Chapter Four: The Watermill

Space was awesome.

The boat sped through the wormhole, the entire universe blurring as they rocketed by. Stars, planets, and was that a snake? Darcy gripped tightly onto the rail, the skin over her knuckles turning white from the force. Laughter bubbled up in her throat, but the wind carried her voice away.

The boat tipped suddenly to one side. She yelped and clamped down on the wood even harder than before. Call it an instinct, but she had a feeling Loki was about to drop them from the sky, and drop they did—the boat spinning wildly, air whistling past her ears.

The boat slammed down without any preamble, and Darcy tumbled sideways on impact. Water sloshed over the lip of the boat. She pulled herself up, and saw that Jane was in much the same state as her. "Are you okay?"

Jane patted herself down. "I think so."

They looked at one another, and then out at the river they were now slowly gliding along. It was obvious that they were not in Norway, and quite probably a long way from Earth. The snow of New Mexico had been replaced with greenery. Darcy had to shade her eyes from the overwhelming sunshine.

"Dude," she breathed.

"Where are we?" asked Jane.

Loki dipped his fingers into the water. "A long way off of our intended target."

"How far?"

He leaned back. "A world or two away."

"Be more specific."

"We are in Vanaheim, on the river Don."

"Vanaheim!" cried Jane.

"It was either here, or the jaws of a snow beast."

She flushed red. "You promised to get us to Thor, and we couldn't be further from."

"Vanaheim wasn't my first choice, I'll grant you that. However, appearing out of thin air in Norway would have been foolish. The Snow Queen expects an assault. There is a way back to Midgard from this realm, in the mountains."

"I thought you said 'time is of the essence'", snapped Jane. "Thor is dying. We don't have time to realm-hop, and I don't have another generator in my pocket to give you."

Loki didn't reply.

Darcy expected Jane to rant and rave some more, but she turned around quickly, wobbling the boat to and fro, and slid closer to the helm.

Loki dipped his fingers back into the water, his mouth set in a tight line. His facial expressions thus far had ranged from 'mildly annoyed' to 'greatly annoyed', but now he looked almost… concerned.

Darcy frowned.

She peeled off her beanie and shook her hair out. Wherever they were, the sun was thoroughly roasting her. It was just her luck that she would barely get used to the cold, and a wormhole would dump her in the tropics. She shrugged out of her jacket, and shimmied out of her track pants. Sweat was beginning to break out along her hairline and upper lip. Divesting layers helped, but only just so.

"Man, it's hot," she commented, fanning herself. Neither Jane nor Loki lifted an eyebrow in her direction, or made any attempt at joining her in conversation. She sighed and propped her elbow on the rail.

At least the sightseeing's decent, she thought mildly, eyeing her new surroundings.

Vanaheim was breathtaking.

The river was a crystalline blue, like something out of a travel magazine, and looked like it spanned nearly a mile across. A solitary spider floated along the water's surface, bobbing in the wake of the Viking boat. Birds chirped in the distance, and she heard the faint rustle of trees dancing in the breeze. A doe waded down the muddy bank as one of its friends watched warily by the tree line.

A snowcapped mountain stood proudly in the distance, jutting out from behind rolling hills. Dark clouds drifted in front of it, hiding the peak from sight. She saw several flashes of light burst from behind the cloud cover, like a contained lightning storm. She pursed her lips as déjà vu struck her, the phenomena much like the ones Jane had studied before Thor had arrived. She turned to address Jane, but was blocked by the hunched set of her shoulders.

Darcy flipped her hair over her shoulder, relishing in the faint breeze against her neck. She had never seen a biosphere like this on Earth—dense forest on one side, flat grasslands on the other, and where the weather felt like the Amazon.

Why had Loki brought them here?

Her first thought was deception, but her gut told her it wasn't so. In fact, she had a strange feeling that he couldn't have brought them anywhere else. She glanced over her shoulder. Loki's hand was still in the water. He looked awful. The sickly pallor he'd had in the grocery store had not gone away under the glowing sun of Vanaheim. His lips were chapped, his suit rumpled. The green scarf was gone, too.

There was something amiss, but Darcy couldn't quite put the puzzle pieces together. Not yet, anyway.

Hours passed. Neither Jane nor Loki talked, and every attempt Darcy made at striking up a thoughtful conversation (because, really, they couldn't float down a river forever) had been squashed. Every so often, Jane would sigh loudly, or suck her teeth. Her ticks were slowly chipping away at Darcy's sanity.

She was hungry, and parched. The river water looked fine to drink, but the threat of dysentery outweighed her thirst. Her stomach growled angrily at the thought, and she pouted at her own reflection.

The granola bar.

She nearly leapt out of her seat to grab at her jacket. She pawed through the pockets, astutely ignoring Loki's annoyed glare and Jane's harrumph, and almost squealed in triumph when her fingers brushed the wrapper. She wiggled in her seat, ready to devour in the whole thing. Her conscience caught up with her soon enough, however, and she grumpily snapped off three equal pieces.

She scooted forwards, and waved the food in front of Jane's face. "Nom noms."

"Darcy!" admonished Jane, but she snatched the morsel from Darcy's fingertips anyway. "This tastes… strange."

"Yeah, it's pretty gross, but I am starved." She scooted back around, and held the other piece out towards Loki. "Here ya go."

He eyed her hand like she was offering him dirt.

"I know you people like to eat."

He gave a long-suffering sigh, and then held his hand out. Darcy dropped the sad, little piece in his palm with a self-satisfied smile. It looked like a crumb when he held it, but peace tidings came in all shapes and sizes.

"So… can we drop the cold shoulder routine?" she asked, pointedly raising her eyebrows at Jane. "We need a plan, and we all need to be on the same page."

Jane crossed her arms.

"The snowmelt from the mountain has long passed," said Loki. "The current is slow. It will take a long while to reach our destination."

"Why don't we paddle to shore," ventured Jane, "if the current's so slow? Walk the rest of the way."

"We are much safer here than on land, for now."

Darcy splashed the water some. "Let me guess: evil bears lurk the woods."

"The bears are perfectly cordial. The Vanir, on the other hand, are not. There is a sorceress who lives near the Vana Fork who owes me a favor. We won't make it there for a while yet—by nightfall, if we are lucky. Rest. I will stand watch."

Darcy bit her lip. "I'll stay up. You two need the sleep."

"Are you sure?" asked Jane.

She nodded.

Loki and Jane settled down soon after. Jane borrowed Darcy's jacket for a pillow and curled up like a cat on the wooden bench. Loki leaned back, folded his hands in his lap, and closed his eyes. It was so sunny, and so hot that Darcy doubted that either of them could get any real rest, but she soon heard Jane's breathing level out.

Darcy's fingers danced along the rail, dipping and swirling along the delicate carvings in the wood.

She heard a caw off in the distance. A black bird fluttered down onto a high treetop. Though it was too far away for Darcy to see properly, she had an uncanny feeling that it was specifically there for them. It cawed again, and then took off with a stuttering hop. It dived, and then arced away. Darcy watched it go until it was a black speck in the sky, a frown on her face.

They floated along the placid river for hours. Darcy was terribly bored, and half tempted to settle down for a nap herself. There hadn't been any danger thus far. In fact, there hadn't been a sign of human life the entire way. Rivers were notorious for having towns peppered along the way, but there hadn't been one face to be seen yet.

The current picked up when the sun was sinking below the horizon. The river was slowly coming together at a chokepoint up ahead, and the low sloping riverbanks were beginning to ascend. A tall rock cliff stood on either side. It was a bad spot to get trapped, she thought—and a perfect place to launch an ambush from above. She squinted, barely able to make out what looked like the backside of two enormous statues carved into the stone.

Oh my god. I'm officially in The Lord of the Rings.

She turned in her seat to wake Loki to find him already alert, and looking at the cliffs. His eyes trailed off, and landed squarely on her.

"Should we be concerned?" she asked, indicating the cliffs. "I feel like an arrow to the face would be pretty detrimental to our adventure."

"I wouldn't worry," replied Loki. "The gates haven't been manned for nearly a millennia."

I am totally Sam.

They drifted between the statues. Steel gates were set into the platforms, with iron cranks on either side. Precarious-looking staircases ran down each of the rock faces, switch-backing until they reached the devices. Darcy felt sorry for whoever had to traverse them. The gates were obviously there to block traffic along the river, but they were rusted over, and looked like they hadn't been used in hundreds of years.

She craned her neck back. Chiseled into the rock was a stern face, left arm crossed over his chest, a longsword pointed down next to his foot. The top of the man's head was sun-bleached, while his feet were dark from where the water lapped against his sandals.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"That is Njord," replied Loki. "He was once king of the Vanir."

Darcy pointed to his counterpart. "And him?"

"That is Odin," he said tersely.

Darcy leaned back, studying this depiction of Loki's father. She had never laid eyes on Odin, but Jane had painted a pretty solid picture of him. What she saw before her was much younger than that description, with both of his eyes unscathed. Thor favored him, but she didn't see any of Odin in Loki.

She eyed Loki. He looked like he was challenging her, to say aloud what she was thinking. But she held her tongue, and looked instead beyond the helm of the boat. The sun was almost gone, the sky painted a burned orange. The river split across a small island up ahead.

Darcy prodded Jane with her foot. She stirred awake.

Loki dropped his hand into the water once more. The boat lilted to the right and drifted slowly towards the riverbank. The boat beached itself, and the three of them climbed out. As soon as all three were safely on land, the Viking boat melted back into snow, and was swept back into the river with a faint green glow. Loki, then, glowed green—and Darcy watched in awe as Loki's business suit shimmered away into his regular leather armor. He reached into his tunic and pulled out an oil-skinned parchment, unrolled it, and crouched on the grass.

A three dimensional map popped up from the paper. He flicked his finger along the map, spinning the blue, sparkling diagram too quickly for her to properly get a full grasp of what he was looking at.

"What kind of tech is that?" Jane asked, squatting down next to Loki. "Is that a hologram? How did you get it so small?"

"It is a simple spell, and one I don't have time to explain," he replied. "We need to travel to the Eiglophian Mountain. There is an alcove on the second step that should bring us to the back to Midgard."

"I thought you said we were meeting a friend," said Darcy. "We're on the fork, aren't we?"

"The fork is much further down the river. It would be much too dangerous to continue on the river channel. All magic leaves a trace, and I'm afraid mine is distinct in these parts. Come." Loki stood. "We seek a watermill, and its enchantress."

They pressed on into the woods.

Before they passed into what looked like the beginning of a trailhead, Darcy heard a familiar caw. The black bird was perched close by on a stump, following the three of them with its knowing eye.

"This is the second time I've seen that bird," she said.

"Forests do have animals, Darcy." Jane looked at the bird. "And I'm pretty sure that's a crow."

"But the same one? Following us?" She turned to Loki. "Are the crows as friendly as the bears?"

"Not unless they have a good reason to be. Crows can be nefarious little creatures, and often work under the thumb of necromancers."

Loki didn't look worried, but the thought of a zombie puppet master sent a straight shiver down Darcy's spine. The crow cawed again. Darcy hoped her imagination was running wild, but she had a feeling they were being watched by someone on the other end of the bird's eyes.

They traveled under the light of the moon, slogging slowly in the direction Loki had set forth. Darcy's hunger was back in full force. They had stopped at a brook earlier and drunk their fill, at which point Darcy had stopped caring about poisoning herself. She wasn't sure how Jane had the energy to keep on without food, but Darcy needed something more substantial than a measly granola bar to last her the entire adventure.

The watermill looked abandoned from the outside. There was a solitary window facing them, but no light shone through. Loki walked confidently up the steps, and waved them along. Darcy looked over her shoulder, and shivered. There was something off about the house.

"Is anyone home?" asked Jane.

Loki lit the candle that hung by the wall with a swish of his finger. A warm glow filled the cabin. It was easy to tell that no one had lived in the mill for a very long time. Cobwebs covered the ceiling, and dust was heavily settled over the furniture. A set of boot prints crisscrossed the floor, slightly less dusty than the rest of the house.

Loki turned in a slow circle. The candle flickered, casting his face in sharp relief. "I was expecting a warmer welcome."

Darcy swiped a trail of dust off the table. "Should we leave?"

"No," replied Loki. "We'll stay here tonight."

There wasn't much to the house. It sat directly next to the river, its giant wheel creaking under the flow of water. A set of rickety stairs let to the second floor, which Jane and Darcy both agreed would be their room. They found a tiny bathtub, and both of them cheered when water poured from the spout.

All day of sitting in the sun, and traveling made Darcy a dirty girl, but she let Jane go ahead of her in favor of inspecting the room.

A small bed sat in the far corner, along with a dresser, and a wooden chest. She opened all the drawers, examining the miller's possessions without picking them up. The only item of note was a fine-toothed comb.

She moved on to the chest next. There was a layer of silk over its contents, which she gingerly removed and placed on the bed. She felt a little guilty about snooping, but she didn't want to stay in Earth clothes for the remainder of the trip.

Jane cracked the bathroom door open and stepped out. "All yours. I already drained the tub and started the water for you."

"Cool beans." Darcy held up the tunic against her chest. "Check out the digs. You should wear the red one. It kind of looks like flannel."

Jane picked up the shirt. "We can't wear these, Darcy."

"Why not?"

"They're someone else's. It's stealing."

"Consider it borrowing then. We need to blend in. Loki said the locals aren't too friendly. If we wear local clothes, maybe we can pretend we come from up the river instead of an entirely different planet?"

"Fine. I'll change." Jane rolled her eyes. "Go take a bath. You stink."

By the time Darcy had scrubbed the sweat of the day off thoroughly enough, her fingers and toes were pruned and the water was cold. She climbed out of the tub and wrapped a threadbare towel around her body.

Jane wasn't in the room, but she heard muffled discussion from downstairs.

She combed her wet hair slowly, working out the snarls delicately. From the looks of it, millers in Vanaheim didn't do conditioner. Once that task was complete and her scalp sore, she changed into the miller's clothes—tights, a long tunic, and a leather belt cinched at the waist. The sports bra stayed on, but everything else she folded and left on the floor for tomorrow.

She padded down the stairs. The main room was completely transformed. The cobwebs were gone, and a fire was roaring in a pit she hadn't even realized was there.

Loki and Jane were talking over the magical map.

"Did I miss anything?" she asked.

Both Jane and Loki looked up. A strange look pinched at Loki's face, and Jane gave her a relieved smile.

"We're really close to the mountain," said Jane. "There's a boat in the dock that we can take straight to the trailhead."

"It's an option," corrected Loki. "Taking the river will bring us directly to the mountain fortress, a place we must avoid at all cost."

"What other choice do we have?" asked Darcy.

"There is always another way," he said, as if realizing that Darcy was always going to be on Jane's side.

Darcy went and sat by the window. There wasn't much to argue about, in her opinion, but Jane launched into a counterpoint. Darcy was surprised Loki was handling her outbursts so well—but she supposed he could be yielding if he needed something done. She sighed, and stared out the glass. The forest was dark, even with the moonlight shining down brightly.

She thought back to the crow, and its knowing eyes. Who was watching them, and why hadn't they made an appearance yet?

The fire popped, and Darcy followed the glowing ashes as they drifted in the reflection of the glass. She wasn't sure how much time passed, but by the time she drifted out of her own thoughts, Jane was drooping in her seat, and the fire had been reduced to embers.

Jane yawned. "So we have an agreement then?"

Loki inclined his head. "We do."

"Then I'm going to bed. Good night, Loki. Darcy, you coming up?"

She shook her head. "In a minute."

Jane hesitated for only a second before continuing up the creaking stairs.

And then there were two.