Part 3: Chapter 3: In which we learn potentially confusing stuff re: Stephen

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Chapter 3: The Right Rune

He was angry, so angry he finally understood the phrase people used about being so angry they couldn’t see straight. He could see, of course, and he knew everything was at its proper angle, but bits of the world kept slipping sideways and wrong. For an hour after leaving the Crays’ he criss-crossed the fields, stamping his boots in the sodden leaves, stopping every now and then to pound extra-hard - for no reason, just that he liked to imagine his anger echoing inside the Earth. Maybe down to the lower world and the depths of Hel.

The hell he never got anything done. And she could still say that. The hell.

Case in point: He had already been to a curiosity shop in Skorriesville and purchased the sword, which the man behind the counter assured him had been used by a Japanese paratrooper in World War II. That origin might or might not carry good luck, but it was just the right weight for a girl and very sharp and shiny, once Stephen had done some work with polish and a whetstone. Though he had never handled a sword before in his life, he had seen enough to know something about them. The next step was simply to find the right runes to tool on the blackened leather handle.

Runes. Sitting in class the next day, he flipped his hand over to gaze at the blue letters which he could now, finally, identify. There were only three of them: isa, dagaz, wunjo. Aside from the meanings of the words associated with the signs themselves - ice, daylight, glory - they spelled no word he knew.

Surely it wasn’t enough just to etch three simple runes on a person or thing. Surely what mattered most was who did the etching and the power that went into it.

He hadn’t wanted his hand tattooed. He didn’t understand why, and no one bothered to tell him. One of them simply held his hand flat against the board, palm down, while the other took the instrument out of the fire and began making tiny, systematic incisions in his skin. He knew better than to make a fuss or a sound; instead, he clenched his teeth. He pretended he was elsewhere - say, outside. He tried not even to listen to what they were saying, though some exchanges slipped through his barriers.

“- consider him unworthy. A thrall always walks and talks differently from a prince.”

“Then we’ll add a rune for the bearing of a nobleman. Walks proud, I’ll write.”

“The poor fool’ll be stuffed with power words like a pincushion with pins. But without true birth -”

“True birth, of course,” said the other one, in a tone Stephen vaguely recognized as sarcasm.

“Stephen,” said Ms. Grandin, the English teacher. “Can you tell us whether this period should go in or outside parentheses?”

A smattering of titters told Stephen this wasn’t the first time she had asked him the question. He raised his eyes to the projection screen and tried to make sense of the white series of letters where Ms. Grandin had paused her laptop’s cursor. It was the Latin alphabet, no runes, but for an instant he couldn’t remember how to read them. “No, it shouldn’t,” he said decisively.

“I didn’t ask you yes or no.” More giggles. “I asked you in or outside.”

“Neither.”

“Then where should the period go?”

“Nowhere,” said Stephen. This was clearly the wrong answer, because almost everyone laughed now. But he was still proud of himself for sticking to his guns. If he was wrong, he should at least be firmly wrong, not wavering from side to side. Thralls waffled. Princes were sure.

Ms. Grandin snorted in exasperation and moved on. Stephen sank down in his seat and gazed at the runic alphabet he had sketched in his notebook: The Younger Futhark, it was called. He was starting to associate some of the signs automatically with sounds now, and to associate some of the sounds with pieces of words. When he let his mind wander, he knew the words already. They ran through his mind, colder and clearer and lighter than English words, as familiar as the trickle of a just-thawed stream. The ideas behind them were simpler than English ideas, and sometimes cruder and crueler in their simplicity: Fire. Water. Ice. House. Brother. Dishonor. Sacrifice. Bloodless coward. Slave.

When the bell rang, he did not move. He looked at his runes. His long legs stuck out under the desk, and he let people trip over his feet and ankles without withdrawing them or apologizing. He let people leave. It was lunchtime, and even Ms. Grandin gathered up her purse and books and bustled out, skipping to catch up with her friend Ms. McCleary, whom she’d noticed in the corridor.

“You OK?”

A shadow fell over Stephen, and he looked up to see the source of the unimpressed voice. It was Kristen Hawke.

“Fine!” He slammed his notebook and rose as quickly as he dared, almost shoving her aside.

Kristen raised both hands palm out, as if she were meekly begging him to stop. “Jeesh,” she said. “You’re stressed.”

“And you’re screwed,” said Stephen, before he could stop himself.

Kristen furrowed her brow. Her large eyes looked milky and pretty and slightly confused, like a kitten’s. “I don’t think I’m screwed,” she said. “Am I screwed?”

Jotun-touched or not, you’re definitely not all there. But he only shook his head and turned to go.

“Evie and I were arguing about who was the best-looking guy in the junior class,” said Kristen, sitting on the desk he had vacated. “She said Billy, duh, or possibly Jeremy. I said you.”

Stephen turned back before he could stop himself, feeling his face burn. What was he supposed to say - thank you?

“She said I was nuts, of course,” said Kristen. She seemed to have lost all self-consciousness, droning on as if she were alone and speaking to a mirror. “But, come on. She’s prejudiced. You’re taller than both of them, and you’ve got broader shoulders. Anyway, I like blonds. Why don’t you join my campaign instead of hanging out with Crazy Cray and Assload?”

“That’s mean,” said Stephen. For some reason, it was all he could think of.

Kristen nodded. “Yeah. Also, it’s not true. I know Imogen’s not crazy. She’ll probably go to Yale or something and make us all look dumb. And Assload doesn’t have an ass. But you don’t have to hang out with them, you know? That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re only here for a little while. You don’t have to hang out with anybody who isn’t totally fun to hang out with. And, personally, they are not the ones I would choose.”

“What do you mean, I’m only here for a little while?” He felt his heart thud, skipping a beat.

“Well, you could die in a car crash tomorrow,” said Kristen. She shrugged and rolled her kitten’s eyes. “Or shoot yourself. Or slit your wrists. Or die in a fire. Or a hurricane. Or a tornado. Or crossing the street. Or from some heart condition you don’t even know about.”

He turned his back on her, determined this time to escape. “I’ll risk it.”

“Risk has nothing to do with it,” said Kristen. “Look at me. One second I’m fine, and the next second I’m kinda sad a lot of the time. I can tell you what’s actually going to happen, too.”

He wheeled round in the doorway. Kristen wasn’t wearing black anymore, but he had no idea what she was wearing. It didn’t matter. She looked pale, with a strange red flush in her cheeks as if she’d been running in the cold, and her eyes were alight. Her hair hung straight to her shoulders like a fox pelt, like watered silk. Stephen could almost feel it between his fingers. He had no idea why, in that moment, she looked so noble and so beautiful to him. He only knew that she reminded him of the beautiful, sad woman who kept goats on the hillside, the one to whom he carried messages. Lady Brynhild.

“What is going to happen?” he asked. He felt as if Fair Brynhild - who was, everyone knew, a witch - had snapped her fingers and put him under a spell. Because he believed, just for a moment, that Kristen Hawke could see things to come.

Kristen shrugged. “You won’t believe me,” she said. “So far nobody does. But after this winter, there won’t be any spring.”

It was the first afternoon in weeks he hadn’t at least stopped by the Cray house. But there it was. Imogen had not come to him in any of the three classes they shared. She had not begged his forgiveness. Every time he glanced her way - swiftly and discreetly, of course - she had her nose in her book. Aslaug hadn’t looked his way either, but that was to be expected. Aslaug would never look at him with her blue, blue eyes until he found the right rune.

Did Imogen think he would do the begging? After she’d told him everything he did was useless?

Not likely. All the same, he loitered around his truck for longer than usual, wiping off the windshield and headlights with an old sponge and Windex he’d pinched from the school supply closet. Around him, people were bouncing basketballs, tossing soccer balls, kicking heaps of dead leaves. It was the first chilly October day, but the sky was high and crystalline blue. Far away across the playing fields, maples waved their reddening heads in it like paintbrushes. This morning he had seen the big, chalky half-moon rising.

Let Imogen stay away; let both of them. In the end, of course, he would have to return when the moon waned to a crescent. Aslaug had to kill Jotuns, and he didn’t trust the two of them to get it done by themselves. For now, though, he would keep his pride unbowed.

He was having these lofty thoughts when he came around the corner of the gray house to find his great-grandmother standing at the door talking to Loki.

Loki did not look like Mr. Blanding. He looked exactly the way Stephen remembered him, except that he had put on an ugly modern suit, a too-tight one, the kind a traveling salesman might wear. He was brandishing a catalogue full of color photos. “Mrs. Wildasin,” he was saying earnestly, in English without a trace of an accent, “just ten cents a day of your money supports two little brothers in the heart of malaria country. It’s an opportunity for you to give back to the world for just pennies a day. To feel the wonderful warm glow of compassion. Are you sure this doesn’t appeal to you?”

Kati Wildasin saw her great-grandson coming up the path and turned to meet him, away from the intruder. Based on her grimace of discomfort, a casual observer might have thought she had a mild stomach ache, or perhaps heartburn.

Stephen knew better. His great-grandmother hated some people and feared the rest of them, and Loki’s oily ministrations were driving her to distraction. She was the sort of person who generally opens her door to no one - but, once she has, can’t remember how to close it.

Loki’s eyes followed the woman’s and fixed on Stephen with the intentness of a vibrating cobra. “How nice,” he said. “You live with your grandson. Maybe I can interest him in buying this Ugandan family a goat.”

“I’ll talk to him, Grandma,” said Stephen to Kati. He could feel his jaw already starting to ache from being clenched. “It’s all right,” he went on. “I won’t give him any money - I promise. You go back inside and watch - what’s it time for now? ‘Bold and the Beautiful’?”

Without even answering, his great-grandmother closed the door in Loki’s face and locked it. Stephen could hear her agitated footsteps pattering away, as if she expected the Jotun prince to dart a golden hand through the door and capture her in his frozen grip.

Loki laughed. His laugh made the dark needles of the spruce shiver and birdsong stop in the surrounding trees. Stephen winced.

“All my charm for nothing!” Loki said. And then, in another language, not English, “If it isn’t our young prince! As gracious and well-mannered as ever.”

“Shut up,” said Stephen. He understood Loki perfectly. He could feel his whole upper body beginning to tremble, as if he were very cold.

“And as insolent,” said Loki. He seized hold of Stephen’s forearm, his fingers like iron, and marched them both around the corner of the house. Kati had been mulching her vegetable garden, and the straw thatches over the earth beds glittered in the sun.

Loki released Stephen, who lurched a few steps toward the orchard. “Don’t run, boy,” he said, examining his nails. “I’m only here for a few minutes, but while I am, I think you’ll listen.”

“You’ve come from - from Lord Sigurd?” said Stephen, leaning against one of the stunted, knotty apple trees. He could feel a tiny hard fruit against one foot and smell the rancid cider in the air, and it occurred to him in a dim way that the trees at home - his real home - smelled the same. Without thinking, he had used the word for lord in Loki’s language.

“Sigurd the Bright Hero has no idea what I’m doing,” said Loki. Maybe it was where he was standing, directly in the way of the late sun, but his blue eyes and golden hair seemed to scintillate in a way that made Stephen feel slightly ill, as if the god’s extra vitality were pouring off him in electric waves. At the front door he had appeared to be a man of normal size, but now there was something too big about him.

“And you, child?” he went on. “How is it, living someone else’s life hundreds of years after you were born? Tell me, do the poor old folks suspect anything? Do they know you aren’t their great-grandson?”

Stephen stared at the apples in the grass. He shook his head.

“Answer properly.”

“No, Lord.” Again he didn’t use the English word.

Loki nodded. “I can tell it’s hard for you,” he said. “For me, of course, changing form is nothing. But to travel hundreds of years into this miserable gray world, without open fires or blades or runes or social order or true fellowship - nasty, isn’t it? One thing about this new folk, though: They appreciate a joke. They don’t stand there and stare at you as if they’d never heard one before. It makes me realize how I’ve suffered, living among valiant warriors with no sense of humor. I never had a proper audience.”

Talking, talking. This was the most important thing about Loki: he could talk you to death. And if he didn’t want to kill you, he could still talk you into all sorts of things you didn’t intend.

Stephen forced himself to raise his eyes and look at the tall figure with the almost-flaming hair. “If my Lord Sigurd didn’t send you, Lord, then - excuse me, but you must have some business here. If you don’t, I shouldn’t talk to you. My tasks-”

Loki chuckled. “Don’t try to talk like a good little thrall. You and I both know that as far as you’re concerned, your lord can go to Hel. But listen. Sigurd is thousands of leagues and hundreds of years away, and he can’t hear a word that passes between us. Your runes make you obey him, but I drew most of those runes myself. The ones I didn’t draw, I can undo. I want to offer you a bargain on my own account.”

“What kind of bargain, Lord?” He made his eyes wide and innocent, but wondered if Loki really thought he was stupid. No one made bargains with a trickster demi-god who could help it.

“Here’s the thing.” The Jotun prince scratched his golden chin. “You’ve been looking for a rune that reveals the cold in men’s hearts. The cold you might find there if one of my kin had touched them, for instance. Poor, sweet Aslaug insists on knowing.”

“She’s tenderhearted,” Stephen said, gazing down at the sun-warmed grass. He knew perfectly well that it was his duty to make Aslaug less tenderhearted, just as it was his duty to make her face the Jotuns in the mountain. The runes that covered his back under his shirt told him so, burning like fire. “She doesn’t want to kill a human being,” he said even more softly, as if he could keep the runes from hearing. “Not even a cold-heart, not even a Jotun-touched. She wants to let them be, let them keep living. That’s her way.”

“Yes, she’s like a child,” said Loki, without his usual sarcasm. “And I find it beautiful - especially when you consider her parents. Strong bodies and minds, both of them, but ugly souls. Meeting young Aslaug, it’s like seeing a pure flame come from a dung fire. A weak little flame, but a pure one. That’s why I have plans to make her my wife.”

“Your what?”

Loki shrugged. “You heard. And don’t expect to blab to your master. When you next see him, it’ll be too late. Now, listen. What concerns me is, what will you give me in return for the right rune?”

Did Loki really have such a rune? It didn’t matter. Stephen crossed his arms, feeling odd because he was wearing an Army surplus jacket of dense, machine-woven fabric and not a homespun tunic that left him shivering in the autumn chill, as he would have at home.

In his memory, he saw Sigurd’s ghost castle thrusting its two jagged, crumbling towers into the pale winter sky. He saw it as he had first seen it, from the bed of a rickety wooden cart drawn by a stout gray gelding, after his older sister had sold him to the Ghost Prince’s steward in exchange for enough money to keep their mother and the little ones and her own worthless husband alive for another year or so. In those days, in their village, people spent most of their summers planning how they would survive the next winter. Stephen had had enough of working the muddy fields, splitting wood and carrying water. He was elated when he learned his sister had found him service in a lord’s household. When he discovered who the lord was, it was too late.

“Nothing,” he said to Loki. “Since I’ve got nothing, that’s what I can give you.”

Loki leaned a little closer, still sparking. “Nonsense,” he said. “I’ll tell you right now. You can stop badmouthing me to Princess Aslaug. It’s all right to seem afraid of me - that’s best, actually. But play up the god part of my lineage, not the Jotun part. And stop trying to make me sound ridiculous. So maybe I do give myself a woman’s form from time to time. And maybe, just once, pregnancy was involved. That’s nothing to her. It was centuries ago - more than a millennium, if I’m not mistaken. Everything was different back then. Did you know Sigurd’s father had a child by his own sister? That’s the noble lineage your lord comes from. Nowadays, half our gods and heroes would be in jail.”

“More than half,” said Stephen, keeping his voice expressionless even as he chewed the inside of his cheek. Loki would not stop till he had what he wanted. He was fairly certain of this now.

“To be honest, I’m itching to tell you this rune,” said Loki. “Watching you flounder around by yourselves is driving me crazy.”

“Maybe you don’t need my help in courting Aslaug,” said Stephen.

“Maybe not. You remember when I courted you, don’t you?”

He dropped his eyes to his boots and reddened, tasting bile. “I thought you were a girl. A real, human girl. And you said you were cold and needed to come in.”

“It worked,” said Loki. His voice sounded dreamy, as if he were enthralled by the memory of his past successful tricks. “Poor boy. You hadn’t seen a girl in forever, much less a pretty one in revealing rags. You opened the gate of your master’s keep and let me inside.”

“My name is Stephen Wildasin,” said Stephen, still red. “I come from Alaska. I was born sixteen years ago. I’ve never seen you. You don’t exist.”

“Ah, yes,” said Loki, rousing from his reverie with a little jerk of his shoulders. “The runes. Beautiful work, if I do say so myself. A life in a few simple strokes.” He raised his right hand and drew on the air: one vertical line, two, three. He gave a small sideways flourish to one of the lines, then to another, and studied his handiwork.

The rune hovered in midair, shimmering fierce and gold against the house, which dimmed to black by comparison. Stephen stared at it, feeling his anger flare again. How easy Loki made it look.

“Not… quite …done,” said the demi-god. He reached out his long index a final time and drew an odd little fillip on the first line. “Now copy it.”

Stephen didn’t even think of paper. He dug in his backpack, grabbed the first pen he found, and proceeded to copy the rune onto his right palm. He studied it carefully, trying to get the cross-strokes in exactly the right places. But what did it mean? All the words he had learned to write so far involved much longer sequences of vertical slashes.

“Don’t try to understand it,” said Loki. “These are the old power words. Reserved for the noble and pure. Here’s what you need to know: This one works with a mirror, same as that witch’s charm you tried. Only it really does work. Scratch it on with something sharp, not a pen. It should pierce the surface. Then light the candles, darken the room, and have the subject gaze within. You’ll see more than you want to know.”

Stephen examined his palm. He thought he had it right.

Loki saw him looking and seized hold of his wrist again. His touch was so cold it hurt, like when you lift a hammer that has been out in the toolshed all night at forty below. (Stephen knew this, even though he also knew he had never lived in Alaska or anywhere it got so cold. How? Runes, he supposed. Runes.)

“Nice work,” said Loki, nodding as a big brother might - that freezing hand twisting Stephen’s captured hand palm up. “Nice work, Sturli, my lad.”

Stephen clenched his jaw. Then he said, in the language they shared, “Stephen. My name was Stefan before I went to Sigurd’s keep. It’s almost the same.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “And your master gave you a name he liked better. But never mind, Stefan or Stephen. I won’t demand any payment now, not as such. Just keep in mind, you’re in my debt.”