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  Liz crawled deeper into the shadows under the table. There was a platter under here. A huge one, that had obviously got lost in the melee. Well, so Gold-teeth and Odin wanted the horn back. It was not her heartfelt desire to oblige the bastard. And it was still smoky, half-dark and chaotic out there. She wanted to follow Jerry, to find out where they were going to put him. There was something to be said for a weedy academic who would take on a whole hall full of these warrior types with a two-by-two for her. That something was probably "crazy idiot," but still.

  She bit her lip. Explaining what she was doing kissing Gold-teeth might just be interesting.

  She crawled out from under the table, held the horn under the platter and set off toward the doors where Odin was heading, hoping Heimdall didn't spot her. Risking a quick glance back she saw most of the people in that area of the hall were on hands and knees. Horn hunting, no doubt.

  The trouble was that there were a lot of doors in the wall at the hall end, just below Jerry's gallery. At least three of them were possible, but if she hesitated she was probably lost anyway. So she walked through the nearest one. And nearly collided with a load of more boiled pork. This plainly led to the kitchens. One of the thralls looked at her and the empty platter and pointed with an elbow to a stair leading down off to her left. "Scullery."

  She had very little choice but to go into it, or crash into half a boiled pig. The passage wasn't wide enough for both of them. And there were more food-carriers coming.

  The scullery stair was obviously not the main access to that area, as there was no traffic. She might find somewhere to stash this horn. She couldn't come out of the kitchen doors with an empty platter. She walked down and round. And collided with a ragged thrall. The platter and Heimdall's horn were knocked flying.

  "What are you doing with that?" demanded the thrall, in a very un-thrall female voice. "That's that jerk Heimdall's Gjallarhorn. How did you get that?"

  Liz was grabbed by a pair of strong hands. Very strong hands. She tried to pull free and failed. "Let go, damn you!"

  The thrall snorted. "Not until I work out where you're running off to with Gjallarhorn. Asgard needs it, even if I don't need Gold-teeth."

  "I don't need him either," said Liz, shuddering. "I have to agree with what Thor said about the creep this morning. And you can have the horn. I just took it to spite him."

  The ferociously strong grip on Liz's wrists eased slightly. "You saw Papa-Thor this morning?"

  "Yeah. We brought him back from . . . watchamacallit . . . Geirrodur's castle." The part about "Papa" registered. "Thor is your father?" asked Liz incredulously.

  "I think," said the woman holding her, "that we need to talk. There is a storeroom back there. Do you have anything to do with the black-elf that Sif had kidnapped? That made Papa-Thor stop drinking?"

  Liz nodded. "Yes. That's why I'm here. To try and find her. Now let's get into this storeroom before they find us."

  The "thrall" let go of her and scooped up the horn. "This way."

  It was only few yards to the unobtrusive door. "In here."

  The door closed. It was pitch dark in there. "Who are you? I did not know my father had any friends among Odin's Valkyries." The voice was thick with suspicion.

  "I'm not a Valkyrie. I just disguised myself as one to come and look for Marie. And my boyfriend."

  There was a long silence. Then Thor's daughter said, "Are you quite crazy?"

  "I think I am," said Liz ruefully. "I didn't realize that it was a bulls party, and that I was dressing up as hooker. But what are you doing here? And what do you know about Marie? And who are you actually?"

  There was another long silence. Finally the other person replied. "I'm Thrúd. I thought that was obvious. And what I'm doing here is my business." Her voice was stiff with a "don't ask" tone. "But I can tell you what has happened to the black-elf woman. One-eye has sent her to lie inside the wall of flame, like the Valkyrie Brynhild."

  "He's killed her?"

  "No. She lies as if dead, but she is not. She is somewhere between death and life. She will lie like that forever, unbreathing, but undying, untouched by the passing of days, forever, until the Time itself."

  "Where . . . Lamont will go spare. Is there any way of getting to her? Of waking her?"

  "Oh yes," said Thrúd. "If you can get to her. She lies in a great hall on a mountaintop in Midgard, guarded by a wall of flame. If the thorn of sleep is drawn out of her neck she will wake to be the bride of the hero that has dared this mighty deed."

  "Her husband is going to be mighty unimpressed, if it's anyone but him," said Liz dryly. "But at least she's not dead. I'm less sure about Jerry."

  "Jerry?"

  "My boyfriend," said Liz. "Your one-eyed friend took him off to question. He was just going to check on someone called Loki first."

  "Then we'd all better get out of here," said another voice, nearly startling Liz out of ten years' growth.

  "Uncle Fox!" said Thrúd incredulously.

  A flame flared in the darkness. Liz found herself looking at an impish grin that dominated an otherwise handsome but scarred face. "Liz, I presume?" he said coolly. "And my little Thrúd." There was considerably more warmth in that.

  Thrúd hugged him.

  "Easy on my ribs, girl. You don't know your own strength."

  "Where is Sigyn?" demanded Thrúd. "If you've left her behind . . ."

  "Behind these boxes," said a female voice.

  Loki looked at Heimdall's horn. "Payment for services rendered? We were watching your little carouse from the gallery."

  Liz swallowed. "It wasn't what it looked like," she said. "And now if you'll excuse me I must go and see if I can get Jerry free."

  Loki shook his head, and put himself between her and the door. "Explain what it was then," he said, standing there with his arms crossed. "Before you go out and call One-eye and his henchmen down on us."

  Liz shrugged, feeling herself coloring. "I got dressed up in this Valkyrie outfit and came across from Thor's home to look for Marie and Jerry. I didn't . . . quite realize what I might be in for. Heimdall pulled me onto his lap when I tried to walk past. So . . . I played the part. And tried to get him fall-down drunk. We were having down-downs competitions out of this stupid horn. Only I kept pulling the plug out, while, uh, distracting him," she coughed, "and letting the drink run out, before I pretended to drink it. See. The side of my dress is soaked."

  "And then?" said Sigyn, coming out from behind the boxes.

  "Then I saw Jerry, and that ass decided to rape me. Jerry came to rescue me, I got knocked under the table. And the lights went out."

  "My work," said Loki. "When Helblindi thinks about it, he'll realize that. And then?"

  "Then the guy with one eye was there. I was under a table with the horn, and I saw them take Jerry away. More to stop Gold-teeth from finding this horn of his than anything else—One-eye told him to—I hid it under a meat platter and tried to follow them. But I took the wrong door and collided with Thrúd. She brought me in here."

  Loki looked at Sigyn. "Well, I don't know. I suppose it is possible. Look, we'll take you with us. And the horn. That's a prize and a half."

  "Leave me behind," said Liz.

  Loki shook his head. "When Odin finds I am gone there will be a manhunt such as Asgard has never seen. Jerry, to whom we have sworn an oath, will be guarded by enough of the Einherjar to stop Thor, let alone you. But that horn might do for the ransom."

  Thrúd looked a little doubtfully at it. "Maybe," she said, "but Ragnarok comes. And the Ás will need the horn, Uncle Fox. "

  Loki's eyes danced in the flame-light. "Ah. But I reached a compromise with Jerry, Thrúd. A compromise that will hopefully avoid the need for Ragnarok entirely. It does rather depend on getting this Jerry free to fulfill his side of the bargain. If I swap the horn for Jerry, I won't mind, because Gold-teeth won't need to use it. It'll do him no good."

  Thrúd still looked doubtful. "I suppose we can take it along,"
she said, reluctantly. "But I don't trust you, Uncle Fox. I like you, yes, but I don't trust you. Not that you always cause ill on purpose," she condescended, "but it does follow you around."

  "But you can trust me, Thrúd," said Sigyn practically. "And this Midgarder did convince me. I agreed. I will settle for vengeance on those who killed Narfi, and who bespelled Váli. If I can have that without Ragnarok, so be it."

  Thrúd raised her eyebrows. "That makes this 'Jerry' the most valuable hostage in the nine worlds."

  "That's the way it should be," said Liz.

  "The way it should be is that we get out of here," said Loki. "With Gjallarhorn, or he's doomed and not worth anything."

  Thrúd nodded. "Through the kitchens. I wish we had horses, but we'll just have to steal some from the Einherjar."

  "Lodin gave me your little mare to ride over here," said Liz guiltily. "She's lovely."

  Thrúd blinked. "Old Stumpy let you ride Snowy?"

  "Yes. I'm sorry. He did make special arrangements for her to be looked after."

  Thrúd shook her head. "It's all right. I'm just surprised."

  "Well, can you be surprised later," said Loki impatiently. "I hear shouting."

  Liz did too.

  "Put the horn in that little kettle," Thrúd said decisively.

  The "kettle" was what Liz would have called a pot. And yes, it was black, and so were the contents. Loki picked it up, frowned, and said, "You'd better take it. I might need to organize a distraction."

  "No wholesale destruction," said Thrúd.

  "I had thought of setting the kitchen ablaze."

  Sigyn and Thrúd raised their eyes to heaven.

  "No," said Liz firmly, pushing him ahead of her. "Jerry is somewhere in the building. And if part catches fire, it will all burn."

  "The fires under the pork," said Sigyn. "And make everything else go out."

  Loki smiled nastily. "It'll be a pleasure to ruin their dinners anyway. Let's go."

  Liz found herself hustled down the passage. There was definitely something going on in the main hall. It sounded like an enormous disturbed beehive.

  At the door to the acre of kitchen—a well-orchestrated bedlam of fires and enormous pots, spits and other mysterious implements of torture—Loki paused. He fixed his gaze on a huge black pot in the corner. It reminded Liz more than anything else of one of those cartoon pots that had four missionaries boiling in it.

  The pot erupted into a fountain of flames. Loki shrugged apologetically to the others. "Spontaneous pork combustion. Walk. Don't run."

  With the kitchen staff trying to put out the fire in the pot, and smoke as thick as tar pouring from it, and the torches and fires in the place somehow burning less well than they had been, they edged their way to a small door at the back, and out into a passage that led to the stables. They paused in the doorway.

  By the sounds of it, the stable hands had already adjourned for the night to the hayloft with some beer. The Einherjar obviously did not go night-riding.

  Loki transformed into an owl, fluttered up to a trapdoor and obviously took a look around. He transformed again on the ladder as Liz tried to persuade her brain not to disbelieve her eyes. The Mythworlds were hell on a hardened empirical scientist. Still, it was useful to have someone quietly close the trapdoor, and take the ladder down.

  They walked the horses out as quietly as possible, and two minutes later were on the grassy slope leading back to Bilskríner.

  Chapter 20

  The one-eyed god shook Jerry so hard that he was afraid his head would come off. "Where has he gone?" he demanded, bubbly spittle spraying Jerry.

  There was no point in trying to pretend that he didn't know who Odin was talking about, and anyway Jerry was less than sure that he cared. He didn't really care about anything right now. He thought it very odd that this hall decked with shields seemed to look like a weedy parking lot with the very recognizable Museum of Science and Industry in the background. If only the pain would end.

  The one-eyed god stared at him furiously. "Who stabbed him?"

  "It must have happened in the melee, Allfather," said a distant voice.

  "Hel. I need answers out of him. I can't let him die yet. Get me Idun. And put him down on that bench. I will need my gambanteinn. . . ."

  And it all faded into darkness. Noisy darkness, with occasional visions of a sunny parking lot, with dandelion heads nodding, spreading their seed like drifting stars across the great darkness. Then there was a taste of spring, scents and flavors he'd never known that he'd encountered, but stirring things from the recesses of his mind. Smells of wet dogs, and mushrooms and blossoms, and somehow the icy freshness of a water drunk from a mountain stream. It was from somewhere in his youth. Somewhere very early in life with his grandfather, and his grandfather's dog, neither of which he had a conscious memory of. Something had triggered all these things with a feeling of wellness . . . and apple.

  Apple? He wasn't even that fond of apples. Well, not store-bought ones. He could remember, now, picking one and eating it straight from the tree, together with an old man with white hair and a wet dog that seemed to grin at him. This apple in his mouth tasted more like that. He chewed, weakly, and the juice flowed into his mouth.

  Somehow with it came strength. Not a lot, but enough to chew again.

  He'd been stabbed. Surely he shouldn't be eating? He swallowed the juice anyway. It was both sweet and tart, and something about it had brought an old man and his spaniel out of a photograph he'd barely remembered back to mind. Jerry's grandfather had died before Jerry turned four. So why was he giving his grandson an apple again? This one was even better tasting than that one had been. Jerry swallowed the mouthful. He could remember, now, that he'd implicitly trusted the old man. So he swallowed. It was all an illusion anyway. He was dying. Funny. He hadn't realized that you'd feel better when you died. He opened his eyes to see if there really was a clear white light at the end.

  The woman was beautiful enough to be an angel, which was awkward for a self-avowed atheist. But Odin, standing behind, her bore no similarity to either Jerry's grandfather, or Saint Peter.

  "You have some questions to answer," said Odin grimly.

  "Not until he has finished eating the apple," said the woman, her voice calm and sweet. She handed him an apple, with one slice off it. "Eat," she said.

  So Jerry took a bite. He just hoped that Idun's apple wouldn't take him all the way back to teen acne again. But he was sure that it had brought him back from the very brink of death. He chewed very slowly and very deliberately. He might not have a lot of time to think after this. Besides, it was a very good apple.

  "Thank you," he said, once he'd swallowed. "It is the best apple I've ever eaten."

  She dimpled. "Asgard forgets. Enjoy," and she walked away.

  Jerry took another bite. Odin wasn't going to wait for him to finish it though. He grabbed Jerry again, and lifted him with two hands by the remains of Jerry's jacket. "Where. Is. Loki?" he hissed into Jerry's face.

  Jerry still had half of the apple in his hand and a fair amount in his mouth. And this apple was just too precious to waste. He managed to push it into his pocket, and store the bite in his cheek. Jerry was sure Loki would not still be on the gallery. "Minstrel's gallery," he managed to gasp out.