Runemarks

by Joanne Harris

  “Maddy, be careful,” Loki said.

  At the bottom of the pit, hot air began to roar as the subterranean river gushed out into the flow of boiling rock. In a second steam would obscure the pit; then, a second later, the column of flaming gas and ash would erupt.

  Maddy just hoped she had timed it right.

  Now she was balanced on the very edge of the fire pit. The stones beneath her feet were slick with sulfur and the glassy residue of many, many ventings. She tried to recall how Loki had done it—balancing on the rim like a dancer on a rope, his hands shuffling runes so fast that Maddy could hardly see them before they sank into the cloud at his feet.

  He was right behind her now; her skin prickled at his closeness, but she did not dare turn—he must not see what she was planning. Inside the pit, the furnace glow brightened from orange to yellow, from yellow to almost white, and as the power began to build, Maddy turned the full force of her concentration on the Whisperer.

  If you call it, it will come to you.

  She felt it, heard it in her mind—

  (?)

  And now she called it, not in words, but in glam—what Loki had called the language of Chaos. It was no language she had ever learned, and yet she could feel it linking her with the Whisperer, joining with it like notes in a long-lost chord.

  At last she could see in the depths of the pit something like a cat’s cradle of light, a complicated diagram in which many, many runes and signatures crossed and recrossed in strands of increasing complexity.

  A net, she thought, and for the second time she felt a response—a glimmer, a cry—from the object in the pit. A net just like the one Loki had used to trap his fish—

  (!)

  And it was a net that she meant to use against him. But Loki’s runes did not play fair, straining and twisting between her fingers. Naudr, the Binder; Thuris, the Thorn; T ýr, the Warrior; Kaen, Wildfire; Logr, Water; Isa, Ice.

  Loki’s runes, Loki’s trap. Even as she drew them, she could feel them moving, turning slyly out of alignment, waiting for her concentration to break.

  “Maddy!” said Loki’s voice behind her, and she needed no runes now to sense his fear. His hand brushed her shoulder; Maddy swayed, uncomfortably aware of the pit at her feet. One push, she thought…

  She called out again to the thing in the fire and, with a cry that echoed across the cavern, wrenched the net with its catch of glamours up and toward her out of the pit.

  It was just then that the geyser blew.

  The steam, a great hot hammer of air, came punching out of the narrow gauge. For a second everything went white; the laundry smell filled the cave and Maddy was sheathed in a scalding cloak. But for that second Loki flinched back and at the very same time Maddy cast the net, not at the Whisperer in its fiery column, but directly behind her, at Loki’s face.

  He had no time to shield himself. The runes of the Elder Script flickered out—Naudr, Thuris, T ýr, and Ós, Hagall and Kaen, Isa and Úr. The net fell, snaring Loki as neatly as any fish, and finally Aesk, Maddy’s own rune, hurled the Trickster across the cavern as the fiery column burst free, showering them both with ash, sulfur, and shards of volcanic glass.

  The blast was greater than any thus far. It threw Maddy forward twenty feet, and she fell to her knees, half stunned. Behind her the geyser was reaching its climax: ash and cinders filled the air; flaming rocks fell all around her; something heavy crashed to the ground only yards from where she had been standing.

  “Loki?” Maddy’s voice resonated flatly against the seeping walls. Half blinded by the scalding steam, she lay behind a flat rock, gasping for breath. The unaccustomed working had all but exhausted her glam. If he were to attack right now, she wouldn’t have much more than a cantrip to throw back at him.

  “Loki?” she called.

  There was no reply.

  A minute later the blast had abated; now sulfurous fumes filled the cavern. Maddy risked a glance around, but in the sickly yellow mist there was nothing to be seen.

  Then, as the mist cleared and the extent of the damage became apparent, Maddy realized why. The ceiling above them had partly collapsed. A mound of debris obscured the pit; one huge slab of rock, its near side studded with pieces of stalactite, lay atop the mound like a gauntleted fist.

  And Loki?

  And the Whisperer?

  There was no sign of either in the ruined cavern.

  4

  It was a few minutes more before Maddy could stand. She did so shakily, brushing cinders out of her hair. Her vision was still cloudy from looking into the fire pit; her face and hands were sore, as if they were sunburned.

  The aftershock was over now, and in its wake the cavern was eerily still. Dust trickled from the broken ceiling onto the giant mound of rocks and rubble, completely obliterating the end of the cavern where Loki and his net had been thrown.

  Congratulations, Maddy, said a dry voice inside her head. Now you’re a murderer.

  “No,” whispered Maddy, horrified.

  She’d never intended to hurt him, of course. She’d only meant to keep him at bay, to hold him while she claimed the Whisperer. But everything had happened so fast. She’d had no time to measure her strength. And if now, by her fault, he was under there—smashed beneath that fist of rock…

  And now it was not just the fumes from the pit that were making it hard for Maddy to breathe. The mound of stones, so like a barrow from the Elder Age, almost seemed to fill the cavern. Slowly, reluctantly, she moved toward it. A small part of her protested against all hope that Loki might be trapped but unhurt, and fitfully she began to turn over the smaller rocks, searching in vain for a scrap of sleeve, a boot, a shadow—

  A signature.

  That was it! Maddy could have kicked herself with frustration. Casting Bjarkán with a trembling hand, she found his at once, that unmistakable wildfire trail. No two light-signatures are ever the same, and Loki’s, like One-Eye’s, was unusually complex and alive.

  Alive!

  A good tracker may tell the age of the wolf he hunts, whether it limps, how fast it was running, and when it made its last kill. Maddy was not so skilled a tracker, but she spotted the fragments of the net and traces of the mindrune she had cast.

  There had been tremendous power in that final rune, power enough to collapse the ceiling as Maddy dragged the Whisperer out of the pit. Pieces of Aesk still littered the floor, like shards from an exploded bottle, and here was where the rune had thrown him, pinning Loki like a moth as the ceiling collapsed on top of him.

  But then…

  There it was, against all hope, leading away from the mound of stone: not a back-trail, not a fragment, but a signature, scrawled fleetingly in that characteristic lurid violet against the rock.

  She guessed from its faintness that he had tried to hide, but either he was too weak to shield his color-trail or the falling rocks had taken up too much of his concentration, because there it was, unmistakably, leading toward the cavern mouth.

  It was there at last that Maddy found him. He had fallen behind a block of stone; one arm was up to cover his face, his motionless fingers still pronged into the runeshape of ýr, the Protector. He was very still, and there was blood—an alarming amount of it—on the rock behind him.

  Maddy’s heart did a slow roll. She knelt down, shaking, and held out a hand to touch his face. The blood, she saw, came from a narrow slash just above his eyebrow. A rock must have caught him as he ran, unless it was the fall that had knocked him unconscious. In any case, though, he was alive.

  Relief made Maddy laugh aloud; then, hearing her voice rattle eerily across the ruined cavern, she thought better of it.

  He was alive, she reminded herself—but as soon as he awoke, doubly dangerous. This was his place. Gods knew what resources he might have at his command. She needed to get out, and quickly.

  She looked around. The cavern was still acrid with the stench of the fire pit, but at least the air was cooler now that the shower of debris h
ad stopped. It had been a close shave, she saw now: a chunk of volcanic glass the size of a hog’s head had flown through the air, missing her by inches, and now lay, still glowing, by her feet.

  Thinking fast, Maddy assessed the situation. It looked bad: she had failed—she had lost the Whisperer—her strength was exhausted, and she was buried in the tunnels of World Below with miles and miles of passages and galleries between herself and the surface.

  Still, she thought, it had been a good plan. It should have worked. For a second there had been a contact between them. The Whisperer should have answered her call. It almost had—but, as Crazy Nan used to say, “Almost” never wins the race.

  Maddy looked around in desperation. What was she to do now?

  “Kill him,” said a voice behind her.

  Startled, Maddy turned around.

  “Go on. He deserves it.” It was a man’s voice, dry and rather fussily disapproving, like Nat Parson in mid-sermon. But there was no one in sight; around her the shadows swelled, red-tinged, as the fire pit drew breath.

  “Where are you?” she whispered.

  “Just kill him,” said the voice again. “Do the Worlds a favor. You’ll never get a better chance.”

  Maddy looked left and right but saw no one.

  Had she imagined it? Was she so addled by smoke and fumes? Somewhere at the back of her mind she was conscious of a small, persistent voice telling her to run, that the geyser was about to vent again, that she was already half poisoned from the fire pit fumes, and that unless she got out into breathable air, she would collapse, but none of that seemed very important now. So much easier to ignore it, to close her eyes, to think of nothing.

  “Stop that,” said the voice sharply. “What are you, an imbecile? Look down, girl, look down!”

  Maddy dropped her gaze.

  “Lower.”

  “But there’s nothing—” began Maddy, then stopped short, her eyes widening as she finally saw—really saw—the thing that had crash-landed almost at her feet, still glowing from the heat of its fiery cradle.

  “Ah, at last,” said the Whisperer in a weary tone. “Now, if you can possibly bear a little more exertion, you might at least give that bastard a kick from me.”

  5

  As far as anyone knew, the passages that ran beneath Red Horse Hill had never once been mapped or counted. Even the Captain didn’t know them all, for although he had used the place for centuries as a bolt-hole and rallying place for goblins, he was not the architect of the Hill, nor the custodian of all its secrets.

  Rumor had it that if you went deep enough, you could follow the Strond right down into Netherworld and the Black Fortress, which straddled the river Dream, but no one knew that for sure—except possibly the Captain, and any goblin foolish enough to ask him for particulars deserved everything he got.

  Sugar-and-Sack was no fool. But he was curious—perhaps more curious than was altogether safe—and he had seen a number of peculiar things, which he longed to try and investigate. It had begun with that girl who knew his true name and her descent into regions where no goblin ventured but into which the Captain sometimes disappeared, returning in a foul temper and reeking of smoke.

  Next had come the developments in World Above. In usual circumstances Sugar would have taken little interest in these. Goblins don’t like trouble, unless they are causing it themselves, and the frequent comings and goings on Red Horse Hill—the posses and the parson stirring up the neighborhood—would normally have kept him safely underground.

  But this time he sensed that there was something more afoot than the usual tension between Folk and Faërie. There had been rumors—and a horseman, riding hard on a laden steed, galloping back to the Hindarfell. There was a scent too, like incense and burned stubble, and half an hour ago the Captain had returned from one of his forays with a rag around his head and a nasty gleam in his eye, had put his guard on full alert, and had shut himself up in his private quarters, snapping at any goblin who came close.

  Sugar knew better than to get in his way. He had done what he always did in similar circumstances: had settled himself in an out-of-the-way place and prepared to acquaint himself with a plum cake, a ripe cheese, and a small barrel of mule-kick brandy that he had stashed there several weeks before. He was just getting comfortable when the sound of voices reached him—and one of them, he knew at once, was Maddy’s.

  His duty was plain—to stop the girl. Those were his orders, clear as kennet, orders from the Captain himself—and the Captain had a way of making himself very unpleasant if his orders were not obeyed.

  On the other hand, he told himself, anyone who could make Loki nervous would be more than a match for Sugar-and-Sack. The better part of valor, in this case, would be to lie low and finish the brandy.

  It was a good plan, and it would have worked just fine, thought Sugar later, if it hadn’t been for his dratted curiosity. The same that had led him to the girl in the first place. And now it got the better of him once again as he crept along in the shadows, trying to hear what the voices were saying.

  An argument seemed to be in progress.

  It had not taken long for Maddy to discover that the Whisperer was not at all grateful for its release. In the hours after their escape from the cavern, following her own back-trail and carrying the object in a sling made from her jacket, she had many opportunities to curse herself for having succeeded so well.

  One-Eye had been right, she thought. The Whisperer looked and felt just like a lump of rock. A chunk of some glassy volcanic stuff—obsidian, perhaps, or some kind of quartz—but looking closer, she could see its face: a craggy nose, a downturned mouth, eyes that gleamed with mean intelligence.

  And as for its personality…It was like dealing with a bad-tempered old man. Nothing pleased it. Not their pace, which was too slow, but which became uncomfortable when Maddy speeded up, nor Maddy’s conversation, nor her silence, and especially not the fact that they were going to join One-Eye.

  “That war crow?” said the Whisperer. “He doesn’t own me, never did. Thinks he’s still the General. Thinks he can just start giving orders again.”

  Maddy, who by now had heard this several times before, said nothing. Instead she tried to concentrate on the path, which was rocky and filled with holes.

  “Arrogant as ever. Who does he think he is, eh? Allfather my—”

  “I suppose you’d rather I’d left you in the fire pit,” said Maddy under her breath.

  “What? Speak up!”

  “You heard.”

  “Now listen to me,” said the Whisperer. “I don’t think you know what you’re dealing with here. I’m not just a rock, you know. In the wrong hands I could explode like a grenado.”

  Maddy ignored it and kept on walking. It was hard going. The Whisperer was heavy and awkward to carry, and every time she thought of resting, she imagined Loki—angry, recovered, and out for revenge—running up the passage after her. She had done what she could to hide her trail, crossing it at intervals with the runesign ýr or doubling back on her own tracks. She hoped it would be enough to delay or lose him, but she couldn’t know for sure.

  The Whisperer had not been slow to deplore her compassion. “You should have killed him when you had the chance,” it complained for the twentieth time. “He was helpless, unconscious—completely at our mercy. Failing that, you could have left him, and the fumes would probably have finished him off. But what do you do? You save him. You drag him into the clean air. You tie a rag around his head. You practically tuck him into bed, for gods’ sakes—what next, a glass of milk and a runny egg?”

  “Oh, give it a rest,” said Maddy crossly.

  “You’ll regret it,” said the Whisperer. “He’s going to bring us nothing but trouble.”

  To give the thing some credit, she thought, it had just cause to resent the Trickster. As they moved toward World Above, it treated Maddy to a centuries-long catalog of grievances against Loki, beginning with his adoption into Asgard and the havoc
he had wrought there and culminating in his reappearance, some hundred years after Ragnarók and in the most unlikely place—the catacombs of the Universal City in distant World’s End.

  “What was he doing there? I don’t know. Up to no good—that goes without saying—and weak from his reversed glam. But just as tricky as ever, damn him, and he must have known I’d be somewhere nearby—”

  “Known?” said Maddy.

  “Yes, of course.” The Whisperer hissed. “There I was, peace at last, sleeping away the centuries, and what does he do? He wakes me, the bastard.”

  “But how could he know where you’d be?”

  It gave a pulse of angry light. “Well, given that I’m not what you’d call independently mobile nowadays, I suppose he just searched among the ruins until—”

  “Ruins of what?” Maddy said.

  “Well, Asgard, of course,” snapped the Whisperer.

  Maddy stared. “Asgard?” she said. Of course she knew that the Sky Citadel had fallen at Ragnarók. And she had heard so many stories about the place that she almost felt she’d seen it herself, with its golden halls and its rainbow bridge that spanned the sky.

  The Whisperer laughed. “What? Didn’t Odin tell you? The far side of that bridge was at World’s End. The Folk never knew about that, of course. They couldn’t cross it, only ever saw it when it was raining and sunny at the same time, and even then they thought it was a natural phenomenon, due to extraordinary weather conditions. But Dogstar knew—that’s Loki to you—and he found me and brought me to this place, a place at the very center of the Worlds, a place where lines of great power converge, where he bound me with runes and trickery and swore he’d release me—if I gave him what he wanted.”

  “I knew it,” said Maddy. “But what did he want?”

  Once more the Whisperer hissed to itself. “He wanted his true Aspect back. He wanted his rune unreversed. Failing that, he wanted to use me, to sell me to either the Æsir or the Vanir in exchange for his miserable skin. But he had done his job too well. He couldn’t get me out of the pit. The forces that imprisoned me—forces from Dream and Death and beyond—held me fast, and all he could do was stand guard over me and hope and pray that I never escaped. And so it has been for centuries”—the Whisperer gave its dry laugh—“and if that doesn’t give me a right to revenge, then this New Age of yours is even more pathetic than I thought it was.”