Joanne Harris - Runemarks

She did not hear Loki enter the hall. He had changed the clothes he had stolen from Audun Briggs for a fresh tunic, shirt, and soft-soled boots, and it was only when he touched her arm that she realized he was there at all. By then her agitation was so great that she almost hit him before she recognized who he was.

“Maddy, it’s me,” he protested, seeing T ýr half formed between her fingers.

Listlessly she banished the rune. “I don’t feel like talking, Loki,” she said.

“Can’t say I blame you.” Loki sighed. “Odin should have told you the truth. But try to see it from his point of view…”

“Is that why he sent you? To argue his case?”

“Well, of course he did,” said Loki. “Why else?”

Maddy couldn’t help feeling a little disarmed at his unexpected frankness. She smiled-then remembered his legendary charm.

“Forget it,” she said. “You’re as bad as he is.”

“Why? What did I do?”

Maddy gave an angry sniff. “Everyone knows what’s going on except me,” she said. “What am I, a child? I’m sick of it. I’m sick of him. And I’m sick of being treated as if I don’t matter. I thought he liked me.” She sniffed again, more fiercely than before, and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. “I thought he was my friend,” she said.

Loki gave his crooked smile.

“So what does he want? A war with the Order? Is that why he needs the Whisperer?”

Loki shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“But he doesn’t have a chance!” she said. “Even with the Vanir on our side, it would still be the ten of us against all of the Order, and anyway”-she lowered her voice-“the Whisperer practically told me he’d lose.”

Loki’s eyes widened. “You mean it made a prophecy? It made a prophecy and you didn’t think to tell anyone about it?”

“Well, it didn’t make sense,” said Maddy awkwardly. “I don’t even know if it was a prophecy at all. It just kept saying things like I speak as I must and-”

“Gods,” said Loki, disgusted. “It made a prophecy. To you. After all these years I’ve been trying to persuade it to say something- anything. ” Eagerly he leaned closer. “Did it mention me at all?”

“It wanted me to kill you. Said you’d turn out to be nothing but trouble.”

“Ah. That figures. What else did it say?”

“Something about a terrible war. Thousands dead at a single word. Something about waking the Sleepers…a traitor…and a general-a general standing alone…”

“And when were you planning to tell him all this?”

Maddy was silent.

“Well?”

“I don’t know.”

Loki began to laugh softly. But Maddy was scarcely paying attention. Dry-mouthed, she recalled the Whisperer’s words, struggled to remember the exact phrasing. It sounded more like verse to her now, bleak verse in the language of prophecy.

I see an army poised for battle.

I see a general standing alone.

I see a traitor at the gate.

I see a sacrifice.

The dead will awake from the halls of Hel.

And the Nameless shall rise and Nine Worlds be lost,

Unless the Seven Sleepers wake

And the Thunderer be freed from Netherworld…

“It’s coming true,” she said at last. “The Sleepers are awake. The Order is coming. It said the Nine Worlds would be lost…” Maddy swallowed, feeling sick. “And I can’t help thinking it’s all my fault. I was the one who woke the Sleepers. I was the one who recovered the Whisperer. If I’d left it in the fire pit-” She broke off and frowned. “But why is the General standing alone? Why aren’t we with him?” Once more Maddy began to pace up and down in the dark hall. “This isn’t what I wanted!” she yelled.

“Believe it or not,” said Loki sourly, “I’m not altogether thrilled to be here, either. But I have no choice-without Odin I’m already dead. The fact that I have a very good chance of ending up dead anyway doesn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm.”

“Then tell me,” said Maddy urgently. “Tell me the truth. Who am I really? And why am I here?”

Loki watched her with a little smile across his scarred lips. “The truth?” he said.

“Yes. All of it.”

“The General won’t like that,” he said.

All the more reason to tell her, he thought, and deep in his stomach, Loki grinned.

“So who am I?” she said. “And what’s my part in all this?”

Loki helped himself to wine. “Your name is Modi,” he began. “And the Oracle predicted your birth, long before Ragnarók, though it turns out it wasn’t entirely accurate on gender. But one thing it was certain of: Modi and his brother, Magni, are the first children of the New Age, born to rebuild Asgard and to overthrow the enemies of the gods. That’s why you carry that rune on your hand. Aesk, the Ash Tree: symbol of renewal and of all the Worlds.”

Maddy looked down at her hand, where Aesk shone blood-red against her palm. “I have a brother ?” she said at last.

“Or a sister, maybe. If they’ve been born yet. Like I said, the Oracle hasn’t been all that accurate.”

“And my…parents?”

“Thor, the Thunder Smith, and Jarnsaxa-not exactly his wife, but a warrior woman from the other side of the mountains. So you see, little sister, you do have demon blood in you, on your mother’s side at least.”

But Maddy was still reeling from the new information. She tasted the names on her tongue-Modi, Magni, Thor, Jarnsaxa-like some fabulous, exotic dish.

“But if they were my parents-”

“Then how come you were born to a couple of rustics from the valleys?” Loki grinned, enjoying himself. “Well, remember when you were little, how you were always told that you shouldn’t ever dream, that dreaming was dangerous, and that if you did, the bad nasty Seer-folk would come out of Chaos and steal your soul?”

Maddy nodded.

“Well,” said Loki. “It turns out they were almost right.”

Maddy listened in near silence as Loki told his tale. “Let’s start at the good bit,” he said, pouring more wine. “Let’s start at the end of everything. Ragnarók. The doom of the gods. The fall of Æsir and Vanir alike, the triumph of Chaos, and all that jazz. Not a comfortable time for yours truly, what with being killed-and by that pompous do-gooder Heimdall, of all people-”

“Hang on,” said Maddy. “You said that before. You were actually killed at Ragnarók?”

“Well,” said Loki, “it’s not that simple. One Aspect of me fell there, yes. But Death is just one of the Nine Worlds. Some of the Æsir found refuge there, where even Surt has no power. But some of us were not so lucky. Some of us were thrown into Netherworld-what your folk would call Damnation-”

“The Black Fortress. What was it like?”

Loki’s expression darkened a little. “Nothing prepares you for Netherworld, Maddy. It was beyond anything even I had known. I’d seen the insides of dungeons before, and until then I had thought a prison was simply a place of walls, bricks, guards-familiar trappings, the same in all worlds.

“But in Netherworld, Disorder rules. So close to Chaos, almost anything becomes possible: the rules of gravity, perspective, sense, and substance are bent and shifted; hours and days have no meaning; the line is erased between reality and imagination. What was it like? It was like drowning, Maddy, drowning in an ocean of lost dreams.”

“But you got out.”

Darkly he nodded.

“How?” she said.

“I made a deal with a demon.”

“What deal?”