The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (25 page)

Hel hisses mockingly in support of Tyr's
indictment, "Odinn the All-Seeing! He 
sees 
all
but rarely 
acts!
Why must we venture here at all? What
good are your ravens if they warn you not of a coming invasion?"

"You well know," Baldr counters, "were
the birds to fly over Niflheim, you would happily bake them into pies
and send back the beaks!"

Hel smiles wickedly, conceding the truth of his
accusation.

"We lose sight of our purpose," Freya
says forcefully. Having donned the armor I saw displayed in her home,
she looks a fearsome sight. "I have summoned these two
Atlanteans to tell us if they know of any means by which the Myriad
might be defeated."

"A fool's purpose," Tyr scoffs. "Had
they such knowledge, they would yet dwell in their own world! Perhaps
they might tell us what 
not 
to do!"

"These two, since coming to us," Freya
contradicts him, "have drunk of Mimir's Well and seen visions of
this very threat."

I look at Ayessa. I had no idea that she too had
glimpsed such a future. But then, why shouldn't she have, and why
should she have told me?

"And you did not think to—" Hel
begins.

But Freya speaks over the queen, addressing her
Valkyr subordinate. "Tell us, Essa, what Mimir's Well showed you
of this enemy."

I feel the question must be staged. Presumably,
Odinn and Freya have questioned Ayessa as they did me about my
experience of the Well, and must know already how she will answer.
But the others present, presumably, have not heard.

"I saw Mjolnir," Ayessa says to rapt
silence. "Resting alone on the ice fields of Niflheim, its owner
absent, the sky filled to all horizons with Myriad."

She stops. Silence persists. The one who breaks
it is the red-haired son, the wielder of the hammer called Mjolnir.
"Bah!" he says. "There is doubtless some simple
explanation for that. I shall give it upon returning victorious."

The rest seem less certain than he, but hold
their tongues for now.

Freya looks to me. "And you, Thamoth. Tell
us of your visions."

The gazes of the Aesir and gigantic Thrym fall
upon me. I meet a number of them in silence before speaking as
bidden.

"I saw the Myriad invading one of the eight
realms. I know not which, but it was no land of ice or fire."

I pause, unsure whether Freya wishes me to
continue, sharing too my vision of Odinn's fall.

"Let the vile creatures attack all eight
realms," Mjolnir's owner boasts, "and let them be smashed!"

Freya raises a hand for calm and says
placatingly, "None question your worthiness as Asgard's
champion, Thor. Nor do any truly believe our doom is at hand,"
she continues. "None of the many portents of Ragnarok have yet
come to pass."

Freya looks pointedly at me, and I know she bids
me speak.

"Mimir's Well also showed me a great
serpent in flight," I say. "And—"

Before I can continue, Freya interrupts—swiftly,
and not by chance. Her look, and upraised palm tell me she would not
have me speak of Odinn's fall. Nor, presumably, of the fact that the
Well gave Ayessa and I divergent accounts of the same events.

"A serpent," she repeats. "Can it
be any other than Jormungand? It may be that the final portents are
near, and that Ragnarok is closer than we think. Perhaps not. Yet it
can do us no harm to be heedful of  this danger."

"Enough talk of visions!" Hel
hisses—and I find myself in agreement with her. "For once,
the great red oaf speaks sense. If Thor is so eager to cleanse our
land of this plague, then let him! It is the one reason we traveled
here!" She turns her golden mask and haunting eyes on me and
points with a gloved hand. Only one hand is gloved; the other is
bare, and as pale as her chin. "And when he's done,  let
him cleanse Jotunheim of these Interlopers, too, before they bring
more misfortune upon us!"

I do not respond. Not because I am wary of this
Hel, which I would be a fool not to be, but because I have no desire
to be drawn into their petty bickering. I know with whom the power
rests on this platform and in all the eight realms. I sense that he,
Odinn, who has not yet spoken, is saving the last word for himself,
after he decides that his children and subjects have squabbled
enough.

As Hel finishes, her chariot driver sets a hand
on her arm, urging calm but also showing his support for  her.
There is much affection in the touch, making me decide that he is her
lover.

"Father," the charioteer addresses
Odinn—surprising me by revealing himself as yet another of the
All-Father's children. "Please set down your decree. Send Thor
with an army. Hel and I shall lead her legions, and Thrym his giants.
No enemy can withstand such a host. In return, should the Myriad
thereafter threaten another of the eight realms, we shall gladly lend
our strength. Even Thrym." He turns to the giant. "Right,
Thrym?"

The giant-king purses his great blue lips in
brief contemplation and nods, glacially.

Hel's lover, whom I have just deemed on first
impression to be rather unlike his brothers in being an earnest,
unassuming man, puts himself before Odinn and sinks to one knee,
lowering his eyes and crossing his breast, as Ayessa earlier did.
"Let arguments be done, All-Father," he says. "Give
answer now to the request of Hodr, your son. Speak with the voice
that binds the eight realms to your bidding."

By the sudden end to bickering, Hodr's petition
would seem to be one that the Aesir are bound to honor. It is time
for Odinn to declare his mind. All eyes turn to him, but my own
single eye finds Freya. I feel she is the most anxious of all
present, even if she hides it well. She is less certain, I think,
than the rest of a future writ in stone which nothing, not even the
Myriad, can alter. I hope, as must she, for the sake of everyone and
everything that Freya is wrong and Thor is right.

White-haired, battle-scarred Odinn stands with
eye unfocused in a darkly contemplative look. For a moment he is
elsewhere, perhaps swimming in his visions of the future. Then his
one eye slowly blinks, and he rejoins us, opening his deeply lined
lips to speak.

"Let it be done," he declares in his
resonant voice. "Thor shall take an army and defend the wastes
of Niflheim."

I look to Freya to see her reaction, but she has
none, or I have missed it. Of them all, only Hodr betrays  his
feelings, and he does so with a smile that is warm and full of
relief. Rising, he nods to his father in gratitude and returns to
Hel's side, clasping her bare hand in his.

"Shall I accompany Thor, father?"
Baldr asks.

"Stay in Asgard, brother," Thor
answers on the All-Father's behalf. "Niflheim is too chilly for
you."

Baldr twists his face in a sneer, but then
smiles, as does Thor.

"Thor shall go alone," Odinn says
tersely. "With one hundred Einherjer."

"A hundred only?" Hel blurts. "My
losses were twice that many!"

"One hundred," Odinn repeats. He turns
and starts for the stairs. The audience is over.

"Worry not. Every Einheri is worth ten of
your men," Thor assures.

"Twenty," dour-faced Tyr corrects him.

"Aye, twenty," the other agrees.

The unmasked portion of Hel's pale face shows
annoyance. Hodr draws her to him, planting a kiss on her golden
forehead. The love that I see between them is real, and it stirs
feelings of petty jealousy within me. Hodr's love for Hel must burn
intensely for him to have spurned the halls of Asgard to dwell
instead in this frozen land called Niflheim. Suddenly I become
over-conscious of Ayessa standing beside me. I desire to look at her,
but lacking all peripheral vision on my left, I cannot put her 
within my sight inconspicuously.

Thankfully, she provides me with an excuse to
look.

"All Father!" she calls out as Odinn
is setting his foot on the first stair to descend.

He pauses, but does not not turn. It must be
bold for one of Ayessa's station to speak unbidden to the All-Father
in a gathering such as this—bolder still after the gathering
has concluded.

"Might not a hundred Valkyriar also be
sent?" she asks.

Freya steps forward. "Essa speaks wisely,
All-Father, if out of turn. I should like to go myself. My sorcery
may prove of use."

Thor swiftly protests, "No slight intended
to the Lady, but—"

"Agreed," Odinn cuts off his son.
"Fifty Valkyriar."

His will made known, the hoary Aesir lord
resumes his descent of the creaking stair.

Thor turns to Freya, smiling through his bright
beard. "Ever do I welcome your fair presence at my side."

Freya gives a polite nod, at which time Thor
spins and raises his right arm, its outstretched finger pointed at
Thrym. He bellows at the giant: "Take heed, Thrym! Whilst we
share a common foe I shall defend you as I would my brothers. But
cross the Aesir, and the jotnar will need a new king forthwith, for
the great empty skull of their old shall be split by Mjolnir!"

The lip of the blue-skinned colossus curls,
uncovering jagged yellow teeth. He growls, a deep sound that vibrates
the wooden planks on which we stand. Thor lowers his arm, wheels and
makes to follow his father down the stairs, as Tyr has already done.
Hel and Hodr follow, brushing past me without a glance. The latter
aims a friendly smile at Freya, who I begin to gather is almost
universally liked in the eight realms.

"Lady Freya," Ayessa says with
downcast eyes, "it would be my great honor to be among the
fifty."

"Aye, it would be," Freya concedes,
but from her tone, I know what her answer shall be. "But it is
an honor unearned. You alone have battled the Myriad before, but only
lately have you joined our ranks. I cannot set you above others. But
fear not. Before we embark, I would have you teach us all you know."

I witness Ayessa's disappointment as she
answers, with head drooping lower still, "As you command, Lady
Freya."

The Lady moves to leave, and Ayessa falls in
behind her. I long to call out to her. I would ask her outright why
she does not recall our last encounter this night. More than that, I
wish to ask whether what Sigrid said is true about the day Ayessa's
hunting party was attacked by jotnar. Did she choose the unknown over
a return to Neolympus, that the gulf between us might be widened?
Just as I always knew in my soul that she was alive, did she likewise
sense that I yet lived and would seek her out? Did she flee to Asgard
to escape me?

But I do not ask. I know Ayessa would only
choose the answers that hurt me most. More than that, I know the
truth already. Looking back, I should have known from the start.
Having survived the giants'  attack, she could never have failed
to find her way home. From the moment I began my pursuit of her, 
I have been chasing someone who did not want to be found, least of
all by the one she now knows as her murderer.

As I watch Ayessa vanish from sight, I know that
I am nothing to her, worthy of no goodbye, not even a  glance.

A hand settles onto my shoulder. It is Baldr's;
he and I are the last two remaining on the scaffold.

"Valkyriar, eh?" he says. "They
are rarely worth the trouble." He ponders briefly, then laughs.
"I lie. Yes, they are."

I am rather less amused than he, but I
appreciate his effort to cheer me. And, it occurs to me, he may be of
some use. I wait until Freya and Ayessa are well down the stair
before addressing him, then say quietly, "I shared words with
Ayessa earlier tonight, but she seems to have no memory of the
encounter. Do you know why that might be?"

Baldr is slow to answer, which immediately makes
me think that he 
does 
know something.

"I should not tell you..." he says in
a hushed tone, proving me right. If such a preface failed to announce
his intention to tell me regardless of the wisdom of it, then the
smirk which follows does not. He leans in close and whispers, "I
would lay wager it was not Ayessa you met earlier at all, but
Loki
,
Odinn's blood brother. He is a shapeshifter. Your girl has been
helping him learn how to impersonate her. Odinn will soon dispatch
him to your city—as a spy."

"I truly should not have told you that,"
Baldr laments more than once as we return together to the city 
gates over the fading thunder of the departing Thrym's giant stride.
"I did so only because I hate to see you suffer more than you
already have on account of that woman. It's not as though you can do
much with the knowledge, so long as you remain confined to Asgard."

"Actually," I inform him, since he
seems not to know, "Odinn suggested sending me with Gaeira to
Vanaheim." I elect not to tell him of the vision that led Odinn
to that decision.

After a moment's consideration, Baldr concludes,
"A step closer to your home, but still—if Gaeira has been
told to mind you, you won't slip away easily. You'd be a fool to try
to traverse her hunting ground with her on your tail."

"I wouldn't dream of it," I concur.
"Anyway, I don't know that I can call Neolympus my home. My
people are there, but..." That thought has no simple ending, and
so I ask of Baldr instead, "Will Odinn destroy Neolympus?"

Baldr snorts. "That is only for him to
know. If he is sending Loki, then his mind is not yet settled. He is
not one to act without ample consideration. He spied upon the Vanir
for many years."

"Before deciding to crush them?"

"No, he first offered them peaceful
vassalage. They accepted and betrayed it. He will likewise try to
spare your people, if at all possible."

"Why bother, if we really are so much
weaker than you Aesir?"

"Weaker allies one can trust. And father
desires allies for Ragnarok."