Quite Contrary (9 page)

“I suppose with Loki it might have been a burden,” Valdis laughed, “Nilda seemed quite happy before and after we found out who her lover had been, and I’ve heard Jana tease Eric’s father about how little she minded covering his bet.” She laughed harder at Eric’s awkward expression, and added, “Here, eat while I finish.”

A chunk of bread and dry, red meat that smelled like fish were shoved into my hands and Eric’s. The bread was tough, but once I’d bitten off a chunk, I felt a lot more patience about listening to the divine soap opera. This was another homemade loaf, heavy and rich with honey and grain. The fish was, well, salty and dry. Salmon, probably. It went well enough with the bread, but I needed the bowl of water we kept passing around.

“We never found out for sure who the third traveler was,” Valdis rattled on as I made my jaw sore and my stomach happy with her food. “We do indeed think he was Loki, for neither Odin nor Thor would let him speak a single word to any of us. Who else would they bind that way? So alas, one god slept in the barn alone.”

Eric swallowed a chunk of—what, salmon jerky?—and put in, “A child of Loki would have been a disaster in any case. That is the blood of monsters.”

“That is the story of Eric’s lineage,” Valdis concluded, briefly formal. “Mine is something of a mystery. Helasdottir is the name of my female line, for each woman in my family has only one daughter to carry on the name and the looks of the Queen of Death. My mother said that her grandmother thought her grandmother was Hela herself, but we do not know how far back the bloodline goes. The sickly pallor of death is a strange curse and made my mother and great grandmother so beautiful they were the cause of wars, and my true genealogy is long lost in the chaos. I suppose I see well in the dark and need never fear burning from the sun, but my Aesir blood is thin and useless compared to Eric’s.”

“She has to rely on her wits, and so do I,” Eric told me. Valdis laughed, but to me he sounded kind of honest.

“And you, stranger? After how we’ve treated you, you’d be within your rights to refuse, but may I ask who your fathers were, and who your people are now?” Valdis inquired.

“You’re talking all formal because you don’t want to offend me worse, right? Forget it. Maybe Thunder Brains here owes me that kind of courtesy, but you’ll just drive me nuts if you keep it up.” The insult needled Eric, but when Valdis started to laugh, he stopped scowling and grinned. Alright, he really could take a joke. Another chip knocked off Jerk Mountain.

“I still want to hear, if you’ll tell me,” Valdis urged.

Should I answer? I’d be a jerk myself to not tell her my name. “I’m Mary Stuart, but I can’t tell you squat about the Stuart family. I was so small when my father got out I don’t remember him. I guess my people are the Americans, but I doubt you’ve heard of them.”

Eric shook his head, but Valdis looked puzzled, then translated for him, “Midgarder.”

His eyebrows rose. “What, really? So she’s alone, and her people don’t know she’s here and cannot defend her. Midgarders always arrive alone, they say.”

I was just starting to wonder if that was a threat when he saw his girlfriend’s hardening expression.

“No!” he barked back at her angrily, “I meant it the other way. She needs our protection. If she’s a Midgarder, she’s surely destined to be a hero herself, but not this young.”

I was very reluctantly starting to believe Valdis was right and Eric’s biggest crime was barging into things without thinking. I was in a bad position to throw stones there. Of course, he was still a jock’s jock, and I wasn’t hoping for much better.

“Are you alone?” Valdis asked me directly.

“I hope so. I’m sure the Wolf will catch up with me eventually,” I groused.

Valdis’s attention snapped to Eric. “A wolf could be our killer,” she told him.

He shook his head. “Even a lone wolf howls, and its kills are easy to find. We’d know there was a wolf around by now,” was his answer.

I folded my arms over my chest, which caught Valdis’s eye. Before I had time to gripe, she explained, “We’re sorry, Mary. We’re on a quest. It is a small thing. Three goats have disappeared in the last week. Brand shouldn’t let them wander loose, and they might just be lost. But I was worried it was a troll, and to Eric, the mere chance I was right is worth any kind of wild goose chase.”

“Are you that eager to kill something?” I asked Eric.

His eyes met mine. “I am lucky. I have gifts most warriors can only dream of. I want to do something worthy of them. Killing a troll is a baby step towards being a hero, but it’s a step.”

Huh. That stare was intense, but it wasn’t me he was defying. He was daring the world to try and stop him.

Valdis looked pretty intense, too. At least they had a dream.

“My Wolf doesn’t care about goats. He wants me, and only me. I take it you two have never heard of Red Riding Hood, or fairy tales?” I inquired.

“Your people are horsemen?” Valdis guessed politely, her face blankly innocent.

Eric threw in his own guesses. “There are lightning horses in Midgard. My mother’s mother’s father came from Midgard when his boat crashed on the coast. He told stories. The Midgarders have mastered lightning magic, but can’t bring it with them.”

“No, forget it. It’s my problem,” I sighed, shaking my head. Two things were obvious already. Eric would try to stop the Wolf from killing me, and it would murder him. Three things. Valdis would fight and die right behind Eric.

Thick bread and salted meat don’t go down too fast, but I was full and I let myself sink down a little and enjoy the heat of the fire. At midday, it wasn’t really hot here, wherever we were. Norway, maybe. Wherever you could get lost and meet Vikings these days.

Eh. Might as well ask. Lifting my head off my knees, I asked, “If this isn’t Midgard, where am I?”

“Nieflheim. Long ago the realm of the giants. When a man of Midgard slew Fenris and his sister tricked the Serpent into killing itself before Ragnarok could start, Thor escaped his fated death. No giant could stand against his power. He broke their heroes and the Aesir killed them: man, woman, and child. It was an unworthy slaughter, but the Norns were clear: Once Ragnarok began, either the gods or giants would be destroyed. It was more luck than anyone expected for one side to win so decisively that the world itself survived.”

I stared as Valdis recited all that. “Is storyteller an official job around here?” I asked, and my jaw tightened guiltily at how sarcastic that sounded.

The sarcasm flew right past both of them. “Do you think I’m any good?” Valdis asked eagerly. “I get so impatient with the long tales. Eric’s father says I have no respect for the importance of family or detail and I just want to skip to the juicy parts.”

“For once, my father is wrong. He acts like nothing has changed since Ragnarok. We have books now. We can write down our lineages and tell stories for fun,” Eric assured her. I guess the ice had broken and I was one of the tribe now.

“Most Midgarders come to Nieflheim by boat or in some terrible accident, Mary. We’re near the center of the island. How did you get here?” Eric asked me.

Valdis cuffed him. No, she punched him along the top of the head. It made him wince, but that seemed to be about it.
Note to Mary: Eric might be as tough as he thinks he is.
Valdis did not look weak. “She’ll tell us when she wants to, jackass. Some people like to keep their stories close.”

Valdis ripped chunks off her fish as I explained, “It’s okay, but I’m not a storyteller. I fell out of a door from Fairyland, and I don’t think you know where that is.”

Eric shook his head, but Valdis swallowed hard and filled in for him, “The hidden kingdom of the earth peoples. ‘Fairy’ is a word of the Gaels for them. Like dwarfs.”

“Or trolls,” Eric suggested.

Suddenly, they were both grinning. They stood up, and Eric hoisted his crossbow and cocked it. He pulled the string back by hand, in one motion. Even if he growled with effort to do it, it was time for another
Note to Mary: Eric really actually might be as tough as he thinks he is.

“We have no right to ask you anything, but can you show us where this gate is?” Valdis asked me, taking hold of her sword hilt and scabbard.

“Not really. I came through in the dead of night and couldn’t see anything.” I sighed, and pushed myself to my feet. I wanted to sit and digest, but what I’d just said hadn’t been completely honest. “I think I can get you close, but I won’t help you with any trolls. I don’t want to be a hero.”

“If I don’t keep you safe, I don’t deserve to be one.” Eric’s face got stiff and distant. Geez, he meant it. Drama and all. I didn’t say anything, I just stomped off away from the fire and around the other side of the bowl.

Let’s see. I found the place where I’d climbed down into the bowl. I looked around and tried to figure which way I’d come from. Everything looked the same! No, on the other side of the bowl was much more green, and looking back … I saw the sharp rise with the cave in it.

“I came from in there,” I told Valdis and Eric. They stepped ahead of me, Valdis with her sword out and Eric holding his crossbow low and ready. I trailed behind them, not bothering to be wary. Seriously, what could I spot that they couldn’t? And if there was anything dangerous here, wouldn’t it have attacked me last night?

The cave, when we reached it, did not scream danger. It was a lot shorter than I remembered, and daylight reached the back end of the tunnel, if feebly. I could see the wall, and the scuffs on the ground where I’d rolled.

“Is that the gate at the back?” Eric asked me in a hush.

Well. “I don’t know. I didn’t get a look at it last night. It’s the right spot.”

They crept inside, and I slid between the two of them before Valdis could position herself behind me. None of us were going to pass up a chance to look at the gate.

At least, I felt that way until I got that look. The tunnel was short and had no branches. On the back wall was a carved stone seal, a flat circle with a maze of interlocking lines.

It was the f—the freaking puzzle box.

I hate fairies so much.

On the other hand, “That’s the door I came in by. I guarantee it. I guess it’s closed now,” I whispered to the blondes.

“It’ll stay closed,” Eric growled. Switching his crossbow to one hand, he pulled the sledgehammer out of his belt and slammed the metal head against the seal. There was no thunder or lightning, but there might as well have been. The crack of metal on stone echoed through the cave deafeningly, and the seal exploded in bits.

My ears rang. I could barely hear the screaming. I could hear screaming. I punched Eric in the side and he dropped his hammer, swinging the crossbow around as the fairy charged into the mouth of the cave on all fours.

This half-animal, half-human thing had to be a fairy. Nothing else could be so ugly, such a haphazard mix of man and … hyena? Maybe? Coarse hair in patches and spots, huge jaws and teeth, and its arms and legs didn’t work right, giving it a desperate, scrabbling run. Little beady red eyes showed up, even with the sun behind it, and it screeched in bestial rage until Eric shot it.

The crossbow must have weighed as much as I did, and the arrow was as long as my arm. It hit the fairy’s body and the tip came out the other side, spraying blood. Good grief, the thing was still coming. Flailing more, snapping wildly with its teeth and gurgling as much as screeching, but it kept charging. It galloped right past the spur of rock Valdis stood behind, and she shoved the tip of her sword into its back. As the thing stumbled, she leaned in hard, driving the tip deep, then jumped back between it and the entrance of the cave.

The stupid thing still wasn’t dead. Reduced to crawling now, it dragged itself clawed hand over clawed hand towards me and Eric. Valdis fumbled at her belt for a small axe, but Eric hauled back the string of his crossbow, locked it, set another arrow in place, and shot the fairy in the back of its neck. The shaft went in at least a foot again, and the hairy monster stopped moving.

Valdis broke the sudden silence. “Careful. It might still be alive.”

“If it were alive, it would still be trying to kill us,” I countered sarcastically. My voice sounded tinny, but my hearing was recovering. Thank goodness.

“I still don’t want you to walk past it until we’re sure,” Valdis ordered me.

I bristled, my shoulders rising, but Eric picked up his hammer, took a few steps, and swung it like a golf club at the monster’s midsection. The blow had about the same effect, sending the corpse flying out the front of the cave, trailing blood, to lie in an awkward heap outside.

“Problem solved,” he announced with a triumphant grin.

“You idiot. What if it hadn’t been dead!” Valdis complained, stepping up and swatting him across the top of his head. Compared to her previous punch, this was a love tap.

Forget ‘compared.’ As the two locked hands with each other, I interrupted them. I didn’t hold back on the ‘loud’, either. “Jeez Louise. If I weren’t here, you’d be all over each other, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d never hit Valdis back. She’d break!” Eric laughed.

“That’s not what she means. She thinks we’re lovers,” Valdis corrected him, then asked me, “That’s it, right?”

“Aren’t you?” I asked. She sounded serious. Well, no, she sounded dismissive, but that was its own kind of serious. Could they not see it?

Eric could see it. Valdis just chuckled. “Are you kidding? Can you imagine us as bedmates? We’d have strangled each other before morning.”

Eric stared at her from behind. He looked stunned. Stunned, and hungry.
Mary, you idiot. You just started something, didn’t you?

It had passed Valdis by, at least. Refastening the axe under her cape, she pulled out a long knife instead. Turning, she nudged Eric with her elbow and urged him, “Come on, jackass. If you make me cut off the head myself, I’m going to keep it. You’ve got your first trophy to bring back home, and a guest who’ll be at least as great an honor.”