Loki (38 page)

Odin’s eye grew hazy, as if he was seeing things beyond the immediate time and place. He chanted, “The spawn of Angrboda and the Sly One were brought before me. Sensing their threat, I cast the snake Jormungand into the ocean surrounding Midgard. There he grew till he encircled the world and bit his own tail. The wolf Fenrir was spared through the pleas of he who would soon be known as One Handed Tyr—to his regret—and was allowed to roam the fields of Asgard till the time of his binding. The monstrous Hel, half living and half dead, was cast by Odin into the darkness of Niflheim, there to rule over the dead till the time of Ragnarok.” His eye cleared, and he looked at Hel directly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Stories and legends do not comprise reality, High One. It is obvious that more than your eye was lost when you plucked it from your head and pitched it into the well.”

“
Perhaps,” he said.

She regarded him carefully, the dead flesh of her face healing and becoming white and pure as she did so, a complexion and visage to rival Freyja’s. “Why do you come here? You must know that you cannot avoid that which comes for you and your kind. Even now, the armies of Jotunheim march on Asgard, to be followed by those of Niflheim, and one other who will ensure your defeat and death.”

“
I would speak with my son,” he said.

“
He is your son no longer; he is now nothing more than my slave. A fitting punishment for his crime, would you agree?”

“
You will let me speak with him,” Odin said.

Hel’s now full lips smiled thinly. “Do you threaten me, High One?” There was a mocking tone in her voice, a subtle hint that she reigned supreme in this place of the dead. Despite his power he could not best her here, where she could draw on the spirit of every soul in Niflheim. It was not necessary, however. There would be no physical confrontation this day.

“
It is not a threat. I have foreseen it. Let us not waste time in pointless posturing. Our true confrontation will not take place here, but in Asgard.”

Hel looked from Odin to Balder’s shade. “Your father wishes to speak with you,” she said, and suddenly she was gone, dissolved into mist.

Balder looked up at Odin, a mixture of sadness and resignation on his face. He did not move from his spot, however. Odin stepped forward to meet him.

“
The time is short, my son. Ragnarok approaches.”

“
Yes . . .” Balder said absently, his voice trailing off into nothingness like the ghost he was.

“
The armies of the dead will join the fight against Asgard.”

“
Yes . . .”

“
You will not be among them.” At this, Balder came out of his stupor. “Your hand will not be raised against the Aesir.”

A look of confusion crossed his face. “Hel is my mistress. I must do her bidding. She has told me that I will slay my own kind.”

“
It will not come to pass. You will not fight at Ragnarok, for either side.”

Balder looked even more confused and disconcerted. He looked around anxiously for Hel’s reassuring and controlling presence, but she was nowhere to be found. “I cannot refuse her will.”

It pained Odin to see his son so conflicted and enthralled. “Sleipnir will come for you. He will take you away from this place. There is a larger role for you than mere combatant.” Balder’s apprehension was palpable. “You will understand when the time comes.”

Odin reached out a hand and placed it on his son’s shoulder. Balder’s flesh was cold through his loose clothing, and felt vaguely insubstantial. “I bid you good journey once before, when you were sent to the flames, knowing that I would see you only once more. I bid you farewell now, knowing that I shall not see you again, but also knowing that your death served a greater purpose than you can now comprehend.”

Odin squeezed the shoulder of his son’s ghost once more before letting his arm drop. He turned and left the chamber, summoning Sleipnir. His work was finished and the result unavoidable. He gripped Gungnir tightly. Soon enough the spear would see more blood and death than it had ever seen before.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Freyja’s reflecting pool rippled with the sound of Gjall’s cry. While it was not entirely unexpected, she still found herself distraught by the summons. All life was destined to end some day, she knew, and even the gods were not immortal, but Ragnarok was different. This was no natural life cycle; this was the senseless death of all things, chaos imposing itself forcefully across the Nine Worlds. This one thing would end the balance of the universe and banish order forever, in favor of a state of endless entropy. The enemies of the gods did not fully contemplate what they did in assaulting Asgard. Or if they did, and they still pursued this destructive course, then they could be considered no less than pure evil.

She stilled the ripples as best she could and gazed into the pool’s depth. She could only hope to find a way to avoid the unnecessary destruction and death that would soon threaten all. While she could not hear sounds issuing forth—the pool only allowed her to see images—there were reverberations in the water that hinted at thunderous footsteps crashing upon the earth, countless numbers of them sending waves and tremors across Midgard.

As the cloudiness of the pool dissipated, the water becoming a crystal clear window into the outside world, she saw mass movement. She saw giants—legion upon legion of them—marching towards Bifrost.

She dipped her fingers in the pool and stirred the water, upsetting and dispelling the image. She and all others on Asgard knew that the sons of Jotunheim would one day rise up against the gods, and that it would signal Ragnarok. While it was a fearsomely impressive sight to see the collected mass of Jotunheim striding forward as one, it was not new knowledge.

Nor was it inevitable that the giants would be able to best Asgard. They would face legions of Einherjar, battle-tested warriors whose only purpose was to fight the enemies of the gods during Ragnarok. After endless battling of each other, they would be eager to be let loose and spill blood on true enemies. The Valkyries would also be there, swooping down on their phantom steeds and stealing life after life with their fierce, spectral blades. The giants knew little of the Valkyries who would surely inflict grave casualties on the strong but firmly flesh and blood giants. And then, of course, there were the gods themselves.

The Vanir would weave such sorcery as the giants had never seen, causing some to die in mid-step, others to attack their own ranks, and sending the land itself to rise up against them. Then the giants would face their most terrible foes, the Aesir, who would wade in with steel flashing, each god like an army unto himself. They would lay waste to giants by the thousands. Even then the outcome would be uncertain, for the mass of Jotunheim was vast, the power of the giants fearsome, and the anger and fury of their kind undaunted.

But there were undoubtedly others who would seek the destruction of Asgard. As she swirled the telling waters of her reflecting pool, she intoned the sacred runes that would shift the scene and allow her to see what was as yet hidden.

Once more the mist of the water began to clear and settle, producing images from distant places and times. Even Freyja could not always be certain from where and when the images came. At times she could not be sure that the scene would even occur as it was shown to her. Still, there was usually a truth to be had in the pool, and she could do no worse by attempting to see it.

The waters grew darker as the image formed. Freyja knitted her brow momentarily before realizing that the image was of a darkened place, and that the pool had not grown dark. Within the blackness there were white circles, countless numbers of them. They floated eerily along in a jerking motion, sometimes halting briefly to bob up and down, other times speeding up. All went in roughly the same direction, but they jostled for position within the river of blackness. That was how she thought of it: white circles floating on a black river.

As she continued to stare, she noticed other movements, sometimes accompanied by brief glimpses of white—although not circular—and always below the innumerable floating circles. Gazing deeper into the pool she could make out lines and creases on the circles, and she was unsettled to find that they were faces, gaunt and ghostlike. The wretched, rotting bodies they belonged to were ensconced in the darkness below, darkness that began to unfold so that she could see the shambling forms in its shadows.

The armies of Niflheim stretched out as far as she could see in the pool, even more vast than the mass from Jotunheim that drew steadily closer. She concentrated on the image and brought it closer, drawing in on the individual faces and bodies of the dead who moved forward, slowly and relentlessly. On their faces was a hunger that repulsed her.

Some of the dead were cast in rotting flesh, while others were little more than bones. Some lacked limbs, others were merely a bone house with a thin covering of gray skin stretched tightly over it. Most had been old when they died, claimed quietly in their beds. Most disturbing were the small ones that she had not initially noticed. Thousands upon thousands of them toddled to and fro, their faces hovering far below the general line of ghostly circles. Some crawled, while others could not even manage that, so they merely pulled themselves forward, dragging their empty bellies on the cold ground of Niflheim.

While Freyja had seen countless children die and had accepted it as part of the cycle of things, she felt horror at these little ghouls, plucked from their mothers' teats and cast down into the darkness and gloom of Niflheim, there to contend with all those other poor souls who lingered in the emptiness and despair of that world. She could not deny the unfairness of a universe that took even the barest chance at life from these humans, but she also knew well that there was no arbiter of fairness.

Staring down at this doomed army that slowly plodded towards Asgard with the sole intention of spreading death and destruction, she was stung by the cruelty of fate that would first take the life of a babe, and then send its shade to kill and destroy.

Sickened by the image, she stuck her hand in the pool and disturbed it, causing ghostly circles to change, creating grotesque images and distortions, black mixing with white, faces elongating and eventually breaking apart. And then the image was gone.

She sat back and felt despair creeping over her. The giants would be bolstered by the armies of Niflheim, all the mortal beings in the entire Nine Worlds who had died throughout history. These vast numbers would shortly find themselves on the fields of Asgard, engaged in a bloody onslaught against the gods. The gods were powerful, but she did not know if even they would be able to defeat all the combined forces that were amassing against them. They had all dreaded the coming of Ragnarok, had hoped that it would be averted, but it was apparently not to be.

Heavy with the crushing weight of despair, she stood and turned to leave.

A flicker in the pool caught the edge of her vision, and she turned. The pool swirled crimson and orange, colors alternating and shifting, blending and separating. The entire pool became suffused with the colors, but there was more. It began to radiate heat, which it had never done before. Even more, the heat seemed to contain something else, something sinister that she could not name.

She was drawn back to it, dreadful curiosity overcoming the foreboding. The pool continued to swirl, becoming more and more agitated. Two spots of red appeared next to each other, each roughly the same size and shape, but appearing to be made of flame. They grew in size and intensity, as if they were eyes that had opened. Indeed, she felt as if they were looking at her. Even more so than the gaze, there was a malignant presence from elsewhere, an entity that gazed back at her through the pool.

Fear clawed at her insides. Her pool had never been used by any but her, and only at her bidding. Odin was able to occasionally communicate some gesture or look through the pool, but even then it was clear that he was only aware of being observed; he did not, could not, control the visions themselves. This being on the other side used the pool to observe her, and it exuded a lust for destruction. She had never felt such pure maliciousness before.

Freyja tried to pull away, to will her body to leave, but she felt tied to the pool and the entity’s magnetic force. She opened her mouth to speak the sacred runes, but no sound would escape her lips. Panic began to course through her as a third red spot appeared, below and between the two eyes. Her fear intensified as it elongated and took on the dimensions of a mouth, a malevolent smile etching itself on what appeared to be a face of flame.

Her muscles tensing, she attempted to force her voice to whisper the words that would end the vision in the pool. She did not know if the spell would work even if she could say it, but the power of this entity was leaking from the pool and snaking into her chamber, and she felt an urgency to stop it from crossing over onto Asgard. She was not sure if she imagined it or not, but the pool looked as though it was swelling. She became certain when she saw thin tendrils of water, arrayed in shifting oranges, reds, and yellows, creep over the edge and move toward her.

A low moaning coincided with the advancing tendrils of water, a sound that only barely registered, but which was full with menace. It grew, and she felt it reverberate throughout her body, the sounds leaving echoes within her, remnants that rattled her frame and sent pain into her like small worms boring through flesh.