Jed Smith, his crossbow raised, overheard and stared in horror. Since the roundhouse he’d been glad to give Skadi a wide berth, but tales of her powers had been whispered afar, and he was in no doubt that this was the same demon woman who had killed the Examiner and taken hold of the parson’s mind.

“Mr. Parson?” he said.

Eyes that seemed unnaturally bright fixed Jed in their gaze.

Jed swallowed. Turning, he saw that Dorian had fled; only he and Adam remained on the Hill. “She’ll need some clothes,” the parson said. “The other man’s are bloody.”

Jed Smith shook his head. His hand was trembling so much that the crossbow was a blur. “Don’t let her kill me,” he said. “I won’t say a word.”

Interesting, thought Nat Parson. He’d always thought Jed a lumpen fellow, good for hitting things and not much else. But here he was, showing signs of real intelligence. Of course, it was obvious: Nat could not expect even the most fervent of his flock to acquiesce to the murder of a villager. Without witnesses it would be clear that Audun had fallen victim to a prowling wolf. But if Jed talked…

Nat pondered with some surprise how easy it was to kill a man. Perhaps it was Ethel’s death that had hardened him to the fact, perhaps the Examiner’s experience in the field. A week ago Nat Parson would no more have contemplated murder than he would have held mass stark naked, but now he did, and realized with astonishment that he didn’t much care.

Good, said the Examiner. It takes courage to do what needs to be done.

“Then there is-” Nat broke off, consciously turning over the words in his mind. Then there is no sin attached to such an act?

Of course not, came the immediate reply. The only sin is to fail in one’s duty.

We think alike, said Nat in surprise.

Perhaps that is why our minds meshed as they did.

For a moment Nat was lost in thought. Was that the reason for what had happened? A meeting of like minds at a crucial moment, both striving for the same goal?

He smiled at Jed. “Very well,” he said. “But I’ll need your clothes. Come quickly, man. I don’t have all day.”

“Promise?” said Jed, who was still shaking so violently that he could hardly untie his bootlaces. “Promise you won’t let her kill me?”

“I promise,” said Nat, still smiling at Jed, who, reassured, began once more to unlace his boots.

It was almost the truth, after all, he told himself as he spoke the relevant canticle and Jed Smith fell heavily to the ground. Besides-he staggered a little as the aftershock of the Word slammed through the Hill-why should Seer-folk have all the fun? 339

Many roads lead to Hel. In fact, it could be argued that all roads lead eventually to Hel, the frictionless pivot between Order and Chaos, where neither holds sway and nothing-and no one-ever changes.

True Chaos, like Perfect Order, is mostly uninhabited. The many creatures that exist within its influence-demons, monsters, and the like-are simply satellites, basking in Chaos as the earth basks in the warmth of the sun, knowing full well the dangers of over-familiarity. Even Dream-which has its laws, though they are not necessarily the laws of elsewhere-is far too near Chaos for comfort, which is why so few dare to stay there long. And as for Netherworld-you’d have to be mad to even think about it.

Loki had been pondering this with increasing unease as he and Maddy followed the long, well-traveled road to Hel. Not a difficult road, for obvious reasons, though less worn than you might have expected. The dead leave fewer tracks than the living, but even so, the passageway was deeply rutted and its stone walls had been polished to a mirror-like glaze by the passing of a million million-perhaps more-world-weary travelers.

Not that Hel was to be their final destination. That, thought Loki, would have been far too easy. No, beyond the Underworld lay Netherworld, not so much a land in itself as an island among the many that spread out across the vast river that marks the boundary between World Below and World Beyond: the greatest, the Cauldron of all Rivers; eternal, lethal, even to the dead.

The Whisperer had been mercifully silent as they drew ever closer to the Underworld. But Loki sensed its excitement-as it sensed his fear-persistent enough to tax him to the limits as he struggled ahead. And it was a struggle; Loki’s glam was not at its strongest, and it was no comfort to him to know that the Whisperer could reach into his mind anytime it liked and twist it like a wet rag.

So far, however, it had left him alone, and Loki guessed that behind its silence lay a wariness that had not been present at the beginning of their expedition.

He had read something in its thoughts-or it believed he had-and he could sense that although it enjoyed its power over him, it was wary of what he might see there next-and of what he might tell Maddy. And so it said little to either of them, and there was no repetition of the incident at the river crossing, but even so, Loki’s head ached, as if a storm was on its way.

They had stopped to sleep after the river. Three hours’ sleep, a mouthful of bread, and a sip of water and they had set off again, looking only ahead and never to the side, speaking only when they needed to. They had left World Above at eleven o’clock of the previous morning, and if anyone had told Maddy that barely twelve hours had passed since then, she would never have believed them.

And yet she moved on without complaint. And Loki, who had half expected her to have turned back by now, watched in growing disquiet as they embarked on the final stretch.

By now the path was quick with the dead. A hundred dead per cubic foot, crammed all together into the fetid space, moving sluggishly onward, downward as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t actually very far: their misty presences distressed the air; their stink-which was worse than any midden or slaughterhouse or garbage dump or field hospital you’ve ever smelled or imagined-enveloped everything, sinking loamy fingers into their lungs, tainting their food, their drink, the air they breathed.

The dead themselves feel nothing, of course. But they do sense, and as the travelers passed through them like ships through thick fog, the legions of the dead shifted instinctively closer to the warmth of the living, dead fingers plucking at their clothes, their hair, dead mouths moving in soundless entreaty.

Men, women, warriors, thieves; stillborn children and drowned sailors; vassals, heroes, poets, kings; ancients, murderers, desperadoes, and sellers of fake remedies against the plague; lost loves, old gods, scrubby schoolboys, spurious saints. All dead, existing now as shadows-less than shadows-of their living selves, and yet each with his or her own mournful colors, so that Maddy and Loki were close to drowning in their collective despair and even the Whisperer was silent.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” said Loki as Maddy trudged ahead. “I mean, what are you actually trying to prove? And who are you trying to prove it to?”

Maddy looked at him, surprised. It had been so long, it seemed, since she had even asked herself the question why-and the thought that she might even now have a choice…

Who am I doing this for? she thought. The gods? The Worlds? My father?

She tried to see her father’s face-red-bearded, slow-witted, good-natured Thor, known to her from so many tales that she was sure she’d know him anywhere-and yet when Maddy thought of the words my father, it was not the Thunderer, or even Jed Smith, that she pictured in her mind’s eye. It was One-Eye: clever, sarcastic, devious One-Eye, who had lied to her and maybe worse…