“Believe it or not,” said Loki sourly, “I’m not altogether thrilled to be here, either. But I have no choice—without Odin I’m already dead. The fact that I have a very good chance of ending up dead anyway doesn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm.”
“Then tell me,” said Maddy urgently. “Tell me the truth. Who am I really? And why am I here?”
Loki watched her with a little smile across his scarred lips. “The truth?” he said.
“Yes. All of it.”
“The General won’t like that,” he said.
All the more reason to tell her, he thought, and deep in his stomach, Loki grinned.
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 confu
sed, 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 runesha
pe 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—”