Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(34)
“That’s correct. He’s a guest on the Fae planes.”
“Interesting. Thank you. We are less certain about ?wi?towit. He may be alive but, if so, he’s on a distant plane. He might also be dead. Difficult for us to tell either way from what we’re sensing. But of Weles we get absolutely nothing. He has been hidden somehow so we cannot confirm whether he lives or not, much less his whereabouts.”
“Wait. The Slavic plane was burned by Loki,” I say. “Perun wondered how Loki could have gained access to it.”
Malina nods. “You see what we are thinking. Weles is working with Loki.”
“Loki has a kind of divination shield.”
“We thought as much. We cannot find him either. We are making guesses based on a series of holes where there should be something present.”
“So why would—oh! Maybe a quid pro quo kind of thing is going on. Weles wanted Loki to burn the Slavic plane and almost certainly wanted him to kill Perun. Partially successful there. And Loki hides Weles so that Perun and everyone else will assume he’s dead. But what would Loki want from Weles in return?”
?wi?towit and the white horse, of course.”
“Hold on. Are you saying Loki wants the white horse because…?”
“You can ask the white horse if you will win or lose a battle you begin today and it will tell you.”
“Oh, shit!” I cry, as understanding dawns. “He’s using the horse to know when to start Ragnarok!”
“That was our conclusion also. It would be more accurate on matters of war than any other seer. So we want the white horse.”
“Yeah, I think we have the same interests here. We can’t have him endlessly bribing allies until he finds the right combination for victory. If Loki’s going to start something, let him be uncertain about it. Can you not find the horse in your divination?”
“Unfortunately not. It was a long shot to begin with since we didn’t know its name, but we assume Loki has shielded it also. Our best guess is that if you find ?wi?towit alive, he may be able to tell you where to find his horse. And if they are both dead, then Weles must owe Loki some other service.”
“Where would I begin looking for ?wi?towit? When was the last time you saw him?”
Malina’s eyes flick to Roksana, and I turn to her for my answer. “We have never seen him,” she says, “nor has anyone in living memory. He has either four heads or four faces on one head, depending on how he manifests. Pretty sure he’d get into the news if he’d been around recently.”
Her dry comment earns a laugh from the coven, but it is marvelous news to my hound. <Wow! He could eat four steaks at one time!>
But he only has one stomach, Orlaith. I’d be worried about four sets of teeth to brush. Or what if he got sick? Four stuffed noses. Ew.
Roksana continues, “I would suggest looking around Jaromarsburg, or speaking with Perun, if you have access to him. He may be able to provide you with some clues.” I nod, thinking I should talk to him in any case. He’d surely be interested to know Weles is likely allied with Loki. It makes more sense than Loki’s assertion that he went after Perun so Ahard simply because he despises thunder gods. There are a buttload of thunder gods in the world’s pantheons. Why single out Perun? He must have had cause. And thinking of causes, I had to question why they were so interested in this horse.
“This is more about giving the finger to Loki than finding the horse, isn’t it?”
The witches all looked to Malina to answer that one. She nodded once. “Both him and Weles. The Zoryas do not often spend much of their time on the Slavic plane but had they been there when Loki set fire to it, they would have been burned. It gives me nightmares. And to think we already had Loki in our power once…” She shook her head. “Well. I would like another chance at that. Or if I can’t have him, at least deny him whatever he desires.”
“All right, then,” I say, and look at Malina. “I find ?wi?towit or his horse, but preferably the horse, and either bring it to you or confirm it’s dead, and in return you give me a divination cloak.”
“Agreed, but with an amendment: If you find ?wi?towit dead or alive, we would like to know where he is.”
I extend my hand to her and say, “I accept your proposal.” She shakes it and I smile, because I have a bona fide quest. “If he’s on another plane, I wouldn’t be able to bring him here anyway. Bringing back the horse will be tough enough.”
Malina’s brows draw together. “Why is that?”
“I only have one other headspace in which to carry someone else when I travel the planes. Right now I’ve been using that for Orlaith. I need to memorize a body of work in another language before I can bring someone else along for the ride—it provides structure for the shift because people are put together in specific sequences like words are in literature. I learned how to speak Russian, but so far their literature is pretty dire and gloomy and I haven’t felt like memorizing any of it.”
“Szymborska!” Berta blurts out, and the faces of the other witches light up.
“Yes!” Roksana says, more excited than I’ve seen her. She nods so enthusiastically that I fear for her neck. “You should learn Polish and read Szymborska!”
“I’m sorry, who?”