Odin smiled. “Well, would you look at that. The force of the energies under the Hill are already starting to work on you.”
I shook my head.
He smiled again. “No time to waste. This is your cue. Remember, Gullveig-Heid has your friend.”
Jumps was getting impatient. She turned towards Odin in his chair. “I suggest,” she said aloud, “that we go find this Mimir’s Head, use it to ransom Meg, then you get out of my life for good, taking your friends—all of them—with you. Okay?”
I tried to convey how totally not okay all that sounded. But Odin seemed not to see me. Instead Evan leaned forward, once more addressing Jumps. “You’ll trust me?” he said. “I promise you, I never meant to involve you in this. You were never meant to be Loki at all. But now that you are—”
Er, no.
Once more Evan’s face reflected his inner conflict. “I had to go along with it,” he said in a low and earnest voice. “Because of Stella. You know that, right? And yes, I know I let you down—”
Behind that door marked STELLA, I felt a kind of mental surge, as if of feelings held in powerful check. But Jumps’s voice was calm as she said, “Don’t worry about that now. I’m fine. And as for Loki—” She paused for a moment. I sensed her determination. Then, addressing Odin, she said, “If he won’t help, then I’ll do it myself. I know him now. I can read his thoughts. I don’t need him to cooperate.”
Odin smiled. It was the same damn smile he’d worn when he called me out of Chaos, promised me the Nine Worlds, then proceeded to mess me up from Asgard to the End of the Worlds.
“Looks like we’ve got a plan,” he said.
No, please. You don’t understand—
But Odin was already moving his chair towards the door of the flat. “It’s really very simple,” he said. “All you need is to trust me.”
3.
Trust me. If I’d had a jam tart every time Odin told me that, I’d be the size of Jormungand. And I had no intention of trusting him—or indeed his host, whose feelings for Stella seemed as complicated as the Old Man’s for the erstwhile Goddess of Desire. I get it; those feelings are treacherous, and so are the people who feel them. I made a note to myself to ensure that Odin was nowhere near Gullveig-Heid when whatever was under the Hill finally revealed itself. His host was a liability in more ways than his physical state: his feelings for Stella made him weak, which made the General equally so.
But Odin wasn’t looking good. He—or rather, Evan—was even paler than usual. His hand on the wheel of the metal chair shook like that of an old man. He looked exhausted, with the fatigue that comes from enduring, chronic pain. I happen to know that sensation well. It isn’t one of my favourites.
I felt Jumps’s concern for Meg shift again sharply to her friend. “Are you okay?” she said.
Oh, I’m great. Apart from being hunted by Gullveig-Heid, the most ruthless and unpredictable demon this side of Netherworld—
“I’m talking to Evan, idiot.”
Evan smiled. “I’m fine, Jumps.”
“No, you’re not! I can tell you’re not! He’s been pushing you too hard. You shouldn’t even have been in school, the way you’ve been for the past few days. And now, with all this—”
“Relax. All I need is a bit of fresh air, and maybe a couple of Tramadol—”
“How do I know you’re even here?”
I caught a glimpse of her thoughts, like a thread of smoke from behind one of those doors. An image—not a flattering one—of herself and Evan, marionettes in the hands of giants.
Hey! I protested.
Bite me, said Jumps. Your General needs to understand. Evan isn’t like other people. He sometimes overdoes things. He doesn’t always tell you if he gets tired. He needs to rest. Your General seems to think he can just find another host if this one breaks down.
To be honest, I hadn’t really thought all that much about the condition of Odin’s host. But now the Book of Faces opened to give me the details—far more than I could possibly need—of Evan’s good days, his bad days, the days when even to breathe was an almost impossible burden; and worse, the days when no one really believed he was ill, because he looked fine, and could walk, and run—
But it was always there, she said. That thing that was hiding inside him. Waiting to steal whatever it could, whatever joy it could take away. Not unlike the thing that’s inside him now, feeding on his energies.
She turned back to Evan. “You can’t go now. It’ll kill you,” she said.
Evan waved aside her concern. “Pain is boring. Dying is boring. This, on the other hand, is interesting. Important. Don’t worry. Trust me, I’m fine.”
I was just about to retaliate with a finely crafted epithet when there came a rattling sound at the door. I turned; the dog, Twinkle, set up a joyous barking; and there was Evan’s mum at the door, looking surprised and not too pleased.
“What’s going on in here?” she said.
I searched through the Book of Faces for details of Evan’s mother. Name: Jan. Profession: nurse. Favourite colour: sky blue. Favourite film: Dirty Dancing. Divorced, now seeing a married man, a doctor, who keeps promising to leave his wife, but never will.
I cursed, finding little of use.
Meanwhile, Jumps took over, smiled, and said, “Hi, Mrs. Davis.”
Davis. That’s what I needed. This filing system could do with some work.
Jumps ignored me.
Evan said, “Just playing a game, Mum.”
Mrs. Davis gave him a look. “You know my shift,” she told him. “I have to be up at six thirty.”
“Sorry, Mum. We got carried away.” Evan gave a cheery smile. That’s how I knew it was Odin’s smile, and trusted it accordingly. “Let me make you a cup of tea before you go to bed. Okay? And maybe a toasted sandwich?”
Mrs. Davis nodded. “Thanks.” She took off her shoes and sat down on the couch. “That’s better.” She turned to me. “Sorry to snap at you, Josephine. But maybe you should be getting home? Do your parents know where you are?”
I said, “It’s fine, Mrs. Davis. I was just leaving anyway.”
Odin gave me a piercing look. “I’ll walk you back.”
“Oh no, you won’t!” Mrs. Davis gave him a look. “And what have you been doing? Why are you in your chair again? Did you eat? Did you take your meds?”
“Mum, I feel fine, honestly.” But Mrs. Davis could see it now. He looked ready to collapse. The last couple of days must have taken it out of him more than I’d expected. I felt something odd and unprecedented, almost like compassion—
“It’s fine,” I said. “I promise. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in the morning.”
And so we left, Jumps and I, into the mild and starry night, in search of something I had lost centuries and Worlds away. And frankly, it should have stayed lost. I knew that, just as Odin did. But that damned bauble had a way of coming back, against all odds. And this time, I had to find it: for myself, for Meg, and now for Jumps, whose life was now inextricably linked with mine—or at least until parted by Death, Dream, Damnation, or maybe just Desire. . . .
4.
Now here’s the thing about Desire. It never goes out of fashion. War, Famine, and Pestilence can sometimes be kept under control, but Desire is only one step from Dream, and as such can never be far from our hearts. I’d wondered more than once since my arrival in this World why Freyja, rather than Frigg, or Sif, figured so prominently in the game that had provided my means of escape from bondage into this borrowed flesh. It’s not that she wasn’t a warrior—in spite of her airs and graces she could be as savage as Gullveig-Heid in the heat of battle. And Freyja was popular in this World—although her representation in various books and movies of Jumps’s failed to take into account her basically treacherous nature.
But she was one of the Vanir—the tribe that gave us Gullveig-Heid. The tribe that gave us the original runes. And although the plot of Asgard!™ was absurd in many ways, I couldn’t help remembering
that in this version of Ragnarók, the Vanir had survived the War, and waited, sleeping, under the ice. Could this have happened in our World? Could this explain Odin’s reluctance to reveal what lay under the Hill?
Stop it, said Jumps. You’re making my head ache. And besides, what does it matter? We’re going to the Hill anyhow. Because you can’t not do it.
She was right, of course. The Hill had an undeniable appeal. That runemark, scratched against the sky. The Hill itself, like a treasure mound. And now that scar, like a runemark, shining out from Jumps’s wrist as she had flung the runebolt. I’ll admit, it excited me. The thought of gaining my power back, of being in my natural Aspect, of once more seeing the World I had shaped, the World in which I’d been worshipped—
Actually, I was thinking of Meg, said Jumps.
Well, duh. So was I. And yes, there was Meg: Meg, whom Heidi had rightly identified as the chink in my armour. That’s why it’s a mistake to start caring about people, I thought, although just how I had managed to do that was still as much of a mystery as ever. I blamed Jumps, and her feelings, and the fact that they had somehow infected me.
But they were supposed to infect me, I knew. Gullveig-Heid had seen to that. And Gullveig-Heid, I also knew, was the mistress of deception and greed. That’s why I was on my guard as I approached the Hill from the far side, keeping under cover of gorse bushes and fallen rocks. My precautions were unnecessary. Arriving at the summit once more, we found it deserted and silent. The fire pit had died to a glow. There was no sign of Heidi or Meg, or any remnant of glamour. Gone were those runes on the ground; even the blood that I had spilled had been absorbed without a trace.
Below us, in the valley, the lights of Malbry twinkled and shone, looking very far away, although it was only a couple of miles. I checked my arms. They seemed fine. No burning sensation, no bleeding. In the dim light, my scars just looked like scars again, all luminescence vanished.
“There’s no one here. What a pity,” I said.
No you don’t, said Jumps. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve found whatever it is you’re supposed to find. You’re doing this for Meg. And me. And Evan. And your General.
I sighed. I liked you better when you were neurotic and insecure.
There’s something here. Evan said so. Look for a sign!
“Whatever.”
I looked. The Hill was a kind of dome, rising from a gentler slope. Below, mostly fields and woodland, with a path leading down to a country road. A five-day moon was rising, casting only a thread of light, but I saw that the top of the Hill was bare, except for the ruins of the castle from which it apparently took its name. As castles went, it was nothing much. Just a line of earthworks, a trench, and a single squat tower was all that remained and yet, now that I came to look, there was energy in the place; a charge that seemed to run through the air like a seam of something combustible.
What is it? said Jumps. She could feel it too. That silvery edge in the air, like a blade. That deep and mysterious energy.
“I don’t know. But there’s something here. I think it’s to do with the castle.”
Go closer.
I followed the earthworks. The trench was a line of spilled ink along the crest of Castle Hill. I could easily imagine something asleep under the ground: a serpent with its stony spine coiled around a giant head—
Stop it! Odin said Sleipnir. He never mentioned Jormungand.
Yeah, because Odin never lies.
I shivered. It was cold up there. In the sky, a scatter of stars. I looked for the Dog Star. It wasn’t there. Not that I’d really expected my star to be visible in this alien world, but it might have been nice to have seen it. But there was nothing familiar in the bleak and scuddy sky. Just that yellow slice of moon, like something you’d find in a gin and tonic.
Slowly I became aware that my arm was hurting again. I gritted my teeth and continued to search along those lines of energy—
“Ouch! Dammit!” My sleeve was wet. Warmth soaked once more through the fabric, sticking it to my cold skin. I pushed up my sleeve to look at my arm. Sure enough, the runemark was back, and with it, that dim violet glow. The blood, which in moonlight should have looked black, was subtly, darkly luminous.
It’s working! said Jumps.
Oh, joy, I said.
But she was right. Whatever it was had started to gather momentum. Blood has power—she knew that. Even such common blood as hers. But the blood of a god was something more. Mimir’s blood had bought us the runes. Ymir’s blood, spilled by Odin’s hand, had created the oceans.
I took a breath. My arm still hurt. The violet glow intensified: it seemed to be lighting up my veins. I could feel Jumps, in our shared space, questioning me persistently. But now my head was filled with light. My wounded arm was sleeved in light, dripping slowly to the ground. And now, at last, at my feet, I could see something shining out from a crack in the earth—the familiar shape of the Chaos-rune Kaen—the rune that Odin had given me.
And now I could feel a response from the Hill, like a giant stirring from sleep. Something had been given life—I hoped at not too great a cost to Yours Truly, pain and self-sacrifice not being two of my favourite pastimes.
What is it? Is it Sleipnir? Jumps was bouncing around in my head.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said.
Well, that covers all the options, thanks.
The runemark Kaen shone out with a light that seemed to come from deep in the ground. And now I could see a cluster of hairline cracks around the mark, as if something under the skin of the Hill were straining to be released—
“Runes,” I said. “Or maybe reins.”
Reins?
“As in riding a Horse,” I said.
5.
Like I said, the blood of a god is potent stuff. Even one such as I—half god, half demon, all renegade—must carry some of that power, and when the god in question happens to be the parent of a being that can travel between the Worlds, his blood can suddenly acquire an unexpected value.
This must have been the plan, I thought. To bring me into proximity with my eight-legged offspring—to harness its power to spill my blood, and to use the close connection we shared to bring Sleipnir out of his long sleep, and to use him to hunt for the Oracle. But Sleipnir was born to obey no one but his master—and of course, Yours Truly, although I’d never been much of a parent. But Heidi knew that she’d never survive awakening Sleipnir without me, which was probably why I was still alive, rather than lining the interior of a cistern somewhere deep in World Below. Once she had what she wanted, however, all bets were likely to be off, which was why I was thinking furiously as I searched for the reins to Odin’s Horse.
Now that I knew what to look for, the second rune was easier to find. The General’s Horse has a foot in each World, except for Pandaemonium, as the runes that controlled it would reflect. Bjarkán, for the world of Dream, shone dimly at my fingertips.
Then, three feet away, came the runeshape Ýr—
—then Raedo, Logr, and Naudr, shining out of the ground like gold . . .
I sensed Jumps’s impatience, and tried to explain as best I could, although my own impatience was almost too much to contain. There was no sign yet of Gullveig-Heid, and yet I could feel her presence there, waiting for me to uncover the thing that currently slept between the Worlds.
“The runes,” I told Jumps, “were originally given to the Aesir by Odin, long ago, in the Golden Age. They were the marks of knowledge, the language of Creation. Not even Surt understood what they were, although they were from his element: volatile and adaptable. The gods in those days all had marks of their own, though Odin had knowledge of them all, a knowledge he bought at the price of his eye, and the life of his oldest friend. My own Aspect was governed by the rune Kaen, which means Wildfire or Chaos. And when I fell, it was broken, just as I was, on Ida’s plain. Just as all of us fell, and were lost, and our power was shattered and dispersed.”
So why do you have i
t back? said Jumps.
“Good question. Of course, I don’t have it back. This mark is reversed, which means that it has only a fraction of its glam. But that was enough, in this World, to lead me to the honeypot. Sleipnir’s presence did the rest, awakening this runemark, weak and broken as it is.” I flexed my mental muscles. “Well, a broken rune’s better than no rune at all. Why look an eight-legged horse in the mouth?”
You think Sleipnir’s really in there?
I sensed her doubt—I’d shared it. But the runes were there to confirm the tale. Hagall, the Destroyer, and Ós, the gods of Asgard, shone out brightly from left and right—
I counted eight of the runes in all. I thought: a rune for each of the eight legs of a being that straddles all Eight Worlds—
But didn’t Sleipnir fall with the gods?
“One Aspect of him, maybe. Nevertheless, one part of him is always in Death, just as another part of him is always in Dream. That’s how the General could cross between Worlds. That’s how we can do the same.”
But something had occurred to me. Something was making me nervous, and had since I arrived here. Odin’s pursuit of the Oracle. Odin’s knowledge of this World. And the fact that Odin had already known that Gullveig-Heid was in Stella—
What else had he known? What plans had he made? What had the Oracle told him, before the darkness of Chaos fell? What runes had he cast, supplies laid by for the long, long winter? And, if he already knew how to find Sleipnir under the Hill, then why the hell hadn’t he done it himself?
For a moment, I struggled to marshal my thoughts. My mind was a snarl of barbed wire. From the first, I’d struggled with the thought that my presence here was simply a happy accident; that Odin had wanted Thor, not me; that I was never a part of his plan. But that didn’t sound like the General. What if Odin had known from the start that summoning me would set this chain of events into motion, and that everything—my presence here, my close escape from Heidi, even my friendship with Meg—had been part of a long con to bring him what he wanted?