It was as if Hel, for the first time in a thousand years, had blossomed into a kind of life. Clouds gathered in its false sky; a hot, dark wind blew. But that was not why the Thunderer faltered, even though with its gathering clouds and dead sun the plain seemed almost the twin of that other battlefield beyond World’s End.

It was the dead at which he stared. Not the dead of Underworld-those lost and pitiable souls, numerous as grains of sand-but a column of dead, just like an army, that reached interminably out of the desert to stand, motionless, ten thousand strong, against the might of Netherworld.

Ten thousand to a man; a magical figure, often mentioned in accounts of the Last Battle. It was also, as it happened, precisely the number of the Order’s membership, a calculated sacrifice of its men-Examiners, Magisters, Professors all-gathered together in a Communion stronger than Death…

And now Thor believed he knew that sound-that inhuman sucking, as if Chaos were taking a deep breath-and his face paled beneath his fiery beard. He’d heard it before, at Ragnarók. They’d been outnumbered then, but not as badly; he’d still had his glam-and his hammer too-but even so that sound had struck ice into his heart.

Why, that’s- he thought. At which point there came a terrible crash across the Worlds-Thor just had time to think, Uh-oh, here it comes-and in the final seconds of Maddy’s life the legions of the Order began their march, inexorably, across the plains of Hel.

3

She caught up with Loki some thousand levels into Netherworld. He was falling rapidly now, eyes shut, still clasping the deathwatch in his hands. He opened his eyes as Maddy approached, then closed them again with a shake of his head.

“Maddy, I’m dead. Leave me alone.”

“What?” For a moment, with the cacophony of Netherworld in her ears, she’d been sure he had said, I’m dead. Then she saw the time on the watch, and her mouth opened in a silent cry.

Forty-five seconds.

“Leave me alone.”

Forty-two seconds.

Forty-one.

“You have to get out,” Loki said.

“We can both get out. Just take my hand…”

Loki swore as the rune Naudr fastened itself around his wrist. “Maddy, believe me. You’re wasting your time.”

Thirty-nine seconds.

Maddy began to drag him upward. “I’m not going to leave you here,” she said. “I was wrong about you. I thought you were the traitor at the gate-”

And now they were hurtling upward again, Maddy hauling him with all her glam, Loki trying to reason with her over the deafening sound of the World’s unmaking.

“But I was the traitor at the gate!” Loki protested.

“Now you’re being noble,” Maddy said. “You want me to leave you and save myself, so you’re trying to make me believe-”

“Please!” yelled Loki. “I am not being noble!”

Thirty seconds left to go. And now their speed rivaled that of the World Serpent at his fastest, crossing what seemed like miles in a fraction of a second, half deafened by the sucking roar of Chaos.

“Listen,” said Loki. “D’you hear that noise?”

Maddy nodded.

“That’s Surt coming through,” said Loki.

Twenty-four seconds.

“Lord Surt? The Destroyer?”

“No, another Surt-what do you think?”

Twenty-two seconds: they could see the gate. The opening looked no greater than a lancet now, and Thor was holding it with both hands, his face dark with the effort, his shoulders bunched like an ox’s as they raced toward the narrow slit.

Twenty seconds.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it-”

“Maddy-no…”

Now Maddy’s heart was close to bursting as she plunged toward the closing gate, dragging Loki-still struggling-behind her.

“Listen to me! The Whisperer lied. I know what it wants; I’ve seen into its mind. I’ve known it since our journey began. I didn’t tell you-I lied-I thought I could use you to save myself-”

Fifteen seconds…

Maddy wrenched at Loki’s arm-

Naudr, the Binder, gave way with a snap-

And then three things all happened at once:

Hel’s deathwatch cracked right across the face, freezing the time at thirteen seconds.

Netherworld crashed shut with a clang.

And Maddy awoke in her own skin and found herself looking into Hel’s dead eye.

4

At the entrance to the Underworld the parson and the Huntress stopped. They had tracked their quarry to the mouth of Hel, and now they stood and watched the plain, where a slight dust rose in the wake of the two figures-one tall, one short-that inched their way across the desert.

It was all too much for Adam Scattergood. The bleak sky where no sky had a right to be, the nameless peaks, the dead, like thunderheads, marching into the blue…Even if this was a dream (and he clung to the idea with all his might), he’d long since given up any hope of awakening. Death would be infinitely better than this, and he followed, incurious, where the Huntress led, hearing the sound of the dead in his ears and wondering when it would come for him.

Nat Parson spared him not a thought. Instead he smiled his wolfish smile and opened the Book of Words at the relevant page. His enemy was within range; even across that vastness, he knew, the canticle would strike him down, and he allowed himself a little sigh of satisfaction as he began to invoke the power of the Word.

I name you Odin, son of Bór…

But something was wrong, the parson thought. When first he had used that canticle, it had been with a sense of gathering doom, a power that increased at every word until it became a moving wall, crushing everything in its path. Now, however he spoke the words, the Word declined to reveal itself.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Skadi, impatient, as Nat faltered midsentence and stopped.

“It isn’t working,” he complained.

“You must have read it wrong, you fool.”

“I did not read it wrong,” the parson said, angered at being called fool in front of his prentice-and by an illiterate, barbarian female at that. He began the canticle again-in his finest pulpit voice-but once more the Word seemed oddly flat, as if something had drained it of its potency.

What’s going on? he thought in dismay, reaching for the comforting presence of Examiner Number 4421974 in his mind.

But Elias Rede was strangely silent. Like the Word, the Examiner had somehow lost depth, like a picture faded by the sun. And the lights, he saw-the signature colors and lights that had illuminated everything-they too were gone. One moment they’d been there and the next-nothing. As if someone had blown out a candle…

Who’s there?

No inner voice replied.

Elias? Examiner?

Once more, silence. A great, dull silence, like coming back one day to an empty house and suddenly knowing that there’s nobody home.

Nat Parson gave a cry, and as Skadi turned to look at him, she noticed that something about him had changed. Gone was the silvery skein that had illuminated his colors, transforming a plain brown signature into a mantle of power. Now the parson was plain again, just one of the Folk, undistinguished and unremarkable.

The Huntress growled. “You tricked me,” she said, and, shifting into her animal form, set off across the drifting sand in snarling pursuit of the General.

Nat thought to follow, but she soon outdistanced him, racing across the endless plain, howling her rage at her enemy.

“You can’t leave me here!” the parson called-and that was when the Vanir, drawn by the sound of the white wolf’s cry, moved out of the shadows at his back and watched him grimly from the tunnel mouth.