Valhalla: Into The Darkness

By Lee Gold

"An axe age, a sword age," Bookwyrm chanted. "A wind age, a wolf age."

"Brothers shall fight and slay each other," sang Knut. "Garm howls in Hel, and the wolf runs free."

It's late Winter, and Robin's still isn't used to Asgard.

Last year she left Valhalla without permission. "I don't want to fight and die at Ragnarok," she tol

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penmore Press LLC
• Release date: May 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985529890

Lee Gold

Lee Gold grew up in a home with lots of bookshelves. There was Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm and Oz. There was the Iliad for children and the Odyssey for children. There were the Shakespeare plays, and there were stories about the Shakespeare plays. There was the Greek myths, and there were the Norse myths. There was a Jewish Bible. There was Kipling's Just So Stories and Jungle Books for children and his Plain Tales from the Hills not for children. And every week or two there was a trip to the library and library books to take home..The summer after Lee graduated sixth grade there was a trip to Canada, and on the ferry to Vancouver Island, she bought an SF magazine. And after that she kept on buying used Fantasy and SF books and magazines and getting them in the library. She also collected Kipling's books and Cabell's Poictesme books. Her other favorite authors in no particular order include Tolkien, Bujold, Kage Baker, Sharon Lee's & Steve Miller's Liaden books, Heinlein's books up through The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Asimov's books up through The Gods Themselves. One day she read Eddisson's The Worm Ouroboros, which referred to Njal's Saga, so she bought a modern English translation of it and fell in love with its terse language and bloody plot; she bought a lot of other modern translations of other Norse sagas.In the mid-1960s Lee and several other wonderful SF readers met at the UCLA Book Store and talked for hours. They founded The Third Foundation science fiction club, which met regularly each month. They attended Westercon XX (1967) and the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, where Lee met Barry Gold. They eventually became part of the filking community, writing lyrics about their favorite subject matters and singing the resulting songs at science fiction conventions.Lee got an M.A. in English Literature from UCLA, but left academia and teaching English 1 (Exposition) for even odder jobs.Lee Gold started playing Original D&D in 1975 and started Alarums and Excursions, her roleplaying game amateur press association, a few months later. She's written several professional roleplaying games, two about Japan, one generic. In 1990, after getting over three shelf-feet of books on Norse myths, stories, and history, she created the RPG VIKINGS.Nowadays Lee Gold edits two fanzines:Alarums & Excursions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarums_and_Excursions: a monthly roleplaying game amateur press associationXenofilkia: https://conchord.org/xeno/: a filk fanzine

Book preview

VALHALLA:

Into Darkness

by

Lee Gold



www.penmorepress.com

Valhalla: Into Darkness by Lee Gold

Copyright © 2022 Lee Gold

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN:13: 979-8-9855298-8-3 (Paperback)

ISBN:13: 979-8-9855298-9-0 (e-book)

BISAC Subject Headings:

FIC009100 FICTION / Fantasy / Action & Adventure

FIC010000 FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology

FIC009080 FICTION / Fantasy / Humorous

Cover design: Book Cover Whisperer

Address all correspondence to:

Penmore Press LLC

920 N Javelina Pl

Tucson AZ 85748

DEDICATION

Jason’s Song is by Lee Gold, to the tune of Banned from Argo by Leslie Fish," whose tune you can hear on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJjQGfqoDqM.

You can read all the verses of Jason’s Song in Xenofilkia #83.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Barry Gold and Chris Wozney

CHAPTER ONE

Frigga’s Day

the sixth day of the month of Spring

Asgard

(Confusing as it may seem to people using the current calendar, the Old Norse calendar only had two seasons: Winter and Summer. Spring was the name of the last month of the season of Winter. The month of Spring began with the last crescent moon before March 21st. Spring wasn’t a season, just a short lunar month.)

* * * * *

So what have you been doing lately, Brother?.

Now that mistletoe’s promised to play nice, I’ve been making birdlime squirters for my Hel twins’ weddings. Promise me that you won’t curse my joke this time.

I don’t usually repeat myself.

And?

No more curses on your jokes, I promise. Is there anything else I can do for you?

The peace treaty said I couldn’t go to Vanaheim. Can you send a raven to invite my mother and brother to my children’s weddings?

I sent one around Yule. He couldn’t find either of them. But the Norns say that they aren’t dead, so there’s still hope.

Hope is always good…. The peace treaty didn’t mention my children.

They hadn’t been born yet. But it was unimaginative of the negotiators to overlook the possibility.

Not a mistake either of us would ever have made.

I imagine that if you send even one of your children there, it’ll end up with all the oathmates going.

Do you object to my plans?

I would never order them to do it, but no. I don’t object.

* * * * *

Next day, the seventh day of the month of Spring

Frost Lokison’s and Robin Grima’s home: The Cottage,

Asgard

What was your wedding like? Robin Grima abruptly asked Drifa. A moment ago they’d been brushing out their hair after bathing and so they’d been talking about hairstyles, but it wasn’t as much of a change of subject as it might seem.

Drifa had explained that back in the Old Norse days, an unmarried girl wore her hair loose with a headband across her forehead. A married woman pinned her hair back at the nape of her neck, then let it fall loose down her back. And your hairstyle, Drifa had said, "a velvet headband on your forehead and a hairclip—not on your neck but higher up, on the lower back of your head—it’s like a compromise between married and unmarried."

Was there a standard hairstyle for a girl who was betrothed? Robin had asked, touching her steel hairclip. She pulled down her tunic, then stepped into her trousers. She pulled them up and tied her leather belt around her waist.

Drifa shook her head and went on brushing her long, golden hair, which was still damp. (Robin’s dark brown hair had been dry a few seconds after they’d gotten out of the bath. It also shone with its own bright light. It had done that ever since Robin had walked three times through Odin’s fire ordeal in Valhalla’s Blind Hall.)

There didn’t use to be a betrothal hairstyle, Drifa had said, but you can tell people that now there is. Tell them you’ve come here to change more things than just doing away with Ragnarok.

Robin had laughed. And then she’d asked, What was your wedding like? She reached out for her sword scabbard and tied it to her belt. Then she touched her sword hilt and felt the sword’s presence. It was a new sword, not the one she’d gotten when she’d first come to Asgard, and that was wonderful, because now her first sword was her lover, Frost Lokison.

Drifa smiled, remembering the long months of her betrothal. Well, I was young then. Not quite sixteen when Bookwyrm came to my father and offered him a brideprice of silver and cows and land. I don’t remember all the financial details; I left them up to my parents. I remember making jars of clover honey. She pulled a woolen chemise over her head, then pulled a heavy, lined woolen robe over it. Her hands reached up to her shoulder brooches to clip the outer robe to the inner one. (She’d have worn shirt and trousers for fighting in Valhalla’s Blind Hall, but Asgard had had peace ever since they’d defeated Hymir, and she felt better in women’s garb when she didn’t expect to fight. But her Valhallan sword scabbard still hung from her belt, just in case.)

First my father made sure that I agreed to the match, and then he and Mother spent the next year putting together an equal value for my dowry. Some day, when we get time, Robin, I want to ask Valkyrie Kari if it’s true that happily married couples go together to the Gem-Roof, to the Gimle after they’ve died, if one of them isn’t taken to Valhalla or Hel’s Hall. If they do, then I’m sure that my parents are there. Robin wondered if someone from Valhalla would be allowed to visit her parents in the Gimle. She wondered who would be the right person to ask.

(If she’d asked me I could not have answered, but I could have told her that Drifa and Bersi Bookwyrm Beornson had a long, happy marriage. Drifa learned to make healing potions as well as honey, and folk called her in to treat the sick and the wounded. She and Bookwyrm had five living sons and three living daughters, and the couple lived to see twenty living grandchildren. Healer Drifa’s skin had wrinkled and her blonde hair had turned white, and then one winter she’d taken one patient too many and caught a raging fever. She ended up dying in bed (lying on straw, like a cow, people said), and that meant that she went to feast in Hel’s Hall with Baldur and Hodur. Dying made her young and strong and beautiful again, but she couldn’t leave Hel’s world without Lady Hel’s permission. Bookwyrm died fighting valiantly, a hero’s death, and a valkyrie took him to Valhalla, so he was young and strong again.

Drifa and Bookwyrm hadn’t seen one another for a thousand years when a valkyrie saw Robin dying a hero’s death in 21st century Midgard Los Angeles, after an earthquake shook a cancer hospital and an oxygen tank exploded. The valkyrie took Robin to Valhalla and gave her a magic sword. Three days later, Robin took Bookwyrm and some other heroes away from Valhalla and down to Hel’s world, where they killed a dragon. Lady Hel rewarded them by letting Bookwyrm take Drifa away with him.)

Anyway, once the dowry was settled, Father announced the match, and we held the wedding at our home, on Winter’s Eve. Bookwyrm and I drank the bridal ale before our witnesses. Then we all went to our bedchamber, where Thor’s Hammer was waiting inside the bedclothes.

Thor’s Hammer? asked Robin, wide-eyed. Mjollnir?

"Well, not Thor’s real Hammer said Drifa, smiling. But there was always a hammer back then at a marriage, or when a field was plowed for the first time in spring. I don’t know what they do here in Asgard at weddings. The gossip in Valhalla is that Thor got angry at Odin centuries ago, and now his hall doesn’t have anyone living there."

Did the witnesses stay in your bedroom with you all night? asked Robin, thinking about what that might be like for her and Frost.

No, they just cheered when we got into bed, and then they went back to the feast hall to drink more ale. The next day we came out hand-in-hand to eat daymark, and they cheered us again, and Bookwyrm gave me a bag with the silver for the bridal-veil gift. It weighed a lot; it was about half the amount of my dowry. After that we gave each guest a jar of my clover honey to take home. My father had written a label on each jar with our names and the date. What are weddings like where you come from? She finished brushing out her long hair and fastened her hairclip at the back of her neck.

Robin shook her head. I met my friends at the cancer hospital, and we played Dungeons and Dragons together, but the parties I went to were funerals, not weddings. Maybe my parents’ friends’ children got married, but they didn’t invite me. I only read about weddings in books and saw them in the movies. A man would kneel down and hold up a diamond ring and ask a woman to put the ring on her finger if she agreed to marry him. Drifa frowned. It sounded like asking a woman to be a concubine, not like a proper marriage offer.

Robin went on. Sometimes, first, he’d ask for her father’s permission. Drifa nodded in approval. That sounded more like proper Old Norse etiquette. And later there’d be a ceremony and their friends and relatives would all come. Drifa smiled, reassured. And the people getting married would say, ‘I will be yours from this day forth, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.’ There were never any hammers. Robin shivered. And now I’ve already died.

Odin gave you a new sword, said Drifa, and it has Fire and Ice runes on it.

Firefrost feels good in my hand, Robin said. (Odin had told her that was her new magic sword’s name. She wished it hadn’t had ‘Frost’ as part of its name. At least it didn’t talk to her the way Frostbite had. Her D&D player character Grima had gotten a magic sword named Frostbite in a game, back when Robin was alive. A valkyrie had taken Robin to Valhalla when she died and thrown her a magic sword as a death day present. Sometimes the sword had whispered his thoughts to her. Sometimes it had seized control of her right arm and helped her fight better. Sometimes it told her the polite thing to say. Sometimes it had told her, Break me when the right time comes.) And Odin said I could keep as much of his rune rope as I could wrap nine times around my waist.

Sometimes there were swords—family swords—at weddings in the old days, Drifa said, but I don’t know what they do here in Asgard. You don’t have any relatives here, but you can host your own wedding, or Frost’s parents can. Or you could ask Allfather Odin to host it. Have you discussed these matters with Frost and his parents yet?

Not yet, Robin said. She looked out the window at the night sky. I’d better go. It’s family night at the Play Hall, and I don’t want to be late.

Months had passed since Robin and her friends had left Valhalla to stop all the Valhallans getting killed at Ragnarok, to stop Asgard getting defeated at Ragnarok, to stop almost all the Asgard folk getting killed at Ragnarok.

It had worked.

When Robin and her friends came back to Valhalla, Odin and Loki had come back with them, laughing at how clever their lies had been, how they’d made everybody believe the disaster of Ragnarok was going to happen, how they’d made everybody believe that they’d hated each other.

Robin had almost gotten used to Frost Kalinn Lokison being a man again instead of her magic sword Frostbite. She loved touching his warm hand; it felt even better than she had felt holding her sword, and she could still hear his thoughts when they touched. She loved looking at his fire-red hair and his steel-gray eyes and his smiling lips. She loved having him touch her—his fingers and his lips and his tongue.

She’d almost gotten used to Wind Kari Lokisdaughter being a woman instead of a wolf, a male wolf who’d spent centuries sitting on top of Valhalla’s entry gate but had left it to go off with Robin’s friend Knut. She’d almost gotten used to seeing Valkyrie Kari fly through the sky on aurora wings.

She’d almost gotten used to Frost’s father no longer being tied up to stalagmites with a gold snake dripping venom into his mouth, but that didn’t mean she’d gotten used to having red-haired Loki show up in the feast hall halfway through the nightmark meal on family night, his eyes shining like candle flames. He might let his wife Sigyn serve him or he might be carrying a plate he’d filled up in the kitchen. He might sit down in the place of honor or wherever there was an empty chair, unless that evening he preferred to sit on the floor or on top of the table or sometimes just sit in midair.

She’d asked Kari and Frost, Were family nights like this when you were children?

There was more teaching, Frost said. ‘What’s that fruit you’re eating? What kind of tree does it grow on? Where does that tree grow?’

‘What’s that meat you’re eating?’ Kari remembered. ‘What kind of animal did it come from? Where does that animal live? How do people kill that kind of animal?’

And always at the end of the questions, Frost said, and then they both spoken together, ‘Do you know that I think you’re wonderful? Do you know that I love you?’

Robin remembered her own parents’ questions at dinnertime. Sometimes they’d asked, What did you learn at school today? Mostly they’d asked, Who did you play with after school today? Oh, good. Her father’s a doctor. Or maybe Her father’s an architect. That’s the sort of nice girl you ought to be friends with. or they’d said, No, darling. Her father never went to college. He’s just a plumber. You don’t want to be friends with a girl like that.

And then Robin had gone to her high school graduation ceremony and driven back home, but her parents weren’t waiting for her at home. Her parents weren’t anywhere ever again, except the morgue and the cemetery, after a drunken classmate—one of the classmates they’d approved of—had smashed his graduation-present car into theirs. He ended up in a hospital, his neck broken. Robin’s parents had ended up dead. And Robin had sold the home she’d been born in and moved to go to college in California.

Sigyn Odinsdaughter Lokiswife seemed quite comfortable being a beautiful valkyrie again, being back in Asgard again with her husband and children, but she was also busy tidying Leika Halla, PlayHall, back into order again after their long absence.

Sometimes when Robin spent family night there, she slept with Frost in his childhood bedroom. Or sometimes they’d go to the room that Robin had chosen as her own bedroom. Both of the rooms were beautiful. But either way, Frost’s parents always spoke as if Robin and Frost wouldn’t start sleeping together until they got married.

He must know, Robin had said one night, trying to slam a bedroom door that shut as quietly as a falling snowflake or a flickering flame.

Of course Loki knows, said Frost, but he’s just as good at lying to himself as he is at lying to other people.

She’d almost gotten used to Frost’s sometimes calling his father and mother by their first names. She’d never called her father Jacob or her mother Erica except when she’d talked to the mortician as he filled out the paperwork for their death certificates.

Robin had almost gotten used to seeing Frost Lokison’s face when she woke up in the morning, not just in her dreams at night; to hearing his voice with her ears, not just in her mind. She’d started seeing Frost Lokison in her dreams as she climbed down the World Tree. A man with gray eyes and starshine silver hair who made puns when he was nervous. The man she loved. The man who loved her.

(Frost’s pale colors were his heritage from Ginnunga Gap’s Ice, from Odin, his mother’s father, though I admit that you can’t see Ice easily in Odin’s bronze hair and blue eyes, in Odin’s brother Hoenir’s red hair and green eyes, or in Odin’s brother Mimir’s black hair and brown eyes. Speaking of Frost Lokison’s looks, it occurs to me that I haven’t mentioned Asgard men’s shaving styles. They didn’t have electric razors—and most of their homes didn’t have electricity. They didn’t even have safety razors. They did have sharp razors and sharp scissors. The Aesir men usually had lush sideburns and moustaches and beards—with just one significant exception, and we’ll discuss him later.)

Robin had almost gotten used to living with Frost in the Cottage, their own home, half an hour’s walk from Valhalla and half an hour’s walk from Saga’s hall. Frost had named their home Cottage, because it only had half a dozen rooms. One of the rooms was Frost’s bedroom and one of them was her bedroom, though whichever room they went to, they always slept together.

Once we’re married, we can redecorate, Frost told her.

Which bedroom do you want to turn into a library after we get married? Robin asked him. Saga says we can borrow as many duplicate books from her hall as we wish.

I think I’d better add another room for a library, said Frost. A big one. And he’d started building it.

Robin was almost getting used to the two of them visiting Play Hall for nightmark on Loki’s Day. (Most of you readers probably don't know that the Old Norse only ate two meals a day: daymark around 9 AM and nightmark around 9 PM. Asgard folk still do the same.)

There isn’t a language nowadays that has Loki’s Day.

How did the Germans and Norse get their seven-day week and the names of their weekdays? They were a kind gift from the old Romans, starting with the Caesars. Yes, the very same Romans who looked at Ogma, the Celtic god of eloquence and letters, and saw his lion’s skin and decided that he was the same person as Hercules. The very same Romans who looked at Sulis, the British goddess, and decided that the snakes on her head meant she was the same person as Minerva. Those Romans looked at Woden who, among so very many other things, took dead souls down to Hel’s world, and decided he was the same person as Mercury who took dead souls to Hades, and so they gave him Mercury’s Day. They looked at Thor with his lightning bolts and decided he was the same person as Jupiter, and so they gave him Jupiter’s Day. They looked at beautiful Lady Freya and decided she was the same person as beautiful Venus, and so they gave her Venus’s Day. The Romans gave us their Sun’s Day and Moon’s Day. And they even gave some of us their Saturn’s Day.

And afterwards, centuries later, the Roman Christian priests kindly edited those weekdays. The German Christian priests were so afraid of Woden that they turned his day into Mit—Middle (you can sing that as three capital letters to the Mickey Mouse Club theme song—M.I.T., and then you can say, That’s a school in Massachusetts) plus Woch—Week, so it means Mid-Week. All the Christians were so afraid of Loki that they turned his Day into Something Else Day. In English it’s Saturn’s Day, for the Titan who ate his children (instead of one of his children eating the other one). In German, it’s Sabbath. In Iceland, it’s Laundry Day, and in Norwegian and Swedish and Danish, it’s Lor, which may not mean anything or might mean Lodur’s Day.

Who’s Lodur? He only shows up in the Voluspa, when he helped his good friend Odin make humans. Lodur gave humans heat and good color. Wikipedia’s article on Lodur (at least on the day when I’m writing this) says that some recent scholars think Lodur might have been a Christian euphemism for Someone Else. Henry Adams Bellows, who translated the Voluspa back in 1936, wrote that Lodur was apparently an older name for Loki, but the Wikipedia article on Lodur (today) doesn’t mention Bellows.

But long, long ago, before the Romans came to the Northlands, even before Baldur died, there was the Oldest Calendar, and it said that the day before Sun’s Day was Loki’s Day, and nowadays a few of the Asgard halls have gone back to the Oldest Calendar again.

And that Loki’s Day evening Robin went to the Play Hall kitchen a little before nightmark would be served. Do you need any help? she asked Sigyn.

It’s going to be formal tonight, said Sigyn. I’ve called up the shield folk, the family retainers, she waved a hand at half a dozen teenagers with bright red-gold hair who looked half-Fire Giant, maybe Loki’s relatives on his father Farbauti’s side. (Wikipedia says that name might mean Sudden Striker. Maybe Farbauti looked like a bonfire or a forest fire or a meteorite or.... Just imagine a Fire Giant who saw a pretty Vana named Leafy, who suddenly kissed her and seduced her and got her pregnant.)

Bring everyone their food and drink, dears, Sigyn told the shield folk. Go sit next to Frost Kalinn, Robin darling.

So Robin went to the feast hall, and there was Loki Laufeyson sitting in a tall chair she’d never seen before, which wasn’t surprising because she hadn’t explored more than a few dozen rooms in Play Hall. The chair’s back was about two ells high and carved with flowers and flames and it was dyed with all the bright colors of Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge.

No, Loki wasn’t sitting at the head of the table. He was sitting in the middle of the line of chairs, the traditional Old Norse place of honor. There was an ivory drinking cup next to his left hand, bound in bands of gold.

(You may remember that I told you that there is just one man in Asgard who didn’t have sideburns or a moustache or a beard—or even five o’clock shadow. That man is redheaded Loki, whose cheeks and chin are as smooth as a twelve-year-old boy’s. Maybe that’s one reason the other Aesir are a bit nervous about him. I asked him about it once, Frost had told Robin. He said his top head-hair is Fire, and it changes with him if he shapechanges, but when he turned half-grown, his body grew Vana hair on his chin and elsewhere, and it caught fire and burned him if he shapechanged, which ‘wasn’t altogether pleasant,’ so he told the Vana hair to go away, and it did. I was luckier; all my hair is Fire.)

Do I curtsy to you? Robin asked Loki. She knew she hadn’t learned much Asgard etiquette. She wasn’t sure she’d ever learn enough Asgard etiquette to be considered mannerly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Loki laughed, which should have been reassuring except that his eyes suddenly shone very bright because there were gold flames in them instead of pupils, except that his laugh went up and down the scales for several octaves. He finally fell silent, then said, No, you don’t have to curtsy, wonderful daughter-in-law-to-be. I made up my mind last night. I’m going to give you and Frost a mission before we set the date for your wedding.

Of course you are, said Frost, who was sitting at Loki’s right hand. We’re honored, Father. What’s the mission?

I’ll do it, said Robin, sitting down next to Frost, because it’s an honor, and because I love having you call me wonderful daughter-in-law-to-be.

Then that’s settled, said Loki. "Frost, I want you to go to Vanaheim and invite your Grandmother Laufey to the wedding. I don’t know where she’s living nowadays. She might still be on her home island, or she might have moved somewhere else, or.... I don’t really know if she’s still living. I just hope that she’s still alive."

A Grandmother? thought Robin, who’d never met either of her own, just seen old photographs of them, taken before they’d died. What will a Vana Grandmother be like? Laufey means Leafy. Is Grandmother Laufey going to be like a Dryad? Her plate arrived before her and the serving dishes began arriving on the table. She recognized a prime rib of beef and a leg of lamb and roast suckling pig, and then the side-dishes began to arrive, and she was glad she wasn’t going to be questioned on where each dish came from and how each meat got killed. Frost passed her a platter of meat she didn’t recognize (she touched his wrist, and he thought at her, "Venison,") and then a bowl of baked potatoes.

"Why don’t you go there and invite her, Father?" asked Kari, who was sitting at Loki’s left hand and had carved herself a slice of goose and taken a hot baked apple.

I’m going to be busy here for a while, Loki said. And I gave them my word of honor at the last truce that I’d never go back there.

Any other reasons? Frost asked him.

They passed a law that they’d kill me if I ever went back, Loki said. It was a long time ago, of course. They may have forgotten about it by now. And, oh yes, before you go there, Frost, you and Riddler Robin should go visit Gerd’s Garden in Jotunheim and unchain Njord and ask him if he wants to go back to Vanaheim and move back in with his old wife who’s his sister. It’s socially acceptable in Vanaheim to marry your older sister, even if it is incest, and Njord’s children Freya and Frey are certainly pretty proof that it produces lovely children. Or maybe Njord will want a matchmaker to find him a new wife, someone who Odin likes and who Njord likes too. Even if Njord goes back to Vanaheim, that’ll still leave Asgard and Jotunheim two Vanir hostages.

We’re honored by your trust in us, said Robin. Anything else?

Yes, said Loki, but it’ll be more difficult. Sometime after Freya Njordsdaughter came to Asgard with her father, she picked up a husband from some other world, a fellow named Od, and she had a beautiful daughter who might even have been by him. Now I know that Od wasn’t me, and Odin swears that Od wasn’t him, and nobody’s seen Od in centuries, and every time Freya thinks of Lost Od she cries, big beautiful tears of red gold. Go find Lost Od, children, and bring him back to poor Freya, He paused and took a drink from the ivory cup that sat at his left hand.

Yes, said Robin, I’ll do all that, and Frost agreed and so did Kari.

Good, said Loki, And I’ll.... I’ll do what I think needs doing, as much as I can manage of it. He took another drink. To your good health. To the good health of everybody here, including me. He held his cup to his lips, then turned it over to show it was empty.

Kari asked him, Is the adventure to Vanaheim just for Robin and Frost, or may I go find Knut and tell him that we can come too?

The more the merrier, and the more who’ll get married soon, said Loki.

Good, said Kari. That means I can invite Bookwyrm and Drifa as well. I’ll go tell them all.

You’re wonderful, Loki told her. I love you.

I love you too, Kari said.

She strode to the great windowed doors that opened onto the gardens at the far end of the dining room and threw the doors open and strode out under the night sky of Asgard. The stars were bright, but the auroras of the valkyries flying over Asgard were even brighter.

Kari spread her arms, and her feathered wings flashed out below them, and she leapt up into the sky to go find her friends, and her red aurora glittered in the sky below her.

CHAPTER TWO

Sun’s Day

the eighth day of the month of Spring

Asgard

(It just occurred to me that most of you don’t understand that a Norse month starts when you see the crescent moon, so a month lasts about twenty-nine and a half days. No, that’s not tidy. If it annoys you, go yell at Mani Mundilferison, the Moon Boy—or if you live in the Workaday world and don’t believe in Mani, go yell at a workaday astronomer. Either way, it’s not my fault.)

Is there another dragon we can start by slaying, so we can bathe in his blood and weapons cannot wound us? asked Drifa.

I can’t think of any dragons that we want to slay, her husband Bookwyrm said slowly. (Bookwyrm had memorized all the Eddas back when he was alive. That made him almost as useful as having a computer with access to Wikipedia or the Nine Worlds Web if you wanted to look something up.) "In the Song of Grimnis, Odin said that ‘more serpents lie beneath the World Tree than any fool can imagine.’ But that song was written a long time ago. Those serpents were Nidhog and her children. Lady Hel told us that Garm Fenrison killed Nidhog’s sons. Did Nidhog have any sons that Garm didn’t notice? I don’t know for sure, but I never read of her having any. Did Nidhog have any daughters? The Song of Grimnir didn’t name any daughters of Nidhog. And we know who killed Nidhog. We did. Fafnir turned into a dragon, but he was killed by Sigurd, the hero whom the Germans call Siegfried, and I never read of Fafnir having any children. The only other dragon I’ve ever heard of is Orm Lokison, the Midgard Serpent, and we don’t want to kill him. He’s our friend; he’s Frost’s and Kari’s brother."

Bookwyrn had bathed in dragon’s blood last year when they’d killed Nidhog down in Hel’s world, when he was in human form. When he called on the runes and sang the words from Alvis’s Song about fire and wind, he could turn into a dragon himself, but then weapons could wound him and fire could burn him.

Robin Grima only had one form, human form, and so had Knut, and the dragon’s blood they’d bathed in meant that they stayed unwoundable; but Kari had been in he-wolf form back when she’d rolled in Nidhog’s blood, and so she was woundable in human form, whether or not she had sprouted her valkyrie wings. Kari was gladly back to her original female form with long dark hair and sky blue eyes, after centuries as a gray-furred, yellow-eyed he-wolf, and red-haired Knut Vidarson was very glad of it too; they were making plans to be married, though they hadn’t set a date yet.

Drifa had come from Hel’s Hall to join them after their great battle by the World Tree’s lowest root, when Nidhog’s blood was already cooling. She was invulnerable to weapon attacks, but the sea giant Hymir had been able to kill her when he popped her into his mouth and chewed her up. Knut and Bookwyrm thought that Drifa was now like a berserk: invulnerable to weapon attacks but still vulnerable to attacks from hand or foot or teeth—or perhaps with a weapon made of fresh-cut wood.

Frost Lokison hadn’t been in any living form back then. It’s an ugly story, and you should feel free to skim the rest of this paragraph. Frost’s sister Kari (turned into a starving he-wolf) had eaten all his flesh and cracked most of his bones for their marrow, until nothing was left of him but his intestines (yes, Frost had had guts) and his spine. Frost’s spine was handed over to some dark elves, who hammered him into the likeness of Robin’s D&D character’s magic sword Frostbite. As a human, Frost was a Lokison and a valkyrie’s son, so he had protections against Fire and Wind and Cold, but not against weapon wounds.

And then there was the seventh and last of that famous group of oathmates, the most eloquent and the most beautiful of them, even if he was the smallest, just twelve ounces of brave, intelligent squirrel—

Ratatosk! said Robin. "What are you doing here? You said you were tired of adventures and danger!" (Yes, Robin could have been a little more flattering when she noticed that I’d come to join the oathmates again, even though this time Kari hadn’t bothered to invite me by picking me up in her wolf’s mouth and dropping me in front of Robin.)

A little Thought convinced me I should come, I told Robin, and so did the message from his master. I shivered at my memory of my conversation with Hugin, the raven whose name means Thought, and of my later conversation with a Norn.

You really don’t want to annoy the Deceiver, the Flaming Eyed, the Wayfinder, do you? Hugin the raven had asked, and I’d quickly agreed that I really, truly, absolutely didn’t want to annoy Odin, Lord of Asgard, Commander of all the heroes of Valhalla.

After some discussion, Robin and her friends all agreed that they’d be honored to accept my company on their journey. In fact they agreed just as soon as I’d told them that Hugin had given me a map to show the safest way from Mimir’s Pool to Thrymstead, where we’d met Njord and his son Frey, sitting there at the feast table, not being tortured like Fenris Lokison had been on Heather Island, but just as well chained, with the same kind of magic bonds.

Yes, we’d all visited there once before, but that was with Lady Tidefyr transporting us, hundreds of miles gliding below us with every step the Fire Giantess strode under the Moonlight. I couldn’t do Tidefyr’s sort of magic. I didn’t know how many of us Kari’s wings could carry. It looked like we’d end up having a long, slow boring hike to Thrymstead, but Robin Grima had a history of getting things done. Maybe she’d end up having Bookwyrm turn into a dragon and carry us on his back again.

Bookwyrm studied my map and then took out a pen and parchment and made his own copy of it, as if he were worried that I might misplace it or run away with it.

After that we all set off to Urd’s Well. And there was beautiful little Urd (who often looked like an eight-year-old girl but was the oldest and wisest of the Norns) and her two sisters: red-haired Verdandi (who always looked like the sexiest Hollywood star of your dreams) and silver-haired, wrinkled Skuld (who’s the youngest and most idealistic, which is why her name means Should), all of them twining the life-threads of the nine worlds, every one of us, unborn and alive and dead, weaving us into their tapestry.

When the Norns weren’t busy weaving, they were busy picking up handfuls of their well water and the snow-white clay that lines their well. They gently sprinkle the clay on the World Tree’s bark to keep the tree safe and clean and whole. And sometimes they took a few minutes to throw food to the two white swans that swam in the well.

Do the swans have names? Maybe. Even probably. What are their names? I don’t know. Go ask someone else. Go ask a Norn if you want to risk bothering one. As I’ve said before, I’m a know-a-lot, not a know-it-all.

The Norns’ old tapestry had shown Ragnarok, the great battle when all the Middle and Lower Worlds—well, almost all of them—would ally to fight Asgard, and almost everybody important ended up dying. All the prophecies had said so.

But Robin had said, I don’t want to march off to the big fight knowing I’m not going to accomplish anything. I want to win! And she’d led Knut and Bookwyrm and Kari who was a wolf back then and brave little Ratatosk, and later on Drifa, away from Valhalla, away from Asgard, and down the World Tree, all the way down to Hel’s world, then off to Mist Elf Home and then up to Midgard and Jotunheim, and at last off to a great fight on Hymir’s huge bone ship, whose sail was the Norns’ old tapestry.

And by the time that fight was over, the prophecies were all in tatters, and so was the Norns’ tapestry, and so was most of my old gossip, but I’d gotten lots of wonderful new gossip to take its place. And the best piece of it was that Odin and Loki were openly best friends again and laughing about how they’d fooled everyone (well, except for the Norns; you can’t ever really fool the Norns; you just get them to go along with the joke) with their false prophecies.

When we got to Urd’s Well today, I wished the Norns a good day, but I didn’t ask if there were any favors I could do for them, and I was very grateful that they didn’t think of any favors to ask us.

So you’ve decided to trust Odin the Deceiver? Verdandi asked us. (Yes, that’s one of Odin’s traditional Names. Odin’s got lots of traditional Names that I wouldn’t call him to his face, even if we were drinking together. Especially if we were drinking together.)

Odin All-Father’s been absolutely trustworthy with us so far, said Robin, which wasn’t quite an answer.

Does the map show the way to where Njord is? asked Knut.

Right now it does, said Verdandi.

Sometimes it does, said Skuld.

It did when Ratatosk got it, said Urd.

Thank you, said Robin. In that case we’d better set off as soon as we can.

So we said our farewells to the Norns, and we turned to the World Tree, the giant white ash tree that links the nine worlds and has its highest root in the Norns’ Well, the purest water that it drinks. And, yes, living there gives the Norns the highest Root privilege. That means that if they see anything happen that they don’t like, they can revise it or delete it or move it to somewhere else. They don’t do it often, but having that Root privilege still means they’re the most powerful people in the nine worlds.

There was a World Tree branch sticking out not too high over our heads, only about a hundred ells high. Wind Kari took an end of the rune rope from Robin and flew up to loop it around the branch and let the rope fall back down to us as we stood on the ground below it.

And how did a rope that only went nine times around Robin’s waist manage to cope with that sort of distance? Because it was Odin’s rune rope, the one he used to hang himself for nine cold windy nights on the World Tree back when he was sacrificing himself to himself, with a rope around his neck and a spear through his heart, so he could become master of the runes. When his ordeal was over, he went back to Asgard, but he left the rope on the World Tree, and that’s where Robin and her friends and I found it last winter.

I didn’t need it, of course. I’m a squirrel. I could scamper up and down the World Tree with my beautiful sharp claws as fast as I wanted to. And if I got hungry or thirsty, or if I wanted to check my computers, I could crawl into one of my Tree trunk homes, and I’d be safe and comfortable there. I could even set my security alarms and settle down in a nice warm bed and have a nap. But not now.

Last time we’d climbed down the Tree between the worlds, branch to branch to branch along the long slow slant down from Urd’s Well at the edge of Asgard to Mimir’s Well in the center of Jotunheim. But not this time. This time Robin wanted to start by going up from nice, warm, golden Asgard into the heart of the cold and the darkness and the wind that blows between the worlds, all because Robin wanted to look at the nine worlds.

We could have seen a nice hand-painted map of them easily enough in a book at Saga’s Hall.

We could have seen an animated picture of them on a computer screen easily enough in my nice safe warm home.

But no, Robin wanted to go see them with her own eyes and so here we were, freezing our tails off. Well, actually I was the only one here still with a tail, and so far my beautiful tail was still safely attached to the rest of me, but Kipling’s Tomlinson poem was right about the wind; it cuts like a knife and it nips you to the bone. It also sometimes blows the World Tree’s branches around so you feel like you’re on a ship mast in a heavy storm. One old word for having your fur stand up and getting goose bumps is horripilation, and that’s just what it feels like, horrible and bristling. There are times when I’ve wished I were a porcupine with a squirrel’s claws, and that was one of them.

Now Robin and her friends and I were climbing up the rope to the nearest branch by the morning light of bright gold Sol, moony Mani’s sister.

Once we got there, we walked out along the branch, carefully avoiding an occasional cluster of honeybees feeding on the ash branch’s sweet spring sap flow. I don’t know how the bees managed not to get bothered by the wind.

Asgard is a small circle of warmth and glory, about a dozen miles in diameter, mostly surrounded by a great stone wall, built long, long ago by a