The Liar’s Key

Taking my hand Yngvildr led the way deeper into the barn to a point where a ladder led up to a split-level above the main hay store. I followed her up, taking time to admire the grubby but well-formed legs disappearing into the shadows of her skirts. At the top a large pile of loose hay had been formed into something vaguely nest-shaped.

Now a hay barn in Red March in the spring or fall can be a half decent place to tumble the odd peasant girl or friendly farm lass, though they never tell you quite how itchy straw is in those bawdy tales, or how sharp, or how it gets into all manner of places where neither partner in the enterprise really ever wants to get anything sharp or itchy. A hay barn in Norseheim in the spring however is akin to an icehouse. A place where no sane man, however keen he might be for a spot of slap and tickle, would part with any layers, and where anything that pokes its head into the frigid air is apt to shrivel and die. I set the lamp down beside us, and with my breath pluming before me, wondered if there were any way I could slip back to the mead hall right now while retaining some shred of pride. Yngvildr on the other hand seemed keen to proceed as planned and with smiles, gestures, and presently with impatient jerks of the head as she went to all fours, indicated that I should hurry up with my end of the bargain.

‘Just give me a minute, Y – Yng – … dear lady.’ I held my hands out over the lamp to warm them. ‘Cold air is never flattering to a man…’

Norse women can be quite proactive and Yngvildr proved no exception, backing me to the wall and rucking up a considerable number of coarse skirts to initiate proceedings. A bit of numb-fingered fumbling and with the bare minimum of undressing Yngvildr and I were locked together in a style not uncommon in farmyards, with me providing the somewhat abused filling in a sandwich between the barn wall and my latest ‘conquest’.

Despite the biting cold, the itchy straw, and the hard planks I did eventually start to enjoy myself. Yngvildr was after all attractive, enthusiastic and energetic. I even began to warm up a bit and start ringing her bells. Reaching forward I took hold of her shoulders and put some effort into seeing what kind of notes I could get out of her. The ringing became louder as our excitement mounted … and more deep throated…

‘That’s it! Louder! I’ll bet no Norseman has rung your—’

The realization that even the best lover in the world wouldn’t be able to coax so deep or multitudinous a clanging from Yngvildr’s tiny copper bells caught me in mid boast. I opened my eyes and, still being rhythmically pounded back against the wall, peered over the edge of the upper floor to see that the lower barn was full of cattle, with more of the beasts coming in through the door, each with a large cow-bell around its neck.

‘You—offff! You didn’t—offff! Close the door properly!’

Yngvildr appeared too occupied to care or notice and seemed to think my commentary was me urging her to greater efforts. For a few moments more I knelt there, trying not to let my head bang the timbers.

‘Yes … perhaps we could quiet things down…’ Her enthusiasm appeared to be attracting more cattle by the second. ‘Sssh!’ It made no impression on her. I stared, somewhat helpless, down at the bovine sea below and those that weren’t busy helping themselves to the hay, or just crapping on the floor, stared back up at me. It wasn’t until I heard over the noise of Yngvildr’s bells, her panting, and the clanging of cow bells, the sound of men approaching that I started to panic.

‘Dear lady, if you could just—offff!’ I banged my head quite hard that time, adding anger into the mix of rising panic and involuntary lust. ‘Shut up!’

It sounded as if there were quite a few Harrowheimers approaching, their voices more curious than alarmed. Presumably when they saw that the cows had entered the barn it would inject a little more urgency into the situation. Lord knew what they’d do if they caught the foreigner in the act of despoiling their maiden!

‘Time to stop, Y—’ I banged my head again while struggling for her name. ‘Stop! They’re coming!’

Unfortunately Yngvildr seemed to take my urgency as further encouragement and proved wholly disinclined to stop. I could just make out the glow of a lantern off in the field through a small window above the doors.

‘Get! Off!’ And with considerable effort I managed to shove Yngvildr far enough to disengage and free myself from the wall. As she fell forward, onto her face unfortunately, her shoulder caught the lamp and sent it tumbling.

‘Oh shit!’ It’s remarkable how quickly fire takes hold of straw. I backed away on my arse, kicking out at the burning clumps nearest to me. They promptly dropped over the edge into the main barn. Seconds later a great mooing went up from below us, rising rapidly into notes of animal panic. Yngvildr rolled over, hay stuck to her mouth, and looked about in bewilderment – an expression that moved quickly through fury to terror.

‘No! No, no, no, no, no!’ I tried beating at the burning hay but just helped the fire to spread. Meanwhile down below the cattle had gone into full stampede, ripping off the barn doors in their eagerness to be outside. By the high-pitched yells just audible over the general din of the herd it seemed as though the locals drawn by the cows’ unusual behaviour were having their curiosity rewarded with a good trampling.

‘Come on!’ Always the gentleman I led the way to ensure it was safe, sliding down the ladder at reckless speed without a care for splinters. Already the air hung thick with smoke, hot as sin. Choking and wheezing I made for the back of the barn, reasoning there must be a door there and that would be closer. Also, although the fire headed my list of priorities in a big way, I didn’t want to jump from it directly into the frying pan. Slipping out the back might allow me to escape unobserved and weasel out of the whole thing.

‘Shit!’ I stopped in my tracks, confronted by a small door blocked by several bales of hay, all already smouldering. Yngvildr staggered into my back, sending me stumbling forward toward the nearest bale, across which flames flickered into being as though angered by my approach. The smoke blinded me, filling my eyes with tears and swirling around so thickly that only flames showed through. Yngvildr thrust something into my hand, choking out words rendered no less comprehensible by her lack of breath. It appeared to be some kind of farm implement, two sharp iron spikes on the end of a wooden haft. Somewhere at the back of my mind the word ‘pitchfork’ bubbled up, though I probably would have applied the same label to any number of peasant tools. More gibberish as Yngvildr shook my arm and pushed me forward. The girl had clearly gone mad with fear but keeping a cool head and showing the innovative thinking we Kendeths are famed for I set to hefting the burning hay aside with the device. The severity of the situation must have coaxed new strength from my muscles as I managed to toss the bales left and right despite my lack of breath and each of them outweighing me. With the last of my energy and with the fire roaring at my back I kicked the door open and the both of us burst out together.

The light of the blaze through the doorway cast a sudden cone of illumination into the darkness, catching five or six grey-clad men hurrying away across the field. I didn’t care what they were up to but in the heat of the moment, and discovering with a yell that the pitchfork I held clutched before me was on fire, I threw the thing at them. My interest in the implement ended the second it left my scorched hands as I realized that my cloak was also ablaze.

Yngvildr and I hobbled back across the field, accompanied by the agitated lowing of the herd and lit from behind by the spiralling inferno that had consumed the barn within moments of us escaping it. As we reached the margins of the village we found our path blocked by dozens of Harrowheimers, all standing around their huts and hovels, open mouthed, their faces glowing with the reflection of the fire at our backs. Snorri loomed large among them.

‘Tell me you didn’t…’ The look he shot my way made me fairly sure that bits of my cloak were still smoking.

‘I—’ I didn’t get a chance to start lying before Yngvildr wriggled out from beneath my arm where I’d been using her for support and began talking at a startling rate and volume. I stood, somewhat bewildered, as the wench gestured her way through some great pantomime of what I presumed must be recent events. Part of me expected her to drop to all fours for a full display of just how the southern monster had despoiled the flower of Harrowheim.

Yngvildr paused to snatch a breath and Tuttugu called to me, ‘Which way did they go?’

‘Um—’ Fortunately Yngvildr saved me from having to invent an answer while guessing what she’d said. With her lungs refilled she launched into the next stage of her tale.

‘A pitchfork?’ Snorri asked, glancing from Yngvildr to me, an eyebrow raised.

‘Well, one improvises.’ I shrugged. ‘We princes can turn most objects into a weapon in a pinch.’

Yngvildr still had plenty of go in her and continued to spill her story with the same volume but the crowd’s attention wandered from her, drawn into the shadows where three warriors were emerging from the field, one brandishing what looked to be the pitchfork in question and barking out something that sounded uncomfortably like an accusation. I took Yngvildr protectively by the shoulders to use as a shield.

‘Now see here! I—’ My bluster ran out temporarily while I tried to think what defence I might offer that wouldn’t get me used as a target for axe-throwing practice.

‘He says, when they caught up with the raiders they were pulling this out of their friend’s backside,’ Snorri said, a grin cracking within the close-cropped darkness of his beard. ‘So, you rescued Yngvildr and chased off, what? Six of them? With a pitchfork? Splendid.’ He laughed and slapped Tuttugu across the shoulders. ‘But why would they fire the barn? That’s the bit I don’t understand. There’ll be hell to pay over it come the clan-meet!’

‘Ah,’ I said, trying to give myself pause for all the lies to sink in. Yngvildr appeared to be a highly creative girl under pressure. ‘I think maybe that was an accident? One of the idiots must have taken a lamp into the barn – probably they were planning to collect a few girls there before setting off for home. Must’ve got knocked over in the excitement…’

Snorri repeated what I’d said in Norse for the gathered crowd. A silence trailed his last word and two score and more of Harrowheim’s eyes stared hard at me through the flame-lit gloom. I figured if I shoved Yngvildr at the feet of the nearest ones and ran for it I might lose them in the night. I’d tensed for the shove when without warning a cheer went up, beards split into broad smiles full of bad teeth, and before I knew what was happening we’d been swept along the muddy streets and back into the mead hall. This time they managed to squeeze twice as many bodies into the place, half of them female. As the ale started to flow once more and I found myself squashed between Yngvildr and an older but no less comely woman that Snorri assured me was her sister rather than her mother, I started to think a night in Harrowheim might have its charms after all.

We left on the morning tide with sore heads and foggy recollections of the night’s events. The rain had let up, the relentless wind had relented, and the true story of how their largest barn got burned flat had yet to emerge. It seemed the best time to depart. Even so I would have dallied a day or three, but Snorri had an urgency about him, his humour gone. When he thought no one watching I saw him hold his side above the poisoned wound and I knew then that he felt that pull, drawing him south.

Sad to say neither Yngvildr nor her still less pronounceable sister came to see me off at the quay, but they had both managed a smile when Snorri hauled me from the furs that morning and I let that warm me against the cold wind as we set sail.

As the distance took Harrowheim I didn’t feel quite so well rid of this Norse town as I had of Trond, Olaafheim, and Haargfjord. Even so, the glories of Vermillion beckoned. Wine, women, song … preferably not opera … and I’d certainly search out Lisa DeVeer, perhaps even marry her one day.

‘We’re going the wrong way!’ It had taken me the best part of half an hour to realize it. The fjord had narrowed a touch and there was no sign of the sea.

‘We’re sailing up the Harrowfjord.’ Snorri at the tiller.

‘Up?’ I looked for the sun. It was true. ‘Why? And where do I know that name from?’

‘I told it to you four nights ago. Ekatri told me—’

‘Eridruin’s Cave. Monsters!’ It all came back to me, rather like unexpectedly vomiting into your mouth. The völva’s mad tale about a door in a cave.

‘It was meant to be. Fated. My namesake sailed here three centuries ago.’

‘Snorri Hengest died here.’ Tuttugu from the prow. ‘We should see Skilfar. She’ll know of a better way. Nobody comes here, Snorri. It’s a bad place.’

‘We’re looking for a bad thing.’

And that was that. We kept going.

‘So, who was Eridruin?’ Sailing on a fjord is infinitely preferable to sailing on the sea. The water stays where it’s put and the shore is so close that even I might make it there if it came to swimming. This said, I would rather be sailing over rough seas away from any place famed for monsters than sailing toward it on the flattest of millponds. ‘I said, who was—’

‘I don’t know. Tuttugu?’ Snorri kept his eyes on the left shore.

Tuttugu shrugged. ‘It must ache Eridruin’s spirit to be famed enough for his name to survive but not quite enough for anyone to remember why they remember it.’

A stiff breeze had carried us inland. The day kept grey, the sun showing only brief and weak. By late afternoon we’d covered perhaps thirty miles and seen no sign of habitation. I had thought Harrowheim’s raiders came from further up the fjord, but nobody lived here. Tuttugu had the right of it. A bad place. Somehow you could tell. It wasn’t anything as simple as dead and crooked trees, or rocks with sinister shapes … it was a feeling, a wrongness, the certain knowledge that the world grew thin here, and what waited beneath the surface loved us not. I watched the sun sinking toward the high ridges and listened. The Harrowfjord wasn’t silent or lifeless, the water lapped our hull, the sails flapped, birds sang … but each sound held a discordant tone, as if the skylarks were just a note away from screaming. You could almost catch it … some dreadful melody played out just beneath hearing.

‘There.’ Snorri pointed to a place high upon the stepped shore to our left. Like a dark eye amid the stony slopes, Eridruin’s Cave watched us. It couldn’t be any other.

The Norsemen lowered the sails and brought us into the shallows. Fjords have deep shallows, diving down as steeply as the valleys that contain them. I jumped out a yard from the shore and managed to wet myself to the hips.

‘You’re just going up there … right now?’ I looked about for the promised monsters. ‘Shouldn’t we wait and … plan?’

Snorri shouldered his axe. ‘You want to wait until it gets dark, Jal?’

He had a point. ‘I’ll guard the boat.’

Snorri wound the boat’s line around a boulder that emerged from the water. ‘Come on.’

The Norsemen set off, Tuttugu at least looking as though he would rather not and casting glances left and right. He carried a rope coiled many times about him, and two lanterns bounced on his hips.

I hurried after them. Somehow I could think of no horror worse than being alone in that place, sitting by the still water as the night poured down the slopes.

‘Where are the monsters?’ It wasn’t that I wanted to see any … but if they were here I’d rather know where.

Snorri paused and looked about. I immediately sat down to catch my breath. He shrugged. ‘I can’t see any. But then how many places live up to their reputation? I’ve been to plenty of Giant’s This and Troll’s That, without a sniff of either. I climbed the Odin’s Horn and didn’t meet him.’

‘And The Fair Maidens are a great disappointment.’ Tuttugu nodded. ‘Who thought to set that name on three rocky isles crammed with ugly hairy men and their ugly hairy wives?’

Snorri nodded up the slope again and set off. In places it was steeper than stairs and I reached out ahead of me, clambering up.

I climbed, expecting attack at any moment, expecting to see bones among the rocks, drifts of them, tooth-marked, some grey with age, some fresh and wet. Instead I discovered just more rocks and that the growing sense of wrongness now whispered around me, audible but too faint to break apart into words.

Within minutes we stood at the cave mouth, a rocky gullet, fringed with lichen above and stained with black slime where the water oozed. Twenty men could march in abreast, and be swallowed.

‘Do you hear it?’ Tuttugu, more pale than he had ever looked.

We heard it, though perhaps the cave spoke different words to each of us. I heard a woman whispering to her baby, soft at first, promising love … then sharper, more strained, promising protection … then terrified, hoarse with agony promising – I spoke aloud to over-write the whispers. ‘We need to leave. This place will drive us mad.’ Already I found myself wondering if I threw myself down the slope would the voice stop?

‘I don’t hear anything.’ Snorri walked in. Perhaps his own demons spoke louder than the cave.

I took a step after him, out of habit, then caught myself. Fingers in my ears did nothing to block out the woman’s voice. Worse, I realized there was something familiar about it.

Snorri’s progress slowed as the cave floor sloped away, as steep as the valley behind us, but slick with slime and lacking handholds. The gradient steepened further, the cave narrowing to a black and hungry throat.

‘Do not.’

A tall man stood between Snorri and me, in the shadow of the cave, in the space through which Snorri had just walked. A young man, clad in a strange white robe, sleeved and open at the front. He watched us through stony grey eyes, unsmiling. All the other voices retreated when the man spoke – my woman with her dead child, and the others behind her, not gone but reduced to the pulsing hiss you can hear in a seashell.

Snorri turned, taking the axe from his back. ‘I need to find a door into Hel.’

‘Such doors are closed to men.’ The man smiled then – no kindness in it. ‘Take a knife to your veins and you will find yourself there soon enough.’

‘I have a key,’ Snorri said, and made to resume his descent.

‘I said, do not.’ The man raised his hand and we heard the bones of earth groan. Plates of stone shattered away from the cavern roof, dust drifting in their wake.

‘Who are you?’ Snorri faced him again.

‘I came through the door.’

‘You’re dead?’ Snorri took a step toward the man, fascinated now. ‘And you came back?’

‘This part of me is dead, certainly. You don’t live as long as I have without dying a little. I have echoes of me in Hell.’ The man tilted his head, as if puzzled, as if considering himself. ‘Show me your key.’

‘Who are you?’ Snorri repeated his first question.

Across from me Tuttugu stopped pressing the heels of his hands to his ears. His eyes widened from the slits they had been. He grabbed up his axe from the rocks and crawled to my side.

‘Who? Who was I? That man is dead, an older one wears his skin. I’m just an echo – like the others echoing here, though my voice is the strongest. I am not me. Just a fragment, unsure of my purpose…’

‘Who—’

‘I won’t bandy my name before a light-sworn warrior.’ The dead man seemed to gather himself. ‘Show me your key. It must be the reason I am here.’

Snorri pursed his lips then released one hand from the axe to draw Loki’s key from beneath his jerkin. ‘There. Now, if you won’t help me, shade, begone.’

‘Ah. This is good. This is a good key. Give it to me.’ A hunger in him now.

‘No. Show me the door, ghost.’

‘Give me the key and I’ll allow you to continue along your path.’

‘I need the key to open the door.’

‘I thought that once. I had many failures. I called myself door-mage but so many doors resisted me. The key you hold was stolen from me, long ago. Death was the first door I opened without it. Some doors just require a push. For others a latch must be lifted, some are locked, but a sharp mind can pick most locks. Only three still resist me. Darkness, Light, and the Wheel. And when you give me the key I will own those too.’

Snorri looked my way and beckoned me. ‘Jal, I need you to lock the door after me. Take the key and give it to Skilfar. She will know how to destroy it.’

‘I have something you want, barbarian.’

The door-mage had a child at his side, gripping her neck from behind. A small girl in a ragged woollen smock, bare legs, dirty feet, her blonde hair thrown across her face as the man forced her head down.

‘Einmyria?’ Snorri breathed the name.

In one hand the child held a peg doll.

‘Emy?’ A shout. He sounded terrified.

‘The key, or I’ll break her neck.’

Snorri reached into his jerkin and tore the key from its thong. ‘Take it.’ He strode forward pressing it carelessly into the mage’s hand, eyes on his daughter, bending toward her. ‘Emy? Sweet-girl?’

Two things happened together. Somehow the mage dropped Loki’s key, and in reaching to catch it as it fell he let go of the child’s neck. She looked up, hair falling to the sides. Her face was a wound, the dark red muscle of her cheeks showed through, stripped of skin and fat. She opened her mouth and vomited out flies, thousands of them, a buzzing scream. Snorri fell back and she leapt on him, black talons erupting from the flesh of her hands.

I glimpsed Snorri amid the dark cloud, on his back, struggling to keep the child-thing from ripping out his eyes. Tuttugu lumbered forward, shielding his face, swinging his axe in an under-arm looping blow. Somehow he missed Snorri but caught the demon, the force of the impact knocking her clear. For a second she scrabbled at the muddy slope, shrieking at an inhuman pitch, then fell away, wailing, into the consuming blackness. The flies followed her, like smoke inhaled by an open mouth.

With that deafening buzz receding I noticed the laughter for the first time. Looking away from the cave’s throat I saw that the mage remained crouched on the ground, the key still before him on the rock. He wasn’t looking at Snorri, just the key, he tried again to pick it up but somehow his fingers passed through it. Another awful, bitter laughter broke from him, a noise that ran through my teeth and made them feel brittle.

‘I can’t touch it. I can’t even touch it.’

Snorri scrambled to his feet and rushed the man, throwing him back with a roar. The mage went tumbling, fetching up hard against a rock. Snorri scooped up the key and rubbed his shoulder where he’d barged his foe aside, an expression of disgust on his face, as if the contact sickened him.

‘What have you done with my daughter?’ Snorri advanced on the mage, axe raised.

The man didn’t seem to hear. He stood staring at his hands. ‘All these years and I couldn’t pick it up … Loki must have his little jokes. You’ll bring it to me though. You’ll bring me that key.’

‘What have you done with her?’ Snorri, as murderous as I’d ever heard him.

‘You can’t threaten me. I’m dead. I’m—’

Snorri’s axe took the man’s head. It hit the ground, bounced once and rolled away. The body remained standing for long enough to ensure it would feature in my nightmares, then toppled, the neck stump bloodless and pale.

‘Come on.’ Snorri started to climb down the cave’s black gullet, backing into it on all fours, feet first, questing for edges to hold his weight. ‘Leave him!’

I turned away from the remains of the man, the ghost, the echo, whatever it was.

The whispers rose again. I could hear the woman crying, the sound rasping on my sanity.