Oh, Mum, if you could see me now, thought Freya, as she stepped off the trembling rainbow into the realm of the Gods.
3 The Well of Urd
‘Yoo-hoo! Hello! It’s us! Roskva and Alfi. Hello!’
‘Who are you calling?’ asked Freya, gaping at the curving wall of golden-brown rocks and boulders that soared upward into the bright sky, high as a mountain, higher than any wall she’d ever seen. She felt tiny and insignificant standing beneath the gigantic ramparts.
‘Heimdall,’ said Roskva. ‘Hellooooo! Heimdall!’
The guardian of the Gods, the one whose horn she’d blown. He’d be angry with her for her terrible presumption, she thought, shrinking inside.
‘He lives at the end of heaven outside the wall … guarding the bridge,’ muttered Alfi. ‘Where could he be?’
Roskva looked around. ‘He never leaves the heaven-mountain,’ she said.
‘Maybe he didn’t hear you,’ said Freya.
‘The Wind-Shield of the Gods can hear the grass growing on earth,’ said Alfi. ‘He can hear the wool growing on sheep. He can hear fish breathing in the sea.’
‘He heard us,’ said Roskva. She looked grim.
‘But where’s Heimdall’s palace?’ said Alfi. ‘It should be over there.’ He pointed to a barren stretch of land, with weeds growing amidst piles of stones and rubble. ‘There, under the wall, at the end of the bridge.’
Freya stared at the ruin. Roskva and Alfi exchanged rapid words in their own language.
‘What are you saying?’ said Freya. She heard the fear in their voices.
They ignored her.
‘Maybe he moved,’ said Freya.
‘Maybe the All-Father gave him a better palace,’ said Alfi.
‘It’s possible,’ said Roskva. She looked doubtful.
‘Roskva, I’m scared,’ said Alfi.
‘Let’s go in,’ said Roskva quietly. ‘There’s the little doorway we can creep through.’
‘It’ll be locked,’ said Alfi.
‘Then we’ll just have to break it, won’t we?’ said Roskva. ‘We don’t have time to wait for Heimdall to get back from wherever he is.’
Sleipnir suddenly reared and snorted and dug his hooves into the ground. However hard Roskva and Alfi tugged on his bridle, he wouldn’t budge.
‘Leave him,’ said Snot. He gnawed on his shield and bared his chipped black teeth. His matted grey wolf-hair stood up in bristly tufts. His rank smell was unbearable. Freya turned her face away from him, but Roskva and Alfi didn’t seem to notice.
They left Sleipnir beside the flaming bridge, and stood before the wooden door, studded with nails and criss-crossed with iron bars, cut into a gigantic doorway. Roskva tugged hard on the rusty latch, which fell off in her hand. She bit her lip, and pushed the door open. With a screech, the door splintered and snapped off its great hinges.
‘Get your sword out, you stinking son of a mare!’ snapped Snot. ‘Never walk ahead of your weapon.’
Alfi blushed and drew his sword.
Then, one by one, they walked through the gateway into Asgard.
Freya gasped. For once, she couldn’t speak as she looked around the stronghold of the Gods.
Tumbleweed blew across the desolate plains. Thistles and brambles covered the parched ground. There were no shimmering green and gold fields rolling out to infinity. No mighty gleaming citadels. Just nettles growing higher than any Freya had ever seen.
Where were the palaces? All she could see was the wind-swept world tree Yggdrasil soaring high into the heavens. She heard the far-off roar of torrential rivers. Otherwise all was silent, as if Asgard was asleep.
‘Are you sure … are you sure we’re in the right place?’ Freya felt overwhelmed with disappointment. Was this some kind of practical joke her weird companions were playing on her? Had they yanked her from her life and dragged her here to roam around a dusty wasteland? How could she have been so gullible to think she’d be meeting the Gods?
She glared at Roskva and Alfi.
Alfi looked ashen. He clutched Roskva’s sleeve.
‘Do you think the frost giants attacked while we were asleep?’ he murmured. ‘Could Ragnarok have happened?’
Roskva shook her head. ‘The earth still exists. So does the sun and the moon. We saw the stars tonight. It’s not the end of days.’
Snot growled and gripped his sword.
‘Who did this? I’ll kill them!’ he howled. Then, bellowing, ‘Valhalla! Valhalla!’ he ran towards the remains of a vast, derelict Hall beside a fast-flowing river.
Freya, Alfi, and Roskva followed him. They stood inside the ruined walls, unable to speak. Bits of tarnished metal, scrapings from the vanished roof, and a few rusted spears lay scattered in the dirt.
This was Valhalla. The Hall of the Slain. The gold-bright palace of Woden’s chosen warriors. The dark, echoing wine hall was now only home to the winds.
‘This hall was so bright they used swords instead of fire for light,’ murmured Alfi. ‘The rafters were made of spear shafts and thatched with overlapping shields of gold. There were helmets and red-gold mail coats strewn everywhere, and men shouting and drinking … even Woden’s wolves are gone; I used to give them meat scraps … there were five hundred and forty doors. I know, I used to walk around and count them while the Valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain, served mead and haunches of boar to the tired warriors. That’s the corner where I tried to barricade myself from the men who pelted me with bones when they’d finished eating and my Master wasn’t there to protect me.’
Freya’s skin prickled. She was reminded of old photographs of American ghost towns, where only a few sun-bleached buildings and dirt roads showed that anyone had ever lived there. She felt as if she were walking in an ancient graveyard, untouched and unvisited for centuries, with tumbled-down stones and worn-out inscriptions the only signs of the people who had once walked the earth.
Snot stared at the shards of a black cauldron in the middle of the floor, and kicked at a few shield fragments. A rotten, sagging mead-bench was shoved against what was left of a wall. He picked it up and hurled it against the ground where it splintered. ‘I sat here,’ he muttered. ‘Woden put me in a low place by a door, because I was newly arrived and yet to prove myself. Ha! I didn’t stay there long. As they say, fast temper grows in a seat far from the High Table.’ He sighed. ‘We fought all day and feasted all night.’
‘Didn’t that get boring?’ blurted Freya, before she could stop herself.
Snot glowered down at her over his raven shield. His dark eyes glinted beneath his crooked brows.
‘How else can you forget your self?’ he said.
Freya wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Snot frightened her and she wanted to keep away from him as much as possible. She left him to his memories inside the ruins of Valhalla and walked over to where Alfi and Roskva were standing amidst dried-out rushes and sedges, watching the river roaring past as if they had lost the will to move.
‘The All-Father’s palace should be over there,’ said Alfi, pointing into empty space. Freya squinted. She could just make out a few piles of stones and pillars far off in the distance. It looked like the ruins of the Roman Forum.
‘Let me just have a quick look around,’ said Alfi. ‘Wait here.’
Freya watched astonished, as he ran off. One moment he was there, the next … not.
‘He’s fast,’ said Freya.
‘They say only thought can outrun him,’ said Roskva. ‘Bit of an exaggeration, but he’s pretty speedy.’
There was a flash of movement, and Alfi had returned.
‘Njord’s palace, and Freyja’s, and Sif’s … none of them exist any more,’ said Alfi, panting. ‘It’s all just rubble and ruins.’
‘Where is everyone?’ said Freya.
They ignored her.
‘Master! Master!’ shouted Roskva. ‘Master! Are you here?’
There was a rusty upturned chariot, half-buried in the dirt, choked with weeds. A t
wisted rope of silver tarnished black lay beside it.
Roskva prodded her brother.
‘That’s our Master’s!’ she hissed.
‘No,’ said Alfi. ‘It can’t be …’ He picked up the silver reins and scraped at the tarnish, revealing traces of the interwoven pattern. Then he nodded.
‘Roskva, what are we going to do? Do you think we’re too late?’
Roskva twisted her hands. Freya noticed how old and wrinkled and calloused they were. More like the hands of an old woman than a girl. Her nails were bitten.
‘Could the Gods be – dead?’ Alfi whispered the last word as if terrified he would be overheard.
Roskva laughed. ‘The Gods are immortal.’
‘Something’s happened,’ said Alfi.
‘We’ve seen no burial mounds,’ said Roskva.
‘Maybe there was a fire … maybe the Gods have gone somewhere else …’
‘But that doesn’t explain … all this,’ said Roskva. ‘This is so much worse … How much time has passed since we were here?’
Alfi shrugged. ‘How can I answer that?’
‘I know things were bad, but …’ Roskva trailed off.
‘If no one’s here then I’ll be going home,’ said Freya. She felt angry and frightened.
‘You’re going nowhere, hornblower,’ said Roskva.
‘Since when are you my boss?’ said Freya.
Roskva waved her hands as if she were brushing off an ant.
‘You know nothing, little girl!’ hissed Roskva. ‘You are part of something much bigger than you can imagine.’
Little girl? Freya opened her mouth to protest.
‘We’ll argue about this later,’ said Roskva. ‘Let’s go to the Well. If any of the Immortals are still here, that’s where they’ll be.’
‘The Gods hold court at the Well of Urd under Yggdrasil every day to pass judgement,’ Alfi told Freya as they walked through the weeds towards the tallest, widest, most enormous tree she’d ever seen or imagined. Dead ivy coiled round its withered trunk. The towering tree hurtled into the heavens higher than she could see, wider than a street of houses, wider than Buckingham Palace. Its leafless branches fanned out across the sky.
‘Roskva and I came here every day with our Master. He lived so far away in Asgard we had to wade across many rivers to get here. But we did it. The Master was always moving, always travelling, always fighting and bellowing. It was hard to keep up with him.’
They walked to the sacred Well of Fate beneath one of the roots of the world tree. Reverently, Freya brushed her hand along the rough bark of the great ash, which loomed above the holy place of the Gods. Her fingers tingled as she felt the tree’s faint pulse.
Freya stood in the middle of a circle of intricately carved, ivory-white stones, their seats worn smooth. Tracery lines of runes were etched along the bottom. Moss and grasses grew around them. At the centre was a large pool with glinting blue-black water, nestling under the root of the giant ash tree. A single shaft of sunlight lit up the well.
There was a hushed silence. Freya felt the power of the place.
‘That’s where the great god Frey sat,’ said Alfi, pointing to the stone seat still decorated with the outline of a giant boar. ‘And that’s the All-Father’s High Seat. His wife Frigg sat beside him. Baldr the Fair and Heimdall over there. And the beautiful goddess Freyja, Frey’s sister, across from Woden and his wife. Our Master Thor and his wife Sif sat here. Roskva and I stood behind him in case he needed us.’
Freya walked to the pool and knelt down to peer into the inky depths. She picked up a small stone and was about to drop it in when Roskva gasped and stopped her.
‘That’s a sacred well,’ she said. ‘The Well of Fate. You don’t just throw things in it.’
‘Oh,’ said Freya. She stepped back as if the well had caught fire. ‘I just wanted to see how deep it was.’
‘She didn’t mean any harm,’ said Alfi. ‘Remember when all this was new to you too, Roskva.’
Roskva scowled. Freya thought for a wild moment how nice it would be to dump Roskva down the well.
Roskva scooped up a handful of water and sprinkled it on the bark of the giant tree. Yggdrasil shuddered and jolted, and a burst of dark green leaves appeared on the lower branches.
‘Well? What do we do now?’ said Freya.
‘About bloody time,’ hissed a voice beside her.
‘What took you so long?’ rasped another.
Freya jumped. She looked around, but saw nothing. Roskva tensed.
‘We’ve been waiting centuries for you,’ moaned a peevish voice behind her.
The shadows fluttered. Freya saw ghosts rise from the earth and the rocks and shuffle towards her, tottering creatures of twilight and dew, more like walking air than living beings. Freya could hear bones creaking, like rusty wheels trying to turn again. She smelled mould and damp, as if the lid of an old trunk filled with moth-eaten rags had suddenly been lifted.
Roskva gasped. She clutched Alfi’s arm. Snot growled.
Alfi nudged her. ‘That’s Heimdall,’ he murmured, pointing to a wizened spectre babbling to himself as he rocked back and forth. ‘Oh Thor, that’s the guardian of the Gods. Roskva. Look at him. He’s worse than Grandpa was …’
The wispy, flickering shadows gathered in the stone circle under Yggdrasil’s withered root. The dying Gods were assembling to hold their court.
A crippled, shrivelled wraith hunched on the highest stone seat. His single eye glittered faintly beneath a few threads hanging down from what was once a wide-brimmed hat. Fragments of a blue mantle clung to the bones jutting out from his emaciated body.
Snot fell to the ground.
‘Bow!’ hissed Roskva, flinging herself down. Alfi did the same. Freya copied. She tried to stop her hands shaking.
‘Who is that old guy?’ she whispered.
‘The All-Father,’ murmured Alfi. ‘Hide your eyes.’ Freya obeyed. Her heart was pounding.
It was impossible. How could this doddery, broken-backed wreck be Woden the Much-Wise, Father of Magic, Giver of Victory, Lord of Poetry? Freya glimpsed the stone seat beneath his transparent skin. The capricious, scary, vengeful God, the one Clare bowed down to so anxiously, was a crumpled husk. Two dead ravens, skeletons with a few feathers sticking out from their sides, perched on his shoulders.
‘Stand up!’ croaked the one-eyed ghost. ‘Our time is brief.’
The four stood in the middle of the stone circle, surrounded by the trembling Gods. Freya felt faint with horror and pity. The immortal Gods were old and dying. How was this possible?
‘Where is the hero we’ve been waiting for?’ rasped Woden. ‘Where is the battle-brave warrior who blew Heimdall’s horn and woke my sleeping army? Where is the mortal hero the seeress foretold? Let him step forward and reveal himself.’
He can’t mean me, thought Freya. She looked down at her scuffed black shoes and her Baldr’s Fane of England school uniform with its crumpled blue-pleated skirt. There was still a ketchup stain from lunch on her ratty yellow sweatshirt. He can’t mean me.
Freya looked around. Snot scratched his bum. Alfi cleared his throat. Roskva gave her a push.
‘Who blew the horn and cracked open the earth? Step forward!’ hissed Woden. His withered eye flashed for a moment.
‘I did,’ whispered Freya.
The assembled Gods hissed and muttered. The Goddess Sif choked. Heimdall rocked to and fro, drooling.
‘But it was a mistake,’ said Freya. ‘I didn’t mean to … I didn’t know, I …’
‘Your name,’ said Woden. When he spoke, there was an edge to his voice that frightened her.
‘Freya,’ she said.
‘An unworthy namesake,’ hissed a bald Goddess with shaking, liver-coloured hands. Her transparent skin was a mass of wrinkles. A glittering gold necklace weighed down her scrawny, turkey-gobbler neck. ‘You’re so ugly. What were your parents thinking? I am insulted.’
You’re one to talk, you o
ld crone, thought Freya. And she’d always been so proud to share the name of such a beautiful, wise Immortal.
Woden fixed the Goddess Freyja with his dark, baleful eye. She tossed her wobbly head as if she still had flaxen curls to toss. Her necklace rattled.
‘Your parents’ names?’ said Woden.
‘Bob … uh … Robert Gislason,’ said Freya. ‘My mother is Clare Raven.’
‘You and your family are unknown to me,’ said Woden. He sat for a long moment in silence. ‘There was a time when no creature on earth escaped my notice.’
‘I am Frey,’ quavered a stooping God with tightly stretched, blackened skin. He looked like rags fluttering on a stick. ‘Are you a thrall?’
‘A thrall?’
‘A slave,’ said Frey.
‘No!’ said Freya.
‘A farmer then?’ asked the God of crops and sunshine and peace and plenty.
‘No,’ said Freya.
‘Surely not a noble?’
‘No,’ said Freya. How her granddad the baker would have loved that question.
‘There is nothing else,’ said Frey.
The Gods and Goddesses jittered and stuttered.
‘Not a slave? Then who does the work?’
‘We all do,’ said Freya.
‘We’ve been dying too long,’ whispered Sif, a heap of shrivelled, transparent skin, her wispy white hairs barely covering her bald skull. ‘We’ll have a lot to learn …’
‘A lot to put right,’ quavered Woden’s wife, Frigg. Her toothless mouth sagged.
‘Can I go home now?’ said Freya.
‘Hold your tongue,’ ordered Woden. Freya shrank back.
‘What was I saying?’ muttered Woden. He was silent for a long moment, mumbling to himself. ‘Oh yes,’ he rasped. ‘Where are the others? Where are my sword-bright warriors? Where are the ones versed in the arts of old magic? Where is the sleeping army who will save us?’
Freya looked around. Alfi, Roskva, and Snot did the same. She half-expected to see all the chess pieces gathering, the knights, the kings, the queens, the pawns, all changed back into living people, but there were only the empty plains of Asgard and the wrecked, racked Gods shaking before her.
The Sleeping Army Page 3
