I nearly snarled but managed to merely grunt in response. Fjalar’s death, all those other dwarfs set on fire, was an exercise? Including the crafting of that armor and those axes? That was a long and risky game to play, believing that you could maneuver someone into becoming your ally by threatening to exterminate them first.
It wouldn’t have happened if Brighid and I had not become involved—which then made me wonder if she had been in collusion all along. Perhaps the Morrigan too. I would not put such scheming past any of them, even though it meant using Fjalar horribly and resulted in many other deaths besides. Would Fjalar still want to fight as one of the Einherjar, knowing that he’d been manipulated so? Would the Svartálfar wish to maintain their new alliance if they knew Odin had somehow tricked them into it?
It was all speculation, but I didn’t ask for confirmation from either of them. Brighid was my ride home.
CHAPTER 13
Traveling to Cape Arkona is not as quick as much of my travel, since there are no bound trees on the island. I have to shift to the German mainland and take a ferry out to Rügen. But because Orlaith has been so patient and such a good hound, we stop at a sausage haus and order a sampling of their trade—bratwurst, knackwurst, and weisswurst.
Orlaith is happy to be petted by a couple of older women on the ferry and obligingly growls at a young man who wishes to use her as an excuse to flirt with me. My weapon, Scáthmhaide, can be mistaken for a fancy walking stick so that to some eyes I look like a hiker instead of a martial artist.
“Ach! Control your dog!” he says to me in accented English.
“My hound is quite controlled. You will notice that she growled instead of bit you. That means you should go away now.”
He starts to berate me in German, an ugly sneer on his face. I don’t need to listen, so I ask Orlaith to bark and lunge at him but not bite. He jumps back and leaves us alone after that, though he curses us from what he thinks is a safe distance. I smile and wave him goodbye. The older women return and pet Orlaith some more.
Rügen turns out to be a lovely place, with expansive fields and rolling terrain. Orlaith and I stretch our legs and run across to the northeastern tip, passing hikers and campers and a shepherd with a small flock of sheep.
<Fluffy meat,> Orlaith comments.
The remains of Jaromarsburg rest precariously atop chalk cliffs that crumble into the sea a bit more every year. There are no handy signs telling me which way to go to find ?wi?towit, so I squat down, close my eyes, and reach out to the elemental of the region, which is associated with the lake plateau of the nearby mainland. It’s called Mecklenburg.
//Greetings Harmony Land is beautiful// I send to the elemental, and he—I don’t know why I’m assigning it a gender, but Mecklenburg just feels masculine—responds with joy.
//Greetings Harmony Welcome Fierce Druid//
I’m not sure how to proceed. I can hardly ask Mecklenburg if he saw a white horse go through here a thousand years ago. Elementals wouldn’t notice what color a horse was. They do tend to notice gods, however, since gods often warp existence around them and bend the rules a bit. Their magic leaves traces and therefore can be tracked.
//Query: any gods here?//
//Sometimes. Not now//
//Query: gods with horse?//
//Sometimes//
//Query: near my position?//
//Below. In ground//
That is perplexing. Why is the horse in the ground? Maybe the horse is dead? Or else there is a space underneath Rügen. I ask Mecklenburg to show me, and through my tattoos it guides me to a spot a few hundred yards away from Jaromarsburg, in a churned-up field lying fallow for the winter, past a lighthouse. The ground opens up in a square, showing me a flight of stone steps leading down into darkness, and I shake my head from the déjà vu. “Nope, nope, nope! I’m not doing that again,” I say aloud. I didn’t need another encounter with a creepy trickster god in a subterranean chamber. Though this is somewhat different from that pit in India: These steps are permanent, and the chamber is already excavated. It’s not an abandoned archaeological mystery but more of a secret underground lair, the entrance to which is disguised by a chunk of nondescript turf.
//Query: horse is down there?//
//Yes// Mecklenburg says.
//Query: which god visits horse?//
//Earth god Weles//
Oh. That would explain the location of the horse, at least. //Gratitude Harmony Will return later// I say, and urge Mecklenburg to close up the hole in the ground.
“Back to the ferry, Orlaith,” I say. “Weles might not be down there now, but I don’t want to face him alone if he comes back. We need backup.”
<Atticus and Oberon?>
“No, I think they’re busy doing something else. We need Perun. He would know best how to deal with Weles.”
<I don’t remember Perun.>
“He’s friendly. Atticus told me he likes to play with hounds. Oberon wrestled with him.”
<Did Oberon win?>
“They wrestled for fun and succeeded in having plenty of fun, so I think they both won.”