Trennus . . . damaged himself, holding the way to the Veil open. He is . . . a conduit to the other realm, Lassair sounded uncomfortable. But he has never tried to take someone there physically. The interface room, in the Odinhall? Requires a portion of the attention of every god there, I think. A small portion. It is mostly maintained by Dvalin, the dwarf, the master of runes, I believe. But that is a physical interaction between the Veil and this world. Trennus tried to open the way for Loki to . . . our small piece of the Veil. It has . . . exhausted him. Trennus is there now, in mind.
“What?” Adam said, blankly.
He goes into the Veil every night, Lassair said, stroking Trennus’ face. He has, every night, for ten years. I did not realize how much of a toll the constant activity of the mind was taking on him, until Saraid showed me. A slightly guilty expression crossed her face. I have been . . . selfish. But he was building for us such a beautiful place . . . .
Adam rubbed, very gently, at his eyelids with his free hand, feeling the chill leather against his skin. “I sometimes feel like I’m walking in at the midpoint of a play,” he noted, tiredly. “I never know entirely what’s going on around me. But . . . that’s life, I guess.” He looked at Lassair. “And Sig?”
I am not sure. I think Loki’s passage tugged her mind into the Veil as well. Or perhaps . . . she simply is not yet ready to wake up.
Vidarr had taken the past twenty minutes making sure the rest of his people—Helga, Torvald, and Japik, not to mention the dozen and a half new jotun all milling around the ruined enclosure—were all right, if in varying states of shock. Now, he moved over to sit on the edge of the wall Trennus had raised, midway through the fight. “Is this what victory tastes like?” Vidarr asked Adam, suddenly, his voice a bass rumble that cut through the other voices around them, and the wind that howled outside the shattered walls and beat against the sleek black-silver skin of the dragon’s lifted wings.
Adam looked up at the jotun, and shook his head. “It’s been so long since I had a victory that tasted like anything but ashes, that I really couldn’t tell you.” He regarded at Lassair. Her ruby eyes were troubled. “I couldn’t even call this a victory, Vidarr. What did we actually accomplish, besides . . . learning a few secrets?” He turned and looked up at the giant. “We came here looking for a villain. And we found that the, pardon me, but the ‘adversary’ of your gods was, in fact, willing to do anything to save the world. Even sacrifice himself.”
Kanmi walked over now, leading Ima, who limped along on her bandaged foot. The wolf nuzzled at Vidarr’s hand with her long snout, as the sorcerer regarded them all tiredly, and then wrapped his arms around Minori. Possibly for affection, and possibly for warmth. “You know, I could sympathize with that, ben Maor.” He looked up at Vidarr. “You probably don’t bear Loki any love, but . . . if I had the choice, between doing things people didn’t like, and knowing it would save the world . . . and keeping my hands clean, and letting it burn?” Kanmi grimaced. “I’d be red to the elbows. Of course, that all sort of assumes the world is worth saving. Most days, I’m not sure it is.”
“Look at Masako’s face, or at Bodi’s, and say that again,” Minori told him, quietly. “You play the jaded cynic so well, Kanmi-kun, but I know you better than that.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I’d make the same choice.”
“I bear Loki . . . no ill-will.” Vidarr sounded surprised by it.
His intentions were good, Ima put in, tiredly, and settled at Vidarr’s side, her tail waving. He asked only for volunteers. His will was corrupted by humanity.
“Ironic,” Adam murmured. Everyone referred to him as the corrupter, the deceiver, the liar, the trickster. But as Trennus keeps pointing out . . . we humans change spirits. Do we change the gods, too? If so, who changed Loki?
Silence for a moment, and then Minori shivered a little. “All right, everyone’s had their wounds at least bandaged,” the sorceress noted, as dozens of wolves and the jotun began to move in around them, all huddling under the shelter of the dragon’s wings as the wind kicked up again. “We should probably look into getting people warmed up.”
“I feel the cold,” Vidarr replied, tiredly, “but it doesn’t harm us. Still, a fire would be welcome.” He looked at the other giants, most of whom still wore little more than rags, and bore the signs of much ill-treatment in their cages. “It would be a civilized thing, would it not?”
It would, but I can warm the air without wasting fuel, Lassair replied, quietly. Or sending anyone into the storm for wood. Have everyone gather closer. Body heat alone will be a help.
Ima moved over and laid down, carefully, across Sigrun and Trennus’ legs, settling her bulk in such a way that suggested she was trying to be a blanket for them, not a millstone. Other wolves followed suit, pressing in on either side of the unconscious pair, and settled in around Brandr and Erikir as well. Warm, fur-covered bodies nudged in around Adam. Not so close that he thought he’d be crushed, and there was definitely a prevalent smell of wet dog in the area . . . but raw body heat, and Lassair’s promised warmth, soon began to thaw some of the ice along his bones, particularly in his feet. Chill blasts of wind still gusted in around the dragon’s wings, however, and Adam held Sigrun’s hand a little more tightly, and looked up at Kanmi. “Wall us off a little?”
“That, I think I still have enough energy to manage,” Kanmi agreed. “Min, you want to take the left?”
“I’ll meet you in the middle,” she agreed, and they both incanted, quietly, forming barriers to keep the biting winds at bay.
“Practically cozy,” Adam said, after a few minutes, looking around their makeshift enclosure. Some of the beasts—he couldn’t think of them as animals—were puppies—and he hated to think of what that meant. Wolves mated for life, as he understood it . . . but Ima had spoken, previously, of the researchers keeping her penned apart, because they’d wanted to breed her specifically to the best specimens. As if she were, in truth, an animal. And what are the puppies? Adam wondered, watching as four of the three-foot-long, gangly creatures jumped against their mother’s side until she sighed, laid down, and allowed them to nurse. How can any woman, whatever her shape, love what she has been forced to bear? Offspring she could not even speak to, to shape their minds as human . . . will they ever be more than animals? It was . . . one problem among hundreds, but it gave him something to worry about besides the fact that Sigrun had yet to open her eyes.
They have the potential to be human, in mind, at least, Saraid told him, lifting what was, for the moment, a lupine head with wide, leaf-dappled eyes. I will help them, as Loki bade me. I would have, anyway. I will give them voices, if I can.
I will help, as well. Lassair’s tone was firm. Working together . . . we may be able to reshape them.
“All of them?” Adam asked, out loud.
I do not know how many there are, to make that promise, Lassair said, sounding oddly weary, and stroked Trennus’ braids back from the man’s slack face.
Silence, for a while. “So,” Vidarr said, at length, “Now what happens?”
“I don’t know,” Adam admitted. “We wait for them to wake up. Then we go out and see what else has happened. These things . . . never seem to have a small price.”
They come, Lassair said, suddenly.
“Who?” Kanmi asked, sharply.
The gods. They are armed for war.
Kanmi barked out a laugh. “Better late than never, eh?”
Flamesower opened his eyes, and understood, immediately, where he was. The vale in the Veil, as he and Saraid and Lassair had taken to calling it. He sat up, groaning in pain, feeling the energies of this place rush into him, beginning to heal all the damage to his psyche. He’d channeled far too much of the Veil’s energies directly through his own spirit to open that gate.
Neither Saraid nor Lassair were there, at the moment; they were off in the mortal realm, and while Lassair could split herself, and be in two places in the physical world at once, she could only be here or there. He
was her double, her conduit, to the Veil. And Saraid’s now, in part, too.
Dozens of spirits, all around him. Owl-spirits in the trees, a monkey-spirit he’d freed from the Nazca Lines in Tawantinsuyu, dangling from an oak tree by his tail. Deer-shaped spirits browsing under the trees, but all their eyes were wary, and their demeanors on edge. Did someone come through here? Flamesower asked.
Two did, one a leviathan who hurtled through this little realm like a comet, the monkey replied, chittering and swinging back up on top of the branch. The leviathan carried another with him, and they were moving so swiftly, some were almost caught in their vortex and swept out into the wild abyss with them.
I will have to go and search for them, then, Flamesower thought, with reluctance. He felt not unlike a rescue diver, being sent into deep waters to look for someone who had almost surely drowned . . . but he had sent those two here. They were, in a very real sense, his responsibility. Even though Loki was millions of times more powerful than he was . . . he’d still have to search. If only so that others would know what had happened to the god.
He stood, and that was when he realized there was a newcomer there, with him. Unlike most of the other creatures around him, this was a human form. Female. She sat, hunched in on herself on one of the logs, a dark cloak up and over her face, elbows propped on her knees. At first, Flamesower thought it was the fox-spirit, or some other interloper, and pulled in power, wincing, ready to defend this place.
The newcomer raised her head, and the cloak fell back from her face. Long hair, in a braid, but silver-white. Storm-gray eyes, old and weary, and a face lined by years. And her body, under her cloak, was covered in open, bleeding wounds that were cut into her body in the form of runes. As if someone had taken a carving burin to her with great care, but without mercy. No beauty or grace to them, unlike the tattoos that marked his own skin. These were just incised, brutally, into every inch of her flesh. A raven sat on her shoulder, preening her hair, or at least seemed to; whenever Flamesower looked at it directly, it was gone, but its shadow returned whenever he looked away. And there was a spear in her hand, limned with blue-white fire.
Flamesower understood that when he, as a mortal, had come to this realm, he had managed, through trial and error, to assume a self-image. To shape his identity here, as he was in the mortal world, so as to retain that identity. So as not to lose himself, as he had the first time he had come here. A moment of absolute, cold horror. Stormborn? Is this truly how you see yourself?
She looked down at herself, puzzled. Where am I?
This is the Veil.
It doesn’t look like the Veil. Hint of a frown. I’ve only been in the Odinhall interface, and sometimes they . . . pull me through the Veil to travel instantly to Burgundoi. It is not comfortable, but it is . . . over with quickly.
This isn’t like the Odinhall interface. It’s a . . . realm. An island. My interface, if you wish. Only much smaller than the Odinhall one. It’s taken me ten years to plant a forest. He dropped to a crouch before her, smiling up at her. He wanted, badly, to make her smile back at him, and erase the weariness from her face. It’s like a children’s pool, Stormborn. Spirits come here for a little taste of time and consequences. I always thought humans besides me could make it here, for a little taste of the infinite and eternal. You’re the first one who’s visited, though. She was one of his best friends, and he wished he could take the sense of weight, of fate, from her shoulders. Let me show you what I’ve made here. I think I want to start adding a castle. Something . . . defensible. But that’ll take some time.
So they walked together through the green woods, and Flamesower wished, again, that Lassair and Saraid were here with them. Even Steelsoul. He’d never gotten to show anyone what he was building before, other than the spirits who shared his life, anyway. Every night, you spend here? Stormborn asked him.
Yes. Till this past week, I hadn’t truly slept in a decade. And time is malleable here. A matter of perception. Sometimes, I stay as long as a day, even two, when there’s a task that needs doing, and awaken when my alarm goes off in the morning.
No wonder you sometimes only seem to be half there. Everyone needs rest, my friend. Everyone needs surcease.
And when was the last time you really rested, Stormborn? He took her hand in his, gently. You and Steelsoul rarely take holidays.
A shrug. Your endeavor here, Trennus, is proof that people like us aren’t meant to sit around doing nothing. We take breaks by finding new projects. But even so, you are human. You need rest.
He sighed. Not for a while. Going to need to go out there and try to find them, Stormborn. The valkyrie won’t survive the Veil without help. I almost didn’t, the first time, and I was only in it for ten minutes. And Loki . . . damn it. He probably left my Vale to avoid destroying it if he . . . dissipated. He doesn’t deserve that.
A wave of anger-regret-shame from her. Hours ago, I would have disagreed. I wanted him punished. Now . . . I may never forgive him for not giving me the choice. But I understand him.
And your old teacher?
I do not think it is in me to forgive her. I am not a very forgiving person. But I understand her. All too well, in fact. As you said, she and I . . . are very much alike. Stormborn raised her head.
Do you think she’ll ever forgive herself?
For betraying the world?
No. For living.
Oh, that. A pause. No.
Why not?
Because I wouldn’t. A trace of a frown crossed her face. And yet . . . .
What?
Last night. At dinner. Even in disguise, even as bitter as she was . . . she took the time to tell Steelsoul that he’ll need to watch what he eats as he gets older. Stormborn’s frown grew more pronounced. Part of her . . . still cared about the little things. Even at that moment. That . . . says something about her.
Yes. It does. Flamesower put an arm around her shoulders. I saw the look on her face when she saw that Hel had nearly killed Brandr. There was a look of realization there, I think. That her actions had probably cost the life of one of her students. A cherished friend.
Apparently, I did not make the list of people that she would regret seeing harmed in furtherance of her revenge. She shrugged. Doesn’t matter now, I suppose.
You saw her as a mother?
As close to one as I have had since my own died. Demanding, but far kinder than my father’s wife. Or so I thought.
Flamesower found a comfortable hummock of ground under an ancient tree, and sat down, pulling her with him. She actually leaned against him, which was both startling and a blessed relief. She might actually heal here, if she let herself. Rest, Stormborn. You’re as safe as you can be anywhere in the universe here. Try to . . . find a little peace.
I don’t think I’m ever going to know what that feels like again.
Flamesower kissed Stormborn’s hair, and they stared together into the green leaves above their heads, and let the silence pervade them.
The dragon pulled back his head, and drew in his wings as four glowing figures descend through the air, weapons at the ready, and swathed in glowing light. Adam recognized only Tyr—the others were lost on him. Where is Loki? one of the gods demanded, a male a head taller even than Tyr, and built like a blacksmith. Where is my treacherous brother, who has started Ragnarok?
Adam wasn’t really sure which of them he should be addressing, but a rumble from the dragon’s throat shook the floor. Adam turned, gave Kanmi a look, and Kanmi shook his head emphatically. “You’re the boss,” the sorcerer reminded him, baring his teeth. “You get the privilege of talking to the angry gods.”
Thank you ever so much, Esh. Adam cleared his throat. “Loki was not at fault here,” he began, and endured scathing, disbelieving glances from four burning sets of eyes. So much attention, he felt . . . like a grain of sand attempting to have a meaningful conversation with a star. “His goal was to prevent Ragnarok, not to bring it about.” Right around now is when I need to reme
mber that I am Judean and they technically cannot smite me, no matter how much they might want to do so. I hope.
I am sure that is what he meant for you to believe. Where is he? Rage. I will have his head for what he has done to our people!
Lassair spoke up. Hear me. Steelsoul speaks the truth, as ever he does. A quick, birdlike tilt of her head, and a sharp look from ruby eyes. Loki sacrificed himself to prevent worse harm. He meant to build an army here, yes. One of volunteers, meant to prevent the end of all things. Look into my mind. Take the memories directly from me. Take it from your own god-born, once they are healed enough to awaken. Take it from the memories of the jotun, the fenris. From any you can touch.
Freyr stepped forward, and the dragon shifted, uneasily, moving its feet out of the god’s path. The sun-god paused and looked up at Niðhoggr. And your mistress? he demanded of the beast. Where is she?
A low growl from the dragon, and Freyr’s eyes narrowed. You are unbound. She is dead, then. His tone hovered somewhere between concern and relief, as at an unpleasant task that no longer needed to be attended to, but the absence of which had equally unpleasant implications. Does she shackle your tongue still, from the abyss?
The Goddess Denied Page 38
