5
In a silent chamber boxed within a multitude of silent chambers, Hel the Half-Born was still debating what to do. Nothing happened in the Underworld without her knowledge, and it had not taken her long to realize that a couple of intruders had penetrated her domain.
Normally she might just have ignored the pair. Death’s territory is endless, and most trespassers either turned back or died slowly out in the wastes. Either option suited Hel; it had been centuries since she’d granted an audience to anyone living, and even then, her visitor had returned alone. Hel was not generous, nor was she given to fierce emotions, but now, as she sensed the approach of warm blood, she was aware of a sensation almost of surprise.
Of course, she’d forced them to wait for her. Just long enough to punish them a little and to teach them some of the patience of Hel. Time has no meaning to the dead. And a day in Hel seems like weeks to the living. And so Loki and Maddy measured their time in gulps of water, slices of sleep, and bites of bread so hard that they might have been stones. And when their small supplies ran out, they measured it in the long, looping, staggering steps they took across the endless sand, and the times they fell, and stood up, and fell, and wondered if she would ever come.
Now Hel opened one eye and closed the other. Her living eye was a bright green, not unlike her father’s in color, but with a coldness in its lack of expression that made even the living side of her face look dead. The dead eye saw further, though it was blind, and its gaze was like an empty skull’s.
For Hel was two women merged into one: one side of her face was smooth and pale; the other side was pitted and gray. A sheaf of black hair fell over one shoulder; on the other, a twist of yellow twine. One hand was shapely; the other a claw. The rune Naudr marked her throat; the same rune was on the binding rope in her hand. One withered foot gave her a lurching gait.
Not that Hel was in the habit of walking; she spent the centuries in a half doze, dead eye open to acknowledge the thousands that poured, day and night, second by second, into her realm.
Among those thousands, few had ever caught her interest. The dead know everything, but they don’t give a damn, as the saying goes, and a dead prince in all his regalia is no less dead than a dead street sweeper, sewage worker, or maker of novelty spoons. There isn’t a lot of variety among the dead, and Hel had long since learned to ignore them equally.
But this was different. Two trespassers deep in her domain, their signatures visible to her living eye like two columns of colored smoke far across the plain. That in itself was enough to arouse her curiosity-and that violet trail was strangely familiar. But there was something else with them-something that tantalized her vision like sunlight on a piece of glass…
Sunlight? Glass? Yes, Hel remembered the light of the sun. She remembered how they had robbed her of it, how they had sent her to this place where nothing changed or lived or grew, where day and night were equally absent in the eternal corpse-light of the dead.
But who were they? The Æsir, of course. The Æsir, the Fiery, the Gødfolk, the gods. They’d promised her a kingdom fit for a queen, and this-this-was what she’d got.
Of course, that had been many centuries ago, and she’d thought the Æsir long gone.
But unless her warm-blood sight deceived her, two at least remained, and it was with something close to eagerness that she stood now, the rope of glamours in her living hand, and crossed the endless desert with a word.
It was Maddy who saw her first. Awakening from troubled dreams in her shelter among the rocks, she sensed a chilly presence and, opening her eyes, found herself looking at a woman’s profile, green-eyed, high-cheekboned, with hair that gleamed like crows’ feathers. She had only a moment to gasp at this woman’s beauty, and then she turned, and the illusion was gone.
Hel looked at Maddy’s expression and, for the first time in five hundred years, she smiled. “That’s right, little girl,” she said softly. “Death has two faces. The one that inspires poets and lovers; the one for whom warriors lose their heads…and then there’s the other one. The grave. Worms. Rot.” She gave a mocking curtsy, lurching on her withered foot.
“Welcome to Hel, little girl.”
Loki was wide awake. He’d sensed Hel’s watchful presence at once and had hidden the Whisperer, wrapped up in Maddy’s jacket to make a pack, sealed with runes, under an outcrop of weathered rocks. Now he emerged from his hiding place, with a smile that was half insult, half charm, and announced, “I’d forgotten what a dump this place was.”
Very slowly Hel turned. “Loki,” she said. “I hoped it was you.” She gave him a look that made Maddy’s flesh crawl. “I imagine you must have some purpose here.”
“Oh, I do,” said Loki.
“It must be important,” she said. “To come, unprotected, into my realm is not without a certain risk, even for you. And as for her…” She squinted at Maddy. “Who is she, anyway? I can smell her Æsir blood from here.”
“No one you’d know. A relative.”
“Really?” said Hel. Certainly there was something about the girl that looked familiar. Something in the eyes, perhaps. Hel searched her extensive memory, but Death’s hospitality is vast, and she could not find the clue she sought.
She smiled at Maddy. “I’m sure you must be hungry, my dear.” She gestured with her living hand, and suddenly a table appeared, broad as the Strond, bright and gleaming and mountain-ridden with silver, glassware, fine bone china, damask napkins; mead, wine; pastry pies with lids like cauldrons; tureens of soup like fairy coaches; frosted grapes piled high on platters; roasted piglets with apples in their mouths; and honeyed figs, and fresh young cheeses; slashed pomegranates, peaches, plums; olives in spiced oil; and baked salmon with their tails in their mouths, stuffed clams, rolled herring; sweet cider; plump almond rolls, cinnamon buns, muffins like clouds, and bread-oh, bread of a thousand kinds: soft, white, poppy-seeded, plaited, round loaves and square loaves and loaves dark and dense with fruit…
Maddy stared, remembering perhaps the last time she had eaten, the last time she had felt hunger, real hunger, in this dead world. Stretching her hand toward the laden table, mouth watering, craving to taste-
“Don’t touch it,” Loki said.
“Why not?” said Maddy, with her hand on a plum.
“You don’t eat the food of the Underworld. Not a bite, not a sip, not a seed. That is, if you ever want to leave.”
Hel faced him, deadpan. “None of my guests have ever complained.”
He laughed at that. “She gets her sense of humor from her father’s side,” he told Maddy. “Now come on, let’s go. That hall of yours has to be somewhere around here, right?”
Hel half smiled. “As you say,” she said, and dismissed the feast-and then just as suddenly it was there: a bone white palace straddling the desert, spires and turrets and gargoyles and minarets and skeleton outcrops of Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture with flying buttresses and fleurs-de-lis and rows of bishops, priests, Examiners, cardinals, shamans, mystics, prophets, witch doctors, soothsayers, Magisters, saviors, demigods, and popes standing in their niches along the facade.
“Nice,” said Loki.
Hel led the way.
Maddy had never seen such a place as this, not even in dreams. Of course, she was aware that none of it was quite real-that is, assuming the word real had any meaning so close to the shores of Dream. But it was impressive: long white walkways of cool alabaster, ivory hangings, intricate vaulting, tapestries faded almost to transparency, and fluted columns of delicate glass. They passed through silent halls of stone, through mirrored rooms as pale as ice, through chambers in which dead princesses waltzed alone, through funeral chapels and deserted hallways soft with dust.