Joanne Harris - Runemarks

Well, two could play at that game.

On her way from the Hall of Sleepers, Maddy had been doing some serious thinking. Part of her wanted to run to One-Eye with her questions, as she had always done as a child-but the Whisperer’s prophecy had made her wary, not least because, if she read it correctly, One-Eye’s defeat could lead to the end of the Worlds.

She wished she’d never heard of the Whisperer. But now that she had, there was no going back. And although it was a poor substitute for her old friend’s counsel, at least a prophecy could not lie.

She knew what One-Eye would think of her plan, and it hurt her to deceive him, but there was nothing she could do. I’d be saving him from himself, she thought. I’d be saving the Worlds.

Maddy gave up on waiting for the Whisperer’s answer. “Just as long as Loki agrees to help…”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the Whisperer. “I can persuade him. I’m very persuasive.”

Maddy gave it a long look. “Last time I knew, you wanted him dead.”

“Even the dead have their uses,” it said.

It was half an hour later that Loki arrived, footsore and dusty in Crazy Nan’s dress.

“Oh, look, ” said the Whisperer in its nastiest voice. “Dogstar’s taken to wearing a dress. What next, eh? Tiara and pearls?”

“Ha ha. Very funny,” said Loki, untying the shawl that covered his head. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to Maddy. “I had to walk.”

“Never mind that now,” said Maddy. “What matters is that we have the Whisperer.”

The Trickster looked at her curiously. He thought she looked flushed, with excitement or fear, and there was something in her colors, some brightening, that made him feel uneasy.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“We’ve been talking,” said Maddy.

Loki looked uncomfortable. “What about?”

“I have an idea,” she told him.

And then she began to outline her plan, hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, while beside her Loki’s face went paler and paler and the Whisperer glowed like a clutch of fireflies and smiled as if it might explode.

“Netherworld?” he said at last. “You want me to go to Netherworld?”

“You heard what the Oracle said!”

“Poetic license,” snapped Loki. “Oracles love that kind of thing.”

“A general will stand alone, it said. The Nameless shall rise. Nine Worlds will be lost. War, Loki. A terrible war. And the only way of stopping it is to free my father from Netherworld. You promised you’d help-”

“I said I’d help you recover the Whisperer,” said Loki. “I never said anything about saving the Worlds. I mean, what’s so wrong with a war, anyway?”

Maddy thought of the Strond Valley, and the fields and houses scattered all the way from Malbry village to Forge’s Post, and all the little roads and hedges, and the smell of burning stubble in the fall. She thought of Crazy Nan in her rocking chair, and of market day on the village green, and of Jed Smith, who had done his best, and of all the soft, harmless people of the valley with their little lives and their silly conviction that they were at the center of the Worlds.

And for the first time in her life Maddy Smith understood. The lectures, the bullying, the signs forked in secret behind her back. The hundred small cruelties that had sent her running for Little Bear Wood more times than she could remember. She’d thought they hated her because she was different, but now she knew better. They’d been afraid. Afraid of the cuckoo in their nest, afraid that one day it would grow and bring Chaos upon their little world.

And she had, Maddy thought. She’d started this. Without her, the Sleepers would not have awakened, the Whisperer would still be safe in the pit, and the war might be fifty years away, or a hundred years, or even more…

She turned to Loki. “It can be done. You said so yourself.”

Loki gave a sharp laugh. “You’ve got no idea what you’re suggesting. You’ve never even so much as set foot outside your valley before, and now you’re planning to storm the Black Fortress. Bit of a leap, don’t you think?”

“You’re afraid,” said Maddy, and Loki gave another crack of laughter.

“Afraid?” he said. “Of course I’m afraid. Being afraid is what I’m good at. Being afraid is why I’m still here. And speaking of being afraid”-he glanced at the Whisperer-“have you any idea what the General would do to me if-No, don’t answer that,” he said. “I’d rather not know. Suffice it to say that we both go and see him now, give him the damn thing, let him negotiate with the Vanir, yadda yadda yadda…”

“When Odin and Wise Mimir meet, Chaos will come to the Nine Worlds.” That was the Whisperer, speaking almost idly, but with its colors flaring like dragonfire.

Loki turned. “ What did you say?”

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent.”

“Oh no.” Loki held up his hands. “Don’t even think of making a prophecy right now. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know.”

But the Whisperer was speaking again. Its voice was not loud, but it commanded attention, and both of them listened, Maddy in bewilderment and Loki in growing disbelief and horror.

“I see an Ash at the open gate,” said the Whisperer. “Lightning-struck but green in shoot. I see a meeting at Nether’s edge, of the wise and the not so wise. I see a death ship on the shores of Hel, and Bór’s son with his dog at his feet-”

“Oh, gods,” said Loki. “Please don’t say anymore.”

“I speak as I must and cannot be-”

“You were silent enough for five hundred years,” protested Loki, who had gone even paler than before. “Why break the habit now?”

“Hang on,” said Maddy. “Bór’s son-that’s one of Odin’s names.”

Loki nodded, looking sick.

“And the dog?”

Loki swallowed painfully. Even his colors had turned pale, shot through with silvery threads of fear. “Forget it,” he said in a tight voice.

Maddy turned to the Whisperer. “Well?” she said. “What does it mean?”

The Oracle glowed in the pattern she had come to recognize as amusement. “All I do is prophesy,” it said sweetly. “I leave the interpretation to others.”

Maddy frowned. “The Ash. I suppose that’s me. The green shoot from the lightning tree. The wise-surely that’s the Whisperer. Bór’s son on a death ship-with his dog at his feet…” Her eyes came to rest on Loki’s face. “Ah,” she said. “Dogstar. I see.”

Loki sighed. “So it means I die. Do you have to repeat it?”

“Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean you die-”

“Oh, really?” snapped Loki. “Me, on Hel’s shore? What else do you think I’d be doing there?” He began to pace, tucking his skirts into his waistband, his shawl flying. “Why couldn’t you have told me all this before?” he demanded of the Whisperer.

The Oracle smirked and said nothing.

Loki put his face in his hands.

“Come on,” said Maddy. “You’re not dead yet. In fact-” She stopped for a moment, her face brightening. “Let me get this right,” she said. “According to the Whisperer, if Odin dies, then you do too.”

Loki made a muffled sound of despair.

“And when Odin and Mimir meet, then Chaos will come-Odin will fall…”

Loki’s eyes turned to hers.

“Unless we free Thor from Netherworld-in which case the war won’t happen at all, the General won’t die, the Nine Worlds will be saved, and my father…”

There was a long silence, during which Loki stared, transfixed, at Maddy, Maddy’s heart raced even faster, and the Whisperer shone like a chunk of star.