Joanne Harris - Runemarks

“Listen,” said Loki. “D’you hear that noise?”

Maddy nodded.

“That’s Surt coming through,” said Loki.

Twenty-four seconds.

“Lord Surt? The Destroyer?”

“No, another Surt-what do you think?”

Twenty-two seconds: they could see the gate. The opening looked no greater than a lancet now, and Thor was holding it with both hands, his face dark with the effort, his shoulders bunched like an ox’s as they raced toward the narrow slit.

Twenty seconds.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it-”

“Maddy-no…”

Now Maddy’s heart was close to bursting as she plunged toward the closing gate, dragging Loki-still struggling-behind her.

“Listen to me! The Whisperer lied. I know what it wants; I’ve seen into its mind. I’ve known it since our journey began. I didn’t tell you-I lied-I thought I could use you to save myself-”

Fifteen seconds…

Maddy wrenched at Loki’s arm-

Naudr, the Binder, gave way with a snap-

And then three things all happened at once:

Hel’s deathwatch cracked right across the face, freezing the time at thirteen seconds.

Netherworld crashed shut with a clang.

And Maddy awoke in her own skin and found herself looking into Hel’s dead eye.

At the entrance to the Underworld the parson and the Huntress stopped. They had tracked their quarry to the mouth of Hel, and now they stood and watched the plain, where a slight dust rose in the wake of the two figures-one tall, one short-that inched their way across the desert.

It was all too much for Adam Scattergood. The bleak sky where no sky had a right to be, the nameless peaks, the dead, like thunderheads, marching into the blue…Even if this was a dream (and he clung to the idea with all his might), he’d long since given up any hope of awakening. Death would be infinitely better than this, and he followed, incurious, where the Huntress led, hearing the sound of the dead in his ears and wondering when it would come for him.

Nat Parson spared him not a thought. Instead he smiled his wolfish smile and opened the Book of Words at the relevant page. His enemy was within range; even across that vastness, he knew, the canticle would strike him down, and he allowed himself a little sigh of satisfaction as he began to invoke the power of the Word.

I name you Odin, son of Bór…

But something was wrong, the parson thought. When first he had used that canticle, it had been with a sense of gathering doom, a power that increased at every word until it became a moving wall, crushing everything in its path. Now, however he spoke the words, the Word declined to reveal itself.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Skadi, impatient, as Nat faltered midsentence and stopped.

“It isn’t working,” he complained.

“You must have read it wrong, you fool.”

“I did not read it wrong,” the parson said, angered at being called fool in front of his prentice-and by an illiterate, barbarian female at that. He began the canticle again-in his finest pulpit voice-but once more the Word seemed oddly flat, as if something had drained it of its potency.

What’s going on? he thought in dismay, reaching for the comforting presence of Examiner Number 4421974 in his mind.

But Elias Rede was strangely silent. Like the Word, the Examiner had somehow lost depth, like a picture faded by the sun. And the lights, he saw-the signature colors and lights that had illuminated everything-they too were gone. One moment they’d been there and the next-nothing. As if someone had blown out a candle…

Who’s there?

No inner voice replied.

Elias? Examiner?

Once more, silence. A great, dull silence, like coming back one day to an empty house and suddenly knowing that there’s nobody home.

Nat Parson gave a cry, and as Skadi turned to look at him, she noticed that something about him had changed. Gone was the silvery skein that had illuminated his colors, transforming a plain brown signature into a mantle of power. Now the parson was plain again, just one of the Folk, undistinguished and unremarkable.

The Huntress growled. “You tricked me,” she said, and, shifting into her animal form, set off across the drifting sand in snarling pursuit of the General.

Nat thought to follow, but she soon outdistanced him, racing across the endless plain, howling her rage at her enemy.

“You can’t leave me here!” the parson called-and that was when the Vanir, drawn by the sound of the white wolf’s cry, moved out of the shadows at his back and watched him grimly from the tunnel mouth.

In animal guise they had tracked the Huntress, with Frey, Bragi, and Heimdall leading the chase. As the passageway broadened, Njörd’s sea eagle had joined them, flying low beneath the eaves, and now the four of them resumed their own Aspects, watching intently from their vantage point as the white wolf pursued its distant quarry.

Some distance behind them came Freyja and Idun, turning wondering eyes to the sky of Hel and to the little drama being enacted miles below across the plain.

“I told you Skadi was on our side,” said Njörd. “She followed him here; she led us right to him-”

“Did she?” Heimdall glanced at the parson, standing not a dozen feet away. “Then will someone explain to us why he’s here? And what about the Whisperer? If it was close, I’d have seen it by now.”

“It’s obvious,” said Njörd. “Loki has it.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Heimdall said. “If Odin and Loki are working together…”

“So they quarreled. He ran. That’s what he does. What does it matter?”

“I need to be sure.”

Heimdall turned on the parson, who had backed away. At his feet Adam Scattergood hid his eyes.

“You, fellow,” said Heimdall. “Where is the Whisperer?”

“Please don’t kill me,” pleaded Nat. “I don’t know anything about any Whisperer. I’m just a country parson; I don’t even have the Word anymore-”

And then the parson stopped and stared, and the Book of Words fell from his hand. He looked like a man having a stroke. His face paled; his eyes bulged; his mouth fell open, but no words came.

His wife was standing at the tunnel mouth. Her hair unpinned, her eyes bright, her plain face very calm.

“Ethel,” said Nat. “But I saw you die.”

Ethel smiled at her husband’s expression. She had expected to feel something when they finally met. Relief perhaps, or anger, fear, resentment. Instead she felt-what was that feeling?

“This is the Land of the Dead, Nat,” said Ethel with a mischievous smile. And now behind her Nat could see…surely that was Dorian Scattergood, and could that possibly be-a pig?

“I asked you a question, fellow,” said Heimdall. “Where is the Whisperer?”

But it was Ethelberta who replied, looking strangely dignified in spite of her ragged clothes and the dust on her face and the fact that she was standing next to a man holding a small black pig under one arm.

“The Whisperer is at the gate,” she said. “I speak as I must and cannot be silent.”

Heimdall gave her a sharp look. “What did you say?”

“This is the time that was foretold,” went on Ethel quietly. “The War of Nine Worlds, when Yggdrasil shall tremble to its roots and the Black Fortress shall be opened with a single Word. The dead shall rise to live again and the living have no place of refuge as Order and Chaos are finally made one, and the Nameless shall be named, and the formless have form, and a traitor be true, and a blind man lead you against ten thousand.”

By this time all eyes were on Ethelberta. Dorian thought how beautiful she was; how luminous and how calm.