The godling immediately comes over and does so, giving a little toss in to grab me around the thighs as I brace my hands against the cliff. We maneuver so I’m practically sitting on his shoulder.
The stone is warm under my fingers.
My middle finger with the elvish ring flares even hotter as the gold responds to the stone, but nothing changes. There’s no corresponding flash of runes or silver sunlight.
“Could you read what you saw?” Sune asks.
“Some,” I say. “If I’d had more time, I might have identified more, but I know my own runes best, the ones I work with, and these were older versions. There were three in the middle here all the same. Joy, I think.”
Amon says, “What the ragging rut does that mean?” He wraps his arm around my legs, and I settle my left hand on his hair.
I stare at the wall of stone again, emptiness making me lightheaded.
“Loki’s gone,” Sune says.
I twist too fast, and Amon has to catch me as I start to slip off him. There’s no sign of the god here on this narrow stone shore. Wind tilts the tips of the distant evergreens and causes the lake to lick at its own ice, while dawn brightens crumbling slopes of these two peaks. I don’t even see an eagle against the blue sky that might mark his departure. Slowly, I slide down Amon’s chest as he loosens his grip. He leaves his hands on my shoulders, and I touch my forehead against his chest. The leather of his coat is warmer than the air around us.
“That bastard,” Amon mutters.
I say to his chest, “He only promised to bring us to their door.” But I’ve no idea what to do, how to open it. Soren might be just on the other side or miles away, beyond twisting caverns and halls of ancient rock. Or he might not even be with the elves-under-the-mountain, and what then? Two days left. Assuming I’m counting them right.
Tears tickle the back of my throat, and I swallow them. I take a deep breath and blow it out against Amon. He squeezes my shoulders.
“Maybe we should just knock,” he says.
I pull away, but stay near, as Sune shrugs and raises his fist to pound against the door. The sound is dull and muffled, just fist on stone. There is no echo, no reverberation.
I lift my right hand that houses the ring of elf gold. It’s still the same dull yellow and feels warm, but otherwise not troublesome. I knock. My skin scrapes on the rough mountain, making a tiny slapping sound. I flatten my palm and press. I say, “I want to talk to Eirfinna, please.”
Nothing.
I draw joy against the cliff. I breathe onto the rune. If only I had some oil of nightshade or an elder wand to strike at the door with. There is some lore I vaguely recall about elderwood tines summoning light elves.
Nothing.
Amon and Sune watch me in silence, Sune crouched on the ground, studying me and the mountain carefully. “Anything?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “I see no prints or disturbance that cannot be accounted for by our own presence. No seams or rune-marks. I can’t even make out the quartz-veins that the sun lit up.”
“Maybe we’ll see more tomorrow morning,” I whisper.
Amon says, “Maybe we should knock louder. Stay here.” The godling turns and climbs back over the boulders, heading for the elk path. He disappears in seconds, only the crunch of his boots on frost and needles betraying he didn’t vanish into air.
I glance at Sune, who shrugs. Then he frowns at me and approaches, turning me so my back is to him. He shrugs off his ax harness, opens his coat and wraps it around me, hugging me against his chest. He takes my hands and stuffs them into his gloves. “You’re freezing,” he says when he’s finished, as an afterthought. His chin tucks against my temple, and he moves my curls out of his face. I stare out over the brilliance of the lake and shiver in this pocket of warmth Sune’s created for us. His breath is light and shallow, tighter than it should be.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Headache. It’s the altitude.” His arms tighten around me, and it’s easy enough to relax because he’s nothing like Soren. His arms are wiry, his chest narrow. In the corner of my eye, his profile is Asgardian-white and sharp. “Also that ring on your hand is buzzing in my head.”
“Sorry,” I whisper, closing my eyes to feel the sun on my skin. Orange light through my lids, no warmth to penetrate the chilled air. “Where do you think he went?”
“Back to the van for something. I doubt I’ll like whatever he brings.”
“If it gets us into the mountain, I’ll take it.”
Sune grunts.
We wait together while the lake laps at the icy shore and the wind hisses through the frozen trees below us. The sun melts frost away, and I realize I saw this lake, orange and creamy at dawn, in my dreams.
“If Evan Bell was an elf,” Sune suddenly says, “he stole a life from a human man. The paperwork and history is too good otherwise. Unless elves can conjure online data and decades old ink.”
“You’re upset you didn’t see it.” I squeeze his arms.
“I’m one of the only men in the world who knows elves are a possibility, yet I did not.”
“And I know Soren, and should have taken his words literally no matter what I believed of the possibilities. So blame me, too.”
Sune shifts behind me, as if he’s uncomfortable, but doesn’t let go. “Magic makes me unreasonable. It clouds my eyes. I’m especially vulnerable to it, not just elf gold but illusions and all of it.”
“Like the bearbane.”
“I think it’s why I can’t leave Amon alone.”
I laugh very lightly at the ridiculous confession, and his hands jerk tighter, showing his offense. “Sune, I don’t think that’s why.”
The hunter is silent.
Finally, we hear Amon returning. I slip out of Sune’s coat as the godling appears over the boulders. He slides down the rocks to hit the shore hard. A hammer hangs from his left hand.
The heavy rectangular head is twice as large as mine, carved with square knotwork on both flat sides, while its faces are smooth and untouched. The handle is short, made for one-handed swings, and wrapped with dark blue leather.
When Amon sees us stare at it, he lifts it and offers a lop-sided smile. “I might as well be good for something, shine?”
“This is a bad idea,” Sune says.
But I don’t protest. Amon shrugs at the hunter and strides toward the cliff face. He strips off his coat and tosses it to the ground. “This is where it is?” he asks, not waiting for our response before raising the hammer and slamming it hard into the mountain.
The noise of it shatters the still air.
I cover my ears. Amon lifts it again, swinging with all his might. His muscles bunch and shift under the long-sleeved T-shirt. The hammer crashes against the cliff face, rattling my bones.
A third time Amon swings, and the hammer head cracks the stone.
Fissures flare out, and I step back. Sune puts his shoulder in front of me, half-shielding me as Amon hits the same spot again. The cracks deepen.
Crack.
Amon lets out a loud roar, swings overhead, and crack.
Pieces of the mountain fall away. I hear a rumble like thunder, but from inside the earth. I grip Sune’s arm.
The deepest fissure widens, and Amon stumbles back toward us. I put my feet apart to maintain balance, but the world is shaking. The fissure stretches as the door splits in two.
The mountain calms. Distressed bird cries replace the noise of the quake, echoing through the valley, and the wind blows hard, lifting stone dust into my eyes, enraging the surface of the lake.
But we three don’t move, staring into the deep, black passageway.
SIXTEEN
Sune moves first. He grabs up his harness and swings the double axes back onto his shoulders. “I can’t believe that worked,” he says.
“It might have attracted Bright Home’s attention,” Amon says, belting his hammer.
“Or the elves inside.” I unsheathe Sleipnir’s Tooth as Amon takes
out a flashlight from his coat pocket. He heads in first. I follow, with Sune behind me. I hear the snap as he unhooks his axes and draws them.
As I step into the black fissure after Amon, my heartbeat thrills. The spear of flashlight is swallowed immediately by the mountain. I take slow breaths, blinking and widening my eyes as though it will help them adjust faster, and hold the sword close to my body. The thick gold elf ring forces my grip to adjust. With my left hand, I skim along the rough, cool granite of the narrow passage. Sune’s boots scrape quietly behind me.
The stone floor is uneven, sloping slightly downward, and the air grows thicker and colder. Damp. But nothing about this place smells like a cave. There’s a more delicate draft, like autumn leaves or just a hint of wildflowers. Perhaps two meters in, Amon pauses, turning sideways to let me join him. The narrow passage opens into a chamber so we can all three stand abreast. The godling runs his light along the chunky ground, then up the walls and over the ceiling. It’s rough granite with thin veins of crystal that flash under the light. Maybe three meters tall, twice as wide.
“Turn it off,” Sune says quietly.
Amon does, and we’re dropped into darkness.
“Now wait,” Sune murmurs. His eyes glint, and some latent light catches the edges of his ax-blades.
Amon says, “I see it.”
The godling is nothing but teeth and gemstone earrings in the shadows, and I stare up at him, gradually aware of a pale silver glow emanating from the lines of crystal all around us. “That’s not natural,” I whisper. Slowly I move into the chamber, shuffling gently with my toes so as not to walk straight off into a chasm while I stare at the ceiling.
Though dim, as I adjust to the glow, I can make out Sune and Amon more clearly. There’s nothing in this chamber but the three of us.
Sune moves, striding confidently toward the opposite wall. The doorway is just a blank spot of darkness amidst the crystal veins. Amon and I follow.
This corridor is smooth and arched overhead, not remotely natural, either, with a swirling line of crystal that brightens as we pass and dims behind us. The way branches twice, and Sune glances back at me, shaking his head. I shrug, and he chooses the right turn first and left second. He’s re-sheathed one of his axes, but holds the other ready.
Suddenly Sune stops, one hand flying back to steady me, head cocked to listen.
I try not to make a noise, biting my lip as if I could stop the loud beating of my heart.
“What?” Amon rumbles.
Sune shakes his head once. He closes his eyes, still listening.
I hear it: a long sigh.
It might be wind, singing down through a small break in the mountain, except as we stand silently, it pauses, then sucks back. The sigh comes again, long and low.
Breath.
There’s a strange catch in it, too, and I tighten my grip on Sleipnir’s Tooth.
Sune turns to face Amon and me. He holds up one finger, then adds a second and third.
Three of them? I mouth at him.
At least. He shrugs slowly. Big. Very big.
Amon pushes through us and into the next chamber. Sune spits a curse, and I hurry after. The godling stands in the center of a vaulted room at least five stories tall with rough pillars of quartzite glowing softly pink so the light is blood-tinged.
We’re surrounded by calcified trolls.
Many are broken in pieces, like those in the basement of Evan Bell’s house, but at least five huge, bulbous forms appear complete: troll-mothers reclined on the stone floor, leaning against pillars, crouched and bent over as if in pain.
They’re moon-white and mottled gray like marble or sparking gray granite. One has sharp daggers of obsidian like birthmarks cutting down her shoulders and chest. She’s human-shaped, but huge and broad and muscled as a gorilla, with naked breasts and belts of iron and messy, magical charms. My throat is tight; my palm sweats against the soft shark-leather of the sword grip. Amon’s breath is harsh, too, though Sune stands light on his feet, moving around us constantly as if he doesn’t know from where the first danger will come.
The long sighing breath of the troll-mothers surrounds us, rhythmic and raw.
Calcified trolls do not breathe.
My panic tightens, but none of these beasts move at all. They’re alive, living and breathing, but seem trapped in some half-stone existence.
One slumps near the center with a meaty fist against the ground, and another curls around the broken, fully-calcified torso of a smaller beast, her eyes open. They’re dawn-blue and watching at me with obvious awareness. I step toward her, and both Amon and Sune startle. My lips part in horror as I stare at her leaden, but living, gaze.
“She can’t move,” I whisper. “It must be the plague, but they’re strong enough it hasn’t outright killed them. Yet.”
Amon hefts his hammer. “Should put them out of their misery.”
“No!” I fling my hand out. The collective sigh of the troll-mothers hitches. I say to the one staring at me, “We’re looking for Eirfinna, one of the elves here under the mountain. We won’t harm you.”
Sune says softly, “Look at all the dead ones. Smaller and shattered and crystallized even though there’s no sunlight.”
My voice is thick with sympathy as I say, “Their children. All their children are dead.”
“Do you think they came here for shelter?” Sune asks, almost reverent.
“Or to see if the elves had some cure?” I offer.
“Let’s keep going,” Amon says, carelessly shoving a broken head aside with his boot and heading for the next exit.
I follow, casting a sorrowful glance back at the poor beasts. I wish there was a thing to do for them, a way to cure the plague. Never have I considered myself a trollkin sympathizer, but no one deserves such an existence, especially to watch their sons crumble and die in their arms.
Sune cups my elbow, his mouth drawn down. Amon stomps ahead, making his discomfort loud and clear.
We go through a handful of chambers and three passages, all lit with crystal veins, all rough and empty but for pillars and the occasional lintel stone carved with ancient-styled runes I cannot read. The doors are often guarded by elegant statues carved straight into the mountain: small trolls or hairy giants, wolves and pigmy mammoths, women with sad smiles, grimacing warriors. Goblins with sharp teeth and real gemstones piercing through their cheekbones. Elves as they’re supposed to be from the old stories, recognizable by their height and willowy bodies, their perfect features and shining eyes.
I stop in a room the size of my cottage in the orchard. This one has nine statues, one to represent each of the Nine Worlds: Tyr the Just of Asgard; a troll; an elf; a dragon; a snake; a wolf; a giant; and a human child. All are beautiful, and they watch us with their stone eyes. Their blank, smooth stone eyes. It feels as though nothing in these caves is alive but for the troll mothers.
My skin is clammy, and the deeper into the mountain we go, the harder it is to breathe. Where are the goblins or elves who guard these passages? Struck down, too, by this Stone Plague? Is it possible Eirfinna was the last? Or Evan Bell himself? Hiding as a man to escape the Plague?
The elf ring is hot on my middle right finger, pressing against Soren’s sword.
We could wander here forever and die lost and starving. I wonder if that’s what the elves want. If they’re tricking us, letting us lose ourselves in the mountain.
I call, “My name is Idun the Young, and I come into the mountain halls looking for Eirfinna Grimlakinder, friend to Amon Thorson.”
My words dance and echo through the chamber, spreading out and fading.
“I am Idun! I want Eirfinna Grimlakinder! Show yourself!” I demand.
I spin and dash for a doorway, stumbling on the rough ground. I fling myself into the next room. “I am Idun the Young, and I search for Eirfinna!”
My name, her name—they repeat against the vast cavern here and entwine.
“Eirfinna Grimlakinder!”<
br />
I go to another room and another, vision awash with crystal veins and pillars of quartzite and luminous marble, with the silver shadows and brilliant cut gemstones embedded in the walls to sparkle like strings of elf-lights.
It’s a ghost town under here. Abandoned. Lonely.
Amon and Sune trail behind me, never joining in my cries, but not stopping me either. My chest heaves, and I’m suddenly furious. “Eirfinna, Lady of the Mountains! I demand you speak with me. I demand you let me in. I have bargaining to do with you! How dare you ignore the summons of the Lady of Apples!”
Amon grabs my shoulders from behind. I quiet.
My scream is a snake sliding away from us, a living thing, searching out ears to hear it. But it leaves me empty. It leaves us alone in a darkened chamber.
I slump to my knees, hands on my face. Sleipnir’s Tooth presses across my lap, cutting into the thick fabric of Gunn-Elin’s dress. Amon touches my head, offering comfort.
“We’ve been here before,” Sune says.
I look at him. He stands a breath away from a door-guard statue of a Valkyrie. Her marble eyes are a hand higher than his, her braids thick down her neck and woven with flowers made out of pink rubies.
“This statue is the same, but that one—” He turns and points directly across from him to a matching Valkyrie. “—has moved.”
Amon helps me to my feet, and we both stare. The Valkyrie looks the same as the one across the room to me, the same as every other Valkyrie statue we’ve seen: wearing a corselet and long skirt, a sword at her waist, braids with ruby flowers. I don’t know how Sune has noticed a difference.
Sune says, “She’s looking toward the door we just returned through. She stared across the room at her sister before.”
My heart goes cold.
“Are you sure it’s the same room?” Amon asks.
Sune doesn’t bother answering. He only says, “This way.”
I follow Sune as he moves boldly from one room to the next, only pausing once or twice to take a double-look at a statue, leading us based on the direction of certain statues’ eyes into a massive room we certainly haven’t seen before. Tall as the sanctuary of the Salt City Rock Cathedral, it burns with rainbows of light from the rubies and amethysts, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and garnets and topaz, and I couldn’t even begin to say what else that glow in the walls. Jewels that do not belong in the mountains of Colorada.
The Apple Throne Page 20
