Walking towards the chamber symbolising Niflheim, Halfdan felt something akin to optimism. Every challenge that J?tunheim had thrown at him, he had conquered. They knew how to work the gate; while it felt odd to put his faith in a child, Halfdan had grown to respect Sif as a skáld in the making, and he felt confident she would be able to bring the gate to life. No doubt the remaining chambers held dangers, but between the four of them, their new involuntary trap finder included, Halfdan believed they would defeat this place. More than that, he believed that Loki was within reach, as was the end of his own journey.

  The entrance chamber was as expected. An empty throne surrounded by a ring of draugar, now permanently at rest. “So where’s this rune?” Halfdan asked, looking at Grani.

  The young J?tun shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never left the main chamber. I don’t want to end up like these fellows.” He chuckled nervously.

  “We’ll have to search. The ceiling, the walls… the floor.” Freydis glanced at the dismembered corpses littering the ground.

  Grani picked up a severed arm and waved it around. “Need a hand?”

  The berserker shot him a look of disdain. “Don’t speak unless spoken to.” He added a sigh, looking at his own handiwork. The thought of dragging all the corpses away to scour the floor for a carved rune, which could be minuscule in size, did not appeal. “Let’s check the walls first.”

  They did as suggested. Using the hafts from the draugar’s weapons let them make a torch for everyone, and they began inspecting every surface. After a while, it was clear they had come up empty.

  Halfdan sighed again, looking at the dead J?tnar. “I guess I’ll start by piling them up over here.”

  “Wait.” Freydis looked at the throne. “If I wanted to hide something…”

  Halfdan got her meaning. “Right.” He walked over and placed his hands against the back. Straining himself to the point that his face turned red, it took all his strength to make the stone chair slide forward with a screeching sound that made Sif drop her torch to cover her ears.

  A mark appeared, other than the scratches caused by the throne moving. The rune of íss. “Ice,” Halfdan remarked. “In the chamber of frost. Not exactly fonts of creativity, these Dwarves.”

  “Makes it easy to remember,” Sif pointed out.

  The berserker looked around the chamber, at the throne and the bodies. “All this trouble to hide a little mark. Makes you wonder why this Utgarda-Loki didn’t just scratch it out.”

  “You don’t mess with magic you don’t understand,” Grani said, suddenly grave. “Utgarda-Loki knows that better than most.”

  Halfdan shot him a look before turning to the others. “We know how the trap works in Muspelheim. I suggest we go there next. I think I can remember the way back.”

  “It’s alright,” Sif told him. “The gate, showing Yggdrasil, is also a map of this place. I know how to find every chamber.”

  Freydis asked the pertinent question. “Reaching the Muspelheim chamber is not the issue. How will we avoid being burned to a crisp?”

  Halfdan had no clear answer to that. “We’ll have to figure something out.”

  *

  Accustomed to the tunnels by now, the journey to the fire chamber seemed short. Once at the threshold, they all stared at Halfdan, who stood in front. He threw his torch into the room, and as before, the head of the J?tun opened its mouth and breathed fire. The heat alone made the others recoil.

  “Any ideas?” asked the berserker.

  “Not much time,” Freydis mumbled. “Any chance we can spot the rune from here?”

  Halfdan looked at Grani. “He’s one of your cousins, right? A fire J?tun.”

  “So? This is the first I’ve ever seen one of them,” he protested. “I didn’t even know they could breathe fire!”

  “It’s weird how he can breathe without a body.” Sif appeared both fascinated and terrified. “Too bad. If you could have choked him, maybe that would have worked.”

  Halfdan looked from Sif to the J?tun’s head. “Perhaps we can. Child, let me have your sling and a stone.”

  They others stared at him as Sif complied. “Surely that can’t work,” Freydis remarked.

  “If all we need is to keep him from breathing…” Halfdan mumbled, not feeling particularly confident himself. He blinked, placing his two spare Seeds into [Laugh at Fire]. He doubted it would safeguard him entirely, but just in case it made a difference. He untied some of the rope that lay around his waist, hauled all the way from Loki’s cave. “In case you need to pull me back.” He held it out, and it brushed against Grani’s hands, who recoiled. “Don’t worry, whelp,” the berserker scoffed. “I’m not counting on you.” He gave the end of the rope to Freydis and took the sling and stone from Sif.

  “Its mouth is closed though,” the girl said.

  “Yeah. I need it to open.” Swallowing, Halfdan steeled himself. He could scarcely imagine a more painful death than burning alive. At least it promised to be quick, judging by how swiftly Rimnir had been incinerated.

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  Trusting that his ranks in [Wielder of Weapons] would serve him well, Halfdan began swinging the sling. Once it had achieved full momentum, he stepped into the chamber and released the stone.

  As the J?tun’s mouth opened for its incendiary purpose, the rock flew and landed perfectly to fill the opening. Halfdan, about to leap backwards, exhaled deeply. No fire came.

  “I can’t believe that worked.” Freydis shook her head.

  “Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best.” Halfdan took another step inside, just to test the waters – for lack of a better word. Still nothing. Picking up his torch, he saw how the walls were carved as well, showing a landscape. As for the J?tun’s head, it rested at the centre of a rising or setting sun. “Still, you should probably stay back. No need for all of us to risk it.”

  “Agreed,” Grani muttered.

  Clustering around the doorway, the others peered into the chamber. “Maybe it’s over there, by those waves,” Sif suggested.

  “Waves? Those are hills,” the young J?tun told her.

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s Muspelheim, realm of fire, there can’t be a sea.”

  “Maybe it’s a sea of fire.”

  “Perhaps,” Freydis spoke sharply, cutting through their argument, “the rune is hidden same as in the other chamber.”

  Halfdan got her meaning; only one spot was covered. Placing his torch on the ground, he carefully took the J?tun’s head and lifted it from its hook.

  In the centre of the carved sun on the wall, where the head hung before, Halfdan saw a rune as expected. Sól. He growled at how obvious it felt; the mark of the sun in the chamber of Muspelheim. In his annoyance, the J?tun’s head nearly slipped from his grasp, and as he caught it again with his hands, he pushed out a knee to keep the stone in its mouth.

  Audible gasps from across the chamber told him that his manoeuvre had not gone unnoticed. “It’s fine,” he yelled, “all good. No need to be hysterical.” Ever so carefully, he lowered the head onto the ground, placing it face up so the stone would stay in place. With very swift steps, Halfdan crossed the chamber and the threshold, sighing in relief once he was safe. “The rune was sól. If I had known the Dwarves lacked all imagination, I could have spared myself the danger.”

  “You’re right,” Sif said contemplatively. “Ice for Niflheim, sun for Muspelheim, men for Midgard. Probably safe to assume that it will be the symbols as for Asgard and thurs for J?tunheim.”

  “True – that means we can skip those chambers and their traps,” Halfdan added, smiling at the thought.

  “And the others? What are the runes for death, Vanir, Elves, and Dwarves?” asked Freydis.

  Halfdan glanced at her, realising she did not know her letters. “There aren’t any,” he admitted. “None of the runes bear names for them.” He blew out his breath, his good mood gone as he realised they had four chambers left. “We’ll have to find those.”

  “We should do Vanaheim next. We’ve already been there,” Freydis suggested. “We know what kind of danger it contains.”

  “Worse than this?” Halfdan gave the severed J?tun’s head a scowling look over his shoulder.

  “Well… I wouldn’t say worse.” Freydis cleared her throat. “We’ll explain on the way.”

  *

  Standing on another threshold, Halfdan let his eyes sweep over the roots that covered the ground. “Perhaps it’s time our local sentinel proves his value,” the berserker suggested with a sharp look towards Grani.

  “I can’t read runes.” The young J?tun shrugged. “They’re just scratches to me.”

  That excluded Freydis as well, and Halfdan would not let Sif risk it. Grumbling, he grabbed the priestess’ torch to have one in each hand. “Gods damn it, have to do everything myself…” He held the torches low, and the living roots retreated before the fire. Gathering his courage, Halfdan stepped into the chamber onto the empty ground cleared by his flames. “Alright. Where might the rune be?” He glanced around at the landscape covering the walls. No obvious motif, no sun as in Muspelheim. He swallowed at the thought of the rune being cut into the floor; it would take ages to search it with all the vines hindering him.

  “To your left,” Sif suggested. “That’s a boar in the forest, right? Hard to tell.”

  Halfdan raised one torch, only to remember why he kept it low, and he immediately brought it back close to the ground. With an awkward gait, ignoring that at least one of his companions snickered at the sight of him, Halfdan waddled to the wall. “Any good reason why the boar?” he asked, though he trusted the skáld’s instincts; certainly they would be better than his own in this regard.

  “Freyr rides one with golden bristles. He’s the most important god of the Vanir. Together with Freya, of course,” Sif hastened to add. Freydis made no remarks.

  Keeping his feet very close together, Halfdan moved one torch as far forward as he dared until he could see the marking in the eye of the boar. The rune that symbolised a ride. The child had hit the nail on its head. “It’s reie,” he told the others, taking tiny steps to get back.

  “Let’s hope the remainder are just as easy,” Freydis said.

  “All of them have been easy for you,” Halfdan grumbled. “I’m the one doing all the work!”

  “You are Odin’s favoured for a reason. I, a humble servant of Freya, gladly walk behind the king of the Aesir.”

  Halfdan simply scowled and handed her his extra torch. Assuming their guesswork concerning the runes of Asgard and J?tunheim were correct, that left only three more symbols to uncover. “Where to next? What’s closest?”

  “I don’t think it makes much difference, but maybe Alfheim,” Sif considered.

  Halfdan shrugged. “We got to do them all anyway.” He turned his attention on Grani. “What to expect?”

  “How should I know? I’ve never been outside the main chamber before now.”

  “You know absolutely nothing? What about the Elvenfolk?” Halfdan’s tone made his questions sound like an interrogation. “Clearly, these traps fit the nature of each realm. How would your master have Alfheim defended?”

  The young J?tun raised his hands in a disarming gesture. “I live on a homestead. I know how to clean out stables. Before you lot, I’d never met anyone from another realm.”

  Halfdan suppressed the urge to remark upon his uselessness and turned to Freydis instead. “Doesn’t your goddess ever whisper anything useful in your ear?”

  “As much as your god does to you. Not many ravens down here below, are there?”

  Halfdan grunted as his only reply and finally looked at Sif. They would simply have to exercise great caution until they could figure out what awaited them in the next chamber. “Lead us to Alfheim.”