"Why did you kill Bjornssen? It wasn't necessary."
He looked more puzzled than before. "I have never killed anyone."
"Yeah. Right. Tell it to the birds."
My knees had gone shaky—reaction setting in, maybe, or just plain rage—so I strode to the nearest boulder and sat down before I collapsed embarrassingly in front of him. I was whacked out, and bone-deep sore in more places than I wasn't, and standing there talking was a goddamn waste of time I probably didn't have to spare. I had people to see, and Gary Vernon to avenge.
"Sorry," I muttered. "I keep getting all you gods mixed up."
Baldr squatted beside me, and studied my face for several moments; then stared out across the Gjoll. When he spoke, his voice was distant, contemplative. "Each man's death is his own to meet, and each man must face it alone at the time decreed for him. That is one moment no one can take from him or assume for him. The fault of your friend's death cannot be yours, any more than it can be mine or any of the other gods'."
I glanced up; but couldn't tell whether he was talking about Klaus or Gary.
Baldr was still talking. "The Norns decree all that must be. They guided his footsteps up to the moment of his death, as surely as they have guided yours here while you still live."
Gary's death proved that wrong; but I didn't feel like arguing the point with Odin's son.
"All I want is to talk to Loki," I growled.
Baldr's eyes narrowed. "About what?"
"Sleipnir."
Baldr's eyes widened. "What in the nine worlds has Sleipnir to do with this?"
I glanced up from checking my P-7 for rust. "Got to do with what?"
He swept a hand around at the landscape. "Your presence here. Obviously the Norns have brought you here for a reason, and a very important one; but Sleipnir is Odin's horse, not Hel's. He doesn't live in Niflheim."
I met his blue eyes squarely. "I saw him just a few minutes ago, in that big tunnel of his. He was headed this way."
Baldr grinned, and shrugged. "I didn't say he doesn't occasionally visit." Then his expression sobered, and he pursed his lips. "Whatever's up, it certainly bodes to be interesting."
"Huh. You just said a mouthful, friend."
Living in interesting times was a curse I could've done without. I reholstered the P-7.
"You'll point out the way to Loki, then?"
He shook his head. Mistrust had crept into his eyes. Baldr was supposed to've been the trusting type. Clearly, he'd learned caution in the eons he'd been stuck in this slimepit of a world.
"No, I think not. This game is too serious for blundering about in the dark. My hostess will want to speak with you, at the very least."
"I thought Hel was only interested in dead men."
His smile was sincere enough. "True; but this is her world, after all, and we are but guests in it. She would not be pleased if you refused an audience. And believe me, no living mortal within her sphere of influence would want to anger her. I am not complaining, understand. She's a good hostess. But you are out of place here, so the same rules don't exactly apply to you."
I didn't bother to observe that so far none of the rules had applied to me.
"Come, pack up your strange belongings and follow me; I'll take you to Hel."
I didn't care for the sound of that; but didn't see that I had much choice.
We struck out along the shoreline. Baldr said conversationally, "I couldn't help noticing that the Sly Biter is with you."
"The what?" I glanced around involuntarily.
"The Sly Biter. Your knife. I'd always wondered what had become of it. Somehow, I'm not too surprised it wound up in your hands. It has a way of turning up precisely when and where it's needed. How'd it find you?"
I started to comment; then shut my lips. I shouldn't have been surprised.
"You recognize this thing, huh?" I slipped the knife out of its sheath and watched in satisfaction as the tail wrapped around my arm.
"Of course." He sounded surprised. "I used to see it frequently when I was younger. It disappeared, though," he added thoughtfully, "right before I was killed."
Interesting. Maybe I could finally get some answers.
"Where'd it come from? What exactly is it?" Green light caught the blade and sang gleefully along the invisible edge. The scaly haft was warm against my palm. It pulsed with an arcane life.
Baldr's voice warmed to his subject. "The Biter has been since before I was born. Some say it was carved from the living root of Yggdrasil." He gestured toward the cavern "ceiling," and the familiarity of swirling light patterns clicked.
"Others claim... Well, it just is. The Norns probably would know for sure where it came from. My father had it for a while; that's how I know it. But it's an odd creature, the Biter."
"Then it is alive?"
"Oh, yes, without a doubt. Well, not perhaps alive in the sense you might think; but it is not just a soulless artifact. It chooses those who will carry it, not the other way around, though I'm not terribly clear on why or how."
He grinned. "Father was furious when it deserted him. It's said that when the Biter chooses a mortal, only the mortal's death will break the bond." He frowned thoughtfully, and gave me a disquieted glance. "I'm also told it turns up whenever the Balance swings precariously. When that happens, it acts its will on those who are destined to tip the scales in the direction decreed by the Norns. Thus will it be until Ragnarok. The Destruction of the Worlds," he added, as if expecting me not to know what it meant.
"I know what Ragnarok is," I said dryly.
He smiled, unoffended. "Most of your contemporaries don't. It's sad, you know, being forgotten."
"Yeah, life's a bitch and then you die."
"How very Norse!" He chuckled.
I wasn't laughing.
Instead, I stared at the Biter. Worked its will on me, did it? We'd just see about that. Light sang off its black skin, glinted in its black eyes. Something Baldr had said had begun to bother me. If the Biter did its own choosing—and had deserted Odin—what, precisely, did that mean to me? What did it want? And just whose side was it on, anyway? Could I trust it or not?
Whatever the answer, Odin had been upset to lose it. I grinned. The thought that the Biter preferred my company to his gave me a great deal of satisfaction.
"It's a temperamental little bastard," was all I said.
I carefully resheathed it. At Baldr's request, I related a few of my adventures with the Biter, leaving out key bits of information here and there. Baldr laughed merrily when I told him about the entrenching tool and the ragheads. I managed to keep the conversation light and humorous.
Then, as he took up the thread of conversation and began an improbable tale about the Biter and a frost giant, a biting wind picked up, seemingly out of nowhere. I shivered hard. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was just about at the end of my strength, and I wasn't dressed for freezing wind. Given the state of my clothes, I was barely dressed. When I fell behind, wheezing loudly in the cold air, Baldr slowed and stopped.
"I fear I must apologize again," he said ruefully.
Baldr assisted me over to a large boulder, which sported flecks and speckles of glowing yellow phosphorescence. It wasn't a warm phosphorescence, though, so I just sat wearily, shivering.
"Yeah? What for this time?"
"You are injured, tired, and undoubtedly suffering from hunger and thirst, and I've kept you walking all this time when there was no need."
A gust of wind caught us, and I wrapped both arms around myself, trying to get warm.
"And you are cold, as well. I really am sorry... ."
"I know, I know, it's just that the dead don't get tired and thirsty, right?"