Runemarks (29 page)

Once more she cast
Isa
into the courtyard. Njörd froze, one hand on his harpoon. But it would not last. Without the Word to immobilize them and make them helpless, the Vanir outclassed her by a long way.

One last time Skadi turned to the parson. He was pale and sweating. Shocked, perhaps, by the death of his wife, but looking into his haunted eyes, Skadi didn’t think so. She had seen trances that looked like this in men who had worshiped her in the distant past. After the ecstasy, the horror. She saw it in Nat Parson’s eyes, the gaping, empty horror, and knew then that they had lost. Odin was gone, and in seconds the Vanir would be upon them.

Till next time, then,
the Huntress thought. She put her hands on the parson’s shoulders.

“Listen to me, fellow,” she said.

Slowly his eyes turned toward her.
“Don’t…call…me…fellow,”
he whispered.

Ah. At last, a reaction.
Good,
she thought. “If you want to live, then do as I say.
Do
you want to live?”

Wordless, he nodded.

“Then come with me, Parson, if you can. Take your Book. Follow me. And
run.
” And with that she shifted into her snow-wolf form, shot through the open back door, her pads soundless on the hard ground, and vanished like smoke into the night.

14

In less than a minute—at a single word—the life Nat had always known was over. Gone was the parsonage; gone wife, flock, comfort, ambitions. Now he was a fugitive.

Ahead of him the snow wolf raced toward the safety of Red Horse Hill. The air was sharp and clean, the ground underfoot brittle with frost. Dawn was approaching; birds sang and a pale green light bled the violet from the sky. It occurred to Nat suddenly that it had been years since he’d watched the sun rise.

Now he could watch it whenever he pleased.

The knowledge was suddenly so overwhelming that he laughed aloud; the snow wolf paused briefly, snarled, and padded on.

Nat ignored her. Freedom at last, freedom to do what he’d always yearned for, freedom to use his talents, his
power
—

Tsk-tsk, begone!

Nat frowned. Whose words were those?

He shook his head to clear it. He’d been under some stress, he told himself. It was only natural that there should be a little confusion, a little disorientation in his mind. After all, he’d lost his wife—

An Examiner of the Order has no wife.

The words came unbidden into his mind, and now he remembered them, as in a dream, remembered saying something of the kind to Ethelberta as he collapsed, exhausted—and the voice had spoken—to him—
through
him…

It was the same voice. Mournful now, but a voice of authority nevertheless—soft, precise, and with a trace of arrogance—and now he thought it was almost familiar, haunting as a tune forgotten since childhood and overheard years later, unexpectedly, from a distance.

“Who are you?” whispered Nat, his eyes widening. “Are you a demon? Am I possessed?”

In his mind there came a sigh no louder than a breath of air.

He hears me,
it sighed.
At last, he hears me.

“What are you?” he repeated sharply.

A man,
it said.
A man, I think…

“What man?” said Nat.

Elias Rede,
whispered the voice.
Examiner Number 4421974.

For a time Nat Parson stood transfixed. The dawn had turned out to be a disappointment. No sun shone; the day’s promise was lost under a pall of cloud, and suddenly Nat Parson was bursting for a piss, but to relieve himself in the nearby bushes now felt somehow indecent with this interloper in his mind.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he said at last.

Perhaps,
said the Examiner,
but I’m still here.

“Well, go away then,” said Nat. “Go join the Nameless, or the Hordes of Hel, or wherever you’re supposed to go when you die.”

You think I haven’t tried?
said the Examiner.
You think I wanted to be stuck inside your mind?

“It’s not my fault you got stuck.”

Oh, isn’t it?
said the Examiner.
Who got in my way when I spoke the Word? Who stole power from my final casting? And who’s been using the Book of Words without control, without any kind of authority—not to speak of fasting, meditation, or indeed any of the Advanced or even the Intermediary States of Bliss—ever since?

“Oh,” said the parson. “That.”

There was rather a long silence.

“I meant well,” he said at last.

No, you didn’t,
said the Examiner.
You meant to seize power.

“Then why didn’t you stop me?”

Ah,
said the Examiner.

There was another silence.

“Well?” said Nat.

Well, as an Examiner, I had certain duties, certain restrictions—protocols to be observed, fasting, preparation—and now…
It paused, and Nat felt its laughter inside his head.
Do I really need to explain, Parson? You’ve tasted it—you know how it feels…

“So all that stuff—about using the Word without authority—all that was just to make me feel inferior, was it?”

Well, let’s face it, you are only a parson, and—

“Only a parson! I’ll have you know—”

My good fellow, I—

“And
don’t
call me fellow!”

And at that he turned, unbuttoned, aimed for the bushes, and watered them, luxuriantly and at length, as Examiner 4421974 spluttered and protested in his mind and Skadi, in wolf form, caught the scent of their prey and began to run, heedless of the little drama being enacted on the road behind her, toward the Horse’s Eye.

The posse on the hilltop saw them coming. A small posse—a group of four, posted there by Nat with orders to report any unusual activity to or from the Horse’s Eye. There had been none—much to their relief—save a few scuttling things at around midnight that might have been rats (but were probably goblins).

Now the men were dozing under the wheel of one of the silent machines while Adam Scattergood, who had bravely volunteered for the safest duty, sat cross-legged on a stone, eating a smoked sausage and watching the road.

He jumped from his perch at once when he saw Nat.

“Mr. Parson! Over here!”

As he’d intended, his cry alerted the sleeping men. (His uncle had promised him a shilling if he would stay awake.)

Dorian Scattergood opened one eye. At his side Jed Smith and Audun Briggs were already stirring. By the time the parson reached the foot of the Hill, all three looked as if they had been alert for hours.

It was then that they saw the white wolf. She had run ahead of the parson, breasting the Hill on the blind side, and so was upon them before they knew what was happening. A white snow wolf, brindled with gray, her dark muzzle folded in a velvet snarl displaying teeth as sharp and white as a row of icicles.

They panicked. Wolves were rare in the Strond Valley, and it was the first time any of them but Dorian had seen one so close. That experience saved his life; instinctively he faced it, spreading his arms with a loud cry, and Skadi veered away, catching the scent of an easier prey, leaped at Audun, who had gone for his pack (a knife dangled uselessly from his belt), and took out his throat as neatly as a boy bobs an apple.

It had been a trying night for the Huntress. The frustration of her plans, the weakness of her companion, the escape of her quarry, and the cumulative effect of having spent so much time in animal skin—all these things conspired to strengthen her wolf’s instincts, to urge her to hunt, to bite, to seek relief in blood.

Besides, she was hungry. She shook her quarry energetically, though by then Audun was almost certainly dead, and having sniffed delicately at the blood, she began to feed.

The other three stared in disbelief. Jed Smith, sagging with shock, went for the crossbow at his side. Dorian began to back away, very carefully, down the far hillside, without taking his eyes for one moment from the feeding wolf. (This too was to save his life.)

Adam, no hero, was violently sick.

And it was at this point that Nat reached them.

“Mr. Parson,” said Jed in a low voice.

Nat ignored him. He stood in a trance, head slightly lowered, eyes fixed on the opening in the Hill. The feeding wolf looked up for a second, bared her teeth, and returned to her kill. The parson seemed hardly to notice.

Adam Scattergood, who had never been given to fanciful thoughts, found himself thinking,
He looks dead.

In fact, Nat had never felt so much alive. The sudden discovery in his mind of Examiner 4421974 had unexpectedly put things into perspective for him. He was not mad, as he’d feared. The voice was real. His initial terror and outrage at his mind’s invasion had settled; now he realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. His was the power. He was in control. And wasn’t it fine—wasn’t it
right
—to wield such power over the fellow who had snubbed him?

Your wolf is eating that man. I thought you should know.

Nat glanced at Skadi. Her muzzle, ruff, and forelegs were illuminated with blood. “Leave her,” he said. “She has to eat.”

Jed Smith, his crossbow raised, overheard and stared in horror. Since the roundhouse he’d been glad to give Skadi a wide berth, but tales of her powers had been whispered afar, and he was in no doubt that this was the same demon woman who had killed the Examiner and taken hold of the parson’s mind.

“Mr. Parson?” he said.

Eyes that seemed unnaturally bright fixed Jed in their gaze.

Jed swallowed. Turning, he saw that Dorian had fled; only he and Adam remained on the Hill. “She’ll need some clothes,” the parson said. “The other man’s are bloody.”

Jed Smith shook his head. His hand was trembling so much that the crossbow was a blur. “Don’t let her kill me,” he said. “I won’t say a word.”

Interesting,
thought Nat Parson. He’d always thought Jed a lumpen fellow, good for hitting things and not much else. But here he was, showing signs of real intelligence. Of course, it was obvious: Nat could not expect even the most fervent of his flock to acquiesce to the murder of a villager. Without witnesses it would be clear that Audun had fallen victim to a prowling wolf. But if Jed talked…

Nat pondered with some surprise how easy it was to kill a man. Perhaps it was Ethel’s death that had hardened him to the fact, perhaps the Examiner’s experience in the field. A week ago Nat Parson would no more have contemplated murder than he would have held mass stark naked, but now he did, and realized with astonishment that he didn’t much care.

Good,
said the Examiner.
It takes courage to do what needs to be done.

“Then there is—” Nat broke off, consciously turning over the words in his mind.
Then there is no sin attached to such an act?

Of course not,
came the immediate reply.
The only sin is to fail in one’s duty.

We think alike,
said Nat in surprise.

Perhaps that is why our minds meshed as they did.

For a moment Nat was lost in thought. Was that the reason for what had happened? A meeting of like minds at a crucial moment, both striving for the same goal?

He smiled at Jed. “Very well,” he said. “But I’ll need your clothes. Come quickly, man. I don’t have all day.”

“Promise?” said Jed, who was still shaking so violently that he could hardly untie his bootlaces. “Promise you won’t let her kill me?”

“I promise,” said Nat, still smiling at Jed, who, reassured, began once more to unlace his boots.

It was almost the truth, after all, he told himself as he spoke the relevant canticle and Jed Smith fell heavily to the ground. Besides—he staggered a little as the aftershock of the Word slammed through the Hill—why should Seer-folk have all the fun? 339

1

Many roads lead to Hel. In fact, it could be argued that
all
roads lead eventually to Hel, the frictionless pivot between Order and Chaos, where neither holds sway and nothing—and no one—ever changes.

True Chaos, like Perfect Order, is mostly uninhabited. The many creatures that exist within its influence—demons, monsters, and the like—are simply satellites, basking in Chaos as the earth basks in the warmth of the sun, knowing full well the dangers of over-familiarity. Even Dream—which has its laws, though they are not necessarily the laws of elsewhere—is far too near Chaos for comfort, which is why so few dare to stay there long. And as for Netherworld—you’d have to be mad to even think about it.

Loki had been pondering this with increasing unease as he and Maddy followed the long, well-traveled road to Hel. Not a difficult road, for obvious reasons, though less worn than you might have expected. The dead leave fewer tracks than the living, but even so, the passageway was deeply rutted and its stone walls had been polished to a mirror-like glaze by the passing of a million million—perhaps more—world-weary travelers.

Not that Hel was to be their final destination. That, thought Loki, would have been far too easy. No, beyond the Underworld lay Netherworld, not so much a land in itself as an island among the many that spread out across the vast river that marks the boundary between World Below and World Beyond: the greatest, the Cauldron of all Rivers; eternal, lethal, even to the dead.

The Whisperer had been mercifully silent as they drew ever closer to the Underworld. But Loki sensed its excitement—as it sensed his fear—persistent enough to tax him to the limits as he struggled ahead. And it
was
a struggle; Loki’s glam was not at its strongest, and it was no comfort to him to know that the Whisperer could reach into his mind anytime it liked and twist it like a wet rag.

So far, however, it had left him alone, and Loki guessed that behind its silence lay a wariness that had not been present at the beginning of their expedition.

He had read something in its thoughts—or it believed he had—and he could sense that although it enjoyed its power over him, it was wary of what he might see there next—and of what he might tell Maddy. And so it said little to either of them, and there was no repetition of the incident at the river crossing, but even so, Loki’s head ached, as if a storm was on its way.

They had stopped to sleep after the river. Three hours’ sleep, a mouthful of bread, and a sip of water and they had set off again, looking only ahead and never to the side, speaking only when they needed to. They had left World Above at eleven o’clock of the previous morning, and if anyone had told Maddy that barely twelve hours had passed since then, she would never have believed them.

And yet she moved on without complaint. And Loki, who had half expected her to have turned back by now, watched in growing disquiet as they embarked on the final stretch.

By now the path was quick with the dead. A hundred dead per cubic foot, crammed all together into the fetid space, moving sluggishly onward, downward as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t actually very far: their misty presences distressed the air; their stink—which was worse than any midden or slaughterhouse or garbage dump or field hospital you’ve ever smelled or imagined—enveloped everything, sinking loamy fingers into their lungs, tainting their food, their drink, the air they breathed.

The dead themselves feel nothing, of course. But they
do
sense, and as the travelers passed through them like ships through thick fog, the legions of the dead shifted instinctively closer to the warmth of the living, dead fingers plucking at their clothes, their hair, dead mouths moving in soundless entreaty.

Men, women, warriors, thieves; stillborn children and drowned sailors; vassals, heroes, poets, kings; ancients, murderers, desperadoes, and sellers of fake remedies against the plague; lost loves, old gods, scrubby schoolboys, spurious saints. All dead, existing now as shadows—
less
than shadows—of their living selves, and yet each with his or her own mournful colors, so that Maddy and Loki were close to drowning in their collective despair and even the Whisperer was silent.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” said Loki as Maddy trudged ahead. “I mean, what are you actually trying to prove? And who are you trying to prove it
to
?”

Maddy looked at him, surprised. It had been so long, it seemed, since she had even asked herself the question
why
—and the thought that she might even now have a choice…

Who am I doing this for?
she thought.
The gods? The Worlds? My father?

She tried to see her father’s face—red-bearded, slow-witted, good-natured Thor, known to her from so many tales that she was sure she’d know him anywhere—and yet when Maddy thought of the words
my father,
it was not the Thunderer, or even Jed Smith, that she pictured in her mind’s eye. It was One-Eye: clever, sarcastic, devious One-Eye, who had lied to her and maybe worse…

And yet, for all that, she missed him terribly, and if she hadn’t been certain that to involve him in this would be to put him in the most terrible danger…

I wonder if he’s looking for me.

I wonder if he misses me.

And if he knew—would he be proud?

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.

Doggedly she moved on.

How long now? Impossible to tell. So close to the edge of Chaos, the laws that bind the Worlds are already warped beyond recognition. Logic tells us that such a journey to such a place cannot possibly exist, but Maddy and Loki were traveling
between
possibilities, to places where Logic, the first servant of Order, cannot pass.

The trick, like magic, is not to think too hard about what you’re doing, to pass through the world as if in a dream, untrammeled by ideas of what is possible and what is not. And so they cast
Naudr
to open the way and moved impossibly down into the Underworld, and when morning came (not that they knew it
was
morning), they found themselves standing on a craggy cliff looking down onto a subterranean landscape of stagnant mists and slow dark rivers, a long plain lit from all around with a wan light the color of an old bruise, and knew they were looking at Hel itself.

Hel is cold but not freezing. To freeze implies a kind of action, but Hel is a place of inaction, and its chill is the coldness of the empty hearth, of the silent earth, of the grave. And so Loki and Maddy were cold, but not unbearably so, and they were tired, but reluctant to sleep. Most of all they were hungry and thirsty, for their small supplies were running out, and they dared not touch the foul water of Hel. They took turns carrying the Whisperer (on Loki’s insistence, to Maddy’s surprise), but even so their progress was slow as they trudged toward a sullen horizon that never seemed to get any nearer.

“Does it go on forever like this?” said Maddy as they stopped once more to rest.

Loki glanced at her and shrugged. “For some people it goes on forever. For others—well, it takes the time it takes.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Maddy said. “Distances don’t change depending on who you are.”

“They do here,” Loki said.

Wearily they trudged on.

There aren’t many rules in the Underworld, but those that exist are rarely broken. Death is a place in permanent balance, a place of no movement, no progress, no change. Of course, living, moving, changing people were never
meant
to visit Hel. A few have tried (they always do), but little good ever comes of it, and most, if they come back at all, come back mad or broken.

Even the gods had made a point of avoiding the Underworld as often as possible. It’s a dreary place, and although many have tried to bargain with its Guardian—to plead for aid, to negotiate the return of one single, very special soul—such a pact has always ended in tears, failure, lingering death, or a bit of all three.

For Hel’s safe balance comes at a price. No one raises the dead without disturbing that balance, and so close to Netherworld, the consequences could be disastrous. As a result, Hel’s Guardian had a reputation for being cranky and disobliging, and no one had left the Underworld alive since Mother Frigg returned alone after pleading for the release of Balder the Fair, before the end of the Elder Age.

Loki was well aware of this. On the other hand, he had reason to believe that the Guardian of the Underworld might deign to make an exception in his case. Evidently the Whisperer believed it too, which suited Loki just fine, because that belief was what had kept him alive so far.

Now he sensed the thing’s impatience.

You said she would be here,
it said.

She will,
thought Loki, hoping it was true.

It had better be true, because if you’ve lied…

“Don’t worry. She’ll come,” he said aloud. “As soon as she knows I’m here, she’ll come.”

“Who?” said Maddy, looking at him.

“The Guardian of the Underworld,” he said. “Half-Born Hel. My daughter.”