More time passes. I spend it staring at the ceiling, wishing I had my cell phone. Or, at the very least, a fucking cigarette.
I have neither, however, so instead I occupy myself with delusions of rescue. These mainly involve Sigmund, dressed in some suitably revealing “armor,” kicking in the door to the cell, crying my name in an anguished way, then coming to rub himself all over me while stroking my horns and telling me how brave I am and how worried he was.
Because to hell with reality, he’s joined a moment later by Sigyn, covered in blood and brandishing Magni’s head like a trophy. The pair kiss me senseless for a while, then unlock my chains and suddenly it’s time for a nice soft bed and a threesome.
I’m halfway through imagining the taste of Sigmund’s tongue and the feel of Sigyn’s hand between my thighs when the cell door bursts open once again. Jötunn anatomy is discreet in these matters, which is nice because I’m technically naked and getting caught by Forseti with a raging boner is not a deliverable on my current project plan.
Forseti is grim and stern and, sadly, also trailing Thor’s brats behind him.
“Is it time to go yet?” I ask. “ ‘Cause it’s getting kinda dull in here and you really wouldn’t like me when I’m bored.”
“Silence, silver tongue,” Forseti says. “From now on you will speak only when spoken to.”
“Or what?” I ask. When Magni grins, it occurs to me I may come to regret the question.
“How does this work, then?” he says. To his brother, not to me. As he speaks, he raises his left hand. There’s something on the palm, a tattoo in dark ink, still raw-edged and fresh.
The design on the tattoo is familiar. It should be; it’s part of the one repeated over and over on my own back.
“The curse’s runes are complex,” Móði is saying. “I couldn’t quite—” He shoots one look at me, swallows visibly, then continues, “Spit will be pain. Blood, agony.”
(oh, fuck)
I know how this goes. Back in the ’70s I spent an evening in a bar in Hong Kong, buying drinks for a shitfaced Sun Wukong. Sometime between the “falling down” and “passed out” stages of drunkenness, the Monkey God told me about his so-called Journey to the West. Specifically, the “magic torture headband” part of it.
It hadn’t, by his account, been the best experience of his life. Even with a Buddhist priest holding the whip, and a Bodhisattva of compassion watching from the sidelines.
Here, now, in this cell, I have neither of those things. Instead, what I have are three bloodthirsty assholes who still believe in blood vengeance and slavery.
And one of them is licking the palm of his left hand.
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This time, it takes me longer to come back. Bound and trapped, the skin of my back and biceps burning like raw flesh rubbed with sea salt.
It doesn’t last long, but it doesn’t have to. Not with a thousand years held just beneath the surface. The memory of poison, hissing as it fills the hollows of burned-out sockets, the taste of it running down a throat already left black and full of holes.
When I howl, the earth itself echoes with my pain, but this time no succor is coming. No bowl held in trembling hands will reappear above my head, bringing a comfort timed by the agonizing drip drip drip of the countdown till world’s end.
Instead, I get a slap across the cheek.
“—t’s wrong with it? You said it would be a moment, only.”
I’m hauled upright, eyes blind and Wyrdsight splintered by my own fear, awareness of the world outside breaking further with each trembling shudder of my hearts.
“Ergi jötunn bitch can’t take a little pain.”
I lash out, or try to, hands held back first by chains, then by a weight, pressing me hard against the wall, cold stone rough against my cheek and chest and—
“Control yourself, your hysterics shame us all.”
Forseti. That’s Forseti’s voice, and his arms I can feel holding me still. Jesus. Fuck. The little shit is right. PTSD and panic attacks won’t help me now. Not with— with—
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
The word runs in my head, over and over, and I use it to time my breath. In, fuck, out, fuck, in, fuck, out, fuck.
Slowly, piece by piece, I take and all the fear and pain—all the helplessness—and file it away into a box. The box is shaped like a heart, and it beats black venom, eating up every awful thing it’s fed. And, as it swells and fattens, I feel my breathing slow.
Then, finally:
“Well. That was fun.” Describing my voice as “thready” would be generous, and when Forseti steps back, I slump in an exhausted heap against the wall, bones dissolving into slurry beneath my skin.
“That is your leash.” Forseti is grim and dour, from his voice to his stance to the thin line of his lips, and the taste of it is like the dull gray lead of bullet. “Be obedient, and your masters will not be forced to use it.”
I stare straight at Magni. He’s grinning, eyes gleaming with a dark malice that sends a strange ache straight through my hearts.
After Ragnarøkkr, Thor had been unrecognizable beneath his wounds, face all but torn away, guts spilling out over his belt. He had no love for the jötnar, was a berserker through and through, but I refuse to believe he would look now on his sons with pride.
Maybe. Or maybe that’s just Lain talking, too much of Baldr’s soft heart and Travis Hale’s modern sensibilities. For all the news would have us believe otherwise, violence and torture are just so unfashionable nowadays. So many people have forgotten so much about just how blood-soaked the past could be.
“The runes will trigger from any distance,” Móði says. “Do not think running will save you.” He can’t look at me when he speaks.
“Got it,” I say, somehow managing to push myself off the wall and stand.
I tell myself I’m not going to kill them. Assholes don’t deserve the comforts of Hel’s halls.
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Forseti unbolts me from the floor, leaving me in the chains and handing the end to Magni like a leash. The three of them drag me out of the cell, through dark hallways I don’t recognize and up a set of stairs into the sun.
There’s a moment—just a single fleeting moment—when all the horror of the day is gone. Blown away by the clean, fresh air of Ásgarðr, cleansed by the bright light of Sól’s only daughter.
Ásgarðr was home, for a while. It’s nice to be back.
Or would be, if Magni wasn’t pulling on my collar, dragging me forward like the big feathered dog he doubtlessly thinks I am.
Four horses are standing just ahead. Four horses and one young woman.
I bite back my grin and say instead, “Am I walking, then?”
“The fourth mount is yours,” Forseti says. “This journey is not mine to make. You will bring Magni and Móði to where they need to go and perform for them any task they do desire. You know the consequences if you do not.”
“Yeah yeah, more things for the email to Safe Work Australia, I got it.” As we approach the woman, I give a grin. “Þrúðr,” I say.
She huffs, refusing to meet my eye.
Þrúðr, Thor’s eldest and only daughter. She takes after her mother more than she does her father, fine-skinned and long-limbed, curvy in sought-after places, with rich red lips and hair of shimmering gold. Literally shimmering gold, because divine genetics are strange things.
She’s also, currently, stiff-backed, with her chin held high and red rings around her eyes, and I’m not the only one whose gaze she refuses to meet.
We mount up. My horse ends up being a cantankerous stallion more suited to hauling logs than carrying riders. There’s nothing below my waist that’s remotely suited to a saddle, so I spend some time fixing tack as appropriate. While I do so, Magni leers at me from atop his own mount and says:
“We couldn’t find you a gelding. So you’ll have to control your lusts yourself.”
I don’t even bother looking up. After the first hundred years the taunt gets kinda old. Besides, right now? It might even be useful.
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“Fortunately for me,” I say, “Odin isn’t here to whore me out to buy his trinkets. And I doubt I have the right”—and here I glance at Þrúðr—“virtues to be worried you’ll be interested in the same.”
Þrúðr’s fingers tighten against her horse’s reins, her neck going a delightful, angry red. She still won’t look at me or at her brothers, for all Móði keeps trying to catch her eye.
Meanwhile, Magni’s busy growling in my direction, holding up his tattooed palm in threat. “Have care how you speak, níðingr. Your shame is yours and yours alone.”
I shrug, dumping the unbuckled saddle on the ground and swinging myself up onto my horse. I hope I remember how to ride. Bareback, even. In handcuffs. Jesus, but it’s been a while, and never in these metaphorical lack of shoes.
The horse rolls its eyes and stomps, unsure of what strange new thing is sitting on its back. I try to arrange myself in such a way that I won’t gut it with my claws or choke it on the chain Magni has attached to his own saddle. It’s awkward and ungainly and stupid, and Magni laughs at my efforts, tugging on the leash as soon as I’m settled, lurching me forward and causing my already nervous horse to buck and roll its eyes.
“Whoa, there, Gluestick,” I say, trying to both calm it and ignore Magni in the same action.
From my left, I hear Móði say, “Brother, enough.” Magni mutters something under his breath, but the chain goes slack.
The next time I think to notice, I catch Þrúðr regarding me with large, mournful eyes.
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There’s no parade as we ride out of Ásgarðr. No cheering crowds or saluting einherjar or maidens throwing flowers at our feet. Instead, it’s just us and the horses, slinking out one of Ásgarðr’s back roads. Even Forseti gives up watching our exit after we round the first corner.
“Not much of a send-off, is it? Man, last time I went off chasing Mjölnir, it was with your dad. I think every last living thing in Ásgarðr was there to watch us go. ’Course, that could’ve been ’cause your old man was dressed up like Freyja at the time. Such a pretty dress. The veil really compliment—”
“Silence!” Magni holds up his hand in threat. I sigh dramatically.
“You kids didn’t inherit his sense of humor, that’s for sure.”
“He was taken from us far too soon,” Móði says, shooting a glare my way. “Someone made sure of that.”
As if the Ragnarøkkr was my fucking fault! Well. Whatever. Arguing that one’s been a lost cause for centuries, no need to flog a captured jötunn any more than he’s already been.
Instead, this captured jötunn decides to enjoy the sunshine. The fresh air and cool breeze. Distant laughter and the gentle sound of rustling leaves. Even with all of that, there’s an almost eerie silence lurking in the gaps. Because, for all its beauty, Ásgarðr is a tiny country town. An exclusive seven-star resort located on its very own private island, away from cars and trains and planes and even the eternal hum of bare electric lines. Beautiful, but desolate, too. A hollow void beneath a veneer of lush green and dappled gold.
I’m not used to this, not anymore. Not after nearly a century spent lurking at the heart of a human metropolis, a gyre pulling thousands of souls into its depths. Pandemonium is concrete and steel and smog, the endless narrative of three hundred thousand mortal lives, of dreams whispered down wires of copper and of glass. That’s my home, now, the messy chaos of Travis Hale, of Lokabrenna. Not the wilds and silence of Ásgarðr.
Maybe the mortals are right. Maybe you really can’t go home.
Somewhere, overhead, a single raven watches from the sky. Down here, on the ground, Gluestick twitches as the tips of my own clipped wings ghost against his flank.
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We ride until sunset.
Time moves differently here, in the Outyards. Directed more by the ebb and flow of narrative than by the steady heartbeat of reality.
Still. It’s a long ride, and by the time Sól’s daughter kisses the horizon, my back aches and my ass itches from Gluestick’s coat. Because, yeah. I’m kinda allergic to horses, go figure. Through clothes and tack it’s not so bad, but a day’s worth of skin and feather leaves me miserable, cursing Forseti and Magni and Móði and whichever one it was who took shears to my wings.
Maybe next time I’ll cut their fucking toes off, see how they like being hobbled. Assholes.
We make camp by the side of the road, next to a huge runestone that marks the border between Ásgarðr and the lands beyond. Ahead, the road becomes rougher, blurred by grass and bramble. Tomorrow we’ll hit the Myrkviðr, which is—as its more pop-culture familiar name of Murkwood suggests—a dirty great big scary forest. This is þurs country, sort of the rural redneck versions of the jötnar. That doesn’t mean they’ll appreciate me passing through their lands, and they’ll like Magni and Móði even less.
Þrúðr they’ll probably just want to marry. Whether that’s a problem or not is up for her to decide, I guess.
Magni and Móði assemble a fire; Þrúðr rummages in her saddlebags for food. I stand around and lament the good ol’ days, traveling in Thor’s chariot by day and feasting on his fresh-slaughtered goats by night. I wonder what happened to those regenerating goats? Probably eaten by Jörmungandr, just like their owner.
“Oi, jötunn!”
“Lain,” I say, turning to where Magni is crouched in front of the unlit fire. “My name’s Lain.”
“Jötunn,” he repeats. “Light this.” A gesture toward the haphazard pile of sticks.
I echo it with my own gesture, rattling my manacles and lifting my chin to expose my collar. “With what, exactly?”
“Brother, he is—”
But Magni has no time for the reason of his soft-spoken sibling. Instead, he scoffs and rolls his eyes, reaching into pocket in his tunic and throwing something at my feet. A small loop of metal, and it’s been so long since I’ve encountered one, it takes me a few moments to recognize it as a fire steel.
Jesus H. Christ, why was everything in the tenth century so fucking difficult? Where’s a fucking Zippo lighter when you fucking need one?
I don’t bend down to pick up the device. I don’t even look at it, instead just raise a brow.
“Light your own fucking fire,” I say. Somewhere to the side, I can feel Þrúðr and Móði hold their breath.
Magni stands. He’s not quite taller than me, but he’s closer than any æsir should be. “Light. The. Fire,” he says.
“Brother, perhaps—” Þrúðr starts, but a raised hand makes her fall silent.
“Do not forget your place, jötunn,” Magni growls. “Níðingr and útlagi. You will do as you are commanded.”
I roll my eyes, turning back to fiddle with Gluestick’s bridle. “I’m ‘commanded’ to help you retrieve your daddy’s lost property, which I’m doing. And lighting a fire won’t help with the name-calling.” I tug on Gluestick’s reins, leading it toward the runestone. We’re not the first to use this as a camp, and some kind soul has drilled an enormous iron ring into the rock.
I get about three feet before I hear a clink of metal, which turns out to be my only warning as I’m jerked backward by my own leash so violently I end up sprawled across the grass.
Both Þrúðr and Móði cry for their brother to stop, and Gluestick bucks and whinnies, but Magni ignores them all. A moment later, I’m hauled to my feet by a fist wrapped through my collar.
“Do not tempt me, níðingr,” he says. “Obey, and I will be merciful.”
Not two paces behind their brother, Magni’s siblings clutch each other, eyes wide. The sight of it pulls the stitches in my lips and sends a grin crawling across my face.
“Mate,” I say, “how about you lick my feathery jötunn cloaca instead, huh?”
Magni doesn’t know the word, but after a moment he processes the sentiment.
He lets me go with a shove that sends me stumbling. The last thing I hear is the sound of him spitting. Then things get hazy for a while.
In the end, the fire does get lit. And moral victory never felt so painful.
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I spend the rest of the night sulking behind the runestone, with the horses. Tied to the same iron ring, in fact. My nose itches, I have a rash, and my throat is dry and scratchy from the screaming.
All in all, I’ve had better days.
It’s almost worth it to hear the cold silence Magni’s siblings give him in return. There’s a dynamic there I can use. Þrúðr, the eldest, but a daughter, limited in power. Magni, the middle child aching to fill his father’s enormous boots. And Móði, youngest and heir to nothing. So many cracks just waiting for a set of clever fingers to prise them all apart.
In the meantime, however, I’m itchy, bored, and hungry. I rest my back on the rock and close my eyes, wishing I had my phone or a book or Sigmund with me to pass the time. Hell, even that stack of financial reports I’ve been avoiding for a few weeks would be an improvement, and in the end I combine these tangents into a nice scenario involving Sigmund blowing me covertly under the desk while I present the latest P&L statements to the board.
As night falls, the Thunderbrats work out a watch schedule. We’re still technically in Ásgarðr, but I guess they’re worried about yours truly more than raids from across the border, which is why I don’t bother mentioning I don’t sleep.
Þrúðr offers to take first watch. Magni flat-out laughs at her for the suggestion, giving her the equivalent of Viking teasing over beauty sleep. She doesn’t speak again after that, just lies stiff and silent and furious on her blankets while Magni’s snores begin rumbling in yet another piss-poor attempt to emulate his father.
It’s not long after that I hear footsteps approaching through the grass.
“Lo— Lain?” Móði corrects the name as he approaches, and I open my eyes and fix him with their dimly glowing poison.
Móði’s holding a half-chewed loaf of bread and a blackened haunch of rabbit. He’s within grabbing distance, were that a thing I’d want to try.
“Food,” Móði adds when I say nothing. “For you. I . . .” He stops, visibly straightening himself and forcing the next words out with stronger voice. “We have a long ride ahead tomorrow. You must eat.”
I say nothing. Jesus, I’m hungry. But not enough to beg for scraps from Ásgarðr’s table. I’ll eat one of the horses in the night if I have to. Magni’s, probably.
Móði falters at my silence, just a little, and he puts the food down on the grass not too far from where I sit. “I will leave this here,” he says. “Eat.” The he turns to go.
I start counting down inside my head: One . . . Two . . . Thre—
Móði turns. “Lain,” he says. “Magni is . . . he is a good man, with much to live up to. But he has a temper. Do not provoke him and things will be easier for you. Do you understand?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
This time, I do my own countdown. Then:
“Good cop, bad cop.”
Móði turns. “What?”
I gesture, between the two of us. “Good cop, bad cop. That’s what the humans call this, in their sagas. You got two guys—the cops—and a prisoner. One cop is angry, aggressive. Maybe knocks the prisoner around a little. Prisoner gets scared, feels desperate, whatever. Then Good Cop comes in, offers sympathy, kindness. Food.” One pointed look. “The prisoner cracks, babbles to the good cop in return for protection against the bad. Bingo, the cops get what they want. Problem solved. It’s called psychology.”
“ ‘Sálfræði’?” Móði tries out the word. Or the equivalent that he hears.
“Right,” I say. “And, see, here’s the thing. You can try all the Good Cop bullshit you want, but it’s not gonna work. You wanna fuckin’ know why?”
“Why?” Móði’s gentle façade is peeling back. Beneath it, he’s getting angry. Angry and scared, the stink leaking out of him like piss, all yellow and acid.
I lean forward, tilt my head down and my eyes up. “Because you wrote the fucking runes. Magni holds the whip, but you’re the one who cut the leather. Don’t think I’m gonna forget that just because you bring me some stale motherfucking bread. And don’t think I’m gonna forget you’ve turned your own sister into a whore for—”
“Enough!”
Móði’s voice isn’t loud, exactly, but he does back it up with a gesture that sends my head flying backward, cracking against the runestone hard enough to bleed.
“Enough!” Móði hisses again. “You were Father’s friend once, and I have argued mercy for you on that account. Do not make me regret my kindness.”
When I laugh, blood dribbles from my lips. “And how fucking proud he’d be of both of you right now.”
Móði’s jaw works back and forth, teeth grinding. “Well,” he says after a moment. “Father was far from perfect. And never much renowned for his wisdom.” Then he’s gone, and that’s that.
Or, well. Not exactly. Because, just beyond the runestone, a second set of ears are listening, and by the Wyrdsight’s strange synesthesia I see a tiny shard of pain and sorrow chip away and into hope.