Asgard Awakening

by Blaise Corvin

  “I see.” The floor began to rumble. “Is it going to work?”

  “We will find out any second now.” Trav didn’t know what to expect, but about a minute later when the rumbling suddenly stopped, he blinked. Is that it? He hesitantly moved forward and touched the wooden door before grinning. “It’s done!” The fact that he’d just used up most of his new magic power for the rest of the day gave him pause, but they were almost free! He began drawing on the locked door with his dagger.

  “Step aside, Awakened One.” Trav felt himself being gently pushed out of the way and watched in astonishment as Yaakova slashed forward with the flight feathers on her arms, demolishing the door. Trav was almost sure she hadn’t been able to do that before.

  “Wow.” He exhaled.

  The harpy nodded seriously but did not turn around. “This will not be my only new ability. Something inside me is growing...changing. I am glad I took a chance on this union. Humoring your plan instead of killing you has probably been one of the best decisions I have made in my life. This is,” she muttered, “more than I had expected.”

  Trav wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, good.” The harpy’s new attitude sure beat her homicidal tendencies and terrifying sexual advances. He was really getting tired of nearly being killed by thugs or eaten by monsters. If he lived through this situation, he vowed to put some serious thought into how to become stronger as quickly as possible.

  Out in the hallway, he was pleased to find that the second barrier had already come down too. It must have been attached to the system that Trav had just destroyed. More glowing witch fetishes lined the walls of this tunnel, so it wasn’t difficult to see, but the witchlight made everything appear ominous, surreal.

  After following Yaakova a few more steps, Trav wondered how she knew she was heading the right direction, but then he remembered she could feel what he’d come for, too. He briefly considered whether he should just run away, let the Kin woman and the crazy warlock kill each other, but something was bothering him. Whatever was tickling his instincts had been near the altar he’d found before, but he couldn’t nail down the exact reason. He decided it must be related to an Odin memory—one he wasn’t able to access yet. Great.

  All the runecrafting he’d just done must have created echoes and ripples in the ether. Trav kept waiting for an alarm, and his shoulders itched when it didn’t come. The fact that there hadn’t even been any guards outside the cell seemed super strange too.

  His thoughts were disrupted by the appearance of two men ahead, perhaps new guards, or doing rounds through the tunnels. They walked normally, apparently not aware of the massive magical upheaval in the area. The short, bearded, dirty men were armed with blades at their waists, maybe heavy knives or langseax, and one held a small torch. Both groups saw each other at the same time, and Yaakova froze. The local men dropped their jaws in surprise, and one said, “Oh, s—”

  The harpy sprang forward, on them like a flash, her claws and feathers ripping the two men apart in a shower of gore. Blood splashed against the walls, and a few drops hit a witchlight fetish, making it sizzle. The scene was horrific, but Trav had seen worse on Asgard. He made a face and held his breath, waiting again for an alarm...but none came.

  Yaakova seemed to feel that something was off too. She stood motionless, dripping blood from her iron-hard feathers and breathing deeply. One of the dying men tried to scream, but it came out as a whispered wheeze. He feebly moved an arm as the Kin woman standing over him cocked her head, listening.

  Trav waited what felt like an eternity before moving again. On the one hand, he was tired—physically and emotionally drained. It was likely he could be discovered or ambushed at any time. On the other hand, nobody was currently attacking, and what limited time he had was ticking away.

  Should he escape? Isn’t that why he broke out of the cell? He wondered if Yaakova would agree. The harpy unnerved him, but he’d bonded with her. If she died now before their bond was finalized, Trav might even suffer a backlash. In fact, if she died at all, he’d suffer a huge setback—like it or not, she was one of his Valkyries now, and he had used up one of his divine marks.

  As Trav hugged a wall, he wished he’d brought his spear. His armor and gear he’d brought were still missing too, removed before he’d regained consciousness earlier. Since he wasn’t being attacked and wasn’t sure what he should do, he paused.

  “What are you doing?” asked the harpy.

  “I’m thinking. Be quiet.”

  Yaakova opened her mouth to speak, but Trav said, “You’d still be in the cell if not for me. Rushing forward is stupid. Be calm.”

  After an unreadable look, the Kin woman nodded and settled back against the wall, adjusting her feathers as if she weren’t filthy and covered in blood. She said, “I will watch the tunnels and listen for attacks. Don’t take too long...thinking. The warlock will probably not be idle during this time.” Trav acknowledged her with a nod and absently picked up a few loose stones from the ground as he considered what to do.

  Yaakova had a point about the warlock, but everything had happened so fast, Trav needed to get his bearings. He’d survived Asgard so far by trying to pause to think when he needed to. Of course, he hadn’t ever exactly gotten many opportunities to do so.

  It was clear that the smartest course of action would be to escape. However, he had a few other considerations. One, they’d taken his gear. In fact, they might have taken his spear from his room, too. Two, they’d tried to kill him. Three, something about the altar room and what he’d seen really bothered him. And lastly, he could still feel the pull of what he’d come here for to begin with.

  Ultimately, he still couldn’t identify the best course of action, but it was time to be decisive. He defaulted to the most practical course of action. “We are going to find my armor and leave.”

  Yaakova didn’t look happy, but the apparent rush she’d gotten from escaping her cell seemed to be fading. “Fine. I am not a tree-dweller, but I am tired of existing underground like a mole.”

  Trav nodded, focused on the stones he’d picked up. With a relatively simple glyph equation, sped up with a few sigils and glyphs he’d loaded into his shiv, he created a tracking device with one stone. It would point to a unique, complex glyph chain that Trav had scribed on the inside of his armor. If he weren’t so frazzled, he would have patted himself on the back for the forethought.

  With another couple stones, Trav took a few minutes and a dismaying amount of magic power to create a couple fire flowers, a type of magical grenade. A lot of his remaining magic power had been spent, but he wished he had time to prep more. Unfortunately, most other magic weapons he could make, or items he could craft, would take far longer. No, this was the best he could do in the time he had.

  “Okay let’s go,” he muttered. Trav moved quickly down the tunnels, following the direction of the heated rock in his hand. The half-naked harpy who had almost killed and eaten him an hour earlier followed close behind.

  Asgard sucks.

  Chapter 19

  The former slave found his armor down the hallway in a hidden room, deep in the tunnels. The entrance had been built in such a way to take advantage of a natural outcropping, hidden from plain sight. Trav still hadn’t seen any more guards, although he thought he heard chanting and stamping in the distance. Other, less easily identifiable noises raised his hackles, but he wondered if he was imagining things. In his situation, plenty of people might have already broken.

  This was not a fun thought.

  Trav practically threw on his gear and got a welcome surprise when he found his spear in the corner. He grinned nastily at that. Without the spear’s anti-theft measures, he doubted it would have just been stashed away after being fetched from his room. He hoped someone had gotten burned badly while moving it.

  Yaakova found a box full of jewelry that apparently belonged to her and began putting it on, clucking to herself in pleasure while she did so. A few pieces gave off an aura of magic
and made Trav’s eyebrows raise.

  While the Kin woman finished getting situated, Trav noticed something strange out of his emberstone eye. One side of the room had disturbed flows of magic, and he could trace the shape of a rectangle. The wall itself didn’t show any breaks at all, but after getting closer, he was able to confirm that it was a hidden door. The low power, self-sustaining glyph equations blocked sound and also provided a weak shield against magic.

  After Trav knew the door was there, it was easy to find the hidden button to open it. The magic flows made it obvious. “Do you see this?” he asked Yaakova.

  The harpy squinted her eyes and moved her head from side to side a few times before slowly saying, “I see something, but it is not clear.”

  “Got it. Well, I am curious now.” Trav decided to trust the geas tied into the mark he’d placed on the harpy. “Guard the door to the room, please. I am going to check this out.” Other than the two men that Yaakova had killed, the escape so far had been smooth—too smooth. Trav knew everything could go horribly wrong in an instant and vowed not to take long taking a look behind the door.

  After hitting the button, and as the rock appeared to swing inward, he paced forward slowly, spearhead forward.

  On the other side was a wrought iron gate with a lock on it, and a wooden door set in the opposite stone wall. Weird. Trav tapped the lock with his shiv, and the lock fell apart. The gate opened soundlessly, and he discovered the door behind it was locked too. After another tap with the shiv, he moved forward and frowned.

  He could only imagine that he’d found the warlock’s quarters. A big bed covered in filthy furs took up one corner. Storage chests and arcane-looking decorations filled much of the room. Two wooden doors stood closed. In the corner, a woman was chained to a ring in the wall and reclined on a stack of pillows. Her long dark hair was greasy but thick. Bushy eyebrows topped a couple of large brown eyes and a generous mouth. Her clothing was not much better than rags. She had a paper and pencil in her lap, and discarded doodles lay all over the floor. She wasn’t drawing when Trav came in, just staring at the wall with a dead look in her eyes. As soon as she noticed him, she gasped and stood in a rush.

  “Who are you? Toggit will kill you if he finds out you were here! Leave now!”

  “Is Toggit the bald warlock? He might find I’m harder to deal with when I’m awake,” growled Trav. The woman just opened and closed her mouth like a fish. Now that he got a better look, he realized she was young, but her age was hard to place. People on Asgard could age quickly. “What are you doing here?”

  The girl’s wonder turned to an ugly scowl. “I am Toggit’s plaything—well until he needs another sacrifice. They took poor Lvinsi last week, so now only I am left. I guess now that the children are all gone, they need women.”

  “Sacrifices?”

  “Yes. Toggit brags all the time. He wasn’t happy with being a regular witch, so he formed a contract with something big and really evil. At first, he only sacrificed animals, but then he made a dark pact, lost his hair, and found this place.” She seemed to crumple in on herself. “I hate it here. Please, free me! This place is not safe!”

  “What do you mean? And what is your name?”

  “I am called Halfa.” Her eyes darted around nervously. “The big sacrifice is coming! Toggit and his disciples even found a Kin to help it along! They are working on the rituals right now. The dark, demon god that they serve wants to come through the veil.”

  “Dark god?” Something stirred deep inside Trav, from the new portion attached to him, his divine purview.

  “Yes. Toggit is not the only follower of,” she whispered, “Myalingra. He was shown the way by a priest somewhere to the east. He and his demon worshippers have some plan or other, and from what Toggit said, something is making the dark things stir. Witches all over Asgard are receiving more power and new orders.” Halfa pointed at her chain. “Maybe you can find more in Toggit’s study! Now please, let me go!”

  Trav frowned but moved forward to free the captive. She’d just thrown a lot of information around in a short amount of time. She’d been drawing some really strange things full of symbols, too.

  Up close, he could see that he’d actually been wrong about her age. Fine lines at the corners of her eyes gave away her years. She breathed out in wonder as he drew a sigil to break the chain she had been bound with. Trav had expected her to immediately either hide behind him or ask where the exit was after being freed, but instead, she took off like a bat out of hell.

  The woman sprinted out of the hidden room, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Toggit! Anyone! Intruders! Heathens! They—”

  A powerful clawed hand darted out, ripping the woman’s throat out. She went down immediately, clawing at her ruined neck, and Yaakova carefully stepped around her. “She smells like dark magic. Why did you free her?”

  Trav blinked as he realized he still had a lot to learn. The harpy didn’t need to know this, though. “I was testing you,” he said coldly. “You did well.”

  The Kin woman gave him an unreadable, inhuman look before merely nodding. “I am willing to follow you for now. My patience is waning, though. You should hurry.” With that, she turned back to watching the exit.

  Trav frowned and moved to examine the closed doors. He could hear Halfa’s drumming feet slow, growing weaker as she died. He ignored it.

  Asgard had made him tough.

  The first door he opened with a bit of magic was a water closet, a fancy one too. It even had a shower. The warlock had even done something with a skull and some magic to create a faucet. The second door opened to an arcane office. A desk took up a corner, and shelves held labeled jars of strange substances.

  Trav began to search the place but didn’t need to look long to find something of interest. One wall of the room was covered with a painting. He couldn’t make sense of it at first. Globes, or spheres full of runes, covered the walls, and labeled lines connected them. Many of the lines originated from one central sphere.

  Trav realized he could read the runes, and grew more puzzled, trying to figure out what it all meant. However, once he realized that the center circle was Asgard, it all made sense.

  The painting was an invasion plan. He stared in horror, realizing that one of the circles connected to Asgard with a line had runes for Earth.

  With a sinking heart, Trav ransacked the room, ignoring written spells, random pieces of animals, and jars of things he didn’t want to examine too closely. In a drawer of a desk, he found what he was searching for.

  The little, locked journal was bound with thick leather. For Trav, removing its lock, and the attached curse, was easy. The pages were full of small, neat writing—the warlock had kept meticulous records. From Odin’s memories, Trav knew this was usually the case with witches since their magic was so closely tied to ingredients and crafting.

  In the journal, his fears were confirmed. The warlock had somehow been taught to rip open veil gates, although it required a lot of preparation and a ridiculous amount of power. Trav still wasn’t clear on exactly what veil gates even were, but he knew that this was bad. As he skimmed the journal, he realized that he hadn’t been entirely correct before about what the painting meant.

  Apparently, the warlock’s master, the demon god, was trying to come through to Asgard. Trav had no idea what a demon god was, and the name hadn’t rung a bell, but Odin’s memories let him know that everything about the plan was disturbing. Powerful entities usually couldn’t even pass through a veil gate, much less keep their power. The only exception was usually the Restless. However, the demon worshippers had been working on this little scheme for a while now. The idea seemed to be that this Myalingra had been taking advantage of the gods’ absence for a while, and he was about to succeed in spreading his influence to other veils.

  Trav felt time ticking and turned the pages almost frantically. He was finally getting answers, but he hadn’t even known some of the questions existed. His stomach roiled, and
he felt sick. Part of him was horrified now. He found a section detailing the individually targeted worlds and learned that the veil gate to Earth, or Midgard, was usually closed, but Myalingra could open it from Asgard.

  Another part of him, the new, divine part felt guilt. The Restless were supposed to prevent things like this.

  He cursed and shoved the journal into a pocket. There would be time to read more later—now it was time to act. He checked his magic as he moved, noting how much he had left. As he stalked back through the little hallway to the next room, Yaakova cocked her head.

  Trav tensed his jaw and said, “We are going to go kill the warlock. Let’s go.”

  “It’s about time.” Yaakova shrugged and followed, but Trav saw the gleam in her eyes. The harpy may try to act casual, but she was Kin and had one hell of a grudge after being imprisoned.

  Trav was more than willing to turn her loose; whatever the Myalingra followers were doing in the tunnels needed to be stopped. But while whatever Yaakova did would be helpful, Trav would need to finish the deed. Both parts of his soul, the man and the divine, were in agreement.

  Earth hadn’t treated Trav all that well, but Asgard was a hellhole, and he knew now that there were even worse places out there. He would eventually like to find a way to go back home to Earth, maybe if he survived killing Beth’s murderer. But if this Myalingra thing got there first, Trav might not have anything to go back to.

  And based on what Trav had read in the warlock’s journal, the Kin on Asgard were friendly and thoughtful compared to Myalingra’s children.

  Chapter 20

  As he moved through the eerily empty, witchlight-illuminated tunnels, Trav’s unease grew. His mind kept returning to the information he’d gotten from the dead woman back in the warlock’s quarters. The fact that she’d probably been more of an apprentice than a pleasure slave and had been in league with the demon worshippers made Trav suspicious of everything she’d said. The village outside the caves really hadn’t had many children, though. Actually, did it have any at all? Trav couldn’t completely remember, and the implications were disturbing.