Runemarks (11 page)

1

Ragnarók. The End of the World. According to Nat Parson, it had been a great Cleansing by the Nameless, a single, titanic attempt to rid Creation of evil and to bring Perfect Order to the Worlds, with fire and ice and Tribulation.

Only Noar’s line survived, or so the Good Book said, and the survivors—the demons and heretics that cheated Death—were flung into Netherworld to await the End of Everything.

One-Eye, on the other hand, had told her of the Prophecy of the Oracle and of the last great battle of the Elder Age: of how Surt the Destroyer had joined with Chaos and marched against the gods in Asgard, while the armies of the dead, in their fleet of coffin ships, sailed against them from the Underworld.

On that final plain the gods had fallen, fathoms deep in glamours and blood: Odin, the last general, swallowed by the Fenris Wolf; Thor the Thunderer, poisoned by the World Serpent; T
ýr the One-Armed; Heimdall of the Golden Teeth; Frey the Reaper; Loki…

“But if they were the
gods,
” Maddy had said, “then how could they fall? How could they die?”

One-Eye had shrugged. “Everything dies.”

But here was Loki telling her a different story: of how the fallen gods had not been destroyed, but had remained—weakened, broken, lost to themselves—waiting to return even as Chaos swept over the Nine Worlds, taking everything in its wake.

Years had passed; a new Order had come. Its temples were built on the ruins of springs and barrows and standing stones that once were sacred to an older faith. Even the stories were outlawed—
There’s nobbut a thread ’tween forgotten and dead,
as Crazy Nan used to say—and at last the march of the Order had trampled the old ways into near oblivion.

“Still, nothing lasts forever,” said Loki cheerfully. “Times change, and nations come and go, and the world has its revolutions, just as the sea has its tides.”

“That’s what One-Eye says.”

“A sea without tides will go stagnant,” said Loki, “just as a world that stops changing will stiffen and die. Even Order needs a little Chaos—Odin knew that when he first took me in and swore brotherhood between us. The others didn’t understand. They were out to get me from the start.

“Chaos was in my blood, they said—but they were happy enough to use my talents when it suited them. They despised deceit, hated lies, but were content to enjoy the fruits of them.”

Maddy nodded. She knew what he meant. To be an outsider—a bad-blood—always blamed and never thanked. Oh yes. She understood that very well.

“When Odin took me in,” Loki went on, “he knew
exactly
what I was. Wildfire that cannot be tamed. So what if I slipped my leash a couple of times? I saved their skins more often than any of them knew. No one was grateful. And in the end”—once more Loki gave his crooked but oddly charming smile—“in the end, who betrayed whom? Was it
my
fault that I got out of hand? All I ever did was follow my nature. But accidents happen. Something went wrong. High spirits, perhaps; a little understandable friction at a difficult time. And all of a sudden, old friends didn’t seem quite so friendly anymore, and I began to think it might be good to remove myself until the dust had settled. But they came after me and meted out their clumsy vengeance. I imagine you’ve heard the story.”

“Sort of,” said Maddy, who had heard a somewhat different version. “But I rather thought—I mean, I heard you’d killed Balder the Fair.”

“I never did,” snapped Loki crossly. “Well, no one ever
proved
I did. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Besides, he was supposed to be invulnerable. Was it my fault that he wasn’t?” Now his face darkened again, and his eyes took on a malevolent gleam. “Odin could have stopped them,” he said. “He was the General; they would have listened to him. But he was weak. He could see the end coming, and he needed all his people on his side. And so he turned a blind eye—’scuse the pun—and delivered me into the hands of my enemies.”

Maddy nodded. She knew the tale—some part of it, anyway: how the Æsir had left him chained to a rock; how Skadi the Huntress, who’d always hated him, had hung a snake to drip venom into his face; how their luck had been bad from that day until the End of the World; and finally, how Loki had broken free on the eve of the battle to play his part in the destruction that followed.

Clearly he had no regrets. He said as much as he told Maddy of the last stand of the Æsir; of the battle One-Eye called Ragnarók.

“Perhaps I could have saved them if they’d stood by me at the end. Who knows, I might even have turned the battle around. But they’d made their choice.
He’d
made his choice. And so the world ended, and here we are, the dregs of us, hiding in caves or peddling cantrips, trying to figure out what went wrong.”

Maddy nodded again. One-Eye’s voice inside her head warned her that this was Loki—
Loki
—and that whatever else, she must not be charmed, flattered, or deceived into dropping her guard. She remembered One-Eye telling her that charm comes easily to the children of Chaos and determined to take nothing of what he told her at face value.

But Loki’s tale was dangerously plausible. It explained so many things that One-Eye had refused to tell, although some of it was still hard to digest, and his talk of the gods as if they were human beings—vulnerable, fallible, besieged—was especially difficult to accept. She had grown up with stories of the Seer-folk, had learned to think of them as friends, had dreamed of them in her secret heart, but even in her wildest imaginings had never thought to meet one someday, to talk to one as an equal, to touch a being who had lived in Asgard and have him stand in front of her, with a very human-looking welt across the bridge of his nose—a welt that her own mindbolt had caused…

“So…are you…immortal?” she said at last.

“Nothing’s immortal,” he said, shaking his head. “Some things last longer than others, that’s all. And everything has to change to survive. Why d’you think I carry my glam reversed? Or that Odin does, for that matter?”

Maddy glanced at the runemark on his arm.
Kaen
—Wildfire—still gleamed there, violet against his pale skin. A powerful sign, even reversed, and Maddy had used it often enough herself to know that she must respect and mistrust its bearer.

“So how
was
your glam reversed?”

“Very painfully,” he said.

“Oh,” said Maddy. There was a pause. “Well, what about the Fieries? Fieries, Furies, whatever they are…”

“Well, we’re
all
Furies now,” he said with a shrug. “Like anything that’s been touched with the Fire. Demons, as your parson might say. Of course,
I
always was—comes of being a child of Chaos—but it can’t be easy for the General, who was always so set on Law and Order.” He grinned. “Must be hard for him to accept that—to the new gods, at least, to the Order—he’s the enemy now.”

“The new gods?”

Loki nodded, for once not smiling.

“You mean, all that’s real too? The Nameless and everything Nat Parson preaches from the Book of Tribulation?”

Loki nodded again. “As real or imaginary as any of us,” he said. “No surprise your parson’s so gloomy about the old ways.
He
knows who the enemy is, all right, and he and his kind will not be safe until ours is Cleansed from the Nine Worlds: every tale forgotten, every glam subdued, every Fiery extinguished, to the last spark and flame.”

“But—
I’m
a Fiery,” said Maddy, opening her hand to look at her own runemark, now glowing like an ember.

“That you are,” said Loki. “No question about it, with that glam you carry. No wonder he kept so quiet about you. You are something quite unique—and that’s worth more than Otter’s Ransom to him, or to me, or to anyone who can keep you on their side.”

Maddy’s runemark was burning now, sending tendrils of thin fire snaking toward her fingertips.

“The Oracle predicted you,” said Loki, watching, fascinated. “It predicted new runes for the New Age, runes that would be whole and unbroken, with which to rewrite the Nine Worlds. That rune of yours is
Aesk,
the Ash, and when One-Eye saw it on your hand, he must have thought all his Fair Days and Yules had come at once.”

“Aesk,”
said Maddy softly, flexing her fingers into a cat’s cradle of fire. “And you think One-Eye knew this all along?”

“I should think so,” Loki said. “It was to Odin that the prophecy was made.”

Maddy thought about that for a moment. “Why?” she said at last. “What does he want? And what’s this…Whisperer he needs so badly? Did the Oracle mention that at all?”

“Maddy,” said Loki, beginning to smile, “the Oracle
is
the Whisperer.”

2

There was a flask of dark mead hidden in the cave. Loki gave Maddy a sip and drank the rest as he told his tale.

“The Whisperer,” he said, “is an ancient power, even older than the General himself, though
he
doesn’t enjoy being reminded of that. It’s a story that goes back to the very beginning of the Elder Age, to the first wars between Order and Chaos, and—if you ask me—it’s one that doesn’t reflect too well on either side. Of course yours truly was completely neutral at that time—”

Maddy raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Listen, do you want to hear this story or don’t you?”

Maddy nodded.

“All right. In the old, old days of the General’s youth, Asgard was a stronghold of perfect Order, and there wasn’t a spark of magic there. The Vanir—enchanters from the borders of Chaos—
they
were the keepers of the Fire, and they and the Æsir waged war for years, until at last they realized that neither of them was ever going to win. And so they exchanged hostages as proof of good faith, and the Æsir got Njörd and his children, Frey and Freyja, and the Vans got Honir—nice lad, but not bright—and a wily old diplomat called Mimir, who stole their glam, gave them his counsel, and reported back home in secret.

“But the Vans soon realized they had a couple of spies on board, and in revenge they killed Mimir and sent his head back to Asgard. By then, though, the General had already got what he needed: the runes of the Elder Script, the letters of the ancient tongue that created the Worlds.”

“The language of Chaos,” Maddy said.

Loki nodded. “And Chaos was not best pleased at the theft. So Odin used his new skills to keep the Head alive and gave it glam to make it speak. Not many folk return from the dead, and what they have to say is usually worth hearing. It gave old Mimir the gift of prophecy, invaluable to the General. But the gift came at a high price. Odin paid for it with his eye. And as for Mimir’s Head, or, as he called it, the Whisperer”—Loki finished the bottle of mead—“I don’t imagine it cared much for us then, so I wouldn’t count too far on its goodwill now. I’ve tried to talk to it, but it never was fond of me, not even in the old days. And as for getting it out of here—”

“But what do you
want
with it?” said Maddy. “Why is it so important?”

“Please, Maddy,” said Loki with some impatience. “The Whisperer’s not just some bauble. It’s an oracle. It knows things. It predicted Ragnarók and a number of other things I wish I’d known at the time. If Odin had paid more attention to its prophecy instead of trying to prove it wrong, then perhaps Ragnarók wouldn’t have turned out as it did.”

There was a pause as Maddy took in the implications.

“But why go after it now?” she said.

“A second chance?” Loki gave his twisted smile. “Listen, Maddy, Odin put half of himself into that old glam. Half of the General in his prime; think what he could do with it now. Powers you can’t imagine, just waiting to be tapped. Powers from the realms of Chaos.” He sighed. “But the damn thing has a mind of its own, and it isn’t bound to cooperate. Nevertheless, there are folk out there who would give anything to lay their hands on it. And others, of course, who would give anything to stop them.”

“Gods,” said Maddy.

“Amen,” said Loki.

He had found the Whisperer on one of his exploring trips, he said, some hundred years after the end of the war. Everything else was Chaos and slaughter. Many had fallen; some lost forever, some buried in ice, some consumed by the fires of Chaos. The survivors were thrown into Netherworld, but Loki, slippery as ever, had somehow managed to escape.

“You escaped the Black Fortress?” Maddy said.

Loki shrugged. “Eventually.”

“How?”

“Long story,” said Loki. “Suffice it to say that I found…alternative accommodation in World Below. And it was there at last that I found the Whisperer,” he went on, “though I soon realized it was useless to me. It recognized me, of course, but it wouldn’t talk except in gibes and insults, wouldn’t lend me so much as a spark of glam, and certainly wouldn’t prophesy. I thought maybe to get it out of the pit, to use it as a bargaining tool with one of the surviving Æsir—”

“The surviving Æsir?” said Maddy quickly.

“Rumors, that’s all. I had a feeling Odin might still be around. It would certainly have helped my position if I could have brought
him
the Whisperer. And of course, with the General back on my side, I’d have been safe from any former colleagues with an ax to grind. Or even a hammer.”

Since then, he said, he had tried many times to retrieve the Whisperer from its fiery cradle. But he had not yet found a way to break the glamours that held it in the fire pit—glamours left over from Ragnarók, which his reversed and thus weakened glam could not hope to combat.

Failing that, he had made the Hill impregnable, putting together an army of goblins, a webwork of glamours, and a labyrinth of passages to hide the Whisperer from the world.

“And maybe it’s best left hidden,” he said. “Unless Odin gave you something to help? A glam, a tool—perhaps a word?”

“No,” said Maddy. “Not even a cantrip.”

Loki shook his head, disgusted. “In that case, forget it. Might as well try to catch the moon on a string.”

Maddy thought about that for a while. “So you think it’s hopeless?” she said at last. “There’s really no way of bringing it out?”

Loki shrugged. “Believe me, I’ve tried. If the General wants to talk to it, he’ll have to come down here himself.”

“Perhaps.” Maddy was still thinking hard.

“You should tell him, you know. Ragnarók’s over. And as far as the Order is concerned, we’re all of us the enemy. Perhaps we should rethink our allegiances. Bury our grudges. Start again.”

“You betrayed the Æsir,” said Maddy. “You’re crazy if you think he’ll ever take you back.”

“The Æsir!” Unexpectedly her words had struck home; for a moment Loki’s eyes flared with unfeigned anger. His colors flared too, from ghostly violet to fiery red. “All they ever did was use me when it suited them. When there was trouble, it was always
Please, Loki, think of something
. Then when it was over, it was
Back to your kennel,
without so much as a thank-you. I was always a second-class citizen in Asgard, and not one of them ever let me forget it.”

“But you fought against them at Ragnarók,” said Maddy, who had begun to feel more sympathy for this dangerous individual than she dared admit.

“Ragnarók,” said Loki scornfully. “Whose side did they expect me to take? I
had
no side. The Æsir had abandoned me, the Vanir always hated me, and as far as Chaos was concerned, I was a traitor who deserved to die. No one would take me, so I looked after number one, as always. All right, maybe I settled a few scores on the way. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s all history. The General has nothing to fear from me.”

“What are you saying?” Maddy said.

Loki gave his crooked smile. “Maddy,” he said, “I’ve been hiding out in World Below for the best part of five hundred years. All right, it’s not the Black Fortress, but it’s hardly bliss. It stinks, it’s dark, it’s overrun by goblins, and I’m constantly having to watch my back…Besides, if I read the signs correctly, there will come a time very soon when none of us are safe, when even the deepest hole will not be enough to hide us from our enemies.”

“So?”

“So I’m tired of hiding,” Loki said. “I want to come home. I want to see the sky again. More importantly, I want the General to make it clear to any of the others who might still harbor a grudge that I’m officially back on the side of the gods.”

He paused, and a wistful look came over his face. “There’s a war on the way. I can feel it,” he said. “I don’t need an oracle to tell me that. The Order is already on the march, spreading the Word through the Middle World. Odin knows—according to my sources he’s spent the last century or so traveling between here and World’s End, charting its progress, trying to learn how much time we have left. My guess is, it just ran out. That’s why he needs the Whisperer. As for myself”—Loki grinned and put down the bottle—“Maddy, I can’t help it. It’s the Chaos in my blood. If there’s a war, I want to fight.”

For a long time Maddy said nothing. “Then tell him so,” she said at last.

“What, meet him aboveground?” Loki said. “You must be out of your tiny mind.”

“You really think One-Eye’s going to come to
you
?”

“He’ll have to,” said Loki. “If he wants the Oracle. With that on his side there isn’t a secret, scheme, or strategy that the Order can keep from him. He can’t hope to win the war without it. And he certainly can’t afford to let it fall to the other side.” Loki grinned. “So you see, Maddy, he has no choice but to accept my terms. Bring Odin to me, and I’ll let him talk to the Whisperer. If not, then frankly, I don’t rate his chances when the Order gets here.”

Maddy frowned. It all sounded just a little too slick. She had already experienced Loki’s charm, but she knew his reputation too, and she knew that his motives were rarely pure. She looked at him and saw him watching her with a dangerous gleam in his fiery eyes.

“Well?” he said.

“I don’t trust you,” said Maddy.

Loki shrugged. “Few people do. But why not? You’re strong. You’ve already beaten me once before.”

“Twice,” said Maddy.

“Whatever,” he said.

Maddy considered the point for a moment. She realized—rather late—that she didn’t actually know very much about Loki’s powers. Certainly she had beaten him—or had she? It hadn’t been a fair fight. She had taken him by surprise. Or maybe he’d
let
her surprise him, she thought. Maybe that too was part of his plan.

Now Maddy’s mind began to race. What did she know of the Whisperer? It was an oracle, Loki had said. A power of the Elder Age, an old friend of One-Eye, an enemy of Chaos. Loki had said it hated him, would not speak except in gibes. But One-Eye had said it would come to
her,
and could it be, she thought suddenly, that Loki somehow knew that too…

Could it be that he had misdirected her? That far from wanting to
rescue
the Whisperer, he was actually trying to keep it from
being
rescued?

Could it even be possible that it was Loki
himself
who had trapped the Whisperer in the fire pit, having failed to make it work for him?

Fire was his element, after all. Could it be that all this was a carefully constructed trap, its aim to lure One-Eye into World Below, where Loki had had centuries to prepare himself for their eventual showdown?

“Well?” said Loki impatiently.

Well, it was far too late to waste time with questions.
Yesterday’s ale is nobbut this morning’s piss,
as Crazy Nan used to say, which meant, Maddy supposed, that if anyone was going to get her out of this mess, it probably wasn’t the king’s guard.

“Well?”

Maddy sighed. A shadow of a plan was beginning to form in her mind. It was a rather desperate plan, but it was all she could think of at such short notice. “All right,” she said. “But first you have to show me.”

“Show you what?”

“The Whisperer.”