Book Eight.The Nameless

1

Everyone felt the psychic blast that slammed throughout the Nine Worlds, so that a hundred miles from the epicenter, purple clouds gathered, doors slammed, dogs howled, ears bled, and birds fell screaming from the sky.

The Vanir felt it and quickened their pace. Frey took the form of a wild boar, and Heimdall that of a gray wolf, and Bragi that of a brown fox, and all three of them set off at a gallop down the tunnels while Njörd protested and Freyja wailed and Idun sensibly picked up their clothes in case they needed them later.

Fat Lizzy felt it and knew they were close.

And at the mouth of the Underworld, as the parson and the Huntress gazed in wonderment at the scene unfolding on the plain below, Examiner Number 4421974 heard it and gave a long, harsh sigh of deliverance before slipping gently out of his host and down the passageway into Hel.

It had begun, as the Good Book had foretold.

The dead were on the march. Ten thousand of them.

Silently Hel considered the multitude standing before her on the plain. So many souls, but where was their homage? Why were they ranked like an army? What was this Order, where men could be dead but where Death herself had no authority?

She turned her terrible half face upon the ten thousand. “Be dead,” she ordered.

The men did not move.

“I command you to disperse,” said Hel.

Still no one moved; ten thousand men stood like sheaves, their eyes turned toward Netherworld.

She turned on the Whisperer. “Is this your doing?”

“Of course it is,” said the Whisperer. “Now make haste and give me the girl.”

“The girl?” In the commotion she’d almost forgotten.

Hel looked at the deathwatch. Thirty seconds remained. She’d broken her word to Loki, and the balance between the Worlds had been shaken to its roots. Break it again, and she dared not think what might happen. Already she could feel the river rising, and beyond it Chaos, like a sick heart beating.

“Quickly,” snapped the Whisperer. “Every moment she spends in Netherworld is an unnecessary risk.”

“Why?” said Hel.

She looked down at the sleeping girl, tethered to life by a skein of silk. Until now she had spared her hardly a thought; between Loki and the Whisperer there had been no time to notice a fourteen-year-old girl.

Now she watched her most carefully: noted her rust red signature; once more searched her memory for the resemblance-a family likeness, perhaps, from the days when the Æsir ruled the Worlds…

“Who is she?” said Hel.

“No one,” said the Whisperer.

“Funny, that’s what Loki said.”

The Whisperer brightened fretfully. “She’s no one,” it said. “Just give her to me. Cut the thread-do it now, while you can…”

Hel’s profile was unreadable as she gently reached out with her dead hand. She touched Maddy’s face lingeringly.

“Do it now,” urged the Whisperer. “Do it, and I’ll make Balder yours…”

Hel smiled and touched the thread that still linked Maddy to her life. It shimmered faintly at her touch; it glowed like the runemark on her hand-

“That runemark…,” said Hel.

Eighteen seconds.

“Please! There’s no time!”

She took the girl’s hand in her living one. Aesk shone there, a violent red-and in that moment Hel understood. The World Ash. The Lightning Tree. The first rune of the New Script. And now she remembered who Maddy reminded her of-not her Aspect, but her signature-and she leveled on the Whisperer the smile that had withered gods.

“So that’s why you wanted her,” she said. “That’s why you brought her into Hel. And Loki-I see why you wanted him too.”

The Whisperer grimaced desperately. “I’ll build a hall for you, Hel,” it said in its most honeyed voice. “When Balder rises from the dead, you’ll lie together in the Sky Citadel.”

Hel put her fingers to her lips. It was a peculiar sensation, bringing a flush to her living side. She’d thought herself beyond this. Aeons old, dry as dust, she had not expected this rush of feeling, this almost girlish surge of hope…

She reached out her hand to break the thread.

2

The World Serpent cleared the gates at twice the speed of Dream. Maddy and Thor had just enough time to jump clear before Jormungand hurled itself headlong into the river, Old Age still clinging to its tail. A wall of water rose up; clouds of ephemera exploded in all directions; some of the dreamers were already through and Maddy, now seeing the silvery thread that joined her Aspect to her physical self, made to follow them through the narrowing gap…

Behind her the countless dreamers approached. Some were human, some visibly demonic; some bore the runes and colors of gods; others marched like engines, lurched like nightmares, oozed, verminous, toward their freedom.

Thor kept the monstrosities at bay. The inhabitants of Netherworld-dreams and dreamers, creatures of Chaos, engines of destruction, serpents and changelings and any other vermin that might want to breach the gap-mostly gave him a wide berth, and although it was not possible for him to keep every one away from the gate, it was only the quickest and the most capable that managed to follow Jormungand from Netherworld into Dream.

Before him the Æsir, in their Aspects, had gathered. They were pitifully few-just three of them-shocked into silence by what they saw. Frigg, the Mother, wife of Odin, tall, gray-eyed, and with the rune Sól on her left arm; Thor’s wife, Sif, the Harvest Queen, golden-haired and bearing the runesign Ár; and T ýr, the Left-Handed, god of battle, burning like a brand in his fiery colors, his spear in his left hand, his right hand like a ghost of itself sketched in fire against the night.

The Thunderer had hoped for more, but the rest had either failed to escape or fallen into Chaos or plunged into Dream, because he could see no trace of them. Counting himself, a total of four.

Five, if he counted Maddy.

He gestured to Maddy to pass through the gate. Only she could cross into Hel; the others would have to escape through Dream as, all around them, the Black Fortress started to tear itself apart. Every few moments some creature-god or demon, she could not tell-lost its grasp on Netherworld and was sucked, screaming, into the emptiness. The noise was apocalyptic, and from the throat of the abyss came a sinister sucking, snickering sound that grew louder and louder with every second that passed.

“Maddy! Go now!” insisted Thor.

But Maddy had seen something moving below. It-he-was a long way down, obscured by the mists and the parasites of Netherworld, now swarming like deadly motes through the air. But the signature, though faint, was unmistakable. It was Loki, and he was falling. Beneath him and all around, rifts into Chaos were opening fast, revealing glimpses of the dead starry gulf of World Beyond.

“Go, Maddy!” yelled Thor at her side. “Through the gap! There isn’t much time!”

“But that’s Loki,” she cried, pointing at the falling figure.

Thor shook his shaggy head. “There’s nothing you can do-” he began.

But Maddy was already in pursuit.

Before Thor could protest, she had dived, not through the gap to the Underworld but into the cauldron of sizzling air, heedless of ephemera, heedless of the fact that the world she occupied was busily eating itself into oblivion like a serpent swallowing its own tail.

Thor moved to follow her-he wasn’t sure why she needed Loki, but there was no time for argument-then he caught sight of what lay behind him and stopped and gazed with widening eyes at the scenes unfolding beyond Dream.