Norse Code Part 13

Some dozen draugr were arranged as a guard around the tillerman, straining against chain leashes bolted onto the deck. They snarled and bit at the air like junkyard Dobermans.

Hod scratched his chin in thought. "It might be harder than we thought to take control of the helm," he whispered.

"Gee, you think?" Lilly hissed at him. If only Kathy and Grimnir and Hermod had made it on board, their presence might have been enough to carry the day. Lilly could only hope they'd managed to survive the flood.

"Layabouts!" It was the whip-cracking sailor with the hook in his eye. "Didn't I order you gull-lovers to the oars? Thought you'd save your soft little hands from real labor?"

"You put us on the pumps," Lilly protested.

His whip snapped inches from her face, biting off a piece of the railing. "And I suppose I did that because I'm a dear pat of b.u.t.ter, wanting to make your miserable deaths easier. I suppose you think this hook goes all the way into my thinking brain? You don't like my thinking brain?"

"Just aim me in the right direction," Hod muttered. "I'll knock him right over the side."

"Sir, I apologize for this misunderstanding," Lilly said, forcing the words through gritted teeth. "We'll get to the oars right away."

Hookface slowly lowered the whip to his side. He smiled, making a faint sound as the hook grated against the bone of his eye socket. "Indeed, you will not, for I've got a better plan for you. Our journey's sure to be no fish run, and we're like to be battered by wind and storm before it's through."

He squinted up at the sail. Lilly followed his gaze. The broad expanse of cloth rippled and billowed in the wind, mottled with crudely st.i.tched patches of yellow and tan and brown.

It's skin, Lilly realized with a swell of nausea. They patch the sail with human skin.

"I'll have these two clapped in irons and brought to knife," Hookface hollered. Men, whether dedicated crew or just press-ganged dead looking to curry favor with their overseers, came at Lilly and Hod.

Hod swooshed his stick around his head, smas.h.i.+ng attackers and shattering bones, while Lilly managed to throw two attackers overboard. But in the end there were too many of them, and they pressed in until Lilly was down on the deck beside Hod, unable to move and barely able to breathe. Peering between the legs of the man holding her down, she watched Hookface clomp over to her. He held out his hand, and someone pa.s.sed him a crude, bone-handled cleaver. The congealed blood on the blade was thick as jam.

He pressed the edge of the cleaver to Lilly's thigh, then yanked the hook out of his eye and placed the point near the cleaver's blade. "Fork and knife," he said, bursting into a coughing laugh. Then his single eye rolled up, showing the white, and he elevated into the air. Impaled, he wriggled on the end of a long pike, held aloft by the Jotun tillerman, who pointed an accusing finger at the men restraining Lilly and Hod.

"Enough of this horseplay," he bellowed. "We're on a schedule, if you please, and wind and current alone won't take us to Loki. Get on the oars, every one of you, before I mill you into flour for my biscuit. And as for you," the giant said to Hookface, "discipline begins at the top. You have to set an example for the men." With that, he slammed the end of his pike on the deck as though planting a flag, and Hookface screamed.

The men scurried away.

"Now what?" Hod said, brus.h.i.+ng at his clothes.

Lilly fingered the hole in her jeans. "To the oars," she said. "For now."

She found Henry Verdant and Alice Kirkpatrick on a portside rowing bench.

"Where's your nephew?" she asked, taking a seat beside them.

Verdant shook his head and pulled on the oar.

"Draugr tore his head off," Alice Kirkpatrick said.

Which meant that somewhere, Ike Verdant was a chewed-up disembodied head and fully aware of it. Lilly managed to suppress a shudder.

"I don't think our friends made it aboard," Henry said, his back sagging under the labor of pulling the oar. "Our whole operation might be a bust."

"That's no kind of talk, Henry," Alice said. "You keep your spirits up, or I'll clock you over the head with this here paddle."

Chastened, Henry almost smiled.

THE RIVER Gjoll opened onto a black sea, and the s.h.i.+p pa.s.sed out of Helheim. Where they'd come to, Lilly couldn't tell. She described the arrangement of stars in the sky to Hod, but it didn't help. "All the maps have changed since I was last in the world," he said.

Hookface remained atop the tillerman's pike. For a while a pair of ravens vexed him, landing on his shoulders and head and picking flesh from his ears. They stared down the deck with their glossy black eyes, and sometimes Lilly was sure they were staring at her.

THE s.h.i.+P slogged through dark caverns in the lower roots of the World Tree, her sail lying slack against the mast. Water fell from the cave ceiling in a steady, icy rain. The oars dipped into the black river, and the only other sounds were the crack of the overseers' whips and nails s.h.i.+vering against the hull.

Knives of pain gouged Lilly's back and shoulders as she pulled on the oar. Hod rowed beside her without complaint. In the yellow light of the lanterns, his face was strangely beautiful, the lines of his cheeks less severe, and the dark hollows of his eyes soothing. She supposed being a G.o.d of things dark and hidden meant that he was now in his natural place.

Hel's loyal dead paced the deck, brandis.h.i.+ng their weapons and growing more restless as the journey wore on. In her work as a professional agitator, Lilly had often found herself in similar situations, getting keyed up with anxiety and impatience. Soldiers in this state were dangerous, like springs too tightly coiled. Anything might set them off.

The subterranean river opened into a small lake with sharp geological formations rising from the water, and the Jotun tillerman steered the s.h.i.+p toward a precarious arrangement of three ma.s.sive, spade-shaped rocks. The order was given to s.h.i.+p the oars, and the tillerman let momentum carry Naglfar around to the other side of the little island.

A giant easily exceeding Naglfar's length lay bent backward over the rocks, a sharp point jutting into the small of his back. Blue ropes that looked like intestines secured him by wrist and ankle. The giant's skin was translucent, tinged with orange and yellow, as though fires burned beneath his flesh.

A woman equally as large knelt at his side. She might have been lovely once, but now bony wrists emerged from the sleeves of her threadbare gown as she held a cup over her companion's face. The cup caught oily venom that dripped from the fangs of a serpent coiled around a ma.s.sive stalact.i.te above them.

"I must empty the cup now," said the giantess.

The giant's face screwed up in pain and anger. "You lie! You always lie! It can't possibly be full yet!"

She peered into the cup. "But it is, husband. It nearly brims with venom. I shall be but a moment."

"No! Don't-"

She rose slowly and leaned off the edge of the rocks to overturn the cup. Venom oozed out in sticky strands. Meanwhile, the bound giant howled as venom from the serpent's fangs fell into his face. He bucked and thrashed, sending tremors through the rocks. Waves smashed against the s.h.i.+p's hull.

"Curse you, b.i.t.c.h! You do this on purpose! Curse you to torment for all eternity!"

"It is already so, my dear husband," the giantess said placidly.

The overseers and the armed men watched the scene play out with expressions of uncertainty. Even the Jotun tillerman, standing now at the s.h.i.+p's rail, seemed disquieted.

"I know that voice," Hod whispered. "That's Loki."

"Oh, look," the giantess said. "My cup is full again."

"That's impossible! You can't have caught more than three drops!"

Lilly was inclined to agree. The venom fell slowly, and the cup was the size of a wine barrel, but the giantess once again left her husband's side to empty the cup. Loki watched in wide-eyed horror as a bead of venom formed on one of the serpent's fangs and stretched in a long string down to his cheek. He arched his back and bucked when it made contact. Rocks shook loose from the cavern ceiling. On the s.h.i.+p, the armed men took shelter under their s.h.i.+elds, but the rowers were defenseless. A cantaloupe-size boulder smashed the skull of a man two benches in front of Lilly.

"The cup!" Loki shrieked. "Bring back the cup!"

"It is emptying," the giantess a.s.sured him, staring into the cup's depths.

"It hurts!"

"I know, my sweet candle, I know. Best not to dwell. Tell me a tale to take your mind off it. One of your funny stories, perhaps about how you changed yourself into a mare to mate with a stallion and gave birth to eight-legged Sleipnir. Or how you disguised yourself as an old woman and tricked Hod into killing Baldr with a mistletoe spear, thus ensuring the death of all that lives in the nine worlds, including, of course, myself. That one is so funny. You are so funny, my husband."

Loki thrashed and the world shook. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone," he cried. "It was all supposed to be a laugh! Oh, please, bring back the cup!"

"In a moment, my love. I am still emptying it and laughing at your jokes."

"We can't let him on the s.h.i.+p," Hod said as Loki's spasms sent a wall of water bursting over the rail. "Once he takes the helm, he'll steer us to the final battle."

One of the whip-bearers looked back menacingly, and Lilly swallowed her response.

The giantess finally returned to Loki's side, but she didn't place the cup under the venom drip.

"What are you waiting for?" Loki demanded, twisting his neck to avoid another glistening drop.

The giantess upturned the cup and squinted at it. "I think it's cracked," she said. "Yes, right here, do you see? There's a crack as big as Ginnungagap." She pushed the cup toward Loki's face.

"You b.i.t.c.h! Just catch the drip, will you?"

She moved the cup aside and a globule of venom fell into Loki's eye.

"Yes, definitely a leak."

Loki shook with pain, and the cavern shook with him. Huge chunks of the ceiling plummeted into the lake, sending drenching waves over the s.h.i.+p's deck. Stalact.i.tes fell like bombs, one of them crus.h.i.+ng a pair of overseers and three benches of rowers. The Jotun tillerman uselessly threw his arms up over his head as a boulder smashed him down.

Loki howled and thrashed, his bonds stretching like elastic bands. Hod dragged Lilly beneath their bench, and they huddled there with Henry Verdant and Alice Kirkpatrick.

At last the tremor ended, the deep-earth rumbling and Loki's screams replaced by the soft slos.h.i.+ng of water against the s.h.i.+p's hull and the moans of the injured. Lilly disentangled herself from Hod and peered out through the dust-clouded air. The sail hung in shreds, and the bodies of rowers and armed dead littered the deck. Only one of the tillerman's arms was visible beneath a slab of cavern ceiling, the fingers scrabbling uselessly.

On the island, Loki rose shakily to his feet and cast away the shredded remains of his bonds. Wincing when his head hit the stalact.i.te the serpent was wound around, he tore the serpent apart with his bare hands and tossed the segments in the water.

"You have been very cruel to me, Sigyn," he said, stretching his back and arms. His joints popped like gunshots. "I am feeling cross."

Sigyn brushed pebbles from her skirts and hair. "I will not deny it, husband. Over the years, your torment became my only entertainment. I'm sure you can understand the appeal."

"Indeed. And I would find it amusing myself, were I not the victim of the j.a.pe."

"But, of course, I was only fulfilling my part in things," Sigyn said, meeting his fiery gaze. "Had I not, you would still be bound by your son's entrails, and those events you helped put in motion with Baldr's murder would be unable to play out to their conclusion."

"Then you feel I owe you thanks for thousands of years of mockery and torture?"

"Yes," Sigyn said. "It is my due."

Loki bowed low at the waist. "You have my sincere grat.i.tude, my love. Well played." His high-arched eyebrows went up as he took in his surroundings and noticed the s.h.i.+p.

"Ah, my transport! h.e.l.lo!"

He waved genially at the disarray on the deck. Some of the dead waved back, but Hod dipped his head to avoid recognition.

"Come with me, dear?" Loki asked, wading into the lake.

"No, I think I'll stay here to be buried alive and then burned to a crisp, along with the rest of the World Tree, as is inevitable. I don't suppose that gives you any pause?"

"Some," Loki admitted. "I might have had a less cruel jailer, but never one so lovely. But I must deliver this boat of Hel's to the battlefield. And then I will fight the Aesir to the death."

"Go, then, husband, with my curses for a painful ending upon your back."

Loki cackled. "And may you burn and suffocate, in that order. Farewell, my love."

"Farewell, my light," Sigyn said, wiping away a tear with her sleeve.

"We're never going to get a better chance than this," Lilly said to Hod and the Iowans. "We take the s.h.i.+p now or whatever-happens-after-death trying."

She didn't wait to see if her comrades agreed. Instead, she rose to her feet. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she shouted, "To the tiller! Take it!"

There was a moment when all sound seemed to die, except for the echo of her voice reverberating through the cavern. Then others took up her cry. Her command was repeated in a dozen languages, with war whoops and ululations. The dead rose from their benches, and though many were hacked and stabbed by Hel's soldiers, they moved forward in a surge.

Reducing himself in size, Loki climbed on the deck. He towered over the melee and laughed.

"Oh, good," Hod said. "I was hoping for a chance to kill that horsef.u.c.ker." He snapped his oar, picked up a long, sharp length of it, and ran down the deck toward the sounds of Loki.

This wouldn't be an uprising, a hijacking, or an insurgency, Lilly realized. It would be a battle between G.o.ds. Lilly picked up a spear from a fallen soldier and took off after Hod.

MUSPELLHEIM IS A world of fire and smoke and soot. Buffeted by updrafts and explosions of molten rock, Munin and I beat our wings hard to keep our course. A sea of orange crackles and oozes below us. Flaming meteors rain from above. Munin counts the meteors as we fly. He keeps track of the temperatures and commits the numbers to memory. My brother does this because that's how his brain is wired. For once, I envy him, because reducing his discomfort to mere statistics provides him distraction, while I have no choice but to dwell on the heat of my burning feathers and meditate on its significance and reason out its consequences. That's how I'm wired.

The fire giant Surt is very proud of his realm. You can tell by the way he stands on the lip of a volcanic crater, hands on his hips, his chest bulging like a tectonic plate. No place in the nine worlds is as lovely as Muspellheim. Other places have fire, yes, but their flames are weak and not as orange as the flames of Muspellheim.

Surt stands guard against incursions by the Aesir, whom he considers his lifelong enemies, always ready to make war on his people and take their lands. He has been standing on the lip of his volcano for a very long time, but not once, ever, has a G.o.d of Asgard even flirted with the notion of coming to a place where a tankard of beer would evaporate in a matter of seconds. It is with a mixture of alarm and pride, then, that Surt spots Vidar and Vali scaling his volcano.

His first instinct is to squash them with his flaming foot. But then he reconsiders. First he should find out what they want. Then he can crush them into little crispy motes of carbon dust.

Vidar and Vali have come especially outfitted for this occasion. They wear suits of dwarven craft, made of metal that resists even the heat of Muspellheim, hammered cunningly thin and flexible. In their hoods are built windows of clear crystal so that the Aesir may see their way without their eyes bursting into boiling orbs of meat and liquid.

Munin and I fly circles around the smoking crater as the two G.o.ds struggle to the summit and come to stand before Surt. From his vantage, Vidar can barely see over the tops of Surt's toes, and Vali not even that, yet it is Vali who speaks first.

"I hate this place," he says, in a whining snarl. "This is the worst place ever!"

Surt, expecting something more along the lines of a declaration of war, is momentarily dumbstruck. Around him, mountains crumble and splash into the molten sea. Gaseous plumes explode on the horizon. Who in his right mind could hate Muspellheim? More evidence that the Aesir are not like other people.

"I squash G.o.ds," he says. Heat blasts from his mouth, and my tail feathers catch fire. Munin cackles with laughter at me, but then his tail ignites as well.

Vidar bows his head and he lays his hand on Vali's shoulder, and the child-size G.o.d is almost driven to his knees. Vali aims a kick at Vidar, but the silent G.o.d stays out of his range. After glaring through his crystal window at his older brother, Vali turns and addresses Surt's foot with an obviously memorized speech, delivered in a high-pitched singsong: "Great Surt, we sons of Odin humbly ask your forgiveness for coming uninvited to your kingdom. We beg you to consider the direness of the hour."

Surt crosses his arms with a haughty sniff that almost sucks us into his nostrils.

"Surely you have noticed how the worlds have fallen under siege from warfare and sickness and disaster," continues Vali. "Surely you have seen that Ragnarok is upon us."

Surt nods, even though he noticed no such thing from the comfort of his realm.