The Wolf Hammer, page 21
part #1 of Odin's Bastard Series
“An ancient whisper,
creeps across the Nine.
A rumor only,
though some call it false,
but here is the truth none can deny.
All gods must die.
An answer must be had,
by the being quite mad.
The fate plagues the god,
as his children hide abroad.
The answer will be sought,
by a champion tall as a tree,
the son of a king,
born under Odin’s eye,
a man famed and dark,
he falls down hard.
A card will be played,
the truth will be shared.
The Book of Mar will be read,
The path shall they tread,
To the stone of the Truth.
The son used like a tool,
the card the mad god plays?
It is the dangerous fool.”
She looked at me with kind eyes.
My wife.
“You are the fool,” she whispered. “In case you wondered. And you have aided us in a great step towards finding the truth. It will be shared, Hagar, whose family was born under the eye, and who, it is true, fell hard. Twice. I love my father. I love you. And your death, a terrible thing, is still a step on a very long road towards a greater goal. You might have saved us all.”
I remembered, my head throbbing painfully, how, after mother had introduced us, she had smiled at me, the least of the brothers, like the Lifegiver herself. She had asked me to read to her, tales of the past, and I, a fool, had done so. She had had so many great tales.
I had had my skill with swords, mother, and her.
A fool indeed.
“It was more than a lie,” she whispered. “We shared great things. Great many. Much like we did in that galley. But deeper.”
“Oh?” I said coldly. “I still cannot remember.”
“I know,” she said. “You are upset. I get that.”
“Why,” I hissed, “did you do this to me? And what did you even do?”
She laughed softly. “I always liked the way you speak. Well. The Shadow punished you, do you see? For failing Lok and us. Of course, when you nearly died in Lorin, but I saved you, he thought of a new way to use you. But you had to be…adjusted. See?”
She showed me a jewel. It was small, green, and hung in a silver pendant.
“This is his power,” she said. “A dream walker. A fire god. A master of mean tricks, and a god of terrible deceits. This one was a terrible deceit. He took a part of you. In that part was most of your memories and he left you with nothing but traces, questions, and the old oath you gave to your father and Odin. He left you with rage for your dead mother, and the drive to find the way to punish those who harmed you. He used you. He took a piece of your soul. You are, in a way, only half alive. This is the other half.” She caressed the tiny jewel. “You had failed too often. He was out of the shadows. He was taking risks, finally. He had a plan, and he put you in charge of it. If it failed, you would fall utterly. Since you had failed earlier, we had to kill that bitch of an Aesir, and to topple the kingdoms of the west.”
I was weeping with pain and disappointment, and loss.
Part of my soul?
“That part that is missing from your essence,” she said, like she had heard me, “leaves you almost one foot in grave. It robs much of the humanity from you. What remains is driven, passionate, but not…moral. Not always in control. And that part that remains grows weaker. One day, you might slip to the wrong side of death, while still walking. But that matters little now.”
I saw a dark crow in the rafters, looking down at us.
I lay there. “I still don’t…Father never…the hammer never flamed for him.”
“I know, love,” she whispered. “The hammer is useful for any powerful being. It doubles your power, whatever it may be. And it hates evil. Only undead are truly evil. As I said; one foot on the other side”
Undead.
“How,” I hissed, “did I fail anyone?”
“You failed Lok,” she said simply.
I looked at her with confusion. “I never failed him. I didn’t serve him,” I hissed. “I—"
She squeezed my hand. “You do not remember. They left you with love for Odin, to make you just. I think that too has died now. And you did fail in your service. I will not blame you alone. I blame myself, your mother Issan, and also you. And everything, the Fates too. It was just too much, the plan too weak, and many things didn’t go well. If you had been braver, more decisive, like you are now, and forgotten your oaths to Hagar Hardhand and Odin, and had kept your promise and oath to me and your mother, things would…” She shrugged. “See.”
She changed again.
A face of alabaster white was revealed, and she glowed slightly in the dark. Perfect, beautiful, with petite limbs, and shapely body, she was dressed in a simple white tunic. Her fingers were dainty, and her smile was sad, and she sat there, looking down to me, with her golden eyes.
“This is I,” she said. “As I truly am. The fairest of Lok’s children, Faria the Fair, they call me. I love Lok most of all, of all of them, and there are many. I hate my brother, for he gave me you, and he took you away. But I cannot have both Lok and you. And now, I cannot save you anymore.”
“I serve Odin, not Lok,” I said, wincing at the dull, constricting agony in my chest. “And I cannot remember…”
“Yes, yes,” she sighed. “Odin here, Odin there. You gave oaths to your father when you were eight, like others in your family. You carry the bracer of Odin.”
I blinked.
I had not, when I had killed...
She smiled. “Aye. It was off for a moment. The gods are all seeking something.”
“The Truth Stone, of that bit of poetry?”
She laughed and smiled. “Yes. You know we are most all supposed to die at Ragnarök? Yes. The prophecy gives Father hope. Father seeks the stone to change all our fates. It frightens Odin that he does, though. Imagine, love, if Lok the Trickster could find a path from the curse of knowing you shall all die, from the death that awaits us all for the crimes of the Aesir? From the war that will be fought with futility?” she whispered. “It would make the Aesir followers of my father, Lok. So, Odin, too, set up his pieces in the gameboard. You and yours were to be one for him. You were also one for us. Clever play by the Shadow. It took a long time to execute, and for you, just one year to fail in. You cheated.”
I smiled, despite my sorrow and confusion. “I used to cheat playing games with Alarik.”
“You cheated playing me,” she laughed, and went serious. A great deal of blood oozed from my wounds, a stream of it. “The truth shall be shared,” she said. She sighed. “The Stone will be found. There is a Book of Mar, and in that book, the location of the Truth Stone will be revealed. We all seek that book.”
“What is in this book?” I asked, shivering. “The lost book of Bhar.”
“The Book of Mar,” she said. “Long ago, not long after the gods had spawned life in the Nine, there was a great elf, of the first of their families, the Bardagoon’s. Mar. Mar Bardagoon. The keeper of the first library, in the land of the Far Coast, collected secrets. There was much conflict at the time, and gods and dverg were at odds. Creatures, dragons, and First Born roamed the land seeking their place. Mar was fond of lost treasure. He penned down tales of dverg treasures, especially. And the dverg of the time, they created more than weapons. They created the stones, powerful and strange. They were the Wish Stone, most weak in power, able to grant the wishes of the ones holding it, but just a few times, and according to their stature.”
“I’d need one now,” I whispered.
She laughed softly. Her voice was soft, melodic. It had been so, I thought, before. When she told me tales after we married. “The Truth Stone was an accident. There were few great wish stones, terrifying ones even, but the Truth Stone? In a way, it was more so. Hmwar the Dverghammer, the smith who created it, knew the stone could give you one answer, one advice on any question. One. It, if anything, can guide my father on his quest to save us all.”
“A good tale,” I croaked. “Hmwar.”
She smiled and caressed my face. “We used to tell each other tales, love. You loved my tales. I loved your lies. You called my tales terrible.”
“I remember none of them,” I rasped. “Nothing.”
“I know, love,” she whispered. “It is so. And it is the truth. Odin set his people to watch for Lok’s minions in all the worlds, and Lok’s children, to imprison them, to kill them. We fled and came here, and we were hiding, right under Odin’s nose. He, too, was seeking the stone. He sent his minions, even gods, to look for Mar.”
“I do wonder,” I said, “if anyone did.”
She nodded. “Hildr was set to guard the land against us,” she said. “Your father was given a great hammer to detect evil. You see, Mar had gone missing, for he went too far in his research. He found something deadly. He was driven mad by his greed and had taken his treasures and most precious of his books with him, obsessed by saving them from thieves. He had found something to make an elf immortal. Not in a good way. A bit like what might happen to you, one day, if you had not caught that sword. He was a lich. Dead as stone, greedy as a dverg, and foolish as Odin.”
“Lich,” I stated, and felt my chest opening up a bit.
She smiled. “He was a wight or a lich. Odin gave your father the hammer that could sense such things. It was all he was supposed to do. To find out the truth. And it was his duty, as it had been those who came before him, to tell of such to Hildr. In that part, we put our foot between the door, and he didn’t notice.”
I smelled terrible tales creeping closer and closed my eyes.
Outside, there was a huge commotion, as thousands of men roared their approval.
She smiled. “Reignhelm, love, is riling them up. They’ll take the castle. Well, not Reignhelm. He is in Helheim now, weeping with Tarl.”
“What?”
“Yes, you heard me. I told you once already. Is that not what you also planned to do?” she laughed. “It was our idea, this whole thing. Your plan was put into your head, so that we could fight our great enemy, to find your father’s cursed journal. And Morag. And if we failed? Hildr would slay you.”
“You have Morag?” I asked.
She nodded. “We always had him. When everyone went to war, we took him. And we have the book now.” She smiled. “We went to that squat little keep with Eglin, after the first assault had failed. There, Reignhelm and Vittar were plotting. And we changed everything. We found what we needed. And more. The Black Tales by your father is ours. Not the best of prose, but passable. Morag opened the book for us,” she said as I stared at her. “Yes. He lives. Poor thing. We might need him still. I have him. He finds some comfort in me.”
“Explain,” I said. “Just this truth. What happened to my mother? And me?”
She took a long breath. “Your mother,” she said. “Issan. She was with us. She worshipped my father, Lok.”
I stared at her.
“It is she who stopped your father from telling about the creature he found in the north to Naergoth, to Hildr. She taught him hatred for elves, and doubt for Reignhelm, and raised his pride for the east, and a burning spite for the west, and, love, doubt in Odin too. She was a human, but a very resourceful one. We found her, and she charmed your father. We used her as a way to the heart of the foe. Your father no longer wished elves in his realm, for he loved her and made her happy. You have no idea how stubborn your grandfather was. We could only see them traveling the land, staying close, avoiding elves he invited to Hard Hall, but with your father, and the love he had for Issan? Things change. And, love, your father loved your mother enough to actually tell her about the great secret. The true quest to find Book of Mar he shared, and how he thought it might be in the north. He told her, year ago, how he had found a blot of evil much deadlier than most, and how he would one day have to go and regain it.” She sighed. “He wouldn’t tell her where. But he also wouldn’t tell the elves about it. Frustrating! We—”
“Who are ‘we’?” I asked her, as she smiled. “Exactly.”
“We took over two houses in Midgard,” she said. “We took the house of White Tower. Here, the Spider hunted and waited, aiding our brother. Vali, he is called. A great fighter, an army breaker. And Shadow, our lord, took the house of Graymoor, and made the land hostile to elves too, but no less than your father’s house. He filled it with his servants, with men who love Lok, and found few other servants to aid him as well. Like our Borin. Graymoor is the Shadow. Narfi, the Shadow, hid under his skin for a long time.”
Graymoor and Jarl Barrac. Relatives. Both victims.
“There has not been a real human jarl of either,” she said, “for over a hundred years. The twins are Lok’s people. Naera is his scribe. And your mother secured the east for us. Elves stayed away, as did the Aesir, for we spawned trouble here and there and kept them busy. Borin did. But it was risky and just a matter of time.”
“He is Graymoor,” I said. “He destroyed us in the battle.”
“He did a lot more,” she said with shaking voice.
She rose, moving back and forth, hugging herself.
Lok’s daughter.
They had destroyed my family.
“How?” I asked, bleeding profusely. “Just tell me all. I cannot remember.”
The gem in her hand gleamed. They had stolen what was me.
They had put me on the trail of their making.
The anger bubbled in my chest, terrible, seething hatred.
And also, love. Love for the thing before me.
She exhaled. “Issan failed. She couldn’t get from your father the one thing that we lacked. The location of Mar. It is in the north, I know. But we have no idea where. Your mother, whom my brother found to be a charming, fine disciple, and had gotten us so far, failed,” she said and gazing at me. “So, he looked at her sons. Alarik, he was just like his father. Stubborn. Not very bright. Weak for Odin. Erik, never heeding any advice, never letting anyone near, not even a woman. So.”
“So,” I said, “you needed someone weaker.”
“More open to suggestions. The third son,” she agreed. “I remember when I saw you the first time.”
“Yes,” I said. “I imagine you saw a prey.”
Leaning on a wall, her expression waivered, revealing sadness. Beyond her, I heard men yelling, a mass of them, horrified, in battle.
“Your mother saw the potential in you.”
“Weakness.”
“Potential,” she said as she smiled at me. “A handsome, tall, fierce warrior, whom all ignored. Even your father, except when he had time to teach you swords.”
“Did Mother,” I asked weakly, “have something to do with that? That everyone ignored me?”
Her lips curved up, and she averted her eyes, nodding. “Yes. She made you bitter. She made sure not much was expected of you in the family. She made sure your father thought you unfit to serve. She made you desire power, and she pushed you hard to reach for it. It was an evil ploy. It was. You wanted to serve Odin. You wanted it, so badly. And year by year, you were forgotten and abandoned even more. Little by little, you turned sour and sad. And then we met, and your mother and I showed you a new way.”
“Lok’s way, wife?” I asked. “We married?”
She nodded. “We did marry. We made merry, and I was happy. You were too. It was no lie. Never a lie. In fact, we are still married, husband. But I have been married before. You, a man, and I, a woman, we had years of joy. I remember every moment. In bed, out of it.”
I closed my eyes and wept.
I felt nothing. I knew it existed, the bygone happiness, but could not touch it.
Love.
“I want my memory back,” I managed through tears. “My soul.”
She touched the jewel. “Half of a soul. The weak, gentle part. Nay. I will keep it.”
“It is mine,” I snarled.
“You are dying and dead,” she spoke in hushed tones. “You and the others will stay here with Borin. And later, you will not think of me at all.”
I felt cold shivers running up and down my spine.
“May we never meet again,” she said wistfully. “You, too, failed. Issan failed. You failed. Perhaps there is something in her blood that spawn’s failure.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Failed,” she said bitterly. “Even when you knew how important it was for me.”
“How?”
“You have not much time, love,” she said. “You do not wish to die so unhappily.”
“How?” I snarled and attempted to sit up. I was too weak, and the chains held my hands. The crow on top was hopping about.
It would make a meal of me.
“How?” She cocked her head to one side. “Fine. Terribly. For long years, I told you of your worth. Of the things you deserve. Of the good, you could do. Finally, last year, on a summer morning of warmth, I told you whom I serve.”
“Did you tell me what you are?” I asked.
“No. I told you of Lok, and of the quest your mother and I were on, and how you, and we, might save all the Nine from the crimes of Odin. I told you your oath to your family, and to Odin were nothing but filth, and how Lok wanted to save us all. Reluctantly, shaking with horror, yea, even doubt in your eyes, you agreed. You made an oath to me, to Lok. You agreed to take up the Wolf Hammer and the book and to put Morag on the throne, to guard him and to guide him.”
“I agreed to kill my father and brothers?” I asked her. “I don’t believe you.”
“You agreed to take over,” she said. “I didn’t ask you for that. But you must have known…”
I was silent.
“On your soul, for the Nine, and most of all, to finally gain the position you deserved, you agreed to take the throne from your father. You pledged yourself to Lok and agreed to help me.”
I stared at her. “You lie. You lie to me.”
She shook her head. “I do not. Not now. You would have taken over, and we would have had your father’s book, and Alarik’s boy would open it for us. The book. You swore to me, on your knees, when I told you the truth, that you would aid your wife. Nay, there was no spell. Just long years of being frustrated, and there was love.”
