The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (17 page)

Through pursed lips, Freya makes a sound which
is one of agreement, but also worry.

A thought strikes me. “Have you
encountered them before?” I ask. “Perhaps by another
name?”

“No,” Freya answers. “Odinn
has seen the future of our world and assures me that such creatures
as these Myriad do not feature in it.”

Although Freya ceases speaking, I sense
something left unspoken.

I venture a guess: “You are unconvinced.”

She chuckles. “Odinn is All-Father, the
Finder of Truth. When he decided that we Vanir were a threat to his
rule, he did not wait for us to attack first. He struck and defeated
us utterly. He is not one to treat threats lightly. If he sees no
reason for worry... then there is none.”

It is clear that she doubts her own words. Why
else would she have asked me the question she did? But I have no
desire to press her on the depth of her faith in this Odinn. Besides,
if someone called the Finder of Truth has foreseen a future without
the Myriad, it pleases me to think him right.

“Am I a prisoner?” it suddenly
occurs to me to ask. More importantly, “Is Ayessa?”

“It is Odinn's choice what to do with
you,” Freya answers. “You will see him in the morning,
which is not far off. As for Essa, I will let her speak for herself.”

“When?”

Freya smiles. “Patience,” she
counsels. “I can see that she is special to you. She must be,
for you to have come this far in search of her.”

Too late I realize that I like this subject even
less than I do that of the Myriad. “Ayessa is...” I
begin, with no clear idea of what will come next.

I am saved by a knock upon the door. Freya's
brows rise in clear delight, and she stands. “That will be
Gaeira.”

She needn't have said so. The terse pattern of
three sharp raps on the door—just enough, and no more—is
typical of the slayer's manner.

I rise also and follow Freya through the curtain
into the anteroom, where Freya opens the door to her home. On the
other side, I see Gaeira, candlelight dancing in her golden hair.
Behind her stands another female figure. My eyes settle on her face.
As breath flees my body, my lips manage to form her  name in a
faint, unbelieving whisper.

“
Ayessa...!
”

Her face I know all too well. Her garb I
recognize also, even if it is out of place on her. She is dressed as 
some of the Aesir warriors I have seen: a long-sleeved tunic under
blazoned breastplate, leggings which extend from waist to boot. A
fine-handled sword hangs at her hip. The silver blazon on the black
armor, clearly wrought for a female wearer, shows a swooping eagle in
profile. I have seen its like before, on the shield and armor hanging
on Freya's wall.

It is this armor, I think, that stops me from
rushing toward Ayessa. Or maybe it is that she makes no move toward
me. Instead, I take half a step and then balk. It is not the reunion
I might have wished for, but not even the tight-lipped, hard-eyed
look on Ayessa's face can rob me entirely of my joy. When I speak my
wellspring's name more certainly, “
Ayessa,
” I
cannot keep from smiling.

Gaeira comes fully into Freya's home, but Ayessa
hangs back in the open doorway. She stands frozen, her brow creased,
mouth tight, eyes narrowed, hands clenched by her sides. I dismiss
those signs. I care not that her appearance and behavior are not
quite what I expected; the sight of her causes my eyes to brim so
full with joy that they begin to leak. The joy spills into my voice
as I explain to her, “I came looking for you...”

A powerful feeling overwhelms me, and I speak
words I have never spoken to Ayessa with my present lips, although in
the instant they cross them, I know that I spoke them many times in
our unremembered past.

“I love you, Ayessa,” I declare to
her. “We are meant to be together.”

She starts toward me. I open my arms, believing
for an instant that my journey will end in a warm embrace.

A second later, I double over from a kick to my
abdomen. An elbow follows to the back of my neck, and I fall. My
palms slap the stone floor, just keeping my head from hitting.

“Stop, Essa,” Freya says. Her tone
is iron-strong, but calm.

The words have no effect. Seizing me by the
head, Ayessa raises me to a kneeling posture and delivers  a
punch to my temple, then a knee to my spine.

I sprawl face-down on the floor and hear Freya
say, in more commanding tones, “Essa, stop this!”

I roll over, confused as to whether or not to
defend myself. Thankfully, I am not forced to choose, for my
assailant, my wellspring, heeds Freya's instruction.

“I am not in the habit of letting guests
be abused in my home,” Freya reprimands her. “You are
Valkyr now. You know better.”

My world is upside-down as I peel myself from
the floor. I can barely bring myself to meet the venom-filled look
that haunts Ayessa's eyes, but I manage to.

I will remember that look for eternity.

I speak but one word. “Why?”

Ayessa's icy hatred does not crack. She shakes
her head and says, presumably to Freya, who would appear to wield
some authority over her, “I'm finished here.”

She starts for the door. Since I am in her path,
I must quickly decide whether to stand aside or bar her exit. It is
not a decision I wish to make, and so I am grateful when Freya stops
Ayessa for me with the voice of command.

“You will answer his question, Essa. It is
the least recompense you owe him. You owe it to 
me
, as
his host.”

“I owe him nothing!”

“Answer him,” Freya commands,
sounding as one whom few would dare to make repeat herself a third
time. 
This 
Freya, surely, is the one to whom belongs
the war-gear in the next room.

“My hate for him comes from our last
life,” Ayessa says. “I will not speak of it. If he
wishes, he can come by the knowledge the same way I did!” She
lowers her voice, but the fire in it still burns. “I regret 
having come. If the one who summoned me had the use of her tongue, I
would not have.”

My chest becomes a great knot. My head is afire.
I cannot think, much less speak. It is too painful to look at Ayessa
and so I stare at Freya, vaguely hoping she will reject the answer
offered and demand another. But she nods calm acceptance, which
Ayessa takes as leave to depart.

She moves toward the door, toward me... Dazed, I
make the choice to step aside, letting her pass. She spares me no
glance, as if I am but a furnishing, and the door closes with a
heavy, final sound.

My eyes stare out blankly, but behind them, my
momentarily frozen thoughts race. They bring understanding, and it
fills me with rage.

“I see what you have done!” I grate
at Freya, whom I see now for the enemy that she truly is. “You've
filled her head with lies and made her think she is one of you! But
she is not! She is Atlantean!”

Just how I intend to act upon my snap judgment,
I have no clue as yet. I am hardly well placed to make demands or
challenge the folk of Asgard in any way.

Freya confounds me by declining to reveal her
true, wicked nature in a peal of heartless laughter. No, instead what
I get are more softly spoken words—doubtless lies.

“Nothing was done to Essa that was not of
her own choosing.”

“
Done 
to her?” I echo.
“Then you admit it! What did you do? She spoke of
knowledge—what knowledge?”

“Thamoth,” Freya says, her look full
of sympathy, “I promise to you that I was unaware Essa bore you
ill will. Had I known, I would have seen that you two were kept apart
until the time was right.”

“What knowledge?” I insist. “Tell
me!”

“Please,” Freya urges, “if you
will but keep your wits about you, all will be explained.”

Unlike mine, her manner is one of utter calm.
She clearly has no fear of me—and she need not, not with a mute
observer at her shoulder whom I am reasonably certain could dispatch
me in seconds if need be. Then again, something about Freya makes me
suspect she could do the same. I am powerless here in this cottage,
and even if were I not, I am still far, far from home in the middle
of a strange city.

Such realizations, more than Freya's urgings,
cause me to swallow my anger.

“Apologies,” I murmur. My head
swims. I set a hand on the wall to steady myself.

Freya comes swiftly to my side. “Come,
sit,” she says. “I will tell you what you wish to know.”

“No, I beg you. Tell me now. What
knowledge?” I fear I already know.

“Very well,” Freya says from close
beside me. Her skin smells of sweet herbs. “Ayessa has drunk
from the Well of Mimir. It is the source of the All-Father's
knowledge of the Aesir's future, but the visions it gives, if the
seeker so wishes, may shed light on the present... or the 
past
.”

Knowing what Freya will say next, I begin to
grasp from whence came Ayessa's fresh hatred of me, and I barely keep
from crying out.

“When Essa drank from the Well,”
Freya finishes, confirming my fear, “she recalled her prior
life in Atlantis.”

The time which follows passes in a blur. I am
vaguely aware of being half-carried to a bed in the next room, of
Gaeira departing, of Freya passing in and out of my dull-eyed vision.
Time ceases flowing, and so I know not how much passes before I speak
my next words, clutching at Freya's skirts from my bed.

“Let me drink from the Well! I must
know... 
I must!
”

“That is possible,” Freya tells me,
gently removing my fingers from her dress. “But there will be a
price.”

“Anything,” I pledge without
thought. I swing my feet to the floor and stand, waving off Freya's
attempt to help.

“The Well belongs to Odinn,” Freya
says. “If he permits you to drink of it, the price will be set
by him.”

“Ayessa paid it,” I reason. “So
will I.”

“She paid 
her 
price.
Yours may be higher. Or lower.”

“What was her price?”

“From what you have seen and heard
already, have you not guessed?”

I cast my mind back to find the answer. What
could I have seen or heard that would—

The matching swooping eagle blazon on Ayessa's
and Freya's armor. Ayessa goes by another name and bows to Freya's
authority. 
You are a Valkyr now
, Freya said to her.

“What is a Valkyr?” I ask.

Freya smiles, telling me I am on the right path.
“A fighter in the force which I command on Odinn's behalf, the
Valkyriar.”

I conclude, dismally, “Ayessa's price
was... allegiance.”

Freya nods, and my spirits sink lower still.
Unless I am mistaken, it means that Ayessa's intention is—and
was even before she learned of her past—never to return to us.

***

First light brings Gaeira's return. I am pleased
that she has not yet left Asgard. I have no good reason to trust her,
less to count her as friend, but hers is the face to which I am most
accustomed in Asgard. She and Freya escort me through winding alleys
to the black stone citadel which stands at the very heart of the city
of Asgard. Its walls and yard crawl with warriors who greet my
guides, particularly Freya, with cordial deference. Freya, dressed in
regal gown of gold-trimmed blue, dispenses warm smiles in return.

We reach a plain double door of polished oak,
its handles made from the sleek horns of some beast. A guard raps on
it, and presently it opens from within, permitting us entry. The hall
beyond is dazzlingly bright. All surfaces, the expansive floor and
walls which extend upward without visible end, are of purest white,
as is the illuminating glow from above, which is brighter than the
daylight without. As my eyes settle, dark patches at the hall's far
end coalesce into three human-shaped figures. The two on either side
are tall and slender, while the one in the middle is just as tall but
more thickly built. I gather he must be Odinn, and it is him upon
whom I focus as I proceed steadily forward, Gaeira to one  side
of me, Freya on the other.

Among the first of Odinn's features that I
distinguish is the vast beard falling in white waves halfway to his
waist. Next I see that he wears over his left eye (or where the eye
would be) an ornate patch of black and silver, colors which match
those of his battle-dress. The skin of his face is deeply lined, like
mud that has baked and cracked.

Whilst I look at him, movement comes from above,
a fluttering sound, and down from the hall's glowing upper reaches a
bird swoops down to perch on Odinn's right shoulder. A sharp caw
draws my  eye a short distance to the right, where the black
bird's twin sits on an iron bar.

Ares was right. The birds do serve a master, and
that master is Odinn, lord of the Aesir.

The identities of the two men flanking Odinn, I
cannot guess. One is fair-haired and clean-shaven, dressed in
brightly shining armor and a cloak of deep purple. The other has long
black hair like Crow's, deeply sunken eyes and a thin beard that
traces the jawline. His shoulders are draped in a gray wolf pelt; the
beast's fang-filled mouth rests upon his left shoulder, as if
devouring the wearer's arm from the top down. Perhaps coincidentally,
perhaps not, the arm in question ends not in a hand but in an
iron-plated stump.

We draw up before them and halt. Gaeira falls to
one knee, Freya does not, and I am left quickly to decide which of
the two to emulate. I do not wish to offend, particularly given my
desire to drink from the Well, but Odinn is not my master. I may not
be a willing ambassador, or even a competent one, but an ambassador I
am. I elect not to kneel lacking a direct request, which does not
come.

“Rise, child,” Odinn says, and
Gaeira does so. Even though Odinn speaks with a gentle tone, his
voice is deep and commanding, a match for his appearance. “You've
brought us another one?”