The recommended way to use Glowcrest mushrooms was to eat one quarter stem, raw, before going to sleep at night. It was important to be in a peaceful state of mind, setting a meditation before bed, such that you would only encounter pleasant things in your sleep. Follow those instructions, and you might be able to seek guidance from those you met in your dreams. It was not recommended to take octuple the dose. It was not recommended to roast them over a fire, activating and releasing their more potent compounds. It was not recommended to pair them with betony, an herb that greatly amplified their effects. Under no circumstances should you take Glowcrest mushrooms while under the influence of prophetic visions.
Sweat poured from Faye's face and dripped down her nose as she huddled over the stove, searing two full stalks of mushrooms into blackened crisps. The blade lodged in her chest sawed at her, bucking off the last defenses laid in place to keep it still. Faye lifted a cup of betony tea, swirled it to check if it was fully brewed, and then gulped it down, swallowing the dried flowers and stems. It was her sixth full cup. As she reached for her kettle to brew another, she was interrupted by a vision of the beast Garm devouring a severed arm. She found that he kettle was drained of water, and her jar of betony leaves was empty. The mushrooms were ready. It was time.
Faye stepped out into the yard, the earth soft and cool beneath her feet. Another grey afternoon settled in on the taiga, marked by spitting rain and impressions of sunlight peeking through the small break in the sky between horizon and cloud cover. She summoned her axe to her hand, brandishing it against the spiritual battle yet to come. Her fighting style was based on a small handful of stances, attacks, and defenses that she wielded with brutality and raw power. Faye practiced the stances as had done thousands of times before, performing each of them with martial perfection. Dawn stance: a fighting ready stance. Woodcutter progression: a series of short attacks working every direction of her axe like spokes on a wheel. Ironwood: a guard stance, using the head and shaft of the axe as a shield. Stormbringer: an aggressive charge. She repeated the stances as a mantra unifying her body and soul. Dawn stance. Woodcutter. Ironwood. Strombringer. Together, those steps formed the foundation of her Hugrheim Tether, a meditation she would use protect her mind against corrupting influences.
She was going to seek counsel from the Souls of the Slain, the echoes of Jotnar warriors slain in endless battle against the gods. The Souls of the Slain carried within them the shared communal knowledge of every Giant shrine and prophesy ever imagined, foreseen, or painted. They would have the power to keep her from dying, and they would share her goal of bringing Loki to the world. They would listen to her plea. They would help guide her way.
They were also dangerous. They were not quite the same people who they had been in life. They were the fragments of the soul that could not quite move on after the bitterness of defeat in battle. They would break her mind and use her as their puppet, their agent of fate, if they thought if doing so would alleviate their rage against the gods.
Her chance of success was low. It was just as likely the ritual would fair entirely, and nothing would happen at all. It was most likely that she would go insane.
After a few minutes of rehearsing the steps of the Hugrheim Tether as simple combat drills, Faye progressed the sequence. She performed the stances not based on how they were used in battle, but instead on how they made her feel. Dawn stance felt sturdy and sure. Woodcutter felt satisfying. Ironwood like a spot of calm in a maelstrom. Stormbringer was an exhilarating thrill. She exaggerated the movements, feeling the pulse of each emotion they evoked. Faye stretched the forms in an expression of pure emotion, letting one flow continually into the next in a wild dance. Woodcutter could represent joy, or it could express grim determination. Ironwood could express patience, or it could express defeat. Stormbringer could be a final charge to victory, or it could be anguish and desperation. Once the ritual began, she would rely on the part choreographed, part improvised dance to control her emotions.
After twenty minutes, Faye paused to rest. She squatted on her heels and panted, flapping her dress to cool herself off. A spot near the center of her spine burned in agony as the enchanted spear shard pressed in on its final path to end her life. The movements felt right. The emotions came easily with the flow of her improvised dance. The herbs were ready. Everything was in place.
It was not going to work. If she began the ritual right there, in that moment, she knew she would make the connection with the Souls of the Slain, and they would force her to become an agent of their will. She was missing something, but could not place her finger on what.
Faye stepped into her cabin and closed her eyes, breathing in the heavy scent of pine. She trailed her fingers along the wooden planks of the wall, using their touch as a balm against the intermittent screams piercing her mind. Floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she walked the entire length of the cabin around the inner wall, trawling her mind for the missing piece. As she rounded the back wall, her finger dipped into the cool void of the rainy afternoon. Faye paused and opened her eyes.
Her hand was suspended in the break of the doorframe where Kratos had forced his way out, pointing like a wedge in the direction where his tracks were swallowed up by the forest. Regret tugged at her, the words of their last conversation running through her head. The arrival of Loki had awakened her from slumber like a bear from a long hibernation. It had filled her with the need to act, to plan, to fulfill a mission that she had spent centuries dreaming about. It was her chance for redemption, an answering cry to her years of isolation from her people.
But for Kratos, it signaled the beginning of another cycle of violence. And instead of finding a way to approach him when he was in a better state of spirit, of preparing herself for the range of emotions that might come with it, Faye had backed him into a corner. Then there was the vision of the Destroyer that had overwhelmed her defenses, gotten hold of her, had driven her to hide. Kratos had fled because the sight of her cowering before him had made him fear that he had lost control of himself. That he had somehow blacked out in rage and brutalized her without knowing it. The thought of a hated story repeating itself, was so unbearable that the only choice left to him was to flee, place himself as far away as possible from her as possible.
People. That was what she was missing.
The entire reason behind trying to influence the course of fate was trying to make things better for loved ones. Without those ties, there was little use for free will, little use to do anything other than let the machinations of fate take their course along a pre-set track or on the whim of restless sprits. Faye cared about many people, but most of them would be among the Souls of the Slain. Her connection to them would only strengthen the thirst for vengeance. Faye did not fight for the dead or the for restless echoes of their souls, she fought for the living. She cared for the Jotnar in hiding, but that connection was too distant, too uncertain, to be adequate. The relationships she carried now, in this land at this time, would be the last strands woven into the tether between her soul and body.
One of her husband's spears why lying in the corner, propped up against a wall. It was a nonmagical spear, hewn from sturdy wood and a forged metal tip. A pile of discarded bandages lay in a small bin under the table, part of the rotating supply that Kratos used to bind his arm. Faye detached the spear tip, lay it across her inner forearm, and bound it to her arm using the bandage. She positioned the edge into her elbow, and flexed her arm. As she moved, it nipped into her skin. Every movement time she felt it moving by her arm, would be a little reminder, a little nudge to herself of where and who she was.
As she crossed back across the room, she knelt to examine pile of clay where Freya's blessing pendant had disintegrated. Faye hesitated, then scooped the pile into her hand, and mixed it with water to turn it into a thick paste. She drew the rune for "blessing" onto the back of her hand, leaving a cool, wet trace along her skin, nodded to herself, and went back to the yard.
Faye stepped down the path to the river, listening to the rush of the water as it cascaded across the banks. The smell and sound of the swaying trees, the call of the nightjars, the familiar feel of the path beneath her feet. Her home for the last thirty years would be yet another tie letting her find a way back to herself.
Faye gulped down her mixture of mushrooms and herbs. As the effects began to take hold, she began the opening sequence. Dawn stance. Woodcutter. Ironwood. Stormbringer. Her body repeated the familiar motions without much help from her mind, carrying on the movements of the dance while she reached out into the void of and sought the realm of the Souls of the Slain. As she repeated the sequence, the woods began to fade from her view, and a great hall materialized around her. Dawn stance. Woodcutter. Ironwood. Stormbringer. Columns of stone towered above her, lofting up a blood red ceiling. Painted murals stretched out before her, cramming every surface of the wall, warping around the pillars. The hall went on and on, further than she could see, vanishing into a horizon of bright light miles and miles away. In the vision she slowly walked the hallway, while in her own forest, she continued the sequence.
Dawn stance. Woodcutter. Ironwood. Stormbringer.
The Souls of the Slain materialized around at first as puffs of smoke, and then solidified into forms crowding the hallway. They were not quite the same as the Giants who they represented, but instead were echoes of bitterness, parts of their souls that had not quite moved on from defeat. Hrungnir towered over her, his stone face fixed in a permanent scowl. Thiazi dated across the walls as a lizard, then as a serpent, then as a spider. Geirrod, brandished a flaming iron bar above his head. Dozens of others pressed in around her.
The crowd of Souls of the Slain surrounding Faye parted, allowing a woman to make her way through. She was taller than Faye, wearing white scholar's robes, her hair plaited into elaborate braids. Hyndla. The keeper of the Tomes of Knowledge, the curator of the murals of prophesy. Faye's teacher. She walked up to Faye, and embraced her.
"Laufey. My child. I am so glad you found your way to us. We feared it was too late, that you would slip away. That all would be lost."
Within the confines of the vision, Faye gave a strangled cry and sobbed into her mentor's shoulder. Within the forest, she progressed her stances. Ironwood is like an embrace. Dawn stance is like longing.
"I made it," she gasped, pulling back. "It worked. I am here. Loki is here, with me. Right now. I am dying, Hyndla. Please, save him. The Elixir, it has been slowing the arrival of Loki. It will kill him if I take it, and the blade will kill me if I do not. I cannot remember all the prophesies without you. They blend together in my mind. I do not know what to do. Please."
Hyndla held Faye back at arm's length, and gazed into her eyes. The memories flooded back. Of the centuries she had spent working alongside this woman, keeping the genealogies and sacred texts safe. Working on the murals, creating a tapestry of knowledge to guide and foresee the future under a collective trance with her Giant brothers and sisters.
In the woods, she danced along the banks of the river. Stormbringer is an outpouring of grief. Woodcutter is the memory of companionship.
"Laufey, Laufey, Laufey…" Hyndla murmured, brushing back her hair. "You do not need to beg anything of us. We will give you what you ask. You are our last champion."
"Am I still? Even after all this time?" she rubbed her face with her hand.
"Of course. We know our we can only find release from this prison by completing our vengeance against the gods, by satisfying the wrongs that have been done to us. We will give you what you ask."
Faye twitched her eye, just a little bit. She did not seek vengeance on all the gods, she sought a resolution for the Jotnar left in hiding. Ironwood is fortitude. Flex your arm. Feel the spear tip dig into your elbow. I am Laufey. I am myself. I fight for the living, not for the dead.
"Thank you, for agreeing to help me," she said, picking the words carefully.
"We will send you away with our power. It will stay the blade. You will not need to drink of the elixir any longer."
"Good riddance," she said. "I think it was starting to give me nightmares. Terrible visions, about my husband. I will be grateful to be rid of them."
Hyndla frowned, and gazed deep into Faye's eyes. A light glistened from behind her irises.
"Laufey," Hyndla said gently. "You will not be getting rid of those so easily. Those visions are warnings sent to you, attempts to guide you on the right path. You have been ignoring them for a long time, and as you stray further from the path, they grow stronger."
"What do you mean?" Faye asked, taking a step back. Dawn stance is wariness.
"Oh Laufey," Hyndla said. You have been gone away a long time. I know it can be hard to remember. Look at the murals, the shrines. Tell me what you see."
Faye started to look up, then cast her eyes down quickly. It was too dangerous. If she looked up, stared into the murals too closely and for too long, she would see the entirety of all futures. She was not ready for that, not yet. She risked glancing at a few around Hyndla's ankles, then by Thiazi as he transformed into a scorpion, then over the top of Hrungnir's stone head. No matter where she looked, no matter how she tried, none of them showed both Kratos and the reopening of the gates of Jotenheim. Every time he appeared, her husband was consumed in a wall of flame, surrounded by ruin
Woodcutter is resolute and strong, pushing back. Flex your arm to feel the spear. Touch the blessing rune on your hand. I am Laufey, I am myself.
Faye snorted and waved dismissively. "There are many prophesies, Hyndla. Not all come to pass. We use our gifts of foresight to choose. I have seen another ending for Kratos. I may not remember it, but I know I have seen it."
"Not all come to pass," Hyndla agreed. "But dear, your time in Midgard, has softened you. You have started to forget, started to let your own dreams shape what you remember of your teachings."
Hyndla grasped Faye's chin in her palm, and twisted her head straight up towards the wall. There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of futures glowing into the walls, each one branching off into thousands more. The murals blazed with light, biting and tearing into Faye's skull, pressing up against the back of her eyes and clawing from her ears. Faye squeezed her eyes shut, but the sound of broken glass screeched in her ears.
Ironwood is retreating to the inner mind, a place of sanctuary. Strombringer. The sanctuary falls under the strike of a massive hammer.
"Of the thousands of possibilities you saw," Hyndla whispered, "there was only one where the gates of Jotenheim reopen while Kratos stays in Midgard. In all others he must be manipulated or killed. One prophesy told by crazy old bitch isolated in the woods can be wrong. Ten thousand prophesies cannot. It is time to remember who you are, remember why you stayed in Midgard."
"It is my right to choose," Faye spat, pulling away from Hyndla.
Her former mentor grabbed her with savage strength and twisted her hear head back. Hands reached around behind her as the other Souls of the Slain peeled back her eyes, forcing her to stare into the walls. The murals swallowed up the entirety of her vision and burrowed into her skull, the collective possibilities of fate fanning out before her eyes, her sense of own self slipping away. In a panic, Faye realized she could no longer feel the rhythm of her mantra, the steps keeping her soul bound to her body. Where was the feel of her axe, of the movements, of the forest? Where was she?
"You promised you would do whatever it took to bring about Ragnorok, no matter the cost," Hyndla said.
"I promised," Faye whispered, the lost memories flooding back. They were not tricks conjured by the Souls of the Slain. Faye recognized them as her own.
"Back in the halls of Jotunheim, you agreed with the ten thousand prophesies showing the Ghost of Sparta as nothing but a threat and a menace. A beast to be cast away once his role was complete."
"I remember," Faye said, a tear running down her face.
Faye felt her mind ripping to shreds, yielding to the ten thousand prophecies that squirmed their way in. She could not feel the spear any more, could not separate where she ended and the spirits of the vengeful Giants began.
"You said you would be strong, you would do whatever it takes. That your resolution would not fail. But then it did. You started to forget. You started to get lonely. Stop fighting, Laufey. There is no need for you to think any more. We will show you the way, show you what must be done."
They were digging her soul out and placing themselves inside. No matter how far Faye scrambled back into the recesses of her mind, the tendrils of light grabbed her and dragged her back out. All of her defenses were gone. The Souls of the Slain poured into her body.
"Once, you knew the way, you promised to lay in wait. Then this god from a far-away land arrived. You were lonely, he filled a warm spot on your bed. You were bored, and he was interesting. Poor Laufey. Grabbing on to whoever she can use to stuff the void in her heart. Even a monster."
Monster?
I dance like the leaves falling from the oak trees around the norther riverbend. Kratos and I decide to build our new home there. A new start, for two old people who are weary of bloodshed. Ironwood. There is healing in the life on the taiga. A good land, sweet as rushing wind and water. Every day, we try, and every day, we get a little bit better. Kratos carries a mountain of sadness and hatred, but every day he burns a little bit more of it away as sunrise to the mist. I am ruthless, bending things to my will, but every day I learn to flow like a river, using patience instead of force.
Dawn stance. I am Laufey, but now I am something more. Woodcutter. I am the years we spent together, sitting by the fire, watching the tree boughs at night. I am the outposts and homes we built together. Ironwood. I am the ten thousand miles of travel on the river through our forest, floating in wood-hewn boats and watching the seasons cycle by. Ironwood. I am Laufey, and seek the salvation of Jotunheim.
Dawn stance. Woodcutter. Ironwood. But now I am also Faye, and I will not betray my husband. I am Faye. I am myself. I give no credence to these visions of horror.
Stormbringer.
I have seen many monsters. Kratos is not one.
"Then that one prophesy is the path I walk," Faye cried through gritted teeth, her mind snapping back together in a crash, casting the Souls of the Slain back from her mind like a tsunami boiling across the sea wall.
The blazing light stopped. The sound of shattering glass faded into a soft tinkle. Faye risked cracking an eye open. Hyndla smiled at her. A wicked smile.
"How fitting for you, Laufey. Solving your problems by trying to bend everything to your will. Always getting your way." Her grin widened. She reached out and touched Faye on her breastbone. The stirring of the spear shard quieted, returning to dormancy, the pain lulling.
"Take our blessing, Laufey. Return to Midgard, follow that tiny strand of fate. But remember," she clutched Faye by a fistful of her dress, and pulled her in close. "That road rests on a knife's edge. Take a wrong path, and wrong choice, and you see the demise either of Kratos or of the last hope for Jotunheim. I think you might find it very hard to follow such a narrow path without coming back to me for counsel. We are a part of you now." She thumped Faye on the chest. "I look forward to our next meeting."
Faye awakened along the sandy banks of the river. Early morning light poured into the forest through the break in trees along the water. A patchwork of branches swayed above her. She groaned and pushed herself up, taking in the sights around her through crusted eyes, noting the shape and bend of the river. She was about ten miles away from her primary cabin. She was stark naked and caked in mud, with twigs and brambles shoved through her braids. There was a bracelet of braided flowers looped around her wrist. Her husband's spear tip was shoved through her bicep. Faye pulled it out with a hiss of pain, and staggered to her feet.
She waded into the river and washed the mud from her body, welcoming the bite of cold water. There were hundreds of glyph wards drawn into the sand along the riverbank, written no doubt, by Faye's own hands. She walked along the bank, reading them. The glyphs started coherently, then deteriorated into gibberish and nonsense, and then became coherent again. As she walked upstream, she found her wool under dress snagged in a tree. She dressed herself and searched the area, looking for her outer dress, but found only pieces of ripped fabric. She did not even bother trying to find shoes, as she could not remember if she had worn them or not. She searched for her axe for a while, curious where she had left it, but in the end gave up trying to find it and summoned it back to her hand. Rain started to fall, then snow, cascading in soft flakes that melted in the mud.
Faye found Kratos in the third place that she searched for him. It took all day, but as she breasted the ridge in late afternoon, she caught his tracks and found him sitting on a roughly hewn bench outside of their Western outpost shelter. She made sure to approach him from the front, staying very quiet, until she was clearly in view. He began to rise. She held out a hand, trying to calm him like a deer that might bolt.
"Do not leave. Please. I want to talk to you."
To her surprise, he relaxed back onto the bench. He took stock of her bare feet, her ragged hair, and her torn under dress, and nodded to himself. He gestured to the seat beside him, as if he had been expecting her.
She sat down next to him, a full arm's length away. They sat in silence, staring ahead across the top of the hills. The plume from their cabin rose up steadily from across the lip of the ridge, fueled by a single enchanted log that was never completely consumed by fire. This was a viewing post that they used to send signals to each other, when one was at home and the other away. Kratos was here because he was waiting for her signal that she wanted to talk to him, at the same time that she had been searching for him.
"I am sorry," she said. "For yesterday. I should have taken time to prepare for that conversation, for letting you know that I am carrying our child. It should have been a different time. I should have made sure we were both in good states of mind. It has a special significance for me, something important from my home land. That meaning… it overwhelmed me. I lost control of myself."
Kratos leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "As did I," he rumbled.
They said in silence. "did I remind you of them? Back in our home, when I screamed and tried to hide from you? Did that take you back, to when you lost them? Did I make you think that you had lost control, that you tried to hurt me? Kratos, I am sorry. I saw… it was… it was not you, it was something else. I am sorry, for bringing back that memory."
He closed his eyes and took a long sigh. His fingers clenched at the log, then released.
"At first, yes," he said. "When I ran, I thought had lost control of my rage. That I was tricked again. But then later, no. I knew it was not the same. I knew you were fighting something. I thought you might need to face it alone. So I waited." He nodded towards the rising plume of smoke, then briefly met her eyes.
"Yes. I was. Thank you, for being easy to find. It means a lot to me."
"You have done the same many times for me."
"How did you know I was in the middle of a fight?" she asked.
"Something terrified you yesterday," he said, "and you do not frighten easily. You have never been afraid of me. Not at our first meeting, when I was so fast to choose violence. Not later, when rage still overtook me in fits."
He turned towards her, holding her gaze. "You are the only person I can remember who has never once looked at me in fear. I do not know what you were hiding from yesterday, but I know it was dangerous, and I know it was not me."
"That is because if you ever try to kill me, I will do my damnedest to kill you back, and that might end in me skinning you alive and turning you into a new pair of boots," Faye said. She regretted her outburst immediately. Too sardonic, too acrid. Words spoken in haste.
"Yes," Kratos said solemnly, no trace of sarcasm in his voice. "Other people are so frail. I cannot lose control of myself for even a single moment, so I cannot risk anything of myself for a single moment. With you… I can risk more."
"Oh."
Faye shuffled closer to him, and he sat up straight, leaning his palms against the side of the log. After a few more minutes of silence, she dropped her head against his shoulder.
"How did you fight it?" he asked, plucking a bramble from her hair.
"With a ritual. I took a massive dose of hallucinogens and got very, very high. Then I danced violently for fourteen hours, and passed out in the mud. I also brought a part of you with me, for strength."
"Hmph." He did not seem to think her story was strange. He extracted a small pinecone lodged in the collar of her dress and tossed it over the hill. "Are you satisfied with the outcome?"
"Yes. And no. I will face it again. But I will be ready, next time."
She and Loki had both survived. She had faced the Souls of the Slain and retained her sanity, but at a price. They had sunk their claws into her, and they would not let her go easily. For decades, she had envisioned herself as two parts: there was Faye the wife, a woman who lived a harmonious and satisfying life in the wilderness with a grumbling husband, and there was Laufey the warrior, a tigress lying in the grass, biding her time, waiting for the arrival of Loki to begin the last assault against the gods and throw open the gates of Jotunheim. She always thought the warrior was her true self, while the simple woman in the woods was a pleasant but temporary resting place, a pause before the call to arms. The Souls of Slain had complete leverage over the part of her that was the warrior Laufey because her needs and theirs were too closely aligned. They could dig into her, make their wants her own. They had overwhelmed this part of her almost immediately.
The Souls of the Slain had far less control over the woman that lived a calm and simple life in the Wildwoods of Midgard. This was the part of her identity, of her soul, that would have to become stronger if she was to face them again without crumbling to their influence. It was Faye, not Laufey, who could live with the vengeful souls nestled against her heart without becoming corrupted. She would need to cultivate a new power of will, different than what she had before; not the iron stranglehold of a warrior, but the tumbling flow of water.
"Kratos, I am sorry, for how I told you yesterday," Faye said. "My choice remains the same. Whatever you need to do now, for yourself, I understand. But… I would be very glad for you to walk this road with me. In whatever way you are willing, and able."
He stiffened and held in a long breath, but did not pull away, and did not stop picking the leaves and brambles out of her hair.
"You know what I am. You have chosen for yourself to stay near me, and you can choose to leave. A child who inherits my burden has no choice. I do not wish this pain on anyone unwilling, Faye."
They sat in silence for another few minutes, snow gathering over the pine needles and coating the roof of the outpost shelter. Clouds swallowed up the daylight and the view of the rising smoke from the cabin.
"I sometimes forget how deeply your fear runs," Faye said. "That you feel you have a mark you cannot escape it, that you carry a darkness that will follow you forever. It is easy for me to forget how much this haunts you, because I have never seen malevolence in you. I have seen sadness, and anger, but I have not seen a curse. Kratos… whatever is it you carried before, you put it down somewhere when you arrived in this land. And the longer you stay here, the more it fades."
She cupped the side of his face, and he let her turn it so they were looking into each other's eyes.
"I have never used any courage of force of will to look at you without fear," she said. "I have never seen anything within you to be afraid of."