The Fires of Muspelheim
Traveling through Muspelheim was as unpleasant as I'd recalled it last time I was there. Even swathed in silks with cooling spells set on them, the heat was oppressive. Al of us were dressed in flowing silken pantaloons gathered at the ankle and long silk tunics with billowing sleeves and hooded burnooses. Our ensemble was complete with our scarves knotted closely about our noses and mouth and our boots, which reached up to our knees to prevent a viper from striking our ankles, because the Black Land was home to a particularly virulent species of snake called a sparkle viper. The sparkle viper dwelled in the crevices of the lava rocks and its bite would kill you within seconds unless you had a mage healer on hand to slow the poison. Not even immortal blood was proof against it, though it took longer to kill us than a mortal.
And that was one of the lesser dangers of the land of the fire giants. Besides the poisonous vapors in the air and the molten lava pits and the razor sharp rocks, that is. Because Muspelheim is home to several active volcanoes, the surface of the land is always shifting and changing, depending on how long it's been since the last volcano erupted. When the lava cools, it can be either a smooth sheet or long and ropy, depending on how fast it was flowing. Areas where the lava was smooth made it hard to walk without slipping and the long curled up piles were treacherous to navigate, since you had to climb over and around them and you risked turning an ankle or worse.
In the distance, against the perpetually gray sky, where the sun almost never broke through the clouds, you could see the gigantic silhouettes of the volcanoes, smoking and smoldering, a grim warning of what could be in this desolate land. A few skeletal remains of trees dotted the landscape here and there, but otherwise there was nothing save black rock as far as the eye could see, broken occasionally by a trickle of red lava or the yellow of a poisoned stream. It was a miracle anything, even the fire giants, lived here, much less called this place home.
No wonder the fire giants were such miserable crazy bastards. Looking at this day after day would drive me to suicide. It was worse than the desert, because at least the desert can be beautiful and it lives and breathes. It's harsh, yes, but it has its moments.
Muspelheim, on the other hand, could volunteer as a stand-in for the Christian version of Hell.
We walked in single file as much as we could, with me taking point beside Marissa, whose Seeking led her unerringly onward, like a lodestone. Baldur was bringing up the rear, hand on his sword, eyes scanning the landscape for any signs of movement. Leif and Belle huddled up in the middle, tense and unhappy, as nervous as a mouse being stalked by a cat.
Baldur knew, as I did, that most of the predators that lived here were experts at ambush, able to remain still and blend into the landscape for hours, waiting for a meal to come along. A salamander or a lava dragon could move quick as lightning when they chose, and I knew they'd see us as a godsend. Salamanders in Muspelheim were not the harmless little lizards they were in Asgard or Midgard. Muspelheim salamanders were the size of your head and were coated with a thick slime that burned like acid when it came into contact with living skin. They had wicked jaws and could gnaw through bone in a matter of minutes once they got started.
A lava dragon was a smaller wingless cousin to the dragons of Asgard, and they were so called because they lived in the rivers of lava that crisscrossed the Black Land. They were dark red spattered with gold and they were fond of swimming beneath the surface of a lava flow and then popping up behind their prey and gulping them down whole. They could grow to a good forty feet long and they considered human flesh a great delicacy.
The good news about those two monsters was that they mainly hunted at night and they were extremely vulnerable to water-based spells and even fresh water thrown on them. Fresh water was like poison to a salamander, and while it wouldn't kill a lava dragon, they were none too fond of it, and an ice spell would slay them if it hit them in the heart.
I told my companions all of this as we walked, for it took their minds off of the monotony of the Barren Plains. Baldur listened with half an ear, for he knew all of this, but the others hung on my every word, making me feel like a font of wisdom. Every twenty minutes or so, I'd call a halt and we'd sip from our water skins. It was far too easy to get dehydrated in this miserable heat, despite the silk that trapped the moisture close to our bodies. We drank in small gulps, keeping our scarves about our noses, for the less we breathed in the poison, sulfur-laden air the better.
"Do you think the fire giants know we're here?" Leif asked, coughing behind one gloved hand. For some reason, the young Vanir was the most affected by the air, and he often gasped for breath when we climbed the ropy lava piles, and coughed sharply when we rested. I'd told Belle to keep an eye on him, monitoring him with her healing sense.
"Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on whether they've got a mage good enough to penetrate my misdirection spell," I answered, pausing to sip some tepid water from my water skin.
"And that isn't likely," Baldur remarked, looking like some walking mountain in his sand colored silks. He'd been the hardest to outfit, his tall frame needing most of the bolts of silk I'd obtained. He'd also put up the most objections, saying wearing that filmy stuff made him feel half-naked and first cousin to a damned fairy. "You'll thank me later, son," I pointed out mercilessly, and he quit grousing and scowled at me. Yet I noticed he'd not complained much about the heat once we'd started walking through the lava fields.
"Fire giants are too dumb to practice magic," the big warrior continued. "They're lucky to be able to count to ten, some of them. But some of them have the cunning of a wicked ten-year-old, those are the ones that are put in charge of the patrols. You wan to watch out for them, they like to torture prisoners, one piece at a time, cutting off a toe here, a fingernail there . . .vicious beasts."
"Baldur, could you tone down your, uh, explanations a bit?" I hissed, indicating my daughter and Marissa.
"Oh. Right. Sorry, ladies. Didn't mean to scare you," the big Aesir apologized, blushing.
"That's all right, Uncle Baldur," Belle said gamely. "Better to walk forward with our eyes open that closed in ignorance."
"They sound somewhat like some of the Comanche and Apache tribes down near the Mexican border," Marissa mused. "They're famous for their skill at keeping a person alive long after they should have died. Or at least that's what they say in the taverns."
"Well, I won't give one of them a chance to spit at me before I hit them with an icebolt," Leif said, his voice hoarse but filled with determination.
"What does a fire giant look like?" Marissa asked.
"Oh, they're ugly bastards," Baldur said helpfully. "Got a face that only a mother could love, and sometimes I doubt that. They're about, oh, ten to thirteen feet tall and they've got skin the color of the lava over there and hair black as pitch or sometimes smoke gray. And their eyes are yellow and slanted like a cat's."
"They've got teeth like a rat's, all snaggly and sharp," I added. "And when they talk it sounds like rocks grinding together. Most of them don't bother much with clothes, the males will wear a kind of kilt and a harness for weapons, and it's anyone's guess what the females wear, since they're never seen by outsiders."
"If they even have females," Baldur snorted. "What girl would ever want one of them for a husband?"
"Baldur, they have to have females," I sighed, having been over this before. "The race would have died out long ago if they didn't. And that hasn't happened, more's the pity."
"Must blindfold them or something then," Baldur muttered. "Cause if I had to wake up to that face every morning I'd take hemlock."
"Baldur, aren't you, uh, exaggerating a tiny bit?" Marissa asked.
"Nope. Trust me on that, lady. That's why they like to steal away Aesir and Vanir women when they can get them."
"They steal Vanir women?" Belle repeated in astonishment. "Then why in Hel is Malastein making an alliance with them?"
"Because he's crazy," Leif snapped bitterly. "That doesn't matter, as long as the deal is to his advantage. I hope he chokes on it, the son of a bitch."
I reached over and patted his shoulder, sensing that beneath his angry words, he was deeply ashamed of his sire. "Don't worry, Leif. He'll get his, never fear. I'll see to that personally."
"Good. Kick his ass for me, won't you, Loki?" he said, his eyes darkening. Then he coughed.
"Here, drink this." Belle pressed a water skin on him. "You keep coughing like that and the giants won't need to see us to find us."
"What's in it?" Leif inquired warily.
"Mint tea. It'll soothe your throat," Belle answered, and winked at me. Clever girl! I knew the skin contained not only mint tea but a healing potion as well, to fix the Vanir's throat and lungs. Not that she could ever say so, for Leif would be highly insulted that she knew of his weakness and refuse her potion, the proud idiot.
This way, however, Leif sipped the tea gratefully, and the damage done to his lungs remained minimal.
"Got any more of that tea, Belle?" I asked. "Seems like we could all use a dose."
"Right here. Take two swallows, you'll have to share, since I didn't make up more than this," she explained. She swallowed some herself then passed the skin to me.
When I was done I gave it to Marissa, whose breath was beginning to sound raspy, like Leif's. Baldur drank last, and was careful to only drink a bit, I noted. He knew as well as I did what the tea contained, and noble hero that he was, had determined to save as much as possible for the others.
"See that crooked mountain peak up there?" Baldur asked, pointing to a rather oddly shaped mountain beyond a large river of lava. "That's Crag Keep, where Surtur the king of the fire giants holds court. I'd lay odds ten to one that's where Gungnir is kept."
I cast a glance at Marissa. "That true?"
She turned her head, her brow furrowing. "Yes, the spear does seem to be in that direction. But whether or not it's in the mountain I can't say until I get a bit closer."
"What's it like, being able to find things the way you do?" Baldur asked curiously.
Marissa was silent for a moment, considering. "You know when you get a hunch that something's going to happen, that small voice in the back of your head that whispers to you?" Baldur nodded. A good warrior got plenty of those warnings. "Well, when I seek an object, its like that little voice is screaming in my ear. I feel a strong desire, almost like somebody's pulling me by the hand, to go to wherever the object is. The closer I get to it, the stronger the feeling is. And I've never been wrong. Not once. But it only works on objects, not people."
"Do you get a lot of people asking you to find things for them, like missing hair clips and jewelry or shoes?" Baldur inquired. "Must drive you crazy, how stupid people are, forgetting where they put stuff."
"Actually, most people where I lived didn't know what I could do. People in my world don't believe in magic they way you do here," Marissa explained. "If I ever advertised what I could do, they'd call me a witch and probably try to burn me."
Leif was horrified. "They'd try and set you on fire just because you were able to find things with magic? What kind of barbarians are they, to not respect a Seeker? Seeking magic is one of the most useful of all the Talents."
Marissa shrugged. "People fear what they don't understand. I learned long ago not to advertise that I had a special ability. Even in my circus troupe, the only people who knew what I could do were my father and Esmerelda and her daughters, because they were Rom and not scared of the supernatural."
"Now I'm glad I haven't gone down to Midgard in awhile. People who don't believe in magic any more!" Baldur sneered. "How can you not believe in a force that's as much a part of creation as the moon and stars, as the earth and the wind?"
"Nowadays, people only believe in what they can see and touch," Marissa explained.
"Bah! You can't see the wind and yet you know it's there. You can't see the tides, yet men have known of their effects for centuries. Magic has always been in the world—all the worlds—and it always will be." Baldur stated solemnly. "Isn't that what you magicians teach, Loki?"
"It is, but I didn't know you warriors learned the five forces of the universe during your warrior training," I chuckled.
"We don't. My brothers wouldn't know what the five elements were if they bit them in the ass. I learned about them on my own, from reading my father's treatises on creation and philosophy," Baldur informed me loftily. "After you cured me from the mistletoe poisoning, I got curious about the way magic works, and I asked him to lend me some of his books on magical theory and I've been studying them ever since. I can't claim to understand half of them, but one thing I did get is that magic is one of the five forces of creation and anyone who tries to deny it is the biggest idiot ever born. Even Thor, numbskull that he is, doesn't deny the existence of magic."
"An Aesir warrior who studies philosophy. I'm impressed," Leif drawled. "Maybe my people have misjudged yours all these centuries, thinking all you Aesir had between your ears was air."
"Maybe so," Baldur grunted. "And maybe we were wrong too, thinking all you Vanir were arrogant little pricks with more brains than sense."
"Guess it's true, what they say. You learn something new every day," Belle said.
"Very true," I agreed, rising to my feet. "We've rested long enough. Time to get moving again. The longer we linger in one place, the easier salamanders and such will have to spot us."
"Are there really salamanders here, Master?" Leif grumbled. "Or is that another one of your stories? Because I haven't seen a sign of life since we set foot here."
"That's what they want you to think, boy," Baldur said calmly. "They want you to let your guard down, and then, while you're all relaxed, they'll creep up from behind and gulp you down. They're out there, boy. Watching and waiting. I can feel them."
His grim tone made the rest of them shiver. This time I did not bother to scold him for scaring them silly. Out here in the Black Land you need to be a little afraid, for that was what kept you alert and alive. In Muspelheim, it was the predator you never saw coming up behind you that would kill you.
We walked for what felt like hundreds of miles before I at last called a halt, after first asking Marissa if we were facing the right direction. At her nod, we set up camp, having no fire, for even the nights here were brutally hot. I checked myself over, certain that despite my silks the sun had blistered every inch of my skin. To my relief, I was not burned, just hot and tired and irritable.
So were the others. The lava pillows—ha! Misnomer there if I ever heard one—were warm but otherwise uncomfortable to rest on, and we had only light blankets to wrap ourselves in. We ate a dry tasteless meal of dried beef, fruit, and flatbread, washed down with numerous sips of water. Before going to sleep, Belle replenished our water skins with a spell, so at least we would have fresh water for the next morning. She also summoned a light breeze to swirl about us, so we could get some relief from the stifling heat.
We decided to keep watch in shifts, with Baldur volunteering to go first, as he was the least weary from our trek across the Barren Plains. The golden-haired warrior had been gifted with incredible stamina, and he looked as if he could run a marathon even now. I envied him profoundly for a moment, for I was aching and sore, and I longed for a cool spring and air that didn't stink of sulfur and ashes.
None of us felt like talking, so we simply ate and then rolled ourselves in our blankets for some much-needed rest. Before I closed my eyes, I could see Baldur's big frame slowly pacing about our campsite, just at the perimeter of the wards I'd set, like a great golden grizzly. It was very reassuring, knowing he was there.
It seemed that no sooner had I closed my eyes, than Baldur was shaking my shoulder, saying it was time for my turn on watch. I woke, rubbing my eyes, which were gritty and red from the drifting ash in the air. I splashed a bit of water on my face and wiped it off with a scrap of silk. It came away black with grime.
I took a swallow of water and rose to my feet, resolving to spend my watch in a form other than the one I was born with, something more suited to dealing with extremes of heat among other things. Also something that would make any of the predators that stalked the dark think twice about attacking us.
I waited until Baldur was snoring in his blankets before I transformed into the most feared creature in Asgard—a red dragon.
I spent the remainder of my three-hour watch flying around the camp, gliding lazily on the updrafts, reveling in the heat and not minding in the slightest the ash drifting down on my scales. My dragonsight could penetrate the murkiest corner of Muspelheim and my hearing was so acute that I could hear the salamanders squabbling in their dens miles away. I even smelled the rank odor of a lava dragon, swimming lazily about the great river of lava to the north, but since he showed no signs of coming out of his molten bath, I did not bother to challenge him.
I would have liked to remain in this shape for the duration of our journey, for dragon-shape is seductive in the extreme. My immortal form was puny indeed when compared to the power, grace, and sheer size of the red dragon. As a dragon I could soar above the earth, I was lord of the skies and master of the earth, and all cowered before me.
But I forced myself to land when my watch was done and resume my true form. Assuming a dragon's form for three-hours was long enough, any longer and I might risk losing myself. That had happened to me once before, when I lured Snorri's stallion away in the guise of a mare, and Sleipnir had been the result. I had vowed never to let it happen again, and especially not in a form as capricious and dangerous as that of a red dragon. Red dragons were avaricious and selfish, unlike their noble golden kin, and were universally feared and hated by everyone in Asgard. I had no wish to spend the rest of my days being hunted by every would-be dragonslayer in the realms, lost in dreams of blood and gold and glory.
Thus I relinquished the dragon-shape, though not without a pang of regret, and went to wake Leif. He spent his watch in the form of a huge brown bear, that being the most imposing creature he could shift into. Belle and Marissa stood the last watch together, and all was quiet.
We resumed our journey north towards the great lava river the next day, following Marissa like ducklings trailing their mother to the pond. The closer we drew to the lava river, the more the land grew cracked and jagged rocks poked up at various intervals, lurking about to stab the feet of the unwary wanderer and render him lame and easy prey.
Marissa coughed incessantly now, and her eyes watered from the glare and the dust, but she never complained. I ordered Belle to give her some more of her special tea and fashioned a blindfold for her eyes that would be glare proof, yet still allow her to see where she was going.
"The blind Seeker," she commented wryly when I tied the sash about her head. "I feel like Tiresias the prophet in Homer."
"Can you see all right?"
"Fine. At least my eyes don't sting so badly now." She brushed off her silks irritably, grimacing as black ash fell about her like rain. "Damn black dust. Gets into everything."
"How much further?" Leif asked, nearly doubled over with a coughing fit himself.
"I can feel it just past that big river there," Marissa answered. "How are we gonna cross that?"
"Loki can fly us over," Baldur said, shaking out his headcloth and rewrapping it about his golden locks.
"Fly you two over, you mean," I amended. "Belle and Leif can change shape same as I can."
"Long as I don't have to set foot in that river, I don't care how I get across," Baldur grunted. He drew his sword. The blade flashed mirror bright as the sun's rays hit it. "C'mon, kids. We won't get any nearer to the Spear of War standing here admiring the view."
He strode off, motioning me to his side as he did so.
"What is it?" I mouthed, sensing instinctively that something was wrong.
"Something's following us," he muttered in my ear. "I think it's either a damn big salamander or a lava dragon. I'm praying it's the salamander and not the dragon."
I swallowed sharply. "It could be either. I sensed a dragon in the river last night on watch, but it didn't seem to have noticed us."
"That was then and this is now. If it is the dragon, and I have a sinking feeling in my gut it is, you'd better prepare some pretty fancy magic, Loki. You know as well as I do how fast those bastards can strike."
"Take the point Baldur," I ordered. "I'm going to tell Belle and Leif. Say nothing to Marissa for now. She's scared enough as it is, no need to frighten her more if it turns out to be a false alarm."
I slipped away to inform my daughter and my apprentice of the potential peril, wishing with all my heart that Baldur's hunch was wrong, and there was nothing following us. I knew it for a fool's hope. Nothing crosses the Black Land without a fight, and Muspelheim had been too quiet for too long.
This time, though it would not catch us unprepared. Leif and Belle went white when I told them, but they took it like soldiers and did not panic. "We'll be ready, sir," the Vanir said. "I've got a few spells here that'll take the hide off one of those dragons. Lightning and ice should serve nicely."
"So will a hailstorm," Belle hissed and her green eyes gleamed.
Warning given, I swapped places with Baldur and resumed my usual place beside Marissa. I felt immensely better being next to her, knowing I was close enough to protect her if need be. Not that I didn't trust Baldur, but Marissa was betrothed and therefore my responsibility.
I helped her through a forest of sharp thorn-like obsidian, breathing a sigh of relief when we came through it unscathed, save for a few minor scratches. The roar of the lava river grew louder and we could see the molten rock flowing swiftly on its way to the thundering falls, where it emptied into a vast lake.
We were about fifty feet from the churning river when I heard Baldur cry, ""Ware all—a dragon comes!"
The great beast was already rearing a third of its length into the air, lunging at the warrior, fangs gaping wide to reveal teeth the size swords, black with slime and old blood. Baldur, luckily, had been prepared for he sidestepped the dragon's rush, slamming it behind the nostril with his great sword.
The creature shrieked and threw up its head, for Baldur's sword packs a wallop. Leif was already chanting a spell of ice, and glittery blue projectiles shot from his fingers, hardening into six foot spears of ice that smashed into the dragon with the forces of a dozen lances.
Furious, the dragon spat, its glowing yellow eyes bright with rage and shock. It had been counting on an easy bite to eat, not prey that fought to kill. "Get down!" I cried, shoving Marissa to the ground and crawling on top of her. I felt the air blister as the acidic spit flew over us to burn a hole in the ground.
Then Belle was calling up a hailstorm and Baldur had begun circling the great wyrm for another strike. The dragon had coiled up now, like a snake, and was screeching in its foul tongue. Its eyes suddenly lit on Marissa and I, lying prone on the ground, and an evil grin spread across its pointed face.
In an eyeblink it had coiled, drawing its head back much like a viper. I glanced up, saw I had the briefest second in which to act, then I changed, blurring into a frost drake in the fraction of a second that followed.
The lava dragon's teeth crashed into the armored chest of my frost drake form, scoring the scales but leaving me otherwise unharmed. I unleashed a terrific roar and shot my head down, my jaws closing on the upper part of the lava wyrm.
Then I gathered my hindlegs beneath me and launched into the air, taking the lava drake with me. I grabbed the slippery creature in my front claws and proceeded to blast it with my icy breath.
It wailed in mortal agony, icicles dripping off its snout, thrashing about like a worm on a hook. It took all of my considerable strength to hold onto it, my claws were black with its blood and innards. My wings burned with the effort of keeping aloft.
"Belle!" I cried. "Do it now, child!"
I increased my grip on the frantically thrashing lava dragon, pumping my wings hard into a hover just above the lava river. It swung its head about and its jaws closed on my shoulder. I shrieked in rage and pain, biting it hard in retaliation behind the head.
Just then Belle's conjured hailstorm hit us like an avalanche. I made sure the weakened lava dragon took the brunt of it, doing my best to fly as high above it as I could, though a frost drake wasn't bothered overmuch by the snow and cold it threw at me.
I could feel the lava dragon go limp and still in my claws. I shook it once hard, making sure it was truly frozen and dead. I gave a soft bellow of triumph and then opened my talons, letting the dead dragon go. It splashed into the river and I saw its body bob once before it was carried away.
I circled once, then landed carefully on the ground. My shoulder stung where the other dragon had bitten me, but I knew it wasn't serious. I eyed the bunch of human figures before me, licking my lips hungrily.
"Loki?" Marissa called, staring at me with awe.
I shook my head abruptly, recalling with a start that I was Loki of Asgard, not a wild frost drake. I released the shape with a sigh, and as I did so I felt my legs give way and I landed on my knees. Changing into a dragon two times in a row had weakened me even more than I thought it would.
"Father?" Belle was by my side in an instant, lifting my head to peer into my eyes. "I think you overdid it a bit."
"Brilliant diagnosis, doctor," I quipped. I tried to get to my feet.
"Be still," my daughter snapped, then she called her healing power into her hands and I felt it flow into me, banishing the bruises and weakness, and healing the nasty cut in my left shoulder where the dragon had bitten me.
"Thanks, kid," I murmured, hugging her to me for a moment. Then I released her and stood up.
"Is everyone else all right?" I asked, looking at my companions.
All of them nodded. Marissa came and hugged me then, examining me with worried eyes. "I didn't know you could turn into a dragon. That's amazing!"
"It's not something I like to do very often," I told her. "It uses up a lot of my strength and the form's too easy to get lost in."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I could forget who I am and remain a dragon forever. Better magicians than I am have been lost that way."
"You looked at us funny, when you landed on the ground, that was why I called you," the Seeker said.
"You did right, Marissa. The dragon mind wanted to take over my will, but I recalled who I was just in time. That's why it's dangerous to kill in another shape, because it brings a predator's instincts to the fore and makes it hard to remember who you are." I brushed a hand a cross my forehead. "Where's the spear?"
"Still in the same place it was last night. Across this great river of fire."
I exhaled slowly. "Let me rest a bit, then I can figure out how we're going to cross it."