Blood, Sex, Honey
Three draughts of mead for three nights of sex; that’s what everyone says my bargain with Odin was. They couldn’t be more wrong.
The mead was the main thing that brought him to Hnitbjorg; that much is true. It was the latest in a long line of magical objects my father had pilfered and brought back to our remote fortress of black volcanic rock, to be placed under my safekeeping. We had amassed quite a collection in the long stone chamber that doubled as his treasure hoard and my magical workshop. There was a seeing stone that looked directly into the Well of Wyrd, two cloaks of eagle feathers, a wand that revealed illusions, and myriad philters, potions, charms and amulets. And now there were three huge earthenware vessels filled with rich amber Mead, redolent of sweet honey as well as a darker, more pungent scent, and rumored to have mysterious powers. My father usually stole from the dwarves, who had magical paraphernalia aplenty and could not do much to retaliate, and occasionally from elves, humans, and even other Jotnar. He thought he had stolen from the dwarves again this time. He was mistaken.
I knew the mead would lead to trouble as soon as I saw it. My people do not merely believe things or even discern them; we simply know them, in the marrow of our bones and in our veins through which flows the fiery blood of Surt, the father of my line. Or perhaps I should amend that to say, the females of my bloodline simply know things, and are known and feared throughout the Nine Worlds for this, just as we are known and feared for our witchcraft. The ability seems strangely blocked in many of our male counterparts, perhaps by their lust for destruction and their sheer pigheadedness.
But I digress. I knew the mead was trouble, and my father’s account of how he had come by it did nothing to allay my misgivings. He claimed to have taken it from two especially nasty dwarves as wergild for the murder of my grandparents. Knowing my father’s talent for embroidery, I didn’t believe this story until I’d checked it out in the seeing stone for myself, and with my own eyes saw the horrid dwarves ambush Gilling, and then slaughter his wife, my beloved grandmother who had taught me magic at her knee, because she wouldn’t stop wailing after her husband’s untimely death. This annoyed me. Not their deaths, but her blubbering, which had prevented her from taking the vengeance she was quite capable of inflicting and instead consigned her to the role of victim. But that is another strange quirk of my people—not just those of us who are of the lineage of Muspelheim, but all Jotunfolk in general: no matter how controlled we may appear on the surface, given the right motivation we can become overemotional in the extreme. My father cried for three weeks after learning of the death of his parents. And I suspect it was not the blood of Aurgelmir that created the seas of the worlds, but his tears, shed when he realized his own descendants, the sons of Borr, were going to kill him.
But back to the mead. It was not just mead, that was the problem. Nor were the vessels merely vessels; they had names, which they were happy enough to impart to me once I’d sweet-talked them a bit. The two smaller vats were Bodn and Son, and the larger, more imposing one, Odhroerir. Stirrer of passion, inciter of frenzy. The name alone boded ill. When I lifted its lid to examine the contents, the heady fragrance assailed my senses. Beneath the honey-sweetness lurked a darker undertone that was bitter, almost metallic. It didn’t take an illusion-dispelling wand to confirm that it was blood. But not just any blood. Oh no, this mead contained the mingled blood and powers of our sworn enemies, the Aesir and Vanir. The blood of Kvasir, reputedly the wisest and gentlest of all beings, who had been created from the combined spittle of both races of gods to seal their peace treaty after the recent end of their war for dominion of Asgard. I had heard, via the supernatural grapevine, that Kvasir had gone missing and the Aesir were searching for him. Apparently, those wretched dwarves had murdered him and brewed this mead by mixing his blood with honey and magics. And now, thanks to my brilliant father, we were in possession of it.
Surely, I thought, the gods of Asgard would marshal their forces and march against Hnitbjorg as soon as they learned the location of the mead. Surely they would lay siege to the fortress any day now to recapture this treasure that had been crafted from the remains of their kinsman. Surt the Black would send us reinforcements from Muspelheim to help guard the keep if need be, that much was certain; we were an important outpost, well worth protecting. But in the meantime, what a tiresome hassle this was going to be.
But I was wrong; there was to be no attack. Instead, a stranger appeared at our door one early summer’s night. An odd feeling came over me when I heard the knocker strike the huge iron door of the keep, two stories below my own chambers. Hnitbjorg is carved right into the side of an immense mountain, so when someone knocks at the front gate the sound reverberates throughout the entire place, like thunder echoing through a lonely valley. But this sound was not the source of the odd feeling. It was not a sudden flash of intuition, or even the deep, rock-solid knowing I was so used to. No, it was a tugging, as if someone were physically pulling me in the direction of the door. What power in all the Nine Worlds could possibly tug at me so? I was curious. So, ignoring all protocol, I shrugged off the servants who tried to intercept me and ran to throw back the huge oaken bolt and open the doors to the keep.
Like the mead itself, I knew our visitor was trouble as soon as I saw him. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he was gorgeous. Breathtakingly so, with long waves of strawberry blond hair, eagle-sharp features, and a sensual mouth framed by a neatly manicured moustache and beard. He was taller than me, which meant he was at least part Jotun—maybe even mostly Jotun, judging by the supple strength in his shoulders and arms. The rest of his body was equally magnificent, from what I could see of it beneath the long blue-black traveling cloak he wore over his tunic and britches. But what said “trouble” to me loud and clear were those intense blue eyes that seemed to see right into my soul when he looked at me, and that easy, lazy grin. A predator’s grin. But that, at least, was something I could relate to.
I returned the grin, along with every ounce of wolfishness it conveyed. Once again, I did not need any wand to see what was right before my eyes. “Odin Borrsson, I presume? Or should I call you Bolverkr, since you wouldn't be standing here at Suttung's threshold if you were up to any good?”
The blue eyes widened slightly as he took me in, and he even caught his breath a little; whatever he had been expecting, apparently it had not been me. Or had it? I had heard rumors that the chieftain of the Aesir was seeking a bride, and that his mother had urged him to turn his eye towards Jotunheim. Perhaps there was a double purpose to his visit here; it would be no small coup for him to forge an alliance with the house of Surt through marriage. As if in answer to my thoughts, there was a flicker of cunning in those incredible eyes behind the obvious appreciation, and beneath that, I was pleased to see, a glimmer of fear. Good, I thought; he had not made the mistake of thinking a fire giantess was a prize to be easily won. But his caution did not prevent him from daring to look me over slowly from head to toe, his gaze lingering on my long hair with its depths of burnished gold and glints of red, my green amber eyes, and the curves of my body that the long silken gown I wore did little to hide. I felt my own breath quicken. Our eyes met again, and I saw kinship and understanding mirrored in his gaze. As well as something else: primal hunger.
“Gunnlod Suttungsdottir,” he said at last, bowing slightly. His voice was deep and rich, a cross between a low growl and a lazy caress, and I loved the way my name sounded on his lips. It did funny things to my stomach. “I wish to speak with your father. I believe I have a business proposition for him.”
“My father is occupied in his study.” My heart was pounding, despite myself. To hide my nervousness, I reached one hand up to twine a lock of his strawberry blond hair around my finger, almost absentmindedly. “Besides, your business is with me. I am the Lady of this keep.” I indicated the ring of keys I wore on my belt.
“Are you indeed? In that case, you should know that you have something that belongs to me.” He captured my hand in his and raised it to his lips, but instead of kissing it as I had expected, he slid my index finger into his mouth and sucked on it slowly, agonizingly, before letting it slide out again. I shivered, and his lips curled into a smirk. That annoyed me a bit. He was obviously so accustomed to getting whatever he wanted, this arrogant young chieftain. Well, this time he would find it a bit more of a challenge than he was used to.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” I said, deliberately running my hands over my waist and hips and straightening my shoulders so that my breasts stood out in sharper relief through the fabric of my gown.
His eyes followed the path of my hands, and I heard a deep, low growl vibrate in his throat. Suddenly, he grabbed me and pulled me tightly against him, pressing me into the hardness of his body. “I think you do, Gunnlod.”
I could barely breathe, but I could not let him know that. So I laughed lightly and forced myself to meet that achingly blue gaze again. His mouth was so close to mine I could feel the heat of his breath. “Then tell me, Odin: how badly do you want it, this possession of yours that you speak of?”
His eyes blazed. I think he would have taken me right then and there, and that I would have let him, despite my determination to make this difficult for him, if my father hadn’t chosen that precise moment to come downstairs. “Gunnlod?” he called. “Did I hear the door? Is someone here?”
We sprang apart, like naughty teenagers caught making out, just as Suttung rounded the last twist of the stairway and came into view. “What is this?” he asked, peering at our visitor.
I glanced toward Odin, and this time saw what he obviously intended my father to see: not his sworn enemy, but a wandering old one-eyed Jotun in a raggedy cloak, come looking for a night’s lodging or a hot meal. He was good, this sorcerer-god. Almost as good as me. Our eyes met again, and I saw that he was wondering whether I would give him away. He needn’t have worried; I was having far too much fun playing with him. It especially amused me to introduce him to my father using the name I myself had thought of for him, Bolverkr.
I ignored the glimmer of gratitude in Odin’s remaining eye before he shifted his attention back to my father. “I understand you have come into possession of some very unusual mead. I am a poor seeker who has come a long way in the hope that you might be willing to grant me, or even sell me, a small taste of that mead.”
My father burst out laughing as if he’d said something hysterical. “Sell?” he boomed, sputtering. “What could a vagabond like you possibly have that I would want?”
A corner of Odin’s mouth twitched. “You just might be surprised. Not unlike you, I am something of a collector. Except that in my case, what I collect is somewhat more…ephemeral. Arcane. I can offer you stories…lore…secrets. My uncle is a deeply learned man, and he has taught me many things. My mother is a witch, and her knowledge she has passed along to me as well.”
My father was unimpressed. “Stories?” he repeated, his tone dripping with mockery. He took two huge steps closer to our visitor and squared his shoulders to make it even more obvious how much he towered over him. “I am a busy man, wanderer,” he sneered at Odin. His face was turning beet red, and flecks of spittle flew from his lips. “Yes, I am a collector, as you have heard. But I collect items of such power and wonder as the likes of you will never even see, let alone appreciate.” The heavy bear cloak he wore parted, and one meaty hand toyed with the ornate hilt of the blade at his side. I winced, hoping he would not draw it. Like most of my father’s possessions, Soul Flayer was enchanted and its rumored powers fearsome—perhaps not the equal of the sword owned by the Van lord Freyr, but close. It was supposed to be able to steal souls, even those of giants or gods, and rob them of their strength. To shatter them, in a sense. My father had always told me that my mother, a beautiful woman who had earth goddess blood as well as being related to the house of Aegir, had left him for another man when I was a small child. But the servants whispered that she had instead fallen to this sword when Suttung had discovered her infidelity. Throughout my childhood, the mere threat of such a fate had always been enough to make me behave, and even now that I was a powerful witch in my own right—having learned from my father’s mother what my own mother had not had time to teach me—it was enough to make me tread carefully around him. A calming spell flew to my lips, ready to be uttered if necessary.
But then he seemed to change his mind, and his fingers abandoned the blade. His arm swung up, pointing towards the door. “Out!” he bellowed. “I will suffer no more of this foolishness. Gunnlod, I want him gone from here. See to it.” And with one more menacing glare at our visitor, he turned on his heel and stormed back up the staircase.
I let out a sigh of relief. And then I glanced towards Odin, who was looking like himself again, except that there was now something akin to desperation in his eyes. “Gunnlod, please.” He took a step towards me, but I held up a hand to stop him.
“He wants you gone,” I said softly. “I dare not disobey.” This was not quite true; I did dare, and often. Just, not when my father actually knew about it. This was too much of a risk. I deliberated for a long moment more, and then added, “There is no dealing with him when he gets like this. My uncle Baugi is the only one who can hope to reason with him.”
His lips curved in a slow smile, and I knew that he had picked up on the clue in my words.
Later that evening, I sat in the workroom in my golden chair and consulted the seeing stone. I had already known what Odin’s next move would be, but I watched as he made his way down into the valley below Hnitbjorg and approached my uncle Baugi’s fields. Now disguised as an itinerant laborer, he slaughtered all of my uncle’s workers through trickery before presenting himself at Baugi’s cottage. Once again he bargained for a taste of Suttung’s mead, this time in return for doing all the work of my uncle’s nine thralls throughout the entire summer. My uncle argued against this plan at first, insisting that in the end it wasn’t up to him whether or not Suttung decided to grant him some of the mead. But unlike my father he was not a wealthy man, and the loss of all nine of his thralls was a huge blow to him; it made the prospect of free labor very tempting. Finally he agreed that he would put in a good word for the stranger and try to persuade Suttung to part with a sample of the mead if the work was done well.
You know what happened next, how the mighty lord of Asgard worked as a thrall for three long months in the hopes of getting into Baugi’s good graces and thereby gaining access to the mead. What you’ve never heard before—for the story has never been told by me, until now—is that I watched him every day in my seeing stone, reveling in the sight of those rippling muscles in his shoulders and arms as he went about his work, wanting to lick each glistening bead of sweat from his back and chest. And on some days I did more than look on from a distance. On some days Odin would glance up from his work to find me watching him from across the field, grinning as I shielded my eyes from the bright sun. Occasionally, I would even take pity on him, and with a wave of my hand his work would be done for that day, and he would be free to share the lunch of cheese, bread and wine I’d brought with me in a basket. We’d sit in the grass beneath the shade of a tree and laugh as he told me his stories, the stories he had offered my father that were worth so much more than most of the items in Suttung’s hoard. Stories of the war, of his youth, of his quests for wisdom. Bits of lore he had learned from his mother and from Mimir, his uncle. In return, I told him what I had glimpsed of his wyrd in my seeing stone, that there was much sorrow and sacrifice ahead for him but also even deeper magic. I told him to seek the great Tree at the heart of the worlds, that there he would penetrate the mysteries that formed the very fabric of reality--and though it would cost him dearly, he would master them.
On the long summer nights, when his work was done, sometimes I would meet him in the woods and we would run and hunt together as wolves—for we both had a talent for shape-shifting in our very blood. And then we’d collapse into the soft cushion of needles and he would take me, over and over again, until finally, exhausted, we slept. Or I would take him, slowly and deliciously, whispering into his ear as I initiated him into the women’s magic of soul manipulation that was never taught to men of my kind.
So you see, the bargain was never sex for mead. There was far more sex involved than three nights’ worth, and it wasn’t given in trade for anything. No, I gave him the mead in exchange for other things, other promises. Why did I help him, knowing the danger to myself? Why did I betray my kin in favor of this man who was, despite my passion for him, the leader of our sworn enemies? There were many reasons: I recognized the validity of Odin’s claim on the mead and that we were in wrongful possession of it, I was tired of living under my father’s thumb and in the shadow of that sword, and as much as I had tried all my life to resist the knowledge, my bone-deep intuition told me that the rumors of my mother’s death were true. But the main reason was Odin himself. I had loved him from the first moment I saw him, and with each day we spent together I loved him still more. And the deep, true knowing of my heart told me that he felt the same for me; we had each discovered in the other a kindred spirit. I had met my match, my true mate, and so had he. In confirmation of this, I had seen more than a glimpse of Odin’s wyrd in the stone; I had seen that my own was becoming increasingly entangled with his. What troubled me was that there was now a shadow over mine that grew and darkened with each passing day—but I pushed any worries connected with that aside for now and concentrated on spending my hours basking in his company. Because I knew, in the depths of my heart where I refused to look, that those hours would end all too soon.
Throughout the summer, while we played and laughed and loved, we planned what to do. We both knew that my father would not relent, that he would never grant anyone even the smallest taste of his trophy no matter what Baugi said. Besides, Baugi could hardly be trusted. Oh, he would fulfill his side of the bargain, up to a point. He would try to reason with his brother on Odin’s behalf. He might even agree to help Odin obtain the mead by other means when Suttung refused. But then he would turn on him at the earliest opportunity and win points with his brother for defeating his enemy. There was no real question where his loyalties lay.
At summer’s end, it was time to put our plan into action. I could have smuggled him into Hnitbjorg, but to protect me, Odin wanted it to look as if I was uninvolved. So he presented himself to Baugi, who inspected his fields, pronounced the work well done, and agreed to plead his case with my father. When this plan failed miserably, as we had expected, he agreed to help in a darker scheme: in the dead of night, he and Odin would approach Hnitbjorg and scale the fortress until they reached the level of the magical storeroom. Once there, Baugi would drill a hole through the side of the mountain and into the storeroom and Odin would slip inside and secure the mead. How Odin would manage this feat, Baugi didn’t seem interested in questioning. As for me, I didn’t need to question; I knew. One of the items in our hoard enabled the wearer to assume the form of a snake, and I’d smuggled it out to Odin with yesterday’s picnic lunch. It was to be our last.
Alone in the storeroom that night, I paced nervously as I waited for them. Objectively speaking, I had no real cause to be nervous; I could watch their progress in the seeing stone, and I knew all was going as planned. I even knew what form Baugi’s treachery would take, and had warned Odin to beware of my uncle’s axe. But there was still something very wrong. The shadow on my wyrd had grown steadily larger and darker throughout my months with Odin, and now resembled an inkblot or a stain of freshly spilled blood. Who I had been up until now was almost obscured. Where my path would lead me in the future, I could not say. I had not spoken to Odin of this. It was my problem, I figured, and somehow I would deal with it. Besides, it made no difference; I had decided what I wanted, and there was no going back now. I couldn’t even if I had wanted to, and I did not want to. My future was with Odin, my wyrd bound together with his—for good or for ill.
A grinding sound disturbed my thoughts. Baugi’s drill, at last. I ceased pacing and waited with my gaze fixed on the point of entry, listening and watching anxiously as the drill slowly ate its way through rock, ready in case I had to intervene. The auger slipped into view at last, wiggled as my uncle chipped away at the hole to widen it, and then was withdrawn again. It wasn’t long before the green head of a snake, followed by the rest of its body, slid through the hole and came tumbling into the room, accompanied by the clang of an axe striking stone on the other side of the wall.
I raced forward to see if Odin was hurt. But no, apparently my uncle had missed. Odin threw off the snakeskin cloak and resumed his own form, whole and unharmed. I helped him to his feet.
“The mead is there,” I said, nodding towards the three vats.
I need not have said anything; that blue gaze was already fixed on them, the expression in it unreadable. But then his attention returned to me and he took me by the shoulders tenderly, his eyes drinking me in again as they had that first night. “And more importantly, you are here.” He squeezed my shoulders. “But we do not have much time. Baugi will be making his way to warn Suttung even now.” From the folds of his cloak, he produced an ornately carved drinking horn, trimmed in gold, and something else that he opened his palm slowly to reveal. A golden ring. A wedding ring. He slipped it onto my finger, the gold feeling as though it would melt my flesh as it slid on. Then he turned my hand over and kissed my palm and wrist, and I knew the gold was like ice compared to the heat of his lips.
I went to fill the first horn from Odhroerir, my hands trembling so that a few drops of mead spilled on the floor. I returned to him and raised the horn, and our eyes met over it. In the traditions of my people as well as his, words spoken over a drinking horn go directly into the Well of Wyrd and become part of Orlog, of the fabric of reality itself. I began to speak. I told him of my love for him and pledged him my heart, my hand and my soul forever, as his wife. And then drank, and the mead was all the fire and sweetness and magic there was in the world, all the light and dark things the universe could hold, as it warmed my mouth and burned a path down my throat.
I passed the horn to him. He raised it and pledged himself to me as my husband, swearing on the sacred oath ring that lies on the altar of the gods in Asgard that he would always love me and always be mine. His vows spoken, he drained the horn, and kissed me long and deeply.
We continued in this way with two more horns, drawn from Bodn and Son in succession. With the second horn, I promised to be a just and prudent mistress for his house, and he promised that that house would be larger and grander than the keep I was giving up by leaving here. With the third horn, I promised that I would never leave him and he promised that he would search throughout the Nine Worlds for me, if need be, if we were ever separated.
It is the custom of my people that blood must be exchanged in order to cement vows of marriage, so I took a small knife and made a cut across his palm and a matching cut across mine. We interlaced our hands, pressing our palms together so that the blood would mingle. Then I took his hand in mine and passed it over each of the three vats of mead in turn. As his hand traveled over each one, the mead contained in it vanished, becoming absorbed into him, part of who he is. The mead was his now, to do with as he willed. His hand tightened on mine and he pulled me to him as he lifted my mouth to his for a kiss.
As our lips met, the door to the chamber shuddered and broke under the blows of Baugi’s axe.
Again we sprang apart like two interrupted teenagers as my uncle burst into the room, closely followed by my father. “What is this?” Suttung boomed, his eyes fixed on Odin, who had abandoned both his former disguises and now stood before him in all his glory as Chieftain of Asgard, Lord of the Aesir.
I looked over at Odin, smiling, and reached to take his hand before glancing back towards my father. “This, Father, is my husband.”
The keep shook with Suttung’s answering bellows of rage. Then his gaze found the three empty vats and I saw that rage spiral even higher. Worse, I saw his hand reach for the hilt at his side. This time, he did draw Soul Flayer, and the blade shot sparks as he brandished it.
I leapt in front of Odin, pushing him away from the path of the sword and towards the row of magical items. But I did so clumsily, and not as quickly as I would normally have been able to. With dull shock I realized I was drunk from the mead. I glanced at my husband worriedly, and saw that he was similarly afflicted. This was not good; I needed to get him out of there, and now. Reaching out blindly, I groped for the edge of an eagle cloak and thrust it at him. Our eyes met again briefly one last time, and then he had donned the cloak and was a gigantic eagle, screeching as he circled above our heads. There was just enough of a gap in the broken door for him to fly through it, and he did.
I watched for a moment, using my magic to steady him (for he would have taken the drunkenness with him into his new form) and silently guiding him towards a balcony overlooking the courtyard in the adjoining hallway. From there, he could gain the skies and freedom. But the magic cost me extra effort in my inebriated state, and I forgot to watch my father. Before I had a chance to react, he had discarded his sword and grabbed the other eagle cloak, the one that was supposed to have been used for my own escape. A heartbeat later, he was gone, soaring off in pursuit of my husband.
Baugi gave me one last disgusted look and then seemed to lose interest and stomped out of the room, leaving me free to watch Odin’s progress in the seeing stone. You know the rest of the story, how Suttung chased Odin all the way back to Asgard only to find that the gods were waiting for them there, and had set a trap. As soon as Odin had cleared the courtyard safely, the Aesir lit a huge fire beneath the walls, and Suttung, flying blindly in his rage, flew right into it. His wings seared, he plummeted right down into the heart of the flames and was consumed.
I spent the next day lying on my bed of white furs. I was lost in a fog of shock, grief, and drunkenness that slowly abated, transforming itself into a really vicious hangover. If I moved, my head pounded mercilessly and my stomach threatened to turn itself inside out. But there was no reason to move. My father was dead, and my new husband seemed in no particular hurry to return for me. Perhaps now that he had what he’d come seeking, he was no longer interested. I consulted the seeing stone and learned that Baugi had sent emissaries to Asgard to ask after Suttung, who they were told had perished. Baugi swore vengeance when he heard this news. I would have known this even without benefit of the stone, from the roars of rage and anguish that filled the keep.
I watched all of this in dull disbelief, never thinking of the blot like spilled blood I had seen on my wyrd, and shutting out the tugs at my mind that were becoming more and more insistent as the hours passed. The tugs felt distinctly like Odin, but they could not possibly be his attempts to contact me. If he cared, why didn’t he just come for me himself? For a while, I gave in to my sorrow and all I knew was loss and tears.
I was awakened sharply, by a tug stronger and more desperate than all of those that had preceded it. I could almost see his blue eyes now as he pleaded with me to come to him, almost hear his voice in my ear. He had not abandoned me. I had been shutting him out with my grief, the overwhelming, all-encompassing grief for which my kind are so annoyingly famous. Meanwhile, my people were on the warpath after his theft of the mead, and Baugi had sent to Muspelheim for reinforcements; Odin dared not approach the keep again so soon. He had been trying to get me to leave Hnitbjorg, to come to him in Asgard where I could take my rightful place at his side, as his queen.
I pulled myself up out of bed, finally awake and clear-headed and knowing what I had to do. Odin loved me. He was waiting for me.
But it was too late. The blade descended on me before I even had time to ward against it. I had been so absorbed in Odin’s message that I had failed to realize I wasn’t alone in the room, and I didn’t see or feel Baugi’s presence until he was on top of me and slashing at me with the sword. My father’s sword. “This is for my brother!” were the last words I heard. And the world went away.
With the singular exception of Aurgelmir, the stories that have come down to you never say what happens when my kind are killed, particularly if we are slain by magic. What happens to those unfortunates slain by Mjolnir, Thor’s dreaded hammer, or to those who—like me—fall to some lesser weapon, such as my father’s blade?
I can tell you this much: Soul Flayer lived up to its name. It destroyed the immensely powerful form I had worn up until that point and it shattered the immensely powerful spirit housed in it. My soul was flayed, shredded, and scattered to the winds. If this had happened to any other being, Jotun or Aesir alike—with the exception of Odin, and you’ll see why in a moment—I believe they would have ceased to exist.
Ah, but I had drunk the Mead, and among its many other powers is regeneration. A property Odin would discover and use to his advantage when it came time to resurrect his dead warriors in Valhalla night after night. In my case, the mead could not restore my form, but it kept my spirit from being dissolved into formlessness—although just barely.
I drifted, at first no more substantial than dust motes but eventually as solid as a shadow on the snow. I wandered for what seemed like forever, having no inkling of where I was or who I was. I was utterly, utterly lost. I kept having the sense that there was someplace I needed to be, someone I needed to find. But where or who, I could not have said.
But at length, I began to feel something strange. A tug. A familiar tug. I had felt this before, and I almost knew what it meant. I went where it led me, a wraith riding on the wind, gliding down dark paths between the worlds, honing in on the one thing that seemed to have meaning to me.
It led me to a place I somehow recognized, a place I had glimpsed in shadow once before, as if in a faraway dream. A Tree, immense and old, gnarled and twisted, its roots delving deep into the earth and into the Well at its base, its branches reaching high into the heavens. It was the Tree at the heart of the worlds, the Tree that both joined and transcended them all.
I looked up, into the sea of branches that almost blotted out the sun. And there I saw him at last. He was hanging from the Tree, a rope knotted around his neck, his side gouged by a spear, the famous spear that had launched the war between the gods, the spear that even today he uses to claim his own. Blood dripped in a steady stream from the gaping wound in his side, and dribbled into the milky waters of the Well far beneath his feet. The droplets swirled in the white water, almost seeming to form symbols. Letters that were so much more than that.
He seemed dead, but I knew better. After all, he had drunk the Mead as well. He was its Keeper now. And this was the wyrd I had foreseen for him.
In a rush, everything came back to me. The sound of wolves howling on a summer evening, of wind rustling through the trees, and of the taste of mead on my tongue. A hoard of memories like so much buried treasure—memories of golden rings and whispered promises and nights of love cushioned by pine needles. And more, knowledge of what had happened in the time since we had been apart suddenly came to me with the deep, sure knowing I had once been used to. I knew he had married another after I had fallen to the sword. I knew he had thought me lost. I knew it was said by all that he had seduced or raped me in order to steal the Mead, and had then abandoned me, that I had been only a pawn in his schemes.
I knew none of that meant anything.
And staring at the Tree and at his seemingly lifeless body, I knew what I had to do. And I felt myself take on form, strength returning to my limbs, strength for the task before me. Here was the answer, the reason my wyrd had been so mingled with his in the stone. Here was my home, on this Tree, in his arms, at the point of a spear. Here was my way back from the land of the dead. My way back to my own soul.
I began to climb.
- Gunnlod-Hjarta
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