The Stone of Sorrow Page 8

It is a black rock, smooth as glass, big as a boat, and as I get closer, I can see that the ground on the far side of the rock is littered with the skeletons and bones of people and creatures who tried to pass.

  I know there is more to this rock than what my eyes can see. I suspect this is a fairy rock, but whatever it is, I cannot advance past it without more information. But I cannot retreat either. Fairies have a phenomenal sense of smell.

  I crouch on the ground among the bones. I’ll have to try an illumination spell to see if there’s a message on the rock.

  I whisper to my runes. “Let me see what is hidden,” I say, tossing them at my feet. They clatter together and some figures appear on the rock. It’s a fairy language, I think, but I cannot read it.

  As I speak to my runes again, I feel a slight vibration in the earth. Whatever lives here is coming. “Please,” I whisper. “Let me understand what is written.” I cast the runes again, and this time the figures on the rock change, and a message written in runes appears.

  “All who seek to pass have no fear but to ask. Seek permission and go unharmed,” I say, reading the message out loud.

  Is it a trick? Fairies are known for such tricks.

  I take a breath as the rumbling intensifies. I can hear tiny voices chittering now, building to a frenzy.

  “Please,” I call out. “May I pass by your rock? I mean no harm.”

  The voices quiet. I gather my runes and edge closer to the rock.

  I have no choice now but to act on faith that I will not be harmed.

  “Thank you,” I whisper as I make my way around it.

  I want to look behind me, as I feel a strong presence at my heels.

  But I know I must resist. I know that if I look back, the fairies who own this land might devour me in tiny pieces.

  I don’t look back, and I do not stop until I am deep into the forest cover.

  At last I find a large hollow stump and crawl inside. I stuff a few pieces of dried fish into my mouth and chew, getting them down before I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep, lulled by the sound of the trees swaying overhead, and my own beating heart.

  I wake with a start a few hours later, and for a moment I swear I am back in my room at my clifftop dwelling. My vision is hazy, but I can see Sýr moving beyond the sheepskin curtain, and I can smell the faint scent of porridge.

  “Sýr?” As I say her name, the image disappears, the world transforming back into the forest, the stump, the damp air. The ground beneath me is so cold that my leg bones ache. I must do a better job of finding sleeping places. And I know I must rethink walking at night. The encounter with Katla and Falleg at the crossroads is reason enough, and who knows what else I will meet in the darkness.

  For now it’s still day, later in the afternoon from the looks of the sky, though it’s hard to tell with the tree cover and the red hue.

  I crawl out from the stump, my chest aching with the movement. Slowly, I pull off my boots and unwrap my feet, wincing as the skin on both heels sloughs off where large blisters popped during my night’s walk. Sýr’s healing salve will help, so I slather it on before lining my boots with thick leaves to try to reduce the space. I clench my teeth as I stuff my stinging feet back inside.

  My stomach growls, my body ignoring the urgency of my journey. It wants to eat and to eliminate, and I have to take care of both. Once I’ve relieved myself, groaning as I finally empty my full bladder, I set about getting something to eat.

  Rather than dip into my supplies of dried fish again, I decide to forage in the area around my stump. Before long I find a patch of kale, which I detest, but I rip the greens from the ground anyway and tear off pieces to chew on. The bitter, leathery leaves stick in my throat. A crowberry bush nearby yields a couple handfuls of berries, which I stuff into my mouth. They’re not quite ripe yet, and they’re so sour they make my eyes water. As I chew I glance around, unnerved by the feeling that this forest may have eyes. Everything is so much scarier when you’re alone.

  I hear some chirping overhead and see there’s a bird’s nest in the tree above my stump. I clamber onto the rotting top of the stump and brace myself against the tree. I hoist myself up, shimmy to the next pair of branches, and peek into the nest.

  Two baby birds chirp at me, so new they are still sticky with gunk and bits of shell. They’re an easy meal, a bit of meat, but as they peer at me from their dark bird eyes, the pupils shining like lava stones, I can’t help but think of Núna. I tell myself the birds would be too much trouble. I’d have to clean and cook them, and I don’t have time.

  “Sorry to bother you,” I say to the birds, being careful now not to disturb the nest any further. I don’t want their mother to abandon them.

  I’m wasting time here, and I need to find some water. I didn’t bring anything to drink other than whey and mead, so I gulp down half the whey before shouldering my pack again. My mouth feels dry, and my lips are flaking.

  As I set off into the trees, consulting my vegvisir to ensure I am still going in the right direction, I remind myself of Amma’s warnings. She always said the forest is full of mystery. During our long talks, Amma would tell me there is more to the surface world of dirt and bugs and trees and animals. There is another world, one we don’t always see, but that a person trained in magic can recognize if they have the gift. I asked her once if I had that gift, but she just smiled at me. For someone people went to for answers, my amma sure liked to make me figure things out for myself.

  As I pass beside rings of toadstools, I hear my amma’s voice in my mind, warning me never to step inside one lest I be condemned to an eternity in the realm of fairies. Amma said there’s no telling what horrors the fairies would subject me to, and I do not want to find out.

  “Amma, protect me now,” I whisper, touching the vegvisir clasp on my cloak. My fear is getting to me. A forest witch could be concealed behind each dark tree and within each long shadow. These are not the runecasting witches of my ancestors, and they’re not even the evil kind that Katla seems to be. No, these are older, darker, indifferent beings. If I attract their curiosity, I could become their slave.

  I feel my runes bumping against my chest in their pouch. I cradle them with my free hand. “Guide me. Help me find Sýr.”

  I reach the boundary of the trees a few hours later, and the sky is beginning to darken. As I step from under the tree cover, the rains hit me. I pull my cloak hood up and wrap it around me until it is tight.

  “Sól,” I say, invoking the sun rune. “I call upon you for warmth.” My runes reward me with a bit of heat.

  As I look out onto the open plain, I see a creature poke its head out of the tall grass in the west. It might be a fox. At least, I hope it’s a fox. It could be a skoffin, which would be very bad for me. I look away, just in case.

  When I was little, some village children wandered too far from home. Their mothers went to find them and discovered the children dead. There were no obvious signs of harm, no evidence that they had eaten poison. Nothing was amiss. A wise woman from the village said it must have been a skoffin.

  To look into a skoffin’s eyes is to die in an instant. These enchanted cat-foxes are difficult to kill, because you cannot ever look directly at them. Few people have encountered a skoffin and lived, for it is a malevolent servant of evil. If there are skoffins here, then they’re Katla’s doing.

  The creature disappears, and I choose to think it was a fox, as much to quell my own fear as anything. I must focus on the next steps. Which way to go?

  “Guide me,” I say to my vegvisir, but when I look at it, the compass swirls erratically, not settling on a single direction.

  I am unsure whether I should go east or west around the badlands that lie to the direct north of me. The vegvisir is not helping.

  I take my runes out and cast them onto the grass at my feet. “Please show me the way.”

  Half the runes point to the east, and half to the west.

  “Andskotinn!” I shout, cursing my predicament
, and a flock of birds flies out from the trees behind me.

  I close my eyes, picturing Sýr in my mind. Her dark hair, her smooth skin, her kind smile.

  “Please help me find my sister,” I whisper.

  When I open my eyes, my runes are all facing north. My vegvisir is also facing north. Right toward the badlands.

  I sigh. No one ventures through the badlands if they can help it, and they don’t do it alone. It’s the most dangerous area of the island, as so little is known about it. Beyond are glaciers, crevasses, and lava fields, but to reach even those dangerous places, you have to pass through a barren land of rock. It sounds safe enough, but it’s like walking through a graveyard. It’s where the ghosts of the banished go to live out eternity.

  “How? Why?” I ask my runes, but this is not the kind of question they answer.

  A beam of sunlight appears through the cloudy sky, and the open face of the land affords a beautiful display of my homeland’s strange weather. It can be radically different depending on where you are. Today on the flats, I see sun on my left and a sheet of rain on the right. Two completely different weather conditions, split down the middle by the dangerous path I must take alone.

  As I contemplate this, the rain to the east shimmers and I see a body walking through it, parting the water like a curtain. Am I seeing this, or is my perspective skewed by a trick of the light?

  The walker is dark and hunched over. Another elf? Katla?

  My heart starts to pound in my chest, the pain making me wince, and I gather my runes in haste and ready my spear.

  As the figure hobbles closer, I see that it is an old woman. Could it be a forest witch?

  “Halt,” I call out. The old woman stops and looks at me. She smiles, and I can see there is nothing yellow or Katla-like about her. Yet.

  “Hallo,” she says.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “I am alone,” she answers. “And lost.” She looks around in confusion. She does not appear to be carrying any bags, and I do not see any weapons.

  “Where do you hail from?” I ask.

  “I…I live…” She trails off, lost in thought. “I’m not sure,” she says at last. “My mind isn’t what it used to be.”

  A little bird flits from a nearby bush and alights on her head for a second.

  “Oh,” says the old woman. “Hallo, little friend.”

  The bird flies off, and the old woman watches it. “I love birds, don’t you?” she asks.

  I nod, not sure if this is a trick, but I do know that dark witches tend to cause everything around them to rot and die, preferring the company of wicked things. Lovely little birds don’t land on the heads of evil, do they?

  “Say, I don’t mean to be trouble,” says the old woman. “But I don’t know where I am, or when I last ate, or what I’m going to do next. I’m not even sure of who I am. Or how I got here.”

  “Well,” I begin, “that must be terrible.”

  “Could you help me?” she asks.

  I hesitate. “I’d like to,” I say. “I can’t take you anywhere, for I am finding my way myself. But you may have some of my food.”

  I pull a hunk of dried fish from my pouch and reach out to hand it to her with a shaking arm. I wish my nerves didn’t betray me so, but the old woman takes it with a grateful smile.

  “Bless you, child,” she says, munching into the fish. “Mmm. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  “Oh!” exclaims the old woman. “I remember now.”

  She finishes the last of the fish, throws off her threadbare old cloak, and somehow seems to double in height. She loses the visage of the old woman altogether, revealing a tall figure clad all in black, from flowing garments to thick cloak.

  I stagger backward, taking in the massive height and gleaming silver helmet. The face as smooth as white stone. Eyes of an impenetrable black. There is no trace left of the old woman and I am awestruck by the majesty of the entity looming above me.

  “I… I…” I cannot speak.

  “I am Oski,” says the being. “You have released me from a forgetting spell with your kindness.” They bow, their long legs folding into sharp angles. I can see now that the helmet they wear is decorated with the marks of wings and wind.

  “What are you?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

  “I am Oski,” they repeat. “What are you?”

  “Runa,” I say, my voice trembling.

  “Everything in nature resembles itself, Runa,” Oski says, rising again. “A cloud is a god is a pile of wool is a bank of snow is a swirl of white water is your breath in the air. You are this and that and when.”

  “When?” I ask. What do they mean?

  “Yes. When are you?” Oski asks.

  “Um, I am now,” I say.

  “Are you?” Oski asks. “Hmm.”

  “Please,” I say. “I am confused.”

  “All is well,” says Oski. “You are Runa. I am Oski. I am here to serve you on your journey. You are on a quest, yes?” Oski motions at my pack and my spear.

  I nod. There is something about this Oski, something familiar, but I cannot place it. It’s like we’ve met before, but I cannot remember when or how. It’s there on the edge of my mind.

  Oski nods at me. “Yes, Runa.”

  Can this strange character hear my thoughts?

  Oski nods again. “Don’t worry, not every thought. The ones that matter, that pertain to me.”

  “And you know me?” I ask.

  “I do,” they say. “And your grandmother. And your grandmother’s grandmother.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, I’ve taken them all to Freyja’s Field.”

  Their statement swirls in my mind. Freyja’s Field. The afterlife. I realize, with a sudden and violent clarity, who it is that stands before me.

  “Valkyrie,” I say, the word rushing from me in a breathless gasp.

  Oski grins, standing taller, before faltering a bit. “Former Valkyrie.”

  “Former?” I ask. But I don’t wait for an answer. I have to know about Amma. “You saw my amma? She is safe in the afterlife?”

  Oski nods. “For now.”

  “What does that mean, for now?”

  “It means that what happens with your quest matters a great deal. The moonstone cannot be possessed by the witch Katla.” Oski stares at me hard with those dark eyes.

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  “That doesn’t matter now. We should go. Time is moving around on us.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Runa, we.” Oski cocks their head at me in curiosity.

  Can I trust this powerful being? I’ve never heard of a Valkyrie being present in mortal realms unless they were choosing the slain to be taken to Valhalla.

  “Where is your horse?” I ask.

  “Gone,” says Oski, their voice sad.

  “Your wings?” I ask.

  “Gone,” Oski says again. “Taken.”

  “By whom?”

  Oski smiles, their expression wistful. “A tale for another time,” they say.

  I take a breath. Something tells me I will not be able to convince this Oski to leave me alone, and there is no way I can defeat a Valkyrie, former or not, wingless and horseless or not, in battle. Oski is huge, and though they seem to be kind and gentle now, the Valkyries are known to be bloodthirsty. This being has a plan, and it includes me. I will have to let them accompany me for now.

  “And then?” asks Oski, interrupting my thoughts. “You’ll get rid of me?” They laugh, the sound a disturbing echo across the flats.

  “If you want to come,” I say, “you’ll have to stop doing that.” I am shocked at how bold I’m acting, but I don’t have the time to be polite. I need to find my sister.

  Oski puts up their hands. “On my word,” they say.

  I clasp my runes. “To keep you in truth,” I say. I whisper to them and scatter them at Oski’s feet. “Show me honesty,” I instruct. The runes
shimmer for a moment, and then I scoop them back up.

  I look at Oski, who is regarding me warily. “What do you want with me?” I ask.

  Oski opens their mouth to speak, hesitates, then sighs. “Revenge,” they say at last.

  “Against whom?” I ask.

  “Against the god who betrayed us all.” Oski’s voice has taken on a dark tone, and I can see the anger radiating from within their body.

  “Which god?” I ask, scared to hear the answer.

  “Odin himself,” Oski says.

  I nod. Oski must be insane to want revenge on Odin, but as long as they are willing to help me on my journey, I can stand to trust them a little. I regard them for a moment.

  “Will you harm me?” I ask at last.

  “Never,” says Oski. “I will skin myself alive first.”

  “I doubt that will be necessary,” I say, sounding far more confident than I am, “but as long as you behave, you may come with me.”

  Oski smiles, their bright white teeth shining like the inside of a shell.

  “Which way?” Oski asks.

  I point ahead to the badlands, and Oski gasps.

  “You are a brave one, runecaster.”

  “I’m not a real runecaster,” I say.

  Oski shrugs. “If you say so.”

  The sky is darker now, and we agree to walk through the night, following the constellations. The red moon is higher in the sky. The days are getting shorter, the nights seemingly endless.

  I speak to my runes in a whisper they alone can hear, and I power them with my intentions.

  “Help me be worthy of you,” I say, as much to them as to Sýr, wherever she is. I hope she can hear me.

  We walk for hours, not saying much. Oski leads the way because it makes me uncomfortable to have them behind me and because they stride forth with such a menacing gait that anything ahead on the path will run away.

  We stop at last in a field of large boulders, and Oski wants to talk.

  “Tell me about the runes,” they say, kicking a long leg out to stoke the small fire we’ve made.

  I want to eat and go to sleep, but the presence of a Valkyrie has me on edge.

  “What do you want to know?” I ask between sips of moss soup. The deep night is cold and the ground even colder. It seems as though we are surrounded by stones, and even the sky could be made of rock for all we know. If it were not for the presence of the red moon overhead, I would have thought we were in a tomb. The world is a graveyard.