Giants of the Frost

by Kim Wilkins

  “I won’t sleep, Aud,” he said, “not while there’s a chance this thread will turn black when my eyes aren’t upon it.”

  “Well, eat and prepare yourself.” She whistled for Arvak, who was sniffing in the grass a few yards away. “You told me that Victoria is locked behind metal and stone. She will be safe until tonight. You look as if you might drop dead if you don’t rest.”

  Vidar felt fatigue seep into every muscle and bone. “Yes, yes, I must rest,” he conceded, “and I must think about how to use this new weapon. You will help me, Aud?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Now come. Back to Gammaldal.”

  He lay, almost catatonic, by the fire for two hours, while Aud made him a meal, found him fresh clothes and hung his cloak to dry. Every ten minutes or so, he would ask her to check if the thread were still colored, which it was. Each time, he took comfort that Victoria was still safe, but agonized over the fear and bewilderment she must be feeling.

  “Something went wrong,” he said to Aud as she sat across from him and broke the bread. “Odin found out.”

  Aud didn’t meet his gaze. “It matters little where he found out. Now that he knows, we have to deal with it.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone, did you, Aud?”

  She shook her head and handed him a cup of wine. “I said nothing.”

  Vidar swallowed the wine dispiritedly, thinking about the previous night in the woods of Jotunheim. How easy it had been to pick up a weapon and kill. How natural. As though it were in his blood.

  “I despise myself,” he said, slumping forward.

  “Why, Vidar?”

  “I killed the troll-wife.”

  A half instant of silence alerted him to Aud’s surprise. “You did what you had to do,” she said evenly.

  “I swore I’d never kill again. After last time.”

  “It’s true, then?” she asked. “That you killed Odin’s servants out of spite?”

  He put his face in his hands. “Not spite. I killed them because they were there in front of me, Aud. That is the person I used to be.”

  A long silence drew out between them and the fire crackled in the quiet room.

  “But you are different now,” she said softly.

  Vidar looked up. Her dark eyes were fixed on his, patient and tender.

  “I thought I was,” he said. “But last night—”

  “You were desperate. You were mad with anxiety, and tiredness, and—”

  “I killed her. It was instinctive, born into me.” A shudder seized him. “I cannot escape my family.”

  “If you get to Midgard tonight, you can change all that.”

  “And if I don’t? Let me ask you something, Aud. I killed Jarnvidja for a tooth from the wolf Mánagarm, poisonous only to Aesir. His anger made him grow and it will continue to do so. I left him chained up, there in the hut in the fens. The troll-wife said to me before she died that I had set in motion my family’s fate. What do you think she meant?”

  Aud considered for a few moments, her eyebrows drawn down.

  “Vidar,” she said. “What is the name of the wolf that the stories of men say will swallow Odin at Ragnarok? The one you are fated to save him from?”

  “Fenrir,” Vidar said.

  “The fen-dweller,” Aud said, nodding. “Then it’s him?”

  “Grown to monstrous size. He will lurk in the fens for thousands of years, then finally break his bonds and unleash the evil from Jotunheim.”

  “It’s too far distant for you to consider,” she said. “Think of the present, think of tonight.” She came to crouch next to him and touched his cheek. “Don’t despise yourself, Vidar. A man’s character is not decided in one act, nor is it necessarily decided in his past. In each moment, you can be a good man, a kind man. You have been kind to me.”

  Vidar felt tears prick his eyes and quickly turned away from Aud. “Thank you, Aud,” he said, forcing his voice to be smooth. “I have rested long enough and now I must be active again.” He pulled himself to his feet, tested his aching muscles by taking his weight first on one leg, then the other. “I need to make a weapon that will turn Heimdall’s blood to ice when he sees it.” He handed her his cloak. “Aud, you are Vanir. I can’t touch the tooth for fear of death. Could you unwrap it and help me to set it in the end of a spear?”

  “Of course,” Aud said warily, peeling back the scarf to reveal the tooth.

  Vidar fetched his hunting spear. “We’ll need to bind it tightly,” he said, then a loud crack echoed around the room. The spear had broken. “What happened?” he said.

  “As soon as the tooth touched it, it split,” Aud said.

  “Because it belongs to me,” Vidar replied, nodding. “Of course.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Go outside and cut a new branch.”

  “The trees are Asgard trees, they belong to the Aesir,” she said. “The same thing will happen.”

  “Then what can I build a weapon from? I can’t hold the tooth in my hand.”

  “My loom,” Aud said, indicating where it stood in the corner. “It was made in Vanaheim. Take off the crossbeam. We can glue the tooth into the hollow at the end. It may not look like a fearsome weapon, but it will serve the purpose.”

  Under Vidar’s instruction, Aud dismantled the loom and set the tooth in the end of the crossbeam. It looked ridiculous, too short and thick for a spear, the tooth set off center and the glue congealed around the end, but there wasn’t a more powerful weapon in Asgard at that moment, and the afternoon shadows were drawing long. The hope had started to beat in his heart again, the morning’s despair evaporating into the cool sky.

  “Will you come with me to Valaskjálf?” Vidar asked as he pulled on his shoes and cloak. “I might need your Vanir hands if the tooth comes loose, and you can bring Arvak home once I’ve gone.”

  She forced a smile. “Do you really need me?” she asked hopefully.

  He stood straight and met her gaze. “Your company would help me, to steady my hands and remember my breath,” he said softly, “and I would like a last fond memory of Asgard to take with me.”

  “Then I will come.”

  All the way to Valaskjálf, snuggled against Vidar’s back on Arvak, Aud allowed herself one last sweet fantasy. He loved her and belonged in her arms, the late-afternoon sun and the waving fields of spring flowers blessed their union, and they were heading to the beach to make love on the warm sand. As the woods deepened and the shadows dimmed, reality was upon her once more and this time she bowed to it.

  Vidar was going to Midgard to become mortal and love a woman named Victoria. Aud was to return to Loki and make the best of things with him, until he grew tired of her. After that? It didn’t pay to think of it, but she was through with struggling against life and fate. Once Vidar was gone, she intended to turn her heart to stone until her exile in Asgard was over.

  “We will wait here,” Vidar said, pulling Arvak up.

  The hump of Valaskjálf’s back was just visible through the trees, the sea roared, and one of Bifrost’s pillars caught the sun. Vidar dismounted and checked the corner of his cloak for the hundredth time. He helped Aud down and she sat on the forest floor. Low beams of sun shot through the trees, deepening, by contrast, the shadows that circled them. She watched as Vidar unpacked Arvak, his strong hands working and his shoulders moving against the material of his clothes. Then he leaned against the horse’s neck and patted him vigorously.

  “I will miss you, old friend,” he whispered, and Aud had to look away. It seemed too vulnerable a moment to watch.

  Vidar sat with her. He was pale, and his hands trembled.

  “Are you frightened?” Aud asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Aud glanced toward the pillar. The sun’s stain was fading from it. “Will Heimdall come out? If the bridge is closed?”

  “If not, I’ll go in and get him.”

  The shadows drew longer; the night insects in the forest began to chirp. Aud
’s heart quickened. She had only minutes left. He stood, readying himself.

  “Vidar,” she said, swallowing hard. “I know your mind is on other things . . .”

  He tilted his head to consider her. “What is it, Aud?”

  “Is it hard to leave, Vidar? Is it hard to leave home, and immortality, and everything you have ever known?”

  His eyes grew sad. “Yes. And no.”

  “I loved you, Vidar.”

  “I know. I am sorry.”

  Aud slid her arms around him. “Hold me, just one moment. It is all the comfort I will have for a thousand years.”

  He embraced her, and said, “I’m not equal to such a responsibility. You must try to find comfort in other places when I’m gone.”

  She stepped back, alone again, a solitary soul inhabiting a solitary body in an empty space far from home. “Farewell, my own, my true love,” she said, and tears brimmed and ran down her face.

  “Good-bye, Aud.” He turned and pulled up the hood of his cloak, and melted into the shadows.

  Heimdall sat with his back against the northern pillar, picking his teeth with a fingernail. Vidar watched him from the rim of the trees, then pulled the edge of his cloak to his lips and kissed the bright thread.

  “Soon, Victoria,” he said, gathering resolve. The fresh sea air was salty in his nostrils as he strode from the forest, and the water’s draw and pull echoed off the cliffs and gusted up toward him. He was nearly upon Heimdall before he slipped out of his cloak and made his presence known.

  Heimdall scrambled to his feet, surprised. “Vidar! Where did you come from?”

  “Open Bifrost,” Vidar said. The wind off the sea caught his cloak and sent it flapping behind him.

  Heimdall laughed. “Certainly. Shall I carry you down to Midgard on my shoulders, too?”

  “It isn’t a joke.”

  “It should be. Odin ordered the bridge closed. You see his spear?” Heimdall indicated the spear, buried halfway into the ground at the exact midpoint between the pillars.

  Vidar strode to the spear and drew it from the ground. He snapped it over his knee and threw the pieces over the cliff. He turned and called, “Can you see how little I care for Odin’s orders?”

  Heimdall approached, still smiling through his beard. “It hardly matters what you think of Odin’s orders, because only I can open the bridge.”

  “Open it and I will spare your life.”

  Heimdall pulled himself to his full height and puffed up his chest. “I kill giants, puppy. Now run along back to Gammaldal and live like a gelding until you can be of some use to your family.”

  “You are not my family,” Vidar snarled. “I disavowed you long ago. I go to Midgard to be cut free from you all, finally, and I vow tonight that nothing will stop me. I will be with Victoria.”

  Heimdall shrugged. “If you wait long enough, Odin will be back with her head. Is that not enough to keep you warm at night? It’s said that you wouldn’t know how to use the other parts.” He began to walk away and Vidar watched him for a few moments, summoning his bravado. Just past the northern pillar, Vidar grasped Heimdall’s shoulder and turned him around.

  “I possess the most powerful weapon in Asgard,” Vidar declared over the roar of the ocean below, “and I will use it on you if you do not open the bridge.”

  Heimdall’s eyebrows twitched momentarily, but soon the bluster had returned to his voice. “Is that right? Well, let me see this mighty weapon and the negotiations can continue.”

  Carefully, mindful not to let the tooth touch anything he owned, Vidar drew the crossbeam from his belt.

  Heimdall doubled over with laughter. “The stories about you are true, then! You have become more woman than man. You threaten me with a loom. Oh, I quake, I quiver!”

  “You see what it does to the land of the Aesir,” Vidar said, and he turned the rod so the tooth pointed downward and drove it hard into the ground.

  A shudder moved underneath them, as though miles below the soil a mighty giant had awoken and stretched. Vidar saw Heimdall’s shoulders hunch in fear. Where the tooth had entered the ground, a crack appeared and began to widen. As it did, a dreadful roar emerged from the fissure: Asgard crying in pain. The crack ran farther to the north and Vidar realized that his demonstration would have more serious consequences than he’d imagined. He jumped over the fissure to the stable side of the cliff, and Heimdall did the same. The scar opened and a huge chunk of the cliff face dropped and crumbled, sending rocks and dirt tumbling into the sea below.

  When the dust had cleared and the roar had ceased, Vidar turned to Heimdall. He was still staring at the broken cliff face.

  “Will you do as I say?” Vidar asked.

  “What is that weapon?”

  “Will you open the bridge?”

  “Odin ordered it closed.”

  “I will kill you, Heimdall,” Vidar said, and suddenly knew it wasn’t an empty threat. The certainty turned his stomach over, dragged back the tide of self-hatred. If Victoria was murdered, his family would pay, all of them. Heimdall first, but then every other swine and whore in Valaskjálf, then he would wait by Bifrost for Odin to return and plunge the wolf’s tooth deep into his father’s heart.

  Heimdall licked his lips. “If you kill me, I can’t open the bridge and the woman is dead anyway.”

  “But at least I get to kill you.”

  Heimdall tried a smile. “Your eyes unnerve me, Vidar. Are you still sane?”

  “Open it. Let me cross.”

  Heimdall hesitated a moment and Vidar raised the crossbeam.

  “Yes, yes,” Heimdall said, “but don’t bring that weapon back into our world.”

  “Once I am gone, Heimdall, I will never return.”

  Heimdall strode to the northern pillar and touched it with his palm, then jogged to the southern pillar and did the same. A hum began to buzz on the air and a glimmer of rainbow light licked over the pillars before silence and darkness returned.

  “It’s open,” Heimdall called, and his voice was nearly whipped away on the wind.

  The sea roared below and the wind gusted over the cliff. Vidar collected his cloak and stepped up to the edge between the pillars, and gingerly put out his toe. Light flared beneath it. He turned. Heimdall stood, a still, white statue passive in the distance. Below him, his father waited. Victoria waited.

  With a deep breath, he stepped onto the bridge of colored lights.

  Aud did not want to wallow in memories and imaginings. She left Arvak outside the house at Gammaldal while she went inside to pack. She kicked over the fire and searched through her things. The loom was useless without a crossbeam; Loki would have to steal a new one for her. Clothes, a basket of dyed wool, her sewing box. She paused near the dying fire and saw a half-finished carving Vidar had been working on.

  Her fingers reached for it without her brain’s consent. She sat and gazed at it in the grey shadows as the room grew cold and dark and empty. Although she wanted very much to take it with her, she resisted. It was over. There was no energy left in her for yearning, only submission.

  Aud placed the carving on the table and collected her thoughts. A few favorite pots and pans, and the rest she left for the dust and the years. Outside, she opened the gates to set the farm animals free, then she packed Arvak and climbed onto his back.

  “Well, Arvak, we belong to Loki now,” she said, urging him forward. “We must make the journey to whichever fate awaits us.”

  Arvak seemed to know which way to go.

  Thirty-Four

  [Midgard]

  I screamed. Odin laughed and it turned into a snarl. He was easily six and a half feet tall, and as solid as a side of beef. His clothes were filthy and stank of alcohol, and his beard was overgrown and stained and unkempt. His arms were bare except for spiraling gold arm rings, jammed on so tight that the skin puffed out in the gaps. A round helmet was pushed down on his wild yellow hair; a metal piece rested on his nose between his eyes. One eye was pale blu
e and fixed on me, the other was an empty socket, which I instinctively avoided looking at. An axe and a club hung on a belt across his hips. His bared teeth were crooked and yellow, and spittle hung in his beard. He looked like a man who would eat babies, and all this registered on me in the split second it took him to reach for his axe. I struggled against him, but he shook me and I fell down. He towered over me and shouted.

  “Kona, hvers vegna blótuthu fjölskyldu minni?”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” I replied, hands defensively over my head, wriggling backward.

  “Tjádu thig fyrir mér áthr en thú deyr!” His voice was harsh and loud, and echoed and cracked in the frozen forest around me.

  He raised the axe and I scrabbled away from the blow and pulled myself to my feet. His axe hit the tree behind me and he took a second to free the blade. I ran as fast as I could. My bare feet gripped the icy ground, giving me an advantage, because he slipped and had to steady himself before following me. I dived behind a row of bushes on his left and willed my heart and breath to be still. I could hear him approaching, but Skripi had said he couldn’t see with that left eye. So I shrank back into the leaves and waited.

  He drew into sight and I held my breath. He walked past me and ten feet farther up the path and I let my breath go again. He turned.

  Now I wasn’t on his left, I was on his right, and his good eye had discovered me. Strangely, I found that I couldn’t move. Or didn’t want to move . . . or . . . something. In studying his gaze, I had connected with the dark void under his helmet where his left eye should have been, and I was like a rabbit in headlights.

  I thought I saw, within that black space, a swirling sickly light.

  I thought I saw a great emptiness connected to the icy reaches of the universe.

  I thought I saw the full weight of my own mortality, dragging me inexorably toward it.

  The sound of branches cracking roused me. No, the sound had made Odin break his gaze and I was set free from its hold. I kept my head down and ran. I pelted through the trees, away from Odin, heading back toward the station, tripping, skidding, stumbling, but moving as fast as I could. Still he drew closer. I could hear his panting and smell his sweat and knew that I would run out of energy long before he would.