Norse Code Part 10

Hermod sought a derisive reply, but standing before Hel, in her own hall, in the center of her own kingdom, all he could do was gesture at his surroundings and murmur, "I never wanted this."

"There are many who do not know what they want until it is lost," Hel said. "But in my kingdom, late reunions are often possible. I am generous. Those who dwell in my realm will find me a good gift-giver. Here, Valkyrie, I have something for you."

From the folds of her robe, Hel produced a gray cloth bundle. Hermod could make out the writing and logo on the cloth. It was a New Jersey Nets sweatshirt.

Hel lovingly unfolded the cloth. A man's severed head blinked.

"Adrian Hoover?" Hermod asked Mist. She nodded in mute response.

"Is this not the man you came for?" Hel said.

Mist's lips moved silently before she found her voice. "You decapitated him."

"His body became separated in transit," Hel said. "I don't know how, exactly. It happens."

"Put him out of his misery."

The soft, living half of Hel's mouth smiled. "But how, Valkyrie? Shall I remove his brain? He would still live and feel. Living death 'til the end of the worlds. That is the gift I bestow upon all who come here."

Hel folded the cloth back over Hoover's head. "Let our guests retire now," she said to Baldr.

"Please," said Mist. "I'm begging you. End his suffering. He's done nothing to deserve this." She lowered herself to her knees. "I'm begging you."

Hermod saw no cruelty in Hel's eyes, or pleasure in suffering. What he saw was resignation.

Baldr made a gesture, and a detail of draugr and Hel's soldiers escorted Mist, Hermod, Grimnir, and Winston from the throne room. Hands prodded them along, and just before exiting the chamber, Hermod glanced back at Hel and Baldr, elegant and somber on their high seats. Hel idly petted the bundle containing Adrian Hoover's living head as though it were a lapdog.

A LONG TIME ago on an Asgard seash.o.r.e, Munin and I are perched high in a tree overlooking Baldr's funeral. It is a grand affair, worthy of the Aesir's most beloved son. Frey comes in a chariot drawn by a boar, and Freya is there with her cats. Her dress is very pretty. Everyone is there: all the G.o.ds, and dwarves and elves and trolls, and even mountain giants and frost giants. The Aesir weep. Thor keeps blowing his nose, making a great schnoork sound that shakes the leaves from our tree.

Baldr's corpse, dressed in his finest white, is laid atop a pyre built on the deck of his ship. He manages to look beautiful and magisterial in death but also very cold. A slave stands by with a burning torch, ready to ignite the pyre, and logs are already in place to serve as rollers. Once the ship is lit, the Aesir will launch Baldr's body to sea.

Odin climbs the pyre. He has always hoped that the sibyl was wrong, that he wouldn't have to see blood on Baldr's breast. Sometimes witch babble is just witch babble, after all, but now here's the shocking white corpse of Baldr, whom Odin loves not in the way a war G.o.d loves a warrior but in the way a father loves his son.

Odin whispers something in Baldr's ear, but what he says, not even Munin and I can hear.

A woman wanders through the crowd of mourners, her hair in disarray, dark rings around her eyes. This is Nana, Baldr's wife.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" she asks Thor, grabbing his ma.s.sive forearm.

"All right? Nana, he's dead."

"Yes, but Hel will be kind to him, won't she? And Hermod will bring him back."

"I don't know, Nana." Thor gently withdraws his arm.

"Hermod will bring him back," she says, with utter conviction.

The pyre is lit, and soon Baldr's ship roars in full conflagration. It is a grand, beautiful pyre. According to Munin, in terms of thermal output, it is the best pyre ever.

I watch as Frigg says something to Vidar, and moments later he is at Nana's side. He is speaking to her, which is rare, for Vidar guards his words like a dragon guards its h.o.a.rd.

Nana swoons and falls into Vidar's waiting arms. Carefully carrying Nana over his shoulder, he climbs the burning ship and lays her in the fire, where she dies in the flames, crying weakly.

"She died of a broken heart," Frigg says.

The Aesir all nod in agreement.

HERMOD, MIST, and Grimnir were taken to some dimly lit apartments and left there without chains, though a company of armed guards remained posted outside the door. A table of meats and cheeses and bread and wine and cakes was laid out near the dead fire, untouched. Not even Winston would go near it.

Mist sat in a chair and stared at the dirt floor.

"That... really sucked," said Hermod. He came over and took her hand. He knew what it was like to fail in Helheim.

"Yeah," she said.

After a time, Grimnir lumbered over. "So, we gonna get out of here or what?"

Hermod rubbed his face, trying to see if he could force his skin to feel blood circulating beneath. "There's a whole platoon of Baldr's goons outside. What do you suggest?"

"I could act really sick, and then when someone comes in to check me out, we lower the boom."

"Why would anyone in the land of the dead care if you got sick?" Mist asked.

"Good answer, kid," Grimnir said. "I was just testing you."

"Thanks. What's wrong with breaking the door down and fighting them with overwhelming force?"

"Baldr took our weapons," Grimnir pointed out. "Without them, our overwhelming force is going to be somewhat lacking in the over department."

They each floated a number of ideas for escape. Grimnir offered an impressive variety of them, but by the time he got to setting off fire-suppression systems, it became clear that he was no longer trying to form a plan as much as he was reminiscing about fonder days.

I could let you out.

The papery rasp came from the hearth. Pale flames wavered there.

I know all the ways here, Hermod, and I know the ways out.

Mist raised her eyebrows at Hermod. "The fireplace seems to know you."

"Funny. I don't think I know any fireplaces." Hermod took a step closer to the hearth. "Who are you?"

The flames danced an inch or two higher. Have you already forgotten the daughter of Nep, Hermod, my kin?

Hermod hissed air through his teeth. "Nana?"

Ah, good. I was afraid everyone had forgotten that I ever lived.

Hermod came closer to the fire and crouched before it. "Where are you?"

I am in the fire, of course.

He shivered a little.

Mist came up beside Hermod. "Who is it?" she whispered.

"Baldr's wife," he said, peering into the flames. "So, uh, Nana, how've you been?"

*A little lonely. Baldr doesn't spend much time with me anymore. There aren't any fires near Hel's high seat.*

In Asgard, Baldr had been a loving and devoted husband to Nana-but Hermod supposed thousands of years in the deadlands would strain even the best marriage.

"How long have you been a fire elemental?" he asked.

The flames popped and crackled. I've always had an affinity for hearths. I like hearths. They're the center of good homes, where men and women mate and have healthy children. I like homes. I like children. But I couldn't speak through flames until I burned up and died on Baldr's pyre. It was very hot. It hurt.

"I'm sure it must have," Hermod said. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. It was very unfair."

Yes. It was kind of you to ask Hel to release Hod. Hod and I used to keep each other company here, after Baldr decided he liked Hel better than me.

"Do you know where Hod is now?"

Not exactly. Looking for a way out. Wherever he is, there's no fire. There's hardly fire anywhere in all of Helheim.

Grimnir circled his index finger in a hurry-up gesture, which Hermod was inclined to ignore both on general principle and out of sympathy for Nana. But the thug did have a point.

Hermod cleared his throat. "Nana, you said you could help us escape?"

Yes. I know the way. Just take my hand.

Mist and Hermod exchanged a glance, and Hermod could only shrug. "Nana, you don't seem to have hands."

Oh, of course. I'm sorry. It's been so long since I've had to think properly. I usually talk to the dead, and they don't think properly either, so I don't often bother. I will manifest my body for you.

The little fire drew in on itself, shrinking but glowing slightly brighter. Then, with a sizzle that sounded like a hiss of pain, the flames shot five feet in the air and took on a flickering, not quite opaque, but distinctly human form.

Hermod had feared she would appear as she looked at the time of her death, her clean flesh charred and b.l.o.o.d.y, but she looked as he remembered her.

She held out a slender, wavering hand. Come with me, and I'll take you outside through the fire.

"Right, hold the phone," Grimnir said. "How does this work, and where are we going?"

You take my hand, Nana said very patiently. And we go through the fire. Outside.

"And then we'll be a pile of ashes or something?"

I am the closest thing Helheim has to a G.o.ddess of the hearth, Nana said. There was now only the slightest hint of imperiousness in her tone. I will not harm you.

"That's rea.s.suring," Grimnir said. "And I mean no disrespect, but why are you helping us?"

I don't like Hel. Baldr doesn't like me. I like Hermod. I'm not sure I like you, but Hermod seems to like you. I neither like nor dislike the Valkyrie. Oh, and I like your dog, she added as an afterthought.

"Convinced?" Hermod said to Grimnir.

"No. You go first."

Hermod grasped Nana's hand. It was quite hot, but it didn't burn. Mist took her other hand, and then, with a mix of hesitation and bl.u.s.ter, Grimnir latched on to Nana's wrist.

"Wait," Hermod said, letting go. "What about my dog?"

Nana told Hermod to take Winston by the collar. A moment later his vision went orange, then white, and it did burn, everything burned, searing pain, and he was sure he'd been suckered again, but he held on anyway. They emerged in a small ring of stones, where a campfire lapped against the chill air outside the hall. Only after hopping out of the flames did Hermod notice they were surrounded by a half dozen guards.

Startled, the guards scrambled to their feet. They wore an a.s.sortment of ragged military uniforms, and all were armed with wicked-looking serrated spears.

Grimnir took the initiative, grabbing one of the guards' spears with both hands and twisting it away. He impaled the man through the chest, pinning him to the ground. The guard wiggled, angrily screaming, "Oi! What's this? Oi!"

I'm sorry I couldn't get you farther away Nana said. As I told you, there aren't many fires burning in Helheim. But I did find the men guarding your things. They were trying to warm their hands.

While Mist and Winston struggled with another of the guards, Hermod risked a glance down into the fire. Their bags were piled there. He dove away from a spear thrust, rolled through the flames, almost smothering them, and grabbed the bags. Another guard attacked, but Hermod managed to duck under his spear and swing his bag, with his sword inside, into the guard's face. He heard bones crack.

He removed his sword from his duffel and thrust up through the armpit of the next attacking guard. It felt obscenely good.

With the guards temporarily out of commission, no more a.s.saults came. Hermod looked around.

"Did we get them all?" he asked the others.

"Yeah," Mist said, coming over to get her own bag. "They kinda sucked."

Those weren't guards, said Nana in a tiny voice. The campfire was barely alive now. They were keepers.

"Keepers of what?" Grimnir said, testing the weight of his sword in one hand and a captured spear in the other.

A gust of wind moaned across the mesa, and the flames wavered and died, and there was no answer from the fire. A howl rose in the air, a hornlike lament. Winston whined and turned over to submissively show his belly.

Down a crooked narrow path, nestled into the rock, sat a pen built around the mouth of a cave.

Hermod pried his dry lips open with his tongue. "Run."

He led his group down the switchback, the jagged rock wall beside them sharp enough to cut flesh and the edge of the path sheering off into a steep drop. Looking over his shoulder, Hermod caught sight of an enormous hound loping after them. Easily fifteen feet at the shoulders, with a corrugated rib cage and small, expressionless black eyes, Hel's hound gave chase.

There was no way to outrun Garm. With every lunging stride down the narrow slope, the hound closed in by yards. They would have to stop and fight it, and after his trials with the wolves in Midgard, and the long journey to Helheim, and even the scuffle with Garm's keepers, Hermod wasn't sure how much fight he had left in him.

Still sprinting forward, he reached into his duffel and dug out a small leather pouch. He'd probably transferred that parcel from one carrying bag to another a hundred times without ever opening it up. He unfastened the leather thong.

The Hel cake, as hard as wood, still smelled of honey and spice. It was a souvenir from his first visit to Helheim, taken as a trophy to show his Aesir kin that he'd completed his journey; by the time he'd gotten back to Asgard, though, he'd lost all interest in proving anything. Still, he'd kept it all these years.