Norse Code Part 19

"In addition to the Sword of Seven," Munin piped in, "he commissioned an Ax of Seven, a Spear of Seven, a Hammer of Seven, a Crude Bludgeon of Seven ... His backup a.r.s.enal of Seven is quite extensive."

Hermod rubbed his face. He looked as drained as Mist felt. "I get the picture. What do I do about Vidar?"

"We," Mist reminded him. "What do we do about Vidar?"

Munin shat on a rendering of a coral reef.

"It's a mistake to think that you can solve all problems by wrestling Vidar," Hugin said. "First, you're no match for him. Second, he's already set Ragnarok in motion. He's freed Fenrir and armed the fire giant Surt. He's cut seams in the World Tree to make sure that the destruction of one root will bleed into the others. If you have any hope of improving affairs, you have to address Vidar's work, not just Vidar himself. And you might begin by addressing the part you're personally responsible for. You're the one who set the sky-eating pups from Ironwood loose. It's probably too little, too late, but you could try to do something about that. It'd be better than nothing."

"See, Hermod?" Mist said with great cheer. "You're better than nothing!"

FINDING THE WAY back to Midgard proved frustrating. If there were seams forming direct pathways between Los Angeles and Frigg's domain, Hermod couldn't locate them. The days of fruitless travel wore at his endurance as Sleipnir galloped on, splashing through the marshlands of Frigg's domain. Winston, by contrast, seemed happy enough, leaning from his harness like a dog in a pickup truck.

"Hugin said that Vidar was using the Sword of Seven to open up new seams," Mist said, launching another volley in an argument they'd been having on and off for the last several days.

"But that's Vidar. It's his sword. And he's Vidar. I don't know how the d.a.m.ned blade works. Also, Hugin said Vidar needed Odin's eye to wield the sword properly, to show him where to cut. I could make a slice in the World Tree and end up opening a pathway right to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Or to the core of a star."

"Vidar didn't have the eye yet when he started using the sword."

"It's Vidar's sword," Hermod said again. "And he's Vidar."

They'd had this same conversation at least a dozen times and always ended up here, with Hermod feeling correct but unsatisfied and Mist left stewing behind him. Times were desperate and drastic risk-taking was past due. But the memory of collapsing an entire mountain range at the bottom of Mimir's Well with a careless movement of his hand was still fresh in his memory. Blindly slashing about with the Sword of Seven just didn't seem smart. That was the sort of thing G.o.ds did, real G.o.ds with real power. Not people like Hermod. Unfortunately, he was the one with the sword.

He sighed and brought Sleipnir to a stop on a soggy spit of land. "Fine, then, I'll give it a try. But don't blame me if I end up slicing a canyon through the middle of Paris."

"a.s.suming there still is a Paris, I won't hold you responsible," Mist a.s.sured him.

They climbed down from Sleipnir, and Hermod unsheathed the sword. The moment he laid eyes on the blade, sickness spiraled in his head and stomach. How was he supposed to use a weapon he couldn't even bear to look at?

Ignoring the sounds of Mist retching behind him and Winston's whimpers, he fixed his focus on the blade and would not allow himself to look away.

He looked away.

"Dammit!"

He sucked down a deep breath, held it, and slowly exhaled. Bending at the knees, he rooted himself in the ground with a solid stance. He squared and relaxed his shoulders. The blade wasn't as featureless as he'd thought; a pattern of finely etched lines swirled in the steel, like a topographic map in motion. The whorls and eddies swam before him, faster and more turbulent, causing him physical pain, like thin metal wires piercing his skin and worming into his head. It required all his concentration to maintain his grip on the sword and keep looking at it.

For a sliver of a moment, the pattern almost made sense, was almost even familiar. It was a map, charting the folded convolutions of the nine worlds.

I can see it, he thought with sudden jubilation. I understand it!

And then, just as quickly, the sickness returned. His hands jerked involuntarily, the tip of the blade making a small incision in the air before him. His vision shattered, and the world broke up into chaos.

Hermod dropped the sword and fell to his knees, panting.

He'd really done it this time, he thought. He'd screwed up the universe.

But when he looked up, the little seam he'd cut had sealed itself, and the dark marshlands around him appeared to have returned to normal.

He got shakily to his feet and helped Mist to hers.

"And that," he rasped, shaking his finger in Mist's face, "is why you don't f.u.c.k around with someone else's dwarf sword!"

In the end, they relied on Hermod's talent for finding natural seams and on Sleipnir's reckless speed to get them back to Los Angeles.

They emerged at night, not far from Pier Avenue, at the remains of the cafe where they'd consulted the sibyl. It seemed like such a long time ago. Shattered bricks and crumbled mortar lay at their feet, along with charred paperback books, coffee mugs broken into ceramic fragments, jumbled and burned tables and chairs, shards of window gla.s.s. Hermod picked up an intact coffee mug from a black slush of sodden ash. The coffee inside was frozen solid. With disappointment, he poked the bakery case with the toe of his boot. "I'd kill for a m.u.f.fin," he said, to no one in particular.

The clouds had cleared to reveal a sharp, full moon, bright enough to hurt his eyes. He peered up at it. He'd been walking the lands of Midgard long enough to have seen the continents change shape. He'd seen forests become deserts, and seas become valleys. Even the moon hadn't been a constant, meteor impacts changing its face over the years. But it was still there. The wolves hadn't yet eaten it, and Hermod forced himself to take some comfort from that. Things weren't hopeless. And he didn't have to bear the burden of Ragnarok alone. It felt good to have allies after so many years of wandering in solitude. He had the Valkyrie, and the best dog in the world, and a fierce, eight-legged mount, and a sword that made him ill.

"All right," he said, clapping his hands. "This moping isn't doing us any good. You think our enemies are sitting around, all downcast and sulking? If we're going to pull this out, we have to be at least as committed as they are."

"I swear, if you tell me it all comes down to who wants it more, I'm going to take you out at the knees," Mist said. But she said it with a smirk, and when her smirk grew into a brief moment of genuine laughter, it felt like a ray of sunshine warming Hermod's face.

"I can't find any honey." Stepping from behind a mound of rubble, the sibyl picked through the wreckage. Her outfit had changed since their last encounter, her yellow rain pants and purple Vikings cap exchanged for a skirt of greasy animal skin. Necklaces of small bones and bird feathers hung over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Getting honey was so hard in the old days," she said. "It took a genius just to figure out we could eat the stuff and a million stings before someone discovered that smoke would make the bees sleep. I remember my clan's shaman dying of anaphylactic shock. We a.s.sumed he was possessed by spirits. I wasn't happy about taking over for him, but then I realized the office came with the best cuts of meat and all the honey I wanted. These days the honey comes in little plastic bears. But now it's all come down to this, after millions of years of progress and innovation. An age of wolves 'til the world goes down."

Grinning a gummy smile, she c.o.c.ked her head to the side. "Oh, they're finally here."

Hermod heard the howl a moment later, a rising hornlike note that spoke directly to his spine. Other voices joined in, forming dissonant chords with squeaks filling the s.p.a.ces. Four wolves came lumbering around the corner. They'd grown to the size of trash Dumpsters, shaking the ground with paws as big as manhole covers. Pebbles in the debris field vibrated.

Hermod unsheathed the Sword of Seven. He steeled himself against the sight of the blade but still staggered, feeling the ground slip beneath his feet. The wolves weren't immune to the sword's effects either. Their growls faltered, much to Hermod's satisfaction.

Okay, then. This would at least be a fight. Glory and adrenaline, and what finer end could you ask for?

"Mush," Hermod said.

The wolves leaped at him. Hermod darted in a quick diagonal, blocking their path to Mist, but one of them vaulted overhead in a gray and white blur and was upon Mist before Hermod could react. He moved to help her, but another wolf blocked his path. Snarling, it lunged at him but kept beyond the range of his sword. Hermod knew he wouldn't survive long if he played elk to the wolves' hunting pack, so he leaped high in the air, swinging his sword in a circle around his head with an air-cutting whoosh, and came down with the blade's edge across the wolf's neck. Its head separated cleanly, blood and foam spilling over its speckled, lolling tongue and mixing with ash and asphalt.

Hermod moved again to help Mist, but two wolves intercepted him, eyes drawn to slits, teeth gleaming.

"You don't scare us," the pair snarled in a joined voice. "You're just like everything else in the worlds: fuel for Ragnarok. Come burn in our bellies." They stretched their jaws, and Hermod felt the now-familiar tug of wind and gravity. Whirls of soot whistled through the air, spiraling into the wolves' gullets.

Hermod charged, but the wolves moved too quickly for him. He found himself facing one wolf, with the other at his back. The attack came from the rear. Dropping to the ground and rolling toward the a.s.sault, he barely avoided being bitten in two. He aimed a cut at the wolf's legs but missed, and now he was on his back, even more vulnerable. Slaver splashed on his face, hot as blood. His arms burned with fatigue, the sword heavy as he made fast thrusts to keep the wolves at bay. He was tired, fading, and he knew he couldn't keep his defense up much longer. Through blurred, tunneling vision, he saw teeth and tongues and yawning chasms of nothing. With a great sobbing wail of exertion, he rose to his feet and swung in a blind arc. A piercing yelp gave him hope that he'd landed a blow. On reflex, he spun and thrust out the sword and heard another yelp. Not stopping to see what, if any, damage he'd inflicted, he ran a few steps and would have run farther, but his legs finally gave out and spilled him into the rubble. His sword clattered away.

Panting, Hermod craned his neck to look up, expecting to see the wolves coming at him at full speed. Instead, both cowered a few yards away, mewling. One bled from its head, the other from its chest. The third surviving wolf made hesitant attacks at Sleipnir, who was situated between the wolf and Mist.

Hermod crawled across the wreckage to retrieve his sword, which had fallen only a couple of arms' lengths away, and stood on weak legs. The wolves bowed their backs, heads and tails lowered in ambivalent displays of aggression tempered by fear.

Hermod liked being feared. It was a new experience. He took a step toward the monsters.

That's all they were: monsters to kill. And he was a G.o.d, wielding a mighty weapon.

Something ma.s.sive fell from the sky, landing between the wolves and Hermod with shuddering impact. A towering bulk loomed before him, with a snout the length of a full-grown man and teeth like hatchet blades.

Hermod looked up into Fenrir's black-rimmed blue eyes.

"You won't hurt the young ones," Fenrir said. His voice was chocolate.

Hermod ran at him, but instantly something hit him in the chest with the force of a cannonball, and he was on his back again, squeezed against the ground by a paw five feet across. All the air escaped Hermod's lungs, and he could draw in no breath to replace it.

"You won't hurt me either," said Fenrir with no malice. "I do not know what your doom is, but it does not involve my death."

Debris dug into Hermod's back. He felt a rib crack. Dimly, he heard Winston's barking. He wished Mist would tell the stupid dog to go hide somewhere. He wished she would go with the dog.

"You will have learned by now that you can manipulate the small details of events, but things that were meant to happen must happen," Fenrir said. "I will eat Odin, because I must. Vidar will kill me, because he must. And my pups will eat the moon and the sun, because the world demands it. There is nothing that can be done to change it."

Hermod still held the Sword of Seven in his hand, but moving to use it against Fenrir wasn't a thought. He couldn't even summon a moan of pain.

Fenrir twisted his head around to address the three wolves, putting even more pressure on Hermod's tortured chest. "This is no time to lick your wounds, children. Your hour has arrived." The whimpering ceased.

The wolves sprang into the sky. They sailed higher and higher, blood from their wounds raining down in dime-size splotches, moonlight gleaming off their white fur.

When Fenrir finally removed his paw from Hermod's chest, the relief was offset by deep stabbing pains in his ribs. Mist dropped to his side, resting her hands lightly on his chest. "Stay down," she said, as Hermod tried to control the agonizing spasms of his lungs.

"It will be over soon," Fenrir soothed, stepping back. "A flash of burning pain, and then rest and sleep for all."

"You mean death, and worse. Annihilation." Mist said this matter-of-factly, not inviting argument. And Fenrir offered none.

"The worlds are quite old," he said. "Forests cannot live when old growth casts new buds in shade. Unlike others, I seek no profit from Ragnarok. I am prepared to die. If I can accept this, why can't you?"

"Because I'm not a slave," spat Mist. "Not to prophecies, not to sibyls, not to Norns, and you don't have to be either. n.o.body does."

Fenrir made a chuckling rumble, deep in his throat. "Oh, little morsel, Odin built the very ground you walk upon, and even he must answer the call of Fate. n.o.body's life can be wound into endless thread."

Mist stood. "If you're so sure about your a.s.sumptions, then test them. Try opting out of the game. Don't show up to the battlefield. Don't attack Odin. When Vidar faces you, run away. Don't play along. What have you got to lose?"

"Watch" was all Fenrir said.

Hermod's gaze fell upon the moon. A faint halo had formed around the disc.

"Help me up," he begged Mist. He sucked in a breath of pain as she pulled him to his feet as gingerly as she could. He would not witness his defeat lying on the ground, at least.

She supported him with an arm around his waist, and he drew her in close, while the moon's edge grew ragged and indistinct behind the expanding nimbus, like a lump of dissolving chalk. Soon there was just a dusty, globular cloud in the sky with a few winking particles. Then that, too, faded.

"It is done," Fenrir said. "The serpent will grapple with Thor and stain the sky and earth with his poison. Loki will deliver Naglfar with its crew of dead to the plain of Vigrid, there to be joined by G.o.ds and giants and elves and dwarves and men to do battle. Surt will lead the sons of Muspellheim and scorch the earth, and Loki will do battle with Heimdall the bridge guardian. I will devour Odin, just as my pups devoured the moon, as they shall soon devour the sun. The nine worlds will die in fire and ice, and what comes after is not my concern."

Hermod raised his sword to Fenrir, but the wolf took no apparent notice, leaping to the sky and vanishing into the moonless night. Hermod and Mist clutched each other, watching the stars wheel in the sky, ever faster.

VIDAR HAS COME to a place in Midgard. Once this was a San Fernando Valley shopping center, a vast field of asphalt rimmed by stores as large as the halls of Valhalla. The shelves were stocked with nine different kinds of peanut b.u.t.ter and thirty different kinds of frozen pizza, and basketball shoes and lawn mowers and picture books and laser-guided table saws. There was also a movie theater here, a tae kwon do school, and a yogurt shop.

Now the shopping center is a charred sprawl. News crews film the looting.

Hovering above, Munin and I watch Vidar. His right arm terminates a few inches below his elbow in a b.l.o.o.d.y, bandaged stump. He seems to be measuring something, but we can't see what he sees, because now he sees with Odin's eye. It bulges from the socket, ill-fitting. His cheek is plastered with dried gore.

Vidar has a scythe. It's quite obviously dwarfcraft. The snath, gracefully carved from a single piece of wood, is as long as Vidar is tall. The blade, like the Sword of Seven, is made of the roots of mountains, the breath of fish, the beards of women, the footfalls of cats, the sinews of bears, the spittle of birds, and nothing.

Satisfied with his calculations, Vidar nods, and without fanfare or posing, he sweeps the scythe before him. For a one-armed swing, it's pretty powerful. There is no thunder, no big bang, no flash of blinding light. Just a web of seams and worlds spilling through them.

He nods again. The final battlefield now stands ready for battle.

THE STARS RACED overhead, as though time had sped up. Hermod wondered if age would finally catch hold of him now in a big dose of Dorian Gray, but when he put his hands to his face, expecting to feel rugose flesh and mummy dust, his cheeks felt the same as always.

"The stars' accelerated motion is due to conservation of momentum," Mist was explaining. "The loss of the moon's ma.s.s translates to a four-hundred-percent increase in Midgard's spin, for a six-hour day. Now that the moon's been eaten, earth will prematurely pull away from the sun, beyond the capacity of the world to sustain life. But that's many thousands of years off."

"You sound like Munin."

"Hey," Mist said, offended. "You don't have to be a raven to figure this stuff out. I took a little astronomy in college. You want to check my numbers?"

"I believe you, Professor. But none of it matters. If we don't stop Ragnarok, the universe won't last 'til next Wednesday, let alone thousands of years from now."

They had taken refuge on the roof of a parking garage off the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The air smelled of tear gas. The pops and cracks of gunfire and the sizzle of Tasers reverberated up from the shops and cafes, which had erupted into full-scale riot since the moon disappeared. Hermod couldn't even imagine what people were fighting over. Perhaps the rising wall of pre-Ragnarok chaos had simply broken through the dam.

Winston munched on a stingray he'd found near the stairwell. Sleipnir, left downstairs to forage, had hopefully found a fallen tree or car to eat.

"I'm going to look at my sword again," Hermod warned Mist. She nodded and turned away. Hermod had been forcing himself to gaze into the blade runes, hoping to make sense of them before the nothingness and impossibilities built into the sword overtook him.

He unsheathed the Sword of Seven, just a few inches, and looked at the blade with almost-shut eyes. These were runes in the language that Odin had learned after hanging on the World Tree for nine days. They were a guide of some kind, an explanation, or a map of the tree itself, charting all the intricate nooks and crannies in its skin. Frigg and Vidar needed a way to connect disasters across worlds so that the moon eaten in Midgard would also result in its loss in Asgard and in all the other worlds. If he could only figure the map out, maybe he could predict Vidar's next move and somehow stop him. ...

Darkness closed in on the edges of Hermod's perception-not just tunnel vision but encroaching oblivion. He looked away and sheathed the sword. It was no good. He needed Odin's eye.

"Hermod, look!"

"I don't want to."

"No, look" Mist insisted. "In the sky."

Hermod followed the direction of Mist's gaze to where a ma.s.sive black object approached, perhaps a hundred feet over the beach. He thought it was a zeppelin at first, but as it grew closer he recognized the dark, pearly hull, and the square sail, and the great dragon figurehead.

"That's Naglfar," Hermod said.

"Lilly and Hod and the Iowans," Mist said. "We have to get up there."

"How? You have a jet pack you've been holding out on me?"

"Maybe we can bring the ship down to us-" But before Mist could complete her suggestion, a gunshot sounded, and a small crater materialized in the cement wall behind them. Hermod threw himself on top of Mist as more shots whizzed by. They crawled behind a big SUV for cover.

"Who's after us this time?" Mist shouted over the noise of bullets crashing into the wall.

Hermod reached up and broke the side mirror off the SUV, then crawled forward, taking care to stay behind the engine block. He angled the mirror to get a look at the shooter. A woman in a white leather coat stood at the top of the stairwell with a rifle. Tall and broad-shouldered, her red hair bright in the gloom, she silently directed large, well-muscled men to take positions around the roof.

"It's Radgrid," Mist said, looking over Hermod's shoulder at the reflection in the mirror. "I guess NorseCODE finally caught up with me."

"You don't think Grimnir-"

"No, I don't. He had plenty of opportunity to sell us out, and he never did."

"Mist," Radgrid called. "Come out, please. I need to speak to you." More shots rang, and the SUV's front tires burst.