The Gates of Hel (ebook)

Amid the spear-wrought rafters of Valhöll, the monkey fylgja crept, seemingly unnoticed by all save Hermod and mayhap some of the valkyrjar. Hermod wondered, sometimes, if the einherjar failed to see it by not looking or because they did not expect it. As if some things could only ever be apparent to those who already knew they were there. Maybe life was like that; mayhap, among those in this place, so was death. Living or dead, so few ever had their eyes open.
What, then, might Hermod have missed, for having not known whither to look or what to seek for? Was that what separated Odin from the rest of them? The king not only saw farther than any, but he knew to look for visions others could not imagine. His world was vaster and more terrible than any beheld by the rest of the Æsir, much less these ghost warriors held here as thralls for a war yet to come.
Once, afore Odin had left seeking after Alfheim, Hermod had confronted him about whether what they did here, holding the einherjar’s souls imprisoned in Valhöll, was a worthy deed. “Speak to me of morality only when you have gazed into the gaping maw of eternity and beheld the rise and fall of worlds hinging upon every choice, where each breath taken or stilled might unmake realities.” Odin’s response had struck Hermod speechless, left him trembling in awe and terror at the implication.
But over the centuries since the king had vanished, Hermod had been left to wonder if, worse still than his own ignorances, he need fear Odin’s. If the more terrible revelation of their messianic leader was not in the awful truths he knew but in the voids he had yet to fill. If Odin’s every mistake might, as he said, leave worlds bleeding, then every truth hidden from him risked these cosmic haemorrhages.
But none of Hermod’s maudlin musings amounted to much, for truth told, he could not see so far as Odin and thus feared to question the advisedness of any choice the king made. When a prophet offers destiny, a Man has but to choose to offer or withhold faith and, either way, risk damnation if he chooses wrong.
“I spoke,” Hermod said, mouth dry despite having wet it with ample wine. He cleared his throat and downed another swig from the horn. “I spoke yesternight of the wedding of Heidrek Höfundson and Helga Hrothgarsdotter. Such had been a time of wild revels, where great men of the North Realms had converged upon Heorot. Worthy times, and grand, leastwise ere the coming of Grendel left those memories strewn with blood and pain.
“But I suppose it would do, rather, to explain the events around this marriage, given so many things hinged upon this convergence of Urd.” Hermod pointed to where the Döglinar clustered, keeping, as they did, most oft to themselves. “Hervor Angantyrsdotter was the daughter of a famed berserk. She raided his barrow and took from it the runeblade Tyrfing, and the telling of that, and all she wrought with it, would have us sitting here for the next fortnight.”
A few chuckles at that, though Hervor was not well loved by many in this hall, least of all by Bödvar. She rarely spoke, solemn as she was, and Hermod remained ambivalent about whether she belonged here. A great warrior, aye, but an oathbreaker she was, and his valkyrjar had saved her from a visit to Náströnd and a meeting with its dark dragon. Whether she earned that reprieve, time would tell. Or maybe, that was yet another choice, whether to lay his faith in Odin in spite of his reservations or trust his own judgment. How much faith, ever, could a leader deserve?
“Well, when the days of her adventures were behind her, wounded as she was in body and soul, Hervor married the half-jötunn, Höfund Gudmundrson, who, after this, became a great and respected jarl beneath Hrethel of Ostergotland. Once, Hervor had tried to cast aside the runeblade, but Tyrfing’s curse was not one to slumber overlong, and soon it would wake.”