Joanne Harris - Runemarks

Sif flicked her hair. “You seem to know a lot about it,” she said. “And you do subtleties.”

“Yeah. Like I’ve always wanted to destroy the Nine Worlds while committing suicide.”

“Well, there’s no need to be rude,” protested Sif.

“But Loki is right,” said Frigg quietly. “Surt, for all his power, is just a tool of Chaos. A machine. Someone set him into motion. Someone who knew that we’d be here, that our escape would galvanize his rage.”

The gods were looking puzzled now. “But there’s no one else,” protested T ýr. “There’s no one left after Ragnarók. A few giants, maybe, a demon or two, the Folk…”

But Loki’s hand had gone to his mouth. His eyes widened.

“He knows,” said Frigg gently.

“Does he?” said Thor.

“The girl wanted to rescue her father,” Frigg continued. “She knew he was in Netherworld. But who told her that? Who encouraged her? Who led her here at just the right time, and who made sure Loki was with her-Loki, whose presence ensured maximum havoc in Netherworld and who could also be used, among other things, as bait?”

“So it was his fault…”

Frigg shook her head. “I said, who?”

There was a silence.

All around them the screaming, the rushing, the sounds of rocks tearing away from the sides of the fortress and crashing into each other like worlds-everything came to a stop.

And in the silence Loki began to laugh.

And a blackbird shadow with a corona of fire reared up its head from between the Worlds and began to move across the vastness of Chaos toward them.

If Hel’s living eye was merciless, the dead one was like a burial pit. Maddy bore its gaze for seconds before she managed to look away.

“Am I dead?” she said.

“Damn, she’s awake.”

The dry voice was that of the Whisperer, but the figure was one she had never seen: a bent old man, garbed in light, carrying a runestaff that crackled with glam.

“Apparently you’re alive, my dear. Against all expectation you made it in time. Of course, it would have been most inconvenient from my point of view to see you discorporated at this stage. But I’d hoped to do things differently. Still, you’re here, and that’s what counts-”

“What things?” said Maddy.

“Why, my revenge.”

“Revenge against whom?”

“The Æsir, of course.”

Maddy shook her aching head. Still dazed after her wild flight through Netherworld, she stared at the gleaming figure that had blossomed from the Head and tried to understand its ludicrous words.

“The Æsir?” she said. “But-you’re on their side.”

“Their side? Their side?” The ancient voice was harsh with contempt. “And what side’s that, you silly girl? Order? Chaos? A bit of both?”

Maddy tried to sit up, but her head was spinning.

“What have the Æsir done for me? They plundered my talents, they got me killed; then, as if that wasn’t enough, they condemned me to this-to be picked up and put away at my master’s whim…” The Whisperer gave a dry little crack of laughter. “And for that,” it said, “I was supposed to feel grateful ? To let them start all over again?”

“But I don’t understand. You helped me…”

“Well, you’re special,” said the Whisperer.

“And Loki?”

It smirked. “Well-he was a bit special too.”

Maddy looked around abruptly, half expecting to find Loki gone. She’d dragged him as far as the gate, she knew, but beyond that everything was blurred. Had she saved him after all?

He was lying beside her, eyes closed. Pale and still though he was, he looked far better than his battered counterpart in Netherworld, and Maddy was immediately reassured. Of course, if he’d died, she told herself, then his body wouldn’t be there at all and his shade would already be walking Hel’s halls, along with the ghosts of his family.

Maddy took a deep breath. “I thought he was the traitor,” she said.

The Whisperer smiled. “And so did he. In fact, he was merely a pawn in my service, as he has been for the best part of five hundred years. He thought I was his prisoner-never suspecting that he was mine. He tried to trick me, as I knew he would, but even a traitor can serve my plan. He’d served it before, at Ragnarók-which in many ways, incidentally, I engineered.”

“Engineered it? How?”

“I manipulated the gods to do as I’d planned: I tempted the weak; I flattered the strong; I guided their enemies, made cryptic pronouncements and secret alliances, entered their minds with treacherous thoughts. Odin never saw how he’d been deceived. Even when his brother turned against him, he never suspected the whisperer in the shadows. And now, once more, they have played into my hands. As of course, my dear, have you.”

Maddy listened in growing horror. In front of her she could see the ranks of the Order, silent now, awaiting the Word. Behind her, a single glance told her that the river Dream was rising to flood level: filaments of raw glam hovered over its teeming waters; things moved in its unspeakable deeps. Soon, she knew, it would break its banks and spill its nightmare across the plains of Hel. But beyond the river was even worse. Netherworld was coming apart; the illusion of a fortress-or even an island-was long gone now in the churning mess. Rocks circled each other in air that was clotted with ephemera; souls flitted by like moths around a lamp.

“So Loki was right,” she said softly. “You made a deal with the Order, and you’re keeping control of these men somehow.”

The Whisperer smiled. “A deal?” it said. “Maddy, I made the Order. From Chaos I brought it, after the war. I was free then, the gods were imprisoned, and I sought my disciples among the Folk. The Folk have remarkable minds, you know-rivaling the gods in ambition and pride. I gave them the Good Book-a collection of commandments and prophecies and names of power-and they gave me their minds. By the time your friends escaped from Netherworld, my Order had grown to five hundred men. Scholars, historians, politicians, priests. Five hundred pairs of eyes abroad, linked to me through Communion, the beginnings of an army that would change the Worlds. Little by little, but always through me: the still, small voice of the Nameless.”

“The Nameless?” repeated Maddy blankly.

It gave its dry and humorless laugh. “Everything has a name, you know. Names are the building blocks of Creation. And now, at last, My prophecy is fulfilled, and I shall arise as the leader of an invading army. Ten thousand men, all armed with the Word, all loyal to Me and incapable of betrayal. With them I can do anything: raise the dead, reorder the Worlds. This time we’ll win, no doubt about it, and this time we’ll take no prisoners.”

Once more Maddy looked at the Whisperer. It looked insubstantial in this new Aspect, and yet there was no mistaking the power at its fingers; trails of glamour snapped around it, and Maddy knew that just one touch from its staff would be enough to reduce her to a smear of ash.

Where is it getting the power? she thought.

The answer formed itself almost before the question was posed. It was standing before her, set out in orderly columns across the plain.

Slowly she rose to her feet, keeping a distance between herself and the Nameless. From time to time her eyes went back to the figure of Loki at her feet, eyes closed, hands folded neatly over a chest that neither rose nor fell.

“Forget him; he’s dead,” said the Whisperer.

“No,” said Maddy. “He can’t be.”

“Of course he can,” said the Whisperer. “Dead, done, and good riddance.”

She put out a hand to touch Loki’s face. It was still warm. “But he’s here.” Her voice shook. “His body is here.”