigmund’s hands drop from hers. Because, fuck. She was beautiful, and kind, and gracious, and a fucking Queen, and Sigmund was—

  (la la la la they can read minds la la think other things la la nothing to see here just nervous about being in Asgard nothing to do with La—pink elephants pink elephants pink elephants!)

  Was it just Sigmund, or was Nanna’s smile looking a little . . . strained?

  Shit.

  From the throne, Forseti said, “Mother. Perhaps you would like to show . . . ‘Sigyn’ around Ásgarðr. Much has happened in the time since ‘she’ was away.”

  (oi I heard those air quotes, you jackass! fuck you)

  Nanna, to her credit, sniffed slightly and turned a truly parental stare on her son. “Don’t be vulgar, boy,” she said. “Sigyn—”

  “Um. Sigmund, actually.”

  Nanna didn’t even blink. “Sigmund has come to us as emissary from the Queen of Hel. The very same Hel who showed your father and I great hospitality when we stayed within her realm. The least we can do is hear her words.”

  Forseti sneered. Like, with an actual curled lip and everything. “Absolutely not,” he said. “Ásgarðr makes no deals with jötnar.”

  Nanna wasn’t moved. “And when you are Allfather, boy, then you may make such decisions for yourself. For now, I must hold true to your father’s wishes. And his wish was for change, for Ásgarðr to cast aside old hatreds and—”

  “Faðir minn var vitstola!” The crack of Gungnir coming down against the flagstones was very, very loud. Nanna flinched, Forseti fumed, and Sigmund wondered what the hell was so damning Forseti wasn’t going to say it in Godstongue in front of Sigmund.

  Yeah, he was a loser. Not a fucking idiot.

  Forseti was still ranting and Nanna’s expression had gone hard, and—

  (“he says Baldr was mad, that his time in Hel broke him and that Nanna is too soft to see it”)

  Forseti knew. Sigmund kept coming back to that. He knew . . . maybe not exactly what had happened to Baldr and to Loki, to the Ragnarøkkr, but he sure as hell suspected. And he had Gungnir, the very same spear that had, only the other day, been stashed inside the coat cupboard next to Lain’s front door.

  One Gungnir, zero Lains. And Forseti lying to his mother because of . . . why, exactly? Sigmund didn’t pretend to understand the ins and outs of Asgardian succession, but Nanna had implied Forseti would take the throne only if Baldr was proven dead. Except if Forseti knew Baldr wasn’t dead, not exactly . . .

  Fuck. Fuck this Game of Thrones bullshit. Sigmund was just about ready to find Lain and get the fuck outta here as fast as the latter’s wings would take them.

  And then Lain would be totally sleeping on the couch forever for not mentioning he had a fucking wife and child.

  Jesus Christ.

  “—sit in his chair, but you cannot take his title,” Nanna was saying. “Nor will I allow you to pronounce him dead after so short an absence.”

  “Mother . . .” Petulant childish pleading was the same in Ásgarðr as it was on Earth, Sigmund supposed.

  “No,” Nanna said. “I am done discussing this.” She turned to Rígr. “Send a messenger to Hel. Tell her I will meet her on the morrow, outside the gates.”

  Rígr’s armor clanked as he shifted, obviously displeased. “My Lady,” he said. “Hel has an army, I do not think—”

  “If the þing frets over my safety, they are welcome to send warriors in my wake. But I will have no violence with Hel’s people.”

  Sigmund did not miss the way Rígr’s eyes flicked, just briefly, toward Forseti. From her expression, Nanna didn’t miss it, either.

  Rígr bowed. “Yes, my lady.” Then he was gesturing to his brothers and moving from the hall.

  “Come.” Sigmund felt a slim hand against his elbow, and when he looked over, Nanna was smiling conspiratorially in his direction. “The road from Hel is long, and you must be tired. Let us find you rooms and bring you food, and leave my son to clutch his toys and sulk in his father’s wake.”

  She winked, and Sigmund bit his lip to stop the smile. “Cool,” he said, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as Nanna led him from the hall.

  Interlude: Riddles

  Unusually for one of the gods, Thor was sparing in the number of children that he sired. He had three, all, despite some rumors to the contrary, mothered by his wife, Sif.

  Magni, the middle child, was all too eager to follow in his father’s footsteps. Besting jötnar as a toddler, with all the arrogance of a firstborn heir. Meanwhile Móði, Thor’s youngest, grew soft and uncertain. No match for his brother in physical prowess, he instead turned to magic to make his mark on the world. Magic, it must be said, is a woman’s art, but Móði’s grandfather, Odin, was its master and so, too, was Móði able to learn with only a minimum of disapproving gossip.

  Thor’s eldest child, his daughter, Þrúðr, inherited her mother’s hair. Sif’s hair was not the hair she had been born with. Instead, it was a magic wig of sorts, rooted in her scalp and growing strands of purest gold. Literally gold. Unlike her mother, Þrúðr needed no wig, and rumor was her hair was even finer for it.

  There are a few things it’s important to know about golden hair. The first is that it is no small gift to care for. Gold is soft, and malleable, and managing an entire head’s worth of it was a full-time job in brushing and in braiding.

  The second thing about gold? It’s heavy. Very, very heavy. Sif had never been quite as energetic and agile after the wig had been placed on her head, and was plagued instead by aches in her head and neck everyone knew the source of, even if they never spoke it. Because magic items are curses as well as blessings, and Sif paid the cost of her beauty gladly.

  Her daughter, however, had no such dilemma. Her hair was just as heavy—heavier, in fact, when it grew longer than her mother’s—but Þrúðr had Thor’s blood running in her veins. The strong blood of the strongest god, no more diluted in her than it was in her brothers. Þrúðr had no need to gain strength by fighting jötunn, like Magni did. Not when her every living moment was weighed down by her golden crown.

  The dvergar had made Sif’s hairpiece and they knew about Þrúðr’s inheritance of it. Gold, it goes without saying, is a precious thing, and someone would could produce it without end the most valuable of resources. And so it was that one day a dvergr named Alvíss came to Ásgarðr’s gates, demanding Þrúðr’s hand in marriage. Sif, so the story goes, agreed to the match, knowing she had no right to make it. For only a father could give his daughter’s hand, something Thor knew and the dvergar did not.

  Alvíss was to learn, however, when Thor returned from hunting jötnar and demanded to know why squat unpleasant strangers were sitting at his door.

  Alvíss attempted to explain the deal, and Thor attempted to annul it. Not deterred, Alvíss once again pleaded to be allowed to take Þrúðr—and her hair—for his own.

  Lest any ever say the gods did not keep their word, Thor agreed to allow Alvíss to woo his daughter if the dvergr could prove his wisdom in a contest of riddles. Thor, while very skilled at killing jötnar, had never been considered an intellectual sort. Alvíss, knowing this, and thinking himself very clever, agreed to Thor’s bargain.

  And so Thor asked his questions, and Alvíss did not think them very difficult at all. First, Thor wished to know all the names given to the Earth, and Alvíss listed the words used by mortals and gods and jötnar, by álfar and by dvergar. Then Thor repeated the question, this time asking the names of the sky. Alvíss answered. Third, Thor asked for the names of the moon. Again, Alvíss gave them, and though his lists were t
rue, it did occur to him to wonder if Thor could tell the difference if they were not.

  Still, Thor asked his questions: The names of the sun, the names of the clouds. The names of the wind and the calm, the sea and the fire, the forest, the night, the seed. By the time Thor got around to asking for all the names of beer, Alvíss was having trouble stifling his laughter. Thor’s father, Odin, was known for his prowess with asking riddles, and perhaps Alvíss felt a little sorry for the Allfather’s violent, thickheaded simpleton of a son. If Thor sought to trick Alvíss with lists of words, then he would be sorely mistaken! Alvíss being the sort with a tendency for the pedantic memorization of useless facts.

  And so he listed off the names of beer, noticing how Thor’s dull, coal-black eyes seemed to drift, his mind wandering to dream of mugs of ale for his own, perhaps, and Alvíss, who considered himself generous as well as wise, thought he would offer an entire barrel, when this was done and Þrúðr was his bride.

  When Alvíss was done reciting names, Thor licked his lips and smiled, big and slow and lazy.

  “My friend,” he said. “In one heart I have never found more ancient lore.”

  “You are too kind, my lord,” said Alvíss, who saw no reason not to be gracious in his victory.

  Within his smile, Thor’s teeth were very white and very sharp, framed by a beard the color of fresh blood. “Perhaps you will not think so in a moment,” he said. “For I admit I have deceived you. Have allowed you to deceive yourself.”

  “How so, my lord?” asked Alvíss, a strange feeling creeping up his spine.

  “Your knowledge is so great, friend dvergr,” Thor said, “and so I bow before it. Before it, and before your eagerness to share it with me. So much so that you would forsake to check the progress of the very sun and moon and sky you name. For look, friend. We have spoken all night. And now it is the dawn.”

  And, suddenly, Alvíss knew what the strange feeling was on his back: the gentle caress of the first rays of the sun. The sun that turned dvergr flesh to stone.

  That day, Thor had a strange new statue for his hall. He placed it outside, near the river, as he watched his only daughter run free across the grass, laughing as the bright sun gleamed against her hair.

  Chapter 10

  The final day’s march was interminable, silent and strained and grim. They made Lain walk ahead, stumbling too fast over roots, with Magni riding the stallion on his heels. Þrúðr came behind on her mare, Móði’s arms held loose about her waist.

  As they rode, they did not see the wolf, nor the girl, nor hear the cries of bird or flight of beasts.

  Valdís, Lain had called the beast, and Þrúðr had seen the anguish in his eyes. Saw now the broken slump of his shoulders, even as he was forced to run on all fours to keep up with their pace.

  Magni called cruel words as they ran, taunting Lain as he drove his horse to catch the edge of feathers beneath its hooves.

  Þrúðr was starting to believe she did not know her brothers. Not truly, and maybe not either. Magni, full of hate and cruelty. And Móði, passive and vicious in his own cowardly way.

  Yet maybe she was still worst of all. Perhaps, in her desire to be seen as the strongest of the three, she had lost sight of her own weakness, and so doomed them all.

  It was an awful ride, full of dark thoughts and darker shadows. And Þrúðr knew it was not over yet.

  Sól’s daughter was kissing the edges of the Tree when they broke free of the Myrkviðr’s awful grasp. First, it had been roots, giving way to flagstones, then branches, thinning to show shafts of golden light. Finally, through the gnarled gray trunks, Þrúðr began to catch sight of their destination. A huge and jagged cliffside, rearing into a mountain capped with white, cut from the sharp-edged bones of great Ymir, the first jötunn, whose death had made the Realms.

  When Magni slowed within the mountain’s shadow, Þrúðr made her own breathing calm and forced white-knuckled fingers to uncurl from the cracked leather of her reins.

  As they drew to a stop, Þrúðr heard the heavy thud as Lain fell against the ground. White-tattooed sides heaving as he cursed softly in the language of the mortals.

  From behind, meanwhile, came a whistle. “Niðavellir,” said Móði, breath gusting across Þrúðr’s cheek and awe writ plain across his words. “I’ve never seen it.”

  “Nor I,” Þrúðr admitted, squinting upward against the dying light.

  “It’s a shithole.” Lain’s voice was a vicious wheeze. “Don’t let the snow-peaked bullshit fool you. Fucking dvergar.” He stumbled to his feet, leaving bloodied, hissing footprints in his wake.

  “I would have thought you eager to show them the robustness of their handiwork.” Magni gestured to his lips.

  Lain responded by extending a fist, middle finger raised.

  They approached the mountain in silence, their horses’ hooves clopping slowly against stone, Lain’s own limp fading as the sun dipped and the mountain loomed. He said nothing more and, when Þrúðr glanced his way, seemed unfocused and lost in his expression. As if he were remembering something long ago and very far away. Something better than where they were, perhaps. Something with the warm skin of a loving wife, and the gentle laughter of his children.

  As a child, Þrúðr had thought her uncle odd but nothing more. She’d giggled at his jokes and ridden on his back when he took the shape of beasts for her enjoyment, her own father laughing with riotous abandon.

  As she’d grown older, she’d thought less of those moments and more of the whispers of her mothers. Half-heard accusations of cruelty and spite. Loki had turned, then, from an amusing, ill-mannered houseguest into something dark, something sinister and mean. A thing to fear . . . and to pity, also. Deranged and monstrous.

  Now Þrúðr was not sure what she thought of the thing that moved beside her, tattered feathers ruffling in the breeze and shimmering in the dying light. A monster, perhaps, with curving horns and jagged claws. But father’s friend, also. Who had shorn the hair from mother’s head, then had repaid this petty malice with boons and treasures that men coveted to this day.

  Maybe, Þrúðr thought, this was Loki’s curse. To be such a fickle thing of indecision and of change. To destroy, and, in that destruction, to remake rubble into glory.

  Niðavellir drew ever closer.

  Around them, the trees thinned as they emerged from the Myrkviðr and stepped into the foothills of the mountain. Þrúðr felt relief wash over her like the cool flow of a stream and wondered, if she should turn, what pairs of strange eyes she would find watching them take their leave.

  The path grew wider, more intricate. With rough-cut flagstones replaced by mosaics made from small, multicolored tiles laid out in flowing, abstracted patterns like rushing water. They began passing pillars, erected by the side of the road and topped with stone cages set aglow by some magics Þrúðr could not fathom.

  These were dvergar lands. Not the wilderness of the forest nor the simple halls of æsir. The dvergar were craftsmen, masters of metal and stone and gems, and here, at the entrance to their kingdom, they showed their might. For ahead, where the path met the mountain, a huge entrance had been carved into the rock. The stern effigies of ancient dvergar kings, looking down on any who would think to walk into the dark.

  “Halt, strangers. What business have you in the mountain?”

  Þrúðr had seen dvergar before, once or twice when she was younger and they had sent caravans to Ásgarðr to ply crafts and trade their wares. The dvergar that stood before them now, stationed in squat turrets beside the road, were less like the ones she remembered. Still stout and broad, with wide frog mouths and bulging, too-big eyes. But these dvergar were dressed not in tunics but in gleaming metal armor, and beneath it their hides were rough and glittered with gemlike protrusions.

  “Hail, friends,” Magni called. “I am Magni, son of Thor. This is my brother, Móði, and my sister, Þrúðr. We have come from Ásgarðr and have business with the smiths, Brokkr and Eitri.”
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  The dvergar shared glances, strange patterns of light rippling across their hides.

  “What are they doing?” Þrúðr whispered.

  It was Lain who answered, voice just as low. “Talking. The flashing lights are their language.”

  “They’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen . . .” She let the words hang, too caught up by the dvergar’s shimmering skin.

  “You’ve probably only seen them in the light,” Lain said. “The lífskin”—not quite the word he used, but the closest meaning Þrúðr could hear—“doesn’t function too well unless it’s dark.” He gestured around at the fast-fading day and the deep shadow that hung beneath the mountain.

  The dvergar faded back to their stony gray, and the one on the left pointed to Lain and said, “You bring a risi with you.”

  Magni shot a look to the beast in question, then scowled and turned forward once more. “The jötunn?” he said. “A captive and a slave. It will give you no trouble.”

  The words prompted more lights from the dvergar, these ones bright yellows and reds that flashed with anger and alarm. Reacting to the word slave, judging by the timing.

  “Niðavellir would make no quarrel with the jötnar,” the right-most dvergr said at last. “And know this, Magni, Son of Thor. The risi may be your captive, but the land beneath the mountains knows nobody as a slave.”

  From her side, Þrúðr heard Lain make a startled little hiss. Perhaps a laugh, perhaps an intake of breath. He still wore his collar and a single rune-cut shackle—they’d found the other lying melted and twisted on the forest floor—but Þrúðr supposed they mattered little, given the pain Magni held within his palm.

  “Fear not, friend.” Hearing Lain speak the true tongue was startling, his voice transformed from a rough grind into a subtle, flickering flame. “I owe these æsir debt for past transgression. In repatriation I am made Lady Þrúðr’s bondsman, and I will work as such until I am repaid.”