After the Fire (After the Fire: Book the First) (18 page)

Fin
smiled to himself. He was glad he had gone back for her. It had been
hard not to
walk
into that village that had been so cruel and wipe every last one of
them out. He had respected Eleni's wishes, but Magda hadn't. Perhaps
the old woman did know what she was doing. There was a grim justice
to what had happened to the men. But the women and children, they had
been innocent, or close to it. Fin winced at the thought of the
Reivers
tearing them apart. It was all so barbaric. Fin would have just made
them disappear. Like they never were. The village, the people, the
metal box. Everything. Replaced it with forest. It was an abuse of
his power, but he had done it before. He wished dearly that it were
that simple with Loki. It only worked on humans. And Loki and his
cohorts were definitely not human. A god and two...what? Everything
he knew about Skoll and Hati would fit into a thimble: They were the
children of Fenrir, the wolf god, and Fenrir was the son of Loki. So
it was a family affair. Fin frowned. He didn't like to think about
family these days. Even talking to Eleni about her mother gave him a
cold hollow feeling in his guts.

“Stop,”
Eleni said, halting suddenly. Fin almost ran right into her.

“What
is it?” he said, feeling slightly guilty for getting lost in
his thoughts. But even as he said the words, he could feel it too.

“I
don't know,” said Eleni. “It feels familiar. What is
that?” She frowned into the trees. Fin could see shadows moving
far away. Moving toward camp.

“Gods,”
said Fin. “That's what you feel. Are you ready to meet your
family? Your old family, I mean.”

“Are
you my family, too?” said Eleni.

Fin
laughed. “Thankfully, no. I come from a different family of
gods.”

“How
did they know to come?” said Eleni. “Magda said she sent
for them, but I didn't see her leave. And she's too old to get very
far.”

“Don't
underestimate that old crone,” said Fin. “And she does
have some power left. That white crow isn't the only thing she can
wriggle her mind into. You remember the old man said he dreamed you
would be here?”

“Yes.”

“That
was Magda. She must have done it before you even came to the Reiver
camp, when I was still trying to get you to leave your village.
Crafty one, she is. I haven't seen many of her black ravens around
today. She probably sent them out to carry messages.”

“They
got a message and just hurried over?” said Eleni.

“Or
she just got into their heads and told them to come. Gods still fear
the Fates, even if they're not powerful right now. We know that
eventually they'll be Three again.”

“And
then they'll be powerful?”

“More
than powerful,” Fin said gravely. “They're the force of
the universe.”

“It
isn't easy to think of Magda that way.” Eleni frowned. “Or
Anja. They just seem like themselves.”

“So
do we all,” said Fin. “Until the time comes to use our
power. And then we are many things. Beautiful sometimes. Dangerous
too. And some of us are unstoppable. But then we do stop eventually,
and go back to being friends, enemies, lovers. Creatures of habit.
And wait for the next time we're needed.”

“You
make it sound like a gift,” said Eleni.

“Oh,
it's a gift to have power, to be sure,” said Fin. “And
also a curse.”

“Do
you ever wish you could be normal? Mortal?”

“I
used to. When I was younger. There was a woman. A human. We were in
love. I wanted to marry her, but gods and humans are not meant to be
together. I watched her wither away until she was naught but dust. I
wanted to be mortal, to be with her.”

“Do
you still?”

Fin
hesitated. “No,” he said after a time. He didn't say any
more, and Eleni didn't ask. After a moment, they simultaneously began
to walk toward camp. It was time.

Chapter
Fifteen

Magda pulled the tent flap closed behind her, ignoring a pain in her
shoulder as she did so. She hated feeling old. She rubbed at the
ache, but it went deeper than her fingers could prod. She sighed and
walked stiffly to the cot. She took care to sit down very slowly so
as not to fall, leaning heavily on her walking stick. She didn't know
what this slow transformation had done to her bones, and she was too
weak to heal herself should she break one. She lay her stick on the
ground and pulled a quilt around her shoulders.

She
could hear their voices outside, the excited voices of the Reiver
men, and new voices too. Most of the earthly gods had obeyed her
call. They had not forgotten that she once wielded great power, and
they knew she would have it again. They came out of fear. When Magda
was united with her sisters, no god could equal their power. It would
be foolish not to come. But now she couldn't dwell on small
victories. She had to focus.

She
closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, balling up what little energy
she had left. She let herself drop and felt a sudden lightness. She
was free of her aging body. She felt for the line that connected her
to Mati, the white raven. She didn't control the extraordinary
animal, but could instruct it when necessary. She saw a pinpoint of
light in front of her and she moved toward it, floating bodiless
through the void. The pinpoint became bigger, opening up like the bud
of a flower. Magda reached for it and suddenly it wasn't a point of
light, it was everything.

She
blinked as she eased into Mati's head. She looked around, her vision
strange. It was always odd coming into an animal's head. Mati had
also obeyed her wishes. She was perched atop a great iron wall. From
what Fin had told her, Magda knew this to be Eleni's old village.

Magda
felt a sense of satisfaction that the Reivers
had wiped out the village of Krasna. They must have known who Eleni
was. They had tried to break her. But it took more than metal and
harsh words to break a god as powerful as Zaric. Eleni had far more
power than she yet knew. She was wasted here, just as Magda was
wasted with the Reivers.
But these dark times were temporary.

Magda
looked around the empty village. Most of it had been burned by the
looks of it. If Magda had lips to control she would have smiled. That
was as it should be. Eleni should be feared. She was puzzled why Anja
had stayed with her so long. That was unusual. You did not bond with
the god you carried. You were a vessel. Magda herself had done it
once, not far from here. A sun god, she recalled. But she had left
the girl-child with some villagers far to the north. Gods should not
be raised by Fates. It just was not the way.

Magda
asked the bird to move its head so she could look over the wall.
There was deep forest all around and a wide, narrow meadow, white
with snow. She could see movement in the trees wherever she looked.
The dark creatures were settling in without Eleni. Magda had been
happy to see Fin come back to camp for many reasons, but mostly just
to keep the slime from this horrible forest away.

Magda
heard a creak and Mati's head turned to look. The door of one of only
a few unburned hovels had opened. A figure stepped out, and Magda
knew him at once. She had known before, though she couldn't tell the
others for certain until she had known for sure. He looked much like
the wolf brothers, Skoll and Hati, but Loki never did get the eyes
right. And the soft, very unwolflike eyes that gazed out of that
hideous, shaggy head were deep with intelligence. He was shaped
differently, too. From what Magda could recall, the brothers were
stocky and muscular, where this replica was tall and lean, just like
Loki's true form.

Magda
felt a powerful stir in the air, an almost painful sensation hitting
her even in her spectral form. Loki radiated with it. It seemed to
travel around him, orbiting his body in waves. This was not good. A
chaos god should not have such power. It felt nearly as strong as the
power of the Fates. Magda yearned even more strongly for her sisters.
He had to be stopped. It was not possible, but he was stronger than
she had even contemplated.

Magda
watched as he changed. The hair began to recede from his body, his
spine straightened, and his face changed. He stood panting for a
moment after it was over before he straightened. He was stark naked,
but walked through the fresh snow not seeming to notice. Or not
caring. He gazed around the village leisurely, his eyes sliding
across the destroyed village, made fresh and new by the snow.
Finally, his eyes landed on her. And he smiled.

Magda
tried to will the bird to fly, but she couldn't budge it. That had
never happened before. She tried again, but instead of flying away,
Mati rose up and glided down to land on Loki's outstretched hand.

“Hello,
Magda,” he said calmly. “I was wondering when you would
show up. Couldn't get into my head, could you?”

Magda
was frightfully aware that his fingers curled around the raven's
body. Softly, but the threat was there. He could crush Mati if he
wished to.

“You're
probably wondering why you couldn't fly away,” he said. He
smiled again. He seemed to have too many teeth. There was something
wrong with the smile. Magda realized that it didn't touch any other
part of his face. Only the mouth moved. “I happened to come
across a nature god in my travels,” said Loki. His hair seemed
to blend in with the gray clouds above them. “I took his power.
I can control any natural animal I choose. Technically, your freakish
bird is still natural.” His face went cold and the smile faded.
“It is you who is unnatural. You and your kind.”

Magda
managed to make Mati flutter his wings, but it was a paltry movement.
Loki grunted with satisfaction. “You won't be able to flutter
back to your own body either,” said Loki, looking at her, or
rather Mati, with mock sadness. “Not until I let you. Funny,
isn't it? Once you could control whether I lived or died, suffered or
walked free. Now it's the other way around.”

All
Magda could do was watch. She couldn't talk or even scream. She was a
tiny bird in a giant's hand. She wondered if she could die this way.
She didn't think so, but anything was possible. To her surprise,
though, Loki's face changed from cold anger to deep sadness. “She
died out there,” he said, his voice cracking. “She died
while I lay helpless and bound. And you and your sisters could have
stopped it at any time.”

If
Magda could have spoken she would have said that the Fates had no
place in the politics of gods. Odin's anger was none of her affair.
But all that came out of the raven's beak was a high-pitched squawk.

Loki
looked at her for a long time, his expression like someone lost with
no knowledge of how to get back to the road. For a moment sadness
filled his violet eyes. But it slowly changed back into anger. “We
will wait here,” he said, his voice taut. “Your gods will
come to us. And they will lose.”

His
fingers tightened and she felt Mati's terror. She felt tiny bones
breaking, and after a moment, she felt a wash of coldness come over
her. Then she felt her consciousness being dragged back, like a rider
thrown from a horse, back the way she had come through the void,
hurtling and screaming and her heart hollow with sadness. Mati was
dead. And she was quite possibly sending the gods off to their
slaughter.

Chapter
Sixteen

Eleni
stood on the edge of camp staring at the newcomers. A “calling
of the gods” seemed to imply numbers, but there weren't as
many as she had expected. Here were only five. Eleni frowned.
Everyone kept talking about Loki as though he were to be feared, as
though he were an indestructible force. But Eleni wasn't convinced.
He was only one, after all. And they were many, gods and
Reivers.
Eleni had killed hundreds of dark creatures over the years. She had
taught herself to use her power instead of fear it. She would cower
for no one, especially not a petty god of chaos.

A
man stood with the Reivers.
He was two times the size of Elek, tall and wide. A great black beard
rose out from his face and was contained in two braids down his
chest. He laughed loudly and often, holding his great belly as he did
so. He was laughing now, his chest shaking with his guffaws. He
slapped a Reiver
on the back and sent him flying over the fire. This seemed to make
him laugh harder. Many of the Reivers
took a tentative step away from him, laughing nervously. Only Elek
seemed at ease around the man.

A
woman with dark hair that cascaded around her in shining ringlets
moved among the women, who were buzzing around the camp like bees.
Gathering wood to prepare the last meal before the men set off,
gathering cloaks and wrapping various items in packs for their
husbands and fathers to take with them. Some of the women were
crying. The dark-haired woman glided between them with a hard look on
her face. She wore a long green cloak trimmed in fur.

A
man was talking to Fin. He had a beard like the first, but it was
bushy and unconstrained. His hair hung in ropes down his back and his
woven coat was tangled with bits of dried leaves and small twigs. His
beard and hair, too, when Eleni looked closer, seemed to be bursting
with bits of plants and dead flowers, as if they had gotten tangled
there and he just hadn't bothered to clean them out. Fin didn't seem
to notice. The two of them were laughing together as old friends.

The
other two, a man and a woman, hovered at the far edge of camp. Eleni
frowned as she peered at the man. She had never seen anything like
it. His skin was gray and looked slightly moist. He wasn't
unattractive, but she found it difficult to look at him.
He was
tall and slim and he had black hair like the rest of them. Gray robes
flowed around him in the breeze and made him look more than a little
like a specter. The woman appeared to be repelled by him, her posture
conveying that she yearned to step away from him. But she was equally
suspicious of everyone else in the camp. Eleni recognized
that
look because she usually carried it on her own face. The woman didn't
trust anyone in the camp. Eleni could see her scanning the encampment
the way Eleni scanned the countryside during the hunt. The woman's
dark hair was pulled back in a tight knot on her head and she had the
biggest bow Eleni had ever seen slung over her shoulder. The woman's
eyes suddenly stopped on Eleni, her eyebrows shooting up. Knowing she
had been seen, Eleni stepped out from behind the tree and into the
open.