I thought that I might be unconscious but for the fact that I was thinking. Possibly just in darkness, then, and thinking unclearly. And silence, too. My senses were returning, but with no recollection of where they’d been. Between beer and here, Hrothgar’s and now: only an instant.
A stench.
Not like rotten eggs or even sulphur. But methane, maybe. And the ammoniac tang of piss.
It was warm, as well, and I had a headache. In fact, it was hot.
Darkness, silence, odor, heat… The sewers, then? But my feet weren’t wet. I noticed, then, that I was standing. I was still most likely underground, though, so probably the steam tunnels. My own bladder was quite full, but maybe bums pissing down here, methane leaking out of pipes, could account for… A working hypothesis, at least. But why no lights?
In the distance, maybe. I squinted. No lights apparent, but there was texture. There was distance. Must have been some light, then, somewhere. Something. And I could almost see it.
Shape and movement on the edge of sight…
Or just phosphene in my eyeballs?
Like breaking clouds. Rorschach. Horsehead. Seeing what I wanted to… But no. I felt certain that something solid lingered on the edge.
I’d been drugged, I realized.
But I was coming out of it now.
My awareness was expanding. Through my grogginess. My drunk and drugginess. Too rapidly, though. Like sudden adrenaline or caffeine. Milk in coffee unfurling. Clouds that break.
I felt slightly nauseated, and my mouth was dry and bitter.
How had he done it? I didn’t let the new waitress bring me my beer. I avoided his shoulder clap… And he’d slipped it in my beer as his hand came down to the table, I realized. Then he’d dragged me here. But where was here? And when?
I was able to turn my head. At every angle, though, only the same insensible scene, so I had nothing to judge by.
I was able to turn my head, but I could hardly shake my bloodless hands stuck up above it or lift my tingling legs. Thin leather straps attaching me to pipes behind. Itchy and damp on my wrists, but mostly from my own sweat. It was very hot. I was wearing my jacket.
Definitely the steam tunnels.
My headache eased a bit further away from me, then, and my heart started pumping faster. I took a deep breath and tried to slow it down.
I was fully awake, now, at least. More than fully, and I squinted again—tried to focus—peering hard into the darkness, as if it were a veil and I could see through its weave… But it wasn’t. I still couldn’t see a thing.
I did feel the movement, though. The sense of it. Something out there aside from eye-floaters.
“Hello?” I called.
Only my own echo. Sharp. Against concrete walls and copper pipes. Not a very large room. Ten by ten, maybe…
But where was he? I’d forgotten how annoying being tied up could be.
At least I was safe. He wasn’t going to kill me. He could have buried me alive in the graveyard instead of bringing me here. Poisoned me in the bar instead of drugging me. So I was safe. Because he would have if he were going to. He just left me here in the dark to scare me…
I’d been afraid of the dark, once. But it had been so much worse when my mother had lit the acetylene torch and I’d actually seen the guy’s misshapen face… Now I was just bored of the dark.
And silence.
Like a pale heart-shape in the blackness, then—spectral—resolving into a face as my pupils opened farther. And white hands, but with nothing in between. My pupils couldn’t open any more.
I wasn’t scared.
I did let out a little exclamation, though, and my bladder was beginning to hurt. And then I spoke. I don’t know why. And I don’t know why I said the words I said, particularly. Just to say something, I suppose, in the silence. They meant nothing at all. But it was what I said:
“God… Mom.”
And the movement came closer. It responded.
“Well… I’m not your mother.”
Into range of the meager, sourceless light. Her white face framed in black. Black hair. Black robe. And I knew the voice.
“Gerd,” I said.
She carried a stubby candle on a silver tray and lit it now with a silver cigarette lighter. It flared up fairly strong, but I must have been wrong about the presence of methane; she set the candle down on a foldout card table in the corner to my right, and when she turned around, she was smiling.
“So…” she said, looking me over as she secreted the cigarette lighter somewhere within the inner recesses of her robes. “Your roots are beginning to show. But otherwise, how’s it going?”
I considered the question and looked around the room. It was a little bigger than I’d thought, exits leading out along either end of the wall to my left, which—along with the other walls—was lined with elaborate pipe work.
“Not so bad,” I answered, eventually. “In fact, despite being knocked out and tied up, I’m feeling inexplicably euphoric. Fluid thoughts, vivid perceptions… Bitter back-taste on my tongue. I’m assuming you forced some extremely concentrated ormolu tea down my throat while I was unconscious?”
“Yes, so your powers of deduction have not abandoned you. I did indeed make you to drink ormolu tea, as it was the only means I could think of by which to revive you. But I can’t say I’m very pleased to see you.”
“Look, Gerd, I swear that I’m not investigating anything, if that’s what this is all about.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” she said. “You were brought down here without my knowledge, in fact. Surt occasionally forgets that he answers to me on these matters and not to your ex-husband.”
“You’re saying that having me dragged down here was partially Prescott’s idea?”
“Yes, well, Freysgo∂ [40] This term is actually a title denoting the earthly avatar of the god Frey. Prescott only took on the anglicized version of the name upon his adoption by the Bean-Ymirsons.
can be quite immature, as I’m sure you’re aware. You’re only fortunate that I was informed of your arrival before he was.”
“No offense, but I think I’d rather deal with him.”
“And I think that you’d be surprised by how much he’s changed over the past few months… I doubt you’d even believe me were I to tell you what he’s doing right now.”
I didn’t respond. I closed my eyes as sweat slid down across the left lid.
“Personally, you know, I’d hoped to leave you out of this.” She let out a little laugh. “It’s all so ridiculous. I mean, dragging you down here, you’re just bound to piece things together… Unless we kill you, of course, but you know that I’ve never been a savage.”
“Well, then, I guess I can only hope that you haven’t changed as much as you say Prescott has.”
“His name is Freysgo∂.”
“Whatever.”
“No. Not whatever. I am serious on this point. His name is Freysgo∂. Prescott was his name when he was yours, but now he is mine. The competition is over, and I have won. That is the reason I bear you no ill will.”
“Well, that’s all great… but I’m serious, too; whatever you want to call him, you can have him.”
Her smile was hard to read in the candle-flicker, but after an abrupt intake of breath she said, “You cannot spoil my victory so easily. Though you may not speak it, nonetheless you know the truth.”
“Okay, fine,” I responded. “If it’s what you need to hear, Freysgo∂ is yours. I lost him, through the mundanity of our marriage, and the fact that we had no real basis for a relationship to begin with. And you won him through the promise of a more exciting, fulfilling life. You’re getting way too distracted by all of this, though… You were saying just a minute ago that you wished I’d never even been dragged down here, and I think that’s a much more important topic than this one. Because I wish I’d never even been dragged down here, too… So, I mean, don’t you think a nice solution for both of us would be to let me go?”
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