Runemarks

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, as once she had told a one-eyed Journeyman long ago, on Red Horse Hill.

The Nameless smiled. “I’m glad,” it said. “Because you and I are going to be very close.”

Now, Maddy had not heard the conversation between Odin and the Nameless as they fought it out across the plain. But she was no fool, and the thought had already crossed her mind that if Loki’s body could be used to make another live again, then perhaps the same was true of hers. An unmarked body was best, of course; One-Eye’s was damaged-perhaps beyond repair-but her own was healthy and, more importantly, her unbroken glam would give its bearer the power of gods…

She narrowed her eyes at the Nameless. “Special?” she said.

“Very special, Maddy,” it said. “You’re going to take us to the stars. Together we’re going to rewrite Creation from the top. Rebuild the Sky Citadel. Remake what the ?sir destroyed through their greed and carelessness. Instead of Nine Worlds in opposition, there will be only One World. Our World. A World where things make proper sense. A World with Good and Evil in their proper places and One God ruling everything, forever and always-”

Maddy gave it a scornful look. “That sounds a lot like something One-Eye used to call gobshite.”

The Nameless brightened angrily. “You think you have a choice?” it snapped. “You heard the prophecy.”

Maddy smiled. “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 leveled her dark gray eyes at the Whisperer. “I asked you once if you thought I was supposed to be the sacrifice.”

No! said Odin.

No one heard.

Maddy looked around-at Hel, this time standing in silence with her dead profile averted; at Balder, clothed in Loki’s flesh; at the ten thousand troops-minus a few- standing in eerie silence before them.

“Don’t think of it as a sacrifice,” it said in its most soothing voice. “Think of it as a new beginning. You won’t be dead-you’ll just be Me, as everything else will just be Me. I’ll leave My mark on every blade of grass, every drop of water, every human heart-and everything will worship Me, and love Me, and fear Me, and be judged…”

It paused for effect and pulled back its hood. Its Aspect was almost completed, the stone Head it had occupied for so many years now standing forgotten to one side. Maddy could see her own colors swimming faintly behind those of the Whisperer and feel a kind of static in her hair and teeth as the Word gathered all around her.

Ten thousand dead were ready with it; ten thousand corpses drew breath. And in the anticipation of the Word, no one saw the small, cautious figure of Sugar- and-Sack as he left the shelter of his group and moved softly across the dead sand, unremarked and unregarded, in the direction of the two adversaries.

Now, Sugar was far from heroic material. As far as he was concerned, he should never have been a part of this business in the first place. The General was dead- or as good as-the Captain was dead-or worse than-and Maddy was about to be consumed by the Nameless, which made her at least as dead as both of them.

He really didn’t know why he didn’t just run. No rune or cantrip forced him to act. No profit was likely to come to him. Not even the runestone bound him now, though he could still feel the force of its pulse, as if some part of the Captain were still trapped there, urging him on in a soft voice.

It wasn’t even as if he quite understood what he was expected to do-or why-and yet he kept moving, low to the ground, toward the nasty old glam-the Whisperer- that had started all this off in the first place and that now lay forgotten to one side as the thing that had blossomed out of the stone moved closer to Maddy and spoke.

“Dear girl,” said the Nameless. “Listen to Me.”

And such was its glamour that she almost obeyed, almost succumbed to the mellifluous voice. “You’re so tired, Maddy,” the Nameless went on. “You deserve to rest. Don’t fight Me now that we’ve come so close…”

And now the dead began to speak, their voices toneless as the drifting sand.

I name you Modi, child of Thor,

Child of Jarnsaxa, child of wrath.

I name you Aesk,

I name you Ash-

Maddy had fewer names than One-Eye, and she knew that her canticle was likely to be short. Already she could feel it working on her: her head was heavy, her legs half rooted to the ground…

With an effort she shook herself. “Fight you?” she said. “I suppose I could try.” And she pulled out of her pocket not a rune, not a glamour, not a mindsword, but a simple country clasp knife, such as might be carried by any smith or farmer’s boy in Malbry and beyond.

And now Maddy could see something truly surprising-Maddy, who had thought never to be surprised by anything ever again. It might be a mirage, she told herself, but wasn’t that Ethelberta Parson, with Dorian Scattergood at her side, and Adam Scattergood, and Nat Parson-and could that be…a potbellied pig?

She was going mad, she thought. It was the only possible explanation. It galled her slightly that in her last desperate moments of life, she should have to endure visions of Nat Parson and Adam Scattergood, but if things went according to plan, she thought, then at least she wouldn’t have to see them for very much longer.

“With that?” said the Nameless, and began to laugh. Ten thousand dead laughed with it, and their voices were like a flock of carrion birds rising into the gunmetal sky.

But Maddy’s gaze stayed straight and true.

“You need my body unharmed,” she said. “If I die here, my spirit stays in Hel, and the rest of me just goes to dust. I can’t kill you, but I can do this…”

And she raised the knife to her own throat.

5

Once again there was silence in Hel. Everyone watched Maddy, standing in the circle of gods and Folk with the clasp knife held to her own throat.

Loki watched from Netherworld, and in spite of his peril, he grinned.

Thor watched and thought, That’s my girl.

Odin did not watch, but he knew, all the same.

Balder watched and saw the solution clearly for the first time: not a battle, nor even a war, but a sacrifice-

“Maddy! No!” the Nameless howled, and ten thousand voices echoed its cry. “Think what I’m offering-Worlds, Maddy-”

Maddy took a deep breath. It would have to be a clean blow-there might not be time for another, she thought. She pictured her blood-a necklace of it-spraying out onto the sand…

Her hand was shaking a little, she saw. She tried to steady it-

And found that neither hand would move.

It was too late. She was paralyzed; at last the Book of Invocations had done its work. And now all she could do was watch in despair as the Nameless closed in, exultant, its poisonous voice whispering in her ears, promising:

Worlds, Maddy. What else is there?

Nat Parson gave a strangled cry. He had no idea what he was doing; no thought of danger crossed his mind. All he could think of was the wretched girl, the girl who had foiled him at every turn, the girl who had laughed at him, thwarted him, ridiculed him, and was now about to take what he himself had longed for: the Word that was rightfully his…

“No!” He hurtled toward her, knife in hand, head lowered like a charging boar. “She never wanted it! Give it to me!” And, grabbing Maddy by the hair, remembering those hunting parties with his father so many years ago, he pulled back her head to cut her throat.

Sugar reached the discarded Head and, grasping it in both arms, began to run furiously across the open sand. It burned his skin like a sulfur stone, but Sugar held on, dodging and running for all he was worth, eyes squinting almost shut in concentration.

Find it, the Captain had said. And throw it into the deepest part…

Well, all of it looked deep enough. The question was, could he reach it in time?

He scuttled through Nat Parson’s legs, going Ouch-ouch-ouch from his blistered hands, and, looking for all the Worlds like a squirrel carrying a baked apple, he ran as fast as his short legs would go (which was faster than you might expect, and very quick for his size) toward the river Dream.

***

Nat was taken by surprise. All his attention had been on the girl, and when the goblin shot between his legs, he tripped and half fell forward onto the sand. He dropped the knife, bent to retrieve it, and found himself face to face with something that hissed and crackled and gleamed and seethed with fury and thwarted ambition. Nat did not pause for a second to think; instead he opened his arms and clasped it, howling, to his chest.

The Nameless had not seen the parson approach, had not given the little party of Folk more than a second’s thought. But first had come this mad creature scuttling in between it and the girl, and now here was the fool parson flailing out of the desert, eyes staring, mouth twisted and shouting, “No! Take me!”-reaching out hands already stiffened and blackening from its touch as-

Ten thousand or so troops cried out in alarm and still the parson begged, “Take me!”-arching, reaching, yearning, burning for Communion, his mouth agape in an O