Stormbringer

by Alis Franklin

  “Nice try, assholes,” Loki screamed, voice made huge by the strange devices of the mortals.

  Ullr shot again, but this time Loki was prepared, darting around to hide behind one of the tall black towers erected on the stage. The arrow hit the tower, sinking in, and a screeching hiss filled the air.

  Then Loki’s song started once more.

  “This one’s for you, kid,” he howled, then:

  Drove up to Ásgarðr where Svaði built the Wall.

  Just came to see you, but was greeted by a brawl.

  Am I ever gonna see this place again?

  And, this time, Forseti felt it. Felt the awful magic, curling into his heart. A meme, Munin had called it. A strange modern word for a phenomenon as old as time.

  All around, people shouted back the answer:

  “No way! Get fucked! Fuck off!”

  Forseti heard it in a dozen tongues, ancient and modern, mortal and not. Loki’s madness had caught, was winding into the heart of nár and áss and einheri alike. Even the Helbeasts were responding, ceasing their battling, turning their heads toward the stage. Forseti saw one standing, surrounded by einherjar who leaped up and down like mad things, fists thrusting into the air, three fingers extended.

  “This is madness.” Ullr was watching the chaos also, eyes very round and bow held slack against his side, arrow nocked but not drawn.

  “This is magic!” Forseti snarled. “Where are our seiðkonur? Why do they not defend us?” But he already knew the answer, even before Ullr spoke it.

  “My lord,” he said. “The women . . . they are with your mother. She says they will have no part in your foolishness.”

  Forseti leaned forward, hands gripping tight around the battlements’ blood-slicked stone. Ásgarðr had witches, but they were weak, deceitful women. Who cowered and gossiped while men fought and died on their behalf. Móði was a sorcerer, and an honorable man despite it, yet he had not returned from meeting with the dvergar. More of Loki’s ruinous machinations, and Forseti was sick with it. With rage, and impotence. Loki, who should have died at Ragnarøkkr, and who’d bought his survival with the life of Forseti’s father.

  Around him, the monster’s call and response burst forth once more, a pounding sickness that poisoned hearts and unmade minds. Forseti felt it. Felt it curling in his toes, in his limbs, in his head. In every part of him that wanted to lose itself into the awful droning heartbeat of the song. He knew, if he opened his eyes, he would see little fighting. Perhaps none. All honor and glory eaten away. Replaced by wicked madness.

  The jötunn had taken everything. Forseti’s father, his grandfather, his mother. Now his people. Everything that had been good and pure and true, lying twisted and corrupted. And for what? So a filthy hag could drag her vile corpses into Ásgarðr? Murderers and oath breakers, cowards and villains. People who had lived bad lives and died bad deaths. The law barred them from Ásgarðr’s gilded halls, and what was Forseti, if not guardian of that law?

  Forseti’s fists closed, his eyes screwed so tightly shut that bloodied flowers bloomed behind them.

  “Forgive me, father.” Forseti’s voice was barely a whisper, lost beneath the awful howl. “I have failed. I cannot bring you justice. I cannot keep your law. You are gone, and there is only madness. Forgive me. Forgive us all.”

  Somewhere out within the Bleed, Loki cried:

  Can’t stop my question that rings out over the Wall

  And when you answer, I can’t help heed the call

  Am I ever gonna see this place again?

  The words clawed into Forseti’s heart, into his soul. Clawing and twisting and pulling, and Forseti was tired. So, so tired.

  So he let go. Threw back his head, and howled:

  “Far-ðu. Til. Hel-ví-tis!”

  And things were done.

  Chapter 29

  The crowd is roaring when I step down from the stage. Crying, cheering. Demanding more. It’s been a while since I played, and never in front of such a big audience, and feeling all that energy—that worship—directed my way is . . . intoxicating. I want it. I want to bask in it, to sing my passions to the sky, to beat to the pulse of the crowd for eternity, because what god could ever ignore his people?

  Well. This god, for one.

  “You were pretty good.”

  Sigmund greets me on the ground, arms going around my waist and lips pressing against my cheek. I grin, accepting the affection, sweeter and better than the cheering of a thousand audiences.

  “Nah,” I say. “I’m okay.” It’s not false modesty. I have a good voice, and a long life means a lot of time to learn chord progressions. But I could never be a musician. Gods can’t do creative things. Creativity is strictly the domain of mortals, and Wyrdborn only recycle, even if we recycle well.

  It’s a curse. I’ll live.

  I look down at my hands, flexing my fingers. I have blisters from the strings. Good thing they didn’t burst. If I’d bled on the wires they would’ve snapped, and that would’ve made for one short concert.

  Behind me, the mic crackles as Hel steps awkwardly in front of it. When she opens her mouth, her voice echoes out all over Ásgarðr, calling for peace and treaty.

  I don’t think a single soul watching misses the fact she’s holding Gungnir when she says it. Least of all Forseti, standing atop the Wall, watching his war fall into tatters.

  When the gates open, we end up back in Ásgarðr. Me, Hel, Sigmund, Em, and Wayne. A lot of einherjar stare at us as we walk, escorted by Heimdallr’s idiot sons.

  We get taken into a hall I don’t recognize, one of the new ones built after Ragnarøkkr. Actually, there’s not a lot here I recognize, at least not from my last flight out the back roads, dragged along behind Magni and Móði.

  And Þrúðr, who meets us at the door, Mjölnir held before her in both hands. More a symbol than a weapon.

  “The þing will hear you,” she says. To Hel, not to me. I’m just here as escort, really. So I fluff my feathers and do honor to my daughter.

  The country of Iceland has the single oldest parliamentary system on the planet. That’s what the þing is, and this is how it started. Old men bickering in a circle, making pretense to wisdom. It’s not democracy, not exactly. But it is some thing, if you’ll excuse the pun.

  Forseti is there, sitting at the head of the table. The other æsir keep shooting him nervous glances, and he himself leaks madness and fury like a wound, pus and bile festering only just beneath the surface.

  Next to him is his lance, bright and sharp as steel.

  Nanna. Baldr’s wife.

  My wife, I guess. Sort of.

  Sigmund won’t look at her, and he won’t look at me, either. Not until I take his fingers in mine and squeeze, just once. When he squeezes back, it’s with a sad smile curving on his lips.

  He likes Nanna. I can feel it, seething beneath his skin. She was kind to him and he doesn’t want to hurt her.

  Neither do I, really. But.

  Well.

  Sometimes someone has to be the villain.

  “You have made your war and have your audience. Now speak your poison and take your vile brood from our door. Let us mourn our dead in peace.”

  It’s not, maybe, the best opening gambit Forseti could use. Everyone knows it. That much is clear from the way the other gods mutter into their beards, hands wringing in their laps.

  Hel just smiles her rictus smile, steps forward, and holds out Gungnir.

  “Forgive me, my Lord Forseti,” she says. “But this was found on the ground among my people. I believe you may desire its return.” No one fails to understand her accusation.

  Holding a staring competition with Hel is never a good idea. Even if she didn’t cheat, it’s not like anyone would know.

  In the end, it’s Nanna who rises, walking forward and bowing before Hel.

  “I think,” she says, “that it is time we discussed our peace.” Then she takes the spear.

  The only other sound is the scrape
of Forseti’s chair as he storms out of the room.

  “I thought it would be a bit more, y’know. Dramatic than that.”

  Later. Sig and me and the girls, lounging around on a balcony, eating cheese and drinking mead. Somewhere inside, Hel and Nanna discuss the terms of the reintegration of the dead.

  I shrug. “Politics. Go figure.”

  “Yeah, but Forseti started a war. People died . . .” Sigmund pauses for a second. “I guess. In principle. I would’ve thought he’d’ve, I dunno. Shouted more or something.”

  “That would be admitting he’d done something wrong,” Em says. “This way, he still has a kind of plausible deniability.”

  “Everyone knows he did it, though.” Wayne looks between Em and me. “Right?”

  “Everyone would rather forget the whole thing,” I say.

  “That’s not fair!” Wayne’s remaining dreadlocks shake as she pounds one fist into the other. “He deserves . . . something. Punishment.”

  I laugh. “We’re gods, man. ‘Fair’ doesn’t come into it.”

  “Politician gods,” Em points out.

  Wayne huffs, obviously unhappy, but doesn’t say anything else.

  Because she’s right, it isn’t fair. Forseti did bad and should be punished. But Forseti’s also Baldr’s heir, and thus Odin’s, and thus the closest thing Ásgarðr currently has to a leader. There are other contenders to the title, most notably Höðr, Baldr’s brother. And Nanna, of course. A blind man and a woman, versus a god of Law and Justice who got caught doing some very unjust—if not technically unlawful—things. If there was ever a test of Ásgarðr’s ability to modernize, this is it.

  I don’t plan to be here to see whether they pass.

  That’s my character development arc. Sitting here, on a mass of furs and silk cushions, Sigmund curled up by my side, feeling Ásgarðr’s sun on my skin and breeze through my feathers. Fresh and clean and wondrous.

  This place isn’t home. Not anymore. I miss my city. Miss its cars and its wifi. Miss drinking expensive burnt coffee in some hipster Torr Mall café or having awkward dinners with Sigmund’s dad. I even miss the LB board, bunch of useless old fucks that they are.

  I don’t miss blood, or violence, or people bleating about “honor” every five minutes. I certainly don’t miss the lack of electricity or raging tenth century attitudes toward everything.

  So. We’ll drink our mead and say our good-byes. Then it’ll be time to head home, a little wiser and a little more traveled for it.

  There’s just one thing I need to do first.

  If only I had the courage.

  Courage comes in the form of a serving girl requesting my presence in Nanna’s chambers. Sigmund’s fingers clench around mine at the request, and I kiss his forehead as I stand.

  “Be right back,” I promise.

  He nods, and can’t meet my eyes. I feel Em and Wayne’s stares on my back the entire way down the hall.

  Nanna meets me in the antechamber to her room. There’s a loom in the corner, tapestries hanging in various states of completion on benches and on tables. Almost all of them depict her husband.

  Yeah. About that.

  Nanna herself is . . . Well. She’s a goddess. What more is there to say? Bright and beautiful, pale-skinned and golden-haired, dressed in a gold-threaded hangaroc and white fur stole dusted with beads of amber.

  When she sees me, her hand flies to her mouth, composure cracking for the first time since we walked into the þing. She moves toward me, grief spilling over in waves of frozen blue, and when she puts her hand against my cheek, I don’t move away.

  I don’t move at all, actually.

  One moment. Two. Three. The skin against mine begins to shake.

  I say:

  “I’m sorry, Nanna.”

  Because, really? What else is there to say?

  Nanna treats the words like a slap, taking one sharp breath and stepping backward.

  “No,” she says, voice barely audible. Then, a little louder, “No. I won’t believe it.”

  I close my eyes. Loki has the memories, from the time he wore Baldr’s skin. Of the cold centuries spent in Helheimr, madness gnawing at his mind even as Nanna’s own dead hands tried to soothe it from him. He hadn’t loved her. She’d never known what had happened to change his heart so profoundly.

  A lot of shitty, painful memories.

  “Tell me.”

  I open my eyes. It doesn’t do very much, other than let Nanna know I’m listening. Her grief is hardening now. Freezing.

  “I am sick of lies,” she says. “Tell me.”

  So I do. All of it, from start to finish. Loki and Odin and Baldr. And me.

  I leave out Sigyn. Nanna, so used to hearing tales of the deeds of men, doesn’t even notice the elision.

  Nanna is a good woman, hurt for too long by the thoughtlessness of others. She deserves closure. A chance to grieve and rage and, I hope, move on. But she can’t have Sigyn in the process. That’s the choice I made. Maybe it’s another shitty one, but . . .

  But.

  When the story’s done, Nanna won’t look at me. Won’t let me see her cry.

  “I . . . I see,” she says, voice broken and thready under her tears. “This is the truth, then? Do not think to deceive me, Liesmith. Not in this.”

  “It’s the truth,” I say. “Near as I know it.”

  Nanna’s breath hitches. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I suppose . . . In this, the truth would be most painful.”

  “Nanna—”

  But she raises a hand, and I fall silent. “My husband is gone, my son is mad. I neither need nor want the pity of the beast who made it so.”

  Ouch.

  Then she says: “I denounce you. There are no witnesses, and I will not shame my husband further by insisting on their presence. But all the same, I denounce you. The bonds between us are broken. In our bed, in our home, and at our door. I denounce you. Now go. Leave me to my grief, lest I be tempted to drown you in it.”

  Nanna’s shoulders shake, fingers tracing a woven image of Baldr, rising bright and shining over Ásgarðr. Dreams for a future, now stained by the little dark circles that freckle across the wool.

  I leave Nanna to her sorrow. There are only so many hearts I can break in a single day.

  I don’t return to Sigmund immediately. Instead, I wander the corridors of Forseti’s hall until I find a familiar, hunched-shouldered shape.

  He tenses when he hears my claws clicking over stone, brows furrowing over eyes as blind and milky as my own.

  “There is nothing you can say that I would hear, bringer of my brother’s death.”

  Höðr’s never likely to let that one go. I suppose I can’t really blame him.

  “Good,” I say. “So don’t. But you might want to go listen to Nanna. I think she could use a sympathetic ear right now.”

  There’s another story, about Baldr’s death. This one doesn’t feature Loki. It doesn’t have to; the brothers fighting over Nanna’s attentions is enough drama as is it.

  For every old and retold lie, there’s a place it can be true.

  I leave before Höðr can process the statement, then hear his angry shouting follow me down the hall. He’ll go to Nanna and maybe she’ll turn him out and maybe she won’t. Once upon a time, she made a choice. Now, she has an eternity to make another.

  Or not, I guess. Up to her. But her husband isn’t getting any deader, as it were. And, for Vikings, at least, it’s considered a widow’s right to remarry out of love, not politics.

  Mjölnir’s back in Ásgarðr, peace is brewing across the Realms. Outside, on the plain, dead men reunite with families they haven’t seen for centuries, tears in their eyes and love breaking their hearts. Under a mountain, a man slowly learns that horns and claws aren’t what makes someone a monster. In a forest, an army dares to hope an ancient foe can learn to keep a truce.

  Somewhere nearby, another man feels the stain of his grandfather’s greed, reaching through the ages.
Even closer, his family conspires to keep him from it.

  There’s a lot of change on the horizon.

  Me? I’m not here to see it through. I’m the boil and the lance, not the six weeks of antibiotics and daily bandage changes.

  I’m gone from Ásgarðr before anyone really notices, my car waiting for me on the grass just outside the Wall. I get the feeling this is the last time I’m going to see it.

  Em and Wayne pile in the back, Sigmund sits in the front. I hold his hand over the parking break and don’t let go.

  Everyone makes a choice. This one’s mine.

  Always.

  Glossary

  Aldershot: A prestigious suburb in Pandemonium City. Home to fine dining and the mansion of Travis Cameron Hale.

  Álfheimr: The land of the ljósálfar.

  alu: A rune-spell, invoking protection.

  Alvíss: A dvergr. Despite his name meaning all-wise, he lost a battle of wits to Thor.

  Arin, Nicole Anne: The Wisdom of Crowds and the Spirit of the Information Age. Found by Travis Hale in an early circuit board as a nascent god, she’s now the Senior Vice President of LB.

  Asbrú: Literally gods’ bridge. Another name for the Bifröst.

  Ásgarðr: The home of the Norse gods, or æsir. Sort of a bit like a cleaner, more magical version of tenth-century continental Europe or, alternately, every generic fantasy novel setting ever.

  áss (pl. æsir): The Old Norse gods.

  ásynja (pl. ásynjur): A female áss.

  Baldr: Son of the Norse god Odin, Baldr was destined to rule Ásgarðr after the events of Ragnarøkkr. Thanks to some meddling by Sigyn, that didn’t happen. Not exactly dead, and that’s exactly the problem.

  Bifröst: The bridge between the word of gods, Ásgarðr, and the world of mortals, Miðgarðr. Represented as a rainbow, and in a state of disarray after the Ragnarøkkr.

  Bilskirnir: The hall of Thor.

  Bleed: An area under the influence of a powerful god or object, and named after said influencer, e.g., Helbleed, Thorbleed. Often used to refer to places where the world of gods touches the mortal world, but in theory these can occur anywhere.