The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 20: The Ghost Port of Niflheim

Andvari the Arch-Mage, Skade the Huntress, and Fenris the Wolf-man brought what later generations would call the Company of the Codex to the edge of a promontory overlooking the great Sea of Niflheim and called a halt.

"Now do you see why these are called the Cliffs of Despair?" Ratatosk asked.

Jacob's reactions to the squirrel were almost reflexive after traveling with the group for two days since Marcus claimed the Sampo. "Who calls them that, Ratatosk?"

The squirrel looked up at him, its lower lip trembling in agitation. "Who? What do you mean, who calls them the Cliffs of Despair? I don't know, whelp —everyone!"

"Truly?" Jacob put his hands on his hips. "We've been attacked twice by that 'Wild Hunt,' but I only heard them screaming or moaning, no words, so they couldn't be part of your 'everyone.'"

"Are you calling me a liar?" the squirrel said petulantly.

"Leave it alone, Ratatosk," Rudyick advised, coming from his rearguard position. "The elf put a hand briefly on Jacob's shoulder. "Well done, boy. You've really gotten to him. I never thought I'd see someone who could shut up Ratatosk as many times as you have."

"Well, you seem to take great pleasure in describing each place we pass through as impossible." Jacob glowered at Ratatosk. "First, you told us that we couldn't survive the Screaming Stair when we descended the Irminsul. Then, after we fought our way through Shriekers in the dark, you said that no one could cross the Ice Caverns of Nidhogg, but we got through there in a day and even had a campfire by the Rainbow Pools—"

"Odin's Eye, now who's the one who won't shut up?" Ratatosk muttered. "The one time I want Nidhogg to really put the scare in someone, and he's off somewhere gnawing on another part of the World Tree."

"And finally," Jacob said, kneeling beside the squirrel, "we get to the Forest of Endless Agony and you dart away for half a day because you tell me that you can't bear to watch us get torn apart." The boy waved back at the trees. "Well, guess what? It took us another day and four marches, but here we are!"

"Midgardians!" The squirrel snorted, then pattered off into a thick stand of dying birch trees.

Jacob rose to his feet and smiled at Marcus and Genevieve, but the girl was talking urgently to the boy. She pointed at a vast rectangle of light that shimmered a sickly emerald above the ice floes in the vast harbor far below. The rest of the group stood at the edge of a granite cliff so high that Jacob stepped back. The dark ocean's churning whitecaps seemed mere curls of chalk on a vast expanse of slate.

"We need to make our way down, my friends," Andvari said.

"Are you afraid the scouts below would see any fire we made?" his wife asked.

"I think he realizes that we're out of time," Fenris growled.

"It might already be too late," Rudyick said, nodding toward the port that lay to the east of the shimmering, gigantic rune gate hovering over the dark sea. "They're getting ready to board Naglfar. Why hunt for scraps like us under mountain and in forest when Hela's preparing an invasion of Midgard for the main course?"

"Starting with the Krak des Chevaliers," Jacob said.

"Go to the Krak!" Marcus said. "Let's play, Jake!"

"Not yet, Marcus," Jacob said, glancing at Genevieve to make sure he was saying the right thing in the correct manner.

Ilmarinen had told the group that the Sampo was like the power of starlight brought to earth, able to endow its possessor with almost infinite abilities over time and space. Because of Marcus's condition, however, one wrong move by any of them could just as easily offer complete destruction as perhaps total victory. "Let's play when we're closer to that green light, all right?" he said.