Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (4 page)

A
sgard is an alien place, nothing like you see in the movies or comics or fantasy paintings. Except maybe it has a watercolor feel to it, pigments splashed on stark white paper with sharp defined edges and everything blending in the middle. Atticus described it a bit like that—the light is strained and cold and sere, unlike Tír na nÓg, which has the visual warmth and richness of a John William Waterhouse painting. I really don’t belong here and I cannot wait to leave.

Orlaith and I are stuck, however, until I can remove Loki’s mark from my arm, and Odin represents my best chance of making that happen.

He told me the mark is a sort of cloak keyed to Loki’s genetic signature—but the god of lies can see through that cloak if he wishes. Hel and Jörmungandr have the mark, too, and that’s what’s keeping them hidden from the gods, frustrating Odin and Manannan Mac Lir and everyone else trying to divine their locations. But Loki knows where they are at all times, just like he knows I’m in Asgard now. He would dearly love to know what I’m doing here—he said as much and threatened Orlaith in an attempt to get me to explain my first trip, when I’d come to ask for Odin’s help.

The allfather said at that time that he would need Loki’s genetic material to dissolve the mark and it was my task to procure some. That’s when I returned to the cabin in Colorado, to find Loki waiting for me. He thought to surprise me, but our cabin was well warded against fire and I was able to surprise him instead. I gave Loki a tomahawk in his back and a swift blow to the jaw, and he gave me blood and teeth and a measure of vengeance for what he did to me.

The unfortunate upshot is that our cabin in Colorado is not safe anymore; Loki knows about it now, and the new place in Oregon won’t be ready for days or possibly weeks. I suppose it’s working out as it should: Atticus is hunting down the man who killed his friend in Alaska, and I have much to occupy me here. Not in terms of active tasks, since there is little to do but wait for Odin to craft a solution, but rather in terms of personal growth: I need to construct a new headspace, and I must decide whether to erect a literary scaffolding in a language where I already have some fluency, such as Russian, or to learn something entirely new. Frigg was kind enough to grab a selection of works for me from “some library on Midgard,” and I am reading a copy of Dostoevsky’s
Notes from Underground
now. I find myself agreeing with a passage here and there:
Nature doesn’t ask your permission; it doesn’t care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You’re obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well.
That isn’t bad at all, but after the ecstatic optimism of Walt Whitman, he’s a bit like plain oatmeal to my taste—fiber-rich and good for you, but lacking a certain joy. That may be true of almost everyone, though, compared to Whitman. Regardless, I will have to read more extensively in the language before I make my decision. If I’m going to take the trouble to memorize something, I want it to be transcendent and worthy of echoes in my head.

What truly echoes in my head continuously, though I’d much rather it would be silent, is the voice of my younger self, crying out to deliver a long-deserved comeuppance to my stepfather. For he is a man, like Dostoevsky’s vision of nature, who does not ask permission or care about your wishes or whether you like him. He plunders and pollutes the world at the same time and sneers at everyone who doesn’t have the guts to just take everything they can while they can.

I confessed to Atticus once that I wanted to become a Druid partly to reach my stepfather, since human laws wouldn’t. Atticus pointed out that going after individual polluters wasn’t rational, and I see that. He’s right. But this need isn’t rational. It’s emotional, and I have to do something about it. I can’t simply let it go and walk away. He’s more than a mere polluter. He’s a dick who laughs at animals dying in his oil spills.

Yet I fear that in my own private revenge fantasies I’m missing giant signs along the road that say
FATAL MISTAKE AHEAD
and
DO NOT ENTER, FOR DEATH AWAITS YOU WITH NASTY BIG SHARP POINTY TEETH
. I’m acutely aware that I should free my mind of his poison and just outlive him. But sometimes we do things that make no sense except in some arcane calculus hidden in our emotions. And we can seek therapy or religion to provide us relief like balm on chafed skin, but that’s denying our own power to heal ourselves and trying to silence old pain with new opiates. Somehow I will need to deal with him, knowing it won’t work out just the way I want but emerging from it feeling purged of his lingering gloom.

It’s a measure of his enduring power over me that I could think of him in such surroundings. Despite the alien feel of Asgard, I could not wish for a couch more magnificent for my studies; my guest quarters are liberally supplied with flowers and fruit and ample light, and there is a warm thermal spring for bathing when I want to forsake one luxury for another.

It’s a couple of days of such isolated decadence before I’m summoned to Odin’s hall. He believes he’s found a solution, and the dwarf Runeskald, Fjalar, is with him, as is his wife, Frigg.

Odin holds up a stone chop that looks distressingly familiar and speaks in a smoky whiskey voice. “If we’re going to free you from Loki’s mark, we’re going to have to fight fire with fire. Fjalar has lent his aid in crafting a Rune of Ashes that will burn away that which has been burned into you. It is infused with Loki’s genetic code, thanks to the teeth you provided, and that will unlock the seal and allow transformation.”

That sounds like more than I want. “Uh … transformation into what?”

“Into a free human. But also into a defeat for Loki.” Odin displays the briefest of smiles, but he isn’t properly keeping score, in my view. Loki didn’t just brand me down in that pit outside Thanjavur—he took two very powerful magical weapons with him: the Lost Arrows of Vayu, and Fuilteach, my whirling blade crafted by the yeti. To even the score, someone would have to steal them back.

Odin hands the stone chop to Fjalar, who places it in the grip of a pair of iron tongs and thrusts it into the coals burning in Odin’s hearth. Scenes from several movies flash through my head, where the bad guy does something similar to stimulate dread in the restrained protagonist, but I am looking forward to it. I would endure any pain to get rid of Loki’s mark. Pain fades, but freedom is an enduring joy. Admittedly, the freedom I’m seeking is a mental thing—I mostly want my privacy back. Knowing you’re being watched by a creep isn’t like any physical restraint, but it
is
a shackle on your conscience.

We stare at the fire together for perhaps ten seconds and then become aware that waiting in silence for the entire time it takes to heat the chop would be uncomfortable. Frigg clears her throat and says to Fjalar, “Do you leave for Svartálfheim soon?”

“Very soon,” he says, but before I can inquire why he might be going to visit the dark elves, Odin chimes in with the perceptible air of one who wishes desperately to talk of something else.

“Tell me, Granuaile, did Loki reveal anything else that might allow us to guess when he will act?” he asks.

“No, I did most of the talking. Told him I would kill him the next time I saw him. He didn’t reply, but I assume the reverse is true.”

I shift my eyes back to the dwarf, considering. The last time I saw him, the Runeskald was working on axes that would cut dark elves in their smoke forms and force them to take physical shape again. If he is going to visit Svartálfheim, it might not be an innocuous trip.

Fjalar forestalls any more conversation by saying, “It’s ready.” The stone is glowing faintly red when he plucks it out of the fire. It’s not bright orange like Loki’s was, but I have no doubt I’ll feel the heat just fine. “Your arm, please, quickly.”

Orlaith, I’m going to be in pain and yell a bit, but don’t get upset. I need this.

I roll up my left sleeve, exposing my biceps where Loki branded me. Fjalar’s gloved left hand reaches out and guides my hand under his left armpit, bracing me there and using his palm to lock my elbow and keep the arm straight.

“Do your best not to move. Fight the instinct.”

“I will,” I say, nodding to him and tucking my tongue firmly behind my teeth. I don’t want to bite it off when the pain hits—and I’m quite sure it will hit regardless of what I do to block it. I’d been blocking all the pain I could when Loki branded me and I still felt it; his chop did more than burn the skin—it seared the aura, if I understood Odin correctly, marked me on a level beyond mere flesh. Fjalar’s Rune of Ashes will presumably do the same. At least I hope it will; multiple tries at this would not be fun.

I can feel the heat radiating from the stone on my cheeks and arm as Fjalar positions the chop above my biceps.

“Do it,” I tell him through clenched teeth, and he doesn’t hesitate. He clutches my elbow tightly and brings down the chop directly on top of Loki’s mark, and the sizzling pain is nothing I could have prepared for. It burns everywhere, not just on my arm, and my muscles seize up and even my throat is unable to scream past an initial cry of shock. But that first, quick gasp opens my mouth and then, despite trying to prepare for it, I bite my tongue anyway. I taste coppery blood in my mouth, and sweat pops out on my skin all over.

“Gah!” Blood spurts out of my mouth and sprays Fjalar in the face. He’s keeping the rune on my arm much longer than Loki did. Or maybe it only seems that way.

Orlaith’s voice cries out in my mind.

I agree heartily but tell her,
It won’t be much longer. I’ll heal.

“We have to make sure we burn it all away,” Fjalar says.

“It’s through … my skin!”

“Ah! So it is.”

He yanks the rune away and some additional strips of skin come away with it. He releases my arm and calls to a pair of Valkyries. “Bring the water.”

I miss where they come from or how long it takes for them to get there—an eternity of pain—but two Valkyries arrive with a large vase sloshing with cold water. I thrust my arm into it, and the lancing fire abates somewhat. Then I’m able to shut off the nerves, pull it out in relief, and examine the hole in my biceps. There’s not a trace of Loki’s mark left—just crispy Granuaile. I can’t flex my arm, but I laugh in delirium anyway. The god of lies used some dark unholy thing to break most of my bones and then branded me, thinking it would break my mind too, turn me into his meek servant. Well, it hadn’t quite worked.

“Haha. Hahahahaha. Fuck Loki.” I turn to Odin and grin broadly, not caring if it looks as unhinged as it feels to my own muscles. “Am I right?”

W
hile the bathwater ran, I unwrapped one of those laughably small hotel soaps and then looked at the mud caked on Oberon’s fur, especially his belly. It was a David and Goliath situation, but I had little choice except to proceed and hope the wee bar of soap would win.

“All right, buddy, here we go,” I said, starting out by splashing him underneath and then pouring cups of water on his back. “No shaking yourself until we’re through.”

“Okay, let’s begin,” I said.

To understand what happened to me, you have to know a little bit of Toronto history first.

I had come to Toronto in the fall of 1953 as a pre-med student. The world had learned a lot about surgery and patching up bodies after shooting the hell out of everything in two world wars and another war in Korea, and I thought I might be able to pick up something useful, so I enrolled in the University of Toronto under the name of Nigel Hargrave, with every intention of staying a few years as an earnest wanna-be doctor. I wound up staying only a few months, and the reason for that is a spooky old building and a tragedy in the nineteenth century.

The University of Toronto was actually a collection of old colleges, many of which were religiously affiliated, and one such college—now the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor Street—used to be a Baptist seminary long ago. It’s a red stone Gothic marvel built in 1881, the kind of building where you’re sure the architect was laughing maniacally to himself as he huffed a lungful of lead-based paint fumes. Pointy spires and sharply sloped roofs and large windows. Wood floors that echo and creak when you step on them. And attending the seminary in the late nineteenth century was a young man named Nigel, betrothed to Gwendolyn from Winnipeg, dark of hair and possessed of a jealous eye.