Runelight

by Joanne Harris

  ‘There, old friend. It’s all right.’ Perth’s voice seemed to have a calming effect, and he was able to free the Red Horse and lead him by his bridle to where Maddy was already waiting.

  Anyone else might been deceived by Sleipnir’s humble Aspect; but the runelight that surrounded him was quick to reveal his nature. Even without the rune Bjarkán Maddy had always known Odin’s Horse, and she was amazed at how easily Perth now managed to handle him.

  ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘That’s no common Horse.’

  Perth shrugged. ‘I’m good with horses.’

  The fishmonger, who had watched all this in growing alarm and bewilderment, opened his mouth like a landed trout as the Red Horse assumed his true Aspect, his legs becoming spidery, his mane a spray of coloured lights.

  ‘What about me fish?’ he said, clinging in desperation to the only reality he knew.

  ‘Sorry. There’s no time for that,’ said Perth, getting onto Sleipnir’s back. ‘Now I can only suggest you run. As far and as fast as you possibly can.’

  ‘Perth …?’ said Maddy uncertainly.

  Perth looked down at her and grinned. And perhaps it was that grin, she thought – or the wink that accompanied it, or the Horse – but at that moment he reminded her so much of the One-Eye of her childhood that she almost forgot to breathe. She said: ‘You’re the Rider of Carnage?’

  Perth shrugged. ‘Who else?’

  ‘But Sleipnir belongs to—’

  ‘Grim,’ said Perth, and looked beyond her at the sky.

  And then there came an almighty crash as the sky split open and something appeared against the mass of approaching cloud. A rainbow, but so much brighter than any rainbow Maddy had ever seen, and in its band of colours she saw the signatures of the Æsir and the Vanir in their original Aspects, riding the sky as if Ragnarók had never even happened.

  ‘Blimey,’ said the fishmonger, and promptly followed Perth’s advice. In seconds he had disappeared, leaving Maddy still staring at her friend, now looking very much at ease astride the Red Horse of Carnage.

  ‘What the Hel?’ said Maddy to Perth. ‘And how do you even know that name?’

  Perth sighed. ‘I may be experiencing a few … adjustment difficulties, but I do remember my names,’ he said. ‘And besides, if you’d done as you were told, we wouldn’t have to deal with all this.’

  Maddy’s eyes grew wide. ‘What?’

  ‘I guess I should have known,’ he said. ‘Your record’s hardly unblemished when it comes to following orders.’

  Maddy continued to stare at Perth. She found that in spite of everything that was happening around her, she could not take her eyes off him.

  She cast the rune Bjarkán and saw, entwined in his rose-red signature, a skein of brilliant kingfisher-blue that she would have recognized anywhere.

  Perth’s grin broadened a notch. Now it looked as wide as a road. His blue eyes gleamed with wicked humour, and this time there could be no doubt: his features might belong to Perth, but that smile belonged to Odin.

  ‘Odin? It can’t be. You were dead …’

  Perth shrugged. ‘It’s happened before. Why else do you think I have so many names? Aspects come, Aspects go – this time I was lucky enough to find an Aspect that suited me, and with a brand-new runemark, just when I happened to need it most …’

  For a moment Maddy was torn between joy and speechless horror. Joy that Odin had survived – but at what price? Perth was her friend. If Odin possessed him against his will, then he was no better than the Whisperer. And though Maddy’s affection for One-Eye ran deep, she sensed that he was capable of worse things than helping himself to another person’s body if his own happened to be unavailable.

  ‘What about Perth?’ she demanded.

  Sarcastically: ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘How did you even get in there?’

  Perth – or was it Odin? – shrugged. ‘How do you think I got in?’ he said. ‘The usual way. Dreams, of course. The slave dreams of being master.’ He looked at Maddy. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Did you think I’d enslaved your friend? Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

  Once more he glanced at the view overhead. The rainbow was spectacular – a double arc of runelight with the Sun Shield on its brow. Beyond it, the bank of cloud still approached, stitched through with points of lightning.

  ‘Maddy,’ he said, ‘Perth isn’t gone, any more than Ethel Parson or any of the others are gone. Ethel gave the Seeress her runemark and her name. No one can do that against their will. Perth and I have been linked for years in Dream – you even sensed me once. Remember the very first time we met? You thought you saw something in my signature. You thought I looked familiar …’

  ‘I thought you looked like Loki,’ she said.

  ‘We’re brothers,’ said Perth. ‘What did you expect?’

  Maddy gave a long sigh. ‘Please. Tell me what happened,’ she said.

  ‘What, now?’ Perth looked at the sky. ‘Is this really the time, do you think?’

  ‘I need to know,’ Maddy said. ‘I need to know who you really are.’

  ‘Always with the questions,’ said Perth. ‘Well, I was trapped in that damned Head. Trapped and floating around in Dream. And so I sent you to find me. We both know how that worked out. There was a little unpleasantness, during which I was briefly reacquainted with my old friend Mimir the Wise. Your sister Maggie tortured me. She’s very like you, by the way. Nice girl, if highly strung. She made me give her the New Script. I issued my instructions to you – which you ignored, as per usual. Then I sent Hugin and Munin to find Perth and bring him to me. After which – you know the rest.’

  ‘But what about my sister?’ said Maddy. ‘You said – Perth said—’

  ‘Your sister found the Head just as you did,’ said Perth, a trifle impatiently. ‘I imagine the discovery led her to jump to the same conclusion. In any case, she never guessed that I’d simply vacated the premises for something a little more comfortable. And now for the final chapter. I’m assuming you’ve studied the prophecy?’

  Sleipnir responded by shaking his mane and pawing the ground frantically. Jorgi, who until then had been calm, now seemed to respond to Sleipnir, blowing through his nostrils and shaking his mane of runelight. Maddy put a soothing hand on his flank, just as Hughie and Mandy, who had been following Jormungand at a distance, came in to land in Cathedral Square.

  ‘General!’ said Hughie to Perth.

  Kaik, said Mandy. Kaik. Kaik.

  Perth put a hand in his pocket and came up with a Fat Boy. He tossed it to Mandy, who caught it, then he looked down at Maddy again. ‘Maddy, please. Just get on your Horse.’

  Kaik.

  ‘Do it, Maddy,’ he said.

  Maddy obeyed. ‘What’s going on?’ she said plaintively, trying to calm the Horse of the Sea, who, sensing her agitation, was growling and shaking his slimy mane, showing his appalling teeth.

  ‘Tribulation,’ Hughie said.

  ‘Kaik,’ said Mandy happily.

  ‘We don’t have time to discuss it,’ said Perth. ‘The enemy is on the way. The rest of the gods – if they made it this far – are about to come up against Chaos itself – Dream in its purest, most deadly form – so for the moment let’s just assume that I know what I’m doing, shall we?’

  ‘And do you?’ said Maddy.

  ‘No,’ said Perth.

  After which no one said anything much, because that was when Maggie kissed the Stone, the Gødfolk arrived, and all Hel broke loose.

  ‘WHAT IN HEL is going on?’ yelled Loki, clinging onto the Bridge, while attempting to dislodge Njörd from his back. ‘I appreciate the gesture, Njörd, but if you could just get your claws out of me …’

  But as he spoke, the Man of the Sea had already regained his Aspect. His true Aspect, runemark intact, and clothed in the traditional garb – blue scale tunic and harpoon – in which the Folk had always pictured him.

  ‘That’s going to leave a mark,’ Loki said, peeri
ng at his shoulder; then, looking down at himself and back across at his colleagues, he grinned. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh yes.’

  Dream, of course, has no physical laws. Anything is possible. In Dream the ravages of Time, even of Death, can be reversed. And Bif-rost was a thing of dreams, born of the rift from Red Horse Hill, bearing the party of demons and gods at phenomenal speed out of Hel’s domain.

  Now all of them were just like Njörd: runes unreversed, unblemished, young. Clad in their age-old Aspects once more – the Reaper with his gleaming sword; the Huntress with her runewhip; Thor with Mjølnir in his hand; Freyja shining like the sun. Ethel was no longer drab. Nan Fey was no longer old. Sif (who was no longer dumpy) was radiant with happiness; Bragi’s guitar was back in tune; even Idun, who was not usually moved by ordinary events, looked more focused than usual, flinging handfuls of flowers in the wake of the speeding rainbow.

  Tyr, in his Aspect as god of war, was fully armoured in red and gold, and the hand that Fenris had bitten off, back in the days of the Elder Age, was now a mindweapon in its own right, a glamorous gauntlet of runic power that hissed and sizzled with energy.

  Angrboda, whose nature as a child of Chaos permitted her to take any form she chose, was much the same as she always was; but Fenris, Skull and Big H had taken to their wolf forms. Bigger and badder than ever in Dream, there was nothing clumsy about them now; nothing remotely amusing. Their teeth were as long as a man’s forearm, their fur was electric with runelight. Tyr, who, though taller than usual, still had Sugar’s cautious approach, took several steps backwards on seeing them and almost fell off the Rainbow Bridge.

  The best part, from Loki’s perspective, was that he was no longer a prisoner. The fine gold chain that bound his wrist had vanished, though the Wedlock remained, now in the form of a simple gold ring that shone from his middle finger, and that no amount of twisting could remove.

  Sigyn was standing by his side, dressed in sensible green and grey, the runemark Eh gleaming from her brow. In this Aspect she was beautiful, and Loki found himself vaguely surprised that he had never noticed it before.

  He tried a single cantrip. His runemark gave a burst of glam, and a corresponding stream of light shot out like a flare in their wake.

  ‘I like it!’ he said, grinning again. ‘If I’m going to die today, the least I can do is look fabulous while I’m doing it.’

  Ethel gave him a quelling look. ‘Save your glam,’ she advised him. ‘We’re going to need every spark of it.’

  Loki squinted at the black cloud still following them out of Hel. ‘Right. I get the point,’ he said. ‘So – where are we going, exactly?’

  ‘We’re going to fulfil my prophecy. So far I think it’s been reasonably clear—’

  ‘Clear?’ said Loki. ‘Clear how?’

  Ethel gave him a mischievous smile. ‘How does it feel to be kept in the dark?’

  Loki made a rude gesture.

  ‘Be nice and she’ll tell you,’ Sigyn said.

  ‘All right, all right.’

  Once more Ethel smiled. ‘I see a mighty Ash that stands beside a mighty Oak tree. We already know who the Ash is, of course, and very soon we’ll be meeting the Oak. Both are instrumental in the rebuilding of Asgard. I see a Rainbow riding high; of cheating Death the legacy. That part, as I’m sure you know, refers to recent events in Hel.’

  Loki scowled. ‘That much, at least, was very clear,’ he said in a tone of exaggerated politeness. ‘I was the bait with which you planned to lure Hel into breaking her oath, which in its turn would release Dream into the Worlds in full force – with which force I’m assuming you – presumably, with the General’s help – propose to rebuild Asgard. Nice’ – he gave her a dark look – ‘if a little … risky.’

  Loki silently promised himself that if he ever saw the General again, Odin would get a piece of his mind. This was twice that the General had colluded with a stratagem that involved handing Loki over to his enemies just before Ragnarók. Neither occasion had been pleasant. And if past history was anything to go by, the next twenty-four hours would probably end in the death of the gods, the End of the Worlds and a great deal of unnecessary noise. Right now the Trickster felt that what he really needed most was a dose of peace and harmony, preferably on an island somewhere, with hammocks and lots of pretty girls.

  Ethel went on with the prophecy: ‘But Treachery and Carnage ride with Lunacy across the sky. And when the ’bow breaks, the Cradle will fall—’

  ‘Which I don’t like the sound of at all,’ Loki said. ‘So if you could maybe drop me off before all the treachery and carnage begin—’

  ‘Too late,’ said Ethel, not without sympathy. ‘Tribulation has already begun. We have no choice but to stand and fight, and to hope that the General’s plan works out.’

  ‘The General’s plan … I thought as much.’

  There was a long and ominous pause as the Trickster reassessed events. He should have known, he told himself, that he wouldn’t escape so easily. He hoped that when the General finally made his appearance, his current Aspect would at least turn out to be something unappealing – a pig, a disembodied Head, or perhaps a toothless old woman. That would be payback, Loki thought. That might make them about square.

  Around them, the scenery blurred and spun and finally stopped moving as the Bridge across the Firmament, which spans all Worlds at the speed of Dream, settled itself into position in the sky above the cathedral, once known as the Cradle of the gods, and now the site of the End of the Worlds or, as the Folk called it, Apocalypse.

  ‘Apocalypse,’ said Loki at last. ‘What kind of a word is that, anyway?’

  The End of the World always starts with a kiss.

  Lokabrenna, 19:12

  FOR A MOMENT Maggie was stunned by the sheer size and splendour of the cathedral. The famous glass dome, which from outside looked like a dish-cover made of tarnished brass, was as different from the inside as she could ever have imagined. The sunlight streamed in from the ceiling through a thousand – ten thousand – panes of cut glass, cleverly angled to catch the light at every conceivable time of day. Maggie had never seen diamonds, but if she had she might have been reminded of a giant multi-faceted gem that scattered light over the walls and arches and pillars and floors of the great cathedral, making it a place of light even on the dullest of days.

  Today it was especially radiant, every pane shooting prisms and rainbows, so that Adam, in his white suit, was a harlequin of reds and greens, and Maggie, who was not often given to levity, laughed out loud in delight as she saw the solemn cathedral lit up like a magic-lantern show.

  The place was almost empty. No guests had been invited, of course, and Adam had paid a premium for the cathedral to be closed for the fifteen minutes of the ceremony. Only the folk who worked the organ and a few cathedral staff – the Confessor in his wooden box, the Shriver with his long black gloves, and the Steward with his pouch and bell – joined the Bishop as witnesses.

  The Machina Brava, an organ so large that it needed five men to play it, dated back almost to Tribulation, and Maggie watched with curiosity as the great pipes – each one as tall as a tree and carved with runes from head to foot – began to shiver and resonate as the machinists plied the levers and wheels that would coax the Machina Brava to life.

  The organ emitted a squealing sound, then a series of belches. It was an ancient, temperamental thing, but when it finally found its voice it was like nothing Maggie had ever heard before. It was like a forest of trees given voice; like the sea; like voices from the dead. It awed her; and it was with a new timidity that she stepped up with Adam to the Kissing Stone, where the Bishop was waiting to bless them both.

  Her veil caught on the buckle of one of her shoes. She struggled to release it. She was suddenly filled with a sense of panic, an urgency to have it done; for everything to be over.

  The Bishop spoke. ‘We are gathered here today to unite two young folk in wedlock. Adam Goodwin and Maggie Rede – take your places bef
ore the Stone.’

  Adam and Maggie exchanged a look. Maggie tried to smile. Soon it would be over, she thought. Soon she and Adam would be free to begin their new life together, as one.

  Mimir the Wise had been waiting for this since long before Tribulation. His plans had been thwarted once before, but his giant ambition had never waned. Now the moment had almost come when Mimir the Wise would take his place among the ranks of the Æsir; the culmination of five hundred years of hate and thwarted ambition – his enemies vanquished, his kingdom rebuilt, himself reborn as Allfather.

  And all this with a single kiss …

  The Kissing Stone of St Sepulchre was larger than Maggie had expected. A piece of black volcanic rock, five feet thick and twelve feet high, and inscribed, like the pipes of the organ, with runes that ran up and down its surface like neat little columns of ants, too small for Maggie to decipher. On the near surface, a smoother patch marked the spot that had earned the Kissing Stone its name: for five hundred years pilgrims and penitents, brides and grooms had kissed the place in which a mark – like a stone kiss – had been cut deeply into the rock.

  And now the Bishop read aloud the ancient wedding canticle. Maggie and Adam repeated the words – Adam’s voice trembling a little, Maggie’s clear and confident:

  ‘My hand to your hand,

  My soul to your soul …’

  Of course, it had never occurred to Maggie that, like everything in the Good Book, that simple little canticle might be a thing of power. To Maggie, it was just a tradition, like the brideys and the wedding dress. The Whisperer knew better, of course, and its fierce old heart rejoiced.

  ‘My name to your name,

  For ever, we are one.’

  ‘Now you may kiss the Stone,’ said the Bishop, a middle-aged, ambitious man, who, like the Shriver, the Confessor, the Steward and the five machinists, now had only seconds to live.

  Maggie knelt to kiss the Stone. It felt curiously warm to her touch, as of some vestige of heat remained from the long-dead fires of its creation. There was a kind of vibration too; and a hum like that of a hive of bees, which moved up through her fingertips and set her heart a-fluttering.