Chapter 20
Running, gasping, fleeing...gold tile gave way to cobblestones and people shrank away in horror at her face...
Her face...Carol caught glimpses of it in window-glass and a few mirrors...horror...what had she become? Monster...killer...horror...the words chased through her mind even as her feet worked to put distance between her body and the throne...a throne that no longer held a king...
Monster...thing...killer...monster...her stomach roiled at the memory of the royal family, scattered around the throne room like tossed leaves...her rescuer among them...deaddeaddead
Cobblestone gave way to grass and dirt...her slippers disappeared, first one and then the other, and forest leaves and muck dragged at her toes, branches and leaves grabbed at her clothing, and still she ran.
She ran like a frightened deer, terrified at the justice behind her...Asgardian tales were not filled with mercy towards monsters and killers...She ran from the monster inside of her...thingthingthing...what had she become?
She should be tired, she knew. She shouldn't be able to run at all. Branches and thorns tore at her dress and her flesh, caught in her hair and yanked it out, but scratches healed and torn flesh closed even as she ran, even as they should not...if she had been human...
Monster...
Birds lifted into the air as she ran past, heedless of where she was going, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the increasingly rocky ground. Animals she could not see bolted out of hiding and ran, thumping a warning with hoof and claw: there was a monster in the woods...smaller tree dwellers scurried away through limb and bough...monster/freak/run!
The land sloped upwards, and the bushes grew thinner. Carol soon had to use her hands to steady herself on the grade, for the scree slipped beneath her feet and threatened to dump her back down the hill...she looked down...
She was above the city...above the palace...how had she come so far? This was no hill; this was a mountain, one she had climbed like it was a pillow-fort back home, and the light around her came from multiple setting suns.
Carol was halfway up, and starting to feel cold.
The top, she decided, she needed to find the top. Asgard had enough to do finding a new king and queen, with all the blood she had shed back at the palace. Nobody would miss the monster once it was dead. She would find the top, and a steep drop-off, and throw herself over it to the rocks below, and be done with it...
She hoped God would understand, and have mercy on her soul, if she still had one. She wasn't sure. Did monsters have souls?
There was a plateau ahead of her, and a silvery motion to her right. Gasping, she dragged herself up, bleeding hand over twisted rock...
And came face to face with a large, snarling gray shape.
"No further," the wolf growled, and Carol gulped. She had heard about this wolf, of that she was certain.
"Fenrir?" she gasped, and then wept. "Kill me," she pleaded.
The giant dark beast lowered its head...and growled.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Frekr and Garmr slipped through the woods like ghosts, pausing only now and again to sniff the ground or a tree, or to look at a broken branch. Behind them, and much louder, crashed Cernunnos in his stag form, tearing up the Old Forest as he went. Hunnin and Munnin flew high and low, criss-crossing over the forest canopy in their search, the all-seeing eyes of Odin piercing the darkness of the most feared place in Asgard..
High above Loki soared as a streak of yellow-orange fire, for the phoenix he had chosen could not risk touching the forest, lest he set it ablaze. The light from his feathers threw the forest into sharp relief and made the lower searchers' jobs that much easier.
But they found nothing.
Silent as a whisper, Nexus past in owl form through the trees, and her twoo-hoo alerted the other tree-dwellers and night-hunters of their search. Soon word reached her from tree-spirit and wood thrush: there was a stranger in the forest, a stranger that stank of blood and sweat and bad sorcery, a stranger that ran as if it were on fire.
And it was climbing.
Nexus banked towards the Shield Mountains of Asgard: jagged spines and teeth of rock that surrounded the world, held the atmosphere in, and guarded against interlopers from the Void beyond. She twoo-hooed her distress to Loki, who shrieked his answer back to the ground searchers, and banked to join her. If Carol reached the Shield Mountains before they did, their chances of saving her were slim.
The Shield Mountains were smooth and sheer on the outside, except for the occasional pock-mark caused by an asteroid strike; no enemy could find purchase on the outer wall to anchor an attacking ship, nor would they risk the change in atmospheric pressure that smashed such interlopers onto the rocks. The few that had tried, and survived, had been quickly caught and eaten by the stone trolls that roamed the cliffs: they found such metals a rare delicacy. Few enemies tried to breach the outer walls of Asgard. The inner spines-the ribs and backbone of the land of Asgard-were almost as intimidating. These mountains were not for climbing or camping, even when the stone trolls did not patrol. Torn and cut sections of stone, combined with interlocking branches of the Old Forest, made a barrier that only the most stalwartly warriors tried to breach. Only the bravest came here, or the most despairing. Some Asgardians, heartbroken and void of all hope, journeyed to the Shield Mountains to die, throwing themselves into the Void so as to escape the heartbreak behind them.
Karol Julesang was half-way up the top.
Loki shrieked orders to Frekr and Garmr, and the swift beasts banked left and right, silently flanking their prey. Cernunnos trumpeted his answer and charged forward, smashing his way through brush and limb, leaping over the smaller trees that tried to block his path.
The pasty-white form stopped, paused to look around as if gathering its bearings, one bloody clawed hand steadying itself on a torn stone, despair in its face.
Frekr and Garmr pulled ahead. These mountains were their hunting-grounds. They no longer had to follow a scent. Lean panting shapes muscled their way up crag and stone, showering the mountainside below with pebbles and dirt. Loki, high above, put his back to the sun and circled down lazily.
Karol reached the high mesa, pulled her battered body over the rock-lip and onto her knees. It was only when she tried to stand that she found herself face-to-snout with a snarling, panting, silver-grey wolf. Her eyes widened at the sentinel's growl.
"Fenrir?" she gasped, and then wept. "Kill me," she pleaded.
The snarling wolf shook herself and growled AGAIN. "Frekr," she corrected.
Another dark shape glided in behind the first wolf. "Were she Fenrir, you would already be dead."
Carol closed her eyes and shuddered. "All the same," she sobbed. "Kill me quickly."
Frekr shook herself again. "'Seek and find,' Odin commanded," she growled.
"Tear not, nor bite, nor scratch, nor shed blood at all. We find and hold only," Garmr snarled. "Understand?"
"King's pup," Frekr stuck her nose at Karol's face: "know your place. Sit," she growled.
"No more King. I want to die," Karol collapsed, sobbing. "Kill me." She turned her head back the way she had climbed. "Let me die." Exhausted, she rolled towards the rock edge. "Let me die," she whispered.
Garmr slipped between Karol and the cliff's edge. "No fall," he said, putting his great head into Carol's midsection and pushing. "Pup sit. Pup stay. Pup do as Odin say."
"Find and hold is puppy's play," Frekr grabbed what was left of Karol's dress in her teeth and pulled her down to the ground, surrounding her with paws and head.
Garmr pawed at the sobbing girl's body, sniffed her from toes to head, and then sneezed in her face. "Smells bad," he whuffed, then licked her face, "but nose cold. Heart good. Stay warm with pack," he gruffed, head-butting her down again and then lying down on her legs. "Pup stay."
Exhausted, Karol sobbed into the warm fur surrounding her.
She was still there, wrapped up in the warm circle of Frekr and Garmr and weeping as she slept, when the stag bounded up and landed on the great stone. Click, click, click went his hooves, and the slight sound woke the girl. She looked up at the stag, confused. Why was there a giant deer on the mountain? It, too, sniffed at her bloody feet and gave a breathy sneeze.
Garmr lifted his black nose and touched it to the stag's black one, and then bowed his head.
"Cernunnos," he said in a gravelly voice to Karol. "The Skin-Changer is here."
This was Cernunnos? Karol's head spun as she recalled the large humanoid with deer antlers in the Great Hall: the man with a face like the High Priest's mask, the man who had called her a liar, and worse. Her heart started racing again, and she struggled to rise.
"No," she pleaded, "no more, please! Just let me die! No more!" She sobbed against the warm wolf fur that surrounded her, and tried to push herself up, but Frekr's strong paws held her in place, and a deep throated growl came from within the wolf-bitch's chest.
"Pup sit," she insisted, baring her teeth at the stag. "Pup stay," she said, her hackles rising.
Garmr leaped to his feet and placed his muscled frame between Karol and Cernunnos.
"Garmr keeps the stag at bay," he snarled, and the fur rising from his coat made the great wolf look twice as large.
Cernunnos blinked his large eyes. Odin's wolves had found the maid, and now they were protecting her...from him. He recalled how he had tried to frighten her, and had succeeded, but in a way he had not anticipated.
My face was the mask of the High Priest, he recalled, and bowed his head in shame. Tears of contrition welled in his eyes.
"No harm," growled Garmr.
Cernunnos shook his head, rattling the torc-amulets that still hung from his antlers, and whistled sadly. Bowing first at his fore-knees, and then with his hind legs, he lowered himself to the rock face. Rolling over onto his side, he stretched out his neck, exposing his throat to Karol, and closed his eyes.
Garmr growled low and shook himself once, re-settling his fur.
"The Skin-Changer offers his life," he growled to Karol, "for the offense given you."
"Up, pup, and answer," Frekr removed her paws from Carol's body and nosed her in the back.
Answer?
"I...I don' understand," Karol told her guardians.
"Take sacrifice offered for the sin against you," explained Garmr. "Tear and kill, or not."
Suddenly she understood, and Karol's self-loathing dissolved into rage.
"Ye call yerself a god," she growled scathingly, "but ye spit in the face o' justice. Ye accuse me in open court o' bein' a slut an' a liar, an' now in private, ye want to settle our differences with a cheap offerin' o blood? Fer all I know, death an' life are all the same to you, an yer gift can be given o'er an o'er, so it means nuthin'. Ye look me in the eye, stag-man! LOOK AT ME!"
She shouted the last portion, and the stag did open his eyes, and raised his head.
"You name me whore an' liar, after what I went through, an' now I'm a freak besides, 'cause o' what they did! All the sparrows in Asgard spread the story now, o' the freak-whore shamed by the god o' Sommerland! An now, in private, ye offer a drop o' blood, to take away the shame you foisted on me, an' would make me a monster to boot!"
Cernunnos gathered his hooves under him, and Karol pulled herself up to her knees. Her rage continued to boil.
"Every drop o' yer blood won' make me a virgin again, will it? Nay, yer sonny-boy with the ram's horns saw to that," she spat, "him an' his pack o' humpin' dogs. Will yer private blood-lettin' give me back me good name, me who you publicly called a whore? No. Will it change me back from this freak that I am, to the gal I once was?" She choked for a moment, and shook her head. "Dinnae offer me a cheap private ritual, ta clear yer conscience. I'm not interested in how ye feel. I want me virginity back, an' me good name back, an' me life back, an' me friends an' family back. I dinna want yer life, Cernunnos. I WANT MY OWN!"
The last part came out with a roar; Karol had closed her eyes, and her fists pounded the bare stone of the mountain.
A fuzzy body bumped into hers, and Karol cracked open tear-swollen eyes to find Garmr nuzzling her.
"Good pup," he said, licking the tears off of her face.
Frekr nudged her from the other side. "Nose to sky when howling, pup. No shame, chin up."
A rustling sound in front of her told her the stag had resumed his feet, but when she looked up, the deer was gone. Cernunnos had resumed his human form and taken a knee in front of her. Karol had a difficult time looking him in the face-it still freaked her out-but Frekr and Garmr's presence gave her a little courage.
He had black eyes, she noticed, like a deer's, and he still had antlers, but other than that he looked like a regular man with a shock of white hair. And green skin. A regular man with green skin, and huge muscles, and white hair, and deer antlers and deer eyes.
Tha's it then, Karol thought to herself, I've gone completely nutters.
"Karol Julesang, Jamesdottir of the House of Odin and Dahl," said Cernunnos, "you shall have what you ask."
"What?" Karol shook herself, not comprehending. She didn't have the energy to rise anymore, either. Her legs felt like jelly, and sitting seemed like too much work. Suddenly she was leaning, falling, back onto Frekr and Garmr, who wrapped their furry selves around her in a futile attempt at warmth and support.
"Stag hurry," snapped Frekr, "pup sick."
Cernunnos nodded to the wolves and stood, then wrapped his hands around the base of his antlers and FLEXED his biceps. Muscles bulged and veins popped out, and with a great CRACK he tore them off of his head! Setting one of them on the ground, he slipped the torc-amulets off of the other and flipped it around, putting a spike into his mouth. A moment later the forest shook with the sound of a hunter's horn. Cernunnos lowered the horn and turned his face to the sky.
"NEXUS! LOKI!" he bellowed. "WE ARE HERE!"
Karol lay back, her head spinning. A white owl circled three times before landing next to Cernunnos, becoming a lady with white hair and a long dress as she did so. A burning yellow-orange light seemed to follow her, but out of Karol's line of sight. Her vision was starting to blur...
Nexus' hand was on her face. "Child, child! Look at me!" she pleaded. The young/old woman looked stricken, and Karol tried to answer, but her throat seemed suddenly too dry to function.
Nexus looked up at Loki. "We're running out of time. There is no way we can get her to Eir's House; we'll have to operate here."
Loki nodded. "I concur. Let me set up, will you?"
The woman nodded, and Loki turned to the cliff-face. They had enough rock to create a stable environment, but cleanliness and shape was a problem...
Not for long, he thought. Gathering his energy, Loki pushed it into several of the local slabs, cracking them away from the mountain and pulling them-with his mind and bare hands-into the shape that he wanted. The stone table he produced was perfectly smooth, and would be stable enough for their hurried surgery. Not very clean, though, he thought, and hit it with an orange-green burst of radiation.
"That should do it," he said, turning to Nexus.
"I need a cistern for washing," she replied tersely, "and a mortar and pestle. We shall have to work faster than I like. If I make an infusion, can you heat it?"
Loki nodded, his hands forming two more stone basins. He grabbed a long rock next, heating it and shaping it into a pestle with his hands, before handing it to Nexus. "Aye, I can. But there is little herbage here with which to..."
Nexus wasn't paying much attention to him. In fact, she was ignoring him completely, focusing instead on grinding Cernunnos' shed antlers into a powder.
"Cernunnos," she called tensely, "I shall need whatever you can find of apple, hawthorn, willow, and birch. I will need fruits, leaves, and flowers, and the bark of the willow."
"I saw elderberries on my way up. Nettles and pau d'arco were blooming, and dandelion is fully leafed," Cernunnos headed for the edge of the rock, where he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Several owls, real ones this time, fluttered to him, as did a number of bats. A number of squirrels and mice scampered up, looked anxiously at the owls, and squeaked for his attention. He held a hurried conversation with the creatures that Loki could not make out, and then turned back to Nexus. "Apple, hawthorn, willow, and birch are on their way. Do you need any of the rest?"
Nexus thought for a moment. "Not the elderberry," she finally decided, "but definitely the leaves of nettle and pau d'arco." She returned to her grinding with vigor. "I want the dandelion root."
"I'll be a few moments," Cernunnos said, then jumped off the cliff edge to the forest below.
Nexus glanced at Loki, who had taken off his cloak and wrapped it around Carol, now unconscious. "I've never seen aught but Jotun shape stone that way, or perhaps a dwarf. You surprise me, sorcerer."
"It is not generally known, but Odin's mother, Queen Bestla, was Jotun," the young prince answered. "He is half Frost Giant; I am ΒΌ, possibly more. I do not really know," he shrugged.
"Frigga is not your birth mother?" Nexus appeared surprised.
"Not with this hair," Loki snorted. "All of Frigga's children have golden locks. I should have guessed about Thor long ago; he used to be a redhead."
"He 'used to be' a redhead?" Nexus looked at Loki suspiciously.
He raised his hands and looked embarrassed. "It was an accident, I swear!"
"Wait," the rest of Loki's speech had registered with Nexus. "Do you mean that Odin is a philanderer?" her jaw dropped open in dismay.
"Don't look so shocked, Queen of Sommerland," Loki said wryly. "Surely you did not take 'Allfather' for a polite title? Whenever Odin has a distasteful duty, or feels particularly randy, or both, he makes a new prince. Rarely a princess, though," he added, looking thoughtful. "Odin's seed seems to produce only boys."
"And Frigga puts up with this?" Nexus was horrified.
"The All-Mother has no say in the matter," Loki said coldly, "even though she is Queen. Odin is Head of State and Head of the Family. Since I owe mine own existence to such a...fortuitous coupling...I find it difficult to complain about it. I do not know my birth mother, but considering my coloring and affinity for magic, I can only imagine she was a sorceress of incredible power. I really should find her someday, I suppose..." he mused, "but I have no wish to break Mother's heart." He gave Nexus a knowing look. "Frigga is the only Mother I have ever known, or really need." He looked at the pile of antler powder that rapidly accumulated under Nexus' hands. "You use all of the horn, including the velvet?"
Nexus nodded. "The velvet contains cells that promote regeneration, and there are stem cells at the base; they spark new tissue growth and organ repair. The bone structure itself is ordinary calcium. I worry about her skeletal structure," she paused for a glance over at the sleeping girl, "whatever this magic is, it seems to compromise both her bones and her joints, like rapid aging. She shows signs of both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, and her cartilage..."
"She isn't aging, Nexus," Loki said firmly. "The maid has been infected with a cursed virus that is trying to re-write her DNA. She is being transformed into a different species," he frowned thoughtfully, "only the virus didn't work this fast in the lab..."
"Didn't she tell Odin that she had taken medicine at Eir's house?" Cernunnos had returned with the roots Nexus had requested.
Comprehension hit Loki and Eir at the same time. "Growth tonic," they said at the same time.
Loki pulled a water-bottle from his belt. He squeezed it firmly and closed his eyes. "Epli Eplasafi," he murmured firmly, then held the bottle-opening to Karol's lips. "Wake, Karol, and drink," he commanded.
Karol shuddered and opened her eyes, barely registering the black-haired prince that now cradled her head, but she gulped the contents of the bottle gladly.
"Sweet mead?" Cernunnos asked.
Loki shook his head. "Apple cider: she needs the sugar as well as the fiber and the water. It will strengthen her and dilute the accelerant Eir gave her."
"When she is done drinking, I could use some of that cider here," Nexus called from across the slab. "It will function as a solution for the medicinal base. It's a pity we don't know what species is responsible here..."
"Dolkalfar," Loki said firmly.
Nexus' jaw dropped open. "But...they're extinct!"
"Not nearly enough," Loki growled.
"But an extinct race cannot..." Cernnunos began, but Loki cut him off.
"Then someone is trying to resurrect the species, using humans as a template," Loki said coldly. "I've heard of such things, of course. King Surtr hypothesized the procedure almost 500 years ago, but he never suggested using it on anything but cattle."
"Well, someone has tapped into that research, and is using it on humans," Nexus said with disgust. "The child said her violators worshipped Surtr as well as us."
"Damn," muttered Loki. Karol's eyes fluttered at the profanity, and he smoothed down her hair. "Not you, child."
"Good thing I didn't add the elderberry, then. It promotes elven influence," Nexus muttered. "Almost ready to heat; is the bed ready?"
"Not yet," Cernunnos said, shaking his head. He grabbed a few handfuls of moss from the mountainside and set them strategically around the stone slab. "Blessed be," he incanted firmly, and the moss spread out, multiplying and growing until it was a handbreadth thick. "Now it is ready. Lay the child on this."
"Frekr, Garmr, move," Loki commanded. They slunk away from where they had been wrapped around Karol, keeping her warm, giving Loki dark glances all the while.
"Pup cold," Frekr whined.
"Pup sick," Garmr snarled.
Loki scooped Carol up as if she was an infant. "Pup needs more than wolf-tongue lick," he snapped. The wolves hung their heads and moved away from the operating dias, and Loki sighed. "Frekr and Garmr keep watch. Skin-Changers make magic; wolves guard. Keep proper circle."
"You speak wolf?" Cernunnos looked surprised.
"It isn't that hard," Loki shrugged, "when I can be one." He lay Karol gently on the moss-covered stone, with his cloak underneath her. He looked past the large humanoid for a moment. "Is that not Ironwood behind you?"
Cernunnos whirled. "So it is. Nexus?"
"Yes, the bark and the leaves only. Loki, I need you to trade places with me for a moment. Add the ironwood, bless you; we need it to counter the Elvish DNA. Add as much of the cider as you have left..."
"The bottle ne'er empties, Nexus. I have enchanted it so."
"Bless you for that. Fill the basin, then, while I work."
Nexus took Loki's place at Karol's side, smoothing down her hair and checking her limbs for dislocations. Finding no injury beyond scrapes and a few torn nails, she looked up at her Consort.
"Cernunnos," she said gently, "turn your back."
The white-haired humanoid nodded solemnly, turning away and walking to the end of the table (so as to place his body between Karol and Loki); standing so neither man could see what Nexus did next.
Loki looked up, surprised, at the slight tearing sound from the table, and caught Cernunnos' eye.
"She had to undress and clean her for the procedure," Cernunnos rumbled softly. "There is no reason I should watch. The child has been violated enough."
"You've been through this before," Loki surmised, stirring the elixir.
Cernunnos nodded darkly. "We have done this many times, just not to this degree. My brother, Kalamos, used to mistreat maidens. That shame led to his imprisonment. Working with Nexus for their healing brought us together."
"Nexus," Loki called thoughtfully, "would it help if I took a female form?"
"You can do that?" Cernunnos asked, surprised.
"Yes. Male and female are not that different. Changing genders within the humanoid form is easier than changing into a quadruped."
"It will not matter for the child, if that is what you mean," Nexus called back. "Some of her violators were women."
"And people wonder why I consider humans an inferior species," Loki fumed.
"Your anger will not help, O Prince," Nexus cautioned. "Save that for later. Right now I need you to heat the infusion."
"As you wish," Loki said tersely. "How hot do you want it? Simmer or low boil?"
"Contain it if you can, and push it all the way to plasma," Nexus said, taking Cernunnos' place at the end of the table and removing her cloak.
"Plasma? You jest! No human or Asgardian can take such a potion!" Loki was aghast.
"Then it is good that I am neither," Nexus snapped. "It was never for her. It is for me! Are you the god of fire, or not?"
Loki was not one to turn down a challenge. The infusion they had so carefully crafted suddenly boiled under his hands, expanding into a gas bubble above the stone. The gas bubble began to glow, first a low muddy-green, and then blue-hot, and then white-hot, until it resembled a large, glowing pearl.
"Hotter!" Nexus cried.
Loki spread out his hands, and the bubble began to look like one of Baldr's mini-suns. "That is all!" he shouted, turning his face away from the incandescent mass. "Any hotter and I must needs eject it into the void!"
"Then that will have to do," Nexus gritted, taking off her gown and tossing it aside. Loki had a glimpse of bare white flesh, the curve of an arm and a shapely thigh, before Nexus leaped into the plasma mass suspended in front of him.
"NEXUS!" Loki shouted, horrified.
The steadying hand on his arm was Cernunnos'.
"Easy, lad," he rumbled. "It is always a bit of a shock, but she knows what she is doing. Now let go," he urged.
The Plasma-Nexus mass changed before his eyes, as Nexus took control of the potion and her body exploded into mist. She hung, suspended, just above them: a female-shaped wisp of cloud and gas and herb.
"See that she does not fall," she whispered to the men, floating ghost-like over the unconscious body of Karol Julesang. She settled, gently, over the twisted white form, and on the girl's next inhalation was sucked inside.
"What now?" Loki asked, shaken.
Cernunnos shrugged. "We wait."