Joanne Harris - Runemarks

The giant snake flexed its jaws. It smelled worse than anything Maddy had ever encountered before: a leaden stench of venom, oil, and charnel house. Its eyes were like pockets of tar, its body as thick as a man’s.

Legend had it that the World Serpent was once so large that only the One Sea could contain it and that it had grown to encircle the Middle World, moving down toward Yggdrasil to feed upon its roots. In fact, it was smaller, but it was still the largest snake that Maddy had ever seen, and there was a disquieting intelligence in those evil eyes.

“It looks as if it understands,” she said.

“Well, of course he understands,” said Loki. “You don’t think they’d leave a stupid creature to guard me, do you?”

“To guard you?” said Maddy. “Do you mean when you were a prisoner here?”

“Quick, aren’t you?” said Loki irritably. “We’ve got forty-eight minutes left,” he said, reading from the deathwatch Hel had given him, “and if I have to go through every little detail a dozen times-”

“All right, I’m sorry,” said Maddy. “It’s just that-if it’s your son, then why-?”

“That’s just their idea of humor,” said Loki. “To have me tormented by my own son-not that I was much of a father, I’m afraid-”

Once more the World Serpent flexed its jaws.

“Oh, do shut up,” Loki told it. “I’m back here now.” He turned to Maddy. “His coils go all the way down to the river Dream,” he said, indicating the snake’s long body. “Haven’t you ever dreamed of snakes? Yes? That was Jormungand, or some Aspect of him, slithering through the dreamworld into your mind. That’s how with his help I reached the river and made my escape, in my fiery Aspect, into Dream and from there, at last, into living flesh.”

“The snake doesn’t seem too pleased about it,” said Maddy.

“Yes. Well. I…” Loki looked embarrassed. “I believe he’s annoyed because-well-I promised I’d free him when I made my escape.”

“Free him?” said Maddy. “But I thought you said he was guarding you.”

“That’s the clever bit,” said Loki. “Remember, all this is a fortress of dreams. Nothing in Netherworld has a definite shape; everything you see comes from the minds that are imprisoned here. That includes our friend…” Loki indicated the World Serpent. “Now, you and I both know that I’m not fond of snakes. And this being Netherworld, and nightmares being more or less coin of the realm, what could be more natural than to appoint a snake-and not just any snake, but the World Serpent -as my guard? And so, in a way, I brought him here-or at least I summoned this Aspect of him. And until I free it-back into the real world-then he’s just another prisoner. Here forever. Just like the rest of them.”

As he spoke, the snake gave a louder hiss, and droplets of venom clouded the air.

“Oh, stop it,” said Loki. “I mean, did you really think I was going to let you loose after what happened last time? Last time,” he told Maddy, “not only did he change the tides of the One Sea, flood the Middle World, swallow the Thunderer, hammer and all, but by the time they got him under control, the whole Nine Worlds were full of his wormholes, with the armies of Chaos passing through like mice through a piece of Ridings cheese…” He leveled his devastating smile at the World Serpent. “Still, Jormungand, old son,” he said brightly. “Or can I call you Jorgi for short? I like Jorgi. It sounds cheerful and unthreatening. Friendly, even. What do you say?”

Across the dizzy space that separated them, the World Serpent spat a stream of venom that missed Loki but took a chunk out of the rock wall.

Loki gave Maddy a nervous grin. “He’s fine.”

“Look,” said Maddy. “Fascinating though this tour of your relatives may be, I thought we were here to rescue my father…”

“And so we are, with Jorgi’s help.”

Maddy looked at the giant snake as it circled, still chained to its rock. “You thought that would help us?”

“He helped me. If we can get Thor into Dream-”

“Dream?” said Maddy in surprise. “But I thought-”

“Well, he can’t escape through Hel,” he said. “You’d need a body for that, of course, and as far as I know, we don’t have a spare.”

“Oh.” For a moment Maddy was at a loss. She’d focused so strongly on the idea of rescue that such practicalities had never occurred to her.

Loki knew it; had counted on it, in fact, in his dealings with the Whisperer. Thor freed into Dream was one thing, but Thor re-embodied and out for revenge-that he could definitely do without. Still, first things first, he told himself. It was a long way out of Netherworld, and even Dream was not without risk.

He gave Jormungand his cheeriest smile. “Better late than never,” he said.

The creature gave a silent hiss.

“But you can’t free it,” protested Maddy. “Quite apart from the damage it could do, ripping holes between the Worlds, won’t it rip you apart the moment you-”

“Thanks for that,” said Loki dryly. Even in Aspect, his face was pale. “Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind. But with”-he glanced at the deathwatch around his neck-“forty-three minutes left to go, I’m running short of good ideas. As for damage, I’m hoping that can work to our benefit.”

“How?”

“Well, for a start, we could use a diversion. Netherworld isn’t going to sit quiet forever, you know, and as soon as it senses the disruption we’ve caused, it’s going to send something-some one -to investigate. I’m hoping that by the time that happens, Jorgi here will have covered our tracks. If I’m right, it should at least buy us a little time.”

“I see,” said Maddy. “And if you’re not?”

“If I’m not,” he said, “it shouldn’t trouble either of us for long. Now take my hand.”

Maddy took it and felt his fingers clamp down on hers. There was a brief sensation of sidestepping-

“Don’t let go,” Loki warned. “You’re not going to want to be around when Jorgi gets loose.”

On the circling rock the World Serpent writhed and tore at its chains. The stench of its venom redoubled; the air was mulled with its secretions.

And then, quite suddenly, the chains weren’t there.

It was almost comic. For a second Jormungand struggled against thin air, its jaws arcing into nothingness, its leaden coils slipping into the pit…and then its eyes fixed on Loki. It opened its jaws, seemed to stiffen-and then it struck.

It struck repeatedly, knocking slabs from the rock wall as big as oliphants to drop and circle into the gulf. The air swam with venom, crackled with electricity. In seconds the ledge on which they had been standing was nothing but a nubbin of rock overlooking the void. Nothing else was left alive. Nothing could have survived that strike; nothing remained but the World Serpent in the dark, deserted cell.

“Of course, you know he’s following us,” gasped Loki, out of breath.

“Wasn’t that the plan?”

“What plan?”

They were running hand in hand down a broad passageway lined with doors, lit now with a lurid phosphorescence that seemed to come from everywhere. Except that running wasn’t quite the word, and the ground beneath them felt insubstantial, as in dreams, and as they ran, the scenery changed, the doors shifting from Gothic oak monstrosities to lead-paneled archways to holes in the wall vaulted with bones.

“How far now?” said Maddy.

“We’re almost there. Just making sure…”

The light too was changing fast, now red, now green, and there was a sound-a sound that pressed like a thumb onto their eardrums-the sound of a million dreamers locked inside a million dreams.