Chapter Twenty-Six
SIV RARELY SPOKE. Tyra didn’t talk that much herself, at least she didn’t think she did, but all her life she had lived in the skald’s house where Ragnar, or her father, had told stories. Both of them had passed on, now.
It was just Siv and her left. Just the two of them.
Siv was already halfway down on the other side of the hill by the time Tyra reached the top, and she skipped down the hill, over the wet leaves. Descents were the best, because she could run in a rhythm that made it seem as if she were a horse. And her legs didn’t feel tired because she wasn’t a girl anymore; she was a horse. The noises were fun to make too. But Siv didn’t want her to be loud, so she only made the sounds in her head.
Halfway down the hill was a hut, hidden between the trees.
Siv had already reached the hut. Tyra galloped towards it. The closer she came, the better she saw the hut. Runes were carved into the walls and on the roof, too. They were everywhere, on top of each other, some coloured with blood and some not.
A mutter came from the front of the hut, where Siv had disappeared, and when Tyra turned the corner, she saw the runemistress who lived there, pressed up against the side of her hut, hands high above her, holding a dagger and carving a rune into the edge of the roof.
The woman didn’t acknowledge them; didn’t notice them at all. Her hair was messy, as if she didn’t own a comb, and her clothes were edged with fur instead of silk. Tyra didn’t understand why anyone would want to dress that way.
Her clothes looked as if they hadn’t been washed in weeks, and so did she. Her skin was dirty and she smelled.
Siv put their things up against the outer wall. ‘We’ll sleep here,’ she said and entered the hut, not even glancing at the woman, who was muttering the names of runes as she carved, as though in a trance.
Tyra had often seen runemistresses in Ash-hill, but she had never been this near one before. Since she had been marked by battle, she supposed it was all right to walk this close to someone who had learnt the runes, but she still tried not to stare too much. Her mother had told her how dangerous those who had learnt the runes could be.
This woman did look dangerous. Around her neck bindrunes were painted in black, the kind that were pushed into the skin with needles, like warriors got after they had killed for the first time. Tyra would be allowed one around her wrist, and on her shoulder as well. She had spilled her first blood and she had been in her first big battle too. Tyra shook her head to dismiss the thoughts of the battle before she could think about her parents.
She focused back on the strange woman in front of her.
The runemistress had black images everywhere on her skin. Her fingers had runes and her wrists had several too, though they were different from the ones the warriors had. All the markings were runes and bindrunes. Some of them were also crooked as though she had done them herself. And around her left wrist hung a twisted silver arm-ring. A small piece of it had been chopped off, similar to how Hilda had chopped a piece off her arm-ring last summer when they had been in Alebu, throwing axes.
Hoping the scary runemistress wouldn’t notice her, Tyra hurried inside the tiny hut after Siv.
The home was as strange as the woman. Tyra had never seen the house of a seeress or runemistress before. It was a lot smaller than what she had imagined. Seeresses were always so certain of everything and so powerful, and Tyra had always assumed they lived in great halls surrounded by servants, or perhaps nowhere at all.
Inside were more runes. On the floorboards, the walls, the ceiling, the table, the benches. Runes everywhere; the old kinds, the new ones, and bindrunes too.
Fascinated, Tyra walked to the nearest wall and touched one of the carvings. The wood was smooth, as if worn down by winters and winters of rain and snow. She muttered the names of the runes she recognised: Tiwaz, Pertho, Isa. She only knew the new ones, hadn’t learnt the old runes yet, and bindrunes were still a mystery to her. The light from the fire made the carvings look like living creatures. And right there, as she looked, a carving was undone. A blink and the rune was gone. And then again with the rune of Isa, and Pertho.
‘Look! The runes are disappearing,’ she said and pointed towards them.
Siv didn’t look surprised. ‘When they’re all gone it’ll be the end of the nine worlds as we know them,’ she said to herself.
For the first time a proper answer, an explanation.
‘Why?’ Tyra asked, hoping to get answers to all of her questions. Her eyes were locked on the many carvings, and everywhere she looked, more were vanishing.
Siv crouched down by the fireplace where some wood had been stacked. The hut was nearly as cold as the air outside. Tyra watched as Siv brought a hand in over the firewood and it burst into flames. Siv only needed to stare at the wood with her harsh grey eyes to make fire. Even wood was scared of her.
‘The runes belong to that which keeps the nine worlds together.’ Siv walked around the table and sat down on the sleeping bench at the other side, staring at the runemistress through the open door. ‘Come inside,’ Siv ordered.
The runemistress came inside, her concentration on her runes forgotten. She looked almost startled and afraid, but her expression hardened when she saw the two of them inside her hut.
‘Who makes you carve these runes?’ Siv asked.
A sly smile crossed the runemistress’ lips. She had no intention of telling Siv anything. It wouldn’t do, Tyra knew; she would have to tell. She would tell, whether she wanted to or not. Siv would make her say it.
Tyra was right, she could see it on the runemistress’ face. Her features became tight and it looked as though she was fighting with her own mind. But she would lose. Siv always won.
Sure enough, the runemistress began to speak. ‘The great Alfather came here. Long ago.’
The runemistress clutched onto a wooden bindrune hanging from one of the twisted cords on her neck-ring. Tyra wondered what it protected her against. Whatever it was, it didn’t protect her from Siv.
‘He makes me carve runes for the norn girl. The skald’s daughter.’ Then, the woman pulled her hands up to her wild hair and pressed them against her ears, perhaps to keep Siv’s unspoken commands out. ‘For Hilda Ragnardóttir,’ the woman blurted with such force that her body rocked forward. It seemed like the words had been pulled out of her.
Hilda. So, Hilda was alive and not in Valhalla at all.
The runemistress cried and cried, and then stopped to heave for breath. She looked exhausted.
‘Go back to your rune carving,’ Siv commanded. ‘We were never here.’
She didn’t need to say more. The runemistress raised her dagger and into the nearest wall she began to carve the same bindrune as the one on her neck-ring. And as soon as she was done, she moved the knife to the left and carved the shape again. Her movements were quick but precise, and Tyra wondered if she could someday learn to carve runes that quickly and well.
‘Are we here to look for Hilda?’ Tyra asked. That had to be why Siv had refused to go back to Ash-hill with the children and thralls.
Siv shook her head. ‘Hilda is on her own path,’ she said. ‘Sit, Tyra. Perhaps it’s time for me to answer your questions.’
Slowly, so she had time to think up good questions, Tyra pulled her eyes away from the disappearing runes on the wall and sat down on the bench opposite Siv, her back to the open door and the scary runemistress.
Tyra was so taken aback by the fact that Siv wanted to answer her questions that she had long forgotten every question she had ever formed in her mind. She looked around the hut and the many carvings, for more questions. ‘Why are the runes disappearing?’
‘Because the nine worlds are drifting apart.’
‘Why?’
‘The end is coming.’
‘Why?’ she asked again.
Siv did not answer that time.
‘You’re trying to slow it all down,’ Tyra said. ‘The runes, and the end of the worlds. That’s what you’re doing with her.’ She nodded towards the woman behind her who carved her runes over and over, like an empty being. As long as she created new runes to replace the ones that were being undone, they couldn’t all disappear. ‘What Odin is doing with her.’
Siv nodded to confirm, and Tyra smiled. Lately, she had been good at guessing. ‘Do you work for Odin?’
‘I don’t,’ Siv answered.
Tyra wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or scary. ‘Why not?’
Siv stared into the fire as if she remembered something from a long time ago. ‘The Alfather and I don’t want the same things.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you, and Einer, to grow up well.’
Tyra rolled her eyes and she knew Siv was holding back, but at the same time, the answer made her feel warm inside.
Siv looked at Tyra with a sweet smile. Whenever Tyra looked into Siv’s grey eyes she forgot everything else. Siv’s eyes looked like they were made up of fierce animals, curled around the black dots in the middle. Two wolves, maybe, who enchanted Tyra to forget what she wanted to ask, except she wouldn’t allow Siv’s fierce eyes to win this time. Tyra stared down at the carving-covered table and searched her head for the right questions to ask.
‘So, you’re here to stop the runes from disappearing,’ Tyra said. It wasn’t really a question, but saying it aloud helped to make sense of it.
‘It’s not just the runes,’ Siv said. ‘The runes are merely one form of that which keeps the worlds together.’
‘What do you mean?’
Siv opened and closed her fist, watching it, as if she could feel something there.
Tyra narrowed her eyes, an idea forming in her mind. ‘It’s about that dark place inside the ash tree,’ she realised. ‘Isn’t it?’ Right before he had died, Ragnar had said that the ash tree was how the gods communicated with them, and that it shouldn’t be cut. Like Siv said, the runes were part of what kept the worlds together.’
‘You’re very observant,’ Siv praised.
It made Tyra feel very clever to be praised by Siv, who never said anything she didn’t mean. ‘Is that how you made the opening in the ash-tree? With runes? And fire, just now?’
‘The runes are deep,’ Siv said and stared down at the many deep runes the runemistress had carved on her table. ‘So deep that they cut through to the void between the nine worlds. Those who know the runes well, can carve them with words.’
‘But you didn’t say anything,’ Tyra said. Siv had just swept her hand over the firewood and it had burst into flames.
‘Not all words need to be spoken aloud.’
‘What does it have to do with what’s inside the ash-tree? What is that place?’
‘It’s not a place,’ Siv mysteriously answered, and that made no sense at all. Tyra had been inside it, though it hadn’t been like anywhere else she had ever been.
‘There is no time, no place,’ Siv continued. ‘It’s the past. It’s the present. It’s the future. It’s everything and nothing. It’s the Ginnungagap. The void between the worlds.’
Tyra didn’t know what to say to that. Ragnar had often told her of the of Ginnungagap and the creation of the nine worlds, but she had never thought she could actually have been inside that great void of everything and nothing. Ginnungagap had created everything, but Tyra had never thought that it still existed; she had thought all of it had been used up to create the nine worlds.
‘If that is the Ginnungagap, then how is it inside our ash-tree?’
‘Because the Alfather put it there,’ Siv said. Again, her eyes were distant and she seemed to remember something, or someone. ‘To contain it. To control it.’
‘Is that why they cut it down?’ Tyra asked. The southerners had felled the ash-tree as if they knew exactly how important it was, although until now even Tyra hadn’t quite known.
‘Maybe,’ Siv answered. ‘Maybe they could sense the Ginnungagap within. Maybe they cut down the ash because they were scared of the dark void. Those who don’t know what it is, often are.’
Tyra nodded and tried to remember what else she wanted to ask. She traced one of the runes in the table with the tip of her fingers; Tiwaz. She had always thought it looked like an arrow shooting up into the air. Like her own arrow at the beginning of the battle in Ash-hill. Joined by hundreds of others, which fell down towards the enemy at Muddy Lake. Arrows had torn through flesh and helmet-less skulls around her. Hammered down on the shields above them. Three arrowheads had pierced Siv’s shoulder. Blood, everywhere, and screams. A puncture through her mother’s cheek.
A chill travelled through Tyra and she shook her head to make the memories go away. ‘Why was Ash-hill attacked?’
‘There are some questions even I don’t have answers to, Tyra.’
‘But there are many you do have answers to. Answers to questions I didn’t even have before you took me with you.’ Siv was unlike anyone else Tyra knew or had ever met. Special, and strong and powerful too. ‘You’re not from this world, are you?’
Siv smiled, and Tyra knew with pride she had been right. She smiled; she liked to be right about important things.
‘I’m not. But you’ve known that for a long time.’
‘Ja,’ Tyra said with a nod. Since the battle in Ash-hill, she had known, perhaps even before then. She wondered if she should push it, ask more to find out which world Siv came from, now that she knew it wasn’t Midgard. Would even tell her? Probably not.
Siv’s gaze didn’t leave hers. And the two fierce animals in her eyes seemed to swell in size as Tyra looked. They weren’t wolves, she decided, wolves were too reckless for someone like Siv. She was more elegant. Cats suited her more, but they weren’t nearly fierce enough. Lynxes, that’s what Siv’s eyes looked like; grey lynxes.
Tyra forced her gaze away from Siv to regain some clarity. ‘Why do you answer my questions now? You never really did before.’ Siv was able to silence Tyra with a mere stare. She didn’t need to tell her anything.
Siv didn’t answer. Something was wrong.
‘Are you dying?’ Tyra wouldn’t let her. Never again would she be abandoned.
‘We’re all dying,’ Siv said routinely, but with a certain sadness, which could only mean she didn’t expect to live much longer.
Tyra’s fingers still followed the carving of the rune Tiwaz. Over and over, tracing it, and then, under her very touch it began to fade. The wood filled in, until the rune was entirely undone and there was only a plain wooden surface left.
‘When all the runes disappear, the nine worlds will drift apart,’ Tyra said, repeating what she had learnt, wishing it would make more sense if she said it, instead of just listening. Her finger traced the arrow shape where the carving had been, though now there was no indication there had ever been anything. ‘The nine worlds will drift apart… But then what about the people who pass on?’ She jerked her head up to look at Siv.
This time she did not receive an answer, but somehow Tyra already knew what would happen to those who died. If the nine worlds drifted apart, how could the dead pass on into one of the other eight worlds? Tyra was not afraid to die, but if there was nowhere to pass onto, then death had an entirely different meaning. Then death would be the end of everything.
‘Will we die? After all the runes have disappeared?’ This was the very last question on her mind, and it seemed the most important. If the nine worlds were no longer together as one when they died, their existence would simply be undone, like the runes. And then Tyra would never go to Valhalla and she’d never meet her sisters and her parents again.
‘Cattle die. Kinsmen die. We must die likewise,’ Siv softly said.
Another rune was undone under Tyra’s touch. On her own, she muttered the last lines of the song that was their battle cry: ‘I know one thing that never dies. The repute each gains in life.’