Maddy shook her head, abashed. “It’s just that the thought of turning back-”

Once more he gave her a puzzled look. “Who said anything about turning back?”

“But-”

“Maddy,” he said, “I thought you understood. Chaos blood on your mother’s side, Æsir on your father’s. Did you really think that climbing down that cliff was the best option?”

Maddy considered that for a moment. “But I don’t know any glamours-” she began.

“You don’t need to know any glamours,” said Loki. “Glamour is a part of you, like your hair or your eyes or the fact that you’re left-handed. Did Odin have to teach you to throw mindbolts?”

Frowning, Maddy shook her head. Then she remembered Freyja’s feather dress and her face lit up. “I could use Freyja’s cloak,” she suggested.

“No chance. No bird could carry the Whisperer. And besides, I’m getting tired of losing my clothes.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” she said, and then she saw how it might be done. A rope-a thread, even-woven from runes, stretching from the top of the gully to the cave entrance. Úr, the Ox, would make it strong. Naudr, the Binder, would hold it in place. It would need to last a moment only-just long enough for them to swing down safely-and then it could be banished as quickly and easily as a spider’s web. She thought it might work, and yet, looking down into the seething water, she began to feel afraid. What if it didn’t? What if she fell, like a fledgling too eager to leave the nest, and was swept away into the Cauldron of Rivers?

Loki was watching her with amusement and impatience. “Come on, Maddy,” he said. “This is child’s play compared to what you did by the fire pit.”

Slowly she nodded, and then she opened her hand and looked at Aesk inscribed on her palm. It was glowing dully, but as she watched, it brightened, as the embers of a fire may brighten when air is blown over them. Closing her eyes, she began to tease out the runes to suit her purpose, as she had once teased the raw wool of newly shorn lambs, thread by thread, around a spindle. She could see it now, growing at her fingertips, a double skein of runelight that was as strong as steel-linked chain and as light as thistledown, and she spun it into the dusky air as a spider spins a web, until it reached the ground by the river’s edge and was securely anchored to the rock.

She tested the line with her careful weight. It held. It felt like corn silk between her fingers. Now for the Whisperer. Tucked into her jacket, it was heavy, but not unbearably so, and she found that with a little adjustment, she could carry it against her chest as she grasped the line with all her strength and jumped into the darkness.

Loki was watching her with a curious, half-admiring expression on his sharp features. In truth, he was feeling very uneasy. It was a simple working, to be sure, but untutored as she was, Maddy had been very quick to find the technique. He wondered how long it would be before she discovered her other skills and how much power she carried in that seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of glam. He himself was growing weak from the effort of resisting the Whisperer’s intrusions into his thoughts. And as Loki in his turn grasped the line, he thought he could see trouble ahead-

And why would that be? said a voice in his mind.

Loki flinched at its unexpected presence. With the distractions of their downward journey he had found it harder and harder to keep his thoughts his own. Below him the river seethed and spat, and he suddenly wished that he was carrying the Whisperer-as it was, he was too helpless, he thought, strung out in the air like a bead on a thread. The thing in his mind caught his discomfort and grinned.

Get out of my head, you old voyeur.

What’s wrong? Guilty conscience?

Guilty what?

Silently it laughed. To Loki its laughter felt like dead fingernails scraping the inside of his skull. He began to sweat. Maddy had reached the far side of the river, but Loki was barely halfway there, and already the runes were beginning to fail. His arms hurt, his head ached, and he was all too aware of the drop below. And the Whisperer was aware of it too, amused and merciless, watching him squirm…

Seriously, Mimir. I’m trying to concentrate.

Seriously, Dogstar. What’s your plan?

Loki tried to recast the runes, but the Whisperer’s presence was too strong, making him writhe like a worm on a line.

Hurts you, doesn’t it? it said, tightening its grip more cruelly-

And in that moment, as the Whisperer reached out in its unguarded glee, Loki saw something that made him catch his breath. For as his mind and the Oracle’s touched, he had caught a glimpse of something more-something buried so deep in the Whisperer’s mind that only its shadow was visible.

(!)

In that instant the Whisperer fled.

Then it was back, its playfulness gone, and Loki sensed its lethal intent. A fearsome bolt of pain went through his body, and he fought the Whisperer with all his strength as it plundered his mind for what he’d seen.

Spy on me, would you, you little sneak?

“No! Please!” Loki howled.

One more sound and I’ll take you apart.

Loki clamped his scarred lips shut. He could see Maddy below him, holding out her hand across the last stretch of water, the rune Naudr stretched out almost to breaking point between them.

That’s better, the Oracle said. Now, about that plan…

For a second longer its hold increased, wringing him like a wet dishcloth. His fingers cramped; his vision blurred; one hand left the disintegrating line to cast runes of strength into the darkness-

And then the line gave way, pitching Loki toward the racing Strond. He leaped for the other side, casting feather-light runes with both hands, and landed, one foot in the water, on the rocky far side of the churning gulf, and found, to his relief, that the Oracle was gone. Pale and shaking, he hauled himself out.

“What’s wrong?” said Maddy, seeing his face.

“Nothing. Headache. It must be the air.”

He stumbled on, carefully keeping his mind a blank. That little glimpse had been bad enough, but he knew that if the Whisperer guessed the full extent of his knowledge, then nothing-not even Maddy-could save him.

And that was how they crossed the river that marks the edge of World Below and the beginning of the long, well-traveled road to Death, Dream, and Damnation.

12

Hawk-eyed Heimdall never slept. Even at his moments of lowest ebb he kept one eye open, which was why he had been chosen as the watchman of the Æsir in the days when such things as watchmen were still necessary. That night, however, none of the Vanir dared to rest-except Idun, whose trusting nature set her apart, and Freyja, whose complexion needed its eight hours. Instead they sat, uneasy, waiting for Odin.

“What makes you think he’ll come at all?” said Njörd at last, looking out the parlor window. The moon was rising; it was eleven, maybe twelve, and nothing had stirred since just after nine, when a fox had run across the open courtyard and vanished into the shadows at the side of the parsonage. There had been a moment of uncertainty as the Vanir fell over themselves to make sure the creature was just an ordinary fox, and then, for hours, silence-a tense, awkward silence that oppressed their senses like fog.

“He’ll come,” said Skadi. “He’ll want to talk. He’ll have gotten our message, and besides-”

Heimdall interrupted her. “If you were Odin, would you come?”

“He may not come alone,” said Bragi.

“Yes, he will,” said Skadi. “He’ll want to negotiate. He’ll try to buy you back into his service using the Whisperer as bait.” She smiled as she said it; only she knew that Odin had nothing with which to bargain. Loki’s trail led under the Hill, and she had every reason to believe that he had the Whisperer, sure as rats run. “But he’s tricky,” she warned. “He can’t be trusted. It would be just his style to lead us into a trap-”