"Twins, he and his sister. They serve Hel, and do their best; but they're aptly named."

I just looked at him, too tired and too busy swallowing back nausea to answer.

"Slow-moving. Both their names mean slow-moving."

I nodded. Fortunately, the message reached Baldr's wife faster than the old man moved-he must've called ahead. The woman who swept into the hall was stunningly beautiful. A look of gentle concern on her face made her presence the most welcome thing I'd seen since arriving in hell.

"Baldr, whatever have you been doing to this poor dear? Didn't you even think to take a cloak to warm him through the sleet? Of course not; it was never your worry to see to such things." The words were not accusatory, just solidly practical. Women took care of details like food and clothing, her tone suggested, so how could a mere man be expected to remember?

She touched my forehead with the back of her hand, reminding me of childhood and Mom standing next to my bed in the middle of the night. Her hand was cool and gentle. She frowned.

"Fetch warm furs and go rescue some of that hot soup Ganglot was preparing for Hel's dinner. It should be nourishing for a mortal."

Baldr surrendered me to her care without a word, and she smiled reassuringly. "My name is Nanna, if no one's thought to tell you. I understand you are Randy Barnes?"I was beyond surprise. I just nodded.

She slid the backpack off my shoulders, fussed with the web gear until I showed her how it unhooked, and shortly had me out of my ragged clothes. Baldr returned with several fur rugs, and wrapped me in them; then handed over a steaming mug. I peered into it suspiciously. I was revolted by the thought of drinking anything that glowed that shade of green and had floating lumps of iridescent yellow in it; but the stuff smelled wonderful and I was much too hungry to argue. I shut my eyes and drank slowly. The taste wasn't bad at all.

When I had finished the first mug, Nanna produced another, and I drank that; then I consumed an entire loaf of dull grey bread spread with a thick, crumbly green substance that tasted like cheese paste.

It was wonderful. I ate slowly and carefully until my shrunken stomach would hold no more. Baldr produced a mug of incredibly potent ale, and shortly I sagged in the chair. My last thought was that I really ought to remain on my guard.

Waking up took a long time, with various parts of me clamoring for attention as I slowly became aware of them. There was an ungodly burning in my knees, a dull ache in the muscles of my arms and legs, sharp pain across my tailbone and back, and a matching pain across my belly. Other than that I felt wonderfully refreshed. I even managed to sit up on my own.

I was in a small room with no windows, dimly lit by a net full of bloated puffball fungus. I accepted the illumination gratefully; but avoided looking directly at the mottled "light fixtures."

Under fur coverings, I was naked and undeniably scrubbed. Even my hair felt squeaky clean.

Smears of ointment had been daubed on the worst of my injuries. I actually blushed. Who'd bathed me while I was unconscious? I couldn't credit Baldr's doing it, and wondered if a goddess had the strength to pick up and carry a grown man.

Someone had obviously given my battered wardrobe as much attention as they'd given me. My boots stood on the floor beside me, cleaned and polished, and the remnants of my pants hung on a nearby chair. While badly stained, they were patched and repaired with some sort of heavy grey cloth.

My tattered shirt was missing. It had been replaced by a coarse peasant-type shirt of nondescript grey.

Socks and underwear lay on top of this, laundered somehow. The rest of my gear was piled beside the chair, and from here it looked like nothing had been disturbed.

Easing carefully out of bed, I found that someone had also thoughtfully provided a chamber pot. I grinned. They might not be accustomed to living guests; but someone had remembered. I relieved myself gratefully; then slowly dressed. I was hungry again, and wondered if I could wrangle another meal before having to meet the mistress of the hall. A soft knock sounded at the door and I hastily zipped my fly.

"Uh, yeah, come on in; I don't think it's locked."

The door opened and Baldr stuck his head in. He grinned when he saw me.

"Good, you're up and about." He came in, leaving the door ajar, and nodded in satisfaction. "Much better. I hope you're feeling better as well as looking it?"

"Much, thanks. When's supper?"

He chuckled. "You really must have been half-starved."

"I was." I thrust my hands into my pockets, and regarded him seriously. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to get here?"

He shook his head. "No; I couldn't even guess. None of us can quite believe you managed it at all.

Hel is most anxious to meet you."

"Huh. I'll bet she is."

She had to figure Odin was behind this. I just hoped I could convince her I wasn't a threat, to her, at least. Unpleasant as it sounded, she and I were mostly on the same side-against Odin. I hoped Baldr hadn't guessed the truth of that.

"Let me get my knife, and I'll be ready to go."

I strapped Gary's knife to my calf and felt a hum of approval go through my leg. Good-I wantedthe Biter's backup in case things got unpleasant.

Baldr led the way through immense corridors, past closed and barred doors, until we came to a wooden door decorated with silver filigree. I didn't even try to make sense of the ghastly scenes depicted in that metalwork.

Baldr knocked, and a woman's voice, low and gravelly, answered, "Enter."

Baldr pushed open the heavy door and motioned for me to proceed. I stepped through, glad when Baldr followed. The room was lit by even ghastlier carvings than the main entrance hall. I carefully averted my gaze, not wanting to spoil her first impression of me by throwing up on her carpet. There were indeed carpets on the floor, knotted in intricate patterns from what looked like plaits of human hair.

The walls were hung with tapestries-also woven from hair-and with heavy furs of animals I didn't recognize. Strange carvings of bone and ivory stood on smaller tables and shelves, and one massive piece of furniture seemed to be a wardrobe for clothing. Briefly I wondered what Death wore.

Another ghostly fire blazed in a fireplace which must've required regular harvesting of giant sequoias. A heavy table stood beside it, laid with one place setting.

The central fixture of the room, however, was a bed on a raised platform. Silver skulls-human ones-topped stout posts at all four corners. Hangings of shimmering cloth obscured the occupant I could just barely see. Death reclined at her ease.

"So, you are the man who dares enter my kingdom before his time."

Her Bette Davis voice didn't sound angry; just intrigued.

"Come closer. I would look at you."

Baldr nodded toward the bed, so I moved across the carpets and approached the shimmery hangings, not without considerable trepidation. Unlike Baldr, Hel was very much alive. Her voice came again, chill as the wind and sleet outside.

"My home appears to distress you. What would you have me dwell in? A shining, fairy-tale palace full of warmth and light? Once those things were mine; but those who banished me made certain such were taken from me forever. Instead I wield a terrible power, and do not miss such trivialities."

She moved behind the hangings, nothing more than a shadow and a voice.

"My table is set with Hunger and Famine. I repose at my leisure in the Sickbed you mortals dread.

My draperies-do you not admire them, the way they shimmer and lure you? They are Glimmering Misfortune, shining with elusive promise until you are ensnared. Come closer, mortal-or have you already come too near and tangled yourself forever?"

The hangings billowed out. For an instant, I was engulfed in a smothering cold stench, like a slaughterhouse. I lunged backward, and found the Biter in my hand. The stench vanished, and I was free.

"Very good," she purred.

The draperies subsided. A slim white hand pulled them aside. A fetid smell of sickness assaulted my nostrils and sent me back still another step. The goddess rose gracefully and let the hangings drop back into place. I tried not to stare. Then sternly repressed an idiotic urge to grin. I seriously doubted she would appreciate being laughed at.

But . . .honestly . . . !

She was half black, half white. The colors split right down the center, from head to foot. And-God help me-she looked as if she'd stepped right out of the hammiestStar Trek episode ever filmed. Her dark right side was the deep ebony of southernmost Chad, with long, black hair intricately braided and knotted in an arrangement that fell to her waist. Her left side was fairer than Baldr, with masses of silvery-blond hair braided just as intricately as the right side. Where the two colors met at the crown of her head the braids were interwoven, forming a banded pattern that reminded me unpleasantly of snakeskin.

The gossamer thin veil she wore left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and was held in place only by a snarling wolf's-head brooch at one shoulder.

Her gaze caught mine, and all trace of amusement drained away, leaving me clutching the Biter witha sweaty hand. Her eyes were crimson. They glowed hot like coals. When she smiled, her teeth were sharp, white fangs. She was beautiful, in a terrifying, compelling fashion. I understood, deep in my gut, why men throughout the ages had been repelled by-yet fatally attracted to-the angel of death. I found myself wanting to embrace her, to stretch out on her pallid bed and let her come to me. . . .

The Biter flared in my grasp. A flash of brilliant green light reflected the anger that flashed abruptly through my whole being.Hel was playing games, and I was cast in the role of toy . I blinked sudden sweat from my eyes.

Hel smiled, and gestured as if to say, "You can't blame me for trying." I discovered that I was shaking.

Her voice was a sultry purr, like a self-satisfied cat, and her eyes glinted briefly.

"Enough amusement, for now. I can see that you are a strong hero, so there is little to gain by deception. Come, sit at my table."

"Unh-uh." I stayed right where I was.

"Baldr," she said, a trifle wearily.

"It's all right to sit down," he said from the shadows. "Just don't accept anything from her table and you'll be fine."

She gave Baldr a pained glance; then gestured us to chairs. We sat; she joined us. I kept my grip on Gary's knife, and it kept its grip on my arm. Hel lifted a goblet and drank deeply; then set it down and contemplated me again. Her expression was impossible to interpret, shadowed here and highlit there by the eerie glow of an orange sculpture suspended above her table. I glanced at it only long enough to determine that the carving showed something utterly unspeakable being done to a pregnant woman, then hastily averted my gaze.

Hel's eyes narrowed slightly. "What I must know is why you have come to Niflheim. Can you answer that?"

I cleared my throat, and was irritated with myself for having to do so. "I want to speak with Loki."

Hel sat back slightly, which left her face in deeper shadow.

"That is what Baldr said. I did not believe him."

Hel fell silent. I had no idea what to say in response to that. I'd only been telling the truth, after all; sitting here was notmy idea. The longer she remained silent, the more I sweat. I caught a glint in her eyes as her look sharpened, and the brief flash of sharp teeth as she licked her lips with the tip of a pointed tongue.

"Precisely what did you want to discuss with my father?"

"I have reasons for wanting information about Sleipnir."

"And those reasons are?"

I had to clear my throat again. "Private."

Her blond eyebrow rose. "I see." She picked up a knife-its handle was carved with scenes of blasted crops, skeletal men and beasts-and cut into a slice of meat on a dish shaped like a starving child's bloated belly. My jaws worked. I clamped them shut on nausea when she bit into the bloody meat and chewed thoughtfully.

"You realize that I am vitally interested in anything to do with Loki?"

I was aware of the reasons, and nodded.

"Good. You do understand why?"

I nodded again. Odin had imprisoned her father. He had also imprisoned her and her two brothers, simply because they were supposed to make trouble at some future, unspecified time. Given the gods'

unshakable belief in predestination, I supposed it made sense from their point of view, despite the fact that they themselves believed the action would prove futile. Eventually the siblings-Fenrir and the World Serpent-were supposed to escape. Their wretched treatment ensured a well-whetted appetite for revenge. It looked to me like self-fulfilling prophecy; but then, given what I now knew, it was easyfor me to point out what looked like flaws in Odin's thinking.

An idea nudged the fringes of my awareness then; but Hel spoke again, and I couldn't devote any attention to it.

"You are indeed an odd mixture of signals and portents, mortal. I wonder whose side you choose in this conflict? Mine? OrOdin's ?"

The name was spat out. Her eyes flashed, daring Baldr to protest. He held silent. Wise man.

I sympathized with her, truly I did. The part of me on the side of justice cried out for the wrong done her to be righted.

Unfortunately, the day Hel's wrongs were redressed, everything I had ever known and loved was supposed to come to a fiery end; a consideration that tended to push me toward Odin's side of the bargaining table-where I emphatically did not want to be.

"Let's say I'm on my side," I answered, forcing a tight smile. Truth, Justice, and the American Way . . . Gary would've been proud.

She looked at me with astonishment. "Your side?" she echoed. Baldr looked equally baffled.

"Well, my world is caught in the middle, isn't it?"

She started to speak; then stopped and looked thoughtful. Taking another drink from her goblet, she studied my face for a long, tense interval before answering. What she finally said left me cold, sweating, and on my feet.

"I think," she purred, glancing up at me from beneath her eyelashes, "that you are entirely too dangerous to leave running about loose. It has been a long, long time since I took a hero of your strength to my bed, mortal. I think you will find my hall . . . less unpleasant . . . once you are dead."

I knew she had a thousand ways at her disposal to do me in right where I stood. And the wonderful knife in my hand wouldn't be the slightest bit of help against most of them. You can't fight off bubonic plague or a heart attack with a knife. Not even a supernatural one. I had to move fast. . . .

"Look, Hel, before you kill me, there's something you ought to know."

She paused in the act of lifting one slim white hand.

"Yes?" Her red eyes reflected morbid curiosity.

I wanted to glance at Baldr, and didn't dare. "Baldr," I growled, "get the hell out of here, will you?

This is between me and her."

He hesitated. Then went without a word spoken. I heard the door thud softly shut behind him. I was alone with Death.

Hel had risen to her feet. She moved around the table toward me; I backed up involuntarily, and swung the knife up between us.

Her lips quirked in amusement. "You are certainly entertaining, mortal, and uncommonly brave; or perhaps merely foolhardy. It is hard to decide which." Her eyes actually twinkled for a moment, looking like flame-shot rubies. "What is so secret that you do not wish Odin's son to hear it?"

Cut the crap and get straight to the point. . . .

"I don't plan to die yet, Hel, and it's not in your best interest to kill me."

Both her brows soared this time. "Oh?" That came out softly dangerous.

Sweat dripped into my eyes. "You want something I can give you."

Her voice filled the room with threat. "And what can you possibly know of Death's desires?"