Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2) (30 page)

“I still think we should wait for the Doctor to wake up,” Tony said. “At least let him know what you’re doing.”

They had left both the Doctor and Elise in the medical ward. Elise had been quarantined and under observation. Neither of them had woken up from their stupor.

“The Doctor is undergoing surgery,” Bolswaithe said. “Actually, as many surgeries as his body can take. RA is not restricted to the joints. His lungs, his kidneys, and even his skin have been affected.”

“Will he live?” Thomas asked. The last he had seen him, a platoon of doctors and nurses were buzzing around the Doctor like flies—taking blood samples, checking his eyes and ears, his hands and spine. Some doctors were checking x-rays and talking about surgeries they needed to perform while others took notes behind them.

“He’ll live,” Bolswaithe said. “He’s strong.”

“And Elise?”

Bolswaithe took a little longer to answer, as if he were searching for the right words. “She’s out from any danger,” he said, “but she will be terribly scarred.”

Thomas remembered how the sickness had grown on her skin, on her arms, her neck, her face…each one of them would become a pockmark.

“There are always skin transplants,” Bolswaithe said, but they knew that Elise would never be same.

The fight against the Namtarii had cost them deeply.

“And you?” Tony asked Bolswaithe. “How are you?”

Bolswaithe had not said a word about what he had done to his prisoner in the Keep.  Tony and Thomas had talked a little about it while Bolswaithe was checking the Doctor. The robot had been standing about twenty feet away, but Thomas knew that he had overheard their conversation, and how it had freaked them out to see Bolswaithe act so callously with a prisoner.

Even if the prisoner was a Namtarii.

“Later,” Bolswaithe said. “Let’s concentrate on the job at hand.” He stepped toward the gate.

Thomas and Tony exchanged a look of concern, but quickened the pace behind him.

“These are the Dolmens,” Bolswaithe said, walking into a grassy area and a copse of trees.

The Dolmens were formed with three or more large stones supporting a large, flat stone as the ceiling. Some of the stones weighed more than thirty tons. Europe and Asia were so littered with such structures that it was undeniable that they were handmade, but who made them, and, more importantly, how had they been made eluded scientists. Even the Guardians didn’t know how they had been built since the history of the Guardians went only as far as 5000 BC, and most of the Dolmens were thousands of year older than that.

“Shahrukh said to place the acorn on the guardian stone.” Bolswaithe led them through the site, the Fire Team Guardians spreading out around them. They reached three Dolmens circled with standing rocks.

“I guess this is the one.” Bolswaithe pointed at a large stone close to a tree.

Thomas pulled the acorn from his pocket. The golden trinket felt even warmer now than when he had first touched it. He rubbed it with his hand and looked at Bolswaithe. “Just place it here?” he asked. “No magic words? No ritual?”

“Shahrukh said nothing about Magic,” Bolswaithe said. “He just said to place the acorn where the guide would find it.”

Thomas checked the stone for a hole, or a nook of some kind, but he couldn’t find any. He looked back at Tony and Bolswaithe, but they seemed just as clueless. He hunched his shoulders and placed the acorn at the base of the stone.

“Now what?” he asked, taking a step back.

“We…wait?” Tony said.

About thirty minutes later, Tony had fallen sleep by one of the Dolmens. He had tried to stay awake as long as he could, but they had not rested since the Keep, and while Thomas had been protected by the others Tony had fought like a dervish.

Bolswaithe kept a quiet vigilance, while Thomas read as much as he could about the Aesir on his wristpadd.

The Aesir, the ancient Gods of Nordic legend—Odin, Thor, Loki, Balder, and Heimdall. Everyone had heard those names at one time or another, as well as of the famed Asgard, the place where they lived—their Mount Olympus.

The Aesir were one of the most popular Pantheons. Many books, comics, and even movies were devoted to the Aesir. The most famous of them was Thor, of course, the God of Thunder with his magical hammer.

Thomas had always been exposed to the Aesir, because of his father. Dad always loved mythology and made sure to instill the knowledge, or at least expose Thomas to the old myths and legends.
“They are a window to what humanity was all about in that time,”
his father always told him
. “What they believed, what they cherished, what those people aspired to be…they turned it into myth.”
Thomas remembered thinking then that all Vikings aspired to be warriors.  To be a good fighter was imperative, to die in bloody battle an honor, so much that those who died in battle joined Odin in the Halls of Valhalla to celebrate their deaths until the final battle at Ragnarok.

With access to Pervagus Mansion, Thomas had gone deeper into the Aesir than the myths the world knew. The gods depicted by the tomes in the Guardians’ care were more real, their godly mantle stripped away by the reality that they were just magical beings, creatures attuned to Life Magic and infused with Pillar Magic.

They actually seemed more human-like.

Like all other Pantheons, they had ruled parts of the world at one time and demanded obedience from humans and Fauns alike. The Pantheons had been almost omnipotent before the rise of technology, and some, like the Egyptian Pantheons, had treated humans like pets and slave forces. The Olympians treated humans more like playthings, an amusement. The Maya Pantheon had been especially bloodthirsty, their disregard for human life appalling.

Guardian scholars believed that the treatment of humanity by these great Magical beings was one of the reasons the Oracle had created the
Book of Concord
and given it to the Guardians.

With its knowledge of future events humans had begun to develop technology, understood Magic and science, and began to take control of the world.

It was noted in the Guardians’ chronicles that the Pantheons had to leave the world after merely six hundred years of Guardian guidance.  Technology had tilted the balance to make the Aesir and the other Pantheons’ hold over humanity disappear. Their power waned and they faded from the world. Using their Magic resources, they created pocket worlds where they could continue to exist outside from the Earth.

Their powers faded, but their presence remained in myth and legend.

The last of the Pantheons to fade were the Mayan; they had tried to hold onto the Earth through the use of Blood Magic and human sacrifice. They created one of the most bloodthirsty religions, but in the end even the Magic created by the sacrifice of human life wasn’t enough, and they too had to leave humanity alone.

The Aesir had been slightly different; they hadn’t treated humans like slaves or pets. They treated them as warriors. Armies in a grand game, they valued strength and courage and they were getting ready for Ragnarok.

Ragnarok.

The word sent a chill down Thomas’s spine. The battle to end all battles. A great cataclysm, including natural disasters and monsters roaming the Earth.

 To Thomas, the more he read about Ragnarok, the more it sounded like an attack by the Wraith. He checked on his wristpadd to see if any Guardian scholar had made a connection between Ragnarok to the Wraith when Bolswaithe tapped his shoulder.

“Look at that,” Bolswaithe said pointing toward the stone. A lithe form was climbing down the tree, its reddish, long tail fluffed as it moved.

“A squirrel,” Thomas said.

“A red squirrel,” Bolswaithe pointed out the long tail, “and it’s going for the acorn.”

“Poor guy,” Thomas said.

The squirrel slowly reached for the acorn, sniffing it and taking it into his little hands. He looked at Thomas and Bolswaithe and sat facing them with the acorn on its lap.

It twitched its whiskers.

“It’s going to chip a tooth,” Thomas whispered, trying not to startle the animal.

The squirrel eyes half closed, as if angered by his comment, and then a white horn sprouted from the center of its forehead much like a unicorn. The squirrel then struck the acorn with the horn, breaking it cleanly into four pieces and began to munch on a piece.

The horn then disappeared.

Thomas and Bolswaithe kept quiet while the squirrel ate through the piece of gold. It seemed to be enjoying it immensely, even licking its fingers once in a while as specs of gold dust flew from its mouth.

The squirrel suddenly stopped and looked directly at them. “So…” it said in a very grave voice. “What do you want?”

“Ahh…” Thomas stuttered.

“Ahhh…!” the squirrel mocked him rudely, and then belched. “Are you dumb? What do you want?” the squirrel asked again.

“We need a guide,” Bolswaithe said while the squirrel continued to munch on the acorn. “We want to visit the Aesir.”

“We?” the squirrel said. “I don’t do ‘we.’ You didn’t pay for ‘we,’ and you’re not getting ‘we.’ One acorn. One person. Take it or leave it and be quick about it because I’m in a hurry, old man.”

“What the hell is that thing?” Tony asked, waking up from his nap. The squirrel picked up a rock, threw it, and hit Tony on the forehead.

“Hell is what you’ll get if you don’t show respect for Ratatosk, messenger of the Aesir, you stupid human!” the squirrel shouted.

Tony scrambled to his feet, holding his forehead. “So help me…” he began to say when another rock struck him in the groin.

“Time!” Ratatosk yelled, gulping down another piece of the acorn. “Who’s going? One or no one at all?” he said, mumbling.

“I am.” Thomas stepped forward.

“You are?” Ratatosk said. “Scrawny thing like you will last two seconds in the Halls of Valhalla.” Ratatosk then jumped to the top of one of the Dolmens and the entrance shimmered. A door opened, like a puddle of water at first, with concentric waves coming from the center, then the ripples stopped. Inside they could see a marbled hall with three cloaked statues on the far end standing around a pillar that held a basin, almost like the bird baths Thomas had helped his mother install at his house in Fulton. The statues looked female, but they could only see their lips and the tips of their noses. The rest of their faces were deep inside the hood of their cloaks.

“Good luck.” Bolswaithe shook Thomas’s hand. “I’ll be waiting for you here.”

Tony placed his hand on Thomas’s shoulder; he was still doubling over Ratatosk’s well-aimed stone. “Be careful,” he groaned.

Ratatosk mocked them with loud kissing noises. “Come on already.” Flecks of gold flew out from his mouth.

Thomas approached the entrance to the Dolmen. There was a large dome, and as he touched the shimmering portal, it flexed, as if pushing against a curtain.

“You have to leave your trinkets behind,” Ratatosk said, pointing at Thomas’s wristpadd. “Those things can’t cross over.”

Thomas undid his wristpadd and handed it to Bolswaithe. He also took off his belt with the dart gun. He then looked at Ratatosk. “Anything else?” he asked.

“Sword,” the squirrel said. “Unless you really know how to use it. Most people inside will jump at you to test your skills if you carry one.”

Thomas looked at Tony, who shook his head from side to side. Bolswaithe raised an eyebrow.

Ratatosk hit Thomas in the head with his paw. “What the hell are you looking at them for?” he spat. “You’re the one going in! It’s your life, your decision! If you wait for anyone else to make all your decisions, you're just a maggot feast waiting to happen!”

Thomas took off his sword and walked into the shimmer.

This time he went right through.

Part 2: One for All

The Norns and the Halls of Valhalla

Thomas took a step on the other side of the gate. He looked back at Bolswaithe and Tony, but all he saw was his own reflection. The gate was like a one-way mirror. There was a gulping sound at his feet as Ratatosk entered through.

“They’re fine…” he told Thomas. “Now go get your audience.”

“Is the gate still open? ” Thomas asked. The mirrored surface seemed still.

“You want to leave already?” Ratatosk asked.

“No,” Thomas said. “I just—”

“Then why does it matter?” Ratatosk cut him off. “Come on, the Norns are waiting.” The squirrel walked between Thomas’s legs.

“Who are the Norns?” Thomas asked, following the squirrel. He suddenly realized that the statues weren’t statues at all, but three women. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their gaze upon him for a second.

“Who are the Norns?” Ratatosk nodded, “You humans get more clueless every time I see you.” He took two quick steps in front of Thomas and opened his arms as in proclamation. “Behold!” he said as Thomas stopped and stared at the women, who seemed to be waiting for them.

“Urðarbrunnr, The Well of Fate,” Ratatosk said loudly, “and the all-seeing, all knowing Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld. Readers of past, present, and future. The fate of all creatures is an open book for them…” he ran toward the birdbath and looked at Thomas. “Yours will be too... mortal from Midgard.”

Ratatosk waited for him at the base of the birdbath and nodded for him to approach.

Thomas hesitantly walked toward the Norns. The three robed figures followed his movement intently. Once he was on the other side of the birdbath, Ratatosk climbed on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

“Touch the water,” the squirrel said.

With a shaky hand, Thomas touched the center of water. A slow, circular ripple extended from his fingertip toward the rim of the fountain.

Then, another ripple grew, colliding with the one he had made, and then another and another. It was like watching raindrops fall on a pool. Small ripples would disappear under larger ones that collided and created small waves that in turn disappeared or clashed with more ripples.

For a second Thomas thought that the water would actually come out from the fountain as the ripples became stronger. But then, as suddenly as the mini storm started, it stopped and the water became still again.