by Alane Adams
Sigel, light of the sun.
Odin was taunting him. But Sam was determined not to be distracted. He threw his hands at the ceiling, wiping out the mark with a blast of energy, leaving a black smoke scar in its place.
Only one way led out of the chamber. A narrow opening that slanted downward. Sam strode toward it confidently. He picked his way over rocks, sliding down steep banks, descending farther and farther into this lightless hole Odin had cast him in. His armor was heavy, constricting his movements. He found himself cursing it time and again, even though it had surely saved him in his fall from the Yggdrasil tree.
He considered giving up, sitting down and waiting out Odin, but every second that ticked past was dangerous for his friends. After several long hours, he wondered if there was an escape. What if Odin knew why Sam had come and sent him here to wander in eternity? To die of madness? If that was the case, then why did he let Sam climb the tree just to be ignored by the eagle? No, Odin clearly had a plan.
He has plans within plans, Sam reasoned. And he must know I’m here to demand answers.
As he kept walking, drops of brackish water fell, hitting his head, rolling down his back. Each one felt like it was personally sent to annoy him. He grew angrier as the corridor got shorter, and dripping water continued unabated. Soon he was crouching down, his armor scraping the ceiling as he crawled on hands and knees to find an exit.
Frustration simmered in every fiber of his body. He would like nothing more than to blow the entire mountain of rock around him to pieces. What would it take to be released? What did Odin want from him before he would grant Sam an audience? He pushed on, more determined than ever to beat Odin at his game. As the tunnel narrowed to fit his body, his breathing grew labored, as if the oxygen was being squeezed out. The light that he carried dimmed, growing smaller until it extinguished with a gasp. Or maybe it was he who gasped at the impenetrable darkness.
The walls pressed in on every side. It was like being in the belly of Odin’s snake, suffocating and narrow. Sam pulled himself forward, sliding along the cold slimy floor, gritting out each inch that he made until at last he came to solid wall. He scrab-bled with his hands, searching for an exit.
The tunnel was a dead end.
He collapsed, resting his head on the unfeeling stone. Drip after drip hit his head, but he didn’t care. This was it. He had failed in his mission. He was too tired to go back the way he had come. His breath came in gasps, sucking in the few molecules of oxygen left. Odin had sent him to his death. He could hear Catriona’s drumming disappointment in him, her doubts in his powers clawing at his skin like sharpened nails, and he couldn’t stand it. Raising his head, he put his hand before him, shouting out one last time, “Mordera tentera.”
A flash of purple-tinged witchfire stronger than he expected hit the stone wall, shattering it in a spray of gravel. Sam tumbled through an opening onto hard stone. Picking himself up, he dragged in a deep breath, grateful for the fresh supply of oxygen. Calling up his light, he held up his hand. The light cast long shadows.
The cavern looked strangely familiar. Looking up, Sam saw the scar in the ceiling where he had blasted the rune symbol countless hours ago. He howled in rage. He was back where he had started.
Sam was scraped, cut, and bruised, and he had gone nowhere. He wanted to pummel his head against the stone. He wanted to plunge that evil dagger in Odin’s miserable heart and get it over with. Then he noticed something he had missed before: a glint from a black pool of water occupying one corner.
He knelt by the water, staring at the reflection. He half-hoped to see Vor’s shining face appear, waiting to give him wisdom, but instead, a greenish glow swirled in the center, and then Catriona’s withered face appeared.
She snarled at him, drawing one lip up over her teeth. “You waste time in this hole.”
Sam gritted his jaw with disappointment, missing Vor. He kneeled down, gripping the sides of the pool. “I’m trapped here, I can’t get out,” he said.
Fire flashed in her eyes. “Odin plays tricks with your mind, Kalifus! I thought you were better than that.”
“I am. I tried—” Dejection flooded him. He had walked hours and hours and gotten nowhere.
Catriona reached a hand through the water, bony fingers coming through the surface to grasp him by the nape. “Hear me, Kalifus. You have trapped yourself.” Her cold rubbery skin felt real. “Use your dark magic. That is the key to unlocking your predicament. Wish yourself anywhere but here.”
“I . . . it can’t be that simple.” He closed his eyes to stem the haze of rage that clouded his thinking. Clenching his fists, he dug his nails into his palms until they stung. “I wish I were on top of the Empire State Building,” he shouted.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sam chose the most remote place he could imagine just to show Catriona this trick was useless. Opening his eyes, he gasped, his heart knocking against his ribs. He stood on the parapet of a building, a hundred stories above city streets. His arms pinwheeled as he tried to keep his balance, but too late. Sam plummeted.
This can’t be real, he assured himself.
But the air rushed past him. The sounds of car horns and sirens and jackhammers assaulted his ears. Somehow, he was in New York City, and he had just fallen off the top of the Empire State Building.
As the sidewalk came rushing up to meet him, he shut his eyes and imagined that he was back in Pilot Rock atop the majestic red boulder. After a moment, when there was no impact with the ground, he opened his eyes. Amazingly, he found himself lying faceup on the famous rock, the sun warming his skin.
I can go anywhere, he realized.
Sam had no idea if this was the real Pilot Rock or just another mental projection, but that didn’t stop a wave of longing from washing over him. What would it be like to be home? He stood and looked down at the city below.
He spotted the school, then the library where he had seen the Shun Kara wolves. And if he looked hard enough, he could even make out his house. His mom was probably there, sleeping away the day, getting ready for her night shift. Queasiness made him sway. He shouldn’t be here.
This is not my home anymore. Sam belongs here, not Kalifus.
He was becoming Kalifus, he realized. With every use of his dark magic, Sam receded and Kalifus rose up inside him. He closed his eyes and imagined the Tarkana Hall where Catriona had given him his mission. But this time when he opened them, he was back in Asgard. He recognized the green field where he had once chased after his mother, before the Omera had snatched her away. The breeze blew across the flowers, bringing the scent of pollen. Had he wished to come here, or had Odin tricked him again? He couldn’t be sure because suddenly, he wanted, needed to see his mother.
Sam listened hard. Maybe she was here. Maybe she had come back for him.
Foolish hope made his blood sing. Without thinking, he started running through the fields. “Mom, are you here?” He didn’t care that the armor made him sweat and struggle. He found the willow tree where Abigail had once stood holding a purple insect. She had been here recently, he was sure of it. He could smell her perfume lingering.
Under the tree, a figure sat bent over a rock.
“Mom?” he called.
The figure turned. The wrinkled, gray face of Catriona peered at him, her green eyes glinting with pride. “I’m your mother now, boy,” she cawed at him.
Sam jumped back, stumbling, dazed.
“Yes, Mother,” he said, laboring to speak his mind. “I remember now.” The words tasted like bitter paste, but he said them aloud, and the louder he spoke them, the more natural they felt to him. “I am Kalifus, your son.”
“Who are you?” she repeated, circling him like a vulture.
“I am Kalifus,” he affirmed, spinning to keep up with her, feeling dizzy.
“Whom do you serve?” she asked, poking at him with a sharp fingernail that sent a jolt to his toes.
“I serve you!” he shouted, feeling nauseous. He wanted
to scream at her to stop, but he could not find the words.
“Why are you here?” she whispered.
That he remembered with ease. “I am here to kill Odin.”
As he said the words, the world exploded around him in bright colors. The tree disappeared, and Catriona dissolved. In her place stood a giant beast. A bear, standing upright on two legs. It was cloaked in full armor, one eye patched, claws the size of daggers, and broad muscular shoulders. It growled a warning.
Sam backed away. He remembered a story Mavery had told of a giant bear on Asgard name Brunin. She had boasted it was two-stories tall and was Odin himself, but Keely had been uncertain. This bear stood just over seven feet. Could it be the same one?
The bear gave a mighty roar that fluttered the leaves in the tree.
“Odin? Is that you?” Sam stumbled over a rock but kept on his feet. He had been prepared to face Odin as an old man, not this giant mass of sinew and fur. The bear crouched low, as if it was about to pounce on him.
Besides the armor he wore, Sam had only a single weapon: the obsidian knife Catriona had claimed was cursed with dark magic. He drew it out, clutching it with a sweaty palm. It seemed pitifully small compared to this beast. Was this another of Odin’s games?
“Tell me your name!” Sam shouted. When the creature roared again, he could make out one word:
“Brunin!”
Then it sprang at him, claws extended.
Sam defended himself, stabbing at it with his blade as he dropped back and rolled, but the bear was too quick for him, and he missed. It ripped his shoulder armor to bits as it passed over. Springing to his feet, Sam winced at the stinging scrape of its claws.
The pain shocked him. This was no game.
This was real.
Brunin roared again, shaking its shaggy head and leaping on Sam, pinning him back against a tree trunk with one massive paw. The claws pressed painfully into Sam’s armor. Brunin roared in Sam’s face, baring long canine fangs. Sam stared into the bear’s fearsome eye, the one uncovered by the eye-patch, and recognition hit. The knife slipped from his hands, falling to the ground.
Odin and Brunin were one.
Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “You let my father die.”
The bear’s single eye narrowed. Its heavy armor went up and down on its chest as it breathed heavily from exertion.
“You could have saved him, but you let him die,” Sam said. Tears clogged his throat. “You could have given me the power, but you didn’t care.” He ripped the pouch that held Odin’s ground-up stone from his neck and threw it on the ground at the bear’s feet. “It’s your fault he’s dead! And now, you’re sending my friends to their deaths. I hate you! Do you hear me? I hate you!”
Brunin’s head hung for just a second, as if the weight of Sam’s words were heavy. He released the boy, setting him on his feet. Then a dazzling golden glow formed around the bear and it shifted form, shrinking in size, losing fur and claws until a man appeared before Sam. He wore a crown of green leaves around his head and a white toga. His eyes were a blazing blue topaz.
“Hello, Sam.”
At his words, Sam’s anger evaporated and a weight lifted, like a fog clearing. Thoughts of Kalifus and Catriona and dark magic fled his mind.
“Odin!” Sam couldn’t stop himself. He ran forward and threw his arms around the god, feeling sobs deep in his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
Odin’s arms came around Sam, holding him upright. “No, you are right,” the god said wearily. “I could have saved him. But it was not meant to be.”
He released Sam and beckoned him to sit down on the grass. Odin took a seat on a rock.
Sam stared up at the god. “What does that mean?”
“Some things are meant to happen as they do. I don’t expect you to understand. But know that I am sorry.”
Sam took in his words. “And Keely and the others?”
The god was silent, his eyes staring into the distance.
“Odin?”
The god turned his head toward Sam, his eyes suddenly cool. “You came here for a reason, Sam. You have set in motion a course of action which cannot be undone.”
Dread gripped him. “What are you saying?”
“If you had stayed true to yourself, things would have been as they were, but instead you followed the witches’ bidding.” Odin’s words were accusing, like Sam had somehow failed him.
“I did what I did so I could warn you,” Sam said hotly.
“Perhaps.” Odin rose. “But now the witches believe you are one of them. You did not withstand the test. You failed.”
Sam scrambled up. “Failed? I did everything right! I refused to follow Catriona, no matter what trick she fed me into believing my friends were against me!”
“No!” The god bellowed so loudly the leaves on the tree overhead shook. “You surrendered to her the moment that witch showed you a future you didn’t like. You let her in with your doubts. Even now, she worms her way into your heart.” He snatched up the pouch Sam had thrown at his feet and opened it, pouring the grains of sand out onto the ground. “You destroyed your father’s stone—his gift to you—all to prove you were a loyal subject.”
“No,” Sam swore, even as he weighed the truth of Odin’s words. Catriona was like a sliver under his skin, throbbing painfully on the edge of his consciousness. “I did it to see you. To ask for your help.”
“You came here to kill me. To destroy everything I have built.” Odin was relentless, probing Sam with his fierce gaze. “You are not a Son of Odin. You were never a Son of Odin. You have always been one of them, a witch. Born with a dark heart. Admit it, Sam, you like being Kalifus.”
“No, I don’t,” he said, defending himself. But his head swam. Was it true? Did he? “I swear, I came here to warn you.” This was not going the way he had expected at all.
Odin pointed at the ground to the weapon Sam had dropped. “Then why do you wield her enchanted blade when you know it was cursed by Rubicus before he died with an ancient magic that even I can’t stop?”
Sam knelt down and picked up the dagger, hands shaking as he studied it as if it were for the first time. The symbols seemed alien to him now. “Because . . . she insisted . . . it was . . . to get her to believe me . . . that I was Kalifus,” he whispered.
“Liar!” Odin roared, his eyes blazing blue fire. “You came here to destroy me.” Odin began to glow with that golden aura as he transformed back into the bear. “But it is you who will be destroyed.”
Sam backed away. “Odin, please, why are you doing this?”
Brunin roared at him. “Because you betrayed me!” He pawed the ground with one taloned paw, like a linebacker ready to tackle. Then Brunin charged, jaws open, letting out a terrifying roar as he leaped at Sam, teeth glistening. Their two bodies smashed into each other in the center of the grassy clearing, an explosion of fur, muscles, and brawn. Brunin wrapped both arms around Sam, his massive jaws inches from Sam’s head. Sam blocked his descent with one armored forearm under the bear’s chin, but he couldn’t hold Brunin off for long. The knife was in his hand. All he had to do was thrust upward before the bear ripped his head off. But he tried one last time.
“Odin, please, don’t make me do this.”
But Odin was gone. The bear roared its rage and lowered its head to attack, and that’s when Sam stopped fighting the darkness inside him.
Maybe Odin was right about him, and maybe he wasn’t. But Sam wasn’t going to go out without a fight.
He thrust upward with the blade Catriona had given him and plunged it into the heart of the beast. As the knife penetrated the bear’s flesh, bright light exploded from the wound, blinding Sam as the life force drained out of the creature. With a wrenching groan, Brunin toppled on its side with a thump so loud the ground shook. A gust of cold wind blew across the clearing, and the world around Sam seemed to ripple.
Sam’s chest heaved up and down with exertion. What had just happened
? You killed Brunin, idiot, that’s what happened, his mind graciously supplied. Not just Brunin. Odin himself. A bubble of hysterical laughter passed through his lips.
Blood streamed from Sam’s wounds, his armor hung in tatters, but the pain was distant, as if it was happening to someone else. Spots danced behind his eyes as he rose to his knees.
What should he do? His head reeled with the impact of his actions. But some part of him surged up with a ferocious inner voice. Catriona would want proof, it whispered. Sam grasped the still-warm fur and used the cursed blade to saw off the bear’s left ear, and he tucked it into his pocket.
Then, he fainted.
He awoke some time later in a pool of sticky blood. When he lifted his head, pain lanced where Brunin’s claws had marked him. He spied the familiar pouch of his father’s. His fingers crept toward it and clutched the soft leather. Sitting up, he slipped it back around his neck and searched for the slain bear. There was no sign of it anywhere. He reached into his pocket and felt the small scrap of Brunin’s furred ear. So it was real.
He knew with certainty that he had killed Odin, because everything around him was changing. Leaves fell from the trees. Flowers wilted. Bushes withered. Not a single animal sound could be heard in the forest.
Asgard was dying.
The once-green grass beneath him became dry and brittle, turning to dust under his feet. He clutched a fistful of it and watched it crumble between his fingers. The spark of life that had kept Asgard alive was out, thanks to him. He waited to see if he would feel something. Guilt. Remorse. But nothing came.
He staggered to his feet and started walking.
With every step, crushing loneliness settled over him like a dark cloud. His friends would never understand what he had done in their name. They would despise him. The only person who would accept him now was Catriona. She and the coven. That’s where he belonged. To slither among the worst of the worst.
