We run long enough for the burns to calm down to smoldering coals, relatively speaking, and for me lungs to feel like they’re free and clear again. But the earthquake is getting worse—honestly, they’re never supposed to last this long. The ram form is a bit steadier than I would be on two legs, but even so, keeping upright is a challenge.
//Hurry// Bavaria tells me. //Almost there//
That’s a truth. A tunnel opens up less than a hundred yards from me, and once I get there I shift to human and cast camouflage, alert for ambushes. But the kobold I’m ushered to is not as paranoid as the others—he’s too deeply involved in manipulating the earth—and he’s easy to dispatch as a result. The earthquake subsides almost immediately afterward, and the last two I’m forced to chase are simply running away when I find them, because they must have figured out that their brothers all met bad ends. I would have said they learned their lesson and let them go, but Bavaria insists that I hunt them down, and I can’t say no. It wants the kobolds to know that there will be no mercy for messing with the earth like that. But I have to pursue them underneath the mountains to their hidey-holes.
Hours later, when it’s done and I emerge from my subterranean shenanigans on the side of some peak, I have no desire to go spelunking anymore or even try a subway. I’d rather see the sky, meself. I collapse and stretch out, bathing in the sun and enjoying the fields of treetops and meadows rolling beneath me, all bonny and blithe.
//You are beautiful// I tell Bavaria.
//Gratitude / Please visit at length / Enjoy my lands//
//Harmony// I says, and I think to meself I’d work to exhaustion every day for a view like this. There is peace to be found in unspoiled land.
I don’t know how unspoiled it will remain. I imagine that we’re getting quite close to the world’s biggest demonstration of the First Law of Owen, and I worry about Greta and me apprentices, even though they should be safe in Flagstaff soon. For the first time, I wish I had one of those fecking cell phones, just to check on them.
And the next time I see Sam and Ty fighting kobolds on a screen, I’m going to tell them their video game monsters are shite.
mhathini turned out to be a completely sweet person who’d rather do anything in the world than see her father or brother again. She did have a passport and Laksha had left her all her financial information, essentially transferring many lifetimes of wealth to Mhathini’s care, so she was also abruptly wealthy, unbeknownst to her family. But she had no idea how to remain in Ireland legally for more than a few months or indeed if she even wanted to remain there.
We hopped into Laksha’s rental and I drove her to Cork.
“I think you will find that money is the ultimate freedom,” I said, “while the lack of it is often a prison.”
“Yes, I can see the truth of that. I was dependent on my family and they were…unpleasant to live with. I felt trapped.” Her face tightened in frustration before she muttered, “But I guess I’m free now.”
“Indeed you are. You can fly anywhere, rent a place for a few months, and move on. I lived that way for centuries. Your family will never find you unless you wish it; minimize your online footprint and always use an alias for everything. Whenever you feel the least bit nervous, fly away to the next place. And when you find someplace you wish to stay, then you can take the time to arrange for a visa or permanent resident status.”
I took her to a bank to make sure she could successfully wire funds and remain flush for a while, then I gave her my contact information, bid her farewell, and returned the rental car. There was a television screen blaring in the rental car office with news of strange eruptions in Taiwan, Japan, the Bavarian Alps, and elsewhere. No solid numbers on injuries or fatalities; just unprecedented seismic activity with no warning. Seismologists and geologists were baffled. Rumors were trickling in of other wild phenomena occurring around the globe, but nothing verified yet.
I wondered if these news organizations would send reporters to the scene to get live footage from the sites—and as soon as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer was yes. People sitting at home or in pubs or airports or even car rental agencies would soon be able to watch some hapless journalist planted in front of howling madness saying, “As you can see from the utter batshit unfolding behind me, the situation is pretty dire, and I can’t believe my boss sent me into the middle of this insanity. That’s it. I bloody quit.”
Well, if they thought that was unusual, wait until they saw what was going to happen next in Scandinavia. It would be far more dark and dire than any Swedish crime drama.
When I’d made my first ill-fated shift to the Norse planes, I learned that the primary tether to the World Tree, Yggdrasil, was located in Sweden, “to the east” of Norway as it was set down in the Eddas, but not all that far east, relatively speaking. That tether point—or I suppose I should say that root of the World Tree—led straight down to the spring of Hvergelmir, and it was from that spot in Sweden where, if Mekera’s tyromancy was correct, the host of Hel would emerge and Ragnarok would begin in earnest.
Mekera’s divination had yet to fail me. I hoped she had called Fiyori by now.
The tethered tree was on the shore of a small pond near Skoghall, Sweden, on the northern shore of Lake Vänern. As soon as I shifted in, I scanned the area in the magical spectrum and saw a big glowing glob of juju off to the south. That’s the direction I headed, and I soon discovered it was the mustering grounds of the Fae host—and it was also a swanky eighteen-hole golf course. It must have been here before, when Granuaile and I had plunged through the surface of the pond with Freyja and it turned out to be a portal down to Niflheim, but we’d sailed over it in the night and I never realized. The pond wasn’t one of the water traps of the course; it was off the course itself, just to the north of it, and probably had some kind of stream connecting it to Lake Vänern.
The Fae hadn’t used the same bound tree as I had; there was another one on the golf course, newly tethered, near where they were massed, and as I drew closer, I saw more and more of the Fae shifting in and sorting themselves into ranks. I had no idea if they were sent by Brighid or by Fand; Fand’s presence would mean that Owen’s mission had at least partially succeeded, but until she fought on Brighid’s behalf and at her request, nothing was certain.
I veered off to one side as I neared the host. I was still the Iron Druid, after all, and not welcome among them. My aura would destroy them on touch. I did wave to the nearest one, however, and beckon her to come forward, signaling via drawn knots in the air that I promised safety.
The flying faery inched forward cautiously, and once I felt she was in shouting distance, I held up a hand to allow her to stop in safety and listen.
“Please inform the host I am here to fight alongside the Fae, for Ireland, Tír na nÓg, and all the Fae planes!”
She nodded and flitted away, and that would suffice. Word would spread quickly, and hopefully I wouldn’t have to stare down a volley of arrows at any point.
I settled down to wait. The unfortunate reality was that we could only react to whatever Loki manifested at this point; we couldn’t plan for anything, except to be ready for his arrival, since both he and Hel were protected from divination. Which meant Loki and Hel might not show up here at all; it was only the vast host of Hel and her uncountable draugar that would appear for certain. Nothing else about the prophesied sequence of Ragnarok could be assured. I had made sure of that when I killed the Norns. And Fenris the wolf, and Jörmungandr.
It was certainly a much larger show already than the original Norse conception. As I sat on the putting green of one of the holes, my meditative consultation with the elemental confirmed as much. In the African countries that comprised Yorubaland, the Orishas, led by Shango, were fighting the Ajogun. Ganesha and the Hindu pantheon manifested in India to beat back the surge of rakshasas and other demons there. Flidais was in Japan, fighting alongside the Shinto deities against a floodtide of oni. Granuaile was fighting alongside Sun Wukong against the Yama Kings in Taiwan. And there were many more such conflicts, some of them arranged by Loki but others arising because someone with a chaotic streak in their personality saw an opportunity.