by Matt Larkin
Odin blanched. Hermod? His apprentice? “Loki killed Hermod? Did Hermod retrieve Baldr’s soul?”
“No. No, rather, he learned that Sigyn had murdered Sif, and he killed her in return. Somehow that let Hel overtake Sigyn’s body.”
It felt like the bench beneath him was caught on a wave. A sudden, horrific fear overcame him, and he clenched his eye shut, desperately willing himself to remain grounded in this present, however terrible it had become.
You cannot escape fate, Valravn said.
You will lose everything … Audr’s cackle was almost enough to send Odin over the edge of madness, and he had to fight down a surge of nihilism that choked him.
Whatever had happened, he was here, now, with Freyja and the others. And they needed him. They so dearly needed him. He could not allow himself to get dragged under once more, could not risk being removed from his own time again.
Instead, with focused breaths, he allowed the visions to play out in his mind, revealing the events even as Freyja described them. She spoke of the fall of Asgard, of the retreat here. Of Thor and Tyr each leading bands away, to try to staunch the wounds of this world, even though everyone feared it hopeless. Many had died of hunger, and others had begun to take their own lives in despair. Mass suicides, whole families, in some cases. All creation was crumbling.
Or, at least, all civilization.
Loki had warned him of this, time and again, though Odin had refused to hear it. Well, now he heard. Now he knew.
The Norns had told him, too, so long ago. The burning child ignites a pyre.
And so Hödr had. Or Loki. Or Sigyn. Or … Odin himself.
The subject of blame no longer mattered. It availed naught and no one.
“Eostre’s here,” Freyja said after a moment more. “She’s allied herself with the Sons of Muspel. Hermod, too, before he died, believed he could weaken Hel by breaking the seals binding the original Elder Goddess of Mist. One was in Muspelheim, and he’d meant to make for it.”
Muspelheim? The World of Fire to combat the World of Mist. Audacious, yes. He’d need to speak to Eostre, and soon. Her insight might prove invaluable.
As for the rest …
Odin could not stop the end of the world. Loki or Prometheus or whoever he called himself, he’d made that infinitely clear. But Odin would make damn certain Hel would not rise again. Perhaps, another world would face another eschaton. But not her. Not again.
Odin would find a way to ensure that. He swore it. He swore it on the souls of those who had fallen. On the soul of an entire world caught in this maelstrom of chaos and death.
If he could not stop the cycle, he would at least destroy Hel’s part in it.
This would be the last time she rose.
Part II
Year 400, Age of the Aesir
Winter
11
In the darkness of a larder beneath Idavollir, Odin had cleared out the refugees, claiming this place as a void chamber, not so very unlike those that had lain beneath Sessrumnir on Asgard. He sought this solitude—save for Eostre, who sat across from him, staring into a fire pit—not to work sorcery or delve into the arcana of the Otherworlds, but rather to wrestle with the last pieces of his puzzle.
For the end was upon them. His end.
Fenrir’s jaws, closing around his throat.
You can feel it … The stalking predator … The grasp of fate … Give in …
No. Odin had accepted that Ragnarok needed to happen, that he must end this era and usher in a new one through a cataclysmic battle against the descending darkness all around. A world-wide catharsis, engendered through oceans of blood. The sacrifice of the age of men, in order that men might once more rise.
Such things were, if not inevitable, born of necessity. Those threads of the web of urd could not, and should not be changed, lest the darkness claim all that existed. Nidhogg remained out there, awaiting his tribute, and if Odin refused it …
He shook his head.
Some things could not be averted. But Odin was not the kind to simply give in. Not to Hel, not to fate, and not to Fenrir. He would fight, to his last dying breath, to save as many as he could. He would find some way to save Freyja, and most of all, he would ensure Hel never put anyone in this position again.
Her corruption had unmade the world. For such a crime, he would offer her the mercy of oblivion … or perhaps cast her soul down as an offering to the dark dragon.
“It’s happening again,” Eostre said. “Mother’s worst fear.”
“Why did you ally yourself with the Sons of Muspel?” Odin asked, not really watching Eostre so much as the flame.
In a fit of self-delusion, he’d tried to explain the nature of their relationship to Idunn, once, scarcely aware of what he was doing or what he might unravel in the process. That he, as a prior incarnation of his soul, had sired Eostre—with a prior incarnation of Freyja’s soul, no less—and that fate or their own natures had brought them together once more, reincarnated to live out some semblance of their tragedies all over again.
But to tell such a thing to Eostre would have left her addled at best. Even had she believed him, and, lacking the foundations of experience with the Wheel of Life, she most like would not have credited such a tale as aught more than ravings of a man gone mad. She’d have thought him so far gone as Mundilfari himself had been. Eostre … one of the last of the Vanr First Ones who’d made the original sojourn to Vanaheim at the dawn of this era. One of the few who had not succumbed to madness.
She sighed now, shaking her head. “Mother believed we had to find a way to purify the world from the mists of Niflheim. I could see no other way than the fires of Muspelheim. Harnessing those flames, the caliphs have kept the mists at bay from their cities in Serkland for millennia.” She rubbed her hands together. “After we … after we broke Brimir, the eldjotunnar began a migration south, from Jotunheim, into what would become Serkland. And they spoke to men of the wonders of Muspelheim, of how it could combat the mists. And those men, sorcerers, they began to summon and bind Fire spirits.”
“Jinn.”
“Their name for the spirits, yes. Some … Some lost control, became possessed, or at least partially under the control of these spirits. And I know, like flame itself, jinn defy control, ever straining against boundaries. But they can combat the mists. Bring balance back to the Spheres of Creation, perhaps.”
Odin leaned back, blinking against the smoke. Therein lay the struggle. Balance. The Spheres were out of alignment, some might have said, for Niflheim, the World of Mist, had bled profusely into the Mortal Realm and shifted its essence. Such had happened before, when the World of Water came too close and inundated this world.
“Tell me about the Sons of Muspel.”
“They are warriors, drawing upon the strength of jinn inside them—ones more than half possessing them, in fact—to become stronger and faster than mortals. The distinction between them and the caliphs is subtle.”
“The caliphs are sorcerers.”
“Hmm, yes. They have bound their own jinn, rather than the Sons, who have had jinn bound within them. I guess … everywhere men were desperate for a way to survive the mist, the cold. I think the Miklagardians rose around the same time as Serkland, and they turned, rather than to flame, to an immortal god-like being who offered them defense against the bitter world. We …” She shook her head. “We thought we were helping mankind by destroying the jotunn empire.”
Odin nodded, not bothering to dispute that. Perhaps they’d had the best of intentions. But even such rising and falling of dynasties had become part of the greater cycle. Odin had seen another era where jotunnar ruled, called themselves titans, and it had clearly ended as well. It served no meaningful end to burden Eostre with such talk, in any event.
“You are thinking to ally yourself with the Sons?” Eostre asked. “With the caliphs?”
“Not exactly.” No. Because while such an alliance might help him stand against the vampires or the jo
tunnar or the draugar, there were simply too many forces arrayed against him now. Forces he could not overcome, even with an influx of powerful warriors from Serkland.
No, Ragnarok was unfolding all around him, and Odin needed to focus himself on a more singular goal. On stopping Hel. On making certain she could not try this once more.
Audacity had failed him against the Norns, yes, but that did not mean it was the wrong strategy in general, when faced with overwhelming odds. Rather, it had, in fact, shown him the way he must go. The end he must take, not only through his encounter with Prometheus, but through what he’d seen of the future.
And it did involve the Serks, after a fashion.
A small council sat around a massive stone table. Odin had banished the servants and any others who could not have heard this, could not have understood it. He had allowed Magni to remain, for Thor had placed his son in charge of Idavollir, and Odin would not dishonor him by refusing to include him.
Too, Malakbel and Malina, because the liosalfar were his allies, if mercurial ones.
And, of course, Eostre and Freyja, his most trusted and most beloved companions.
At the head of the table, Odin drummed his fingers on the stone, turning his gaze from one of his dwindling allies to the next. “We are going to lose,” he said, finally.
“Grandfather—” Magni began to protest.
“We are going to lose,” Odin repeated, “given how things stand at the moment. Against a singular threat, perhaps, we could have pooled our might and overcome, but faced with the very end of the world, an ending that is inevitable, we must accept that winning is not quite an option before us.”
Magni fair growled at that. “I’m not giving up.”
“Nor should you,” Odin said. “Loki once told me that some games cannot be won. That maybe the best I could hope for was a stalemate.” His blood brother had also admitted that restarting the game would mean sacrificing most of Odin’s own pieces. At the time, Odin had not begun to realize the depth of Loki’s meaning. “If we cannot win … perhaps all that matters is ensuring that Hel also cannot win. This world is not hers to claim, even if the only means of stopping her is a drastic move.”
“I don’t understand,” Freyja said. “I thought you and Eostre were discussing an alliance with Serkland.”
Odin shook his head, fixing a sad smile upon his beloved. “Not with Serkland, exactly. Rather, with the very powers they venerate. The only way to truly destroy mist, is with flame. Long ago, Idunn believed we had to do that, to drive out the mists. Eostre sought out the Serks in hopes of doing so, but their power has its limits. Profound ones. The mists that flooded our world have spread across the entire world. Thus, we are left with one last gambit.”
The most audacious move Odin could think of. The one stratagem not even Hel could imagine or prepare for.
“What?” Freyja asked.
“I’m going to create a bridge to Muspelheim itself. Hel ushered in this era by bridging our world to Niflheim. She unbalanced the Spheres of Creation by giving Mist free access to the Mortal Realm, even if that access lasted but a short time.”
Malakbel scoffed. “Your solution to a frozen world is to light it on fire?” The liosalf shook his head. “I wager your time in the Tower of the Eye unhinged you.”
“How would you even do that?” Eostre asked, not half so dismissive as the two liosalfar seemed.
Odin reached over and took Freyja’s hand, hefting it to show where she still wore Andvaranaut. “There is a device on Asgard that creates the Bilröst. Just as I created the bridge to Alfheim and brought the liosalfar here, now I will make the bridge to Muspelheim and allow the Fire vaettir into our world. They will come, they will empower the eldjotunnar. And the flames themselves will purify the mists, burn them away as flame ever does.”
Freyja pulled her hand away, frowning deeply.
Magni rose abruptly, gaping as he looked from Odin to Freyja and back. “Utter mist-madness, Grandfather. Asgard has fallen! It is swarming with jotunnar—not fire jotunnar, mind—but frost jotunnar, sea jotunnar, mountain jotunnar, storm jotunnar, and who knows what other variety of cursed trollfuckers. Even if you could make it to the shores, it would be suicide to set foot upon them.”
Malina waved her hands. “Oh. Heh. Uh … we seem to have skipped over Malakbel’s point, here. Supposing you accomplished the bridge, your plan still hinges upon literally lighting your world on fire. You want to burn away all the mist here? It’s going to take more than a campfire or a bonfire or even a whole damn forest fire. You’d be talking about a conflagration the likes of which you cannot even imagine.”
“And even if mankind somehow survived that …” Malakbel interjected. “Even so, then you’d have the power of Muspel to contend with instead of Hel. I cannot say as you’d be so much better off. Elder God of Fire, Elder Goddess of Mist, does it really matter?”
It mattered, because Odin was tired of struggling with Hel over and over. Because, if he accomplished naught else this era, he swore he would put an end to her. “I don’t claim accomplishing this will be easy, nor without terrible cost. Rather, I simply cannot see any other way past this. If anyone else has a suggestion that does not end with the Mortal Realm becoming a part of Niflheim, I shall entertain it.”
Freyja rose now and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go with you. And don’t bother objecting. You cannot do this alone, and you know it.”
Odin nodded. “From what we know of Muspel, his pure disciples are more concerned with rampant destruction than conquest. Only the human vessels of Serkland have instilled the desire to rule aught. We take the gamble, and hope that when the fires have burned out, Muspel’s children have returned to Muspelheim.”
Malina shrugged. “A fair gamble. If you don’t mind seeing your whole world reduced to ash first.”
“It’s going to end, regardless,” Odin said. “This time, it ends on my terms.”
12
The wolf’s trail led south. Through Dalar. Past Njarar, even. Maybe Fenrir sought out the woodlands. Sought more varulfur. Tyr pushed himself and Sunna hard trying to catch the Moon Lord. Couldn’t say as it did much good.
Wolf always stayed hours ahead.
Led him on a trail of corpses, slaughtered villages.
An hour back, they’d come upon corpses still steaming in the snow. Massacre that had even Sunna shaking her head. Uneasy.
“What’s happened to Mani?” she mumbled now, trudging along through the snow beside Tyr.
Damn eclipse meant there was no day any more. Just night lasting for … well, for days and days.
Messed with man’s sense of time.
Tyr grunted in response to her comment. Wasn’t much more to say on that. If they hadn’t found him by now, probably meant the other Vanr had fallen. Or didn’t want to be found. Either way, naught to do save pushing on. Trying to catch Fenrir before anyone else died.
Now, it seemed rather like he must’ve headed for Skane. Lots of woodlands down there. Used to be, in days past, plenty of varulfur there, too. Most of them died to Sigmund Volsungson, as Tyr recalled.
“Are you sure we can kill this thing?” Sunna said, few moments later. Hours and hours of walking still didn’t seem to wind the liosalf. Her voice shook, just the same. Fear.
“Don’t know. My runeblade will kill his host. That much is sure. But I’ve seen him jump hosts before. Haven’t yet figured on a way of stopping that.”
Sunna murmured something under her breath, then looked to him again. “He won’t be able to claim me. Maybe I should do the killing.”
“Not the worst idea I’ve heard. If we can arrange it.”
At evening, they camped. Not a proper evening, given they’d had no sun before it. But at night, even that hateful ring of fire around the moon vanished. Then the dark became complete.
Barely broken by his pathetic campfire or Sunna’s own inner light.
Like shadows were eating the world. Not too far from the truth, maybe. Cha
os ran rampant, just like Odin had always promised.
Sunna sniffed, poking at the fire. Didn’t much like the dark, that one. Small wonder, given he’d heard the sun didn’t set in Alfheim. Sounded almost as unnerving as the moon never going away, if Tyr was honest. “You know, Idunn used to talk about you.”
Tyr cracked his neck, not hardly sure what to say to that.
“Back when we first got to Alfheim, she mentioned having had an occasional lover among the Aesir who banished us. Oh, I don’t think she talked on it with too many of the others. After having helped your people, Idunn was far from popular among her own. Even before it came out about her, hmm, unusual parentage.”
“Huh.” And he thought he didn’t know what to say before. Talk like that would render a man dumb forever, maybe. “Idunn, uh …”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
Sunna shifted again. “You’re going to ask if she’s all right in Svartalfheim. The answer is, I don’t know. Liosalfar trapped down there oft become svartalfar.”
“Take her back, then.”
“Ah. Well, the transformation doesn’t seem to work in the other direction nigh so oft, and seems even less like to flow that way for someone who already had svartalf blood.”
“Got a good heart.” Always kind. Well, mostly. Except for trying to overthrow her own people.
“Does she? I thought so, too. But she was odd, and didn’t used to like me overmuch.” Sunna shrugged. “Maybe I did not deserve to be liked back then. I was …” She chittered, a strange laugh. Damn unnerving. “After my father left, he gave the crown to Njord, Jord’s son. Maybe I thought it should have come to me, or at least to Mani. And everyone started calling Father the Mad Vanr. How well would you like that sort of thing?”
