Mimir's Well (The Oracles of Kurnugi Book 3) (8 page)

              "Is she alright?"

              "Idun knows of you. As long as the girl can be used against you, she will not be harmed."

              "Ok, so where do we get this climbing equipment?"

              "Follow me."

              The bird moved from tree to tree, never quite getting out of sight. Occasionally, it gulped down a lizard from a nearby branch or pecked at insects on leaves. They stopped by a brook at midday, and Henry had a little to drink. His pack had been lost when he'd been attacked at the well, but the raven pointed out some berries that were safe to eat. At first, Henry hesitated, but as much as he was already trusting this raven, it seemed pointless to hold back now.

              After lunch, the bird flew faster, and Henry had to run to keep up. He'd never been much for running, but he found this to be remarkably easy. He lost track of time, and it was only when the sun touched the western horizon that he realized he'd been running all afternoon. He wasn't even tired. He brought his hand to his brow, but it came away dry. It took him a second to remember that the pants he wore had also been made by Hephaestus. The smith god had said they would allow him to run for a night and a day without tiring. Henry had just never had the occasion to use them before. He'd always had Pegasus when he needed to move quickly. He hoped Valin would bring Pegasus with him when they finally met up again. He really missed that horse.

              He was still running when the sun set, though after a few minutes, he lost sight of the raven. He almost stopped to look, but he caught a glimmer of firelight through the trees. He slowed to a walk and pushed his way through the brush. He came out of the tree line into a large clearing. An ominous peak rose above it, its top covered by clouds. At its base sat a small village, little more than a cluster of stone buildings. A lone figure carrying a torch approached slowly. Henry tensed when the other man grew close enough to make out the staff in his other hand. He stopped about a dozen feet away.

              "Are you the one called Henry Alexander Gideon?" the man called.

              Shocked by the recognition, Henry nodded, but realized that the man likely couldn't see that in the dark.

              "I am."

              "Allfather be praised," the man said. "We were afraid something had happened to you."

              "You knew I was coming?"

              The man's eyes went wide and the color drained from his face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

              "No," Henry said, "I think you should have. Who told you I was coming?"

              "Please follow me."

              The man turned and started to shuffle away. After he'd gone a little ways, he glanced over his shoulder. He stopped when he noticed Henry hadn't moved.

              "Please, milord." Henry could practically hear the tears in his voice. "We have to go. It's not safe out here."

              "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what's going on."

              "I swear to you I will tell you all, but please not here. Surely your questions can wait another quarter hour while we get out of the open."

              Henry considered for a second. Though tall and leanly muscled, the man wasn't armed, aside from his staff, which seemed like more a walking stick than a weapon. His left arm quivered a little, though Henry wasn't sure if it was from fear or old age. Regardless, he'd learned enough about defending himself that he should be able to handle one man, provided he wasn't some god or sorcerer or monster just pretending to be an ordinary man which, admittedly, was something Henry was not at all sure of.

              "What's your name," Henry asked.

              "Please..."

              "I just met you, and you want me to go with you. You're obviously hiding something. I'm not coming with you unless you tell me your name."

              "Ulrich. Now, please come."

              Henry ran the name through his memory, but he didn't recognize it.

              "Of course, I don't know Norse mythology," he said under his breath. "He could've told me he was the Norse version of the devil, and I wouldn't have recognized it."

              He shook his head and drew his sword before falling into step behind Ulrich. They reached the town without saying a word. Everyone went silent as Henry passed. The eyes of the people followed him. Once, a little girl pointed at him and whispered into her mother's ear. The woman, a round-faced midwife, only nodded. Henry started to say something, but Ulrich shushed him.

They came to a building guarded by a pair of rough looking men armed with long knives. They each nodded at Ulrich before stepping out of the way, and Henry's gaze was drawn to a strange design carved on the door. Curved lines intersected with each other in ways that his eyes couldn't follow. The pattern seemed to shift as he looked at it. In one second, it looked like an eye, and the next like a tree. Then, it shifted again and looked like a wave moving across the wood. His head started to hurt, and he looked away. The door creaked as Ulrich pushed it open. They walked into a stark room with bare wooden floors. Lanterns lined the wall, and a one-eyed statue that Henry could only assume was Odin stood in the middle of the room. Once inside, Ulrich seemed to relax.

              "We can speak freely now."

              "What is going on here?"

              "This building was to have been a new home, but when we went into the woods looking for lumber, we found the door already made with a strange carving and a raven perched atop. It said this was the door we were commanded to use for the new building. That night, I had a dream that you would come and that we should give you all possible aid, but that we should discuss nothing outside the walls of this building lest our words become known. That day, I discovered everyone in town had been given the same dream."

              Henry waited for more, but Ulrich was apparently done. He kept glancing at the door, as if worried about what lay beyond it.

              "That's it? Everyone is staring at me because of some bird and a dream?"

              Ulrich inclined his head. "A man does not lightly ignore messages from the gods."

              "Why are they trying to help me? Or is it just Odin who wants to do that?"

              "Milord, they are a mystery. I would not presume to guess at their motives. Such is not for ordinary men."

              Henry sighed. He obviously wasn't going to get much useful information out of Ulrich, but the raven had led him here for a reason. He looked at the thatched roof and imagined the peak beyond.

              "What's on the mountain?"

              "Hind Mountain? It's only rock and snow, so far as I know," Ulrich said cautiously.

              "That's it?"

              Ulrich thought for a second. "There's an old stronghold of some forgotten king, but that hasn't been used for as long as anyone can remember."

              "Can you send someone to guide me?"

              Ulrich shook his head. "It's near the peak, if the stories are true. None of us have ventured that far. We can take you, perhaps, halfway up, but we've had little reason to explore higher. It's cold enough to kill up there. Even treasure seekers and adventurers don't try for that fortress."

              "Yeah, I didn't think it would be that easy. How soon can we go?"

              "Milord?"

              "I have to find this fortress."

CHAPTER 17

            
 
T
he villagers provided him with a hot meal and a warm bed as well as a leatherworker to repair the straps of his shield. The next morning, they gave him a pack of fresh supplies and outfitted him with climbing gear and heavy furs. A burly, fiery haired man named Olaf, offered to guide him.

              Olaf was practically a gorilla. He was a foot and a half taller than Henry and had to outweigh him by at least two hundred pounds, all muscle. Even so, the man flinched every time Henry so much as glanced at him. Henry couldn't help but wonder at the dream that had inspired these people to help. After two days of climbing, he asked Olaf about it, the big man paled and started to shake. It probably hadn't helped that Henry had discarded his heavy furs that morning in favor of the thin cloak Hephaestus had given him. It had protected him from heat once when he'd been thrown into Medusa's cook pot and seemed just as effective at warding off the cold.

              Snow began falling on the third day. Olaf started to look down the mountain but didn't say anything. Once, Henry stepped on a patch of snow that he thought was solid, but he slipped and almost tumbled down. Olaf caught him, and they continued the climb. On a couple of occasions, they came across vertical sheets of ice that had to be climbed, and Olaf instructed Henry in the use of ice picks and the spiked soles that could be strapped to the bottom of his boots. The big man would go first, and let down a rope to make the climb easier for Henry. On the fourth day, the weather trapped them in a cave. Henry couldn't help but think of the time he'd been stuck in a shack in the middle of the world of winter with a brother who had never been born. That seemed like so long ago. The storm finally let up two days later.

              "We should go back, Master Henry," Olaf said.

              Henry shook his head. "I need to make it to the top."

              Olaf looked up the mountain. The way ahead was covered in snow. The clouds obscuring the peak were still high above. Lightning flashed, and Olaf shivered and shook his head.

              "It's too dangerous, sir. This is a bad time to try this. Maybe if the weather were clear..."

              "I don't think there's ever going to be a good time to try what I'm going to do," Henry said. "Go back down. I'll find my own way."

              "But the gods..."

              Henry rolled his eyes. "I'm sure the gods will forgive you. Do you have any idea where this fortress might be?"

              "Near the top is all I've heard."

              Henry nodded and turned away and began walking away. He looked over his shoulder after he'd gone a few yards, but Olaf was already gone. The only sign of him was a trail of footprints leading down the mountain.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

              It was a strange feeling to push through the waist high snow. He knew it was cold, but that was an intellectual sort of knowledge like you might know the snow on TV was cold. He didn't actually feel it. He moved steadily upward, keeping an eye on his hands to make sure he didn't get frostbitten, but the cloak protected him completely from the cold. The wetness of the snow, however, was another matter.

              He hadn't gone very far before his legs were soaked, though in the absence of the chill, it was more an inconvenience than anything else. Finding a dry place to sleep was an exercise in futility. The first night alone, he slept under a rock ledge, but woke up around midnight when a light snow started to fall and almost buried him alive. He found shallow caves when he could, but they were increasingly rare. The people of the village below had given him plenty of supplies, and there was nothing to do but keep pressing onward.

              Two days later, he came to a sheet of ice at least a hundred feet tall with no obvious way around it. It was far larger than any other obstacle he'd face and the first time he'd had to do it without Olaf. He strapped the spiked soles to his hard leather boots and pulled out a pair of ice picks. Slowly, he made his ascent, kicking into the ice to make footholds even as he drove the picks into the wall to drive himself up. The equipment he'd been given was more than equal to hold his weight, but he hadn't anticipated how much effort it took to pull himself up the wall. Most of the strain was on his legs, and before he'd gotten halfway up, his calves were on fire. Every time he jabbed an ice pick higher and pulled himself up was like moving a mountain instead of climbing one, and he found it increasingly difficult to kick into the hice. He breathed heavily, but the increasingly thin air sapped his strength. After another ten feet, he saw a small ledge above that looked just wide enough for him to sit and rest for a while.  He scrambled up until it was almost in reach. He jabbed with an ice pick, trying to get it deep enough to hold him, but as he stabbed, the ice under his other one cracked, and the pick came free. For a second, he tried to lean forward, in the hopes that the spikes on his feet would hold him, but it didn't work, and he came free. His cry was cut short as a hand shot down from the ledge and closed around his wrist. The gnarled fingers had a vice-like grip, and he thought they would rip his arm out of its socket as they pulled him onto the ledge.

              Henry collapsed, breathing heavily for several seconds before he looked up at his rescuer. The man stood at the mouth of a cave that hadn't been visible from below. He was covered in heavy furs, and a long white beard reached halfway down to his chest. His hood shrouded his face in shadows, and the only feature Henry could see was a long nose poking out.

              "Thank you," Henry said.

              "It's generally not considered wise to go climbing by yourself."

              The deep voice spoke slowly and pronounced every syllable precisely. Henry found himself standing up straight and dusting off his shirt before he even realized what he was doing.

              "I didn't do it deliberately, but no one else would come this far."

              "It would seem your friends are wiser than you."

              "I've never really been accused of being wise," Henry said as he pointed up the mountain, "but I do need to get up there."

              "It's dangerous up there."

              Henry put his hand on his hilt. "I can take care of myself."

              The man looked over the ledge. "Evidence suggests otherwise."

              "Just who are you?"

              Through the shadows, Henry could see the faint hint of a smile. "I am but a simple traveler headed up the mountain."

              "Why don't I believe you?"

              The man shrugged. "Perhaps because you are not entirely bereft of wisdom."

              "Thanks," Henry said flatly. "Why are you headed up? Didn't you say it was dangerous on the mountain?"

              "Dangerous for one alone, but I am not alone anymore am I?"

              Henry pursed his lips, and looked the hooded figure up and down. There was something about him Henry couldn't quite put his finger on, something unmistakably powerful. Henry knew without a doubt that this man was more than he appeared. Of course, what else could an old man found in the middle of an ice cliff be? For the hundredth time, he wished he knew more about Norse mythology. Maybe then he'd be able identify this man. In the end, it didn't really matter. If this man was offering to help, Henry wouldn't turn him away.

              "What's your name?" Henry asked.

              "You may call me Bragi."

              "Well, Bragi, do you happen to know where this cave leads?"

              "To the top of this cliff."

              "Let's go then."