“Daisy Johanssen.” The frost giant’s voice was somber. “I am bid to summon you to an audience with Hel.”
I got in the buggy. “Let’s go.”
It was unnerving to think that this might be my last visit to Little Niflheim; the last time I sent Garm bounding into the darkness after a loaf of bread; the last time Mikill warned me to keep my limbs inside the vehicle during the descent; the last time we spiraled down into the frigid cold, Mikill’s dripping beard crackling with frost as it stiffened.
When we reached the bottom, I found that the duegar were nowhere in sight, but the streets—well, the one, anyway—of Little Niflheim were lined with spectral figures—ghosts, but more misty and insubstantial than those I’d encountered aboveground, many of them clad in attire that hadn’t been in style for, oh, a couple thousand years.
None spoke, but all watched our passage.
“Who are they?” I asked Mikill in a hushed whisper. “What are they doing here? And where are all the dwarves?”
“The duegar prepare for battle. These are the dead of Niflheim.” Mikill pulled up before the abandoned sawmill and cut the engine. “Tomorrow may be the end for all of us, Daisy Johanssen. The dead are here to bear witness.”
I swallowed. “Oh.”
As always, Hel sat upright on her throne. Both her eyes were open and blazing, but this time there were no thunderclouds gathering around her, no rumblings from the deep, no scary creaking overhead. There was only a waiting silence fraught with a sense of foreboding that made the icy air feel thick and heavy in my lungs.
I went to one knee before her throne and bowed my head. “My lady.”
“Rise, and tell me what passes aboveground, my young liaison,” Hel bade me. I obeyed and she listened to my report, nodding with approval from time to time, especially at the mention of the Wild Hunt. “Yes, the immortal hunters who strike terror into the hearts of men are known to us from days of old. You have done well.”
I cleared my throat. “My lady, may I ask what Little Niflheim plans in terms of battle?”
The left side of her face formed a grimmer rictus than usual. “Where the roots of Yggdrasil will bear it, the duegar lay traps beneath the shifting sands. The hellhound Garm will defend the world tree with his last breath.” Turning her head from side to side, Hel acknowledged the three frost giants flanking her throne, and Mikill standing nearby, with a brief dip of her head.
“If Garm should fail, the four of us shall take his place,” Mikill said in his quietest rumble.
“So . . . just to be clear, as far as Garm’s concerned, there’s no, um, cease-fire on the whole friends-versus-foes front?” I asked. “You can’t teach him to, say, recognize your allies?”
A slight furrow etched the fair right half of Hel’s brow. “The hellhound Garm will attack anyone who approaches the world tree, yes. Such is his immortal nature and purpose, which cannot be altered. Thus has it ever been, and thus shall it ever be. Is that what your inquiry was intended to discern?”
Crap. I suppose some supernatural Cesar Millan training techniques were too much to hope for. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Hel closed her ember eye and gazed at me with the lambent one. “The world tree’s roots are deep and vast. I shall remain here, pouring all the strength that is in me into them. For so long as this second Yggdrasil stands and the Norns may nourish its roots from the sacred spring, Niflheim endures. I endure.”
I nodded. “So we defend Yggdrasil at all costs.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “My lady, you should know that I plan to approach the, um, Greek Persephone under a flag of truce tomorrow, and beg her one last time to call this off.”
Oops.
Hel’s left eye opened, glaring with hellfire and fury. “You mean to beg?” Yep, there were those trembling rafters. “Beg? In my name?”
My knees were knocking, but I held my chin high, an answering anger stirring in me. “Yes, my lady. I do. But not in your name. You named me your liaison, and as such, I represent not just you but the entire community of your demesne, eldritch and mundane alike.” I gestured overhead. “You’re talking about my friends, my family. If we fail on the morrow—” God, again with the archaic language. “If we lose tomorrow,” I said doggedly, “it doesn’t just mean the demise of Little Niflheim. It means the destruction of my entire community. It means the loss of one of the few remaining places in the world where magic exists with space to roam free and wild, not dying a slow death in crowded cities. So, yes, I’m willing to beg on behalf of my people. All my people.” I took another breath and exhaled, turning my hands palm outward. “What else do I have to offer other than my pride?”
Hel kept glaring.
Mikill approached the throne and murmured into Hel’s ear. She closed her eyes and listened.
Mikill stepped back.
“Forgive me.” Hel opened her lustrous right eye. “Betimes it takes the tender heart of a mortal to remind us of our duties.” She bent her gaze on me. “I cannot bow my head to the Greek Persephone and beg for mercy. That is not the way of gods and goddesses. But I give you my leave to do so on behalf of your community.”
I stifled a sigh of relief. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Is there aught else?” Hel inquired.
I shook my head. “No, my lady.”
The Norse goddess of the dead beckoned. “Then kneel before my throne one last time, Daisy Johanssen, and receive my blessing.” As I knelt before the throne, Hel rose and laid both hands upon my head: the fair white hand and the withered black claw. She spoke words that tolled through the depths of Little Niflheim in a language I didn’t recognize, and I felt the power of her blessing settle into my bones, as deep and strong as the roots of the world tree, and as cold and crystalline as the waters of the sacred spring that nourished them.