Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (59 page)

‘Two’s right. A man and a woman.’

‘Then these two you look for must be dead, surely, for no mortals are foolish enough to visit Hel before their allotted time, or so I thought.’

‘One came here a thousand years ago. The other might just have arrived.’ Farden looked at the crowd of dead on board the ship, and then at the teeming masses on the shore, still pushing forward to board.

‘Names. Souls have them as well as bodies.’

‘Elessi and Korrin.’

‘Do you know of them?’

Hel wrinkled her lip. ‘I know all the dead who cross the river. I am the only way across. They must all come aboard my ship. I have seen them all.’

‘So you know them?’ Farden stepped forward.

‘Korrin, son of Hark and Ynin, both dead. Born in the village of Jukund. Elessi, daughter of Gastinsson and Florsi, both also dead. Born in Leath, Albion.’

Farden was close to shaking. ‘Do you know where they are?’

Hel drummed her black nails on the crusted wheel of the ship. It too was made of nails. Dust and dirt clung to its ugly spokes. ‘She crossed a day ago, maybe less. She walks to the other side as we speak.’

Farden took another step forward. He resisted the urge to grab the goddess. ‘So there’s still a chance?’

Hel looked at him strangely. ‘A chance to do what, master mage? What is your business here, besides looking?’

‘I mean to take her back.’

Laughter. Cold, clammy laughter. ‘How romantic.’

‘I am very serious.’

‘I am sure you are, master mage, but the dead are dead and dead they will stay, for as long as I am here.’

Farden crossed his arms. ‘But she isn’t dead. She was daemontouched.’

‘As good as it then.’

‘But not quite.’

‘Once she reaches the other side, she will be.’

‘But until that time, she is fair game, surely.’

Hel pouted. ‘How dare you dictate to me, mortal. You have no place here. This place is reserved for the punished, those who know about death, not some mage like you.’

A look came over Farden then. A look as cold as any Hel could have given him. ‘Punished, you say?’ he asked, almost laughing. Down by his side, his hands slowly curled to fists. ‘Let me tell you a little something about punishment, goddess. I’ve been punished since I took my first breath of cold Emaneska air. A forbidden son borne into a doomed house, snatched up and lied to for decades by a halfbreed bastard with delusions of chaos, who fucked me in more ways than I care to count. He took the love of my life and twisted her inside out, made me father a child with her before he let her die, a child that stands above us now, the bitch of some ancient prophecy. Just my luck. My only child from my only love, stolen and lied to and bred to bring the sky crashing down, daemons and all. I know what you’re thinking. How does a man cope? Like this. The man banishes himself to protect all those he cared about. He buries himself in dirty work. Killing for coin, burying himself in blood and shit and tears until he’s numb. Smoking and drinking until he’s forgotten all but the pain. Surely that’s it? No. Greed finds the man. Greed for his armour. Greed that hangs him from his own tree and runs him through. Leaves him to die. Somehow, by the skin of his teeth, he lives. He drags himself back to those he cares about, only to have one snatched away, by the daemons his very daughter summoned. A daughter who thinks her father was the very bastard who began all this. Quite a story, and you say I have no place here? I should be manning this ship, for all the death and punishment I’ve seen,’ Farden spat, breathing hard.

There was an awkward silence. Tyrfing was staring at his nephew, his eyes bleeding every emotion they could.

Farden calmed himself. ‘If she’s not dead, then she’s not quite yours. Am I right or not?’

Hel picked a nail from the wheel. It was a gross, yellow toenail, bigger than any toenail should rightly be. She flicked it over the side and into the river. ‘I knew I could feel it on her. Like a stench,’ she said, and then scowled. ‘Fine. If you can find her, she is yours. Bring her to me, if you can. Though you have little hope, and even less time.’

‘And Korrin?’ asked Farden. Hel’s scowl burrowed even deeper. She lifted a hand to cup her ear, raising a contemptuous smile to the ceiling of the colossal cavern.

‘If you listen hard enough, you can still hear his heart beating. For a thousand years or more it has beaten. Thump. Thump. Thump. Sluggish, yet resilient. Foul it is. Sends shivers down my spine. A thousand years I have listened to that heart. It has no place here, and yet it taunts me. He refuses to die. Refuses to cross.’

Farden opened his arms wide. ‘Fair game as well then!’

Hel flashed him a black look, literally. ‘I know why you seek him. I see what you wear on your arms and legs, mage. Greed is a most despicable thing, as you say. Most of these,’ she waved to the silently swaying cargo on her ship, ‘are here due to greed.’

It was Farden’s turn to scowl. ‘Greed has nothing to do with it,’ he growled. ‘Sacrifice, on the other hand, has everything to do with it.’

Hel cracked a wide grin, full of black teeth. ‘Sacrifice, you say? In that case, let us discuss your payment.’

The two mages swapped looks. ‘Payment for what?’ they asked. Behind them, Loki couldn’t help but grin.

‘For the crossing of course,’ replied Hel, cackling. ‘Every ferry has its fee, does it not? Did you think I would simply let you cross, out of the kindness of my own heart? Let you steal away my precious souls, for nothing but gratitude in return? Hah! Fools indeed.’

Farden reached for his coinpurse. ‘So just how much exactly is this fee?’ he asked, fishing for some larger coins with his metal fingers.

Hel laughed again at the sight of the mage rummaging for coins. She laughed long and hard indeed. So long and so hard, in fact, that Farden almost began to reach for his sword. When she was finally done, Hel wiped away imaginary tears and rubbed her bony hands together with glee. ‘Why, master mage, the fee has nothing to do with coins, even though you delight in putting them on your dead, before the pyre.’

‘Then what?’

The humour on Hel’s face remained, even though her eyes turned cold. ‘Why, everybody owes a death. Even you, who has known so much already.’

There was a moment of silence before anybody spoke. Farden scratched his head. ‘So you’re saying…’

‘The price to cross to the other side is your life, yes. You may save your friend, of course, you may claim your armour, but only the dead may cross, and only the dead may reside here. That was Korrin’s price, and so it shall be yours.’

Farden put a hand on his sword. ‘I’d like to see you try to stop us.’

Hel clicked her fingers. ‘Kneel,’ she commanded. Farden was about to scoff when something heavy, impossibly heavy, pushed down on his shoulders and the backs of his legs. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the disgusting deck, hands splayed in the nails, knees pressing so hard into the deck that they ached. ‘You have no power here, Farden, and neither do you, Tyrfing.’ Her black eyes seemed to flick up to his uncle, who was standing with his hands at the ready.

Tyrfing raised a finger. ‘Surely an exception can be made, considering the circumstances?’

Hel tilted her head. ‘And what, pray, are they?’

‘We need the armour to fight my nephew’s daughter. The one he spoke of.’

Hel just shrugged. ‘That is not my fight.’

Tyrfing’s mouth hung open. ‘But you’re a goddess. Of course it is your fight!’ he said.

Farden was wheezing on the floor. ‘Selfish b…’

Tyrfing cut him off. ‘Hel, we’re asking for your help, a spot of kindness. Not just for us, but for your brothers and sisters,’ he reasoned, pointing at Loki, who was still skulking nearby. Hel looked at him with a blank expression.

‘And why should I help the ones who sent me down here? Banished me, to frolic with the dead?’

Tyrfing bowed his head, clenched a fist or two, and sighed. Farden grunted as he tried, futilely, to push himself up. Hel waited for an answer. Tyrfing cleared his throat. ‘Can we speak in private?’ he asked.

‘If you so wish,’ Hel said. She clicked her fingers again. ‘Up,’ she said, and Farden flew upright, boots stumbling against the deck.

‘Give us a moment,’ Tyrfing said to Farden. His nephew mumbled something derogatory and marched away, followed by a silent Loki. They went to stand by the bow, surrounded and jostled by shadows. The ship was full to bursting.

Farden watched the two figures at the stern talking. Tyrfing was waving his hands about in an urgent fashion. Hel looked on, still as a dead statue. Every now and again her mouth would move, and Tyrfing would wave his hands a little more.

‘I wonder what he’s saying to her,’ Farden mumbled to himself. Loki wasn’t paying attention, he was busy trying to grasp the arm of a nearby shadow. If Farden had turned around, he might have seen Loki’s skin ripple with each attempt.

‘Loki!’ a shout rang out from the wheel. ‘Leave them be. It is forbidden, even for I!’ It was Hel. Loki whipped his hands back into his pockets as Farden turned around. He looked the god up and down quizzically.

‘We sent her down here because she was mad,’ Loki said, quietly. ‘A nuisance. Unreliable.’

Farden snorted. ‘Maybe they should have sent you instead.’

Tyrfing soon finished his conversation with Hel. He pushed his way through the dead, trying to stifle a cough.

‘Well?’ Farden asked, as he drew near. As if in answer to his question, the ship twitched beneath their feet. There was a loud scraping as the keel dragged itself clear of the shore.

‘Apparently, I did it.’

‘How did you convince her?’

Tyrfing tapped his head conspiratorially. ‘It turns out that heartbeat is more annoying to her than two mages crossing the river without paying the usual price. If we can silence it, then she’s agreed to let us cross. You, Loki, don’t count, but you and I, nephew, have a return ticket.’

‘And no dying?’

‘No dying.’

‘If only we had some wine to celebrate,’ Loki muttered snidely. Farden went to shove him, but to his surprise, the god didn’t move very much at all. He barely flinched. It was most unsatisfying. Farden rolled his eyes.
I cannot wait to leave this strange place. Even the shadows are solid
, he thought to himself.

‘Well,’ he said, clapping his old uncle on the shoulder, ‘good work. Maybe politics does suit you after all.’

Tyrfing smiled a lopsided smile. ‘Maybe,’ he said. He waited until Farden had turned around before he let the smile fade. He retched and spluttered then as another wave of coughing took him.

Dark and fast, the deep water of the river took the ship in its grip and bore them away, out of the cavern and into a long tunnel of rock and mist. The lanterns hanging from the ship’s side barely lit the way as they swerved to and fro through the twisting tunnel. The dead rode silently along, caring not a button for the rock flashing by mere feet from the bulwarks, or the gloomy ceiling hurtling past, threatening to knock a few yards off the masts with every turn.

Farden, Tyrfing, and Loki stood at the bow, trying to count the miles as they sped by. More than once, Farden glanced occasionally back at Hel, her face now masked by her wheel. She and it barely moved. It was almost as if the wheel were there for decoration only. That set a knot in Farden’s stomach. The ship was at the river’s mercy.

Tunnel turned to cavern and more dead came aboard. Farden didn’t think it possible, but they swarmed into the dark holds below, to mingle with the toe and fingernails and the occasional mouldy coin, poking out of the decking.

Soon they were off again, hurtling into the darkness once more. Cavern turned to tunnel, and then cavern again. Farden wondered how far they were travelling under the world, whether they were being borne far, far away from the north and its ice, and whether they could find their way back in time. As far as Farden could see, there was only one river, and it was only flowing in one direction.

After another handful of miles, the ship slowed, wrestling itself out of the river’s strong current. As they emerged from their tunnel into yet another huge cavern, the ship drifted to nuzzle against the shingle of the shore. Farden looked over the bulwark, expecting to see yet another endless crowd of shadows clamouring to climb aboard, but instead there was an empty beach of shingle and rock, with faint paths leading into holes in the rock, like the mouths of rabbit warrens, filled with mist.

‘Off!’ screamed the figurehead.

Farden took a breath. ‘Looks like this is it.’

‘The other side.’

Hel was somehow behind them. The mages barely suppressed the instinct to jump. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘That is over the bridge.’

‘Bridge?’

‘Through the tunnels,’ she pointed to the holes in the rock, and then to the dead filing off the ship. They drifted across the stones, whispering to themselves. As eager as they had been to get on the ship, they now looked tired and listless, more like the dead should. They wandered with their hands limply at their sides, no longer pushing and struggling, but calmly sliding past each other.

Farden took another breath. He exhaled, and words came with it. ‘Well, time is running out, gentlemen,’ he said, and with that he began to push his way through the disembarking dead.