Sleipnir

"They're very private beings, by choice and necessity. Believe me, Randy, you could get within a hundred yards of them and not know it. Unless you knew exactly where you were going, you'd walk right past. I do know where we're going—I've been there many times, after all—and we're truly almost there."

He seemed sincere, and he'd saved my ass before, although I still couldn't be sure of his motives. Hell, I couldn't be sure of anyone's motives, except my own. All I wanted to do was get on with my hunt. Find Gary, kick cosmic butt...

Everything and everyone in Niflheim seemed to be conspiring to sidetrack me.

"This is the last time anyone distracts me," I answered shortly. "We get this over with, then I'm on my way. Not you, not Hel, not anybody else is going to stop me. Got it?"

He frowned. "As it must be, so it shall."

"Cut the fate crap. I don't buy it. Are you ready?"

His eyes were troubled; but he nodded. "Yes."

He turned his horse and started down the steep slope into a much broader, wider valley than most. I followed, and slipped the Biter carefully back into its sheath. My horse's hooves touched level ground. Baldr, several paces ahead, rode past an enormous rock, larger than any of the other gigantic boulders I'd seen so far.

His horse shimmered once, and vanished.

Mine rose on his hind legs. He screamed; then lunged sideways and tried to bolt. I cursed long and loud, and clung to his back while he sunfished and tried to hurl me straight into the jagged boulder.

Chapter Fifteen

It took longer than usual to get my spooked mount settled. When he finally stood quietly, I was more than ready to find out if a god could be killed twice.

"BALDR!"

I wasn't expecting an answer, and was nearly unseated again when the head and shoulders of a horse appeared out of nowhere in front of us. Baldr peered curiously through a shimmer in the air while I struggled to keep my horse from dumping me and bolting. Baldr placidly ignored the scalding stream of obscenity I sent his way while fighting my mount.

"Finished?" he asked when the horse stood still and I sat panting for breath.

I growled something physically—and probably metaphysically—impossible.

"I told you we were close. See if you can get that nag of yours to follow me through."

He vanished again; but this time I was ready. Grimly I forced my mount back to the ground. A great deal of swearing and kicking later, I had him moving forward, toward the end of the great boulder. I thought about all the times Gary'd told me horseback riding was fun, and glowered. When I found that gri

The air shimmered around us, and we stepped onto a carpet of lush, green grass. The horse snorted, threw his head up, and stopped short. I let him.

The unrelenting, soulless green light had been replaced by the warm light I'd known all my life. Color sprang up on all sides of me, real color that soothed the eyes. Overhead, an unearthly glow, the color of fire, caught my eye. Startled, I tilted my head back to stare, and nearly fell off my horse's back. Directly overhead were great rivers of blood and fire, gold, sapphire and emerald, and a violet so intense it hurt the eyes to look at it... .

Arching up and up, finally vanishing from sight miles overhead, the ghostly, brilliant spans of Bifrost radiated their colors across the whole sky. Only it wasn't sky; it was a roof, just like Niflheim's, broken into three enormous arches by the immense crack Bifrost climbed through on its journey to heaven.

These were the three great roots of Yggdrasil itself, spreading out to encompass the netherworlds. The unearthly green glow was still there, but paled into oblivion under the brilliance pulsing out of Asgard's sacred rainbow bridge.

I closed my mouth with an effort of will, and lowered my gaze back to the humble ground, where I sat even more humbly on my dead horse.

Below the bridge lay a pool of shimmering white flame which at second glance resolved itself into shining water so bright it hurt my eyes even more than the rainbow bridge did. At the edge of that pool was an incredibly beautiful young woman.

My mouth fell open again.

I hadn't expected them to be so... young.

Baldr murmured u

I knew about Yggdrasil, and its branches and roots. Nidhogg, an immense snake, was supposed to feed on one of the great roots; but I hadn't seen anything like that, thank god. Unless that disturbance in the river Gjoll had been Nidhogg?

Baldr added, again u

I yanked my thoughts back to the Norns. They were more than the guardians of this spring and the weavers of Fate; they were supposed to be the most powerful forces in all the worlds co

I closed my lips with difficulty, and concentrated on reminding myself that these women were dangerous. The glorious creature standing in the spring didn't look dangerous. My gut drew in sharply, and my hands started to sweat on the reins. I hadn't expected them to be so... beautiful.

Baldr moved forward, and I urged my horse to follow. The brilliant pool that welled up from the great spring lay directly beneath Bifrost. It shimmered like a sheet of molten silver; but as we approached, I saw that despite its appearance it wasn't actually flame; the surface danced in the still air, tricking the eyes like a heat mirage on an asphalt road. The play of light in the water had nothing to do with Bifrost's radiance. It somehow welled up from within the spring's crystalline depths, and reflected off the underside of the surface then refracted into a thousand shifting, shimmering colors. I could almost hear those colors... .

The far shore was lost in the trembling white light; but near our side, the surface reflected the brilliant bands of color from the great bridge above. On a small rise nearby stood a magnificent wooden hall. The long, gabled roof was covered with gold, and rose to peaks at either end—peaks carved to resemble the reaching trunks and branches of golden trees. The structure was enormous, dwarfing even Hel's sinister abode; but here there was no wall surrounding it, no gate, no icy blast of wind. In fact, I found myself growing warmer by the moment, and stopped long enough to shrug out of the pack so I could peel off my fur jacket. I draped the coat over the horse's neck, and looped the pack over one arm.

The sides of the Norns' hall were alive with intricate carvings that almost breathed and moved across the walls. I had the eerie feeling that if I looked too closely at the patterns, I'd see living men and animals in those designs—or worse, myself, walking toward the carved wall. Would that wall show me where Gary Vernon was right now? If the Norns carved men's lives on the walls of their hall, shaping and reshaping the patterns to suit their aesthetic desires, that building had to be the ultimate sculpture.