Norse Code Part 14

"Then why have you not prepared?" Vali asks. "Why are the sons of Muspellheim not a.s.sembled in their ranks? Why do their thunderous war chants not make the other worlds shudder down to their very foundations? Why does Muspellheim lie dormant?"

The words come from Vali's mouth, but Vidar has crafted them as expertly as any dwarf could craft metal. They could not be better designed to insult Surt to his core.

"I am always ready for war," Surt bellows. "Raise arms against me, and you shall see the preparations of Muspellheim put into action. Never let it be said that Ragnarok comes as a surprise to me. I am Ragnarok."

Surt exaggerates. He has no better claim to sole credit for Ragnarok than the Midgard serpent, or Loki, or the sky-eating wolves. But certainly he has a great part to play in it. The sibyl's prophecy says that Surt will go marauding into Asgard, bringing down the rainbow bridge and setting the world aflame with his fiery sword.

"If you are ready for the last battle," Vali says with a sigh, growing weary of having to recite his lines, "then where is your sword?"

Surt fails to hide his dismay. He has never needed a weapon. Indeed, his body is a weapon. The surface of his skin is hotter than a bolt of lightning. Lava flows in his veins. What does Surt need with a sword?

Except that the sibyl's prophecy mentions his sword. So he must have a sword.

"Fear not, great Surt," Vali intones. "We have a gift for you."

Many people think that Munin and I have seen so much that we're impossible to impress, but that's not so. Hermod, for example, impresses us regularly. For someone with so few perceptible advantages, he has the potential to achieve things others of the Aesir would not even consider, and that is why so many of our hopes are pinned on him. We would never tell him this, of course. For one, we are under no obligation to speak plainly to anyone but Odin. For another, it would simply scare him to death.

We are impressed now by the sword Vidar produces from a pouch in his metal suit. It appears at first no larger than a pocket comb. But then he unfolds it, and the blade is as long as a surfboard, and Vidar struggles to bear it.

"Take it," Vali says to Surt. "It folds out more." And Surt unfolds the blade until it's sixty feet long and six feet wide. The sword is clearly the work of the dwarf Dvalin, who also constructed the boat of Frey, which can transport the whole host of Asgard or be folded like a cloth and stuffed in a pocket.

Surt looks at his sword, somewhat puzzled and disappointed, until Vali instructs him to dip the blade into the volcano. Surt does so, and the blade ignites, glowing white hot and sending off brilliant bursts of plasma. He sweeps it around his head in a shrieking circle, and the resulting rush of air sends Munin tumbling into me. We claw at each other until we regain stable flight.

"Do you like it?" Vali asks Surt.

"Oh, yes," Surt says, unabashedly pleased. "Very much so. Thank you!"

"Then marshal your troops and prepare to meet your ancient enemies on the plain of Vigrid."

Vali turns to Vidar with a pout that means, Is there anything else? Can I go kill something now?

Satisfied, Vidar begins his descent down the mountain, with Vali soon overtaking him in his haste.

Surt looks happily at his sword. He smiles. Whirlwinds of blue gas flash in his teeth.

HERMOD LAY FACEDOWN in the sand, listening to the quiet slap of waves against the sh.o.r.e. He was in pain, but at least he was warm. Gradually he became aware of Winston's tongue lapping the back of his ear. Hermod groaned and lifted his face from the sand. He wiped blood from his nose and hissed as he withdrew a pencil-length sliver of wood from his thigh.

They had ridden the flood for days, it seemed, through rapids and falls, out of Helheim and down the rivers between worlds. Hermod had steered them with nothing more than a broken branch for oar and rudder, exhausted and navigating solely by strength and instinct.

Reluctantly rising to his feet, he saw Mist a few yards off, splayed out on her back. She was moaning weakly, but at least she was moving. He went to her, and after trading mutual inquiries into each other's condition and receiving only mildly rea.s.suring answers, Hermod offered his hand and helped her up.

"Where are we?"

Hermod took in his surroundings. A vast plain of charcoal waters melted into a starless black sky, and, looming in the distance, a mountainous black column curved up away from the horizon. Thick atmosphere obscured the column in a haze, but the shape of it was still recognizable as the twisted trunk of a tree. Overhead, knots of branches and tendrils in the sky gave off a faint, lime-colored glow of bioluminescence. Sweet aromas of plant life and decay clogged the air. Hermod felt like an ant in an overgrown garden.

"We're at the bottom of the World Tree," he said. "Down at the roots."

Mist shook her head, as if trying to jiggle her thoughts into more sensible order. "Where's Grimnir?"

Hermod spotted Mist's thug a few yards off. Draped over the remains of their shattered tree-raft, he waved off their a.s.sistance. "Leeme alone," he said. "I'm dreaming. I'm in San Francisco. I'm going to see a professional lady of my acquaintance."

"But you're awake," Mist observed.

"Impossible. I smell Chinese food."

"It's a hallucination. You probably cracked your head when we-Wait a minute. I smell it too."

Hermod sniffed and got a strong whiff of grease and garlic and ginger. A few feet away-resting against a Jotun boot the size of a bathtub, pottery shards with elvish markings, a garden gnome, and other jetsam-chow mein noodles spilled from a plastic grocery bag. The noodles were waterlogged and inedible, but the sack also contained a sealed Tupperware dish with kung pao chicken. Only after Hermod and his companions fell upon it and devoured its contents in a brutal feeding frenzy did they begin to address the question of how the Chinese food had gotten there.

"For that matter, how'd we get here?" Mist asked, licking grease off her fingers.

Hermod gazed forlornly into the empty container. "If the Midgard serpent stirred and the world's seams are splitting apart, then the rivers in Helheim and a lot of other places must have broken their banks in the flood, and since all rivers run down to the bottom of the world eventually, we washed up here with the rest of the junk."

Hermod watched Mist's face as she worked out the grim calculus of his suppositions. The serpent's thrashing could have caused tsunamis to wash over every continent on Midgard. Without any check on the wolves, they would have grown large enough to complete their destiny and eat the sun and moon. And they'd seen Naglfar set sail with their own eyes. The ship would deliver Hel's handpicked draugr and armed dead to do battle with the G.o.ds. Ragnarok was humming along just fine.

"I should be with the boys in Valhalla," Grimnir said, without his usual bl.u.s.ter. "I'm supposed to be gearing up for a fight, not mucking around in the sludge at the bottom of the world. Maybe Radgrid went off the deep end a little bit, but she had the right idea: Somebody's gotta be there at the end to bring the fight to the giants and monsters, and I'm supposed to be one of those somebodies."

"If we make our way back to Midgard," Mist said, "I'll send you to Valhalla."

Grimnir was silent for a while. Then, "Thanks, but that's a mighty big if," he said.

Hermod suggested they search the sh.o.r.eline for more food. Indeed, Grimnir found some soggy but still-plump berries from a bush that grew only in Alfheim, but Hermod warned him against eating them. He'd once dined in Alfheim and ended up as a love slave to a beautiful but abusive mistress for three hundred years. So, reluctantly, they left the berries behind and stepped around the detritus of nine worlds toward the prodigious tree trunk rising in the distance.

Hermod instantly recognized the stabbing whinny that flew across the water and rose into something like a lunatic shriek. There was no mistaking its source: Sleipnir.

The horse thundered over the lake's surface, gun-metal foam spraying from his eight hooves. He took the sh.o.r.e as though attacking it and reared up on the hindmost of his eight legs, releasing another harsh, laughing cry.

Grimnir and Mist both had reached for their swords, and Hermod had to put a hand on Winston to still his growling.

"Easy, everyone," he said. "I know this horse."

Despite his words, Hermod felt no ease in the presence of the horse he'd long ago ridden to Helheim and back. Sleipnir was powerful and unpredictable and too similar to Loki, the horse's father-or mother, as Loki had taken on the form of a mare and given birth to Sleipnir before returning to his male form. In any case, other than Odin and Hermod, no G.o.d would even venture close enough to Sleipnir to get within range of his gnashing teeth, let alone to ride him.

Hermod slowly approached the horse and reached up to stroke his neck. Sleipnir had grown since Hermod had last ridden him.

"Fancy meeting you here, boy," Hermod murmured. "Did you wash up with the rest of us?" The horse shivered and snorted but allowed Hermod to continue petting him. Raking his fingers through Sleipnir's mane, Hermod brushed against a flat stone tied in place with a leather thong. He stood on tiptoes to unfasten it.

The runes etched into the stone were tiny, the language ancient, and the hand familiar. After impatient prompting, Hermod translated it for his companions, relating the meaning of the words if not their actual tone, which was dry and cold as the arctic wind yet thrumming with simplicity and magic.

Hermod cleared his throat. "My son-I a.s.sume he means me-difficult are the tasks set before you, and once more I lend you Sleipnir to see that they are done. Go to the well where I left my greatest treasure and reclaim it." Hermod silently read that bit over again, wondering if he was mistranslating. After all, these runes were to his Asgardian language as Aramaic was to modern English. But repeated readings did not alter their meaning.

The letter ended with an admonition not to foul things up as badly as he had the last time. Skepticism and disappointment were evident in every carven stroke.

"You stopped reading," Mist informed him.

Hermod coughed. "Sorry. He goes on to say that he would write more but he's very busy right now. He wishes me nothing but success."

"Greatest treasure? What's all that about?" Grimnir asked.

Hermod tucked the stone in his jacket. "He means for me to go get his eye."

SLEIPNIR SCUTTLED along the ground like a spider, efficiently crawling over debris and uneven terrain. Barebacked, he was large enough to carry the entire company, with Hermod in front, where he could guide the horse with one hand entwined in his mane. Mist rode behind him, and Grimnir behind her. Winston ran alongside for a while, but the malamute couldn't keep the pace for long. It was left to Grimnir to carry the dog awkwardly in his arms, until Mist fashioned a harness and basket carrier from elf rope and PVC pipe they found in the flood wash.

After what seemed like a day's journey, the great tree trunk still loomed ahead, dominating the entire span of the horizon and rising so high that it curved backward over their heads. The tree and the ground were really the same thing, the entire universe being made of the tree's very substance.

Sleipnir folded his legs and let the riders dismount. While Mist and Grimnir stretched their sore muscles and Winston ran around in pursuit of his own tail, Hermod approached a water-filled cavity in the ground, no more than a dozen yards across, like a bullet hole in the world's body. He stared into its infinite darkness and contemplated Odin's instruction to him: Reclaim the treasure.

"You look green," Mist said.

"So do you. It's the light down here."

"That's not what I mean. You look haunted."

"Again, so do you. It's this place."

"We're really down in the bowels, aren't we? Tell me again why we want Odin's eyeball?"

"Odin's been trying to find wisdom almost since his creation," Hermod told her. "Mimir was one of his best sources. He just came into the world with his head full of runes and knowledge. We traded Mimir to our rival tribe of G.o.ds, the Vanir, to end a war, but they didn't like him. Talked too much, they said. So they sent us back Mimir's head, which Odin cast down here at the bottom of the world.

"Later, the Norns gave Odin some glimpses into shadow, and what he saw in those shadows was death. Baldr's death, to be particular, and with that, Ragnarok. But these were only shadows, and Odin wanted more. So he turned again to Mimir, who'd been steeping in the well, absorbing whatever the worlds told him. Mimir agreed to trade a draft from the well for Odin's right eye, and once Odin got his drink, he saw how the worlds would die. He saw all the battles and the terrors, and he returned to Asgard to put together the Einherjar and to prepare. But his eye stayed behind, sunk at the bottom of the well. It's been sitting there all this time, soaking in wisdom."

Hermod felt a rare touch of awe. This was the very place where his father had stood and plucked out his own eye. Such a benign word, pluck. To grasp one's eye with thumb and fingers, to steel oneself and yank. To endure the literally blinding agony and keep pulling until blood vessels and nerves stretched to the point of snapping. And then to remain conscious in order to claim one's prize.

"Mimir, show yourself," Hermod called out. "I've come to talk."

Nothing happened for several minutes. Hermod stared into the well, trying to see below the surface. Mist kept quiet, and even Grimnir refrained from making comment.

The water held still.

Hermod found a flat, round stone by the sh.o.r.e and tried to skip it across the water, but the well claimed it the instant it touched the surface, and it sank without a splash.

Moments later there was a disturbance, the water bubbling like gloppy soup. Fearing an explosive geyser, Hermod drew Mist and Grimnir back. He didn't know what would happen if the water made contact with their skin. Maybe it would make them smarter. Maybe it would drive them to wear tinfoil hats.

A cloud of fizzing foam erupted from the depths, and when the bubbles cleared, a face covered in barnacles and muck bobbed to the surface. A few patches of mushroom-white flesh showed through a slimy green and black beard. Lips the color of snails opened and closed with great fish gulps. The eyes fluttered open, and the face floated quietly in the water.

"Greetings, Hermod," said Mimir, cordially enough.

How should one return the salutation of a severed head bobbing in a pond? Since Mimir was still of the Aesir, and Hermod had come seeking favor, courtesy was required. But the customary compliments about the host's hospitality would ring false here.

"How's the water?"

Mimir treated the question seriously. "Noisy," he said after a time. "The voices clamor for attention, and I cannot give them all a fair hearing."

"Somebody once told me that wisdom is about learning which voices to listen to and which to ignore."

"Do you follow that advice?" Mimir asked.

"I try to."

"I haven't that luxury," Mimir said with regret. "All waters flow here, to settle and stagnate. You should hear the things they tell me."

Hermod had never been overly fond of oracles, and he really didn't want to hear about all the things Mimir had been told over the millennia. He didn't have time, and his experience with the sibyl had already been more than enough.

"Mimir, I've come to retrieve my father's eye."

Mimir blinked in confusion. "Your father's eye? Do I have your father's eye?"

"He sacrificed it to you for a drink from your well. Don't you remember?"

"Was this recently? I'm sorry, but my waters have grown turbulent, and nothing is clear anymore. Why ever would I have wanted his eye, I wonder." Mimir was speaking to himself now, muttering about crowded waters and misplaced things, about once possessing a rune for happiness and something else about a catfish. Then the fog seemed to clear and he focused on Hermod again. "Oh, yes, I do remember Odin's eye. Vidar reminded me."

Hermod started. "My brother was here? When?"

A ripple of water rolled over Mimir's face. "Not so long ago, I think. He was in the company of another brother of yours, a child. Quite mad, that one."

He had to be talking about Vali, which struck Hermod as strange since so few could stand to be in Vali's presence, Vidar least of all. Odin had fathered Vali to kill Hod in revenge for Baldr's death, a job Vali had accomplished before he was even a full day out of the womb. Hermod couldn't imagine being born to a single purpose-to kill your brother-and having fulfilled that purpose before learning your first word. It had left Vali stunted. He'd never grown beyond his terrible twos and had settled for a life of infantilism and random violence.

"What did they want here?" asked Hermod.

"The same thing you want, except they were more insistent. Vali did the talking. He has a violent mind. They each dove to the bottom of the well, but the eye wouldn't go with them. Vali was very angry, and Vidar even more so. Only he didn't express it in words. He was silent. And frightening."

"Did they say what they wanted with the eye? Did Odin send them for it?"

"What does anyone want with an eye?" Mimir said. "They want to see. As for who sent them, they didn't say."

Hermod felt as though he was on the verge of falling for a trap, though he wasn't clear on its nature, its purpose, or its consequences. This was a very familiar feeling to him, and he almost felt comforted by it.

"Just to be clear," Hermod said, "the eye is still at the bottom of the well?"

Mimir misunderstood the question. "I wouldn't say 'still.' It shivers sometimes. I don't think it has ever liked it there at the bottom."

"It doesn't 'like' it there? You mean the eye's alive? It's conscious?"

"The world is conscious, Hermod."

Mist brought her toes to the edge of the well. "Just how deep is this hole, anyway?"

Grimnir's face broke into a challenging smile.

"Hermod's a G.o.d; he can hold his breath a long time. Ain't that right, boss?"

Hermod recalled all the times he'd nearly drowned. The worst was when he'd gotten caught in a flash flood in a Jotunheim box canyon. Pressed down in a sludge of frozen mud, his empty lungs burning, he had so desperately craved release that he'd called out in silent agony for someone, anyone, to deliver him. He'd understood then, for the first time, why men so desperately clung to G.o.ds who didn't care for them in return.

He stared into the impenetrable blackness of Mimir's well.

"Odin took only one drink," Mimir said absently. "It did not go down easily. When he recovered his voice, he used it to scream."