Joanne Harris - Runemarks

But he was the Captain, and Sugar had long since learned not to question his orders.

He’d caught up with Sugar in the food stores, where the goblin was about to settle down with a suckling pig and a yard of ale. At first Sugar hadn’t recognized him, dressed as he was in Crazy Nan’s dress, looking filthy and hunted and close to exhaustion-but Loki had soon got his attention, binding him to obedience with threats and runes and giving instructions in a low, hurried tone, as if afraid of being overheard.

“Why me?” Sugar had asked desperately.

“Because you’re here,” Loki had said. “And because I really don’t have a choice.”

Sugar wished he hadn’t been there. But Loki’s instructions had been quite clear, and so the goblin followed his trail, picking up the spent cantrips as he went and occasionally checking the pouch around his neck-the pouch the Captain had given him, with orders on how to use it if it became necessary.

The Captain was in trouble-that was for sure. Sugar didn’t need any glam to tell him that. In trouble deep-and heading deeper-but still alive, though for how long, Sugar could not say.

Every half hour he checked the pouch. What was inside looked like a common pebble, but Sugar could see the runes on it- Ós, for the Æsir, Bjarkán, and Kaen, the Captain’s own sign-all cleverly put together to make a sigil that was unmistakably Loki’s.

This runestone will show you what to do, he had said, cramming clothes and supplies into a pack. Follow me close-and don’t be seen.

Follow him where? Sugar hadn’t dared to ask. In fact, he hadn’t needed to-the Captain’s expression had already told him more than he wanted to know. Loki was going to Hel, of course-a place Sugar didn’t even like to hear about in stories-and he was taking Maddy with him.

If the stone turns red, the Captain had said, then you’ll know I’m in mortal peril. If it turns black-his scarred lips tightened-then you’ll know I’m beyond reprieve.

Sugar almost wished the stone would turn black. He’d been following the trail for what seemed like days; he was hungry, thirsty, tired, and getting more and more worried at every step. There were rats deep down in the lower tunnels, rats and roaches as big as he was. There were freezing waters and hidden pits; there were geysers and sulfur pits and limestone sinks. But Sugar continued to follow the trail, though even he wasn’t sure anymore whether it was fear, loyalty, or simply that fatal curiosity of his that kept him going, step by step.

The stone had been red for nearly an hour. And it was getting darker.

In a silent chamber boxed within a multitude of silent chambers, Hel the Half-Born was still debating what to do. Nothing happened in the Underworld without her knowledge, and it had not taken her long to realize that a couple of intruders had penetrated her domain.

Normally she might just have ignored the pair. Death’s territory is endless, and most trespassers either turned back or died slowly out in the wastes. Either option suited Hel; it had been centuries since she’d granted an audience to anyone living, and even then, her visitor had returned alone. Hel was not generous, nor was she given to fierce emotions, but now, as she sensed the approach of warm blood, she was aware of a sensation almost of surprise.

Of course, she’d forced them to wait for her. Just long enough to punish them a little and to teach them some of the patience of Hel. Time has no meaning to the dead. And a day in Hel seems like weeks to the living. And so Loki and Maddy measured their time in gulps of water, slices of sleep, and bites of bread so hard that they might have been stones. And when their small supplies ran out, they measured it in the long, looping, staggering steps they took across the endless sand, and the times they fell, and stood up, and fell, and wondered if she would ever come.

Now Hel opened one eye and closed the other. Her living eye was a bright green, not unlike her father’s in color, but with a coldness in its lack of expression that made even the living side of her face look dead. The dead eye saw further, though it was blind, and its gaze was like an empty skull’s.

For Hel was two women merged into one: one side of her face was smooth and pale; the other side was pitted and gray. A sheaf of black hair fell over one shoulder; on the other, a twist of yellow twine. One hand was shapely; the other a claw. The rune Naudr marked her throat; the same rune was on the binding rope in her hand. One withered foot gave her a lurching gait.

Not that Hel was in the habit of walking; she spent the centuries in a half doze, dead eye open to acknowledge the thousands that poured, day and night, second by second, into her realm.

Among those thousands, few had ever caught her interest. The dead know everything, but they don’t give a damn, as the saying goes, and a dead prince in all his regalia is no less dead than a dead street sweeper, sewage worker, or maker of novelty spoons. There isn’t a lot of variety among the dead, and Hel had long since learned to ignore them equally.

But this was different. Two trespassers deep in her domain, their signatures visible to her living eye like two columns of colored smoke far across the plain. That in itself was enough to arouse her curiosity-and that violet trail was strangely familiar. But there was something else with them-something that tantalized her vision like sunlight on a piece of glass…

Sunlight? Glass? Yes, Hel remembered the light of the sun. She remembered how they had robbed her of it, how they had sent her to this place where nothing changed or lived or grew, where day and night were equally absent in the eternal corpse-light of the dead.

But who were they ? The Æsir, of course. The Æsir, the Fiery, the Gødfolk, the gods. They’d promised her a kingdom fit for a queen, and this- this -was what she’d got.

Of course, that had been many centuries ago, and she’d thought the Æsir long gone.

But unless her warm-blood sight deceived her, two at least remained, and it was with something close to eagerness that she stood now, the rope of glamours in her living hand, and crossed the endless desert with a word.

It was Maddy who saw her first. Awakening from troubled dreams in her shelter among the rocks, she sensed a chilly presence and, opening her eyes, found herself looking at a woman’s profile, green-eyed, high-cheekboned, with hair that gleamed like crows’ feathers. She had only a moment to gasp at this woman’s beauty, and then she turned, and the illusion was gone.

Hel looked at Maddy’s expression and, for the first time in five hundred years, she smiled. “That’s right, little girl,” she said softly. “Death has two faces. The one that inspires poets and lovers; the one for whom warriors lose their heads…and then there’s the other one. The grave. Worms. Rot.” She gave a mocking curtsy, lurching on her withered foot.

“Welcome to Hel, little girl.”

Loki was wide awake. He’d sensed Hel’s watchful presence at once and had hidden the Whisperer, wrapped up in Maddy’s jacket to make a pack, sealed with runes, under an outcrop of weathered rocks. Now he emerged from his hiding place, with a smile that was half insult, half charm, and announced, “I’d forgotten what a dump this place was.”

Very slowly Hel turned. “Loki,” she said. “I hoped it was you.” She gave him a look that made Maddy’s flesh crawl. “I imagine you must have some purpose here.”

“Oh, I do,” said Loki.

“It must be important,” she said. “To come, unprotected, into my realm is not without a certain risk, even for you. And as for her …” She squinted at Maddy. “Who is she, anyway? I can smell her Æsir blood from here.”