Mist

by Susan Krinard

  “I was not aware that Valkyrie were so modest,” he said to Mist’s back, examining the gaping waist of the jeans in his hands.

  Her shoulders stiffened, and she turned around. “I thought you might like a little privacy,” she said. “But since you don’t—” She looked him up and down boldly. “Not bad for an elf.”

  “You have seen many Alfar unclothed?”

  “Wouldn’t touch one with a ten-foot staff.”

  Dainn tugged the jeans on with some force. “And Loki? Did his body please you?”

  “His body wasn’t—” She took a deep breath. “Loki’s body isn’t Eric’s.”

  “Loki clearly found yours more than acceptable.”

  The remark was stupid, childish, and entirely born of the very emotions Dainn was attempting to disarm, but Mist didn’t rise to the bait.

  “Loki finds just about anyone pleasing,” she said with bitter self- mockery, “or anything.”

  She had no idea, of course, how effectively she struck at Dainn’s own shame. Finding his balance again, he shrugged into the shirt. It was a size too big in breadth, but Mist had provided a belt to cinch the pants at the waist. The length of both was nearly perfect. He let the shirttail hang loose to cover the flaws in fit.

  Mist looked him up and down again. “Acceptable,” she said, “if a little working-class for an elf.” She nudged the boots toward him with her toe. “Try these.”

  He knelt to put on the work boots. They, too, were a size too big, but they were better than the scraps he had worn on his feet for the past two days.

  “Good,” Mist said. “Now all we have to do is cut your hair.”

  Dainn winced. Little as she knew of elves, Mist had to be aware how much the Alfar valued their hair. His had been the only vanity he had permitted himself over the years, and he had stubbornly kept it long even when it made him more conspicuous, as it had in various places and times in the centuries following the Last Battle.

  “I believe hair of this length is acceptable in the current decade,” he said, getting to his feet.

  She looked very much as if she wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. Long hair hid the particular feature that marked the Alfar apart from mortals, even if it also tended to attract attention.

  “You can keep it,” she conceded, “but don’t let it get in the way.” She glanced around the room, her gaze briefly settling on Vali. Odin’s son had ‘barely moved, his arms hanging loose at his side and his stubbled cheek resting flat on the tabletop.

  “You put him to sleep?” she asked.

  “It seemed prudent under the circumstances.”

  “Then I guess we’d better get these Jotunar out of here.” She licked her lips, briefly revealing her unease. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Only let me guide you.”

  “Only,” she muttered.

  Dainn sat, and Mist followed suit. She faced him with legs crossed and hands resting on her knees. Dainn gave himself up to one of the many rituals he had developed to quiet his mind.

  What he was about to do would require greater discipline than he had ever asked of himself—not because he might not reach deep enough into Mist’s mind, but because he might reach too far and enable her to understand, beyond any doubt, what he truly was and why he was here.

  “We will begin as we did before,” he said. “But as you form the Runes in your mind, let your other thoughts drift like leaves on the wind.”

  “Skip the poetry,” Mist said. “You want me to let my mind go blank, is that it?”

  “As the Eastern masters do it.”

  “Should I meditate on clapping with one hand?”

  “Think only of the Runes. But do not concentrate too hard on the process, or you will fail.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. She inhaled, slowly expelled the air, and closed her eyes. Dainn felt her agitation like a false note in a spell-song as she fought down her lingering suspicion and fear.

  He touched her mind gently. She flinched. He reassured her by remaining on the surface, making no attempt to push, watching and waiting. Only when she had finally relaxed did he begin cautiously probing under the skin of the thoughts she could not quite suppress.

  “Breathe deeply,” he said. “When you are ready, shape the Runes as you did before.”

  She didn’t respond, but soon enough the staves began to appear, each one flaring bright—far brighter than before—as if it were constructed of Thor’s lightning, dazzling fire as quick as Mist’s temper. Dainn reached for the Runes, touching one after another, and Mist began to tremble.

  “Be easy,” he said silently. “There is no danger here.”

  Mist could not yet make her thoughts coherent as words, but Dainn sensed the substance of her answer. Get on with it.

  He slid a little further in, probing under the Runes and touching what lay beneath.

  It was as if he had set a lit match to brittle grass in a droughtparched meadow. Mist’s unconscious will to protect her mind— which he had felt only briefly before, when she had abruptly broken their joining at the loft—burst into a conflagration, a searing barrier that stopped him in his tracks. A violent wind hurled him back, and a great wall of seamless, ice-rimed metal thrust up through the seething flames.

  Stunned by the attack, Dainn began to grasp what Mist had done. All unaware, and after only two encounters with his mind, she had learned how to create mental wards stronger than Dainn had believed possible for one without experience or training.

  But there was far more to this than the building of mental defenses. Mist had created hers from a perfect joining of the elements. Some of the Aesir, like Thor, could control aspects of Air. The Muspellsmegir, the giants of Muspelheim, could wield fire and never be burned. The frost giants, like Hrimgrimir, commanded the forces of snow and ice. The Alfar and Vanir were the tamers of growing things, and the Dvergar masters of metal and earth. None, save the All-father himself, laid claim to power over all, and even he could join the elements only at great cost to himself.

  The cost Mist might pay was as yet unknown, but Dainn knew he might not survive to find out. He fought to hold his ground and threw up a shield against the whirlwind, singing it into retreat with melodies of the hush of dawn and still summer days. But he could do nothing about the ice and flame and metal cutting him off from light, from air, from life itself.

  He changed tactics, seeking under the wood and cement beneath him for uncontaminated earth, creating from Rune and elfsong a gauntlet of densely woven vines under a skin of air only thick enough to keep it alive. He eased his spectral hand through the maelstrom, barely brushing Mist’s barriers with gentle fingertips, searching for even the smallest gap. He sang again, as all Alfar did when they made use of the Galdr.

  Perthro, of Heimdall’s Aett: the mystery of hidden things, initiation, destiny. Tiwaz, of Tyr’s Aett: willingness to self- sacrifice. Kenaz, from Freya’s Aett: the torch, symbol of revelation, transformation, opening to new strength and power. Uruz, the wild ox, the Rune of transformation, the shaping of power, the discovery of the self.

  But the final Rune didn’t obey his will. Mist took hold of the stave and turned it against him. Its angular, simple strokes quivered and rotated counterclockwise, Uruz reversed: lust, brutality, violence. Then the stave straightened, forming a single line with a needle point, and plunged through Dainn’s magic-born gauntlet.

  Unerringly it found its mark, passing through his heart and into the battered door within its once-impenetrable forest of poison and thorn, the prison Dainn had kept intact so long. The beast awakened and began to stir, swinging its vast head from side to side in search of the one who had disturbed its sleep.

  Dainn gasped, undone by the ferocity of the attack and of the primal force that boiled unrealized beneath Mist’s flesh, the unbridled strength of her unknown father and her mother’s irresistible powers of seduction and desire. She taunted the beast, tossing Dainn’s centuries of discipline aside like chaff
before the wind. The creature extended its claws and raked at the wall of thorns, tearing the flesh from its massive paws. The intertwined branches began to shriek like souls lost to the Christian Hell.

  In a moment the beast would be loose.

  Somehow Dainn resisted, though the energy he was forced to expend seemed to feed off his bones and muscles and organs, eating him away from within. Struggling every step of the way, he drove the beast back into its prison and wove the waist-thick branches anew. With the last of his strength he regained mastery of his physical being, singing it down from the rage of its lust.

  He came back to himself drenched in perspiration, every muscle quivering, Thor’s Hammer beating on the inside of his skull. His stomach cramped, and he lurched up in search of a corner where he could empty it of its scanty contents.

  When he was done, he wiped his mouth and leaned against the wall until he could breathe without gasping. Mist, only semiconscious, had barely moved from her original position.

  She had no idea what had happened, no notion of what she was truly capable of. This was what he had just begun to sense when he had first touched her mind. What Mist had unwittingly shown him had not come only from Freya’s influence or presence within her.

  What he had felt was more ancient still—ability gleaned from Freya’s Vanir blood, yes—but with elemental aspects that went beyond the magic wielded by most of the Aesir and their allies. Beyond any magic even the most powerful of the Alfar possessed, more than the Seidr that had existed even before the Runes had come to Odin. It was if she had reached back into the time before time and drawn upon the very force of life itself.

  Carefully Dainn made his way to a section of the room well apart from both Mist and Vali. He eased himself to the floor, crossed his legs, and breathed rhythmically until he had shaken off all traces of sickness and fear. Sense returned, and with it the sure knowledge that he could no longer expect to complete his task by creeping about inside Mist’s brain like a thief casing a house and slipping out again unseen. He had no idea when she might become aware of his attempt to identify and eventually neutralize her native magic.

  “You must discover the extent of her abilities and make certain she has the necessary instruction to accept me,” Freya had said. “ You must be sure that there will be no resistance.”

  Dainn laughed deep in his throat, though the attempt left it raw and burning. Mist’s unconscious reaction went well beyond mere “resistance.” He must not only keep her from inadvertently killing him, but also find a way to breach her defenses. As long as Mist’s power was uncontrolled, Freya’s plan would fail.

  But the more he pushed, the more magic he used, the closer the beast came to escape.

  For now, there was still one task Dainn had to complete. He trained his fragile focus on the Jotunar across the room and called up the Rune Raiho, the chariot—safe enough—along with the image of a vast sirocco blowing the defeated giants into the middle of a bleak desert halfway around the world. A gust of searing wind knocked him sideways. He braced his hands on the floor and pushed himself back to his knees.

  When he looked up again, Mist was staring at him, as wideeyed as a child she most assuredly was not.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

  Dainn rose carefully. “I am very well.”

  “That must be why you look like a snowflake could knock you over.” She stretched her arms above her head and frowned. “I don’t remember a thing. Are we finished?”

  The Fates, Dainn, thought, had done him some small kindness in the midst of their punishment. “See for yourself,” he said.

  She turned her head toward the place where the Jotunar had lain. Only a few dark blue bloodstains marked the spot.

  “Where did you send them?” she asked, pushing loose tendrils of damp hair away from her forehead.

  “We sent them to a place largely uninhabited by mortals,” he said. “They will be bound to that place for at least a few days.”

  “Good,” she murmured. But her expression was troubled, and Dainn wondered if she remembered more than she let on. “Did you keep your promise not to meddle in my head?”

  “Does it feel otherwise?” Dainn asked cautiously.

  She lifted her shoulders and let them fall again. “I don’t know what I feel, but it’s different from last time. How am I supposed to know what’s normal?”

  “The sensations are unique to each practitioner of magic. In time, you will become accustomed to your own reactions.”

  “In time,” she echoed, meeting his gaze. “Look. I understand what you said about needing someone to help you and teaching me how to use whatever I have, but you can’t expect—”

  “I expect you to become what you were meant to be, Mist Freya’s-daughter. You must learn to wield and control your magic, just as you wield your sword.”

  She stood up, facing him with legs apart and hands on hips, looking for all the world as if she intended to turn an entire blizzard against him. “I assume we’re not only supposed to find the Treasures, but also keep Loki occupied until the Aesir show up, whenever that is. Not to mention finding out what’s happened to the bridges Loki and Hrimgrimir used.”

  “Keeping Loki occupied is not your primary task.”

  “But getting Gungnir back is. Did you get in touch with Freya while I was in the other room?”

  Dainn started. Had she heard or felt him speaking with the Lady? He had been too distracted at the time to set up proper wards, and if she had any idea what they had discussed . . .

  “I did contact her,” Dainn admitted, matching her offhand manner. “I made her aware of the situation. She believes the problems Loki had with the bridges are an anomaly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That it may be Loki’s problem alone.”

  “I hope that’s true, since otherwise he could bring more Jotunar through anytime, right?”

  “Now that the Lady knows that Loki is here and what he attempted in contacting you, she will better be able to counter his actions.”

  “How? Loki said she can’t do much without her body, and she’s still working on getting our allies to Midgard.”

  “She will send them soon,” Dainn said, feigning certainty he was far from feeling.

  “You never told me how many Jotunar Loki actually has here,” Mist said, brushing aside his reassurances.

  Dainn knew he still couldn’t afford to tell Mist about the game or its rules—especially since Loki had already broken several of them—but she had given him another opportunity to dissuade her from taking unnecessary risks.

  “Perhaps two dozen,” he said, “perhaps as many as fifty. But he will move cautiously, since he obviously believes that Freya was acting through you and is capable of fighting him on his own terms.”

  Tugging her braid forward over her shoulder, Mist began to unwind the heavy blond plaits. “Loki may move more cautiously,” she said, “but since what he believes isn’t true—”

  “What matters is that he does believe,” Dainn said. “He is blinded by his feelings for Freya, both love and hate. He will continue to be deceived if you keep your distance from him as long as possible.” Mist gripped her half-undone braid tightly between her hands. “How are we going to stay away from him when we’re both looking for the same things?”

  “Loki will sacrifice any number of Midgardians in reckless or even hopeless ventures and use them to distract us and aid him in his search. Now we, too, must find mortals to fight on the Aesir’s behalf.”

  “You mean put ordinary people in danger.”

  “Even with full access to your magic, you will not be omnipotent, and I certainly am not. It will be necessary for mortals to take their part in saving their world.”

  Suddenly all Mist’s vulnerability and uncertainty were plain in her eyes, striking Dainn more surely than any magic she could throw at him. Fear, not of being hurt or dying, but of failure.

  “Okay,” she said, her eyes
reflecting a painful memory of the necessities of war. “How do we go about finding these allies?”

  Dainn permitted himself a moment of relief. “Loki will naturally seek the corrupt and greedy,” he said. “We will find those dedicated to the good.”

  “Oh, of course.” Mist finished unbraiding her hair and combed it through with her strong, slender fingers. “The ‘corrupt and greedy.’ Gangsters? Politicians? Terrorists? Serial killers?”

  “I can only guess at Loki’s choices, but he will use anyone who can serve his purpose.”

  “So you’re talking about criminals and murderers and amoral public figures, some of whom have whole arsenals of guns and bombs and gods know what else? And you expect decent people to face that?”

  “Conventional Midgardian firearms and similar weapons will not be effective in this war.”

  She stared at him. “Why not?”

  Because, Dainn thought, it was another one of the “rules” of the game. “Freya has told me such weapons are nidingsverk to the Aesir— dishonorable, the tools of cowards who are unwilling to face their enemies in personal combat. No Alfr, Jotunn, or member of any other race involved will be permitted to use them.”

  “Why should Loki care about honor?”

  “There are certain actions even he will not take if it will bring him bad luck, and his gaefa will surely vanish if he casts aside every law of the gods.”

  “So everyone will be fighting with swords, knives, and axes? That should work well.” She snorted. “You do realize that the people of Midgard haven’t believed in us for hundreds of years? We can’t just stick an advertisement on Craigslist: ‘Wanted: fighters for the Aesir, must believe in giants and be skilled with the sword. Oh, by the way, you’re probably going to get yourself killed. Want to join up?’ ”

  “You are forgetting that there are some mortals who possess a limited degree of magical ability. Some will surely become aware of what has come into their world.”

  “The kind of mortals you’re talking about are as rare as—” She grimaced. “Snowstorms in San Francisco. Sure, there are a few who claim to have mastered the Galdr, but most of them are quacks. Even if a few do sense that something is going on, what makes you think they’ll find us, or even want to help?”