Runemarks (24 page)

3

“So who am I?” she said. “And what’s my part in all this?”

Loki helped himself to wine. “Your name is Modi,” he began. “And the Oracle predicted your birth, long before Ragnarók, though it turns out it wasn’t entirely accurate on gender. But one thing it was certain of: Modi and his brother, Magni, are the first children of the New Age, born to rebuild Asgard and to overthrow the enemies of the gods. That’s why you carry that rune on your hand.
Aesk,
the Ash Tree: symbol of renewal and of all the Worlds.”

Maddy looked down at her hand, where
Aesk
shone blood-red against her palm. “I have a
brother
?” she said at last.

“Or a sister, maybe. If they’ve been born yet. Like I said, the Oracle hasn’t been all that accurate.”

“And my…parents?”

“Thor, the Thunder Smith, and Jarnsaxa—not
exactly
his wife, but a warrior woman from the other side of the mountains. So you see, little sister, you
do
have demon blood in you, on your mother’s side at least.”

But Maddy was still reeling from the new information. She tasted the names on her tongue—Modi, Magni, Thor, Jarnsaxa—like some fabulous, exotic dish.

“But if
they
were my parents—”

“Then how come you were born to a couple of rustics from the valleys?” Loki grinned, enjoying himself. “Well, remember when you were little, how you were always told that you shouldn’t ever dream, that dreaming was dangerous, and that if you did, the bad nasty Seer-folk would come out of Chaos and steal your soul?”

Maddy nodded.

“Well,” said Loki. “It turns out they were almost right.”

Maddy listened in near silence as Loki told his tale. “Let’s start at the good bit,” he said, pouring more wine. “Let’s start at the end of everything. Ragnarók. The doom of the gods. The fall of Æsir and Vanir alike, the triumph of Chaos, and all that jazz.
Not
a comfortable time for yours truly, what with being killed—and by that pompous do-gooder Heimdall, of all people—”

“Hang on,” said Maddy. “You said that before. You were actually
killed
at Ragnarók?”

“Well,” said Loki, “it’s not that simple. One Aspect of me fell there, yes. But Death is just one of the Nine Worlds. Some of the Æsir found refuge there, where even Surt has no power. But some of us were not so lucky. Some of us were thrown into Netherworld—what your folk would call Damnation—”

“The Black Fortress. What was it like?”

Loki’s expression darkened a little. “Nothing prepares you for Netherworld, Maddy. It was beyond anything even I had known. I’d seen the insides of dungeons before, and until then I had thought a prison was simply a place of walls, bricks, guards—familiar trappings, the same in all worlds.

“But in Netherworld, Disorder rules. So close to Chaos, almost anything becomes possible: the rules of gravity, perspective, sense, and substance are bent and shifted; hours and days have no meaning; the line is erased between reality and imagination. What was it like? It was like drowning, Maddy, drowning in an ocean of lost dreams.”

“But you got out.”

Darkly he nodded.

“How?” she said.

“I made a deal with a demon.”

“What deal?”

“The usual,” said Loki. “A favor for a favor. I was a traitor to both sides, so they decided to make an example of me. I was locked in a cell with no windows and no doors, no up and no down. Nothing could reach me—or so they thought. But the demon offered me a means of escape.”

“How?” said Maddy.

“There’s a river,” he said, “at the far edge of Hel. The river Dream charges toward Netherworld iron clad and at a gallop, churning with all the raw mindstuff of the Nine Worlds. To touch the water is to risk madness or death—and yet it was through Dream that I escaped.” Loki paused to refresh himself. “I almost lost my mind in the struggle, but at last I found my way into that of an infant, an infant of the Ridings folk.”

Somewhat ruefully he indicated his person. “I’ve done what I could with this Aspect,” he said. “But frankly I used to be much better-looking. Still, it’s an improvement on Netherworld—which is why I’ve adopted such a low profile over the past few hundred years. Don’t want Surt to get any ideas about checking up on old friends, eh?”

But Maddy’s thoughts were racing like winter clouds. “So you and One-Eye escaped through Dream. Doesn’t that mean that others could too?”

Loki shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

Maddy watched him, a gleam in her eyes. “But that’s not where
I
came from, right? I wasn’t part of the Elder Age…”

“No, you’re new. A new shoot from the old tree.” Loki gave her a cheerful grin. “A brand-new Aspect—no previous owner—just the way the Oracle said. It’s people like you who are going to rebuild Asgard after the war, while Odin and I end up as compost. And I’m sure you’ll understand if I’d prefer that to be later rather than sooner.”

She nodded. “I see. Well, I’ve got an idea.”

“What?” said Loki.

She faced him, eyes bright. “We’ll go and find the Whisperer. Right now, before One-Eye wakes up. We’ll bring it back to Red Horse Hill. And we’ll put it back into the fire pit. That way, no one will have it, and things can go back to the way they were.”

Loki watched her curiously. “You think so?”

“Loki, I have to try. I can’t stand by and let One-Eye get killed for some stupid war he can’t possibly win. He’s tired. He’s reckless. He’s living in the past. He’s so fixated on the idea of the Whisperer that it’s made him think he has a chance. And if he loses,
everyone
loses. All the Nine Worlds, the Oracle said. So you see, if you help me get it back—”

Loki gave a mocking laugh. “Impeccable logic, as always, Maddy.” He turned away in seeming regret. “I’m sorry. I’m not getting involved.”

“Please, Loki. I saved your life…”

“And I’d like to keep it, if that’s all right with you. The General would tear me limb from limb—”

“One-Eye’s asleep. He’ll be out for hours. Besides, I wouldn’t let him hurt you.”

Loki’s eyes flashed fire green. “You mean you’ll give me your protection?” he said.

“Of course I will. If you’ll help.”

Loki looked thoughtful. “Swear it?” he said.

“On my father’s name.”

“It’s a deal,” he said, and finished the wine.

And so keen was Maddy’s excitement and so eager was she to begin their search that she quite failed to see the look in the Trickster’s eyes or the grin that slowly formed across his scarred lips.

4

In the Hall of Sleepers there was confusion among the Vanir. All were now fully awake, all were present except for Skadi, but neither Idun, who had spoken to the Huntress, nor Freyja, who had not, was able to give a satisfactory account of what had actually occurred.

“You
said
Loki was there,” said Heimdall through his golden teeth.

“So he was,” said Idun. “He was in a bad way.”

“He’d have been in a worse way if I’d been there,” muttered Heimdall. “So what’s he up to, and how is it that Skadi let him live?”

“And who was the girl?” said Freyja, for the third or fourth time. “I tell you, if I hadn’t been so sleepy and confused, I would
never
have lent her my feather dress—”

“Nuts to your feather dress,” said Heimdall. “I want to know what Loki’s doing in all this.”

“Well,” said Idun, “he
did
mention the Whisperer…”

Five pairs of eyes fixed upon the goddess of plenty.

“The Whisperer?” said Frey.

So Idun told him what she knew. The Whisperer at large, Odin imprisoned, Loki possibly in league with him, and rumors of the Word, not to mention a mysterious girl who could unlock the ice and who had gods knew what glamours of her own…

“I say we get out while we still can,” said Frey. “We’re too exposed here if an enemy tries to mount an ambush.”

“I say wait for Skadi,” said Njörd.

“I say go after Loki,” said Heimdall.

“What about the General?” said Bragi.

“What about my feather dress?” said Freyja.

Idun said nothing at all but simply hummed to herself.

And in the passageway leading into the cavern, two figures standing in the shadows exchanged glances and prepared to put their plan into action.

Loki cast
ýr
and held his breath. So far, so good—he and Maddy had reached the Sleepers without incident and, more importantly, without alerting the Vanir to their intention.

From the Hall of Sleepers he could already hear a rumor of voices—and through the rune
Bjarkán
he could glimpse their colors: gold, green, and ocean blue. He noted with satisfaction that the Huntress was not among them. Good.

Now for the tricky part, the part that would place him in the most danger. They needed a diversion—something to draw the Vanir and to give Maddy the chance to recover the Whisperer. In other words, bait.

And so Loki took a deep breath and began to walk, quickly but casually, toward the entrance to the Sleepers’ Hall.

It was gold-armored Frey who saw him first, and for a few moments he squinted through the daze of glamours that crisscrossed the cavern, trying to decipher the intruder’s colors.

There were none that he could see, and that in itself was enough to make him a little wary. However, the figure that stood at the cavern’s mouth looked very small to be a cause of alarm. As the others turned to look, the intruder, a little girl of three or four, raised a face of such innocent entreaty in their direction that even Heimdall was taken aback.

“Who are you?” he snapped, recovering quickly.

The child, barefoot and clad only in a man’s shirt, smiled prettily and held out her hand. “I’m Lucy,” she said. “Do you want a game?”

For a moment the Vanir watched her in silence. It was clear to them all (except perhaps for Idun) that this was some trick: a reconnaissance, a diversion, maybe a trap. Warily they scanned the hall: there was no sign of anyone else, just the curly-headed infant standing alone.

Heimdall bared his golden teeth. “That’s no child,” he said softly. “If I’m not very much mistaken, that’s—”

“You’re It,” said Loki, grinning.

And before Heimdall could react, he slipped his disguise, shifted at speed to his wildfire Aspect, and fled for his life across the open hall.

The Vanir wasted no more time. In less than a second the air was shot through with mindbolts, flying daggers of runelight, flung nets of barbed blue fire. But Loki was fast, using the frills and crannies of the ice cavern to dodge, feint, and bewilder his attackers.

“Where is he?” yelled Heimdall, squinting through the runelight.

“Peekaboo,” said Lucy from behind a pillar of ice at the other side of the cavern.

Isa,
cast from four different angles, shattered the pillar into a drift of diamonds, but by then the Trickster was already gone. In wildfire Aspect he led them toward the far side of the hall, dodging glamours and runes, twice more reappearing as Lucy from behind one of the fabulous constructions of ice. As the Vanir closed in on all sides, he pretended to falter, turning an expression of anguished appeal to the group of angry gods.

“Got him!” said Frey. “There’s no way out—”

“Tag,” said Lucy, and shifted again, to bird form this time, and made straight for the ceiling and its colossal central chandelier. At the hub, the small opening made by Loki’s fall gaped palely at the approaching dawn.

Too late the Vanir saw his plan.

“After him!” yelled Frey, and shifted into a harrier hawk, rather larger than Loki’s bird Aspect. Njörd became a sea eagle, white-winged and dagger-clawed, and Heimdall shifted into a falcon, yellow-eyed and fast as an arrow. The three of them made straight for Loki, while Freyja shot missiles at the gap in the roof and Bragi took out a flute from his pocket and played a little saraband that peppered the air with fast, deadly notes, scorching Loki’s feathers and almost bringing him down.

Loki spun in midair, lost control for a moment, then recovered and made for the sky. The sea eagle saw its chance and closed in, but its wingspan was too large for the cavern; it dodged a volley of semi-quavers, wheeled round, and clipped an ancient column of ice, shattering its core, before flying out of control into the nest of icicles that made up the main part of the ceiling. The frozen chandelier trembled, shook, and finally began to disintegrate, throwing down shards of ice that had hung intact for five hundred years into the Hall of Sleepers.

For a time confusion reigned. A cataract of frozen pieces, some knife-edged, others as large as bales of hay, had begun to tumble, slowly but with increasing momentum, from the bright vaulting. Some smashed onto the polished floor, flinging up fragments that were as sharp and deadly as pieces of shrapnel. Others pulverized before they reached the ground, snowing steely particles into the air.

It was so sudden, so cataclysmic, that for a few crucial seconds the Vanir lost interest in the winged fugitive and scattered to the far corners of the Hall of Sleepers in their various attempts to escape the avalanche:

Bragi played a jig so merry that the ice melted into gentle rain long before it reached his head.

Freyja flung up
ýr
and created a mindshield of golden light against which the falling fragments rebounded harmlessly.

Idun simply smiled vaguely and the particles of ice turned into a shower of apple blossoms that drifted quietly to the ground.

Heimdall, Njörd, and Frey beat their wings in angry confusion, trying to dodge the falling ice as their prey vanished, with no more injury than a few scorched feathers, through the grinning gap.

And in all the confusion Maddy simply strolled into the hall, quietly retrieved the Whisperer from its hiding place under the loosened snow, then calmly strolled out again—unobserved and unsuspected—into the tunnels of World Below.

5

Now Loki was flying for his life. He’d bought himself some time, of course: the three hunters had been slowed down, both by the collapse of the ice chandelier and by their greater size, which had made it less easy for them to leave through the small gap in the roof.

As it was, he had fifteen minutes on them before he spotted his three pursuers: the falcon, the sea eagle, and the harrier hawk, circling the valley in a hunting pattern, searching for him in the early morning sunlight.

At once Loki dropped his hawk Aspect and came to rest behind a small copse just outside Forge’s Post; here stood a tiny log cabin, with a line of washing behind it and an old lady dozing in a rocking chair on the porch.

The old lady was Crazy Nan Fey, the nurse of Maddy’s younger days. She opened one eye as the hawk came to land, and she watched with some interest as it became a naked young man, who proceeded to ransack Nan’s washing line in search of something to wear. Nan supposed she ought to intervene—but the loss of an old dress, an apron, and a shawl seemed a small price to pay for the spectacle, and she decided against it.

Two minutes later a second old lady, barefoot and with a thick shawl over her head, was walking at a suspiciously athletic pace toward Malbry village. Closer observation might have shown that her left hand was oddly crooked, though few would have recognized the runeshape
ýr.

Some birds flew overhead for a time, but as far as she saw, they did not land.

Maddy and Loki had arranged to meet by the big old beech in Little Bear Wood. Maddy reached it first, having taken the road through World Below, and she sat down on the grass to wait and to settle things once and for all with the Whisperer.

Their conversation was not a comfortable one. The Whisperer was resentful at having been left in the Hall of Sleepers “like a damned pebble,” as it put it, and Maddy was furious that it had hidden the truth about her Æsir blood.

“I mean, it isn’t something you just forget to mention,” she snapped. “
Oh, and by the way, you’re Allfather’s granddaughter.
Didn’t it occur to you that I might be interested?”

The Whisperer glowed in a bored kind of way.

“And another thing,” said Maddy. “If I’m Modi, Thor’s child, and according to the prophecy I’m supposed to rebuild Asgard, then presumably whichever side I’m on wins the war. Right?”

The Whisperer yawned lavishly.

Now Maddy blurted out the question that had been burning the roof of her mouth since Odin had first told her who she was. “Is that why One-Eye found me?” she said. “Is that why he taught me what he did? Did he just
pretend
to be my friend so he could use me against the enemy when the time came? And how would he do it? I’m no warrior…”

She had a sudden, vivid memory of Loki in the caves, saying:
A man may plant a tree for a number of reasons
—and though it was warm in the little wood, Maddy could not suppress a shiver.

The Whisperer gave its dry laugh. “I warned you,” it said. “That’s what he does. He uses people. He used me when it suited him, then abandoned me to my fate. It’ll happen to you if you let it, girl—to him you’re nothing but another step on the road back to Asgard. He’ll sacrifice you in the end, just as he sacrificed me, unless—”

“Is this another prophecy?” Maddy interrupted.

“No. It’s a prediction,” the Whisperer said.

“What’s the difference?”

“Predictions can be wrong. Prophecies can’t.”

“So you don’t actually know what’s going to happen, either?” said Maddy.

“Not exactly. But I’m a good guesser.”

Maddy bit a fingernail.
“I see an army poised for battle. I see a general standing alone. I see a traitor at the gate. I see a sacrifice.”
She turned to the Whisperer. “Is that me?” she said. “Am I supposed to be the sacrifice? And is One-Eye the traitor?”

“Couldn’t say,” smirked the Whisperer.

“
The dead will awake from the halls of Hel. And the Nameless shall rise and Nine Worlds be lost, unless the Seven Sleepers wake and the Thunderer be freed from Netherworld
—freed from Netherworld?” Maddy said. “Is that even possible?”

Within the Whisperer’s glassy shell, fragments of runelight sparkled and spun.

“I said, is it possible?” repeated Maddy. “To free my father from Netherworld?”

Loki had thought her childish and irrational. In fact, ever since she had heard the tale of his escape from Netherworld, Maddy had been thinking very clearly indeed. She had gambled on his willingness to help—not because she trusted in Loki’s better nature, but because she expected him to lie. She was sure he had no intention of allowing her to throw the Whisperer back into the fire pit, but the task of retrieving it from the Hall of Sleepers was a two-man job, and rather than let it fall into the hands of the Vanir, she was sure that Loki would be ready to humor her—at least until they reached World Below, where he would deliver Maddy and the Whisperer safely into Odin’s hands. For a price, of course.

Well, two could play at that game.

On her way from the Hall of Sleepers, Maddy had been doing some serious thinking. Part of her wanted to run to One-Eye with her questions, as she had always done as a child—but the Whisperer’s prophecy had made her wary, not least because, if she read it correctly, One-Eye’s defeat could lead to the end of the Worlds.

She wished she’d never heard of the Whisperer. But now that she had, there was no going back. And although it was a poor substitute for her old friend’s counsel, at least a prophecy could not lie.

She knew what One-Eye would think of her plan, and it hurt her to deceive him, but there was nothing she could do.
I’d be saving him from himself,
she thought.
I’d be saving the Worlds.

Maddy gave up on waiting for the Whisperer’s answer. “Just as long as Loki agrees to help…”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the Whisperer. “I can persuade him. I’m very persuasive.”

Maddy gave it a long look. “Last time I knew, you wanted him dead.”

“Even the dead have their uses,” it said.

It was half an hour later that Loki arrived, footsore and dusty in Crazy Nan’s dress.

“Oh,
look,
” said the Whisperer in its nastiest voice. “Dogstar’s taken to wearing a dress. What next, eh? Tiara and pearls?”

“Ha ha. Very funny,” said Loki, untying the shawl that covered his head. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to Maddy. “I had to walk.”

“Never mind that now,” said Maddy. “What matters is that we have the Whisperer.”

The Trickster looked at her curiously. He thought she looked flushed, with excitement or fear, and there was something in her colors, some brightening, that made him feel uneasy.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“We’ve been talking,” said Maddy.

Loki looked uncomfortable. “What about?”

“I have an idea,” she told him.

And then she began to outline her plan, hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, while beside her Loki’s face went paler and paler and the Whisperer glowed like a clutch of fireflies and smiled as if it might explode.

“Netherworld?” he said at last. “You want me to go to
Netherworld
?”

“You heard what the Oracle said!”

“Poetic license,” snapped Loki. “Oracles love that kind of thing.”

“
A general will stand alone,
it said.
The Nameless shall rise. Nine Worlds will be lost.
War, Loki. A terrible war. And the only way of stopping it is to free my father from Netherworld. You promised you’d help—”

“I said I’d help you recover the Whisperer,” said Loki. “I never said anything about saving the Worlds. I mean, what’s so wrong with a war, anyway?”

Maddy thought of the Strond Valley, and the fields and houses scattered all the way from Malbry village to Forge’s Post, and all the little roads and hedges, and the smell of burning stubble in the fall. She thought of Crazy Nan in her rocking chair, and of market day on the village green, and of Jed Smith, who had done his best, and of all the soft, harmless people of the valley with their little lives and their silly conviction that they were at the center of the Worlds.

And for the first time in her life Maddy Smith understood. The lectures, the bullying, the signs forked in secret behind her back. The hundred small cruelties that had sent her running for Little Bear Wood more times than she could remember. She’d thought they hated her because she was different, but now she knew better. They’d been afraid. Afraid of the cuckoo in their nest, afraid that one day it would grow and bring Chaos upon their little world.

And she had, Maddy thought. She’d started this. Without her, the Sleepers would not have awakened, the Whisperer would still be safe in the pit, and the war might be fifty years away, or a hundred years, or even more…

She turned to Loki. “It can be done. You said so yourself.”

Loki gave a sharp laugh. “You’ve got no idea what you’re suggesting. You’ve never even so much as set foot outside your valley before, and now you’re planning to storm the Black Fortress. Bit of a leap, don’t you think?”

“You’re afraid,” said Maddy, and Loki gave another crack of laughter.

“Afraid?” he said. “Of
course
I’m afraid. Being afraid is what I’m good at. Being afraid is why I’m still here. And speaking of being afraid”—he glanced at the Whisperer—“have you any idea what the General would do to me if—No,
don’t
answer that,” he said. “I’d rather not know. Suffice it to say that we both go and see him now, give him the damn thing, let him negotiate with the Vanir, yadda yadda yadda…”

“When Odin and Wise Mimir meet, Chaos will come to the Nine Worlds.” That was the Whisperer, speaking almost idly, but with its colors flaring like dragonfire.

Loki turned. “
What
did you say?”

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent.”

“Oh no.” Loki held up his hands. “Don’t even
think
of making a prophecy right now. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know.”

But the Whisperer was speaking again. Its voice was not loud, but it commanded attention, and both of them listened, Maddy in bewilderment and Loki in growing disbelief and horror.

“I see an Ash at the open gate,” said the Whisperer. “Lightning-struck but green in shoot. I see a meeting at Nether’s edge, of the wise and the not so wise. I see a death ship on the shores of Hel, and Bór’s son with his dog at his feet—”

“Oh, gods,” said Loki. “Please don’t say anymore.”

“I speak as I must and cannot be—”

“You were silent enough for five hundred years,” protested Loki, who had gone even paler than before. “Why break the habit now?”

“Hang on,” said Maddy. “Bór’s son—that’s one of Odin’s names.”

Loki nodded, looking sick.

“And the dog?”

Loki swallowed painfully. Even his colors had turned pale, shot through with silvery threads of fear. “Forget it,” he said in a tight voice.

Maddy turned to the Whisperer. “Well?” she said. “What does it mean?”

The Oracle glowed in the pattern she had come to recognize as amusement. “All I do is prophesy,” it said sweetly. “I leave the interpretation to others.”

Maddy frowned. “The Ash. I suppose that’s me. The green shoot from the lightning tree. The wise—surely that’s the Whisperer. Bór’s son on a death ship—with his dog at his feet…” Her eyes came to rest on Loki’s face. “Ah,” she said. “Dogstar. I see.”

Loki sighed. “So it means I die. Do you
have
to repeat it?”

“Well, it doesn’t
necessarily
mean you die—”

“Oh, really?” snapped Loki. “Me, on Hel’s shore? What else do you think I’d be doing there?” He began to pace, tucking his skirts into his waistband, his shawl flying. “Why couldn’t you have told me all this before?” he demanded of the Whisperer.

The Oracle smirked and said nothing.

Loki put his face in his hands.

“Come on,” said Maddy. “You’re not dead yet. In fact—” She stopped for a moment, her face brightening. “Let me get this right,” she said. “According to the Whisperer, if Odin dies, then you do too.”

Loki made a muffled sound of despair.

“And when Odin and Mimir meet, then Chaos will come—Odin will fall…”

Loki’s eyes turned to hers.

“Unless
we free Thor from Netherworld—in which case the war won’t happen at all, the General won’t die, the Nine Worlds will be saved, and my father…”

There was a long silence, during which Loki stared, transfixed, at Maddy, Maddy’s heart raced even faster, and the Whisperer shone like a chunk of star.

“So you see,” she said, “you have to come. You know the way into Netherworld. The Whisperer said it could be done—and if we keep hold of the Whisperer, then Odin won’t meet it, and there won’t be a war, and—”

“Listen, Maddy,” interrupted Loki. “Much as I’d love to save the Nine Worlds while committing suicide, I have a much simpler plan. The Oracle saw me dead in Hel. Right? So as long as I stay
away
from Hel—”

He broke off suddenly, aware of a small but vicious stabbing pain just above his left eyebrow. For a second he thought something had stung him. Then he felt the Whisperer’s presence, like a sharp object raking his mind. He took a step back and almost fell.