Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Six

Sigmund never did manage to figure out the logistics of their flight, not really. Because the Earth was round, and huge, and hung in the vast black void of space. Not to mention Sigmund had been on airplanes before and he knew—empirically knew—that everything above the clouds was cold and bright and empty.

It certainly wasn't full of leaves. Or branches. Or . . . was that a herd of deer?

"Where the bloody hell are we?" he asked, hands gripping the edge of the gondola window as he peered out beyond Hrímgrímnir's feathers.

"Passing between the boughs of the World Tree," Hel replied.

"Oh. Right."

The drop below was . . . long. Oddly, Sigmund wasn't frightened of it. Yeah, falling would suck, but a dragon wasn't an airplane. It was alive, and thinking, and it would catch them if they fell.

Maybe. Probably.

"Dooder, this is so cool," Wayne was telling Em. "I'm filming it for you." She was leaning halfway out of the gondola, phone held with both hands, trying to keep the camera steady as she pointed it alternately at their surroundings and the enormous dragon above them. "Oh!" she said, as if an idea had suddenly occurred. "I can upload this to YouTube!" She pulled herself back inside the gondola, eyes bright with excitement and phone pointed straight at Hel. "I can, right?"

Hel tilted her head, and Sigmund felt a stiffness in her. "You . . . Tube?"

But Wayne just said, "Oh! Right, duh, Wayne!" Then smacked her palm against her forehead, and proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes introducing Hel to modern technology.

Hel ended up with Wayne's Flame in her hands, turning it over and over. Her sleeves made the touchscreen useless, so Sigmund helped with the button-pressing.

"And this is . . . Father's magic?" she asked.

"I guess," said Sigmund. "I mean, he owns the company. Other people make the phones."

"He just gives them the endless litany of uninspired product names." Em still had her eyes closed, but she may have been peeking under her lashes. Just a little.

"So much has happened in Midgard," Hel said, voice quiet and thoughtful. "The dead tell stories and bring strange grave goods. But the Realms have stayed separate for many years. When they turned from our worship, Odin outlawed travel among the humans, and was merciless with enforcing his decree."

"Why?" Wayne asked. "That seems . . . counterproductive?"

Em scoffed. "To punish the puny mortals for their pride," she said, voice exaggerated and arms miming divine wrath vigorously enough that Wayne had to dodge out of the way.

Hel just gave one of her cheek-twitching un-smiles. "Perhaps," she said. "Or perhaps it was fear of Ragnarøkkr. If the humans told no more stories of our deeds, then his plots for the end could be no more disrupted."

No more disrupted than Hel and Sigyn already had, Sigmund didn't say. Instead, he looked back out the window. Far down below, the edge of the world curved like a too-close horizon, an endless waterfall plummeting into the void.

"Well," Wayne was saying, "Odin's dead and Ragnarok's over. So you should come and visit Midgard more often."

Hel looked at the phone in her hand once more, then returned it to Wayne. "Perhaps I shall," she said.

* * *

The edge of the world was beautiful, if both scientifically nonsensical and difficult to talk near, what with the constant roaring crash of water dropping off into nowhere. Sigmund got his head and his glasses soaked from sticking them out of the gondola, trying to peer up underneath the world-plate. Hrímgrímnir's presence turned the water to sleet and Sigmund was shivering by the time he pulled himself back inside. Frozen, but satisfied after catching a glimpse of the immense tangle of branches that made up Miðgarðr's underside. Real fantasy special-effects stuff, but running on its own kind of illogical logic. A physical metaphor for the solar system, described by people without telescopes or complex mathematics or even basic literacy, for the most part. The models may have changed over the years, but the poetry was beautiful, whether it was song or numbers.