Mythos (20 page)

The wolf chuckled, low and evil, though he looked pained as he did so. “I’ll say this for you, little bird, you’re either bold or a fool.”

“Both,” said Tisiphone, more to herself than aloud. “He’s definitely both.” Her hold on my shoulder tightened.

At this point, a tiny splash announced Laginn’s return to shore.

“Are you going to answer my question?” I asked Fenris, ignoring the disembodied hand as it skittered up to stand between us.

His ears lifted, and his bared teeth suddenly became a wolfy grin. “Were I you, I’d probably call me a liar . . . though I’d be as wrong as you are.” He chuckled again, then winced. “Damn sword.”

“Why do you leave it there?” I asked, feeling sorry for him despite my anger over Melchior. I wasn’t ready to exonerate Fenris yet, or anything like that, but his words of denial had a ring of truth to them.

“I like the way it looks.
Très
junkyard dog.” Fenris rolled his eyes. “It’s because the damn thing’s enchanted so that only the hand of one of the gods who set it there can pull it free.”

Inspiration struck. Reaching down, I picked Laginn up by the wrist and lifted the hand so that its fingers touched the hilt of the sword.

“Like this one?” I asked.

“It can’t be that easy,” said Fenris, looking as stunned as he might if he’d been struck between the eyes with Thor’s hammer.

“Why not?” I asked. “Every magic ever wrought has a loophole.” Finding them was my own special divinity.

Laginn closed its grip on the sword, and together we pulled. At first it didn’t budge, but then ever so slowly it began to move. When it finally pulled free, a great gout of blood followed, splattering the stones, my boots, and Fenris, who howled a high, wild note of mixed agony and profound relief.

“I. Feel. Better!” cried the great wolf, leaping into the air, then chasing his tail when he landed.

While he was doing that I was having one of the odder experiences of my life as Laginn ran the sword we’d withdrawn through an impossibly quick series of cuts and parries, dragging my arm along for the ride. Well, no, that doesn’t quite explain it. Somehow, Laginn was using my hand and arm as though they were a part of him, so that I made all the moves the hand wanted me to. Very, very strange feeling, that. Finally, Laginn dropped the sword, and in turn, I dropped Laginn. At that, Fenris picked up the sword with his teeth and tossed it into the lake.

“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do that for the last thousand years or so. I well and truly owe you one. Which means I should probably reunite you with your goblin pack mate.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t done anything with him,” I replied, weighting the words with sarcasm.

“I haven’t. It was my father’s doing, and one I’d have argued against if he’d given me the chance. The goblin is part of your pack, and packs shouldn’t be separated. It’s wrong. It’s wrong when Odin keeps me bound away from mine with this”—he tugged at the silver cord, a look composed of equal parts lonely hunger and hatred crossing his face—“and it’s wrong when Loki does it to you. Come.”

He spun in place and started to lead us across the shallow crater of the volcano. Nothing so big should be able to move as fast as Fenris had with that turn, or walk as quietly as he did now. Laginn scampered along beside me tippy fingered. The path Fenris took led us back along the line of the silver cord, which retracted itself as he went. In a place where the steam hung so thick that I could barely see, Fenris turned into a narrow slit in the crater wall, one partially hidden by a fold in the rock.

The path led downward, deep into the earth. After perhaps a hundred yards, there came a sharp turn to the right, then another to the left. Beyond, the narrow cave opened out into a broad, well-lit chamber. The floor had been flattened and polished to a high luster. Not twenty feet from our point of entry a thick glass wall cut the big cavern in two and barred our way. In front of it was a huge stone desk and an equally huge receptionist.

Ten feet tall if she was an inch, the receptionist wore a teal power suit and had long blond hair tied back in a tight braid. When we entered, she was turned to her left and typing away on a projected keyboard of golden light. In front of her was a wide-screen display scaled like the rest of the setup and framed in something like blue obsidian.

As we got closer, she spun her huge office chair to face our way. She was beautiful in a just stepped out of a billboard for office supplies sort of way—both in her air-brushed polish and her size. Then she smiled, revealing a perfect row of sharp teeth that could have been borrowed from Fenris.

“Mr. Ulfr.” She nodded to Fenris. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Just buzz us through, Grýla.”

The giantess nodded and reached a hand under her desk. In response, a beam of red light shot from a pyramid of cobalt glass on the desk, striking the center of the glass wall and turning a tall rectangle of it a translucent red. Fenris walked straight into the rectangle and sort of splashed through, as though it were made from particularly tenacious Jell-O. The way it felt as I passed through reinforced that mental image. The light turned off as soon as Tisiphone joined us, and the glass reverted to simple, solid clarity.

“Welcome to Rune,” said Fenris as he led us through the chamber and into a nearby hall. “Loki CEO, CIO, COO, and every other C-blank-O you can think of.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” I asked. “What’s the logo? A gold coin with his face on it?”

Fenris laughed, then in a perfect, if pedantic, imitation of his father’s voice, said, “We’re a post-logo operation. Our elegance of design is all the signature we need. The instant anyone sees one of our devices, they’ll know that no one else could possibly have made it.”

“Not seriously,” I said.

“Yuh-huh.” Fenris grinned. “It’s actually not such a wild claim when you remember that our only competition in the magical computers market is Odin’s MimirSoft.”

“There is that.” I nodded, thinking of the beige box server farm within Yggdrasil.

“Does that mean that Loki’s machines can access MimirNet?” asked Tisiphone, looking suddenly interested and very predatory.

“Sadly, no,” replied Fenris. He shifted into Loki voice again. “Odin won’t license his networking cards, and he fries our cloned versions as fast as they surface on MimirNet.” He sighed. “Basically that means our market is all the giants, dwarves, elves, and whatnot looking for a stand-alone machine that can only access the human Internet.”

Just then we passed a heavy, steel, bulkhead-type door through which the silver cord passed.

Fenris paused and indicated it with his nose. “Steam plant. The whole place runs on volcano power. Do you want the full tour? We don’t get many visitors besides the occasional Jotun looking for a job.” He sounded plaintive, lonely really.

“Only the stuff between here and wherever Melchior is,” I replied.

“Pack comes first, and no matter the cost.” He nodded approvingly. “That was what kept me from biting your head off when you called me a liar. You were doing it for the right reason.” He sighed and moved his nose in a circle that took in the whole facility. “That’s what all this is about, you know. Dad trying to build me a substitute pack since I can’t be out in the world with my real one.” Loneliness burned in his eyes, loneliness and hunger. “Damn Odin to eternal torment.”

Reaching down carefully, Fenris caught the cord in his teeth. “I’ll have to walk carefully and slowly after this. The harder I fight against the leash, the tighter it becomes. Hang on a sec while I buy myself a little slack.” He snapped his jaws together repeatedly in a strange staccato rhythm that held undertones of this world’s distorted version of binary.

“There,” he said, finally, “that should do it.” Still holding the cord between his teeth, he started off down the hall, walking in a very slow and measured way. “It’s a bit like trying to loosen up a seat belt right after a sudden stop, actually. Or at least that’s what Loki says.”

As we went, he pointed his nose at various doors and barked out the functions of the areas beyond. Mostly it was a series of research labs and clean rooms for assembly of assorted Rune products, all populated by Jotuns of varying size and aspect.

The only exception was the employee break room, which for reasons not entirely clear was labeled FROGGY BOTTOM CAFÉ and filled with an even odder assortment of characters than the rest of the place. I particularly wondered about what appeared to be an enormous marmot smoking a hookah, but got distracted before I could ask about it when Fenris pointed out a door labeled RUNENET and said, “Here.”

It was only as Fenris reached a paw out and pulled on the lever that I realized all of the doors had those in place of knobs—no doubt for that very reason. Chilly air blasted out of the small foyer—a positive pressure air lock—suggesting a big computer facility beyond the next set of doors.

Nor was I disappointed. The place was filled with hardware every bit as slick as Loki’s microcomputer. The servers were four-inch-thick triangles, blue and featureless and translucent, like slices of cobalt volcanic glass. All the blinking telltale lights were on the racks, which were themselves equally beautiful, slender black poles into which the computers mounted point first. The servers wound from floor to ceiling around the poles like the treads of a spiral staircase, only cantilevered somehow so that they simply hung in space, supported only at the point where they met the racks. It was gorgeous and strange and stunning, and yet it felt wrong—quiet and lifeless and empty.

“What is this place?” asked Tisiphone, her tone betraying some of the same uneasiness I felt.

“It’s the Rune parallel computing supercluster, the heart of RuneNet,” replied Fenris. “It’s supposed to provide all the people Odin won’t serve with an interworld network.”

“But?” asked Tisiphone.

“But we can’t seem to get it to work right,” he replied. “We’re not—”

He had more to say, but I didn’t hear any of it. I’d spotted Melchior. He lay bound and unconscious on a worktable off to our left. A two-headed giant in a clean-room bunny suit was leaning over him. It had an ethernet cable and seemed to be arguing with itself about where to plug it in—not that Melchior was ethernet compatible.

Anger exploded in my belly like a swallowed grenade. Moving without thought or hesitation, I caught hold of the giant’s bunny suit at the back of its waist and jerked at the same time I kicked the back of its right knee. It let out a double-mouthed shriek as it went down, landing hard on its back. Before it could move to right itself, I’d placed the tip of my sword against the soft spot just below its breastbone. In response it put its hands out to the sides, palms up.

“Touch him again and die,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” said Fenris, the dangerous growl back in his voice. “My substitute pack may be broken, but it is still my pack. You threaten even its least member at your peril. Withdraw your blade.”

I didn’t move. Rage filled my core, fiery and bright and oh so hard to contain. I wanted to release it on someone. Anyone.

“Ravirn,” said Tisiphone, her tone quiet and deliberate.

“Yes.” I kept my eyes fixed on the giant at my feet.

“Fight or stand down?”

It was a simple question simply asked. I could hear her willingness to follow my lead either way, and I knew how hard it must be for her to surrender the initiative to me. Tisiphone is not a shy flower. For that matter, for Fenris, choosing to warn me rather than simply take my head off was probably another hard choice. Could I do any less? With a sigh and not a little effort, I put up my sword.

I turned to Fenris. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“I know,” said the wolf. “And so, you live.”

The giant scooted backwards on hands and butt. “Should I be sounding an alarm or something?” asked the left head, speaking in a deep male baritone.

“Or ripping heads off?” asked the right, a hopeful feminine alto.

“Neither,” said Fenris. “Why don’t you take a coffee break.”

“That works for me,” said the male, as the giant got to its feet.

“Wimp,” said the female.

“Slacker, actually,” replied the male.

“Loser either way,” said the female, “just like Dad always said.”

The male opened his mouth again, but didn’t say anything as Fenris shot the pair a very hard look.

“We were just leaving,” said the female. “Weren’t we, brother dear?”

The male head nodded, and the pair ducked out of the room. I crossed to the table, where Tisiphone was already slicing through Melchior’s bonds.

No sooner did they fall away than he blinked his eyes open. “Wha’ happen’?”

“Loki happened,” I said. “Are you all right? What do you remember?”

“ ’M fine.” Melchior sat up slowly, then clutched at his forehead. “ ’Kay, maybe I’ve been better. I . . .” He trailed off as his eyes fell on Fenris.

Then they flicked my way, asking a silent question.

“Fenris is all right. He’s . . . well, if not on our side, not exactly on the other side either.”

Melchior looked dubious, but shrugged. “If you say so, Boss.” He paused, and I could tell he was deciding what to say, though I doubt anyone who knew him less well would have seen it. “I don’t really remember anything after Loki tapped me between the eyes.”

Fenris’s ears suddenly pricked up, and he turned his head toward the door. “Uh-oh. I think it’s time for you to get going.”

“Why?” asked Tisiphone.

“Loki’s back.”

“That’s all right.” Tisiphone grinned and cracked her knuckles. “I’d like to have a few words with him.”

“Please don’t,” said Fenris, tensing and raising his hackles. “It would be better for you if you didn’t force me to pick sides.”

Tisiphone sighed and deflated a bit. “You had to ask nicely, didn’t you? And I was so looking forward to a brawl. I could really use a brawl.” She sighed again. “All right. How do we get out of here without running into Daddy?”