“Now answer me.” The Examiner’s voice was hoarse with exertion. His eyes fixed the prisoner; his bloody hands shook. “Tell me this, and tell me true. Where are the Seer-folk? Where are they hiding? What are their numbers? Their weapons? Their plans?”
Odin snarled beneath the gag.
“I said, where are they?”
Odin writhed and shook his head.
Nat Parson wondered how the Examiner expected to get a confession of any sort from a man who was so securely prevented from speech. “Perhaps if I removed the gag, Examiner—”
“Be quiet, fool, and stand aside!”
At this, Nat jumped as if stung. “Examiner, I must protest…”
But the Examiner was not listening. Eyes narrowed like a man who can almost—but not quite—grasp the thing he seeks, he leaned forward, and the Word rang soundlessly into the air.
All over the village, hackles raised, cupboard doors swung open, sleepers turned over from one uncomfortable dream into another.
“Where are the Seer-folk?” he hissed again, making a strange little sign with his finger and thumb.
And now the parson was sure he could see a kind of colored light that surrounded prisoner and Examiner like an oily smoke. It peacocked around them in lazy coils, and with his hands the Examiner fretted and teased the illuminated air like a seamstress combing silks.
But there was more, the parson thought. There were words in the colors. He could almost hear them: words fluttering like moths in a jar. Not a word came from the prisoner on the floor, and yet somehow the Examiner was making him speak.
And now Nat realized with mounting excitement that what he had taken for colors and lights were actually thoughts—thoughts drawn directly from the Outlander’s mind.
Of course, Nat knew perfectly well that he should not have been watching this at all. The mysteries of the Order were jealously guarded, which was why the Book of Words was closed. By rights he knew his duty: to stand back, eyes lowered, well out of range, and let the Examiner perform his Interrogation.
But Nat was ambitious. The thought of the Word—so close he could practically touch it—eclipsed both caution and sense of duty. Instead he stepped closer, made the same strange sign he had seen the Examiner make—and in a second the truesight enveloped him, spinning him for a moment into a maelstrom of lights and signatures.
Could this possibly be…a dream?
If so, it was the first one Nat Parson had ever experienced.
“O beautiful!” he breathed, and moving closer, unable to help himself, for a second he held the prisoner’s eye and something—some intimacy—passed between them.
The Examiner felt it like a rush of air. But the parson was in his way, damn the fool, and in the half second it took to push him aside, the precious information was lost.
The Examiner gave a howl of anger and frustration.
Nat Parson stared at the prisoner, his eyes wide with new knowledge.
And at that moment the roundhouse door slammed open on its hinges and a bolt of deadly blue light shot into the room.
I’m going to die, the parson thought as he cowered on the floor. He was vaguely conscious of Audun and Jed doing the same; at his side the Examiner lay, already stiffening, hands outstretched as if to ward off annihilation.
There was no doubt in Nat’s mind that the man was dead—the bolt had ripped him almost in two. The Good Book lay on the floor beside him, its pages scattered and scorched by the blast.
But even this had not killed his curiosity. As the other two hid their eyes, he looked up, made a circle with his finger and thumb, and saw his attackers: a woman, quite naked and almost too beautiful to look at in her caul of cold fire, and a young man in a state of similar undress, with a crooked smile that made the parson shiver.
“Get him,” said Skadi.
“Hang on,” said Loki. “I’m freezing to death.” Briefly he surveyed Audun, Nat, and Jed, still lying shivering on the roundhouse floor. “That tunic should do,” he said to Audun. “Oh, and the boots.” And at that he rapidly relieved him of both, leaving the guard in his underthings. “Not exactly a perfect fit,” said Loki, “but in the circumstances—”
“I said, get him,” snapped Skadi with mounting impatience.
Loki shrugged and stepped over to the prisoner. “Stand up, brother of mine,” he said, forking a runesign so that the chains dropped off. “Here comes the cavalry.”
Odin stood up. He looked terrible, thought Loki. Good news at any other time—but today he had been rather counting on the General’s protection.
Skadi moved forward and raised her glam. The runewhip hissed; its tip forked like a serpent’s tongue. “And now,” she said, “give me the Whisperer.”
10
Loki considered shifting to his fiery Aspect, then rejected the thought as a waste of glam. Skadi was standing over him, Isa at the ready, and fast as he was, he feared she was faster.
“Of course I’ll keep my end of the bargain,” he said, not taking his eye away from the runewhip that crackled and hissed like bottled lightning. “Eventually.”
Skadi’s expression, habitually cold, grew icy. “I warned you,” she said in a low voice.
“And I told you straight. I promised you the Whisperer. You’ll get it, don’t fret”—he glanced at Odin—“when we’re all out of this safely.”
Now, One-Eye was weak, but he had lost none of his mental agility. He knew Loki well enough to understand the game he was playing and to play along—for the time being. He could be lying—he probably was—but whether or not he had the Whisperer, now was not the time to dispute it.
“That wasn’t the deal,” said Skadi, coming closer.
“Try to think,” said Odin calmly. “Would either of us have brought it here, like some valueless bauble? Or would we, rather, hide it in a safe place, a place where no one would ever find it?”
Skadi nodded. “I see.” Then she turned and raised her glam. “Well, Dogstar, I think that concludes our business,” she said, and brought the runewhip down with a head-splitting crack. It missed Loki—just—and gouged a four-foot-long section out of the wall where he had been standing.
Nat, Jed, and Audun, who had all three been lying low in the hope of being overlooked, tried to press themselves further into the roundhouse floor.
Loki shot Odin a look of appeal. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I just saved your life.”
“You think that matters?” Skadi said. “You think that pays for what you’ve done?”
“Well, not exactly,” Loki said. “But you may still need me one of these days…”
“I’ll take that risk.”
She raised her glam. Barbed Isa fretted the air.
But now it was Odin who stepped forward. He looked old, his face drawn, his shirt drenched with fresh blood, but his colors blazed with sudden fury.
Skadi found him in her way and stared at him in astonishment. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You’re giving him your protection now?”
Odin just looked at her steadily. To Nat, who was watching, his colors seemed to envelop him in a cloak of blue fire.
“No,” said Skadi. “I’ve waited too long.”
“He’s right. I may need him,” Odin said.
“After what happened at Ragnarók?”
“Things have changed since Ragnarók.”
“Some things never change. He dies. And as for you…” She fixed Odin with her cold gaze.
“Go on.” His voice was very soft.
“As for you, Odin, my time with the Æsir is done. I have no quarrel against you—yet. But don’t imagine I’m yours to command. And don’t you ever stand in my way.”
Behind her, Nat was mesmerized. The door stood open, not six feet away, and he knew he ought to take his chance to flee before these demons remembered his presence. And yet it held him: their dreadful fascination, their startling glamour.
They were the Seer-folk, of course. He’d guessed that at once, as soo
n as the Examiner cast the Word. That makes them gods, he thought in excitement. Gødfolk or demons, and with that power, who cares?
Now the three Seer-folk faced each other. To Nat they looked like columns of flame, sapphire, violet, and indigo. He wondered how he could see them still, now that the Examiner was dead, and he remembered the moment of contact between himself and the Outlander, the moment he had looked into the man’s eyes and seen…
What, exactly, had he seen?
What, exactly, had he heard?
The Seer-folk were arguing. The parson vaguely understood why: the ice woman wanted to kill the red-haired man, and the Outlander—who was no Outlander but some kind of Seer warlord—meant to stop her.
“Take care, Odin,” she said in a low voice. “You left your sovereignty in the Black Fortress. Now you’re just another used-up has-been with delusions of godhood. Let me pass, or I’ll split you where you stand.”
And she would too, thought Nat Parson. That thing in her hand was all rage. The Outlander, however, seemed unmoved. He was trying to call her bluff, thought Nat, not a move he himself would have considered.
“Last chance,” she said.
And then something that looked like a small firework of great intensity and spectacular power whizzed soundlessly over Nat’s head and hit the ice woman in the small of the back, pitching her abruptly into the Outlander’s arms.
Nat turned and saw the newcomer, engulfed for the present in a fabulous blaze of red-gold light. A woman, he thought—no, a girl—clad in a man’s waistcoat and a homespun skirt, her hair unbound, her arms outstretched, a sphere of fire in each of her hands.
Laws, he thought, she makes the other one look like a penny candle—and then he caught sight of the girl’s face and gave a hoarse cry of disbelief.
It’s her! Her!
For a second Maddy looked at him, her eyes filled with dancing lights. Nat almost swooned, and then she was past him without a word. The first thing she did was check the Outlander. “Are you all right?”
“I will be,” said Odin. “But I’m out of glam.”
Now Maddy knelt beside the stricken Huntress and found her alive but still unconscious.
“She’ll live,” said Odin, guessing her thoughts. “But I knew those skills of yours would come in useful.”
Loki, who had dived to the ground the moment the mindbolt had shot through the door, now dusted himself off with a good show of carelessness and gave Maddy his crooked grin.
“Nice timing,” he said. “Now to get rid of the Ice Queen…,” and he raised his hand, summoning Hagall, the Destroyer.
“Don’t,” said Maddy and Odin together.
“What?” said Loki. “The moment she comes round, she’ll be after us.”
“If you touch her,” said Maddy, summoning T ýr, “I’ll be the one after you. And as for the rest of you,” she said, turning to Nat and the other two, “there’s been enough violence here already. I wouldn’t like to see any more.”
She looked at Jed Smith, who was watching her with horror in his eyes, and her voice trembled, but only once.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she told him softly. “There are so many things I can’t explain. I—” She stopped there, conscious of the absurdity of trying to tell him that the daughter he’d known for fourteen years had turned into a total stranger. “Look after yourself,” she said at last. “Look after Mae. I’ll be all right. And as for you”—this was to Nat and Audun Briggs—“you’d better be off. You don’t want to be here when Skadi wakes up.”
That was enough for the three men. They left in haste, only Jed daring to look once more over his shoulder before he vanished into the night.
Loki made to follow them. “Well, folks, if that’s all—”
“It isn’t,” said Odin.
“Ah,” said Loki. “Look, old friend, it’s not that I don’t appreciate this reunion. I mean, it’s been a long time, and it’s great that you’ve kept going and all, but—”
“Shut up,” said Maddy.
Loki shut up.
“Now listen, both of you.”
Both of them listened.
11
In the tunnels beneath Red Horse Hill, Sugar-and-Sack was trying vainly to avert a rebellion. In the absence of the Captain, and with the growing crisis in the Horse’s Eye, things had begun to fall apart, and it was only Sugar’s conviction that the Captain was—firstly—still alive and—secondly—liable to blame him for all this upset that kept him from joining the rabble in looting, destroying, and running amok.
“I’m tellin’ yer now,” he told his friend Pickle-Nearest-the-Wind. “When he gets back and finds this mess—”
“How’s he goin’ to get back?” interrupted a goblin called Able-and-Stout. “The Eye’s closed. They’ve reversed the Gate. We’re down to tunneling like rabbits to get into World Above, and when we do make it out there, there’s guards and posses and whatnot all over the place. I say pack up, take what’s worth taking, and get the Gødfolk out of here while we still can.”
“But the Captain—” protested Sugar.
“Let him rot,” said Able-and-Stout. “Ten to one he’s dead anyway.”
“Done,” said Pickle, scenting a bet.
Sugar looked nervous. “I really don’t think—” he began.
“Don’t yer?” said Able, grinning. “Well, I’ll give you odds, if you’re game. A hogshead of ale says he’s dead. All right?”
“All right,” said Pickle, shaking his hand.
“All right,” said Sugar, “but—”
“All right,” said a pleasant—and rather familiar—voice behind them.
“Ah,” said Sugar, turning slowly.
“It’s Sugar-and-Spice, isn’t it?” said Loki.
Sugar made a strangled noise of protest. “We was just talking about you, Captain, sir, and sayin’ as we knew you’d be back in time—hem!—so to hensure that everythin’ was ready, and hanticipatin’ your requirements, we—hem!…”
“Sugar, do you have a cough?” said Loki, looking concerned.
“No, sir, Captain, sir. We just thought, didn’t we, boys…” He turned to the others for support and saw, to his astonishment, that they had already fled.
It had taken their combined forces to reverse the runes and break open the Hill. As it was, the aftershock had blown apart the Horse’s Eye, which now stood permanently open, a tunnel of darkness leading into World Below.
Loki had not wanted to take them there. But Maddy had convinced him otherwise. In any case, One-Eye in his weakened state was not capable of shifting his Aspect, and they could not expect to go far with only one feather cloak between the two of them.
No, she had said, the only thing that made sense was to hold World Below for as long as they could and explore the possibilities of their new partnership.
“Partnership?” She could tell Loki was as uncomfortable with the idea as One-Eye had been. But he was far from being a fool, and with Skadi on the warpath he had been quick to see the advantage of staying together.
Now they sat in his private rooms, with food and wine (provided by Sugar), and talked. No one ate much except Maddy, who was ravenous; Odin drank only a little wine and Loki sat to one side looking edgy and uncomfortable.
“We have to stay together,” Maddy said. “Settle our differences and work as a team.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Loki. “You weren’t killed at Ragnarók.”
“Killed?” said Maddy.
“Well, as good as,” admitted Odin. “You know, they don’t usually let you into the Black Fortress of Netherworld if you’re still alive.”
“But if you were killed, then how—?”
“It’s a long tale, Maddy. Perhaps one day—”
“In any case, we’re finished now,” said Loki, interrupting. “The Order on our trail, the Sleepers awake—”
“Not all of them,” said Maddy quickly.
“Oh no? And how long d’you think it’ll take Skadi to wake the
others?”
“Well,” said Odin, “at least they haven’t got the Whisperer.”
Maddy examined her fingernails very closely.
“They haven’t, have they?”
“Well—not as such.”
“Why?” Now his voice was sharp. “Maddy, is it safe? Where did you leave it?”
There was a rather uncomfortable silence.
“You hid it where?” howled Loki.
“Well, I thought I was doing the right thing. Skadi would have killed you if I hadn’t thought of something.”
“She’ll kill me anyway,” said Loki. “And she’ll kill you for helping me. And as for the General—she’ll kill him.” He glanced at Odin. “Unless you’ve got some fabulous trick up your sleeve, which I rather doubt…”
“I haven’t,” said Odin. “But I do know that if the Vanir are awake, then there is really only one thing we can do.”
“What? Surrender?” said Loki.
Odin gave him a warning look.
Loki put a finger to his scarred lips.
“Some of the Vanir are loyal to me,” said Odin. “The rest may yet be brought around. We can’t afford to oppose each other. We’ll need all the help we can get if we’re to go into battle against the Order.”
Loki nodded. His smile was gone; now he looked eager, almost wistful, as he had by the fire pit, when he’d told Maddy there was a war coming. “So you think we will?”
“I think we must.” Odin’s voice was heavy. “I’ve known it since I found her, seven years old, savage as a wolf cub, with that mark on her hand. How she got there I couldn’t say, but all the signs were there from the beginning. An unbroken runemark—Aesk, no less—an innate ability to throw mindrunes, even her name—”
“My name?” said Maddy. Both of them ignored her.
“She never suspected,” Odin went on. “I fed her tales, half-truths, in readiness. But I knew from the start. It was in her blood. You can’t imagine all the times I’ve wanted to tell her—all the times I’ve wanted to give in to her demands and take her back to World’s End with me.”