Sleipnir

The only thing I heard was wind in my ears. Given the way sound carries across the water, I couldn't imagine there'd be much happening over there. Maybe I'd find Hel's Hall, like Modgud had said. Would Loki's daughter tell me where to find her father? Or just casually squash the life out of me for daring to intrude into her kingdom? My fingers caressed my pistol and I thought I heard the old crone's snicker at my back.

A movement far off to port, almost on the horizon, caught my eye. The water was boiling. Great waves rolled off some disturbance. Plumes of spray shot into the air like a row of uncapped oil wells—angry foam bubbled and hissed for nearly a mile in either direction from the disturbance's center. A brief gleam tantalized my retinas, gone before I could name color or substance. The water continued to boil and spew for several moments more, then gradually subsided to flat black again.

I turned to look at Modgud; but she hadn't noticed or didn't care, and after her response to my last question, I didn't much feel like asking. The first rolling swell caught up with the skiff, lifting it slightly before the stern slipped into the trough. I thought the next wave would surely swamp us; but the skiff only repeated the gentle, lifting motion. Or was Modgud doing the lifting to keep her craft afloat?

I wondered if Death liked wet feet any more than the rest of us. Except she wasn't really Death; Hel was... .

I shook my head to clear it. Maybe it was something in the air, or just exhaustion; but my thought processes were begi

There was no repetition of the bone beach. Instead, the ground was an odd, indefinable grey, somewhere between green and black, undercut at the water's edge to form a steep clay bank as high as my waist. The other side of the bridge had collapsed into stony rubble. From the river's edge, the land rose in sharp ridges, each higher than the last, blocking further view inland. Strewn across those ridges, and half buried in them, were jagged boulders, somewhat lighter grey in color, ranging from no larger than my fist to massive blocks that would've dwarfed a three-bedroom house. Some glinted oddly in the light, with occasional bright flashes of genuine color that made me wonder if they, too, were phosphorescing.

I didn't see anything that remotely resembled buildings. There was no sign of vegetation; but as we neared the bank, I could see that the top six inches of soil were extremely dark, forming a layer that looked richer, more organic than the clay below. The whole sweep of land was barren, utterly deserted. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or apprehensive at the lack of habitation.

I had no more than these few moments for an impression of my destination because the boat had stopped dead in the water. The silence of the cavern rushed into my ears, replacing the roar of wind. We were still a good twenty yards from shore. I turned to look at Modgud. What now?

"You must pay the toll," she said softly, her eyes dancing.

I glanced at the intervening yards of water. I was a pretty good swimmer. A cackle interrupted my thoughts. She had picked up the braincase bowl and was scooping out a handful of silver coins. Modgud dipped the skull into the water, filling it; but carefully kept her gnarled fingers dry. She raised the braincase to eye level. Seconds later, water poured out the hole it had eaten through the bottom. I swallowed.

"You must pay the toll," she said again, with a grin that lingered as her eyes measured my braincase against the ruined bowl in her hand.

"Uh..." I fumbled through my pockets, fingers shaking despite my efforts to remain calm. I dug out a scant handful of change and saw mostly pe

I didn't have any gold, except the little gold Thor's hammer on a chain around my neck. I was awfully fond of that.

"I—uh—haven't got any gold coins—"

Modgud spat over the side. There was a quiet hiss as spittle struck the acid "water." Her lip curled. "Gold is for trinkets. Junk. Silver was the price of the bridge, and silver is the price of the ferry."

I scooped up both dimes and started to hand them over.

A disembodied voice reached across the water. "I wouldn't give her both, if I were you."

I spun. Pe

"What?" I knew I sounded like a Vie

"I'd give her only one," he repeated, with a genial smile. "How else will you pay for the ride back across?"

Good point.

If I lived that long.

I handed Modgud one dime. She curled bony, claw-tipped fingers around it.

The boat swept silently toward shore, and grounded gently a moment later. The owner of the disembodied voice had come down to the shoreline, and now stood looking into the skiff. Blond, with laughing blue eyes. He was surprisingly short, but compactly built and muscular. There couldn't have been an ounce of fat anywhere on him. Even at my best—which I hadn't been since getting shot full of holes—I was nothing but flabby standing beside him. And this guy was dead as a doornail. Dead people were supposed to look... well... decently dead.

He balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, arms loose, ready to grip my hand in friendship, or heft a weapon, whichever was called for. He wore a long sword, in a black scabbard worked with silver. His torso was protected by a ring-mail shirt, but he wore no helmet. Cautious; but not overtly threatening. Did he work for Mistress Hel? Or...

A bloodstain had dried across the front of his shirt, just visible beneath the mail. A curious little green dart was embedded in his chest, having struck between the circular links.

Green dart? The first dead person I met in Niflheim was a god? The "coincidence" made me sweat, despite the cool, damp air. The dart that had killed Baldr was Loki's doing. Though someone else had thrown the weapon, Loki alone had known that the mistletoe dart was the only thing in the nine worlds that could kill his foster nephew.

My next—irreverent—thought was how extraordinarily short Baldr was, for a god. I hadn't exactly pictured myself as a giant; it hadn't occurred to me that I might actually tower over any of the Norse gods. Vikings were supposed to have been tall people.

"How long are you pla

With difficulty, I turned my attention back to the silent old crone. "I'll be finished here by this time tomorrow, or I should be, anyway, so how about you pick me up then?"

She just looked at me with those weird, hollow eyes.

My Nordic athlete spoke up: "Death has no concept of time, friend."

"Oh." Logical.

"Well, then, how about tides? We're at the bottom of Yggdrasil here, right? And Earth—I mean Midgard—is just above us here, so it's all part of the same tree, right? And this river is big enough to have tides, right?"

I really was going to have to stop babbling like a fool.

The blond laughed quietly, a nice sympathetic chuckle that somehow put me at ease despite my suspicions.

"Not necessarily; but it happens there are tides here. Two in about, oh, four-and-a-half songs. Roughly the same as Midgard. Earth," he added, smiling in deference.

Songs? Did they keep track of time by how long it took to sing a ballad? Without day and night, and no real need for sleep, it made some sense.

"Good. Can you be here, at this spot, in two tides?"

She held my gaze, and smiled slowly. "Can you?"

"Just be here, okay? I'll have the silver with me."