Runelight

by Joanne Harris

  ‘We’ll need the Three Horses to do the work,’ shouted Perth over the noise. ‘Nan, we’ll need you there …’ He gestured to a point at the foot of the Bridge. ‘Maddy, there’ – at the far end – ‘and I’ll be up there with Sleipnir, pulling it together …’ He pointed upwards, and Maddy thought she’d never seen him look happier. The End of the Worlds was upon them, the maw of Chaos was opening, and the General was immersed in a plan that seemed, at best, rudimentary.

  Still, what choice did they have now? Looking down at World’s End, Maddy saw that the cathedral was almost in shadow. She tried not to wonder what her sister might be doing. She jumped back onto Jormungand – who was just sucking the tail end of a snake into the side of his mouth – and manoeuvred him into position. Nan and Perth remounted, and suddenly Maddy could see what the General was aiming for.

  Now Treachery and Carnage ride with Lunacy across the sky …

  And now she could see the light from World’s End, no longer a column, but a skein; a skein that was woven from hundreds of runes – hundreds, maybe thousands … maybe even tens of thousands of them, feeding up into the sky from the Kissing Stone of St Sepulchre. Maggie had released that glam; glam that spooled into the sky like yarn.

  Perth and Nan were in place too – Nan turning the Sun Shield as if it were a spinning wheel; Sleipnir in his Aspect with his spidery legs spanning eight Worlds and spinning, spinning the skein of runelight into shapes that Maddy could almost recognize – starry, elegant, spiderweb shapes that hung against the darkening sky like the strands of a necklace.

  And in the strands there were hundreds of runes; binding together, making links, reflecting each other, connecting too fast for the eye to follow, knitting together the fabric of Worlds into a blaze of colours and glam.

  Gods, thought Maddy. It’s beautiful …

  Of course, she had never seen Odin unleashed, in his primary Aspect. She’d never even considered the gods as anything but a spent force. Now she began to understand everything the Æsir had lost; everything they were fighting for. In Asgard, their Aspects would be complete, their powers restored to what they had been. Who would turn away from the chance to wield that kind of power again? To shine so brightly? To be a god?

  Nan too was hard at work. Maddy didn’t really see why the Horse whose Rider was Lunacy should prefer to adopt the Aspect of an old washing basket rather than something more impressive, but Crazy Nan seemed happy enough as she darted around the Sun Shield, flitting and shuttling to and fro between the strands of runelight. The web gained substance each time she passed; Maddy could hear her laughing.

  ‘Cat’s cradle!’ yelled Nan. ‘We’re making a cat’s cradle!’

  Then she aimed straight for the shadowcloud—

  ‘Nan! No!’ Maddy cried.

  But it was already too late – the Horse of Air and Crazy Nan had disappeared into shadow. Maddy stared at the cloud in dismay.

  ‘Now, Maddy!’ Perth called across the cat’s cradle of runelight. ‘Now, Maddy, for gods’ sakes, dream!’

  Below, the light from the Kissing Stone was finally beginning to fail. The shadowcloud had reached it at last; a wedge of darkness lay at its base. The runes that had shone so brightly now began to go out, one by one. And as they did so, the Rainbow Bridge also began to unravel and fade, its far end sinking into the cloud. At the same time the Sun Shield was darkening at the edge; once it was eclipsed, Maddy knew, the Bridge would hold no longer.

  ‘Dream, Maddy! Dream for your life!’ The General’s voice was urgent.

  Maddy opened her mouth to say that she had no idea what she had to do – she was only a girl from the Northlands …

  But dream? That she could do. She had dreamed for most of her young life, while people like Nat Parson had warned her of its dangers. Now she could see those dangers for herself, coming out of the shadowcloud. The wave of snakes had given way to a more generalized assault as the cloud continued its slow collapse over the Bridge and its guardians.

  Now the whole of Dream laid siege to the fragment of rainbow. There were war machines with teeth of flame, spiders as big as houses; there were columns of faceless soldiers and armies of the walking dead, mechanical skinning devices and carrion birds with human faces; there were dreams of drowning, dreams of dismemberment, dreams of being helpless and hungry and old, dreams of forgetfulness, dreams of the past; and, of course, there were dreams of the dead.

  For Thor, the enemy was Old Age; for Njörd it was snow and ice; for Skadi it was drowning; for Loki it was more snakes. And behind it all, the beating of wings: something was approaching. A black bird shadow with feathers of flame, bringing silence in its wake.

  Maddy saw only fragments as she urged the Serpent towards the cloud. There was no time to fear for her friends, or to intervene in their struggles. She saw now what Perth meant to do, and she understood that time was short. The rainbow was only a temporary bridge, a bridge that might soon be swept away. And when the ’bow breaks, the Cradle will fall – which meant that if, by the time it fell, the Citadel was incomplete …

  She dug her heels into Jorgi’s flanks. The cloud was only seconds away. The motherlode of Dream; the heart of everything ephemeral. But dreams had never failed her yet, Maddy Smith told herself. And nothing dreamed is ever lost …

  Dream for your life, Perth had said.

  She dived headlong into the cloud.

  She closed her eyes as she reached it, half expecting an impact; but Jorgi was used to moving through Worlds, and the shadow parted to let them through like a whispering curtain of black lace.

  FROM THE RUINS of World’s End, Maggie Rede was watching the sky. She was in a rubble-filled alleyway on the brighter side of the cathedral, from which she could watch events as they unfurled. The shadowcloud had bisected the square as neatly as an apple – half a cathedral, half an arch, half a marble fountain, its jets still gushing merrily from half a hundred cherubs’ mouths …

  At the meeting of light and dark, the column of glam from the Kissing Stone spooled up into the turbulent sky to make an intricate latticework, radiant as northlights.

  Without a doubt, it was beautiful; and yet Maggie hated it. That was the Cradle of the gods. The reason for which Adam had died. When complete, it would become the Sky Citadel of the Æsir; the stronghold of the Firefolk.

  Now Maggie could see why Folk had called it the Cradle. She’d made such cradles herself once, in the days before the Bliss. Cats’ cradles, the old folk called them; and Maggie remembered her mother and brothers showing her how to hold the silk – just so, between her fingers – and to make those intricate patterns like a spider spinning thread …

  Tears would have been a relief; but she touched her eyes and found them dry. No matter – that would come later. Even revenge would have to wait. For now, she had to protect her child.

  She looked down at her bleeding palm, where Maddy’s rune had cut her. She pulled off what was left of her bergha – little more than a rag now – and wadded it tight against the cut. The runemark Ác at the nape of her neck itched and burned like an insect bite. Maggie flexed her fingers. Good. The damage was insignificant.

  She turned her eyes to her immediate surroundings. The streets at her back were deserted; facing her was a wall of cloud. For all she knew, she might be the only person left alive; the blast of glam from the Kissing Stone had dispatched everyone inside the cathedral, and there was nothing to indicate whether or not the whole of World’s End had met with the same fate.

  But Maggie was used to being alone. The catacombs under the old University could serve once more as a refuge against whatever came out of the shadowcloud. There was food down there, and shelter, and books; she could seal the entrance with runes, and after the cloud had passed (as it certainly would) there would be time to plan her revenge.

  Once more she glanced up at the Cradle, then turned her back on the shadowcloud. The University wasn’t far; she could make it in less than five minutes. After that, the Worlds could end
as far as Maggie Rede was concerned; she and her unborn child would be safe, cocooned underground and swaddled in glam.

  And then Maggie began to run as the shadow fell onto the Kissing Stone, and the Sun Shield was cut to a paring of light, and the Rainbow Bridge began to give way, sending fragments of prismic light cascading down onto World’s End.

  MADDY HAD TRAVELLED through Dream before. First in Hel, five years ago; more recently with Jormungand. She thought she knew the rules – even hoped that she might have built up a tolerance. But as she entered the shadowcloud, she knew what a foolish hope that had been. Dream had no rules, no allies, no laws. Dream was Disorder incarnate.

  Loki had once described Netherworld as drowning in a sea of lost dreams. That’s what it felt like to Maddy now, as she and Jorgi plunged deeper into the dark heart of the shadowcloud.

  Here, Maddy looked for the dreams that had given her comfort in troubled times. Dreams of far places, of oceans and islands; dreams of tables piled with food; of demons and Faërie; of warriors and kings; of animals and talking birds. Dreams of flying; dreams of ships; dreams of distant continents. But here, in the heart of the shadowcloud, the sweet dreams of her childhood seemed nothing but fragments lost in time, flashes from a distant past.

  Here instead were her childhood fears: the fear of failure, of drowning, of wolves; the fear of being alone at night with the bare trees tapping against the window and the moonlight shining onto the floor. Here too was the cold sweat of nightmare; here were monsters of all kinds; and here was the truth at the heart of it all – the fear of loss, the death of a friend, the fear of the dark, the awareness of death.

  Dream for your life, Perth had said.

  But Maddy had no idea where to start. What am I even looking for? she asked herself in growing despair. There’s nothing here but darkness …

  And then came Crazy Nan’s voice: Nothing dreamed is ever lost – and suddenly it came to her. It was obvious, she told herself. It didn’t have to be like this. Nothing was lost for ever. What was broken could be rebuilt; what was impossible could be achieved. The dead could be remembered; the fallen could be raised anew. And out of the darkness …

  Let there be light!

  And suddenly, for Maddy, there was.

  There was her father, Jed Smith, when Maddy was a little girl. She remembered his forge, and the light at its heart; the way she had watched as her father twisted and turned and folded the steel and hammered it into intricate shapes. There was her sister Mae, playing with her dolls on the green; and One-Eye, her old teacher and friend, known to some as Allfather.

  There was Crazy Nan Fey, with her cats and her stories. And then there was Malbry; the valley; the green; the river with its little boats; the pastures high in the mountains; the sunlight on the winter snow; the smell of hay at Harvestmonth; the first ray of sunshine over the Hindarfell after three whole months of darkness.

  This was where Maddy’s dreams had begun: in Malbry, under Red Horse Hill. And this, she finally understood, was what Crazy Nan had meant. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes and tried to hold onto what she had found. Then she kicked her heels into Jormungand’s flanks and spurred him back towards the Bridge. And as they emerged from the shadowcloud, she summoned the dream with all her glam and flung it at the Sun Shield at the heart of the Cradle, so that all the force of Aesk, the Ash, and Iar, the Builder, and Perth, the Gambler, held it suspended in runelight like a droplet on a spider’s web; a fragment of World above the Worlds.

  Gods! thought Maddy. It’s beautiful …

  Had the General planned all this? Had he foreseen this moment? Had he intended from the start to draw out the forces of Chaos, so that when the time came, he and his friends could use the enemy’s own power – the infinite power of Dream – to build the Cradle of the gods in time to ward off their attack? Had he known it would work this way? Or had he simply played the odds and made up the plot as he went along?

  But there was no time for questions now. The Rainbow Bridge was already half gone, and the signatures that flared along its diminishing arc were fading and exhausted. Maddy tried not to look, but even at a cursory glance she could tell that the gods were in a bad way: exhausted, outnumbered, bleeding from wounds that Idun had no time to heal.

  Thor, with Mjølnir, still kept clear the threshold of the Bridge; Loki, in his Wildfire Aspect, holding the parapet to his left, with Hawk-Eyed Heimdall keeping watch. Frey and Freyja held the right; Bragi played a triumphal march; Njörd and Skadi fought side by side as a pair of giant eagles, their wings scorched by ephemera.

  Tyr’s glamorous left arm still ripped and flailed into the shadowcloud, but his right arm was useless, his glam almost out. As Maddy plunged once more into Dream, he stumbled and fell to one knee; the Bridge rocked; the Sun Shield flickered; the Fenris Wolf came up behind him to take his place against the advancing enemy …

  Now Maddy was working at desperate speed, plunging in and out of Dream like a shuttle on a weaving loom. Crazy Nan was doing the same, casting glamours at the sky. And out of the glamours, the First World slowly began to take shape. It looked like no kind of citadel Maddy Smith had ever seen; there was nothing yet to connect it all. Here she recognized a lake in the mountains by Farnley Tyas. There was the Hall of the Sleepers with its hanging ceiling of stalactites. Here was a cottage with hollyhocks around the door – Nan’s old house, Maddy realized, with her cats on the doorstep. There was Malbry church – and the docks where Perth had had his lodgings. There was the cathedral of St Sepulchre with its glass dome and marble floor. Here was Jed Smith’s workshop. Here was the smell of bluebells in spring, and the sound of curlews in summer. Here were fields of barley, and goats high up in the summer pastures. And there – right there – was Red Horse Hill, with the rabbit-tail grass growing down one side and the Red Horse cut into the clay just as if nothing had happened at all …

  And then everyone heard it: a beating of wings in the shadowcloud like the beating of a giant heart.

  Surt, the Destroyer, was there at last.

  Maddy heard the sound and stopped, half in, half out of Dream.

  Heimdall saw it coming, and swore.

  Skadi heard it, and spread her wings.

  Sigyn heard it, and took Loki’s hand.

  Bragi heard it, and began to play a deathsong to its pounding rhythm.

  Angrboda heard it, and smiled, and said to the three demon wolves at her side: ‘Now’s the time, boys. Make Ma proud.’

  Brave-Hearted Tyr heard, and looked across at the Fenris Wolf …

  Ethel heard it and closed her eyes …

  Loki heard it, and thought: Here goes …

  The General heard it, and knew it was time.

  ‘Dream! All of you! DREAM!’ he roared, and his voice was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of beating wings. Everyone heard the order; and Æsir and Vanir moved to obey – even Heimdall and Skadi, whose loyalty to Odin had suffered more than one blow over the years since Ragnarók.

  Even Loki obeyed the command, shifting to his falcon Aspect and plunging headlong into Dream as the last of the glam from the Kissing Stone died and the wave of shadow finally broke, smashing through the Rainbow Bridge, toppling the Sun Shield into the maw of darkness.

  ‘Dream like you’ve never dreamed before!’ thundered the voice of Allfather. No time to explain it further; no more time to hold the Bridge. It had been a desperate game – and for very high stakes, he knew that. An attempt to use the power of Dream against the forces of Chaos; and in one single move to re-establish the balance of Worlds, raise Asgard, reinstate the gods and send the pendulum hurtling back, with Order in its place again.

  But if the Destroyer broke through the cloud, then the game was over. And it was going to be very close – they were out of time, the Bridge was lost, and Asgard, the fortress in which they appeared in their true, most powerful Aspects, was still some distance from completion. Which meant that as soon as the Bridge was gone, they would have to face the enem
y in human Aspect – runemarks reversed – and Surt would wipe them out for good with a single beat of his flame-edged wing.

  ‘DREAM!’ Odin raged for the last time, seeing the broken Bridge give way. The Vanir – Heimdall, Skadi and Njörd, Frey and Freyja, Bragi and Idun – all shifted to bird form and scattered into the dreamcloud. Shards of runelight flashed from the cloud; but in the confusion no one could see how much of Asgard remained to be built. Was it just a castle in the air, or could it be a Citadel?

  Below him, Thor, with Mjølnir in hand, was trying to keep his footing on what was left of the broken Bridge. Thor was no dreamer, but he understood the urgency of the General’s command. He tried to summon Asgard from the cloud of ephemera, but all he could think of was Sif, his wife, sitting in front of her looking glass, combing out her golden hair …

  Sif was faring a little better. Interior furnishings had always been more important to her than to Thor, and she had had five years to plan the design of her hall in Asgard. Rugs, columns, tapestries, marble floors and gilded chairs, four-post beds and cages of doves all took shape with the speed of Dream as Bright-Haired Sif summoned them out of the cloud.

  Loki was in a quandary. The snake-woman sent to kill him, that first day on Red Horse Hill, had prophesied that he would have no hall in the new Asgard. Now Loki’s mistrust of oracles was starting to verge on the paranoid, but from the start he’d taken this to mean that either the gods would refuse him entry to the new Sky Citadel, or that he would fall in battle before it was completed. Neither option appealed to him much, and now he was faced with a difficult choice – that of dreaming Asgard in place without any guarantee that he would benefit, or cutting his losses, saving his glam and making a dash for the open sky.

  Only the Wedlock stood in his way, but while Sigyn was working, he thought that, in Aspect, he might have a chance.

  He narrowed his eyes and focused his glam on Eh. It gleamed on his middle finger, a narrow golden band of light. Slyly the Trickster fingered a rune; it was Tyr, and its blade was small but sharp.