Giants of the Frost (45 page)

"Aud," he said, smiling, "I wasn't expecting you." He was dressed all in black, a gold thread woven around the edge of his sleeves.

"I've had trouble getting away," she said, encouraged by his smile. "You seem happy." He dismounted and kissed the top of her head. "I'm in a fine mood," he said. "I've done the most hilarious thing this morning."

"What is it?" Aud said, and though she still wore her smile, she felt uneasy. Loki's grin was too wide and his pale eyes were glittering wildly.

"It's so funny, I know you'll love it," he said. A sudden gust gathered leaves from his roof, showering them over Aud and Loki. "I've been out visiting the family. Vidar annoyed me so much the other day, all pious and in love with his mortal woman."

Aud's heart turned to ice. "Loki, what did you do?"

"What do you think?" he said, the smile disappearing. "I told Odin everything."

Vidar waded into the water at Sjáfjord while Aud waited on the sun-dappled slope nearby. The poison was ready. At nightfall he would be on his way to Midgard, ready to begin a lifetime with Victoria. He wouldn't see these valleys and woods for many long years.

He stilled himself and waited for the water to do the same. It seemed such a simple thing that he wanted: neither riches nor honor, nor glory in battle. Just love, just one mortal lifetime. The water became like dark glass around his ribs; he drew the runes and waited. A vision formed of Victoria, her pale skin and hair; she was talking to two men; she looked anxious. He tried to grasp her words as they hushed and murmured in his ears but he could make out little. He studied her face and thought about what the years would do to it. Yes, she would grow old, and he did not mind. He would love her still, and not an instant of doubt accompanied that thought. Yet, he was haunted by what she had said:
there's a romance in growing old together, Vidar
. If only he could. If only he could swap an eternity as the son and savior of Odin for a mortal lifetime as the lover of Victoria, with the possibility of children and a warm home for them all. The second seemed to him the richer choice by far, for what would he do when Victoria had grown old and died? What would he do the day after he had buried her, still in his young, immortal body? Return to Asgard and go on?

Vidar closed his eyes a moment and collected his thoughts. It wasn't wise to fret about the future when the present was already fraught with worry. He opened the flask with the poison in it and poured it into the fjord.

The image in front of him clouded over. The poison was working.

„ The glassy black water began to bubble and froth. From the measureless depths an eddy of anger swirled upward. Vidar realized too late that he was a dangerous distance from the bank.

"Vidar, get out of the water!" Aud cried.

Vidar turned and began to wade toward the grass. The water sucked at his legs and boiled around him. He lost his footing, fell under.

Bitter water filled his mouth. He struggled upward. Around him the water was wild with blurred colors and images, all the things that had been seen in Sjáfjord over the centuries, blending and boiling together. He shot up, broke the surface and began to swim. A rushing sounded in his ears. From the deepest fissures in the fjord, an angry roar was gathering intensity. The furious current threatened to suck him down. Aud was shouting and waving at the edge of the water. He struggled, moved forward a few feet, then was pulled back. Aud's hand was extended toward him, her other hand braced against a rock. His fingers brushed hers. The current caught his cloak and sucked it from his shoulders. He propelled himself forward, caught her wrist.

"I've got you!" she called.

He heaved forward, got the top half of his body over the rock and climbed from the water to sit back and watch. A whirlpool spun behind him. He watched his cloak disappear into it, dragged into the measureless depths. Death had been close; did he fear it? He tested himself, imagining in detail the sour gush of water into his lungs, the black pressure of the fjord on top of him, squeezing out the light. No, he did not fear death. He feared a separation from Victoria far more. He caught his breath. Aud clutched his arm. A long groan eased out of the water. It began to still.

"Thank you, Aud," he said, panting.

"I thought I'd lost you."

The fjord settled. Its black surface was clouded and dim. Aud glanced over her shoulder, and the sun gleamed in her auburn hair and he realized he would miss her.

She turned back and saw him looking at her, and smiled. "What?" she asked.

"I leave for Midgard at first dark. I will miss you, Aud."

She glanced away, trying to hide a smile. "You'll forget me soon enough," she said, climbing to her feet.

"Wait, Aud," he said, gently taking her wrist, "sit by me a while. I have things I want to say."

. Aud reluctantly sat beside him, her knees curled up to her chest protectively.

"Am I really so frightening?" Vidar asked.

She took a deep breath and glanced around her. Then, seeming to settle on a decision, she met his gaze and said, "I have heard that you were a fearsome warrior in your day, Vidar," she said, "but nobody warned me to protect my heart from your kindness."

"I never sought to hurt you," he said.

"Yet you have," she said quietly.

"For that I am sorry. Have you given thought to what you will do once I'm gone?" She shrugged. "Can't I stay at Gammaldal?"

"You'd be welcome to, but I fear that an envoy from Valaskjálf will eventually come; and then you won't be safe." He leaned back on his elbows in the grass. A bird hopped close to the water and drank from it, as though nothing had changed. "I have cousins in the north, beyond Idavíd. They aren't very well known to me, but I believe they may be good people if you go to them."

"I'll go to Loki," she said.

"Is that what you want?"

Her cheeks flushed and he realized he'd angered her. "No, Vidar, it's not
what I want
. I want to return to Vanaheim. I want to be with my son. I want…" She trailed off, her eyes glazed with tears.

"Aud?"

"I want you to love me, Vidar," she said softly. "You don't. I can't go home. I can't be with Helgi. I made my choice and am prepared to suffer the punishment, so please don't torture me any longer with these concerns for my future, which I can tell are just afterthoughts to you." Chastened, Vidar bowed his head. His hair dripped onto the rock. "I'm sorry, Aud. You aren't an afterthought."

"But I'm not as important as her."

"I love her."

"Why?"

Ordinarily he would be silenced by such a question, but Aud had opened her heart to him and there could be little harm now in him doing likewise. "She is precious, she is mortal. Her heart beats faster than ours, and her skin is softer, and she arouses in me the tenderest, most passionate, most unrelenting feelings."

Aud's mouth tightened. "I can only wish you happiness then."

"Happiness will be ours for only a short time. Aud, I am doomed to watch her grow old and die. I would exchange anything I had of value to grow old and die beside her." He stopped, uncomfortable with having spoken too much.

"But fate would have it otherwise," Aud said, her eyes drawn to the west.

"Yes."

"We are all slaves," she said, her gaze far away.

"I will leave Arvak in your good care," he said gently. "If you treat him well, he'll always be faithful." She didn't respond.

He touched her shoulder. "Aud? Are you listening?"

She turned and her dark eyes were serious as they met his. "Vidar, if you could ask the Norns for anything, what would it be?"

His body tensed. "What do you mean?"

"Would you be mortal? Disavow your Aesir blood and be a mortal man, to grow toothless and old and stiff in the joints?"

"To be with Victoria? To father children with her?"

"Yes. Would you?"

"I would."

"Then come with me. I'll show you where they live."

He felt excited and frightened all at once. "Aud, are you sure? Helgi?"

"I'm no longer his guardian, Vidar. Helgi is not my child to mind, to fret over, to keep well and happy. I accept that now."

"Is it not your last pleasure to see him?"

"It has not been a pleasure for a long time."

He took both her hands in his and his mind was too overwhelmed for his tongue to form words of gratitude. Finally, he whispered, "Then, Aud, I will accept your offer and be in your debt until the world's end."

"Come, then," she said, climbing to her feet. "Anything is possible now." Aud led him so far into the dark beneath the World Tree that he feared she would lose them both in the passageways, but I as he was framing a gracious way to express his doubts, a faint glow emerged around the next bend.

Aud held a finger to her lips and took his hand. She led him silently around the rocky outcrop and into the grotto where the Norns lived.

There was a moment of peace as he watched them work, their fingers flying over the glittering rainbow threads. Then one of them glanced up and suddenly everything was in confusion.

"Aud! What have you done?"

"I knew we couldn't trust her."

"This is your fault."

"No, it's your fault!"

"She'll never see that brooch again."

"Sisters! Sisters!" Aud cried, hands aloft as she tried to calm them. "Sisters, I am sorry. Let me explain." They huffed and muttered, but quieted.

"Sisters," Aud continued, "I am sorry. I don't expect your forgiveness. I'm a wretched creature, but I could no longer stand to see Helgi and be separated from him. I'm prepared to end our appointments."

"This is your fault, Skuld," Verda muttered.

"I knew no good would come of what you told her."

"You should think before you speak."

"Sisters, listen to me, please. I have brought Vidar to you because he wishes to make a request Whether you fulfill it or not is your decision. I haven't told another soul where you live, and you can move on as soon as we are gone. Vidar is dear to me, and I saw it in my power to help him. I…" Aud faltered and Vidar stepped forward.

"I love a mortal woman," he said. Their dim faces were unsurprised in the gloom, watching him by the almost light of the rainbow threads. "I wish to be mortal with her."

"You wish to be mortal!" Urd squawked. "You wish to die?" Vidar hesitated, a fraction of a moment, then gathered his courage. "I do. At a life's end, as an old man, by my lover's side."

"That will change everything," Skuld said. "You are marked out for other things by your family."

"I have a surfeit of brothers who could take the yoke as well as me, and probably relish it. Give my fate to Vali."

"Or Thor," Aud interjected, glancing meaningfully at Urd. "He would always be grateful to the sister who promoted his glory."

"I am prepared to make a payment, as Aud has," he said, rushing into the thoughtful silence that Aud's comment had aroused in Urd.

"Have you a thousand years to give us?" Skuld said, taking her hands off the thread and pointing a long bony finger at him.

"He can serve his thousand years first," Urd suggested.

"No, no," Vidar said. "I have to be with Victoria now. Tonight." He was growing concerned. It would become dark soon. He had hoped to get away the instant the sun fell behind the world. But the Norns clearly wouldn't be rushed.

"His father's the problem," Urd said knowingly. "After last time—"

"His father is right to be worried if he's standing here telling us he wants to be mortal." Vidar turned to Aud, and whispered, "How long will it take them to decide?" She shrugged. "Seconds, hours, it's all the same to them."

"Why can't you stand up to your father?" Verda asked accusingly, her eye fixed on him.

"My father won't listen to reason," Vidar said. "My father thinks with his sword."

"Grant him the wish, I don't care," said Skuld.

"Give his fate to Thor," Urd said. "He might be grateful enough to visit."

"Oh, you are a ninny, Urd. Thor wouldn't be interested in a wizened old fool like you," Verda reprimanded.

"Sisters, please," Aud said. "Vidar hopes to return to Midgard tonight."

"We won't be rushed!"

"We need an hour to decide!"

Vidar slid to the ground and rested his back against the wall. The chill of earth and stone seeped into his body, making him shiver. It would stay dark for many hours. He still had time to cross the bridge. A new fate gleamed up ahead of him, an ordinary, happy fate. "I'll wait, sisters," he said. "What's an hour? I'll lose more than that if you make me mortal."

The hour turned into two as the sisters bickered among themselves in low voices. Aud sat beside him, her eyes fixed on the floor of the cave. She looked young and vulnerable, a childlike confusion coloring her expression. Vidar wished he felt something more than pity for her. He wished he ached for her. He reached out and squeezed her hand. "Thank you, Aud," he whispered. She offered him a weak smile and a shrug. He wanted to say he was sorry. Instead, he remained silent.

"We have it!" the Norns chorused.

Vidar sprang to his feet. "What have you decided?"

Skuld's fingers were pulling thread up from the floor. "I'm finding it now."

"What do you mean?"

"We've decided to grant your request, Vidar," Verda said.

Vidar's heart lurched in his chest.

"Here it is," Skuld said, her fingertips twitching over an inch of the thread. She looped it over her fingertip and pulled out a small knife. "This may hurt a little," she said, and snapped the blade into the thread. Vidar felt a jerk inside him, but no pain.

"What was that?"

"That," Skuld said, holding out her palm, "is a little piece of fate. Yours and Victoria's." She held three inches of thread, still pulsing with rainbow colors. "It's connected to all the other things you are fated to do, together and apart, ordinary and extraordinary. And it's enough to change everything."

"For everything will change, Vidar," Urd said. "You are used to your immortal blood. You could walk all day and night now, but only a few hours as a mortal."