My gods, is that Chaos?

She closed her eyes and held on.

16

Hel’s Guardian was watching through the shutter of her dead eye.

“He’s really done it this time,” she said, not without a kind of admiration. “That snake is definitely getting bigger. Of course, if his fears are giving it strength…”

In her hands the Whisperer glowed fiercely. “Just kill him,” it said. “The girl too.”

“I can’t,” said Hel. “I swore an oath.”

The deathwatch in her hand-the identical twin of the one Loki still wore around his neck-showed the time at fifty-one minutes. He might well make it. He was close: through her all-seeing dead eye she could see him coming, blazing through the air like a comet, with the snake on his tail and a trail of dreamers in his wake. Nine minutes-less now-and if he failed to cross the river, then his body and Maddy’s would cease to exist, leaving them trapped in a Netherworld that was already coming apart at the seams, showing the dead light of World Beyond.

“What difference does nine minutes make?” said the Whisperer. “Go on, kill him, before he does any more damage.” Its voice was urgent, and it pulsed now with a greenish light, throwing restless shadows onto Hel’s face.

“You’re asking me to break my word.”

“Your word?” snapped the Whisperer. “What’s your word to such as him? Go on, he’s helpless-kill him now, for gods’ sakes, kill him before it’s too late…”

“I can’t.” Hel looked at the deathwatch. “My word binds me for another…eight minutes.”

The Whisperer glowered, and its colors flared like dragonfire. It had known, of course, that Hel would be difficult to bargain with, even with Loki’s full cooperation. But Loki-freed from its influence, restored to his Aspect in Netherworld-Loki had taken Maddy’s side, had actually dared to try to free the gods…

Did you think you could earn their forgiveness, Trickster? Win back your place among the Æsir? Did you think even Thor could protect you from me?

With an effort the Whisperer curbed its rage. The gods might escape, but where would they go? To enter the Underworld would mean only death for all of them-for bodiless, they were Hel’s property, to do with what she pleased.

Of course, they could always escape into Dream, though this too was not without its perils. For to enter Dream so close to its source was a risk that even the damned might think twice about taking.

Seven minutes remained, and with a wrench the Whisperer turned its gaze from the scene across the river. “I can help you, lady,” it said in a voice that was suddenly all honey. “I know what you want, and only I can give it to you…”

Hel opened both eyes. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Don’t you?” said the Whisperer.

The seconds passed. Six minutes.

“Don’t you?” said the Whisperer.

“I can’t,” said Hel, but her voice was faint.

“Oh, but you can,” wheedled the Whisperer. “One little cut-a snip, no more-and everything you’ve ever wanted can be yours. A life for a life, Goddess. Loki’s life-all five minutes of it-and in exchange you could have Balder back again. Imagine that. Balder, alive. Warm. Breathing. And yours, Goddess. All yours.”

For long seconds more Hel was silent. “I can’t break my word,” she said at last. “The balance between Order and Chaos depends on my neutrality.”

“With or without you,” said the Whisperer, “the balance between Order and Chaos may soon be challenged.”

Hel’s living eye was all hunger in her pallid face. “How so?” she asked.

The Whisperer allowed itself the luxury of a smile. “Do we have a deal, Goddess?”

“Tell me how, damn your eyes!”

Glowing, it told her.

Across the river Loki shot like a flaming missile toward the gates of Netherworld. Hel could see that he was almost burned out now, his signature like that of a guttering flame, his face twisted with effort and concentration.

Behind him came Thor, Maddy, the serpent with Old Age still clinging to its tail, and, behind that, the dreamers. Dreamers in their hundreds-in their thousands-trailing them in shoals as the fortress disintegrated, all of them making for the river.

And now a tremor went through the Underworld, a deep tremor that rocked all of Hel to its foundations, moving rocks that had lain still since the beginning of the world and sending shock waves through the ranks of the dead, making bones dance, dust fly, mist scatter, and a howl of outrage rise from Hel’s parched throat.

“What is going on here?” shrieked the goddess of the Dead. The deathwatch in her hand showed barely eighty-five seconds remaining.

“That’s Chaos itself, knocking at your door. Chaos, in search of its prisoners. If Loki escapes, it will break through-”

“Loki did this?”

“Kill him now. Save your kingdom and yourself.”

“What if you’re wrong, Oracle?”

“You’ll still have Balder-will you refuse?”

“Balder.” For the second time in five hundred years Hel gave an involuntary sigh.

“Seventy seconds.”

“But I-”

“Sixty seconds, and you’ll see Balder alive. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven-”

“All right! All right!” Hel stretched out her dead hand-the fingers were bones, brittle and yellow in the eerie light. In its spidery shadow Loki slept, one arm flung out across Hel’s sandy floor, a tiny smile on his scarred lips. The silver thread that linked him to Netherworld gleamed like a skein of spiderweb.

“Do it, lady. Take his life.”

Hel reached out her dead hand and snapped the thread.

And at that very moment there came a terrible ripping, splitting, splintering sound-as of Worlds being torn apart at the seams-and all of these things happened at once:

Sugar’s runestone turned black as pitch.

Odin felt a wave of energy rush past him as ten thousand of the newly dead poured over him into the Underworld.

In Netherworld, Jormungand cleared the gates and plunged headlong toward the river Dream.

Loki followed, with seconds to spare-and ran full tilt into an invisible barrier that sent him into a deadly spiral, plummeting out of control back into the pit.

And in World’s End, Magister Number 262, a man who in another life had answered to the name of Fortune Goodchild, had time only to ask himself, How can we possibly march to Netherworld? before the Nameless spoke a single Word and he fell, stone dead, onto the floor of the Council of Twelve.

“It’s beginning,” said the Whisperer.

“What’s beginning?” said Hel.

“The end,” said the Whisperer, glowing softly. “The last meeting between Order and Chaos. The final End of Everything.”

And now Hel saw it starting to change: the stone Head sprouted like a ghastly flower, the air was taking a definite shape, and now she could see its true Aspect, spectral at first but brightening visibly. A shining figure, slightly bent; hooded eyes in a lean face; a staff of runes that gleamed and spun.

“Who are you?” said Hel.

The Whisperer smiled. “My dear, I’ve been so many things. I was Mimir the Wise. I was Odin’s friend and confidante. I was the Oracle who predicted Ragnarók. My name is Untold, for I have many. But as we’re friends, you may call me the Ancient of Days.”