They spotted her right away and moved as a group in her direction. She didn’t notice the Gerd impersonator in the midst of them until they were already upon her, blocking the entire sidewalk so that she had no easy way of continuing onward.
“Hi. You probably want an autograph, right?”
The Gerd impersonator smiled. She, too, looked a lot like the real thing.
“We wouldn’t want to trouble you,” she said. Even her voice… Our Heroine squinted and looked a bit closer.
No. She seemed a little too young to be Gerd.
Unless she was just incredibly well preserved.
“That’s a really nice costume,” Our Heroine said. The woman was wearing a long black robe that seemed to suit Gerd’s sense of style. “So, I guess you’re supposed to be my arch-nemesis.”
“I guess that is indeed what I am supposed to be. Yet we are in a hurry. No time to play at being nemeses now. I’m glad to have had the chance of seeing you, though.” She smiled a genuinely friendly smile. It couldn’t be Gerd.
“Yeah, well, have fun with all the dressing up and stuff,” Our Heroine said, and she stepped onto the street around them all, not looking back as she turned the corner onto Telegraph—toward the campus.
She passed shops that catered to the student crowd: record stores, cafés, and copiers. It was early in the semester, and students were lining up to buy course readers, chugging lattes and hot apple ciders to compensate for the cold. Our Heroine considered a quick tea herself. Students might stop her, though, and she’d had enough conversation for the time being. She hurried on.
With cold feet she headed up Dalkey Road, where the wind seemed thicker. Away from downtown, from Hrothgar’s, toward home. Perhaps Hubert would try to call again, and this time she’d find the phone. Screw him. She crossed the footbridge over Inwit Creek. Perhaps she’d refuse to answer.
So. It wasn’t that she was searching, but she’d just ended up with these random pieces. Not of a puzzle, necessarily, but pieces of something. She had no surface on which to scribble this down. Just repeat it in her mind, then. Rearrange the fragments until they made sense.
Things that began with H: Hubert, Historia Danica, Hamlet—some versions, at least—Hrothgar’s, Heidrun. Not now.
Things that she did not know: what Angus was doing in town tonight, whether that Nathan fellow had anything to do with all of this, whether there was a “this” to begin with…
Things that must be kept secret: what happened to Shirley in Denmark. Just the one thing, really. It had been the last thing that Shirley had asked of her—to keep it secret, particularly from Blaise. And if anyone deserved to know, it was he, so how could she tell anyone else? Besides, it might help but it might not. And if it were unrelated, then she would be betraying Shirley’s trust for nothing. Better to honor her will than to get her an unasked-for revenge…
There were also things that she knew but could not say—things she had not yet found the voice to express.
Then she looked up at the sky and saw a column of black smoke. The color of Gerd’s hair. More like a blaze than someone’s chimney-flow. Black tree branching in the sky. At least it was a bit too far away to be from her house. But something was burning, and it was probably something that she didn’t want burnt. She could feel sick already, imagining all the things it might be.
Skellington Road veered more directly toward home, but Our Heroine decided to continue down Dalkey. It was getting on toward two o’clock, and Bean Day pilgrims would be gathered round her house, and that was not something that she wanted to deal with. Though it might be worth braving through them just to get out of the cold… No. She could hear sirens, now, and curiosity tugged her hardest.
“Is my father all right?”
His library. The smoke had been coming from his library. The burning brought sensation back to the rims of her ears.
“Is my father all right?”
“I don’t believe there was anyone inside, miss. Now you’ll have to stand back.”
Ash floated up out of it like negative snow.
“Oh, God, I have to find my father.”
“I’m sorry, miss, I’m going to have to ask you to stand back for your own protection.”
The fireman placed his smoke-smeared glove on her shoulder and led her back onto the street.
“Isn’t there anyone who can tell me what’s going on?”
“There’s a fire, and I’ve got to go finish putting it out. I’m sorry that I can’t assist you any more than that right now, but if you’ll excuse me…”
The street around her was crowded with neighbors and tourists.
“I do not want this,” she mumbled.
She imagined the books inside flaring one by one and her father in there with them.
“Pardon me, could I trouble you for an autograph?” spat a fat, graybearded fellow bumping abruptly up behind her.
“Now’s not the time—”
“Oh, but please! Yours is the last I need.”
She removed her eyes from the fire and frowned at the old man.
“Fine.” She took his pad and scrawled her pseudonym illegibly upon it. She handed the pad back to the man, and he grinned maliciously up at her from behind his grey mass of beard and moustache.
“Thank you so much,” he said as he wobbled off out of the crowd.
Our Heroine didn’t notice her father until he grabbed her by the arms.
“This is the flame-work of Surt,” Ymirson bellowed.
Smoke stung her eyes. “Papa! You’re okay. Oh, we should get you to the hospital. Were you inside there? What happened? Did you inhale any smoke?”
“I have no need of a hospital, my dear. I have not been inhaling smoke, and I was not inside the blazing, either, so you should not be afraid for me.” He was wearing his long brown heavy coat.
“How did this happen?”
“These are the flames of Surt.”
Our Heroine saw the library reflected in her father’s eyes. The firemen had reduced it almost to a smolder.
“Did you see someone start this fire, Pa?”
“We must catch him. That is all that is important. Then I may cry on my throne for having no more to do.”
“I’m gonna take you back to my house, okay, Pa? You should lie down. We can talk to the fire department later. But let’s just get out of here before they start asking questions.”
“Yes, perhaps I should rest for the final fight that is yet to come.” He straightened his spine to something like the full height he once had known. Still six feet, yet thinner and gray. It was no longer a tall six feet. He turned to walk with Our Heroine homeward.
“Are you sure you didn’t try to work the oven by yourself or something, Pa? Do you remember anything about what happened? What were you doing when you realized the library was burning?”
“I don’t know, dear thing. Do not ask me these questions right now. I am trying to think of what is to be done.”
They walked without speaking. At least he was all right. More sirens sounded in the distance, Dopplering their direction. How did a fire start on such a snowy day? Just audible beneath the melody of the approaching engines, then, Our Heroine could discern a vague counterpoint. Somewhat familiar. Her eyelids opened wide when she recognized it as the howl of Garm.
“We’re going to take a little detour, now, Pa.”
ICELANDER
LUDO
Despite the ceaseless sunlight of high summer, the air was bitter with the prevailing Arctic winds. My Vanatru guides seemed warm enough in their fox-fur parkas, but me, I was shivering like an idiot in the vintage Richard Roundtree black-leather jacket and brown turtleneck that I’d bought before leaving New Uruk. Three layers of thermals, too. This get-up had kept me feeling warm and looking cool in Denmark, Reykjavik, and all the way up to the northern coast, but honestly I almost would have skinned the horses if we hadn’t had to leave them at the last outpost.
24
The constant shifting between multiple narrators in this portion of the novel renders the chronology somewhat unclear, but internal evidence would suggest that the sections narrated by Nathan occur during the summer of 1998 while all other sections occur—like the rest of the text—on Bean Day of 2001 (except where explicitly noted otherwise). I was indoors for most of this day, myself, and thus unfortunately can offer little in the way of first-hand corroboration for any of this.