“Your family has long served me,” Hela noted beside him.
“What?”
“That Viking is one of your ancestors,” she clarified. A monk was crawling away from the monastery when the Norseman appeared again at the doorway and hacked downward at the struggling monk. “Given your forebearer’s attitude toward the clergy, I believe that he’d be very surprised at your vocation.”
“This must have been a couple hundred years ago,” Aurelius murmured, watching as the slaughter continued in the town. He knew that one part of his family line was Norwegian, but until this moment, he’d never given much thought to the those earlier ancestors. He felt a flush of anger flow through him as he looked at the still, mutilated form of the monk on his monastery’s porch.
He strode quickly from this window, trying to get to the door that he saw at the end of the gallery. At another portal, a deserted town had smoke rising from many of the structures. Bodies were visible in the gaps between the buildings, and men whose faces were muffled by the wrappings of many cloths pushed carts of corpses down a cobbled lane and out of view. Aurelius began to run, but he couldn’t keep the activities in the windows from his vision. Over there lay a field of skulls upon which walked a wailing woman.
Through here a soldier smashed a child into a wall.
In the window ahead, an old woman lay upon a straw-filled mattress, her body a mass of purplish, festering sores, and fevered color that could only be the plague.
He passed a younger man on his hands and knees in a field vomiting blood.
When he was almost at the end of the hall, he halted in some surprise to see that Clarinda had kept up with him, but Hela somehow stood directly in front of them. The dark queen’s robes parted again, doing little to hide the voluptuous figure beneath. She radiated a sensuality girded all around with the peril of true death. She smiled.
“Why do you run?”
Clarinda shook her head in disgust.
“Don’t run, Aurelius,” she warned. “She and her kind thrive on fear. Don’t give her the satisfaction.” She looked Hela up and down with a disapproving look on her face, and then caught Santini’s glance of surprise at Hela’s half-clad form. “Hey! Eye’s up here, Santini! And while you’re at it, could you stop — I don’t know — ‘ courting death?’”
“Clarinda…,” Aurelius said, returning his attention to her with a flush of embarassment.
She continued, seeing that her words were lowering his tension and making him momentarily forget the nightmarish visions in the windows. “How about, stop ‘flirting with death?’” She’d caught her breath and leaned on her quarterstaff. “Or, I guess you could try for the ‘kiss of death,’ which, literally, might take your breath away.” Clarinda nodded toward Hela. “She’s becoming more beautiful by the minute, so that even I’m feeling compelled to notice. Must be like how one feels right before a vampyr strikes, eh?”
Aurelius held up a hand, smiling both in relief that his new friend’s words had started penetrating the enchantment Hela had been weaving, but also amused by the girl’s way and manner, both of which he found very attractive. He took a deep breath and turned to Hela. “I’d...we’d both be away from here, Milady Hela.”
“Do neither of you fear death?” she asked, raising a shapely eyebrow and smiling flirtatiously.
“I won’t answer for Signorita Clarinda, but for me I can say that, if it comes, it comes. I don’t actively seek it, but I certainly don’t intend to live a thousand years avoiding it.”
“What if that’s your doom, Servius Aurelius Santini?” Hela queried, moving closer to him. She didn’t wait for a response, but nodded toward the casements. “Now, calm yourselves, Children — I don’t know what you thought you saw out there, but, see? Nothing there now. They are but windows. Look.”
Aurelius and Clarinda turned and saw a gallery bathed in gray light whose source was the high windows. Nothing more than snow could be seen beyond.
“I don’t know what to make of you, Codex Wielder,” Hela said thoughtfully. “You’re a priest, yet you kill. You’re sworn to celibacy, yet you desire. You possess one of the most powerful talismans in the Nine Worlds, yet you profess not to know what it is.” She glanced at both of them. “Come with me. I’ll show you a chamber in which you might rest, and then we’ll have supper and talk more of these matters.”
The doors behind her swung open, and both Clarinda and Aurelius gasped at the vast room that loomed beyond.
“Oh,” Hela said coyly, “it seems as if my other guest is still at play. It might be a little while before you get to rest.”
Hundreds of sconces lined the ivory walls of the enormous space, their illumination of the chamber brilliantly complemented by nine fire-pits set into the marble floor at various places around the hall. A multitude of hooded and cloaked men and women milled about the place, giving the hall an initial appearance of liveliness, but Aurelius and Clarinda knew that only corpses moved beneath the hundreds of shadowed cowls.
In contrast to the warm glow of the bonfires and torches, a large silver disc floated coldly between two ivory thrones. Upon closer inspection, Aurelius realized that the gigantic saucer was a suspended body of pure mercury, hovering at the height of a person and casting an aura of argent light that spread into the entire room.
The Hospitaller and Norn could see things roiling about inside the ichorous silvery fluid, and underneath the floating disc a tall, rotund man ran about laughing, and occasionally plunging his hand upwards into the mass, trying to catch something.
They’d gotten close enough to the man in the center to discern his features, and neither Hospitaller nor Norn was surprised to see that it was Old Nick.
“Ave, Children!” He shouted with delight, not looking at them but keeping his attention on the rotating pool of mercury above his head. “Ah — there’s one, Hela! My point!”
With a speed that belied his bulk, Old Nick reached upward, shoving his hand into the pool up to his elbow and then giving a tremendous yank downward. A man’s body fell hard onto the marble floor, dressed in the clothes of the Italian merchant class.
“Too many filched coins in that life, Guido,” Old Nick tsk-tsk ed as he dragged the surprised, screaming man across the floor toward a boiling pool. The prisoner started scrambling and trying to shift his weight, but Old Nick’s grip was iron. With only a slight effort, he released the man’s ankle and tossed him backward into the golden-colored waters. So quickly did the man’s flesh began sloughing off as he sank, his scream glubbed into silence.
“That boiling oil might be too hot, Hela,” Old Nick observed as he neared the group, wiping his hands against his clothes. “If we’re going to keep playing this game, I like my catches to last a while longer than that. Guido practically evaporated as soon as he got into the fountain. No sport there.” He appraised her, noting she’d coalesced her features into the twin image of Clarinda. “That look I could very well do without, though.” He nodded toward the real Venetian girl. “This one has caused me no end of grief lately.”
“So, you have indeed met our guests, Abaddon?” Hela asked.
“Met and been irritated by them,” Old Nick said. “Oh, put that sword down, Santini — you’re not going to hurt your Old ‘Uncle Servius,’ are you?”
Old Nick’s features and form began to melt as quickly as the man he’d just slain, and Aurelius backed away with a stumble at the sight of the very different person who stood now beside Hela.
“You can’t be — that’s not possible!” Aurelius’s voice was hoarse, and for the first time Clarinda saw terror in his eyes.
“We’re going to be late for the ship, Lad,” Old Nick’s voice said through very different features. “We’ll be in the Holy Land soon, and our pilgrimage underway.”
Physically more fit than Evremar of Choques could ever have been, in Clarinda’s eyes this new ‘Old Nick’ was almost a match for Aurelius in size and appearance, except for the goatee that dominated his more angular fa
ce. He had a long ponytail and exuded a supernatural charisma that affected Clarinda like what had just happened between Aurelius and Hela.
He wore his tunic open wide at the collar, and a frag of ultra-blue crocea lay upon the well-muscled chest, one of the finest lengths of coral she’d ever seen in a lifetime on the sea. It must be the one that belonged to the fossegrim ! She didn’t know if Santini noticed the jewelry and its significance because his attention was riveted on Old Nick’s face.
“Do you remember me saying that?” Old Nick asked. “It wasn’t that long ago when you and I stood at the Port of Syracuse...or do you remember our time together at the Battle of Mecina better?”
Tears streamed down Aurelius’s face now, and Clarinda almost didn’t recognize him, so deeply had pain and rage transformed him.
“Clarinda, get your necklace ready,” he said huskily, “and get over here.” He raised his sword, backing toward the grey light streaming into the windows of the hall.
“I said that we’d be away from here, Hela,” Aurelius said, his voice thick as the woman drew close to him.
The beast at Hela’s side snarled.
“He dies if he comes near me,” Aurelius warned.
“Fenris fears your blade little more than would Modgud or any denizen of this realm. It’s foretold that he’ll battle Tyr himself and accompany our entire family against the Aesir and Vanir at Ragnarok.” Hela kept smiling, as if his words were foolish and he’d somehow misunderstood her. “No, no, no — you can’t slay the wolf, Hospitaller, and I’d have us be friends. Would you slay the dead? Come now, be reasonable. None of us here have anything to fear, Servius – may I call you Servius?” She smiled, and nodded maliciously toward Old Nick before focusing on Santini. “Wasn’t that the part that rang truest when your father introduced Abbadon to the family? ‘Your namesake’ was the term Matteo Santini used wasn’t it?
“How do you know this?” Aurelius asked, still refusing to put together the obvious. Even Clarinda realized now what had happened all those years ago when he left Sicily, but the youth refused to believe it.
“How do we know what your father told you?” Old Nick said, and then looked at Hela amusedly. “He might be that stupid, Hela — and, as I’ve told you before, I think that everyone is overrating the danger of this Codex Lacrimae.”
“That wasn’t what you thought when you arrived here waterlogged,” she observed.
“Of course, that wasn’t. No one’s ever wrested control of any of the fossegrim from me, but that might’ve been just a lucky guess.” Old Nick turned to Aurelius. “Are you that foolish? You live twelve years in the world, and one autumn you return from your little summer trips to find a long-lost uncle waiting for you. Six months of getting to know the family, and then it was off to the Holy Land for you with him?” Old Nick laughed. “Come on, Servius. Didn’t you think Paolo’s conversion was a bit sudden and strange?”
Aurelius didn’t answer. Something horrible seemed to be crawling inside his skin, a growing realization about his family history that began scrabbling upward through his throat to get out. He was finding it hard to breathe.
Hela whispered something and Aurelius swooned.
“Careful, I think she’s casting a spell, Servius,” Clarinda warned, unsure of what was happening but trying to stay focused on him.
“No one fears you, but perhaps they should,” Hela continued, and spoke curtly to Old Nick. “Enough, Abbadon. For now — enough. We’ve made our point, and he’s going nowhere. We’ll take the Codex at our leisure and have some fun with the girl. He’s here, and that’s all we needed.”
“I’ve met you before,” Aurelius murmured, stunned. “You spoke to me at Mecina.”
“Yes, but now is not the time for those words, my dear Hospitaller.” She looked at him. “In fact, you shouldn’t be able to recall that conversation.” She glanced at Old Nick. “Your report was truer than you know, Abbadon. Perhaps there’s something here to respect. I must admit, when Modgud so easily bested you, Signor Santini, I thought that the Norns had been mistaken in their prophecy about your coming. The sights in my Vinduene Illevarslende haven’t driven either of you mad, so it seems that we’ll need Abbadon’s help for that bit of work.” She paused, moved forward, touching her hand on his blade and moving it aside as she drew close to him. “A strange, new, and powerful magic is this Codex Lacrimae. Is it still a book, or have you freed it to become something else? You must tell me of it, hmmm ?”
She pressed against him, and kissed him.
Clarinda gasped, but couldn’t move even though she wanted to slam her quarterstaff against the dark monarch. Then she saw Old Nick approaching with malice in his eyes and knew that he’d somehow frozen her mind.
All Aurelius felt were Hela’s lips, warm and yielding, and when he pulled away, in that moment he saw that the face Death wore was that of Clarinda. Entranced more than any spell sung by the nixies, he lowered his blade to fully embrace Hela when the wolf suddenly launched itself at him.
Santini’s reaction was instinctive, and he dove away from Hela while still pushing her out of harm’s way.
In a roll he was in front of Old Nick, launching himself at his erstwhile uncle.
The attack broke the devil’s hypnotic hold on Clarinda and she shouted immediately to warn the knight that the wolf was returning.
Privately, she was elated that the focus of Aurelius’s attack had been one whom she blamed for her father’s death, and she was also impressed at the warrior’s prowess. It was hard to believe that some kind of magic wasn’t assisting him in his movements, but she knew that his speed and agility must spring from a lifetime of training and battles. She simply couldn’t believe that someone of his size could move so quickly!
The young knight tried to slash through Old Nick’s throat. Something deflected that blow but, intended or not, the swipe snipped Hav’s precious sea coral from Old Nick’s chest.
The fossegrim’s calcified blue sea anemone clattered onto the marble floor.
The joyful laugh died in Clarinda’s own throat, however, as she watched the gigantic wolf wheel about and lunge at Aurelius.
The animal bounded across the floor and his huge paws pushed against Santini’s chest, tearing him from Old Nick and driving him backward. Aurelius attempted to bring his blade against the animal, but the wolf’s momentum carried both of them hurtling through the panes of a high window.
“Santini!” Clarinda screamed, moving as quickly as she could toward the struggling figures, but the entire group seemed to be moving in slow motion, so completely surprised was everyone by the ferocity and speed of the wolf’s attack.
The glass shattered at the force of their combined weight, and they fell into the shrieking winds of the blizzard outside, the snow and ice pelting the still-entangled forms.
“Fenris, you fool! Don’t…!” But Hela’s shout was lost in the currents of howling air as the Hospitaller and wolf plunged into the snowy abyss.
Chapter 6
The Wastes of Niflheim
The fall seemed endless. Fear should have consumed Aurelius as he hurtled through space, but the plunge blasted away all thought. Freezing temperatures numbed his exposed head and hands, shrieking gusts of ice-laden winds pelted him with hailstones and — within seconds of erupting through the glass in Hela’s tower — snapping boughs of spruce trees thumped against his entire body.
Snowy branches whipped wetly at his face, their waxy needles slashing him, and then a thundering crack on his skull sent him into darkness as he landed in a hill-sized drift.
Swirling snow quickly covered his still form. He was unconscious for merely a few minutes but when he awakened he felt strangely warm and numb. Frostbite began to set in. No one survived long in Niflheim.
Blinking, he blearily recognized the shadowed limbs of branches above him, and heard the moans of dead men and women shambling nearby.
He stared, disoriented. Everything seemed to be dead, yet furtive and shadowed movement
s were everywhere. The trunks of the trees around him were bound in a layer of frosty rime, thick fog carpeted the ground of the haunted landscape, and large snowflakes still fell and obscured his vision as he sank wearily into the snow.
He closed his eyes and sleep began to take him again.
“You must get up,” a voice growled from the embracing darkness. “Here. Let me re-sheathe your sword.”
Then a hand brushed snow from his face and lifted him from the snowdrift. He gasped as his rescuer threw him over an enormous shoulder. The gigantic man wore the hides of several silver wolves, the thick furs dappled grey and stinking of canine odor.
“My name is Fenris — I’m the wolf that tackled you and got you away from Hela.”
The burly man’s voice was gruff and his tone matter-of-fact, as if explaining that a shape-changing ability was similar to choosing a par ticular style of clothes to wear.
Fenris hoisted the knight down to the ground with the expectation that he should stand, but Aurelius’s legs collapsed under him and he fell to his knees.
“Don’t try to speak anymore, Friend,” Fenris cautioned. “You’d be hard pressed to make it far in Niflheim without Hela’s pursuit.” He knelt in front of the seated knight with a supportive hand on Aurelius’s shoulder. “We must flee from this place. Can you walk yet?”
Aurelius grunted, and opened his eyes — a supreme effort, given the fact that he just wanted to fall asleep. He saw a hand near his face and grasped it. With its assistance, he stood and looked at the man helping him. Gigantically framed, with massive slabs of muscle, Fenris had a silver-bearded, broad face, whose golden-yellow eyes wryly complemented his currently grinning lips.
As the snowfall increased in eddies about them, the shadowed movements he’d noticed earlier came into full clarity. A pack of twenty-five wolves rose from the snowbanks and underbrush. Yellow eyes gleamed as steam issued from slavering jaws.
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