Giants of the Frost Page 37

  “I’ll go to Loki,” she said.

  “Is that what you want?”

  Her cheeks flushed and he realized he’d angered her. “No, Vidar, it’s not what I want. I want to return to Vanaheim. I want to be with my son. I want . . .” She trailed off, her eyes glazed with tears.

  “Aud?”

  “I want you to love me, Vidar,” she said softly. “You don’t. I can’t go home. I can’t be with Helgi. I made my choice and am prepared to suffer the punishment, so please don’t torture me any longer with these concerns for my future, which I can tell are just afterthoughts to you.”

  Chastened, Vidar bowed his head. His hair dripped onto the rock. “I’m sorry, Aud. You aren’t an afterthought.”

  “But I’m not as important as her.”

  “I love her.”

  “Why?”

  Ordinarily he would be silenced by such a question, but Aud had opened her heart to him and there could be little harm now in him doing likewise. “She is precious, she is mortal. Her heart beats faster than ours, and her skin is softer, and she arouses in me the tenderest, most passionate, most unrelenting feelings.”

  Aud’s mouth tightened. “I can only wish you happiness then.”

  “Happiness will be ours for only a short time. Aud, I am doomed to watch her grow old and die. I would exchange anything I had of value to grow old and die beside her.” He stopped, uncomfortable with having spoken too much.

  “But fate would have it otherwise,” Aud said, her eyes drawn to the west.

  “Yes.”

  “We are all slaves,” she said, her gaze far away.

  “I will leave Arvak in your good care,” he said gently. “If you treat him well, he’ll always be faithful.”

  She didn’t respond.

  He touched her shoulder. “Aud? Are you listening?”

  She turned and her dark eyes were serious as they met his. “Vidar, if you could ask the Norns for anything, what would it be?”

  His body tensed. “What do you mean?”

  “Would you be mortal? Disavow your Aesir blood and be a mortal man, to grow toothless and old and stiff in the joints?”

  “To be with Victoria? To father children with her?”

  “Yes. Would you?”

  “I would.”

  “Then come with me. I’ll show you where they live.”

  He felt excited and frightened all at once. “Aud, are you sure? Helgi?”

  “I’m no longer his guardian, Vidar. Helgi is not my child to mind, to fret over, to keep well and happy. I accept that now.”

  “Is it not your last pleasure to see him?”

  “It has not been a pleasure for a long time.”

  He took both her hands in his and his mind was too overwhelmed for his tongue to form words of gratitude. Finally, he whispered, “Then, Aud, I will accept your offer and be in your debt until the world’s end.”

  “Come, then,” she said, climbing to her feet. “Anything is possible now.”

  Aud led him so far into the dark beneath the World Tree that he feared she would lose them both in the passageways, but as he was framing a gracious way to express his doubts, a faint glow emerged around the next bend.

  Aud held a finger to her lips and took his hand. She led him silently around the rocky outcrop and into the grotto where the Norns lived.

  There was a moment of peace as he watched them work, their fingers flying over the glittering rainbow threads. Then one of them glanced up and suddenly everything was in confusion.

  “Aud! What have you done?”

  “I knew we couldn’t trust her.”

  “This is your fault.”

  “No, it’s your fault!”

  “She’ll never see that brooch again.”

  “Sisters! Sisters!” Aud cried, hands aloft as she tried to calm them. “Sisters, I am sorry. Let me explain.”

  They huffed and muttered, but quieted.

  “Sisters,” Aud continued, “I am sorry. I don’t expect your forgiveness. I’m a wretched creature, but I could no longer stand to see Helgi and be separated from him. I’m prepared to end our appointments.”

  “This is your fault, Skuld,” Verda muttered.

  “I knew no good would come of what you told her.”

  “You should think before you speak.”

  “Sisters, listen to me, please. I have brought Vidar to you because he wishes to make a request. Whether you fulfill it or not is your decision. I haven’t told another soul where you live, and you can move on as soon as we are gone. Vidar is dear to me, and I saw it in my power to help him. I . . .” Aud faltered and Vidar stepped forward.

  “I love a mortal woman,” he said. Their dim faces were unsurprised in the gloom, watching him by the almost light of the rainbow threads. “I wish to be mortal with her.”

  “You wish to be mortal!” Urd squawked. “You wish to die?”

  Vidar hesitated, a fraction of a moment, then gathered his courage. “I do. At a life’s end, as an old man, by my lover’s side.”

  “That will change everything,” Skuld said. “You are marked out for other things by your family.”

  “I have a surfeit of brothers who could take the yoke as well as me, and probably relish it. Give my fate to Vali.”

  “Or Thor,” Aud interjected, glancing meaningfully at Urd. “He would always be grateful to the sister who promoted his glory.”

  “I am prepared to make a payment, as Aud has,” he said, rushing into the thoughtful silence that Aud’s comment had aroused in Urd.

  “Have you a thousand years to give us?” Skuld said, taking her hands off the thread and pointing a long bony finger at him.

  “He can serve his thousand years first,” Urd suggested.

  “No, no,” Vidar said. “I have to be with Victoria now. Tonight.” He was growing concerned. It would become dark soon. He had hoped to get away the instant the sun fell behind the world. But the Norns clearly wouldn’t be rushed.

  “His father’s the problem,” Urd said knowingly. “After last time—”

  “His father is right to be worried if he’s standing here telling us he wants to be mortal.”

  Vidar turned to Aud, and whispered, “How long will it take them to decide?”

  She shrugged. “Seconds, hours, it’s all the same to them.”

  “Why can’t you stand up to your father?” Verda asked accusingly, her eye fixed on him.

  “My father won’t listen to reason,” Vidar said. “My father thinks with his sword.”

  “Grant him the wish, I don’t care,” said Skuld.

  “Give his fate to Thor,” Urd said. “He might be grateful enough to visit.”

  “Oh, you are a ninny, Urd. Thor wouldn’t be interested in a wizened old fool like you,” Verda reprimanded.

  “Sisters, please,” Aud said. “Vidar hopes to return to Midgard tonight.”

  “We won’t be rushed!”

  “We need an hour to decide!”

  Vidar slid to the ground and rested his back against the wall. The chill of earth and stone seeped into his body, making him shiver. It would stay dark for many hours. He still had time to cross the bridge. A new fate gleamed up ahead of him, an ordinary, happy fate. “I’ll wait, sisters,” he said. “What’s an hour? I’ll lose more than that if you make me mortal.”

  The hour turned into two as the sisters bickered among themselves in low voices. Aud sat beside him, her eyes fixed on the floor of the cave. She looked young and vulnerable, a childlike confusion coloring her expression. Vidar wished he felt something more than pity for her. He wished he ached for her. He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Aud,” he whispered.

  She offered him a weak smile and a shrug. He wanted to say he was sorry. Instead, he remained silent.

  “We have it!” the Norns chorused.

  Vidar sprang to his feet. “What have you decided?”

  Skuld’s fingers were pulling thread up from the floor. “I’m finding it now.”
<
br />   “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve decided to grant your request, Vidar,” Verda said.

  Vidar’s heart lurched in his chest.

  “Here it is,” Skuld said, her fingertips twitching over an inch of the thread. She looped it over her fingertip and pulled out a small knife. “This may hurt a little,” she said, and snapped the blade into the thread.

  Vidar felt a jerk inside him, but no pain.

  “What was that?”

  “That,” Skuld said, holding out her palm, “is a little piece of fate. Yours and Victoria’s.” She held three inches of thread, still pulsing with rainbow colors. “It’s connected to all the other things you are fated to do, together and apart, ordinary and extraordinary. And it’s enough to change everything.”

  “For everything will change, Vidar,” Urd said. “You are used to your immortal blood. You could walk all day and night now, but only a few hours as a mortal.”

  “Your joints will ache.”

  “Your stomach will be at the mercy of whatever food you eat.”

  “You will grow forgetful.”

  Vidar, poised on the moment of destiny’s turning, grew impatient. “I welcome it all,” he said. “Victoria and I must be together, at any cost.”

  “Take this,” Skuld said.

  He moved forward and she dropped the thread onto his palm.

  “You see that the colors still beat in it,” Verda said. “That means possibilities are still in play. Once your new fate is decided, it will turn black.”

  “What am I to do with it?” Vidar asked.

  “Keep it safe,” Urd said. “Take it to your father.”

  “My father? I have to see my father?”

  Skuld took up the explanation. “My sisters and I are concerned. We believe you are afraid of your father.”

  Vidar drew himself to his full height in indignation. “I am not afraid of my father. I am afraid of what he will do to those I love.”

  Urd tittered. “Oh, he’s afraid.”

  “If you are not afraid,” Skuld said forcefully, “then it will be no trouble to take this thread to him.”

  Vidar bit down on his pride. “What must I do?”

  “You must take this thread to him and declare your intention to be mortal. The change of fate will happen upon that moment.”

  “My father will be angry. He will still go after Victoria.”

  All three sisters were shaking their heads.

  “No, no,” said Verda. “Thor will have gathered your fate.”

  “Odin won’t care. You’ll be the least-favored of his sons.”

  “He’ll let you go. He’ll forget you.”

  Vidar looked at the thread, so fine and delicate in his rough palm.

  “Now listen, Vidar, for this is important,” Skuld said. “We will not ask for your thousand years, as you are giving up far more than that in becoming mortal. However, should you misuse the thread, one thousand years is instantly forfeit.”

  “You are only to ask for mortality to be with Victoria.”

  “Don’t you dare change any other aspect of your fate.”

  “You will not like the punishment.”

  Vidar was only half-listening, gazing at the thread and trying to slow the rhythm of his blood. “Anything is possible,” he said.

  “Vidar,” Skuld warned, closing his fingers over the thread, “the thread will turn black when your fate is decided. Or if either of you dies.”

  Vidar’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

  “Death is the end of fate’s possibilities,” Urd said, almost absently, as she resumed her work.

  “When fate is no longer in play, it no longer has color,” Verda added, picking up her loom.

  “Yes, but why do you tell me this?”

  Skuld fixed her pale eyes on him in the dark. “Vidar,” she said, “do you know where your father is?”

  Vidar’s blood chilled in an instant. “My father . . .” With sudden terror, he turned to run back through the labyrinth.

  “Wait, Vidar!” Aud called. “You need me to help you find the way!”

  He found it by instinct, retracing their steps until fresh air beckoned ahead. He emerged into the first shadows of evening. Black clouds were eating the stars from the east and thunder growled and shuddered down on the hills and valleys.

  “No. Oh, no.”

  Aud burst from the tree behind him, panting. “Vidar? What’s wrong?”

  The wind howled in the enormous branches above them, the screech of an ancient goddess wronged. Vidar whistled for Arvak.

  “Odin,” Vidar managed to gasp, handing the thread to Aud who slipped it into her apron. He whistled again. Arvak appeared from the shadows. Vidar searched his pack, hoping until it hurt that this was just an ordinary storm. His hand closed over the flask of seeing-water he had stolen from Odin’s chamber.

  “Help me, Aud,” he said, handing her the flask. The note of despair in his voice set his own nerves loose. “Pour some of this water into my hands.”

  She handed the flask back, taking charge. “No, your hands will shake too much.” She cupped her own hands in front of him. “Go on.”

  He poured the seeing-water and Aud held perfectly still while he drew the runes.

  “Quickly, Vidar,” she said. “It runs between my fingers.”

  Vidar peered close in the dark. Bifrost. Heimdall. Odin on Sleipnir, galloping to the edge of the cliff. He turned, plunged a spear between the two pillars of the Bridge.

  “Close it!” he bellowed, though it was little more than a whisper to Vidar’s ears.

  Heimdall said something that Vidar couldn’t hear.

  “I said close it!” Odin roared. He turned his back and urged Sleipnir on. “Do not open the bridge under any circumstances. No man shall cross until I return with the woman’s head.”

  Thirty

  [Midgard]

  I had never felt fear before. I knew that now. At exam time in my university days, unable to sleep or eat in anticipation of that hushed moment when I flipped the paper over to see what horrors awaited me, that wasn’t fear. The time I’d been sitting in an empty carriage on the Circle line in the early morning, when a drunken skinhead had lurched on board and threatened to kill me unless I gave him my purse, that wasn’t fear. Perhaps those occasions had been worry, concern, anxiety, but fear was something different.

  When I realized that Odin was on his way, fear split open the world around me and let in a bright, sizzling heat. My body felt so vulnerable and helpless that I half expected it to collapse to the observation deck like a straw doll.

  I locked the door behind me and took a moment to still my heart and admit some order to my head.

  Was it possible, even a little, that this was an aberrant but explicable weather phenomenon? Time grew elastic as I leaned against the back of a chair watching the readouts blinking and bleating in front of me. Skepticism had so long been my default setting that the idea of sounding the lockdown alarm seemed at first preposterous.

  The women and children, hanged and burned, like ghastly dolls.

  The image came back to me. If Odin was responsible for this storm and sought to repeat history, then other people were in danger too. My skepticism would be no comfort to me if I hesitated too long.

  I pressed the lockdown alarm and the siren began to pulse throughout the station and out over the cabins. I pressed my face against the glass and could see lights coming on in windows, wondering what I had started, and whether Vidar would come to help us.

  One of the computers beeped and I turned to see the urgent e-notification flashing. I opened it. It was from the Institute, but in Norwegian. I typed “translate” and sent it back. Twenty seconds later it was there again. Check your readings, Kirkja.

  Presuming they meant the high temperature, I typed, Readings accurate.

  The white letters flashed onto the screen: Storm cell size? Bomb system?

  I flicked my eyes to the radar, and my heart jolted
. A storm, two hundred and fifty kilometers across, was approaching from the northeast.

  “Dear God,” I muttered, fingers on the keyboard ready to reply. Then a brilliant flash and a mighty crack temporarily disabled two of my senses. When I opened my eyes, all the computers were resetting, flashing notification that the cable was down. Lightning had struck the satellite dish.

  “What the hell is going on?” Magnus roared, dashing up the stairs.

  “It’s a bomb cyclone,” I said, arms helplessly flapping at my sides. “Two-fifty across. It’s going to knock us out.”

  Magnus threw open the door to the observation deck and gazed anxiously at the sky.

  Josef and Alex burst in.

  “What is it? How big is it?” Alex panted, heading straight for the radar PC.

  “They’re all out,” I said. “Lightning hit the satellite.”

  The others were gathering. Gunnar dived under the desk trying to restore the computer lines. Magnus put on his best calm voice and told everyone to listen. The lockdown alarm continued to pulse.

  “It appears we’re in the path of a bomb weather system approaching from the northeast. I don’t want anybody to panic, as we’re sheltered on that side by the forest and this building is designed to withstand extreme weather. But lightning has taken out our satellite dish and—”

  Another flash and a crack. Maryanne yelped with fear. Darkness descended and the siren abruptly cut off. My heart contracted and I began to tremble uncontrollably.

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody get a flashlight.”

  A beam of white appeared in the dark and lit up our anxious faces. Gordon strode out to the deck and shined the flashlight down on the generator shed. “It’s been hit,” he said.

  I ran to his side and peered down. The shed was blasted and black, a gaping hole in the roof. “Oh, God,” I gasped, forcing breath in and out of my lungs.

  “Our generator as well?” Josef said, bewildered.

  “I’ll go,” Frida said, pulling on a raincoat. “I’ll get the backup running.”

  “No!” I cried. “Nobody can leave.”