Runemarks

Thor’s face darkened. He shot out his fist-

“You need me,” said Loki, ducking.

“Need you why?”

“Because I know how to free the gods.”

Maddy’s eyes were very bright as the Trickster explained his latest plan. She was beginning to think she’d misjudged Loki, and she was suddenly ashamed at her past belief that he was the traitor at the gate.

She wanted to tell him so, but there wasn’t time. The deathwatch stood at sixteen minutes, and between them, Ellie and Jormungand seemed determined to tear the room apart. Runelight crackled around them both, and the air was so thick with venom that Maddy’s eyes burned and stung.

“Now listen,” said Loki urgently. “You’ll have to protect me-both of you. My glam’s almost out, and I don’t stand a chance if it comes to a fight. Plus we’ll have to be very fast.”

The Thunderer rumbled his assent.

“Well, as we know,” Loki went on, “our friend Jormungand moves through dreams. Beneath that uncouth exterior he’s really just another worm, sliding his way down toward his lair. Or in this case, as it happens, the river Dream. Are you with me so far?”

“Get on with it,” growled Thor.

“Until now,” Loki explained, “we’ve done what we could to slow him down. A creature his size attracts attention, makes holes in the fabric of Netherworld like the holes in Ridings cheese. But what if we wanted to make those holes? Let Jorgi run amok in the right place, and we could engineer a breakout the like of which has never been seen in all of Chaos. All we need is to lay the bait-”

“Bait?” said Thor. “What is this, a fishing trip?”

“Fifteen minutes,” said Loki, looking at Maddy. “Just follow the snake. And don’t stop for anything.”

Thor’s beard bristled dangerously. “Tell me, runt. What bait do you use?”

But Maddy had already understood. A chill went down her spine as Loki, corpse-pale in his diminishing colors, sidestepped through the cell wall into nothingness.

“Bait?” she said. “Himself, of course.”

15

In a second Jormungand was after him, Old Age still clinging to its sweltering coils. Stone fell away from the damaged wall; a second assault punched right through, giving Thor and Maddy a sudden, dizzying perspective into the next cell. The serpent made for the hole at once, and for what seemed an age they watched its oil-black length squeeze and press itself through the crumbling gap.

“Hang on,” said Maddy to Thor, and flinging her arms around the serpent’s tail, she prepared to follow it into the unknown. Beside her, Thor was doing the same: his fingers dug into Jormungand’s coils, his knees pressed into the creature’s flanks. It was something like riding a bareback horse, Maddy told herself-albeit a legless horse three hundred feet long that oozed a venomous pus. It stank, and yet she held on tight, eyes shut against the poison mist that came from the serpent’s mouth.

For an instant she opened them-and found herself flying for the second time above the sickening vista of Netherworld. Cries of torment rose from below; rags of dream fell away beneath her like clouds. And then they were falling into the pit; above them the air was aswarm with ephemera. Maddy closed her eyes-

– and opened them again as the World Serpent shrieked through a tunnel of lights at the end of which a single figure-a man, she thought-seemed to hang, turning, on a wheel of stars. Beneath them some creature that seemed all eyes snapped at Jormungand-and then they were through again into open space, where pits of fire released a sulfurous stench and a blond-haired woman wrestled with a giant spindly armored cockroach above a crater lined with human bones.

Beside her she was conscious of Thor flinging missiles at the ephemera below. His strength was colossal, and when he struck, the aftershock was great enough to rip holes in the barren land beneath them and to send great chunks of Netherworld spinning wildly into space.

They passed in this way over a dozen vistas, through a dozen cells and a dozen tunnels. In their wake dreams were shattered, cell walls broken, dreamers roused. Maddy could only guess at most of this-her eyes were burning from the serpent’s venom and she needed all her strength simply to hold on.

The Thunderer, at least, was enjoying himself. He’d picked up the general idea by now, although the subtleties had more or less passed him by. Thor was not a great thinker, but he knew a demon when he saw one, and this place was filled with them. Back in Aspect, hurling mindbolts, he felt almost happy again, and the memories of five hundred years slipped gently away like a distant dream.

There was no sign at all of Loki. His fading signature was lost among the multitude of ephemera and trails of light, and his figure-desperately small next to the huge bulk of the serpent that pursued him-had long since been lost to Maddy’s sight. She could only hope he was still alive; beneath her Jormungand’s coils lashed ferociously as the serpent gained strength, cutting and slashing as it went, a machine chopping into the dream fortress like hay.

Pieces of Netherworld sheared away in its wake; dreamers broke free-though whether they were ?sir or not, Maddy had no way of telling; ephemera were scattered to the winds like chaff. Once Maddy even thought she glimpsed what lay behind the walls of Netherworld: a spiraling, sucking darkness knitted with dead stars. A chill went through her.

My gods, is that Chaos?

She closed her eyes and held on.

16

Hel’s Guardian was watching through the shutter of her dead eye.

“He’s really done it this time,” she said, not without a kind of admiration. “That snake is definitely getting bigger. Of course, if his fears are giving it strength…”

In her hands the Whisperer glowed fiercely. “Just kill him,” it said. “The girl too.”

“I can’t,” said Hel. “I swore an oath.”

The deathwatch in her hand-the identical twin of the one Loki still wore around his neck-showed the time at fifty-one minutes. He might well make it. He was close: through her all-seeing dead eye she could see him coming, blazing through the air like a comet, with the snake on his tail and a trail of dreamers in his wake. Nine minutes-less now-and if he failed to cross the river, then his body and Maddy’s would cease to exist, leaving them trapped in a Netherworld that was already coming apart at the seams, showing the dead light of World Beyond.

“What difference does nine minutes make?” said the Whisperer. “Go on, kill him, before he does any more damage.” Its voice was urgent, and it pulsed now with a greenish light, throwing restless shadows onto Hel’s face.

“You’re asking me to break my word.”

“Your word?” snapped the Whisperer. “What’s your word to such as him? Go on, he’s helpless-kill him now, for gods’ sakes, kill him before it’s too late…”

“I can’t.” Hel looked at the deathwatch. “My word binds me for another…eight minutes.”

The Whisperer glowered, and its colors flared like dragonfire. It had known, of course, that Hel would be difficult to bargain with, even with Loki’s full cooperation. But Loki-freed from its influence, restored to his Aspect in Netherworld-Loki had taken Maddy’s side, had actually dared to try to free the gods…

Did you think you could earn their forgiveness, Trickster? Win back your place among the ?sir? Did you think even Thor could protect you from me?

With an effort the Whisperer curbed its rage. The gods might escape, but where would they go? To enter the Underworld would mean only death for all of them-for bodiless, they were Hel’s property, to do with what she pleased.

Of course, they could always escape into Dream, though this too was not without its perils. For to enter Dream so close to its source was a risk that even the damned might think twice about taking.

Seven minutes remained, and with a wrench the Whisperer turned its gaze from the scene across the river. “I can help you, lady,” it said in a voice that was suddenly all honey. “I know what you want, and only I can give it to you…”

Hel opened both eyes. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Don’t you?” said the Whisperer.

The seconds passed. Six minutes.

“Don’t you?” said the Whisperer.

“I can’t,” said Hel, but her voice was faint.

“Oh, but you can,” wheedled the Whisperer. “One little cut-a snip, no more-and everything you’ve ever wanted can be yours. A life for a life, Goddess. Loki’s life-all five minutes of it-and in exchange you could have Balder back again. Imagine that. Balder, alive. Warm. Breathing. And yours, Goddess. All yours.”

For long seconds more Hel was silent. “I can’t break my word,” she said at last. “The balance between Order and Chaos depends on my neutrality.”

“With or without you,” said the Whisperer, “the balance between Order and Chaos may soon be challenged.”

Hel’s living eye was all hunger in her pallid face. “How so?” she asked.

The Whisperer allowed itself the luxury of a smile. “Do we have a deal, Goddess?”

“Tell me how, damn your eyes!”

Glowing, it told her.

Across the river Loki shot like a flaming missile toward the gates of Netherworld. Hel could see that he was almost burned out now, his signature like that of a guttering flame, his face twisted with effort and concentration.