The Order might be gone—at least for now. But there would be other enemies, other pretenders to threaten the balance. There was a citadel to be built—Asgard, as was—friends to be made, a brother to be found, and a world of tales to be discovered and told.
One-Eye would have understood—One-Eye, who had collected tales like they were penknives, or butterflies, or stones. For a teller of tales will never die, but will live on in stories—for as long as there are folk to listen.
The Order had known it—which was why they had outlawed stories and books—and the first thing Maddy intended to do was to change that Law and to free all the people in Malbry and beyond, free them from sleep and into dream…
For Maddy knew that where Folk dream, the gods will never be far away. And she smiled as she remembered something One-Eye had said, back in the days when such things had seemed as remote and unattainable as Asgard itself:
Anything that can be dreamed is true.
The river Dream, like the World Tree, has many branches, many routes. In World Below it joins the Strond and filters into World Above. It gushes under Red Horse Hill and bubbles out into Little Bear Wood, and trickle by trickle, it runs under the mountains, down the valleys, across the fens, and finally to World’s End and into the One Sea, the place from which all things came and to which all things may one day return.
Look for me in dreams, he’d said.
And Maddy smiled as she watched the burning boat drift down the river and out of sight.
RUNES OF THE NEW SCRIPT
Aesk: the Ash Tree, Yggdrasil
Ethel: the Homeland, Motherhood
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2008 by Joanne Harris
Maps copyright © 2008 by David Wyatt
Case art © 2008 by John Hendrix
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Joanne.
Runemarks / Joanne Harris. — 1st American ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Maddy Smith, who bears the mysterious mark of a rune on her hand, learns that she is destined to join the gods of Norse mythology and play a role in the fate of the world.
[1. Mythology, Norse—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.H24194Ru 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2007028928
eISBN: 978-0-375-84948-0
v3.0
Runemarks Page 42
