The Sword of Summer: Chapters 27–40

Sam headed downstream on the Esplanade jogging trail.

Beneath us, cars edged along bumper to bumper, honking incessantly.

“Do not patronize me, Magnus. I chose you because—”

Hearth’s face froze in apprehension.

“Kid, Surt wants death and destruction. He wants fire to run rampant across the Nine Worlds. A war god can’t stop that. Frey can. He’s the god of the growing season—the god of health and new life. He keeps the extremes in check, both fire and ice. There’s nothing Surt hates worse than being restrained. Frey is his natural enemy.”

He was scowling at the floor. Blitz had taken off his ski mask and glasses, I guess because the interior light didn’t bother him as much, and was now sullenly spinning a plastic fork on the table. Apparently I’d missed a good argument between him and Hearth.

I let loose a guttural roar—the cry of a man who has been deprived of his rightful kibbeh.

The blade hit the bird’s back and stuck there like superglue. I tried to pull it away, but it wouldn’t move. My hands were grafted to the sword grip.

I had an addled thought about Paul Revere and the whole One if by land, two if by sea thing.

“Say: By my troth, I agree to your terms.”

The roof slanted precariously. Eighty feet below me stretched a wide expanse of pavement-flavored death.

It’s I-D-U-N. She distributes the apples of immortality that keep the gods young and spry.

The deck was a mess of ropes, buckets, and tackle boxes. Nets and buoys festooned the sides like Christmas decorations.

I glanced at my friends. “Guys, sidebar please.” I led them down the dock, out of earshot from Harald.

I forced myself to study the bull’s head—its curved black horns, its lolling pink tongue like a hairy air mattress, its white steaming fur, and the glistening slime craters of its nostrils.

“She was a doctor, my mom. She found Loki in the emergency room. He was...I don’t know...he’d used up too much of his power trying to appear in Midgard in physical form. He got trapped somehow, divided between worlds. His manifestation in Boston was in agony, weak and helpless.”

Anyway, my mom mostly raised me by herself. She was headstrong, unconventional.

She might have once been beautiful, but her pearlescent skin was withered, her seaweed-green eyes were milky with cataracts, and her rippling blond hair was shot through with gray like blight in a wheat field.

She might have once been beautiful, but her pearlescent skin was withered, her seaweed-green eyes were milky with cataracts, and her rippling blond hair was shot through with gray like blight in a wheat field.

Trapped in its weave was a kaleidoscope of ice floe, dead fish, plastic garbage bags, car tires, grocery carts, and other assorted flotsam.

The goddess shooed away the frost giant, who did his best to cower, grovel, and retreat all at the same time.

The World Serpent snarled petulantly, tugging at the steel cable in his mouth.

The apple didn’t look like much—just a shriveled Golden Delicious—but Sam held it gingerly, as if it were radioactive.

“I dunno. Something pocket-size and innocuous. A pen, maybe?”

He’d dispensed with the anti-sun gear and was now wearing an eggplant-purple three-piece suit with a mauve dress shirt and a green carnation in the lapel.

I was expecting the World Tree to be a tree. Not a row of bronze ducks.
“Behold!” Blitzen said. “The nexus of the universe!”

“Nine Worlds? Nine ducks? The symbolism screams portal! This spot is the crux of creation, the center of the tree, the easiest place to jump from one duck—I mean one world—to another.”

She’d changed into a black wool trench coat, but otherwise she was dressed the same as yesterday: green hijab, ax, shield, jeans, winter boots—all the accoutrements of a fashionable ex-Valkyrie.

On either side of the steps lounged a calico house cat the size of a saber-toothed tiger.

It was a dark time for me. I was wandering the Nine Worlds, grieving and bereft.

“Yes, Magnus. You will learn to use the sword—and I don’t mean just swinging it like a brute. Once you discover its full abilities, you will be formidable indeed.”

“I want you to commission some earrings to match my necklace Brisingamen. Something nice. Not too flashy, but noticeable. Blitzen, you have excellent taste. I trust you.”

Their hair was greased back in pompadours.

Freya gave me a conspiratorial smile, as if she had some wonderful secret to share.

Her fingertips traced the filigree of her necklace.

I guess no true Bostonian would trust a place that was sunny and pleasant all the time. But a gritty, perpetually cold and gloomy neighborhood?

A fine cup for quaffing!

Nabbi looked back and forth between Blitzen and the tear, his expression vacillating between apprehension and greed.

I studied my tankard, which was painstakingly engraved with runes and wave designs.

“Dwarves are matriarchal. We trace our lineage through our mothers. Again, it makes much more sense than your patrilineal way. After all, one can only be born from a single biological mother. Unless you are the god Heimdall. He had nine biological mothers. But that’s another story.”