Freyja, also in goddess Aspect, pulled out a scented handkerchief (one belonging to Ethel, whose wardrobe was rapidly diminishing) and applied it to her pretty nose. ‘He may be an ally,’ she remarked, ‘but why does he have to smell so bad?’
‘And what in Hel’s name are they doing here?’ growled Sugar, whose hackles had risen instinctively at the sight of the wolves – who now revealed themselves as Skull, Big H and Fenris, still clad in their customary black, but with the further addition of a large and flashy collection of studded belts, wristbands and silver jewellery (mostly designed around the skull motif), which clearly counted as battle gear.
Fenny looked down at Sugar with contempt. ‘Is this what the Æsir have come to?’ he said. ‘Recruiting noobs to fight their war?’
Sugar-and-Sack growled again. ‘Who you callin’ a noob?’ he said.
Fenny shrugged. ‘Bit short, aren’t you? I’m surprised you can even hold a sword. Now the last god of war …’
Skull and Big H exchanged grins.
‘He was kind of a big guy,’ said Skull.
‘Yeah. Lots of meat on him, man,’ said Big H.
Sugar growled and clenched his fists. Fenny gave his uneven smile and displayed the Wolf Cross on his arm. They might even have come to blows if, at that moment, the firebird had not alighted in front of the gods, resolving itself into the Aspect of Angrboda, the Temptress of Ironwood.
‘You!’ said Freyja with loathing.
‘I have to say,’ Angie said, ‘I expected a little more gratitude.’
‘Gratitude?’ growled Thor.
Angie blew him a kiss. ‘I told you you needed me,’ she said. ‘And my lovely Wolf Boys, of course. Imagine what a mess you’d be in if Jorgi hadn’t been here to clean up.’
Thor frowned and narrowed his eyes. The World Serpent, who had retreated after dropping Maddy off, was now coiled companionably around what was left of Red Horse Hill, looking like someone at the end of a very long, very satisfying Yuletide dinner; full of meat and potatoes, but still able to pick happily at a mince pie, a chocolate, a handful of raisins, some hazelnuts …
‘You’re saying you weren’t behind all this?’ said Thor, with some suspicion.
‘Of course not,’ said Angie. ‘Why should I be? I want my hall in Asgard.’
‘Which brings us back to Loki again,’ said Thor, glancing up into the sky, where the hawk and the eagle were beginning their descent. ‘Well, when I get my hands on him …’
‘Why blame Loki?’ Maddy said.
‘Because it’s always Loki,’ said Thor.
Maddy shifted uncomfortably. The Thunderer did have a point. Time after time, when trouble arose, the Trickster was behind it. This time he was innocent, and only she could prove it. After all, this was her fault: she had woken the Red Horse; she had let Maggie take it from her. Of course, if she told the gods the truth, she would have to betray her sister – her twin – and any chance of redeeming Maggie would be lost. Her connection with the Whisperer would damn her for ever in their eyes. Even it if were finally proven that Maggie had been an innocent dupe, the gods would demand vengeance. Maddy imagined her sister chained underground, or banished into Netherworld. She couldn’t let that happen, no. But if she lied to protect her twin, then Loki was sure to take the blame …
Before she could fully make up her mind, the white sea-eagle and the small brown hawk had landed on a nearby fence, becoming Heimdall and Loki again.
Sif, catching sight of them, gave a grunt of outrage. ‘Oy! Look what the cat dragged in!’
Thor’s face took on the expression of one who, long since overtaken by events, finally sees his purpose in life. He lunged forward, and in less than a second Loki was dangling from his fist as all the gods gathered round to watch.
‘Nice one,’ said the Trickster, thoroughly tired of this by now. ‘Nice way to treat the guy who just helped save all your lives.’
His fire-green eyes lit on Maddy, and a look of relief came onto his face. If Maddy was there, he told himself, then she would be able to vouch for him. Whatever her reasons for taking the Horse, she’d never leave a friend in the lurch.
‘So – how did you save our lives?’ said Frey.
‘Well, if you’d give me chance to explain – and, by the way, I don’t want to sound prudish here, but there are ladies present,’ said Loki, indicating his state of undress, and adding with a malicious smirk, ‘Oh, and Sif and Freyja, of course.’
‘Shut up and take this,’ said Heimdall, who had already found himself something to wear, and now thrust a bundle of clothes at Loki. With his usual economy of words, the Watchman explained the situation as he saw it to the little group of bewildered gods, while Loki struggled into a borrowed shirt (very much too big for him). Angie looked on with a sweet smile, while Fenny and the demon wolves stood around, grinning and showing their teeth and displaying their muscles and Wolf Cross tattoos.
Big H addressed the Trickster. ‘Dude,’ he said. ‘You look terrible.’
‘Friends of yours?’ said Heimdall.
Once more Loki began to explain. It wasn’t a straightforward explanation. He was just getting to the part where, fearlessly, he had taken bird form to reconnoitre the mountains, when two more birds – two ravens, in fact – alighted on the fence of the Parsonage.
Hughie and Mandy, Maddy thought; but before she could say anything, a sudden and violent commotion broke out.
The Wolf Brothers, all three acting as one, swiftly resumed their Aspects and, with a single giant bound, made for the Parsonage fence. At the same time, the new arrivals took wing, swooping low over the heads of the wolves and craw-ing loudly and impudently. The three wolves howled in frustration as the birds kept safely just out of reach. Fenny snapped at the larger raven, which responded by pecking him on the nose.
‘Oh, where did they come from?’ said Angie crossly. ‘Always causing trouble …’
Maddy couldn’t help smiling at that. From what she’d seen of the Temptress so far, trouble seemed to follow her.
‘Stop that,’ said Angie sharply, addressing the ravens and the wolves. ‘We have a truce, remember?’
‘A truce?’ said Hughie, resuming his human Aspect. ‘What, with the mutt?’
Fenris gave Hughie a filthy look while holding his nose with both hands.
Sugar, who had loathed the wolves on sight, fingered his mindsword and scowled back.
Maddy noticed that Mandy, who had also returned to her human form, was now wearing Fenny’s dragon-claw earring. Her bright gold eyes were alive with mischief. She opened her mouth and crawk-ed.
Loki blinked at them for a moment, then looked down at himself again. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I think this may be a lady’s shirt.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Heimdall grimly. ‘You won’t be needing it for long.’ He turned to Maddy. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What exactly happened here?’
Later, Maddy realized that this had been her final chance to confess her role in the day’s events. A window of opportunity, and foolishly she had missed it. But hindsight is a false friend, the kind that gets you into trouble, then follows you around looking smug and saying: See? I told you so.
If someone else had asked her, then maybe she could have come clean. Kindly Njörd, or Ethel, or Frey, or even Bragi, whose idea of a stern rebuke was to sing at the culprit as loudly as he could. But Heimdall, whose eyes were as hard as tempered steel and just about as forgiving; Heimdall, who saw everything, heard everything, trusted no one, and never slept …
‘Tell them, Maddy,’ Loki said, sensing her hesitation. ‘Tell them this was none of my fault. You were there. You saw.’
Maddy looked away.
‘Please …’
Loki addressed the circle of gods. ‘Folks, I know how it looks,’ he said. ‘But this time it’s nothing to do with me. I was under the Hill, hanging out, minding my own business, and suddenly – boom! – surprise. Ask Maddy. She was there. She must have seen everything.’
Maddy shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Loki, I can’t,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ said Heimdall.
‘I mean I didn’t see anything. Nothing but ephemera. But surely you can’t think Loki could have had anything to do with that?’
‘Can’t I?’ the Watchman said. ‘Given that I caught him trying to make a run for it just as things started to get nasty here – a situation for which he stands largely responsible – not to mention the appearance of the World Serpent, the Fenris Wolf – and now Sleipnir. That’s three of Loki’s children so far – at least three that we know about …’ He turned to Loki. ‘So – where’s Hel?’
Loki looked bewildered. ‘Hel? You know she doesn’t leave her domain …’
‘Not until now,’ said Heimdall. ‘But with things as they are, why shouldn’t she? Maybe she knows how helpless we are. Maybe she’s just waiting for someone – someone like you – to give the word.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Freyja spitefully. ‘He sets us up with the Temptress. He talks us into a deal with Chaos, he gives Thor a hammer that only works when it feels like it, starts a battle that no one can win, and then, when the two sides are otherwise engaged, he strolls away to collect the loot, leaving the snake in control of the Hill, and the rest of us virtually powerless. Isn’t that about right?’
Loki shot Maddy an anguished look. ‘Tell them, Maddy. Please,’ he said.
Once more Maddy looked away.
Heimdall bared his golden teeth and turned to Angrboda. ‘Well, Temptress? What do you say?’ His voice was low and dangerous.
‘Let me remind you,’ Angie said, ‘that we had an agreement, the gods and I. You swore an oath. To break it now …’ She smiled. ‘There might be … consequences.’
Heimdall glared. ‘The gods keep their word.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ said Angie, smiling at him. ‘The last time a god reneged on a deal was down in Hel, three years ago. And we all know what happened then, don’t we?’
The gods exchanged glances, their faces grim.
Finally the Watchman spoke. ‘You’ll get what was promised, Temptress,’ he said. ‘You’ll have your hall in Asgard. But we made no promise regarding Loki, and if he has betrayed us—’
‘Betrayed you? How?’ Angie said.
‘Something happened here,’ said Thor. ‘Something that blew the Hill apart and set free the General’s Horse. Loki was there. Loki ran. Loki knows more than he’s telling.’
‘Besides, there’s the Good Book,’ Freyja said. ‘The Rider’s name is Treachery …’
‘Be fair,’ said Loki desperately. ‘You’re quoting a prophecy of the Folk. You know how these things get twisted. For a start, my name is Trickery. Not Treachery. There’s a difference, you know.’
‘Not a very big one,’ grunted Sif.
‘Hardly a difference at all,’ said Frey.
‘Let me hammer the truth out of him,’ said Thor, looking almost cheerful at the thought.
‘At last, a practical solution,’ said Frey. He turned for support to the god of war, who affected to be looking at something else. Sugar was still mostly goblin, and the prospect of laying violent hands on the Captain was practically unthinkable.
‘I don’t think we need to go that far,’ said Njörd, ‘but I would welcome some answers.’
‘I agree,’ said Bragi. ‘I vote we keep an eye on him until we know what’s happening.’
Loki gave his twisted smile. ‘By keep an eye on him,’ he said, ‘I’m assuming that what you really mean is clap him in irons and lock him away until we can prove he’s guilty?’
‘Precisely,’ said Thor, moving forward again.
‘I thought so,’ said Loki.
And with that, he assumed his Wildfire Aspect and shot across the courtyard in a lightning trail of flames. Of course, the gods were expecting it; but in the wake of the recent battle, glam was low and reflexes dulled. A dozen mindbolts shot across the yard, but none of them hit Loki, who, zigzagging round the Parsonage, had leaped through the half-open window, ricocheted off the kitchen stove, ended up in the fireplace and vanished in a cloud of sparks before anyone could catch him.
As far as the gods were concerned, this proved his guilt conclusively. Maddy Smith knew better, of course, but couldn’t afford to take his side. Not against Maggie, her longed-for twin; Maggie, whose motives were still unclear, but who, she was certain, needed her help.
Loki could look after himself – after all, he had a long history of getting himself out of trouble. And if it came to a choice, well …
A Horse of the Sea, she thought ruefully. And a Rider whose name is Treachery …
Treachery it is, then, she told herself with an inward sigh, and, without waiting for further developments, she left the gods to their debate and set off again towards the Hill, where the Black Horse of the Last Days was waiting to take her to World’s End.
ADAM SCATTERGOOD STARED at the Horse that Maggie had brought with her out of Dream. Her communion with his passenger had left him, for the first time in three years, without its presence in his mind, and although the interval of separation had lasted only minutes, it had made him feel terribly vulnerable, as if all the knowledge he had acquired had been suddenly and brutally stripped away, leaving him directionless, defenceless, ignorant and …
Free?
The thought was a revelation. That he could be free, really free, had never before crossed his mind. It began as a tremor in his spine, spread to the pit of his stomach and leaped like wildfire into his brain, filling him with equal parts of terror and excitement.
His head spun, his throat was dry; for a moment he felt as if he might be having a seizure. In three long years of slavery, of serving his passenger’s every whim, of living in fear of what it might do if Adam dared to displease it, the thought of simply walking away had never before occurred to him.
I could be free, thought Adam; and all at once he saw himself laying aside his pack and his sword; forgetting his dreams of destiny – which were not quite his dreams, he understood, but those of the presence that had inhabited him for so long that, until now, he had been unable to tell where he ended and his passenger began. I could walk away, Adam thought, and the terrible tremor intensified. I could do it right now!
Whether or not he would have dared remains a matter for speculation. Could he really just have gone home, put aside his destiny and gone back to being Adam Scattergood: running the Seven Sleepers Inn; keeping in with the neighbours; marrying young, like his father; growing fat, like his mother; going to church every Sunday and trying his hardest to forget that he could have been magnificent?
In any case, there was no time to think. The tremor had barely a moment to plant its beguiling fish-hooks in his mind when his passenger came hurtling back with such force that it knocked Adam to the floor and pinned him there, bruised and shaking and terrified, as the thing that had once been Mimir the Wise flung itself back into place in his mind like a petulant house-guest into a much-used armchair.
Thinking of his treachery, Adam began to whimper. The Nameless could be cruel, and it knew how to punish rebellion. But today it was preoccupied. Adam sensed at the same time a wild and frenzied excitement, and an ecstasy of rage that surpassed anything he had encountered since that day on the shores of Dream, when the two of them had first become one.
How dare she? How DARE she refuse Me? it screamed.
Adam glanced at Maggie, who was watching him with some concern.
‘Adam? Are you all right?’ she said. He didn’t look it, Maggie thought. She could see him shivering. ‘Adam? Please? What happened?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Adam. ‘It’s over now.’ He sat up. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Sitting beside him on the bed, Maggie recounted her journey through Dream, from Red Horse Hill to her flight through the clouds, to the whispering, guiding Voice, which she had driven from her mind when it had tried to control her.
Adam’s blue eyes widened
. ‘You did?’
Maggie nodded. ‘In my dream. But it wasn’t really a dream, was it?’ she said, with a glance at the roan Horse.
‘Dream is a river that runs through Nine Worlds,’ said Adam, who needed no prompting on this. ‘It’s a dangerous place, and just as real as anywhere else. More so, perhaps, because in Dream you can see things as they really are, stripped of all their disguises.’
‘Disguises?’ said Maggie.
He looked at the Horse. ‘Well, I’m guessing it looks different to the way it did when you were in Dream.’
‘But why is it here?’ Maggie said. ‘And whose was the Voice? And who was that girl? And why does she look exactly like me?’
The passenger spoke in Adam’s mind. Tell her you can’t discuss it now. Tell her there’s something you need her to do. Tell her it’s very important. And for gods’ sakes, tell her to stop asking questions!
But Maggie was looking at Adam through the circle of finger and thumb. Her friend looked feverish, she thought, sick and anxious and afraid; and every time she spoke to him, he put his head briefly to one side, as if awaiting instructions before answering her, or as if he were listening to a voice that only he could hear.
She remembered what the girl from the North had told her about the Voice in her head. What had she called it? The Whisperer? And could it be that Adam heard it too?
She focused on the rune Bjarkán, searching Adam’s colours. And then she saw it – an alien strand of runelight in his signature. Adam flinched; his colours flared – and that was when Maggie was certain. Someone else was watching her, a silent, ghostly onlooker …
She banished the rune. ‘Magister?’ she said. ‘No need to hide. I know you’re there.’
In Adam’s mind, his passenger writhed and spat like a pit of snakes.
Adam, with a tremendous effort, forced himself to stay calm. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about—’
‘Don’t lie to me, Magister. You tried to take control of my mind. You tried to make me obey you. That girl on the Hill – she said you would. She said you were the enemy.’
‘No,’ said Adam. ‘That isn’t true.’