The Codex Lacrimae (39 page)

The hatchet's real. Grimnir was here. They all were here. How did they disappear?

Something flashed on the edge of his vision, and Aurelius remembered that before the fish distracted him, he'd been trying to see an object in the trees across the river. He squinted, but the angle was wrong and he couldn't see the thing clearly from this side of the rapids. He'd have to cross the river to verify what the object was, but from his position it looked as if it was a...sword stuck in a tree?

And, below it, is that someone tied to the trunk, and a man on a stool playing a fiddle?

He knew that the running water was perhaps only four or five hand-spans in depth, but he planned on using the bridge to cross the stream — his feet were relatively dry and he didn't care for the idea of walking (or possibly fighting) with squelching boots!

First, though, he had to retrieve the hatchet. Its reality was something he needed to think about, and such a thing was easier done with the tool in hand rather than in memory. He knelt at the riverbank, reached out to grab it, when a female voice called from somewhere behind him.

“Don't touch the water!”

Aurelius turned, a hand on the hilt of his sword, but almost forgot to breathe as he found himself facing a girl of extraordinary beauty. She seemed friendly, and somehow familiar. He couldn't place her, though, and was certain only that she didn't come from the Krak des Chevaliers. He knew all the staff and assistants in the castle and would surely have recalled meeting her previously.

She must have emerged from the trees where he'd awakened, and stood next to a gigantic spruce. Were he not struck with an intense attraction to the confidence and beauty in her wide, almond-shaped eyes, he'd have mistakenly thought her staying close to the forest fringe so she could bolt into the woods if he proved a threat. Two things, however, immediately belied that impression: an expertly held, iron-tipped quarterstaff, and the fact that she walked quickly toward him! There was no hesitancy about her at all, but a boldness that made him a little wary even as he admired her beauty.

“
Buon giorno
,
” he finally said, blushing as he realized that he'd been simply staring at her! For her part, she'd cocked her head and looked curiously at him. He could only imagine what she thought of him. He continued speaking to her in the same language with which she'd warned him. He looked around and nodded toward her. “
E lei qui sola
? Are you alone?”

“
Si
,
but my friends are nearby should trouble arise.” The girl halted a few paces from him. “I've been told the water is dangerous — things live in it:
nøkken, strömkarlen, nixies.
You need to find another way across.”

“Why?”

She stared blankly at him, and then with irritation asked, “
Mi
scusi?
I know you heard what I said — should I speak...more...slowly this time?” She exaggerated her words. “There are hidden dangers here, and if you touch the water, bad things
will
happen.” The girl glanced up the shoreline from where he'd come to see if anyone else was in sight, the frown still on her face. “Or, so I've been told.”

“No, I didn't meant that. Of course, I heard you…,” his voice trailed off as he looked again at the stream, unconvinced, but intrigued.

.
..but, what, Servius? Should you tell her that I think that this has to be some kind of dream, so nothing in it is really dangerous? Is that it?

He looked back the girl. Her tone was assured and she had a presence about her that commanded immediate respect. Her long brown hair was bound in a ponytail and framed an ovaline, deeply tanned face whose most prominent features were the sea-green eyes that boldly met his gaze. She was clothed in a simple white linen tunic and brown breeches, with high, well-worn, and rust-colored boots. Besides the quarterstaff, he noticed that she had a short-sword on her hip and sheathed dagger strapped to the side of her shapely calf.

His cheeks grew hot as he realized he'd lingered too long on admiring her body, and he quickly gave attention to the water.
Why are you affecting me so?
Her presence was maddening because he'd never felt like this around anyone!

“It seems merely a stream,” Aurelius said, calmly stating the obvious. “I spoke with a man who was fishing here earlier.”

She chuckled. “No, you didn't. There's no one else here.” She glanced at the rushing water and the peaceful woods, murmuring half to herself, “No one and nothing. There's really nothing here. What
was
Rudyick talking about?”

She noticed him looking at her in confusion and realized he didn't know about her earlier meeting on the hill. “Um...we were watching you from up there,” She blushed, and then paused awkwardly before continuing in something of a rush, “I mean, we — my...sisters and I...we were trying to get to Alfheim before you appeared, and then you got here early. But, I saw you. You just woke up a few moments ago and walked to the river. You move quickly.”

Aurelius looked hard at her and then to the trees beyond, seeing nothing of the companions she kept mentioning. He again refrained from saying what he thought:
You didn't see them?
You'd have me believe that I didn't see any of them? That I dreamt of meeting Grimnir and his animals? That I had a dream within a dream? I don't think so, Signorina!.

Instead, he held his silence and focused on the river and the bound figure across the way.

He pointed to the tree, and in some irritation, not caring how strange his question was going to sound, he asked her heatedly, “Well, how about
that
? Do you see people over there?”

The girl's eyes followed his finger and she frowned. “
Sí
…. Someone's tied to that tree, and a man's playing a fiddle?”

“
Bene
,
” Aurelius said sarcastically, “perhaps that means I'm not completely crazy.”

“Don't just stand there,” the girl urged. “Let's go help him!”

“I was headed there,” Aurelius said, kneeling quickly to the river and plunging his hand into the water, his hand clasping securely on the mattock, “but I'm not losing this.”

“You fool!” the girl yelled. “I told you not to touch the water!”

“It's just a river —” Aurelius started to say, and then found that his hand was somehow pinned beneath the icy waters of the rushing stream. He heard something that sounded like the gurgling laughter of many men and a group of maidens singing a song that made him think of the sea.

Is the river starting to run backward?
Then
strömkarlen
and
nixies
were upon him, and his question was lost in a surge of foaming waves that crashed downward and drove him hard into the cobbles and stones of the riverbank.

Chapter 2

Of Norns, the
Brisingamen
,
and a Dark Elf

A half hour before Aurelius was attacked at the river by an overwhelming force of
strömkarlen
and
nixies
,
Clarinda Trevisan turned back at the cave entrance and found herself alone.

The forest outside the cave was deep, densely wooded with the slender grey trunks of beech trees, and interspersed here and there with pines whose boughs were laden with purplish cones. A fog layered itself between the trees, swirling thickly around Clarinda's feet as she moved tentatively forward, unsure which direction to take without the Norns by her side.

She looked left, then right, but her companions were simply gone. Clarinda hesitated. She'd been ascending a now-familiar passage from the labyrinth of tunnels that led to and from Mimir's Well, and keeping pace with the three Norns as they rushed up the final paths toward the sunlight of another world, trying to arrive in Alfheim for the unexpected appearance of Servius Aurelius Santini in the Nine Worlds.

Verdandi's abrupt silence in the midst of another training session with Clarinda at Mimir's Well got the attention of all the women.

“Yes..., I see it now, Verdandi — the Codex Lacrimae awakens,” Urd noted, feeling the tremors of the tome while Verdandi scried the future in the flaming ripples of the underground lake with the white-eyed, All-Seeing of the Sight.

“It's a Huntsman of Muspelheim...Morpeth,” Verdandi related to them, shaking her head in apparent disbelief at the inevitability of the demon. “He's confronting Santini at the Krak des Chevaliers. He's attempting to wrest the Codex from him before the Hospitaller can use it…”

“...but, use it he will,” Skuld continued, her eyes blank whites as she gazed into the pool, “and he comes — Sisters, he'll be here in mere moments! Sooner than any could foretell. To Alfheim, quickly! He'll appear near the River Perilous — he must
not
touch the water!”

Clarinda rose immediately, impelled as much by the desperation in Verdandi's urgent tone as by the dry voice that sounded next in her mind.

Go
,
Mimir said,
there's more here than just the Huntsmen at play trapping their quarry.
Elder powers have taken an interest in the Codex's awakening. There's danger on many fronts in the forests of the Light Elves.

So, the three Norns hiked their skirts and dashed from the subterranean grotto to get to the place of Santini's arrival before the knight himself did. Clarinda paused long enough only to grab her quarterstaff and then it was a full run uphill to the level of Mount Glittertind that opened onto Alfheim.

Clarinda stood at the cave entrance now, alone, touching the necklace and the
triquerta
brooch still pinned to her waist, tempted to use their power even if she didn't know how.

She reflected on how the progress of her training. Back on Midgard, each night when everyone else was asleep in Khalil's caravan, she'd slip into the Nine Worlds with Urd and learn the entire maze of tunnels over the course of an exhausting month's time. Upon returning to Midgard, Clarinda discovered that only a single night had passed and neither Fatima nor Genevieve had even noticed her absence.

Three nights of travel across the desert had translated to three
months
of hard work with the Norns!

The disorientation had been staggering, filled with visits to each of the Nine Worlds and long conversations with Urd, Skuld, and Verdandi. She noticed early on that the other two Norns were wearing the faces of
Fatima
and
Genevieve
while at the Well, and when she asked why, Skuld explained that the Norn-training would go easier if she thought herself among friends back on Midgard.

Nights and days blurred one into the other as months passed while Clarinda learned the tasks and responsibilities she'd inherit upon Urd's death, heard lectures from Mimir about the history of the Nine Worlds and the Norns' role in them, and read spells, myths, and histories from musty tomes.

The efforts were complex and difficult, but a great distraction from grieving her father's death.

Whenever she did think about Padre, she remembered her mantra: one thing at a time.

Primo
,
learn the ways of the Norns.

Secondo
,
fulfill the promise she'd made to transport the caskets to the Krak, where somehow they'd be used against those ultimately responsible for her father's death.

Terzo
,
deal with Servius Aurelius Santini if and when she ever met him.

She needed to stay strong, focused on each task as it came, succeed in its demands, and then move onto the next challenge to become both a stronger Norn and capable woman charged with the Trevisan fleet and fortune.

So, in cleaving to the “practical” side of things — given the fact that she regularly traveled supernaturally between Midgard and Mimir's Well! — Clarinda succeeded in committing to memory all the physical paths through Mount Glittertind that led to Mimir's Well.

One night, when blindfolded, Clarinda led Urd from Svartalfheim to Mimir. The Norn said, “You may take off the cloth, Sister — that was the final test. You've earned the right to take a quicker way.”

Unclasping something hidden behind her neck, Urd withdrew a golden necklace embedded with rubies and emeralds. As she placed the precious object around Clarinda's throat, Urd said, “This is a
Brisinga
necklace. With it, you'll be able to imitate the Asgardians and make
Runeporten
,
or Rune Gates. These gates allow us to magically access each of the Nine Worlds.”

“Where did you get it?” Clarinda asked. “The Asgardians?”

“Indirectly,” Urd said, “and not without great anger from Odin. The All-Father wished they'd never been created. The
Brisingamen
were necklaces made in ancient times by the elven smithy, Volund. While wandering in Nidaveller, the Kingdom of the Dwarves, Volund disguised himself as a dwarf and spent a great deal of time learning magical crafts at the Great Forges in the depths of Mount Glittertind. Eventually, two alert dwarf-sentries captured him.