Joanne Harris - Runemarks

He could already feel it building: it raised his hackles, shivered the ground, made the clouds shift and circle. If there had been birds in those clouds, they would have dropped from the sky; as it was, even the dead felt it and followed, like dust on a wind of static.

They were waiting, he sensed, for some command, some new word that would galvanize them into movement. All of them silent now, eyes closed; all of them focused with the unbreakable concentration of the dead. The column seemed to stretch out for miles, and yet beyond it the farsighted Watchman seemed to see something-something impossible, he told himself, and yet if he’d not known, he could almost have sworn…

But then came a rumbling across the plain, a silent resonance that nevertheless penetrated the listeners to the marrow and beyond.

Bragi heard it as a lost chord.

Idun heard it as the silent sob of a dying man.

Freyja heard it as a cracked mirror.

Heimdall heard it as a blackbird shadow.

Frey heard it as a death wind.

Skadi heard it as creeping ice.

And Odin heard it as a whisper of the Elder Days, a low sound of ancient spite, and suddenly he understood-not everything, but some at least-and as once more the ten thousand dead opened their eyes and spoke as one, everyone heard the Word that was spoken, a teasing, seductive whisper of a Word that hung over the desert like a distant smoke signal under the putrid clouds.

Odin, it whispered.

“I hear you,” he said.

Then come, it said. Come to Me.

And as the Vanir watched, the ten thousand with their ranks and columns parted silently and in a single fluid movement, leaving a narrow passageway across the sand.

Odin smiled and stepped forward, staff in hand.

Heimdall made as if to guide him.

The dead column seemed to tremble. Ten thousand pairs of eyes opened once more and ten thousand heads turned in his direction. The combined weight of their concentration made the Watchman’s teeth ache.

Alone, said the Whisperer, and every Examiner mouthed the words in perfect synchronicity. The General must stand alone.

There was a long pause. Then Odin spoke. “At least let me take the goblin,” he said. “I’ll need his eyes to lead me through.”

Agreed, said the Whisperer, and its voice moved through the mouths of the dead like the wind through a field of corn.

Odin smiled.

“If you think I’m letting you go alone-” said Heimdall.

“I must,” said Odin. “The prophecy-”

“Damn the prophecy!”

With an effort Odin drew himself up to the full height of his Warrior Aspect. Light and fury blazed from him; the air about him was bright with runes.

“I’m ordering you to stay here,” he said. “You and the other Vanir too.”

“But why?”

“Because it’s the only way. And because if I lose this battle, it may be that the Vanir will be all that stands between Chaos and the Middle Worlds.”

“But you can’t fight. You can’t even see-”

“I don’t need to see. Now let me go.”

“At least let Idun give you some apple-”

“Listen, Heimdall.” Odin turned toward him, and his one eye, though blind, was shining. “If my suspicions are right, then even in my youth, armed, in full Aspect, and with my glam intact, I would have been no match for the powers here. You really think fruit is going to help?”

“Then why are you going?” Freyja said.

Ethel could have told her, with her new clear sight, but Odin had bound her to silence. The image of the death ship was strong in her mind-the fallen General with his dog at his feet-and she wished there was something she could say to make him turn back…

But by then Odin was already gone, with Sugar leading him carefully across the dusty ground, and the ranks of the Order closed as he passed, erasing him like writing in the sand.

Nat Parson had watched with apparent indifference as Odin vanished into the ranks. Inside, however, his heart was racing.

That Voice!

He’d heard it as they all had, whispered across the battlefield, and he’d clapped both hands to his face as blood began to drip from his nose. It was the Word-he could sense it as a rabid dog scents water-and for a moment he thought he might go mad from terror and desire.

And now he could almost touch the Word; it trembled all around him like the coming of spring; it called him in a voice like gold-

Laws, that power!

Ten thousand times stronger than anything he’d felt before, the pull of the Word was not to be denied, and who could know, when at last it was unleashed, what gifts it might bestow on a faithful servant?

Worlds, Nathaniel. What else is there?

He stared at the obedient dead, pegged out across the colorless horizon. Ten thousand dead, yet strangely alive-his strained senses could feel their vigilance, their stillness a blind over that horrible alertness. He could feel their unity: the ripples that ran through them like wind through grass, a single flicker of an eye echoed in ten thousand pairs of eyes as they stood in terrible Communion.

That could have been me, he told himself.

Somewhere in those ranks stood his Examiner, the one he had known as Elias Rede. Somewhere, he was certain, Rede was aware of him. Surely that made him a part of this Communion, gave him the right to some of that power…

He took a step toward the line.

Ten thousand pairs of eyes looked his way.

He whispered: “It’s me. Nat Parson.”

Nothing happened. No one moved.

Nat took another step.

Behind him the Vanir were lost in debate; their raised voices reached him as if from a distance, but the sounds of the dead were deafening, an artillery of furtive creaking and rustling, as of insects crawling on shifting sand.

He moved closer.

“Prentice?” he said quietly.

Adam, who had been pretending to sleep behind a nearby piece of rock, lifted his head.

Nat smiled-to Adam he looked as mad as ale, and Adam began to feel that it might be safer to be as far from his old master as possible.

He backed away-

“Oh no, you don’t.” Nat reached out to grab the boy’s arm. “I may need you yet, Adam Scattergood.” He did not mention why he might need him, though Adam cringed at the look in his eyes. Nothing was left, Adam thought, of his master. Instead Nat looked like one of the dead; his dull but horribly knowing eyes were fixed on a point Adam could not see, and his grin was like that of a rabid wolf.

“I don’t want to go,” said Adam faintly.

“Good lad,” said the parson, and crossed the line to join the army of the dead.

None of the Vanir saw him go. Nat had made no friends among the Faërie, and now that he was no longer a threat, their contempt for him was plain to see. But Ethel had not forgotten him. Her husband still had a part to play, and even she did not know how the game would end.

So she watched as Nat approached the line, dragging Adam in his wake, and she followed quietly, a few paces back. Dorian knew better than to protest. In the short time they had traveled together, his respect for Ethel had grown beyond measure, and although he was terribly afraid of the dead men standing on the plain, he would rather have died than let her go alone. And so he followed, his pig at his heels (for Lizzy too knew loyalty), and though the dead pressed in on either side, distressing the air with their stench and their chanting, Ethel Parson stayed calm, her gray eyes kind and compassionate and unafraid.

Someone, she knew, was about to die. And the fate of the Worlds depended on whom.

Balder the Fair, behind whose shining Aspect fragments of Loki were still apparent, looked down at himself with a puzzled expression. He examined his hands, his chest, his arms and legs. He pulled a hank of hair over his eyes and squinted at it. Even through his colors it still showed faintly red.