The Edge of Hel

“Why have you brought me to the edge of Hell?”

The chains clanked as he adjusted their length, using the back end of his father’s war hammer to pound a spike into the gritty “soil.” “Ahh, my Brunhylde, do you not like my sky-boat? I made it for you, you and your handmaidens. See how pretty it is? We will be happy here, without any distractions.”

If she could have hit him, she would have. “My name,” she hissed, “is not Brunhylde!”

“No matter, my darling, enjoy this bower, you and your ladies, and when I have slain the dragon, I will come and collect you. Just like I promised. Just like the ring has promised.” He tapped his arm, and even to human eyes, the copper-and-gold wires twisted and glittered. He swooped to kiss her, but she hissed again and swatted back with the manacles around her wrists.

He ducked, chuckled nervously, and backed out of the “room.”

She sat on the rock she was chained to, at the heart of her “bower.”

A tremulous voice came from the shadows. “My lady? Are we dead? Are we in Hell?”

A grumble, and a brassy jangle, by the shadowed doorway. “We are at its edge, young one. This is Hekla, one of the gates to Hell. That reek? That smells of rotting eggs, under the dusk? That is the scent of death, the stink-breath of the Ash Serpent, that crouches above us. Loki is there, bound by the gods, and soon, very soon, Sigyn will empty the cup of venom she collects, and then, well, we’d best be dead.”

Another voice from the shadows, shrill, disbelieving. Thickly accented. “What are you nattering about, old crone? You’re blind! You’ve been blind since I was brought to this gods-forsaken land, mumbling about spirits and whatnot, and now you speak as if our death is certain! Move, woman! Show some spirit! Help us flee!”

The blond woman chuckled, and stretched her legs. The chains on her feet clanked, a dull counterpoint to the rings on her wand-staff, which jangled brassily. “I am a Vǫlva, little thrall, and I have known the date of my own death since I was a tiny child. As surely as the silent sickness creeps through my veins, so my death creeps closer, ever closer. Breathe deep of the poison that wreaths the air, it will make the inevitable much easier to bear.” She pointed to her feet. “I do not need my eyes to know we have all been chained, spaced apart. We cannot help each other. Just enough length to help our lady, as we were meant to. Not enough length to help each other. We are doomed together, maidens, mother, crone. All our choices are reduced to how we choose to die.”

There was sniffling from various sides, but the lady in the center suddenly cocked her head. “Mother? Who? Not you, and certainly not me, I will fight like a wildcat before I let that sniveling coward touch me! Who among my handmaidens has been faithless?”

Again, the Vǫlva snorted. “My lady, please. Faithless? How dramatic. Your maidens are human. They have needs. Be thankful one had a draught of adult pleasures, before passing to the halls of the gods.”

One was weeping softly, and the lady squinted into the shadows. “Liefi? Was it worth it?”

“Certainly, my lady. I had a sweet taste of being a huswife, laying in my man’s arms. I am angry that I am now damned, for not bringing this child to life. I wanted a gentle Hall of the Dead, not Hel’s dreary domain.”

The Vǫlva shrugged. “Take it up with the thrall, she is too far from her home to be heard by her gods. At least you will arrive, with me here to guide you.”

The thrall spat. “That for your gods! And for mine, too! To steal me away from kith and kin, be used as a plaything for your father! All those nights, when you, my lady, slapped me for being absent? Did it ever occur to you, I was dragged, by my hair, to your father’s furs? A plaything, to make your mother angry? Doubly punished, for things I had no control over? Now it happens to you, and now it’s a tragedy, and I am ever so glad you are tasting the poison I’ve been forced to swallow!”

The lady reeled as if she’s been struck, and the Vǫlva nodded. “If you find your way to the Morrigan, you should compliment her. Or is it Arawn? Or Cernunnos? I have trouble keeping my own gods straight, I do not have much mind left for all the others.”

“I will have sharp words with whoever I find on the other side of the veil. Truth be told, even if I would survive this, and try to return home, they would slip me into a bog as a guardian for their stupid lands. Futter them all.”

The Vǫlva turned sightless eyes to the lady. “Do you see now? Do you comprehend?”

The lady was crying, a strange sight on the daughter of a jarl. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, again, a strange thing to hear. “I… I didn’t think.”

“We are in as much danger as you. We are all chained. That madman will force any maiden he pleases for his wedding nuptials. You saw that thing on his arm; the Ring of the Nibelung, if I am not mistaken. Cursed, and it has driven him mad. So, what will become of us? Your coward of a father will never find us, revenge us.”

One more voice from the darkness. “Why did he bring us here? I can see hiding us where no one will look, but we don’t even have a roof. What is he thinking?”

The lady snorted this time, looking around. “That creature out there, thinking he’s my husband, is deranged. A sky-boat? Fire boat, more like. I think he thinks he built a.. a dike? A wedge of rock berm? If a boat’s prow works for water, then, perhaps, he thinks this will hold against a fire flow?”

“Hraun. The earth-blood, the glowing fire that burns, then cools to rock. A dike might be useful, but not here. Not this haphazard. I can feel the chinks in the rocks like a breeze across my cheeks. This is a fool’s dream.”

“Do you still smell the reek, of rotten eggs?”

“Yes?”

“Then it is not enough. When you no longer smell it, then you can see death coming.”

The humming they didn’t notice was getting louder.

The Vǫlva also hummed. “Sigyn has removed the cup. Loki thrashes, and we are in the way.” She dug in her bag. “Here, my lady, take these, and pass them to your handmaidens. I have had the wasting disease for long, and laying down the pain will be a relief.”

“What, what is this?” The lady clutched a handful of vials to her chest. They held a milky substance.

“That apothecary thrall your father bought, he knows how to make a powerful poppy juice. But he was dosing it with poison hemlock, and thought my sight was limited to my eyes. The spirits told me of his doings, so I saved them. For what, I did not know. Till now.”

“I wish I had known, I would have poisoned him myself!”

“No need.” The Vǫlva smiled. “One may have found its way into his mead cup the night we were stolen. He is on the far shore now, likely looking lost.”

“He can stay that way. I have no desire to help him.”

The sky roared.

The maidens screamed, but gripped the bottles tight. Saw the spray of lava fountain above the berm, and decided to drink instead of boil.

The Vǫlva also drank, but then shook her wand-staff. “Svanr, my bright-white, my feathered moon, my guide, my friend, please do not forsake us in this last time of need, come to me, silver you are, and silver is the woman’s metal, let us take flight one last time, let us take the silvered path, guide us to the far shore…”

Faint clanging could be heard, and a man shouting, but it was dulled by the volcano roar.

The Vǫlva pushed on: “Come, Svanr, guide us home, bring your kindred, we are cut off from our kin, and in desperate need of your guidance…”

The shouting, clanging, was louder.

The maidens were gasping, wheezing. It was hard to tell if it was from the poison, or from the poisonous gases rolling down the volcano’s sides.

From above, the shape was clear. A fat oval, like the outline of a boat – or a boat-shaped grave. Lava flowed down the flank, hit the fire-boat’s prow, split, flowed down the sides. It was clear that the insane kidnapper wanted to re-create Brunhylde’s circle of fire, with himself as the Siegfried who would slay the monster, bring her back to life, save her, to love him.

He’d forgotten that Siegfried is the betrayer.

The clanging, shouting was louder. So was the hissing lava, with a few drips now entering the chamber.

The sight of the maidens was beginning to fade. The Vǫlva’s chant was down to a whisper, though she still shook the wand. The rings, brassy tones jingling, still called the spirits to her side.

And the fool appeared in the doorway.

Well, his ass did.

He was still fighting, still shouting, thrashing his tarnished sword at the serpent’s tongue of lava that threaded its way to him, trickling, teasing through the path the idiot neglected to block.

“Never fear, fair maiden! I, Siegfried, shall slay the foul dragon, and free you from your prison!”

From above, the lava, now completely circling the fire-boat, spoke otherwise.

The maidens were dead, though the fool didn’t see it.

Except the Vǫlva, still pleading, begging. Staring at a moon above the berm, above the fountain of glowing fire, with eyes that could not see.

Also except the lady.

With a determined strength she didn’t know she had, she picked up the neglected war hammer. It had lain in the dirt, unseen, till the moon and lava brightened the glints on its surface. She, daughter of a jarl, had been trained like a Valkyrie. She may not have had the spirit of one, but she certainly had the strength of one.

As the Vǫlva’s wand fell out of dying fingers, her breath stilled, the lady shuffled to the end of her chain, quietly, carefully. Hefted, tested – and swung.

The blow caught him from behind, lifted him up, pitched him forward.

He effectively blocked the doorway. For a time, but that’s all that was needed.

His nether regions thrashed, though his screams did not last long. The dragon silenced them well, though the hissing continued for a while.

The lady staggered back to her so-called bower, and she collapsed on it, still carrying the hammer.

And the swans came.

Five ghostly swans, arrowing down from a flock on the wing. Crying, calling, covering the moon briefly, like a flickering cloud. Keening, urging, swooping, circling.

Five swans rose from the fire circle, answering the call.

One bore a tiny golden crown. One had brass bells jangling on its legs, like jess-bells of a falcon. One was gray, and a bit awkward, unused to flight, but urged on by the others. One was ungainly, like it was gravid, with an egg waiting to be laid.

They joined the ghostly forms in the sky, and followed the flock. Away, away from the roar of the mountain, from Loki’s painful punishment, as a rushing figure ran back to the lava, hair flying on the poison wind, holding an empty basin.

The one wearing the jess-bells glanced back.

At the edge of their former prison, she could see ghostly figures. A man, and a dragon, fighting. The armor didn't fit the man, and the shield hung slack, but he surged on with a broken sword, while the dragon encircled him, bit him, dragged him down. Even in the clash of blinding lights, the ring on his arm glowed redly, showing the madness of a thief.

The Vǫlva turned, and followed the swans.