Episode XI: Mission From Hel
A Mythic Fantasy Action-Adventure Story
Previously: After being questioned at Náströnd prison about Odin by Skuld and Brynhild, Sága was transported via the Wild Hunt to Hel’s hall.
ÉLJÚÐNIR, HEL’S LARGEST receiving hall for the dead, fell silent as I passed up the main aisle between the sea of feasting tables. Most shifted their eyes downward in an effort to ignore my arrival, but a few watched me pass with looks of sympathy on their pale faces. The hall’s grandiose rune-carved stone columns were dressed with purple mourning banners and the giant fire cauldrons burned at half-light. The somber atmosphere was unusual, despite accounts to the contrary written in the myths.
I caught a glimpse of Hel sitting alone at the head table. Her distant stare made my stomach flutter more with each step forward. When I reached her, I bowed my head out of respect as I always did. I wasn’t expecting feast-goers to erupt in a flurry of whispers because of it.
“Silence!” Hel said, an angry flicker returning to her dull eyes when she finally acknowledged me. She pursed her lips. “Sága Vörsdottir has come before us after enduring nine nights imprisonment in Náströnd. She will be afforded the customary hospitality given to all of the dead in Helheim while she prepares for the important mission ahead of her.”
Despite the irritated tone of her voice, I appreciated the intervention on my behalf. But then, instead of inviting me to join her at the head table as was the custom when family visited, Hel rose and turned away. She quickly exited the hall through the back. As I stood there gawking after her, a tingle ran down my spine.
Having been snubbed by my own kin, I looked around for a place to sit among the feasting dead. There wasn’t an empty seat anywhere. Frowning, one of Hel’s hostesses approached. “You can sit over there,” she said, pointing at a single naked table set away in a dark corner of the great hall.
While Hel had ordered that hospitality be provided to me, this table hadn't been served yet. It was a minor slight, but rather than complain, I nodded my appreciation and sat down to wait. The volume in the hall increased as the dead went back to feasting. My apparent offenses quickly forgotten by most, a sigh of relief escaped me.
A door behind the head table opened and a young dead woman was escorted to my table and seated across from me. She had a likeness to Leikn, half of her flesh and hair badly burned. She stared at me for a moment, then held out her charred hand and quickly retracted it. “Son of a bitch! Sorry!” she said, holding out her unharmed hand. “I’m Karma. It’s nice to meet you.”
I frowned and waved her off. Human dead were rarely seated with higher beings. “I think you were brought to the wrong table.”
“No,” she said, pouting. “You’re the one I’ve been waiting to meet for the last nine days and nights. I can’t go home until you’re dead, so...”
I shook my head. “Again. Wrong being, wrong table,” I stood slightly to see over the dead human’s head and waved at a hostess. “Excuse me! She’s been put at the wrong table. Could you please escort her to the right seat? And, can you get me some mead?”
The hostess ignored me.
“I’m seated at the right table!” Karma said, leaning forward. “You’re Sága Vörsdottir! Your mother told me you’d been selected for my mission!”
“What?” I asked, falling down into my seat again. My heart thumped in my chest. “What mission? What are you talking about?”
Karma rolled her eyes. “They warned me you didn’t listen so good.”
I folded my arms. “Well, I’m listening now.”
“I’m going back to earth to make my boyfriend pay for what he did to me.” Karma pointed at her burnt face. “He blew me up and killed me, if you didn’t already figure it out. But if I help them... I mean you. If I help you with the mission, I get to be rejuvenated and go home.”
“Reanimated,” I said, shifting my gaze to the head table. An unattended pitcher of mead caught my eye. “Good luck with your mission. I have one of my own.”
Karma wrinkled the unaffected half of her face. "I don't think so."
I got up and made my way to the pitcher of mead. Spotting an unused goblet, I glanced back and forth between the two. The goblet looked horribly small. I began to chug the pitcher, choking when a bony object poked my side. “Go away!” I swatted Karma’s burnt finger and chugged some more mead. When the pitcher was empty, I picked through the uneaten food.
“Hey!” Karma said, still following me. “You have to come back to the table and take this seriously. I’m not going to let you screw up my only chance to get vengeance!”
“I have an idea.” Now convinced that Karma and her mission were nothing more than a bad welcome home from prison joke, I waved the chicken drumstick at her between bites. “Why don’t you do whatever it is they want done on Midgard and have your vengeance, too, without me? Doesn’t that sound better?”
Karma placed her hands on her hips. “It’s not better. I can’t retell the Norse myths. I don’t even know what they are about. I’m American.”
Drumstick still in my mouth, I froze as her words sunk in. “They want me to retell the myths... on Midgard?”
Karma nodded enthusiastically. “I told your mom and grandma all about the podcast I had with my boyfriend where we recruited people to fight climate change all over the world.”
“Uh-huh.” I finished chewing. This was definitely a joke. I had tried to retell the myths and spent nine nights in Náströnd for it. Skuld had to be behind this ruse. “There are nine worlds, though, not just the world.”
“Pffft, I doubt it,” Karma said, laughing. “Anyway, I’m going to be your podcast producer. That is my mission from Hel. In return, I get to murder my boyfriend for murdering me first. Does that make sense?”
The crowds of feasting dead were beginning to thin. I pressed my lips together and nodded, while I scanned the room for other abandoned pitchers. Any minute now, the pranksters would jump out and have a good laugh at my expense. I wanted to be prepared with drink in hand. “Mmm-hmm. On a mission of vengeance. That’s a timeless response to being murdered.”
Karma handed me a full pitcher of fresh mead. My heart warmed as I lifted it to my lips.
“Yeah, timeless,” she said, grinning. “I am sorry that you have to drink Death to come with me, though. That’s a real bummer.”
a note from the author…
Thanks for reading Episode XI of the Sága’s Fable Mind Series Prequel! So, do you think Karma is really the joke Sága believes her to be, or something else? Don’t be afraid to leave me a comment!
I think she missed the hint that she wasn’t getting served food or mead!
So I assume she has eaten here before and wouldn’t suspect she drank death?
And what does that mean? Will she have to fight her way back to life?
Lots to look forward to!!