“Balder’s dead.” He looked at her then, and there was anger as well as bleakness in his eyes. “Balder died to save
In spite of herself, Maddy smiled.
“Well, I hope he doesn’t expect gratitude. I never was much good at that. And as for the General…” He paused again, his eyes moving to the place where Odin had fallen. “If he thinks this puts me under any kind of obligation…”
There was a silence, in which Loki glared fiercely into the middle distance.
“It’s all right,” said Maddy. “I’ll miss him too.” And, hand in hand, they walked to the shore of Dream, where the funeral was being prepared.
8
There should have been a ship, Maddy thought-a long gray ship to set on fire as they pushed it away from the shore; instead they made do with a flat piece of floating debris, some shard of the fortress that had fallen away. They laid Odin’s body on this makeshift barque, along with his staff and his hat, and then all of them, the lost children of Order and of Chaos, watched as finally Loki stood at the foot of the boat and torched it with wildfire.
No one spoke as the river took the last of Odin One-Eye into fire and darkness. No one dared voice the hope that he might somehow have escaped into Dream- though if he had died in Hel, Maddy thought, then surely Hel would have claimed him as she had the rest, and there would have been no body to burn.
But Hel was in her citadel, and no amount of calling or petitioning could persuade her to show her face again.
And so all remained lost in thought; the ragged survivors, ?sir and Vanir, pale, bruised, and grieving.
Is this really how it was supposed to end? thought Maddy. The General dead, the balance regained, the Order wiped out, and us, the gods of yesteryear, standing like beggars on the shore of Dream, waiting-waiting for what?
She looked up, angry at the tears that threatened. And saw-
– the gods, in full Aspect, all twelve of them, standing like columns of color and light, heroes and heroines of the Elder Age. And as Maddy watched, the tears began to stream down her face-Maddy Smith, who never cried-and in that moment of grief and uncertainty she felt a sudden and unexpected lurch of joy.
She had always been a lonely child, playing alone, keeping apart, hated and feared even by her own Folk, even by her father and sister. During all her years in Malbry there had only been One-Eye to take her side, and then only for a few days in the year. She had never expected things to be different; had always believed she would die alone, unknown and uncherished, friendless, childless, fatherless.
But these people standing by the riverside…
She watched as one by one the Vanir stepped forward to pay their respects. The Watchman, the Reaper, the Man of the Sea, the Healer, the Poet, the Huntress, the goddess of desire; slowly they passed, one by one, to salute the little barque as the river took it and to cast their runes of luck and protection into the river Dream.
And now came the ?sir. All filed past: the Thunderer, the Mother, the Harvest Queen, the Warrior, the Trickster…
These were her family, Maddy thought. Her father was there, and her grandmother; her allies and her friends. They shared her grief; they were bound to her, as she was to them, and she knew-suddenly and without any doubt-that whatever came, fair weather or foul, they would face it together.
It isn’t over, Maddy thought. This battle has been fought many times already and will be fought many times again. Who knows what new face the enemy will take? Who knows how it will end next time?
All she knew was that she wanted to be a part of it-
The Order might be gone-at least for now. But there would be other enemies, other pretenders to threaten the balance. There was a citadel to be built-Asgard, as was-friends to be made, a brother to be found, and a world of tales to be discovered and told.
One-Eye would have understood-One-Eye, who had collected tales like they were penknives, or butterflies, or stones. For a teller of tales will never die, but will live on in stories-for as long as there are folk to listen.
The Order had known it-which was why they had outlawed stories and books-and the first thing Maddy intended to do was to change that Law and to free all the people in Malbry and beyond, free them from sleep and into dream…
For Maddy knew that where Folk dream, the gods will never be far away. And she smiled as she remembered something One-Eye had said, back in the days when such things had seemed as remote and unattainable as Asgard itself:
Anything that can be dreamed is true.
The river Dream, like the World Tree, has many branches, many routes. In World Below it joins the Strond and filters into World Above. It gushes under Red Horse Hill and bubbles out into Little Bear Wood, and trickle by trickle, it runs under the mountains, down the valleys, across the fens, and finally to World’s End and into the One Sea, the place from which all things came and to which all things may one day return.
Look for me in dreams, he’d said.
And Maddy smiled as she watched the burning boat drift down the river and out of sight.
RUNES OF THE NEW SCRIPT
Aesk: the Ash Tree, Yggdrasil
Joanne Harris
