Chapter Eight
Time and date in the Norse pantheon unknown, age 26
Fauna had left me speechless before, but never like this.
Fear was replaced with something new.
It didn’t matter how vivid and sharp and expressive my imagination was. I tilted my head back, eyes wide as I fought to recall any moment in fantasy, in mythology, in literature that could give me the language for what I saw the moment I stepped foot in the Nordic realm. I scrambled through nature documentaries, through cinematic masterpieces, through decades of great works of art as I stared and stared and stared.
I’d spent my life training to have a rigorous frame of reference for the fantastical. Despite my broad exposure to science fiction and fantasy and literature and mythology, my willingness to expand my imagination into every nook and cranny, I gaped at the realm before me, comprehending nothing.
Each object, each feature, each thing came to me in pieces as I struggled to assemble the puzzle before my eyes. This was more bizarre than murder-by-vines ever could have been.
I’d seen mountains before. I’d seen cliffs, trees, pits, and waterfalls. I’d certainly seen the sun before. But this sun, as silver as the moon and glimmering like diamonds, sent the world into a brilliant shimmer.
We stood at the base of a mountain that made the Swiss Alps look like anthills. The peak had a Seussical curve to its tip, bending to one side as if leaning in to tell us a secret. As unfathomably wide as it was tall, the mountain jutted from between the fork of two rivers, each as wide as an ocean, creating a silver sash around the mountain until they converged, then tumbled off into a bridal-veil waterfall that dissipated into mist. If it weren’t for the mossy green carpet that stretched from us to the mountain, we would have had no way to reach it. I could almost discern the dotted, shimmering shapes of far-off buildings clinging to the mountainside.
The thrum of distant music, the Fauna-esque scent of the sea, of pine, of cold, the songs of birds and the rustling of leaves beneath the arching mountain swallowed me whole.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
Nothing in my frame of reference ever could have prepared me for the ethereal glow of colors and impossible sights before me.
Grinning with pride, she stretched out her hand in a grand, sweeping gesture. “Welcome to álfheimr.”
My heart lurched uncomfortably. “Holy shit.”
She tossed her hair over one shoulder. “I told you that our realm was objectively better.”
“Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit .”
The same tinkling-bell laughter I’d grown to know and love answered. “Good job, wordsmith. That’s why you’re the famous writer.”
I moved forward, one foot in front of the other, neck craned upward as I struggled to process a mountain the size of the moon.
“Pretty, right? Pretty people come from pretty places.” She buffed her nails against her shoulder, then blew on them, stretching her fingers wide for show.
I followed her in a daze as she led me across a long, soft green stretch of grass. “So, you cured my anxiety. We didn’t land on a Viking ship. We’re not eating salted cod. But this…”
“What could I have said that would have prepared you for my realm?”
“Fair point,” I murmured. “And we’re going to the mountain?”
“We’re going up there,” she replied, pointing to the tiny dots clinging to the cliff that I suspected might be buildings. Unless we grew wings, it would take us weeks to hike there. My stomach grumbled. Maybe my body was already protesting the idea of an endless hike.
I appreciated the long stretches of silence she allowed as we walked. I wasn’t confident I’d pull it together anytime soon. Instead, I asked, “I’m ready to know things, now. Who are we here to see? Is there anything I should or shouldn’t do if we’re going to go on a rescue mission and get them to help us fight for—”
Fauna spun on me and, for a terrifying moment, I saw her for the dangerous killer she was. Her eyes were tight. Her lips were pulled back in a silent snarl. Her fingers flexed by her sides.
“Just because we’re alone doesn’t mean we’re alone, ” Fauna said, voice dropping to a low growl as she rested on the final word.
In a panicked instant, I understood my blunder. She’d sworn an oath to her informant that we wouldn’t act on his information, and anyone could be listening. I needed to play it as if we had only come to the realm so I could seek revenge against the senator and his doxxing. I pitched my voice to tell her both that I understood, and that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. “If we’re going to rescue my reputation as an author and fight back against Geoff Christiansen. This is my pantheon, and surely I have allies here, right?”
The tension drained from the moment like air hissing from a balloon. Her hands went limp at her sides. Her face relaxed. I’d saved myself from sticking my foot in my mouth, if only for a moment.
“Now,” I said, hands extended as if to soothe a rabid animal, “please tell me who we’re here to see and what I need to know.”
The last glimmer of threat dulled. She exhaled and shook out the remnants of her anger, as if her body might strangle me of its own volition if she didn’t scatter the urge to murder me to the wind. After a deep, calming breath, she said, “Fine. So, Hell is all one metropolis with different courts—think of them like subdivisions of the city. The human realm has seven continents. The Nordes have ásgard and the nine worlds—”
“Yes, I know,” I said, continuing to look around for other signs of people, of activity, of life. But it was only me, the nymph, and the mountain.
“Oh!” She threw up her hands dramatically. “Well, pardon me! I didn’t realize you knew everything already.”
“No! No, I’m sorry. I just meant that I did my best to cover the basics when researching the first Pantheon novel. But spending time with you has taught me that know nothing and am always wrong. Please help me, Oh Great One.”
“That’s better. Anyway, so you probably don’t need to be a linguist to see the etymological connection between álfheimr and elves, right? I’m basically a skosgr?, which you knew. Personally, I like nymph a little better—it conveys a clearer message to the human brain, since elf can mean so many things to the mortals, and only point-three-percent of your kind speaks a Scandinavian language. By the way: it’s irresponsible to write a book on the Nordic realm for an English-speaking audience without including a pronunciation guide. The a with the little circle above it is pronounced oh . Why is that so hard to grasp?”
I trailed behind her. “So, to be clear, you want me to keep calling you a nymph.”
“I’m just saying: Tolkien got it right with álfheimr elves. Don’t get me started on your toy-making, tree-cookie version of the word. Talk to the Celts and their fair folk about it. But I digress. We’re our own people. Think of the god and goddess Freyr and Frejya like álfheimr’s presidents, because those of us who live here are the Vanir.”
“Should I be writing this down?”
“Just listen. I’m trying to teach you things.”
“Sorry, sorry.”
She made a tired sound, busying herself with examining the flowers that dotted the grass. She kept talking as if I wasn’t there, speaking instead to the flora. “The Aesir have your big heavy hitters: Odin, Thor, Loki, Baldur. On the other side, the Vanir oversee those of us in álfheimr, even though the Vanir mostly live in Vanheim. They pop in to make sure we’re not starting fires or whatever. They’re a race of pretty chill gods. None of us in álfheimr are important enough to live in ásgard, but it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away, and we can always visit. It’s the closest world to ours.”
“ World ?”
“Country. City. Continent. I’ve said it before: words are just words, peanut. Use whatever verbiage helps you wrap your little noggin around things. So, yes, for this, we’ll stick with world , but don’t go picturing a rock floating in space. Now, stop interrupting.”
“My apologies, again,” I said but had stopped watching her. If this weren’t a life-or-death mission, I might have wanted to lie on my back and look up at the Dr. Seuss mountain and infinity rivers. I wondered if I’d ever be able to return to soak in the waterfall and smell the blossoms and catch the tiny twinkling lights that dotted the air like fireflies when my life wasn’t falling apart.
A chill from the crisp air sent a shiver through me, as if it were a cool day in late spring. Or perhaps the goose bumps running up and down my arms stemmed from the reminder that Fauna’s irreverent, joyful exterior was a mask. The man in the park and the warning threat were both reminders that I was, in fact, in the presence of a dangerous goddess. Maybe it was good that I’d brought a coat.
Fauna continued. “So, the Vanir in álfheimr report directly to Gullevig. She’s great. She’s been killed like three times and keeps coming back. Other religions act like it’s such a big deal, but you don’t see her bragging. Freyr and Freyja are a little too important for the day-to-day, so we talk to Gullevig, she talks to them, and so on. Anyway, it’s like a manager-supervisor situation.”
I repeated it back slowly, tasting each word until I was sure I understood. “Vanir is a catch-all category for the gods directly over you. Freyr is your… president …in álfheimr, and everyone reports to Gullevig, who was dead. But now isn’t. Okay. Who killed her?”
She nodded, picking her steps carefully so as not to step on any of little blossoms peeking through the carpet of green. “Not a bad question, actually. Time for you to learn about the wonderful, perfect, never-done-anything-bad Vanir, in charge of fertility and good things, who were subordinate to the war-loving Aesir.”
“If you don’t like the Aesir, does that mean you’re saying Odin and Thor and Loki are the bad guys?”
“Bad? No, absolutely not. But you don’t have to be bad to be wrong. Anyone who hoards power is the enemy, regardless of what realm you’re in. And a lot of us feel that way. Heaven and Hell aren’t the only realms that split and went to war, after all. We all have our skirmishes. Just like humans and your countries. Though gods usually fight for, like…reasons more important than oil.
“So, anyway, we’ve got the divide between the gods, right? The Aesir had a lot of rules. You know me well enough to picture how a race of my people would hate being told what to do. But as I was saying, the heavy hitters and the Vanir were at war for a hot minute. The tide kept turning back and forth, so for a while it was a toss-up over who would take the crown. Long story short, there was a hostage exchange and a truce, where the Aesir absorbed the Vanir and we were unified after the peace treaty. In theory, everybody was a winner and we’re one big happy family. That’s the story. That said, half of the Aesir are still grumpy about it because the Vanir don’t always play by the rules.”
“Sure,” I conceded, “I can imagine Vanir citizens wouldn’t be thrilled to adhere to new rules they didn’t agree to. It’s not like everyone got an equal say when the two morphed into one, right?”
She beamed. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said. Proud of you, peanut. Yup, their rules can be shitty.”
“I remember the war of the gods from the Poetic Edda…”
Her head whipped around so quickly that her hair was little more than a swirling tornado of bronze and silver.
I stopped her before she could scold me for butting in. “I’m not cutting you off! I just wanted to clarify what we’re going to do right this very second. I will sit patiently and listen to everything forever. Teach me all the names and all the histories and all the things. I just need to emotionally prepare myself for what’s going to happen when we get where we’re going.”
“I’m getting to that,” came Fauna’s exasperated grunt. Fortunately, we were an unknowable distance from the base of the mountain. “All this was to say that it’s usually the sour motherfuckers who are looking for reasons to dick around. You don’t look for help in someone who’s chill with the status quo, right? Like, you’re not going to ask Jeff Bezos for tax reform against billionaires. You’re going to rally the masses. If you want someone to help you seek revenge against a politician, you’d ask the citizens. And, hypothetically, if you wanted to dabble in a war between Heaven and Hell, we’d need some renegades. Good thing we’re not here for that, right Merit?”
“Right.” I was catching on. “So, what sort of renegades do we need for vengeance?”
Satisfied with our ruse, she continued to lead us forward. “We’re going to go meet two friends of mine. Last I checked, they’re going by Ella and Estrid.”
“Sisters?”
“Lovers.”
I chewed on the information. “And we think they’ll help us because they’re Vanir and don’t mind starting shit?”
“See, you get it. One of them is Vanir and always down to mess with the order of things. The other has been slighted because she’s Aesir. You’ll see. Plenty of Nordes from the nine worlds of Yggdrasil defected. Don’t even get me started on how much better álfheimr is than Jotunheimr. Ice giants do not know how to party. Tons of the coolest jotunn found their way here to paradise.” She smiled at me. I still couldn’t believe how much ground we had left to cover. It would be days or weeks or a month before we arrived. Maybe I’d die of old age and the dust of my skeleton could be carried up the gargantuan mountain on a breeze.
“Should I be keeping an eye peeled for giants?”
She chuckled. “ Giant is a relative term. Sometimes it’s metaphorical. Though leave it to centuries of pagan purists to insist on its literalism. Take Loki, for example. He’s technically a giant, but the motherfucker got Tom Hiddleston to portray him. Great PR move on his part, which is why I’m sure he has a new cult of devotees. He has a giant personality, makes giant choices, and is the cause of giant waves amongst the gods. But let’s focus on one group at a time. For now, we’ll pop by Ella and Estrid’s place and see if either of them wants to go on a little adventure to find some…retribution”
“Demonic and angelic political justice.” I didn’t want to risk breaking our vow of silence on the topic, but my gut told me she was forgetting about Silas.
“Yeah,” she sighed, “let’s play that one by ear and see how we feel about all parties once we get there.”
My chest tightened uncomfortably. I was positive we were both discussing the angel. “He’s up to something.” It was exhausting to wrap our conversation in deceit, but a promise was a promise. Geoff Christiansen deserved to boil in a vat of acid, to be sure, but I did not care about him enough to reference him this often. Still, I stuck to the script as I said, “I know he’d help us with the senator.”
She cast a glance over her shoulder. “You have more religious trauma in your pinky finger than most people experience in a lifetime. You’re the last person I’d expect to argue on Heaven’s behalf to go against their… political interests. So, what? You think he’s gone rogue?”
I pressed the heel of my hand into my temple, rubbing slowly as I recounted events. “When I was attacked in my apartment and Caliban couldn’t help, he put out a tier-five favor, remember? Anyone could have answered, and Silas came. You were the one who told me Silas could have used it to end the war. He could have asked for free access to Hell. He could have had Caliban killed. Instead…you remember how weird he was when he came to my apartment? He acted like Caliban had only put out a tier one and sent him to Bellfield. He stashed him in that terraformed god-catcher. The more I think about it, the more it seems like he put Caliban there because no one else could reach him.”
“He’s still an angel. He could be doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons,” Fauna said quietly.
I watched her prance through the blossoms and blades, thinking of the infamous date she’d gone on with the agent of Heaven. “I thought you didn’t mind him. He didn’t just save Caliban by cashing in that favor on something small. He was also the one who showed up and rescued me after we killed Astarte. He got me back to you.”
“Can’t force me into a box, baby. I feel what I feel.”
“And when can I talk about what I feel?” I hoped she knew what I was asking. I didn’t have the energy to rework it into a madhouse of double entendre.
Fortunately, Fauna picked up what I was putting down. I needed to know what I could or couldn’t say to the rebels. She said, “Tell them why we came. Casually mention other things in your life, if they’re relevant. If another topic unfolds, well, we can hardly be held accountable for organic conversation.”
Half of what she said at any given moment was nonsense, but every once in a while she rang with the clarity of a bell. Empowered by our plan, I was ready to get going. “Please tell me you’re leading me to a motorcycle or some well-stashed horses or an airplane or something. This will take forever on foot and I’m starving.”
She looked back at me. “Oh, it’s too far to walk. Are you ready? I can just pop us over there.”
I blinked. “Are you serious?”
She shrugged. “You usually have a cornucopia of dumb questions. I wanted us to be out of earshot while you got them out of your system.”