Runemarks

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 runeshape yr.

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 ?sir 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-”

“Is this another prophecy?” Maddy interrupted.

“No. It’s a prediction,” the Whisperer said.

“What’s the difference?”

“Predictions can be wrong. Prophecies can’t.”

“So you don’t actually know what’s going to happen, either?” said Maddy.

“Not exactly. But I’m a good guesser.”

Maddy bit a fingernail. “I see an army poised for battle. I see a general standing alone. I see a traitor at the gate. I see a sacrifice.” She turned to the Whisperer. “Is that me?” she said. “Am I supposed to be the sacrifice? And is One-Eye the traitor?”

“Couldn’t say,” smirked the Whisperer.

“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-freed from Netherworld?” Maddy said. “Is that even possible?”

Within the Whisperer’s glassy shell, fragments of runelight sparkled and spun.

“I said, is it possible?” repeated Maddy. “To free my father from Netherworld?”

Loki had thought her childish and irrational. In fact, ever since she had heard the tale of his escape from Netherworld, Maddy had been thinking very clearly indeed. She had gambled on his willingness to help-not because she trusted in Loki’s better nature, but because she expected him to lie. She was sure he had no intention of allowing her to throw the Whisperer back into the fire pit, but the task of retrieving it from the Hall of Sleepers was a two-man job, and rather than let it fall into the hands of the Vanir, she was sure that Loki would be ready to humor her-at least until they reached World Below, where he would deliver Maddy and the Whisperer safely into Odin’s hands. For a price, of course.

Well, two could play at that game.

On her way from the Hall of Sleepers, Maddy had been doing some serious thinking. Part of her wanted to run to One-Eye with her questions, as she had always done as a child-but the Whisperer’s prophecy had made her wary, not least because, if she read it correctly, One-Eye’s defeat could lead to the end of the Worlds.

She wished she’d never heard of the Whisperer. But now that she had, there was no going back. And although it was a poor substitute for her old friend’s counsel, at least a prophecy could not lie.

She knew what One-Eye would think of her plan, and it hurt her to deceive him, but there was nothing she could do. I’d be saving him from himself, she thought. I’d be saving the Worlds.

Maddy gave up on waiting for the Whisperer’s answer. “Just as long as Loki agrees to help…”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the Whisperer. “I can persuade him. I’m very persuasive.”

Maddy gave it a long look. “Last time I knew, you wanted him dead.”

“Even the dead have their uses,” it said.

***

It was half an hour later that Loki arrived, footsore and dusty in Crazy Nan’s dress.

“Oh, look,” said the Whisperer in its nastiest voice. “Dogstar’s taken to wearing a dress. What next, eh? Tiara and pearls?”

“Ha ha. Very funny,” said Loki, untying the shawl that covered his head. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to Maddy. “I had to walk.”

“Never mind that now,” said Maddy. “What matters is that we have the Whisperer.”

The Trickster looked at her curiously. He thought she looked flushed, with excitement or fear, and there was something in her colors, some brightening, that made him feel uneasy.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“We’ve been talking,” said Maddy.

Loki looked uncomfortable. “What about?”

“I have an idea,” she told him.

And then she began to outline her plan, hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, while beside her Loki’s face went paler and paler and the Whisperer glowed like a clutch of fireflies and smiled as if it might explode.

“Netherworld?” he said at last. “You want me to go to Netherworld?”

“You heard what the Oracle said!”

“Poetic license,” snapped Loki. “Oracles love that kind of thing.”

“A general will stand alone, it said. The Nameless shall rise. Nine Worlds will be lost. War, Loki. A terrible war. And the only way of stopping it is to free my father from Netherworld. You promised you’d help-”

“I said I’d help you recover the Whisperer,” said Loki. “I never said anything about saving the Worlds. I mean, what’s so wrong with a war, anyway?”

Maddy thought of the Strond Valley, and the fields and houses scattered all the way from Malbry village to Forge’s Post, and all the little roads and hedges, and the smell of burning stubble in the fall. She thought of Crazy Nan in her rocking chair, and of market day on the village green, and of Jed Smith, who had done his best, and of all the soft, harmless people of the valley with their little lives and their silly conviction that they were at the center of the Worlds.

And for the first time in her life Maddy Smith understood. The lectures, the bullying, the signs forked in secret behind her back. The hundred small cruelties that had sent her running for Little Bear Wood more times than she could remember. She’d thought they hated her because she was different, but now she knew better. They’d been afraid. Afraid of the cuckoo in their nest, afraid that one day it would grow and bring Chaos upon their little world.

And she had, Maddy thought. She’d started this. Without her, the Sleepers would not have awakened, the Whisperer would still be safe in the pit, and the war might be fifty years away, or a hundred years, or even more…

She turned to Loki. “It can be done. You said so yourself.”

Loki gave a sharp laugh. “You’ve got no idea what you’re suggesting. You’ve never even so much as set foot outside your valley before, and now you’re planning to storm the Black Fortress. Bit of a leap, don’t you think?”

“You’re afraid,” said Maddy, and Loki gave another crack of laughter.

“Afraid?” he said. “Of course I’m afraid. Being afraid is what I’m good at. Being afraid is why I’m still here. And speaking of being afraid”-he glanced at the Whisperer-“have you any idea what the General would do to me if-No, don’t answer that,” he said. “I’d rather not know. Suffice it to say that we both go and see him now, give him the damn thing, let him negotiate with the Vanir, yadda yadda yadda…”

“When Odin and Wise Mimir meet, Chaos will come to the Nine Worlds.” That was the Whisperer, speaking almost idly, but with its colors flaring like dragonfire.

Loki turned. “What did you say?”

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent.”

“Oh no.” Loki held up his hands. “Don’t even think of making a prophecy right now. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know.”

But the Whisperer was speaking again. Its voice was not loud, but it commanded attention, and both of them listened, Maddy in bewilderment and Loki in growing disbelief and horror.

“I see an Ash at the open gate,” said the Whisperer. “Lightning-struck but green in shoot. I see a meeting at Nether’s edge, of the wise and the not so wise. I see a death ship on the shores of Hel, and Bor’s son with his dog at his feet-”