Runemarks

Loki shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“But he doesn’t have a chance!” she said. “Even with the Vanir on our side, it would still be the ten of us against all of the Order, and anyway”-she lowered her voice-“the Whisperer practically told me he’d lose.”

Loki’s eyes widened. “You mean it made a prophecy? It made a prophecy and you didn’t think to tell anyone about it?”

“Well, it didn’t make sense,” said Maddy awkwardly. “I don’t even know if it was a prophecy at all. It just kept saying things like I speak as I must and-”

“Gods,” said Loki, disgusted. “It made a prophecy. To you. After all these years I’ve been trying to persuade it to say something-anything.” Eagerly he leaned closer. “Did it mention me at all?”

“It wanted me to kill you. Said you’d turn out to be nothing but trouble.”

“Ah. That figures. What else did it say?”

“Something about a terrible war. Thousands dead at a single word. Something about waking the Sleepers…a traitor…and a general-a general standing alone…”

“And when were you planning to tell him all this?”

Maddy was silent.

“Well?”

“I don’t know.”

Loki began to laugh softly. But Maddy was scarcely paying attention. Dry-mouthed, she recalled the Whisperer’s words, struggled to remember the exact phrasing. It sounded more like verse to her now, bleak verse in the language of prophecy.

I see an army poised for battle.

I see a general standing alone.

I see a traitor at the gate.

I see a sacrifice.

The dead will awake from the halls of Hel.

And the Nameless shall rise and Nine Worlds be lost,

Unless the Seven Sleepers wake

And the Thunderer be freed from Netherworld…

“It’s coming true,” she said at last. “The Sleepers are awake. The Order is coming. It said the Nine Worlds would be lost…” Maddy swallowed, feeling sick. “And I can’t help thinking it’s all my fault. I was the one who woke the Sleepers. I was the one who recovered the Whisperer. If I’d left it in the fire pit-” She broke off and frowned. “But why is the General standing alone? Why aren’t we with him?” Once more Maddy began to pace up and down in the dark hall. “This isn’t what I wanted!” she yelled.

“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 Ragnarok, 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. Ragnarok. The doom of the gods. The fall of ?sir 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 Ragnarok?”

“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 ?sir 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