Runemarks

1

Many roads lead to Hel. In fact, it could be argued that all roads lead eventually to Hel, the frictionless pivot between Order and Chaos, where neither holds sway and nothing-and no one-ever changes.

True Chaos, like Perfect Order, is mostly uninhabited. The many creatures that exist within its influence-demons, monsters, and the like-are simply satellites, basking in Chaos as the earth basks in the warmth of the sun, knowing full well the dangers of over-familiarity. Even Dream-which has its laws, though they are not necessarily the laws of elsewhere-is far too near Chaos for comfort, which is why so few dare to stay there long. And as for Netherworld-you’d have to be mad to even think about it.

Loki had been pondering this with increasing unease as he and Maddy followed the long, well-traveled road to Hel. Not a difficult road, for obvious reasons, though less worn than you might have expected. The dead leave fewer tracks than the living, but even so, the passageway was deeply rutted and its stone walls had been polished to a mirror-like glaze by the passing of a million million-perhaps more-world-weary travelers.

Not that Hel was to be their final destination. That, thought Loki, would have been far too easy. No, beyond the Underworld lay Netherworld, not so much a land in itself as an island among the many that spread out across the vast river that marks the boundary between World Below and World Beyond: the greatest, the Cauldron of all Rivers; eternal, lethal, even to the dead.

The Whisperer had been mercifully silent as they drew ever closer to the Underworld. But Loki sensed its excitement-as it sensed his fear-persistent enough to tax him to the limits as he struggled ahead. And it was a struggle; Loki’s glam was not at its strongest, and it was no comfort to him to know that the Whisperer could reach into his mind anytime it liked and twist it like a wet rag.

So far, however, it had left him alone, and Loki guessed that behind its silence lay a wariness that had not been present at the beginning of their expedition.

He had read something in its thoughts-or it believed he had-and he could sense that although it enjoyed its power over him, it was wary of what he might see there next-and of what he might tell Maddy. And so it said little to either of them, and there was no repetition of the incident at the river crossing, but even so, Loki’s head ached, as if a storm was on its way.

They had stopped to sleep after the river. Three hours’ sleep, a mouthful of bread, and a sip of water and they had set off again, looking only ahead and never to the side, speaking only when they needed to. They had left World Above at eleven o’clock of the previous morning, and if anyone had told Maddy that barely twelve hours had passed since then, she would never have believed them.

And yet she moved on without complaint. And Loki, who had half expected her to have turned back by now, watched in growing disquiet as they embarked on the final stretch.

By now the path was quick with the dead. A hundred dead per cubic foot, crammed all together into the fetid space, moving sluggishly onward, downward as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t actually very far: their misty presences distressed the air; their stink-which was worse than any midden or slaughterhouse or garbage dump or field hospital you’ve ever smelled or imagined-enveloped everything, sinking loamy fingers into their lungs, tainting their food, their drink, the air they breathed.

The dead themselves feel nothing, of course. But they do sense, and as the travelers passed through them like ships through thick fog, the legions of the dead shifted instinctively closer to the warmth of the living, dead fingers plucking at their clothes, their hair, dead mouths moving in soundless entreaty.

Men, women, warriors, thieves; stillborn children and drowned sailors; vassals, heroes, poets, kings; ancients, murderers, desperadoes, and sellers of fake remedies against the plague; lost loves, old gods, scrubby schoolboys, spurious saints. All dead, existing now as shadows-less than shadows-of their living selves, and yet each with his or her own mournful colors, so that Maddy and Loki were close to drowning in their collective despair and even the Whisperer was silent.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” said Loki as Maddy trudged ahead. “I mean, what are you actually trying to prove? And who are you trying to prove it to?”

Maddy looked at him, surprised. It had been so long, it seemed, since she had even asked herself the question why-and the thought that she might even now have a choice…

Who am I doing this for? she thought. The gods? The Worlds? My father?

She tried to see her father’s face-red-bearded, slow-witted, good-natured Thor, known to her from so many tales that she was sure she’d know him anywhere-and yet when Maddy thought of the words my father, it was not the Thunderer, or even Jed Smith, that she pictured in her mind’s eye. It was One-Eye: clever, sarcastic, devious One-Eye, who had lied to her and maybe worse…

And yet, for all that, she missed him terribly, and if she hadn’t been certain that to involve him in this would be to put him in the most terrible danger…

I wonder if he’s looking for me.

I wonder if he misses me.

And if he knew-would he be proud?

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.

Doggedly she moved on.

How long now? Impossible to tell. So close to the edge of Chaos, the laws that bind the Worlds are already warped beyond recognition. Logic tells us that such a journey to such a place cannot possibly exist, but Maddy and Loki were traveling between possibilities, to places where Logic, the first servant of Order, cannot pass.

The trick, like magic, is not to think too hard about what you’re doing, to pass through the world as if in a dream, untrammeled by ideas of what is possible and what is not. And so they cast Naudr to open the way and moved impossibly down into the Underworld, and when morning came (not that they knew it was morning), they found themselves standing on a craggy cliff looking down onto a subterranean landscape of stagnant mists and slow dark rivers, a long plain lit from all around with a wan light the color of an old bruise, and knew they were looking at Hel itself.

Hel is cold but not freezing. To freeze implies a kind of action, but Hel is a place of inaction, and its chill is the coldness of the empty hearth, of the silent earth, of the grave. And so Loki and Maddy were cold, but not unbearably so, and they were tired, but reluctant to sleep. Most of all they were hungry and thirsty, for their small supplies were running out, and they dared not touch the foul water of Hel. They took turns carrying the Whisperer (on Loki’s insistence, to Maddy’s surprise), but even so their progress was slow as they trudged toward a sullen horizon that never seemed to get any nearer.

“Does it go on forever like this?” said Maddy as they stopped once more to rest.

Loki glanced at her and shrugged. “For some people it goes on forever. For others-well, it takes the time it takes.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Maddy said. “Distances don’t change depending on who you are.”

“They do here,” Loki said.

Wearily they trudged on.

There aren’t many rules in the Underworld, but those that exist are rarely broken. Death is a place in permanent balance, a place of no movement, no progress, no change. Of course, living, moving, changing people were never meant to visit Hel. A few have tried (they always do), but little good ever comes of it, and most, if they come back at all, come back mad or broken.

Even the gods had made a point of avoiding the Underworld as often as possible. It’s a dreary place, and although many have tried to bargain with its Guardian-to plead for aid, to negotiate the return of one single, very special soul-such a pact has always ended in tears, failure, lingering death, or a bit of all three.

For Hel’s safe balance comes at a price. No one raises the dead without disturbing that balance, and so close to Netherworld, the consequences could be disastrous. As a result, Hel’s Guardian had a reputation for being cranky and disobliging, and no one had left the Underworld alive since Mother Frigg returned alone after pleading for the release of Balder the Fair, before the end of the Elder Age.

Loki was well aware of this. On the other hand, he had reason to believe that the Guardian of the Underworld might deign to make an exception in his case. Evidently the Whisperer believed it too, which suited Loki just fine, because that belief was what had kept him alive so far.

Now he sensed the thing’s impatience.

You said she would be here, it said.

She will, thought Loki, hoping it was true.

It had better be true, because if you’ve lied…

“Don’t worry. She’ll come,” he said aloud. “As soon as she knows I’m here, she’ll come.”

“Who?” said Maddy, looking at him.

“The Guardian of the Underworld,” he said. “Half-Born Hel. My daughter.”

2

As Maddy and Loki were entering Hel, the Vanir aboveground were losing no time. The ambush at the parsonage had alerted them to Skadi’s betrayal, but the murder of Ethel Parson suggested that there was another dimension to the business. Had it been an accident? Was the woman a bystander, caught in the crossfire? Or was she a sacrifice, sent out to make them believe that no treachery was intended on the part of the Folk?

“Of course there was treachery,” Frey had said. “They lured us out there with promises of parley, then tried to use the Word on us. What other reason could there be?”

“But what about Odin?” That was Bragi, looking shaken, combing dust out of his hair. “He wanted to talk. He broke bread with us; he wanted peace with the Vanir-”

“Oh, grow up,” snapped Frey. “He was hardly going to wear a sign saying This is a trap, was he? I say we waste no more time. Go after him now. Make him talk.”