Giants of the Frost (50 page)

She locked eyes with him in the dim room, while the wolf waited at her feet. "So I cannot," she said at last, "but I must warn you that anger makes him grow."

Vidar tasted a hint of unease. He dropped his voice. "I need one tooth, then I will leave you and your wolves alone forever."

"He doesn't look different from the girls, but they eat chickens and he eats anger."

"Just the tooth, Jarnvidja."

"I give him a little every day, tell him stories about your father and brothers, even some about you. He thrives on it, it keeps him alive. But too much anger and—"

"Enough!" Vidar cried. He was tired, and brutally aware that the night was slipping away. "I don't care if he's ten feet tall tomorrow, for I leave this place tonight. Get me a tooth, and wrap it safely in something of yours, and I will leave you be."

Jarnvidja crouched forward, speaking in a low, comforting voice to the wolf. She pulled a ribbon from her apron and encouraged the wolf to open his mouth. Vidar kept his sword steady on her back. The wolf snarled, the snarl grew into a yelp, into a howl. Vidar took a step back. A splatter of blood hit the floor and Jarnvidja fell backward, holding the tooth aloft.

Vidar could hear nothing over the hideous howling. The animal snapped its jaws and shook its head right and left. Mánagarm tilted back his head and Vidar could see the bloody gap where the tooth had been. His jaws opened wide, his body shuddered and, easy as taking a breath, he swelled, becoming three inches taller in seconds. A fierce yellow light crept into his eyes and he shook at his chain angrily. Outside, the other wolves had started to bark and howl.

Vidar was so amazed by this sight that his notice was momentarily diverted from Jarnvidja. Movement from the corner of his eye jolted him back to attention. Too late he saw that she clutched the bloody tooth in her hand, ready to strike him with it. A white-hot urgency gripped him. Without a moment's shadow to think, he brought up his sword and thrust it between her ribs.

A gasp. His or hers, he did not know.

He pulled the sword out, was horrified by the slide and the friction, once so familiar to him. Blood began to flow. She dropped the tooth and clutched the wound. Mánagarm's growling abruptly stopped.

"Fool," she wheezed. "You set in motion your family's fate." She fell to the ground with a thump, dead.

Vidar turned. Mánagarm stared at Jarnvidja, looking for all the world like the son she had claimed him for, bewildered at his mother's death. He turned his eyes to Vidar and howled. Vidar untied the scarf from Jarnvidja's head. She was almost bald beneath but for some wispy white hairs. Using the scarf, he carefully picked up the tooth and wrapped it, then tied it into the corner of his cloak. The howling intensified. He glanced over his shoulder to see that the monster was growing again. Jarnvidja's words-echoed in his head and a cold sense of dread overcame him. He turned and ran, leaving Mánagarm to strain against the metal cuff, which would pinch him and make him angrier, make him larger, and pinch him all the more. No energy could be expended thinking about the future, nor about the vow to himself he had broken. There was only the energy to ran, on and on into the night, racing the sunrise.

He hit the water in the dark, swam until his muscles felt they would explode, pushing himself as fast as he could go. He refused to look up, as though the sky would stay dark as long as he wasn't watching it, but when he dragged himself to shore, the deeper shades were giving way to blue in the distant east.

"It's not morning," he called to the indifferent sky, stumbling forward and falling to his knees in hopelessness, as the first beam of orange sun hit the shadowy branches of the World Tree.

Aud waited for him at the top of the three hundred and thirty-three stairs. He collapsed on the grass and stared up at the dawn sky.

"I didn't make it," he said, hopeless and despondent.

"The night will come again," she said, fetching him the water flask. "Do you have what you need to force Heimdall to open the bridge?"

Vidar sat up and took a long draught of the water. "I do, but I fear Victoria may not still be alive by evening." He struggled to his feet. "I must goto Valaskjálf and wait near Bifrost. The moment that the sun falls behind the world I'll—"

Aud's hand was on his shoulder. "Don't be a fool. You need to rest. You can do nothing during daylight, so return with me to Gammaldal. Eat, sleep and prepare yourself."

"I won't sleep, Aud," he said, "not while there's a chance this thread will turn black when my eyes aren't upon it."

"Well, eat and prepare yourself." She whistled for Arvak, who was sniffing in the grass a few yards away.

"You told me that Victoria is locked behind metal and stone. She will be safe until tonight. You look as if you might drop dead if you don't rest."

Vidar felt fatigue seep into every muscle and bone. "Yes, yes, I must rest," he conceded, "and I must think about how to use this new weapon. You will help me, Aud?"

"Of course," she said. "Now come. Back to Gammaldal."

He lay, almost catatonic, by the fire for two hours, while Aud made him a meal, found him fresh clothes and hung his cloak to dry. Every ten minutes or so, he would ask her to check if the thread were still colored, which it was. Each time, he took comfort that Victoria was still safe, but agonized over the fear and bewilderment she must be feeling.

"Something went wrong," he said to Aud as she sat across from him and broke the bread. "Odin found out."

Aud didn't meet his gaze. "It matters little where he found out. Now that he knows, we have to deal with it."

"You didn't tell anyone, did you, Aud?"

She shook her head and handed him a cup of wine. "I said nothing." Vidar swallowed the wine dispiritedly, thinking about the previous night in the woods of Jotunheim. How easy it had been to pick up a weapon and kill. How natural. As though it were in his blood.

"I despise myself," he said, slumping forward.

"Why, Vidar?"

"I killed the troll-wife."

A half instant of silence alerted him to Aud's surprise. "You did what you had to do," she said evenly.

"I swore I'd never kill again. After last time."

"It's true, then?" she asked. "That you killed Odin's servants out of spite?" He put his face in his hands. "Not spite. I killed them because they were there in front of me, Aud. That is the person I used to be."

A long silence drew out between them and the fire crackled in the quiet room.

"But you are different now," she said softly.

Vidar looked up. Her dark eyes were fixed on his, patient and tender.

"I thought I was," he said. "But last night—"

"You were desperate. You were mad with anxiety, and tiredness, and—"

"I killed her. It was instinctive, born into me." A shudder seized him. "I cannot escape my family."

"If you get to Midgard tonight, you can change all that."

"And if I don't? Let me ask you something, Aud. I killed Jarnvidja for a tooth from the wolf Mánagarm, poisonous only to Aesir. His anger made him grow and it will continue to do so. I left him chained up, there in the hut in the fens. The troll-wife said to me before she died that I had set in motion my family's fate. What do you think she meant?"

Aud considered for a few moments, her eyebrows drawn down.

"Vidar," she said. "What is the name of the wolf that the stories of men say will swallow Odin at Ragnarök? The one you are fated to save him from?"

"Fenrir," Vidar said.

"The fen-dweller," Aud said, nodding. "Then it's him?"

"Grown to monstrous size. He will lurk in the fens for thousands of years, then finally break his bonds and unleash the evil from Jotunheim."

"It's too far distant for you to consider," she said. "Think of the present, think of tonight." She came to crouch next to him and touched his cheek. "Don't despise yourself, Vidar. A man's character is not decided in one act, nor is it necessarily decided in his past. In each moment, you can be a good man, a kind man. You have been kind to me."

Vidar felt tears prick his eyes and quickly turned away from Aud. "Thank you, Aud," he said, forcing his voice to be smooth. "I have rested long enough and now I must be active again." He pulled himself to his feet, tested his aching muscles by taking his weight first on one leg, then the other. "I need to make a weapon that will turn Heimdall's blood to ice when he sees it." He handed her his cloak. "Aud, you are Vanir. I can't touch the tooth for fear of death. Could you unwrap it and help me to set it in the end of a spear?"

"Of course," Aud said warily, peeling back the scarf to reveal the tooth. Vidar fetched his hunting spear. "We'll need to bind it tightly," he said, then a loud crack echoed around the room. The spear had broken. "What happened?" he said.

"As soon as the tooth touched it, it split," Aud said.

"Because it belongs to me," Vidar replied, nodding. "Of course."

"What will you do?"

"Go outside and cut a new branch."

"The trees are Asgard trees, they belong to the Aesir," she said. "The same thing will happen."

"Then what can I build a weapon from? I can't hold the tooth in my hand."

"My loom," Aud said, indicating where it stood in the corner. "It was made in Vanaheim. Take off the crossbeam. We can glue the tooth into the hollow at the end. It may not look like a fearsome weapon, but it will serve the purpose."

Under Vidar's instruction, Aud dismantled the loom and set the tooth in the end of the crossbeam. It looked ridiculous, too short and thick for a spear, the tooth set off center and the glue congealed around the end, but there wasn't a more powerful weapon in Asgard at that moment, and the afternoon shadows were drawing long. The hope had started to beat in his heart again, the morning's despair evaporating into the cool sky.

"Will you come with me to Valaskjálf?" Vidar asked as he pulled on his shoes and cloak. "I might need your Vanir hands if the tooth comes loose, and you can bring Arvak home once I've gone." She forced a smile. "Do you really need me?" she asked hopefully. He stood straight and met her gaze. "Your company would help me, to steady my hands and remember my breath," he said softly, "and I would like a last fond memory of Asgard to take with me."

"Then I will come."

All the way to Valaskjálf, snuggled against Vidar's back on Arvak, Aud allowed herself one last sweet fantasy. He loved her and belonged in her arms, the late-afternoon sun and the waving fields of spring flowers blessed their .union, and they were heading to the beach to make love on the warm sand. As the woods deepened and the shadows dimmed, reality was upon her once more and this time she bowed to it.

Vidar was going to Midgard to become mortal and love a woman named Victoria. Aud was to return to Loki and make the best of things with him, until he grew tired of her. After that? It didn't pay to think of it, but she was through with struggling against life and fate. Once Vidar was gone, she intended to turn her heart to stone until her exile in Asgard was over.

"We will wait here," Vidar said, pulling Arvak up.

The hump of Valaskjálf's back was just visible through the trees, the sea roared, and one of Bifrost's pillars caught the sun. Vidar dismounted and checked the corner of his cloak for the hundredth time. He helped Aud down and she sat on the forest floor. Low beams of sun shot through the trees, deepening, by contrast, the shadows that circled them. She watched as Vidar unpacked Arvak, his strong hands working and his shoulders moving against the material of his clothes. Then he leaned against the horse's neck and patted him vigorously.

"I will miss you, old friend," he whispered, and Aud had to look away. It seemed too vulnerable a moment to watch.

Vidar sat with her. He was pale, and his hands trembled.

"Are you frightened?" Aud asked.

"Yes, of course."

Aud glanced toward the pillar. The sun's stain was fading from it. "Will Heimdall come out? If the bridge is closed?"

"If not, I'll go in and get him."

The shadows drew longer; the night insects in the forest began to chirp. Aud's heart quickened. She had only minutes left. He stood, readying himself.

"Vidar," she said, swallowing hard. "I know your mind is on other things…" He tilted his head to consider her. "What is it, Aud?"

"Is it hard to leave, Vidar? Is it hard to leave home, and immortality, and everything you have ever known?"

His eyes grew sad. "Yes. And no."

"I loved you, Vidar."

"I know. I am sorry."

Aud slid her arms around him. "Hold me, just one moment. It is all the comfort I will have for a thousand years."

He embraced her, and said, "I'm not equal to such a responsibility. You must try to find comfort in other places when I'm gone."

She stepped back, alone again, a solitary soul inhabiting a solitary body in an empty space far from home. "Farewell, my own, my true love," she said, and tears brimmed and ran down her face.

"Good-bye, Aud." He turned and pulled up the hood of his cloak, and melted into the shadows. Heimdall sat with his back against the northern pillar, picking his teeth with a fingernail. Vidar watched him from the rim of the trees, then pulled the edge of his cloak to his lips and kissed the bright thread.

"Soon, Victoria," he said, gathering resolve. The fresh sea air was salty in his nostrils as he strode from the forest, and the water's draw and pull echoed off the cliffs and gusted up toward him. He was nearly upon Heimdall before he slipped out of his cloak and made his presence known. Heimdall scrambled to his feet, surprised. "Vidar! Where did you come from?"

"Open Bifrost," Vidar said. The wind off the sea caught his cloak and sent it flapping behind him. Heimdall laughed. "Certainly: Shall I carry you down to Midgard on my shoulders, too?"

"It isn't a joke."

"It should be. Odin ordered the bridge closed. You see his spear?" Heimdall indicated the spear, buried halfway into the ground at the exact midpoint between the pillars.

Vidar strode to the spear and drew it from the ground. He snapped it over his knee and threw the pieces over the cliff. He turned and called, "Can you see how little I care for Odin's orders?" Heimdall approached, still smiling through his beard. "It hardly matters what you think of Odin's orders, because only I can open the bridge."