“Is my father down there?” said Maddy.

“No,” said Loki.

“Then what are we-?”

“That shield won’t last,” said Loki grimly. “And unless you want to be here when it fails, I suggest you shut up and follow me.”

And with that he pushed himself into the hole and vanished from sight. There was no sound as he fell. Below him there was nothing but darkness.

“Loki?” she called.

No one replied.

In that moment Maddy was frozen with fear. Had Loki tricked her? Had he fled? She peered down into the empty hole, half expecting to see a wave of ephemera surging out of the pit at her feet.

Instead there was silence. Trust me, he’d said. But he’d lied to her. And now Maddy remembered the Oracle’s words: I see a traitor at the gate.

Was Loki the traitor?

There was one way to tell.

Closing her eyes, Maddy jumped.

There was no sense at all of falling. Maddy passed from the corridor to the cell below in a single step and for long seconds remained in utter darkness, with nothing at her feet and nothing above her and no clue-not even an echo-as to what she might now expect.

“Loki?” she whispered in the dark.

Then she cast Sól, the Bright One, and the space lit up in brilliant light.

Relief filled Maddy as she saw that Loki was still there. They were standing on a narrow ledge, looking across at a slab of rock roughly the size of a barn door, apparently suspended from nothing at all over a gulf that swallowed the light of Sól and gave back nothing but emptiness in return. The rock was revolving slowly in midair some fifty feet away from them, and now Maddy could see that there were chains set into the underside of the stone, from which a set of shackles dangled empty.

But it was the creature that clung to the rock’s surface that really caught Maddy’s attention. A huge snake, its scales gleaming in every imaginable shade of black, its eyes like electricity, its coils chained twice around the circling rock and dropping down into darkness.

It caught sight of Maddy and opened its jaws; even at such a distance the stench of its venom was enough to make her eyes water.

“It’s all right,” said Loki. “He can’t move from the rock.”

Maddy stared. “How do you know that?”

“Trust me. I know. Hang around the locals for a year or two, and you tend to pick up that kind of information.” He narrowed his eyes at the circling snake. “Imagine it, Maddy, if you can. To be chained to that rock, upside down, with that thing…” He shivered. “You can see why I’d be willing to do pretty much anything to free myself, can’t you?”

As if it had heard, the snake gave a hiss.

“I know, I know,” Loki said. “But really, I had no choice. I knew I could escape alone-Netherworld’s a big place and it might have taken them centuries to find out I was missing-but if I’d tried to free you as well-”

“Excuse me,” said Maddy, “but are you talking to the snake?”

“That’s not just any snake,” said Loki. “Maddy, allow me to introduce Jormungand. Otherwise known in polite circles as the World Serpent, Thor’s Bane, or the Dragon at Yggdrasil’s Root. My son.”

9

Far away in World’s End, in a secure chamber of the Universal City, an earnest discussion was under way. The Council of Twelve had been in debate for a number of hours now, following the disquieting news from the distant Uplands.

As a result of this disturbing information, the Council had been convened with a haste that seemed to many unseemly. In normal circumstances there would have been several pre-Council discussion meetings, a week of prayer and fasting, a lengthy meditation on the Elementary, Intermediary, and Advanced States of Bliss, and, finally, a gathering of elders armed with the Word, from whose learned ranks would be chosen the twelve members who would invoke the Nameless.

This present gathering had been assembled in a matter of days, which, in the opinion of its spokesman, Magister Emeritus Number 369 (a tiny octogenarian in scarlet robes, whose giant throne of office dwarfed him to the size of a small monkey), showed a rashness of purpose that was both dangerous and undignified.

However, the others had not agreed, and as a result there had been as little ceremony as possible as the twelve members-all high-ranking officials of the Order-had been chosen by lot for the privilege of Communion.

Among them were the Magister Emeritus himself; his colleague Magister 73838, a mere Junior at seventy-five; and a number of other Magisters of varying seniority, including the Order’s oldest member, Magister Number 23.

All had fasted, prayed, and purged; all had spoken the relevant canticles and meditated deeply on the Word. Now, at last, they were gathered in the Council Chamber, a large auditorium at the center of the Universal City, where a dozen rows of empty pews encircled a single large conference table of heavy carved oak.

Like many of the Order’s most secret ceremonies, Communion with the Nameless was not an especially interesting spectacle. Anyone watching would have found it dull in the extreme-just twelve old men in red robes sitting around a table with the Good Book on a reading stand in the center. Several of them looked asleep; it might have been a dull seminar, with the reader slumped over his lectern in the dusty afternoon sun.

Even the Word, uttered an hour later by every man at the table simultaneously, might not have been easily detectable to a spectator. It came as a shiver in the air, as if a small child had skimmed a stone across the reflection of the Worlds, causing a series of widening ripples that went all the way to the far side.

Magister Number 23 felt it first. He was the most senior member of the Council of Twelve, a man as dry and shrunken as a winter apple who, it was rumored, could trace his parentage right back to the childhood of the Order.

O Nameless, he said, and a tremor went through the members at the table as each man-all of whom had experienced Communion at least two dozen times in their lives-struggled with the same sensation that had so nearly broken Elias Rede.

Of course, these men were Elders of the Order. That made a difference; and yet even Magister 23 felt the burden heavy on his shoulders as the chill presence of the Nameless filled his mind.

I HEAR YOU, said a Voice that resonated through every mind in the Council of Twelve and sent a shiver up the spine of every Magister, Examiner, or scrub in the Order itself.

Magister Number 23 felt the weight of that Voice like a mountain upon him. At the back of his mind he seemed to glimpse the far distant shore of the Nameless’s domain, a place where Perfect Order ruled supreme and perfect bliss was served out to such of the faithful who could endure it.

The Magister wondered whether he could endure it. Even after his long meditations he feared his mind was all Chaos, and the fear he had so assiduously hidden during all his career as a Magister bobbed to the surface like a rotten cork.

O Nameless, he thought. Forgive my doubts. And forgive this delay in contacting You on a matter that concerns You closely. One colleague has already died-we sensed it in Communion-

There was irritation in the Voice. What, did you think to gain immortality in My service?

Forgive me, said the Magister. But our colleague had taken a prisoner. A man he was sure was a general of the enemy-Odin himself, whom we had thought long dead. But our colleague was killed before this man could be Interrogated, and we have not yet managed to identify the enemy’s associates, although we believe that one of them may be his half brother, Loki-

I know this, interrupted the Voice. I presume that you have not entered Communion with Me simply to give Me information I already possess. How does it proceed?