Runemarks

But unless her warm-blood sight deceived her, two at least remained, and it was with something close to eagerness that she stood now, the rope of glamours in her living hand, and crossed the endless desert with a word.

It was Maddy who saw her first. Awakening from troubled dreams in her shelter among the rocks, she sensed a chilly presence and, opening her eyes, found herself looking at a woman’s profile, green-eyed, high-cheekboned, with hair that gleamed like crows’ feathers. She had only a moment to gasp at this woman’s beauty, and then she turned, and the illusion was gone.

Hel looked at Maddy’s expression and, for the first time in five hundred years, she smiled. “That’s right, little girl,” she said softly. “Death has two faces. The one that inspires poets and lovers; the one for whom warriors lose their heads…and then there’s the other one. The grave. Worms. Rot.” She gave a mocking curtsy, lurching on her withered foot.

“Welcome to Hel, little girl.”

Loki was wide awake. He’d sensed Hel’s watchful presence at once and had hidden the Whisperer, wrapped up in Maddy’s jacket to make a pack, sealed with runes, under an outcrop of weathered rocks. Now he emerged from his hiding place, with a smile that was half insult, half charm, and announced, “I’d forgotten what a dump this place was.”

Very slowly Hel turned. “Loki,” she said. “I hoped it was you.” She gave him a look that made Maddy’s flesh crawl. “I imagine you must have some purpose here.”

“Oh, I do,” said Loki.

“It must be important,” she said. “To come, unprotected, into my realm is not without a certain risk, even for you. And as for her…” She squinted at Maddy. “Who is she, anyway? I can smell her ?sir blood from here.”

“No one you’d know. A relative.”

“Really?” said Hel. Certainly there was something about the girl that looked familiar. Something in the eyes, perhaps. Hel searched her extensive memory, but Death’s hospitality is vast, and she could not find the clue she sought.

She smiled at Maddy. “I’m sure you must be hungry, my dear.” She gestured with her living hand, and suddenly a table appeared, broad as the Strond, bright and gleaming and mountain-ridden with silver, glassware, fine bone china, damask napkins; mead, wine; pastry pies with lids like cauldrons; tureens of soup like fairy coaches; frosted grapes piled high on platters; roasted piglets with apples in their mouths; and honeyed figs, and fresh young cheeses; slashed pomegranates, peaches, plums; olives in spiced oil; and baked salmon with their tails in their mouths, stuffed clams, rolled herring; sweet cider; plump almond rolls, cinnamon buns, muffins like clouds, and bread-oh, bread of a thousand kinds: soft, white, poppy-seeded, plaited, round loaves and square loaves and loaves dark and dense with fruit…

Maddy stared, remembering perhaps the last time she had eaten, the last time she had felt hunger, real hunger, in this dead world. Stretching her hand toward the laden table, mouth watering, craving to taste-

“Don’t touch it,” Loki said.

“Why not?” said Maddy, with her hand on a plum.

“You don’t eat the food of the Underworld. Not a bite, not a sip, not a seed. That is, if you ever want to leave.”

Hel faced him, deadpan. “None of my guests have ever complained.”

He laughed at that. “She gets her sense of humor from her father’s side,” he told Maddy. “Now come on, let’s go. That hall of yours has to be somewhere around here, right?”

Hel half smiled. “As you say,” she said, and dismissed the feast-and then just as suddenly it was there: a bone white palace straddling the desert, spires and turrets and gargoyles and minarets and skeleton outcrops of Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture with flying buttresses and fleurs-de-lis and rows of bishops, priests, Examiners, cardinals, shamans, mystics, prophets, witch doctors, soothsayers, Magisters, saviors, demigods, and popes standing in their niches along the facade.

“Nice,” said Loki.

Hel led the way.

Maddy had never seen such a place as this, not even in dreams. Of course, she was aware that none of it was quite real-that is, assuming the word real had any meaning so close to the shores of Dream. But it was impressive: long white walkways of cool alabaster, ivory hangings, intricate vaulting, tapestries faded almost to transparency, and fluted columns of delicate glass. They passed through silent halls of stone, through mirrored rooms as pale as ice, through chambers in which dead princesses waltzed alone, through funeral chapels and deserted hallways soft with dust.

“She’s your daughter?” whispered Maddy as they went.

Loki nodded. He seemed unconcerned, though Maddy guessed that he was playing a game. And a dangerous one, she told herself; there was clearly no love lost between Hel and her father.

“I wasn’t much of a parent,” he said. “Then again, neither was her mother. Quite mad, but alluring-like all demons-though in the end we should never have had children. Too much Chaos in both of us. Hel’s actually pretty normal-looking compared to the rest of the clan. Aren’t you, Hel?”

Hel did not reply, though her living shoulder stiffened in rage. Maddy wondered anxiously whether it was entirely wise for Loki to bait Hel on her own ground, but the Trickster did not seem worried.

“Do you know, Loki,” said Hel, stopping abruptly, “I’ve been trying to work you out. This is my realm, the realm of the dead. In it, I am all-powerful; what comes here belongs to me. And yet here you are, unarmed and unprotected. You seem very sure I’ll let you live.”

Loki looked amused. “What makes you think I’m unprotected?”

Hel raised an eyebrow. “Don’t bullshit me, Trickster,” she said. “You’re alone.”

“Quite alone,” agreed Loki comfortably.

“What exactly do you want?”

Loki smiled. “An hour,” he said.

“An hour?” said Hel.

“In Netherworld.”

Hel’s other eyebrow went up. “Netherworld?” she said. “I suppose you mean Dream?”

Loki shook his head. “I mean Netherworld,” he said, still smiling. “More specifically, the Black Fortress.”

“I always knew you were mad,” said Hel. “You escaped, didn’t you? And you want to go back?”

“More importantly,” said Loki, “I want to be sure I can get out again.”

Hel’s eyebrows went down again. “Now that’s humor,” she said, straight-faced. “It’s almost worth waiting another five hundred years for the punch line.”

Loki shook his head impatiently. “Come on, Hel. I know you can do it. You can’t be so close to the Black Fortress for so many years without getting a few-let’s say, unauthorized insights about how it works.”

Hel gave a half smile. “Maybe so,” she said. “But it’s a dangerous game. Open the fortress, even for an hour, and who knows what might escape from there-into Dream, into Death, perhaps even into the Middle Worlds. Why should I do it? What’s in it for me?”

“One hour,” said Loki. “One hour inside. After that, I’m out of your hair, all debts paid, for ever and ever.”

Hel’s eyes narrowed. “Debts?” she said. Her rage seemed to freeze Maddy to the bone.

“Come on, Hel. You know you owe me.”

“Owe you what?”

Loki smiled. “Don’t be demure. It doesn’t suit you. How is Golden Boy these days, anyway? Still as charming? Still as beautiful? Still as dead?”

The bones of Hel’s dead hand ground audibly together.

Maddy looked anxiously at Loki.

“You’ll like this, Maddy,” he said, still grinning. “It’s a roller-coaster love story through space, death, and time. Boy meets girl-she loves him madly, but he doesn’t even notice her, being too busy charming the hel out of everyone he meets, and besides, she’s not what you’d call a looker, plus she lives in a bad part of town. So she makes a deal. I do her a little favor. She gets Golden Boy all to herself for a slice of eternity, and I get a favor in return. Which favor I’m calling in. Right here, right now.”

“You really are a bastard, Loki,” Hel said in a flat voice.

“I hate to be bitchy, sweetheart, but you weren’t exactly born in wedlock yourself.”

Hel sighed. She didn’t need to-she hadn’t actually breathed in centuries-but somehow Loki brought out the worst in her every time. Still, they’d had a deal, she’d sworn an oath, and an oath of any kind, however foolish, was sacred to one who lived and worked at the balancing point between Order and Chaos.

Bitterly she considered her oath. She’d been younger then (not that that was any excuse), inexperienced in the ways of World and Underworld. Blind enough and foolish enough to believe in love; arrogant enough to believe that she might be the exception to the rule.

And Balder was beautiful. The god of spring blossom; the golden-haired; the good, the kind, the pure in heart. Everybody loved him, but Hel, from her silent kingdom, longed for him most of all. She came to him at first in dreams, weaving her most seductive fantasies for his pleasure, but Balder recoiled, complaining of nightmares and troubled sleep, grew anxious, pale, and fearful, until Hel realized that he hated her as fiercely as he loved life itself, and her cold heart grew colder still as she planned how she could make him hers.

It takes a certain cunning to kill a god. Loki had it, arranged it so that the guilt fell on another, and when Mother Frigg reached out with her glamours, entreating the Nine Worlds to plead for Balder’s return, Loki alone did not beg, so that Balder remained forever at Hel’s side, a pale king to her dark queen.

But the victory was bitter. She’d dreamed of having Balder all to herself, had heard stories, in fact, of a previous Guardian of the Underworld who’d gained a similar prize by means of guile and a handful of pomegranate seeds. But Balder dead had none of the charm of Balder in life. Gone was his light step, his merry voice, the sunshine gleam of his golden hair. He was cold now, cold and expressionless, speaking only when conjured to do so, animated only by Hel’s own glamours. Dead was