She nodded. “This place is a symbol. As am I. As are, at least to an extent, you.”

 

That gelled with some things Thruor had said. And some things I knew. “So, what is it a metaphor for?”

 

“Many things, but for right now, know that you cannot help the tree with what you find here.”

 

I nodded. “So, I have to go somewhere else, get what I need to help it, come back. Got it.” That did make a certain amount of sense, at least.

 

“Precisely.”

 

“Unfortunately, I seem to be stuck here.”

 

She paused at that. “There is a way out.”

 

“You know how I came here.” If I just…but if I couldn’t…I got my head back together with an effort of thought and will. “I do not know how to get back on my own.”

 

“And Old One Eye is not helping.”

 

I laughed sharply. “Which means he thinks I can get back on my own.” Honestly, that was the logic of the matter.

 

“Precisely.”

 

I realized she wasn’t going to help me. So…obvious ways out. Jump off the mountain? It might work, but if this place was a metaphor…

 

A dead tree. Stars. No water. A metaphor for…

 

No sun.

 

That was the other thing missing, and I knew it. No sun. I knew abruptly what I had to find.

 

A metaphor.

 

And I was also a metaphor, but a conscious one, a thinking and feeling being who was more than just a symbol. Although, I was not sure I minded being a symbol, for that matter.

 

A symbol of what to whom? “What happened to the sun?”

 

“You know what happened to it.”

 

I nodded. The cracked ground. The single mountain, with its cone. A volcano, of course, and the ground had been lava.

 

And the apple tree.

 

The apples of the gods.

 

This was a symbol and a test. And no, I could not fix this place, because it was a small echo of what would come if I failed my own personal test.

 

Muspelheim was dying.

 

Earth was not well.

 

This place was rebirth and if I burned the tree, I would say to them that it was time for that, that I was a danger to all.

 

If I watered it?

 

I did not know.