long single slice lay glistening, the flesh about it an angry red, and along the wound’s length a white encrustation of salt. ‘My gift from the assassins.’
‘An interesting injury.’ Ekatri reached forward with withered fingers. Snorri flinched but kept his place as she set her hand across the slit. ‘Does it hurt, Snorri ver Snagason?’
‘It hurts.’ Through gritted teeth. ‘It only gives me peace when we sail. The longer I stay put the worse it gets. I feel a … tug.’
‘It pulls you south.’ Ekatri removed her hand, wiping it on her furs. ‘You’ve felt this kind of call before.’
Snorri nodded. The bond with Jal exerted a similar draw. He felt it even now, slight, but there, wanting to pull him back to the tavern he’d left the southerner in.
‘Who has done this?’ He met the völva’s one-eyed gaze.
‘Why is a better question.’
Snorri picked up the stone Ekatri had named the Door. It no longer felt unduly cold or heavy, just a piece of slate, graven with a single rune. ‘Because of the door. And because I seek it,’ he said.
Ekatri held her hand out for the Door and Snorri passed the stone to her, feeling a twinge of reluctance at releasing it.
‘Someone in the south wants what you carry, and they want you to bring it to them.’ Ekatri licked her lips, again – the quickness of her tongue disturbing. ‘See how one simple cut draws all the runes together?’
‘The Dead King did this? He sent these assassins?’ Snorri asked.
Ekatri shook her head. ‘The Dead King is not so subtle. He is a raw and elemental force. This has an older hand behind it. You have something everyone wants.’ Ekatri touched the claw of her hand to her withered chest, the motion just glimpsed beneath the blankets. She touched on herself the same spot where Loki’s key lay against Snorri’s flesh.
‘Why just the three? Sent in the midst of winter. Why not more, now that travelling is easy?’
‘Perhaps he was testing something? Does it seem reasonable that three such assassins should fail against one man? Perhaps the wound was all they were intended to give you. An invitation … of a kind. If it wasn’t for the light within you battling the poison on that blade you would belong to the wound already, busy rushing south. There would be no question of any delay or diversion to speak to old women in their huts.’ She closed her eye and seemed to study Snorri with her empty socket a while. ‘They do say Loki’s key doesn’t like to be taken. Given, surely, but taken? Stolen, of a certainty. But taken by force? Some speak of a curse on those who own it through strength. And it doesn’t do to anger gods, now does it?’
‘I mentioned no key.’ Snorri fought to keep his hands from twitching toward it, burning cold against his chest.
‘Ravens fly even in winter, Snagason.’ Ekatri’s eye hardened. ‘Do you think if some southern mage knew of your exploits weeks ago old Ekatri would not know of it by now in her hut just down the coast? You came seeking wisdom: don’t take me for a fool.’
‘So I must go south and hope?’
‘There is no must about it. Surrender the key and the wound will heal. Perhaps even the wounds you can’t see. Stay here. Make a new life.’ She patted the hides beside her. ‘I could always use a new man. They never seem to last.’
Snorri made to stand. ‘Keep the gold, völva.’
‘Well, it seems my wisdom is valued today. Now that you’ve paid for it so handsomely perhaps you might heed it, child.’ She made the coin vanish and sighed. ‘I’m old, my bones are dry, the world has lost its savour, Snorri. Go, die, spend yourself in the deadlands … it matters little to me, my words are a pretty noise for you, your mind is set. The waste sorrows me, young and full of juice you are, but in the end, in the end we’re all wasted by the years. Think on it, though. Did those who stand in your path just start to covet Loki’s key this winter?’
‘I—’ Snorri knew a moment of shame. His thoughts had been so narrowed on the choice he’d made that the rest of the world had escaped him.
‘As your tragedies draw you south … wonder how those tragedies came to be and whose hand truly lay behind them.’
‘I’ve been a fool.’ Snorri found his feet.
‘And you’ll keep being one. Words can’t turn you from this course. Maybe nothing can. Friendship, love, trust, childish notions that have left this old woman … but, whatever the runes have to say, these are what rule you, Snorri ver Snagason, friendship, love, trust. They’ll drag you into the underworld, or save you from it. One or the other.’ She hung her head stared into the fire.
‘And this door I seek? Where can I find it?’
Ekatri’s wrinkle of a mouth puckered into consideration. ‘I don’t know.’
Snorri felt himself deflate. For a moment he had thought she might tell him, but it would have to be Skilfar. He started to turn.
‘Wait.’ The völva raised a hand. ‘I don’t know. But I can guess where it might lie. Three places.’ She returned her hand to her lap. ‘In Yttrmir the world slopes into Hel, so they say. In the badlands that stretch to the Yöttenfall the skies grow dim and the people strange. Go far enough and you’ll find villages where no one ages, none are born, each day follows the next without change. Further still and the people neither eat nor drink nor sleep but sit at their windows and stare. I’ve not heard that there is a door – but if you wish to go to Hel, that is a path. That is the first. The second is Eridruin’s Cave on the shore of Harrowfjord. Monsters dwell there. The hero Snorri Hengest fought them, and in his saga it speaks of a door that stands in the deepest part of those caverns, a black door. The third is less sure, told by a raven, a child of Crakk, white-feathered in his dotage. Even so. There is a lake in Scorron, the Venomere, dark as ink, where no fish swim. In its depths they say there is a door. In older days the men of Scorron threw witches into those waters, and none ever floated to the surface as corpses are wont to do.’
‘My thanks, völva.’ He hesitated. ‘Why did you tell me? If my plan is such madness?’
‘You asked. The runes put the door in your path. You’re a man. Like most men you need to face your quarry before you can truly decide. You won’t let go of this until you find it. Maybe not even then.’ Ekatri looked down and said no more. Snorri waited a moment longer, then turned and left, watched by a single eye floating in its jar.
‘Assassins?’ I lifted my head, the room continuing to move after I stopped. ‘Nonsense. You never mentioned any attack.’
Snorri lifted his jerkin. A single ugly wound ran down his side, far back, just past the ribs, salt crusted as he’d described. I may have seen it when Borris’s daughters were washing him back in Olaafheim after the Fenris wolf got hold of him, or perhaps he had been turned the wrong way … in any event I didn’t recall it in my inebriation.
‘So how much does it cost to hire assassins then?’ I asked. ‘Just for future reference. And … where’s the money? You should be rich!’
‘I gave most of it to the sea, so that Aegir would grant us safe passage,’ said Snorri.
‘Well that didn’t bloody work!’ I banged
