Sleipnir

I repressed a spontaneous shudder and waited.

"Only the dead find their way here. Why have you come?"

The ball was in my court and abruptly I felt like a peewee-league runt going one-on-one against Kareem Abdul-Jabar. Confronting a pack of gods on their home court suddenly didn't seem like the great idea it had once been... . Under her penetrating gaze, I felt all too mortal, standing as I was on the bones of what might've been my own ancestors. I managed to check my virtually galvanic impulses, and—for a change—didn't answer flippantly.

There was no telling what this—woman?—might do or know.

"I'm looking for Odin." I winced at the thousands of echoes which bounced from water to "sky" and down again.

A grin split her face. She raised a hand and pointed to a spot behind me.

"Warriors looking for Odin find him by hanging on the tree."

I turned, already knowing what I would find but compelled to look anyway. A lightning-blasted oak had risen from the bone beach right behind me. The shattered trunk was rotten with the smell of death. Corpses swung from every twisting branch, ropes knotted tightly around decaying necks, spears plunged between the exposed bones of rib cages. Some had decayed until only the furs and helmets of Viking warriors clothed the bones; others had been strangled only last week, still clothed in flesh under uniforms of khaki, black, and olive drab. The congealed blood staining their chests looked black.

A moment ago there'd been nothing on that spot but beach, and now the stench sent me stumbling backward, trying desperately not to think about Hohenfels and Gary.

"And what will you say to Odin when you stand before him, human?" The old woman's voice called my attention back to the shore. "Will you ask to see Loki, where he lies bound?"

Loki! How in seven hells had the old witch known that? I stared down at my knife, suddenly aware of the focus of the old woman's keen interest. The knife lay quietly in its sheath, pretending to ignore me. Was the damned blade a mind reader? If it knew, Odin knew, and had maybe warned this disgusting old hag—unless she was the mind reader? Damn...

I tried to look unconcerned, and knew I failed utterly. Meanwhile, the old crone just watched me, and her eyes glittered.

How had she known I was after Loki? Loki—who, for the sheer reckless fun of putting the rest of the gods in his debt, had turned himself into a mare to help the gods weasel out on a deal they'd struck with a frost giant. Odin and his crew had broken their contract, and Loki ended up giving birth to a baby horse—Sleipnir. The biology was impossible, of course; but I'd decided, not long ago, that I would never again say anything was impossible.

I glanced up. The old witch was watching me with eyes that glittered like polished bone. She might or might not know that I needed Loki's help to catch his son. Right? Right.

"Yes," I answered, meeting the old crone's eyes. "I do seek a word with Loki."

Hollow eyes narrowed to slits. I could smell the stink of my own fear sweat and hoped to god—to God?—that she couldn't smell it, too.

"And when you speak to Loki," she said, her voice bitter as wormwood, "will you tell him of life's pleasures?" Oddly her eyes had the look of a person who knows he is going to die, and is determined to take as many of his killers with him as he can. Fever-bright, they burned like coals in the deep black hollows of her face. I found myself clutching the P-7.

"Yeah. Sure."

A laugh ran like ice along my skin.

"It is worth the trip to see that one squirm," she cackled, my presence almost forgotten in her glee. I stood sweating on the beach. "Come, human," the old woman commanded, gesturing imperially. "Loki awaits your pleasure."

I glanced over my shoulder to look back up Sleipnir's great tu

A chill crawled along my spine as the skiff moved silently away from shore, heading for the distant blur on the horizon. My hair lay glued to my head from what felt like (and might have been) weeks of accumulated sweat, oil, and dirt. The remnants of my clothes flapped loosely on my frame. The bow churned up no froth in the black water, just gentle ripples that caught the far-off green of the ceiling and flung it back into my eyes.

I turned to look at the crone. She was wrapped in a filthy black cloak. The tattered edges of the garment writhed in the wind like living snakes. A shudder caught me unawares, and I hastily turned to study the inside of the skiff.

It was black inside as well as out, and completely watertight. None of the strange black water found its way inside. I wondered what they'd used to waterproof the wood, and if the substance had caused the black coloration. That wouldn't explain the silver eyes and fangs, though, unless they'd been added afterward, applied like gold leaf.

Beside the ancient woman's feet, rolling slightly on the floor, rested a bowl made of dried, whitened bone. It looked like a human skull case. There were a few disks inside that gleamed dully metallic in the green light. A long pole lay beside it, one end decorated with a wicked iron hook and the other with the polished skull of a wolf, the dark brown color of museum bones. I hoped the old woman used the hook for mooring the skiff—it had lethal potentials I didn't even want to think about.

"What thoughts are in your head, mortal?"

Her raspy voice—snake scales slithering across dry rock—reached over the sound of the wind, apparently without effort. I turned reluctantly to meet her gaze.

"This sea—what is it called?" I gestured out to the horizon.

Her cackle filled my ears. "This is no sea, human. This is the River Gjoll, flowing out of the great wellspring Hvergelmir, which feeds all the rivers of Niflheim. Gjoll is Hel's river—it flows past her gate." She laughed again. "Living men are not welcome in her hall, little man. Hel prefers them newly dead. Shall we oblige her?"

Before I could even try to frame an answer, she was talking again.

"Loki's kin, she is, full blood daughter, and sent here by Them above as don't trust her. Give Hel the dead to satisfy her, They said, and she won't look to Asgard with greed in her eye." The old woman's laugh wheezed with every sentence. "Comes the hour when the sons of Muspell ride, and Hel will have Asgard; aye, in flames. And I, Modgud, will stand and watch as I've done through these long centuries."

Just when I thought the bombast had ended, Modgud's eyes caught mine and held them.

"I'll watch for Loki's fall in the Final Battle, I will, the great Ragnarok, and I'll laugh when I see him down. His groaning and fighting to be free of the Rocks shook the earth and broke my lovely bridge... ." Her thin shoulders were shaking, with visible rage. Spittle flew from loose lips. "Once I was Queen of the Golden Bridge of the Gjoll and now—nothing!—nothing but a slave, chained to this wretched boat. I'll watch him bleed and die on Vigrid's plain and I'll laugh as Surt burns the world. Aye, it'll be a fine day for vengeance when the sons of Muspell ride."

Modgud's eyes were glazed, my presence forgotten.

And I thought I was out for vengeance... ?

I hoped to hell—or was it Hel?—I did nothing to anger the old witch. Enemies like her I could do without. She began crooning to herself in a language I'd never heard, so I turned my gaze back out to sea—or rather, to the river. Christ, they didn't do things on a small scale in Niflheim. The opposite shore was closer; but not much.

What would I find on that inhospitable jut of land? Niflheim was where the old, the sick, and the accident-prone came when they died. From everything I could gather, it was supposed to be a pretty dull place. All the real fun was in Valhalla; although if Valhalla was supposed to be fun, maybe I'd settle for boredom and Niflheim.