Ivy League Illusion, Part 6
Negotiating with the Enemy
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When I awoke, I was back in human form—but that was the only good news.
I felt weak enough to imagine that a vampire had drained me almost to the brink of death. But even if I hadn’t been in such marginal shape, I couldn’t have escaped. Manacles, ice-cold against my skin, held my arms and legs. The manacles connected to chains with such big links that I doubted even Nidhoggson could break them. I couldn’t lift my head enough to see, but since the chains ran downward, I assumed they were now attached either to the stone slab on which I lay or to the chamber’s floor.
The room I was in had no windows, and if there was a door, I couldn’t see it. The obsidian walls had glowing images of the rune Ior merkstave painted on them, no doubt designed to block Nidhoggson from manifesting or to make him weak if he did emerge.
No vampire was within my line of vision, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one hidden in some part of the room I couldn’t see. I imagined one watching me intently, waiting until it was time to feed.
I forced that thought out of my mind and turned my attention inward. “Nidhoggson?”
“I am here,” he replied in a nearly inaudible whisper that lacked all of his old strength and attention-commanding power.
“How much do you know about my past?”
“Everything you have seen or heard since my creation, and some of what you have felt.”
“In that case, can you tell me how my magic works?”
That question was met by an ominous silence. Just as I thought Nidhoggson had become unconscious or worse, he said, “If you recover the knowledge of how your magic works, you will just use it to suppress me.”
My fists clenched. I felt the physically impossible desire to punch Nidhoggson in the face.
“One of two things is going to happen, Nidhoggson. Either the vampires get what they want from us and then kill us, or the vampires realize they can’t get what they want from us and then kill us. The only reason we’re still alive is that we have something they want, and they still think they can get it.”
My inner dragon considered that for a moment. “What use is it for me to be alive if I am forever buried within you?”
I thought about promising him things I had no intention of giving him, like part-time control of my body. But if he could feel at least some of what i was feeling, he might catch me in the lie, and then I’d have even greater difficultly getting him to cooperate.
“What if I were to promise to get you out of me, give you a life of your own?”
Nidhoggson responded with what sounded a little like a humorless chuckle. “It you had your memory, you’d know that such a thing has already been attempted. The four druids of Tír na nÓg have tried. The beings once worshipped by the Norse as gods have tried. Yongwang, the dragon king of Korea, has tried. But my presence is too entangled with your knowledge of the runes, and any successful effort to remove me or that knowledge will almost certainly destroy your mind. I could live with that, but no one who can do it would be willing.”
The life I had forgotten was evidently far more…interesting than I had ever imagined. It’s too bad none of those powerful beings I apparently knew were here to help me now.
“I can’t promise to do the impossible—but I can promise to keep trying. At least then, you would have hope. If you don’t help me, only death awaits you.”
Nidhoggson greeted that offer with another nerve-wracking long pause. “I will tell you anything that might help against the vampires. But I will reveal nothing that would make it easier for you to bury me again. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” I had no way of forcing him to tell me anything, anyway. This way, I might learn something useful without making any real concession to him.
“You knew runic magic probably better than any mortal, and even restricted as you are now, you seem able to invoke the power of the runes if I tell you which one to use. Unfortunately, I can think of no rune that will free us from these chains. They are products of duergar—you would say dwarf—craftsmanship. Not only is their metal strong, but magic has been pounded into each link.”
“If we could counteract the power of Ior merkstave, could you break them?”
“Even I could not break them.”
“Can I do anything that doesn’t involve runes?”
“Before you knew anything about runes, you had some faerie magic, for you are a descendant of Mab, the faerie queen of Connacht. That gives you some power over the forces of nature, but what is here is not natural.”
“You mean this place?”
“The vampires have brought us to a different plane of existence. There are neither animals nor plants for you to call to your assistance. Even the stone is not like regular stone. It will probably not be influenced much by faerie magic. If we were outside, we might invoke the weather, but even that is doubtful.”
I felt as if I were sitting in a four-way intersection in which all four streets dead-ended.
“Do you have any magic, separate from mine, that could be of use?”
“My magic expresses itself through my very being. Thus it is with all dragons. But if you’re asking if I can cast spells, the answer is no.”
I felt cold all over, and not just from Nidhoggson, the chains, or the stone slab. It was now the icy fangs of hopelessness, rather than the physical environment, that chilled me with their bite. I wasn’t yet ready to give up, though. If the issue had been only my own fate, maybe I would have. But I remembered the pale part of my ring finger where a wedding ring must have been. I was not the the only person who would suffer if I never returned home or died.
“Tell me more about how you came into being,” I said. It was probably a useless line of inquiry, but I was fresh out of more promising questions. Maybe something about his origin would help.
Nidhoggson considered for a while, no doubt concerned that I could use the information against him. But he knew just as well as I did that we’d both be dead if we didn’t find something we can use to escape.
"Hel tricked you into undergoing a ritual to master the runes. It was a modified version of the the ritual Odin used—a process you could never have survived in its unmodified form. But it was also subtly changed to create me.
“You were wounded, just as Odin was, but much less severely. You were tied to Yggdrasil, the world tree, but to a root rather than a branch, and you were only bound for one day, not the nine Odin spent. You both gazed into a pool, but unlike Odin, the pool you gazed into was infected by the venom of the great dragon, Nidhogg, who had also gnawed on the root to which you were tied.
“The presence of that venom gave you not only knowledge of the runes, but an echo of Nidhogg within your mind. That echo quickly grew into me.”
Nidhogg. Nidhoggson. How could I have missed the connection?
“Any chance you could summon Nidhogg?”
“He is confined to dark regions like Niflheim and Helheim, fated to gnaw at the roots of the world tree until Ragnarok destroys much of that plane—including him. But even if that were not the case, it is hard to communicate across planar boundaries. Magic is partly a function of distance, and it is hard to be more distant from someone than on a different plane of existence.”
Another dead end! I should have known.
“Yet you have done it,” added Nidhoggson quietly, as if he were talking to himself. “You have leveraged bonds among yourself, your best friend, his wife, and your wife. You have shared blood. At times, your bodies and souls have been switched around through elaborate mishaps I wouldn’t even know how to explain. And of course, there is the bond of matrimony. All those entanglements make contact across planar boundaries just barely possible.”
“What would be required to make contact?”
“More power than we have. But there might be a way to get more.”
“The staff!”
“You have a good mind for a human. Yes, your captors want you to enable them to use the staff. To do that, it would at least need to be close to you. Preferably, you would need to be holding it. But they will not allow you to hold it long. Even impeded as you are now, you might still be able to invoke the staff’s full power.”
“So I need to figure out how to use the staff in a few seconds?”
“Invoke the power of Sowilo. Among other things, the staff is designed to amplify runic magic that passes through it. Weak as you are, such a blast might enable you to destroy nearby vampires and disable anyone else. But then, you would need to find a way out of the chains before reinforcements arrive.”
The plan sounded risky. But doing nothing was certain to be fatal.
Before I could do any more planning, I heard what might have been a door opening somewhere behind me. Slowly, cautiously, the black-robed figure moved into view, his face still concealed in the shadows of his hood.
“Good, you are awake,” he said. “Are you ready to cooperate?’
“You must not seem too eager. He will become suspicious if you give in too easily.”
Fortunately, I knew better than to just give up the only leverage we had. “If you agree to spare my life and release me once you are done, I am ready to give you use of my staff.”
“You ask a great deal. The most I thought about offering was a quick and painless death.”
I managed to fake a chuckle. “I feel as if I’m half dead already. If you have some torture scenario planned, I doubt I’d last long enough to satisfy you—or agree to what you want. Anyway, the staff will not honor a command I give it under duress. If you try something like that, it may attack you on its own.”
The last part was probably pure bluff, but if the staff was as unique as I thought, my captor might not know for sure exactly what it could do.
“Very well,” he said, waving a hand as if the matter were of no importance to him. “I will agree to keep you alive and release you after you have given me what I want.”
“It is easier to wriggle out of an agreement than to violate an oath. Ask him to swear upon the staff. To avoid putting himself at a disadvantage, he may feel compelled to ask the same of you—giving you the opportunity to touch the staff.”
Nidhoggson was cold-hearted and savage—but he was also clever. At least for now, I could use that evidence to my advantage.
“Of course, I will require a formal oath. Having you swear upon the staff itself seems appropriate.”
I couldn’t see his expression, but the long pause told me that he had no intention of honoring the agreement. Now that I’d asked for an oath, he wouldn’t have any easy way of refusing to take it without making his intentions explicit—or so I hoped.
“I will require an oath from you indicating that once released, you will never try to do me harm nor aid anyone who wishes to do me harm,” he replied
“Think of the wording carefully. Magical oaths are binding. The consequences of violation are severe.”
“I will agree to that wording—if you will also agree not to harm me or anyone dear to me once you have the staff—nor to aid anyone who wishes to do me harm.”
Again, he paused. This would be a test of how much he really wanted the staff.
After another long pause, the hooded figure nodded his agreement. “Bring the staff,” he said to someone standing outside my field of vision.
“One more thing,” I said. “I’d like to know with whom I’m dealing.”
The black-robed figure raised his hands and slowly lowered his hood. He was bearded, and his long black hair could have used combing. His skin was the dark brown of damp soil, a complexion that made it less likely he was a vampire. His dark brown eyes betrayed not a single trace of red, and what I could see of his magic was nothing like what animated the vampires.
“He is Fjalar—and supposedly dead,” said Nidhoggson. “He and his brother killed one of Freya’s kin, Kvasir, and used his blood mixed with honey to the Mead of Poetry. Be careful with him, for he is ruthless.”
The last sentence seemed redundant, but now I understood why a duergar might be willing to partner with the undead.
“I ought to introduce myself, but you know more about me than it do.”
Fjalar smiled—but it was an enemy’s smile, ice-cold despite its friendly curve. “If that’s a hint to restore your memory, I will do that only after I control the staff. I’m sure you understand. You’re a little too dangerous when you are fully yourself.”
“I can’t even raise my head,” I pointed out. “I’m held by duergar chains. How much of a threat could I possibly pose?”
Fjalar kept smiling as if his lips had been frozen in place, but he said nothing. His decision not to respond made me wonder just exactly how powerful I was—probably more so than Nidhoggson had told me.
“While we wait, tell me about the staff,” I said. “Why is it so special?”
“Outside the Norse plane, it is unique,” he replied. “It was originally intended as a staff for Freya, the goddess with the most runic power. The duergar carved the staff from the wood of Yggdrasil itself, and Freya painted the runes on it in her own blood. Any practitioner of runic magic would kill to get it.”
I wanted to ask Nidhoggson how I could possibly have ended up with such an artifact, but I had no time to raise that question. Two vampires entered, bearing the staff, whose touch they seemed to dislike, even though both had gloves between their hands and the wood. I could easily see why. Even having been long detached from Yggdrasil, it radiated life.
“We will each put our hands on the staff,” said Fjalar. “You will swear your oath first, and then I will follow.”
The vampires placed the bottom end of the staff in my chained right hand and let Fjalar grip the top end.
“Begin!” said the duergar in a commanding tone.
“I solemnly swear that, once I am released unharmed and returned home, I will never harm Fjalar nor aid anyone who tries to harm him—as long as, uh—”
I added the last part because I felt Fjalar start to pull the staff from my hand. He couldn’t snatch it away now. An oath broken off before it was complete wouldn’t do him any good—or so I hoped.
The duergar scowled, but he stopped pulling.
“As long as Fjalar likewise agrees… uh…”
While I pretended to stumble through the last part of the oath, I reached out to the staff. It was warm and reassuring in my hand as if it knew me, and I could feel the life force throbbing within it.
“Finish the oath!” demanded Fjalar.
“Sowilo!” I said to the staff, visualizing the rune as I did so.
I was weak enough that I could barely have gotten a single pale sunbeam out of my own rune casting. But amplified through Freya’s staff, I got a good strong blast of solar power. The two vampires, still standing close by, burst into flames and were reduced to a pile of ashes in seconds. Only their gloved hands survived. Fjalar fell backwards with a loud shout. But the sunlight radiating from the staff remained constant, so no vampires would be rushing to his aid.
Unfortunately, Fjalar, though his hand looked burned and he was blinking as if momentarily blinded, was still very much conscious—and dangerous.
“Fool!” he shouted. “I will slit your throat, bathe in your blood, and take your staff as if it were my own.”
I shuddered even as I doubted him. If it were that easy to take the staff, I figured he would already have done that. Still, enraged as he was, he might kill me and take his chances.
I had only a few seconds before his eyes recovered from the original flash, and Nidhoggson had said that no rune could unlock my chains.
“Is there a rune for protection?” I asked.
“The best is a combination called the Helm of Awe. Visualize a circle composed of several copies of the rune Algiz (an angular trident symbolizing protection) with its handle crossed in each case by Isa (a straight line representing primal ice). As long as you and the staff have the power to maintain the runes, you will be safe.”
I probably could have followed those directions under normal conditions, but I was so tired that I had a hard time visualizing what he was talking about. The runes spun around in my head like a cloud blown by strong winds. I couldn’t get them to crystalize into a circle as Nidhoggson had suggested.
Fjalar focused his eyes on me. Time was up. From his robes, he drew a sword, which sparkled in the sunlight. He could take my head off with it in one stroke.
Still unable to get a Helm of Awe together, I settled for a single iteration of Algiz, positioned between him and me like a shield. I heard the sound of metal against metal as the rune blocked Fjalar’s sword stroke.
“That flimsy defense will never last!” he said, swinging the sword over and over. With each blow, Algiz grew paler.
“Thurisaz merkstave!” yelled Nidhoggson.
The constant clash between sword and rune was giving me a headache, but I managed to visualize the right rune in the correct position and channel it through the staff. Fjalar shuddered and seemed unable to lift the sword anymore. But Sowilo and Algiz both started to fade.
“It’s hard to maintain multiple runes at the same time,” said Nidhoggson, who really should have pointed that out sooner.
Not knowing what else to do, I doubled down on Thurisaz merkstave, making Fjalar so weak that he fell to his knees.
“You will not save yourself this way,” said Fjalar, sounding groggy. “You can barely hold me back, and I have many allies here, some of whom had magic of their own.”
I’d been assuming that the only one who had magic was Fjalar. But it made sense that the elaborate illusion I’d been kept in for weeks would have been the work of multiple casters.
The duergar was right. As things stood, I had no way to prevail against multiple casters. I would never see home, nor my friends, nor my wife, again.
Ivy League Illusion is related to the Different Dragons series. (The action falls after the end of the third book.)
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Great chapter, Bill! Love Norse mythology.