And the Dark Queen…Elizabeth Tutor on our klith…Hel on Osgarthr…She-who-waits…the Black Bitch…Queen Suel of Suelhaym… She had a new kingdom in Fankelsi—the land Meuhlnir had exiled her to at the end of their war—didn’t she have to run things there? Or did Vowli act as her regent? How come she had so much time to make our lives miserable? And why did she care? Because she hadn’t liked my attitude when Jax and I interviewed her back home? It’s not as if she had been pleasant. The whole interview would have gone another way without her attitude. But hell, as long as I was wishing wishes, if she and Luka hadn’t come to my turf and started eating people, I’d still be back home, living the life I loved. I’d still be healthy.
I flopped onto my back and sighed.
“What’s the matter? Can I get you a pill?” asked Jane in a sleep-blurred voice.
“Sorry I woke you,” I whispered.
“Want a pill? A hot-pack?”
She wasn’t awake. There were no microwaves, no hot-packs on Osgarthr. “No, no. Go back to sleep, Supergirl. I’m fine.”
“Sure, sure. Nothing wrong with you.”
I smiled in the darkness—even half-asleep she still had the ability to bust me for being a “big, dumb Norwegian.” It was one of her gifts, I suppose. Her breathing deepened and evened out. I held still long enough to be sure she was asleep before lifting the edge of the blankets and rolling out from under them.
The air was frigid, shocking as I shuffled over to the glowing coals of last night’s fire. I stirred them with a stick and fed them fresh kindling. In a few moments, I had a small fire going again, and I huddled in its warm glow. The eastern horizon was still dark, not even a hint of color. Salt and sea came to me on the breeze, and the scents seemed pure, clean. Sea air back home had much the same effect on me, but here, where the seas were clean and fresh, the effect was stronger. Waves pounded on the thin shingle of beach across the road from the campsite.
As I watched the dark, misty shoreline, my eye caught on a stygian patch of shadow. Is my mind playing tricks or did that black hunk of night move? I wondered. I stared at the black patch and waited. As a cop back in New York, I’d learned that my eyes were sometimes smarter than my brain—at least my conscious brain. Maybe it was some lizard part of me, buried deep, that was still worried about the tiger in the night, or the part of my mind that wasn’t distracted by actual thought, but when my eye snagged something in the night, there was usually something to it.
Of course, I pretended not to watch, looking off to the side, watching from the corner of my eye. Years of being a cop had also taught me that when people are up to no good and know you are watching, they have the patience of the saints.
I pretended to be interested in the fire, in the night sky, in the sole of my boot, and through it all, the patch of blackness remained still. I half-believed my lizard brain had made a mistake this time and had almost stopped paying attention when it finally moved again.
Whatever it was, it moved without making a sound—no chink of armor, no rustling of cloth or leather. Its steps made no sound either, as it backed away, moving south from the camp along the dark swath of beach.
I stood and stretched, still not looking at the thing. As I let my hands fall to my sides, I realized my pistols and gun belt were over near the bedroll, in a heap under a cloth. Three steps brought me to them, and I grabbed the belt without pausing, moving into the darkness on the other side of the fire with as much stealth as a big, dumb, disabled Norwegian can.
“Do you need a pill?” I heard Jane ask in a bleary voice.
“Go back to sleep,” I whispered.
I walked through the darkness, parallel to the road, eyes straining to adapt to the lack of light. It was still over there, still moving, still not making a sound. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be aware that I had left the camp, let alone that I was shadowing it from across the road.
The thing stopped—all I could see of it was a patch of black darker than its surroundings—and turned as if it were looking out to sea. Shaped like a woman, or a slender man, it stood, straight-backed and stiff-legged. I crossed the road in the hunched-over trot that was the best I could do given my condition, and still, the thing didn’t turn. It didn’t move, as if it were a statue of onyx rather than an animate being.
My palms rested on the butts of my pistols, landing there as if by their own accord, and as I closed the distance to the thing, I slid Kunknir and Krati out of their holsters.
“You don’t need your wands, Tyeldnir.” The voice lacked the characteristics I associated with live people. It was without warmth, without emotion of any kind.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Let me see your hands.”
The shadowy figure raised its arms out to its sides, and a spooky sound escaped it. “I am no threat to you, Hank Jensen. To the contrary.”
“How do you know my name? Let me guess: the Black Bitch sends her regards.”
A shudder wracked the thing, seeming to send ripples through its shadow stretching across the ground. “No. I do not serve her. I serve…Roonateer. Or I serve myself. I serve the three Sisters, the Weavers of Fate.”
“The Nornir?”
“The very ones.”
I sidled around the thing, wanting to see its face, but I might as well have stayed where I was. The thing had no features, no face. It stood but seemed no more solid than the surrounding air. “Who…what are you?”
“I am of the Tisir. I am filkya.”
“Filkya. I know that word. Are you telling me you are a ghost? A spirit? Entwined in my fate?”
The Tisir laughed, and it sounded more than a little like a bus grinding its gears. “I am filkya,” it—she—repeated. “I am Tisir.”
“Is that a name?”
Again, she laughed. “The name of my kind, yes. I am called Kuhntul. It means ‘wand wielder,’ the same as you, Tyeldnir.”
“Don’t call me that. My name is Hank.”
Kuhntul cocked her head to the side but said nothing.
“Why are you here? Why do you come sneaking up on our camp in the middle of the night?”
“I am here to warn you, Hank, son of Yens.”
“Warn me? About what?”
“A betrayer,” Kuhntul hissed. “A traitor.”
“What, in our party? I don’t believe it.”
“Believe what you want, my duty is dispatched in this.” Kuhntul turned and drifted to the south, skimming above the sand without touching it.
“Wait just a minute,” I said. “You can’t say something like that and walk away into the night.”
“No?” Kuhntul didn’t slow, but she wasn’t moving much faster than a walk.
“If you are a filkya—my filkya—fate binds you to me, right? That means—”
“I never said I was your filkya.”
“You implied it.”
“Did I?”
I didn’t know why, but I had the distinct impression that Kuhntul was laughing at me. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe anyone in our party is a traitor.”
“That is your business, Tyeldnir.”
“Meuhlnir’s family is beyond suspicion, they’ve proven their willingness to die for my family. Likewise, the Alfar. Veethar wouldn’t betray anyone to whom he’s given his word. He’s not made that way.”
“Is he not?”
The feeling she was laughing at me was so thick it seemed hard to breathe. “And Frikka? There’s no way…she has no motive. None at all. Neither does Althyof, as much as he plays his Tverkr role, he’s an honorable man.”
“Is he?”
“Yes, he is,” I snapped. “Then who? Jane? Even if I saw her betray me, I wouldn’t believe it of her. Sig? My own son? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And yet, the skein of fate says you will be betrayed by a member of your party.”
I scoffed. “And this skein is never wrong?”
Kuhntul shrugged and laughed. “It is not.”
“Why are you really here?
Who sent you?”
“I’ve told you why I am here, and I came of my own accord. I have no…what did you call it…no motive for dishonesty.”
“If you are one of the Black Queen’s pets, you’ve motive aplenty.”
“I am no creature of the Dragon of Fankelsi. I’d sooner yield my soul to the mists than serve one such as she.”
I believed her—about not working for the Dark Queen, at least. Nothing she said caused any pings in my Cop-radar.
“Be on your guard, Tyeldnir. Don’t be caught unaware.” With that, Kuhntul dissipated like smoke on a windy day, leaving me alone on the black shingle of beach. I slipped Kunknir and Krati back into their holsters and blew out a breath. I had wished for something to distract me from my aching legs. As I walked back to camp, I didn’t feel them at all.
Seven
When the sun finally broke across the eastern horizon, I’d thought myself in circles at least fifty-seven times, and still, I couldn’t say if anyone in the party could be suspect—let alone should be one. Who could I suspect? No one, that’s who.
“Morning, you idiot,” said Jane.
“I love you, too.”
“Did you sit up all night?”
“Not all night.”
“You are a big, dumb Norwegian. Do you know that? Stubborn. Head-strong.”
“Handsome. Pretty, even.”
“Pfft! Why didn’t you wake me? I’d have gotten you a pill, or a hot rock or something.”
“The pill would’ve kept me awake anyway. And I can get my own pills, woman.”
“Yeah, sure, as if you can be trusted with your own meds. I should pop you right in the lip.”
“I’d love a kiss, thanks.”
She pretended to glare at me the whole time she walked from the bedroll to where I sat and bent down and kissed me. “You will be a mess all day, Henry.”
“Ew,” I said. “Dragon breath.”
“He’s better at this than you are, husband,” said Sif from the bedroll she, Meuhlnir, and Yowrnsaxa shared.
“Much,” said Yowrnsaxa.
“Ha! He only has one wife, it’s hardly a fair comparison.”
“No, he’s better,” said Veethar. “Everyone sees this.”
“Silent god, my ass,” grumbled Meuhlnir.
“I wish all the Isir would be silent,” grumbled Althyof. “How am I to get enough rest to put up with you throughout the day?”
“If only we could get enough rest to make traveling with you easier,” said Meuhlnir.
Althyof stood and stretched, a small smile playing on his lips. “Sleep all you like, Isir. It’s not like we need anything from you.”
“Might as well ask if the sky needs the sun,” said Meuhlnir, but I thought he was hiding a smile. “You know, I was foolish when we bargained. You should be the one paying us.”
“Whatever for?” asked Althyof. “People follow me around for days, hoping to catch a touch of my magic. Hoping to learn how to be witty, to be brave.”
“Hope is such a cruel mistress,” said Sif, not bothering to hide a smile.
“Ah, my lady, you cut me.” Althyof pretended to stagger, clutching his chest. “Remove your barb.”
Sig sat up in his bedroll, rubbing his eyes. “You guys know I’m fourteen, right?”
“What of it?” asked Althyof.
“Fourteen-year-olds need to sleep in late in the mornings. It’s a biological necessity.”
“Speaking of biological necessities,” said Althyof as he walked away from camp.
“I thought he’d never leave,” said Frikka.
“I heard that!”
“As I intended!” yelled Frikka.
Mothi groaned and rolled out of his bedroll. “This inn has such thin walls. I heard everything everyone said.”
Jane tweaked my ear. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how badly you were losing our argument.”
“As if,” I said, pulling her down for another kiss.
“I win sometimes,” she said.
“When I let you.”
“Do you see, Meuhlnir?” asked Sif. “He’s better at it. It’s plain to see.”
Meuhlnir blew a raspberry and stood, stretching his back. “Maybe you are just better at flyting than Jane is. You have several centuries of experience more than she does.”
“So, I’m old?” asked Sif, in a light, jovial tone that made Meuhlnir turn and stare at her. “A crone? You’d prefer someone younger, perhaps?”
“No, no. Not at all. I—”
“Does he truly never learn?” asked Veethar. “I find this incredible.”
We went about our morning ablutions and ate a cold breakfast. As we were packing, Sif walked over, pretending nonchalance while her critical healer’s eye roamed my body, lingering on the spots that hurt me the most. I didn’t know how she could do it, but it was like she could see pain. Given the vefari that surrounded me, maybe she could see my pain.
“It hurts,” she said without preamble.
“I’m okay,” I said. Jane grunted and shook her head.
“Okay, are you?” said Sif while arching her eyebrows.
“Yeah. It is what it is.”
“And since no one gifted at healing travels with the party, I guess you’ll have to suffer through stoically. Right?”
“It’s the Calculus of When,” said Jane. “And a big dose of Norwegian.”
“Of what?” asked Skowvithr.
“His internal calculations of how bad he has to hurt before he will do something sensible, like let Sif help him.” Jane straightened so she could add her disapproving glare to Sif’s.
Sif looked at me, her expression hardening into a stern, forbidding frown. “You will not do this Calculus of When anymore, Hank Jensen. Not when I can help.”
I kept fiddling with the straps that held my pack behind my saddle. Even Slaypnir turned his big head to look at me, and it seemed he was glaring at me, too. What could I say? They were right, and I knew it. There was no doubt, but even so, there was something in my head that made me want to conserve things that worked, to only use them when I felt “bad enough.”
“I will have Jane hold you down, Hank,” said Sif.
“And I will help,” said Yowtgayrr.
“I know,” I whispered, fighting emotion. “I know.”
“So let her help,” said Jane, exasperation at war with her empathy. She glanced at Sif. “It’s the Norwegian genes that make him this way.”
Sif chuckled. “It is the Isir genes, or maybe only the genes of Meuhlnir’s family. Mothi is no better.”
“Leave me out of this, Mother,” called Mothi from across the camp.
Sif laid her hand on my shoulder. “Let me help, Hank.”
I didn’t know why I put them all through this time and time again. I had to learn the lesson—learn to take the help that was available—and, after enough time had passed, I’d have to learn the same lesson again.
“Legs,” I muttered. “Knees, ankles, and feet.”
Sif kicked a log near the now cold fire. “Sit.”
I sat and kicked off my boots, peeled my socks, and removed my pants. Somehow, the last few months had robbed me of being ashamed to sit around outdoors in my underwear.
Sif rummaged in her bag and came out with her stinking pot of balm. She rubbed her hands together to build up some warmth and smeared great gobs of the malodorous stuff from the balls of my feet to mid-thigh. A stinging burning sensation followed her hands, and the pain began to abate.
“Is it only the balm?” I murmured.
“The balm works as I told you, overloading the pain pathways with the burning sensation.”
“But…what about your other gifts?”
“As a vefari?”
“Yes. Are you vefa strenki as you apply the balm?”
“Do you think I am?” she asked, keeping her head down as if she was focused on smearing the balm across my knees.
Since I’d been tricked into traveling to the klith of Osgarth
r, my pain had never been beyond the limits of Sif’s balm. Yes, I had the cape Meuhlnir had commissioned for me that reduced the pain I felt to a certain threshold, but I learned what that threshold was when I’d lost my left eye during the battle with the demons and the white dragon. “I think you are,” I said.
“Very astute of you, Hank,” she said.
“What…”
“What am I doing? I vefa strenki to increase the effect of the balm, exciting certain parts of your body—the channels that convey sensation to your brain—and doing the opposite to others.”
“Nerves.”
“If you say so.”
It made sense: excite the irritation pathway, suppress the pain pathway. Since the irritation pathway was starting at a higher level of excitation, the nerves fired more readily. Since the pain pathway was suppressed, it took more stimulus to fire the neurons. “Well, thanks.”
Sif shrugged and looked me in the eye. “It’s what I do, Hank. Try to remember it this time.”
I chuckled. “Does Mothi?”
“Cousin!” he yelled from where he was wrestling one-handed with Sig, his tone one of mock exasperation.
“Might as well ask if stone remembers that the wind can cut through it, given time,” said Meuhlnir.
“That was…painful,” said Jane.
Meuhlnir smiled a wide, tooth-filled smile. “As was that!”
“So many puns,” I said. “Too little time. Let’s get a move on before I’m forced to vomit.”
We mounted and walked the horses up to the stone-paved road. In the sea to the east, sea dragons cavorted, hissing and clicking at us as if inviting us to come for a swim. “How close can they come to the shore?” I asked.
“Right up on the sand,” said Althyof. “But they can’t stay for long, or their skin will dry out and crack.”
“If I were to go to the beach, could they attack me?”
“Oh, yes,” said Althyof.
“Do they see well at night?”
“Better than in the daylight.” With that, the Tverkr spurred his mount and cantered to the head of our column.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 60
