The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (37 page)

"You have heard of it?" I ask eagerly.

Hel nods. "A city of ancient Midgard. Among
my Golden Guard at one time was Atlantis's seventh and greatest king.
Greatest, at least, according to himself. Marek-Tha was his name. It
has been a lifetime since I saw or spoke with him. He may have passed
back into the void fifty seasons ago, or today, or not at all. I know
not."

"
Midgard
..." I echo. Then Afi
was right. I am of that ninth, lost realm.

"Aye," Hel says. "A great city,
according to him. But it must have fallen long ago, for it was
unknown even when Odinn was young and the sea—the very one to
which we race—could be crossed. But..." She chuckles, a
sound like a dagger lightly scraping rock. "You are Atlantean.
These things must be known to you."

"It was swallowed by the sea," I
inform her. Then I repeat the name, "Marek-Tha..."

Now that I speak it, is familiar.

"My father was the forty-seventh king,"
I say. "Marek-Tha was a figure of legend, I think. He was said
to have saved Atlantis from some powerful enemy."

"Is that so?" Hel's tone makes it
clear that she cares not.

"I would meet him when this is over, if he
remains in your service."

Hel's mask has turned away. She has finished
conversing with me. Our exchange has not warmed me to the witch, but
it has caused me to see her in a new light. She is Loki's daughter.
It was Heimdall who told me that. He told me, too, that it was Hel's
obsession with killing her father that led to her exile in Niflheim.
Does that hatred persist? If it does, she might prove a useful
ally—or tool—in achieving my own vengeance on Loki.

Then again, if a powerful sorceress has been
trying all her life to kill Loki and never succeeded, what chance do
I have?

I cannot speak of such matters now, in
Heimdall's presence. If the world is to be destroyed by the Myriad or
Jormungand, or both, then there will be no need. But if she and I and
Loki all survive, then Hel and I surely will share further words, and
not only about dead kings of Atlantis.

It is not for much longer that we travel in the
noiseless gray void. After an hour or less, with a great flash and a
shudder, the wayward portions of the chariot, the wheels and horses,
rejoin us. The countryside, less green now than before and more
rugged and rocky, bursts back into view. I cannot see the sea in
front of us, but I can smell it. Although I have not experienced it
in my current flesh, I know the sea air well. It speaks to me,
beckons me. I shut my eyes and savor the sharp, salty wind and 
realize of a sudden why I put myself forward for this duty.

The sea calls to me. Given what I have learned
from Hel, that my old life was lived in Midgard, the sea which I now
can smell might be that very same one which in another life I
attempted to cross with my bride. The nearby shore might be the very
one on which another Thamoth collapsed, half-dead, and then regained
his strength for a return to reclaim his father's throne. This sea
may be the very one which devoured Atlantis in the moment of that
Thamoth's triumph.

We travel overland, bumped and jostled by the
rocky terrain, for less time than we spent in the void and then,
ahead of us, a hazy blue line rises up to become the horizon. Even
though my recovered memories of the sea are not all good—some
of them horrific—the sight puts a smile on my lips which
remains there until the chariot halts. Heimdall and I dismount to
stride up a rocky ridge from which we can look down and see the waves
explode in great bursts of white spray on the big black rocks of the
shore.

I have learned something about myself this day.
Although the sea brought me misery, I love it still. I am home, a
part of me says. That same part wishes to find a craft this very
moment and set sail for the horizon and what lies beyond it, for
Midgard. But I cannot. I have Ayessa and Crow to think of, among
others, and my service to Odinn. And there is another most of all who
has never spoken a word  to me. Besides, until we free the beast
that we have come here to free, the sea is uncrossable. Ship and
sailor would only wind up feeding the Serpent.

I may wind up feeding it anyway.

"Be ready," Heimdall says to me on the
ledge. Hel has remained behind in the chariot, too drained to stand
after the exertion of bringing us here. I only hope that she can get
us back.

I take out Odinn's bloodstained glove and hold
it ready. Heimdall inhales deeply, sets the Gjallarhorn to his
lips—and blows. The single, deep note soars out over the waves
to fill the sky. It lasts as long as Heimdall's breath can sustain
it, which is quite some time. Then the note fades, and again I hear
the comforting sound of the breaking waves.

We wait.

Not for long. Out on the waves, a shadow appears
and begins to spread. When it has grown so large that I would have to
pivot my head to behold it all, even if I had two eyes, the black
water begins to boil and froth, turning to white. The waves flatten,
and the very surface of the sea rises up in a mound.    The
water falls away, and a huge, black shape breaks the surface. It is
smooth and it glistens, and many feet away its twin rises at the same
pace. They are two blunt horns, I surmise, atop the great Serpent's
head.

It is larger even than I imagined.

It continues to rise, water roaring and rushing,
now cascading from a vast ridged brow sheathed in ebon scales. Next
emerge the eyes, and they are the eyes of my vision from the Well,
golden and malevolent with black, vertical slits for pupils. The sea
heaves anew, and from it erupts a great snout which ends in two
flared, cavernous nostrils, then an upper lip.

Then we see the Serpent's teeth, and those, too,
are the ones of my nightmare-vision, taller than men and sharp as
swords, and the great mouth in which they are set could swallow a
hundred frost giants in a single bite or tear down the towers of
Asgard.

A sleek, black neck, thicker around than any
tower, is the next to surge up from the boiling sea. Behind it, a
great distance from us, and giving further indication of Jormungand's
sheer size, one wing bursts free, then another.

"We must go," Heimdall says. Frozen
until now, he begins to backpedal, dragging me with him. I am glad
for the aid, as my own feet are rooted to the shore with fear, my
fingers white around Odinn's glove. I have no clear conception of how
I will deliver it to the Serpent's mouth. Would that I had thought to
bring a bow, that I might tie the glove to an arrow—not that I
could use a bow with my right arm its present state. Better yet,
would that Kairos had come instead of me and put his luck to good
use.

Heimdall and I backpedal faster and faster,
unable to tear our eyes from the rising beast. I clutch the glove and
manage, barely, to think... I think back to my first days in
Jotunheim, before Neolympus, when we Atlanteans were on our own and
improvising tools for the hunt.

I know what I must do.

While Jormungand completes his emergence with
the appearance of four massive, taloned claws, from which seawater
pours down in great torrents into the roiling foam below, Heimdall
and I reach the chariot where Hel waits, gilt mask unable to conceal
the awe on her face. As we move, I work at unwinding about half the
length of the bandage covering the wound on my arm.

"Cut it!" I tell Heimdall, clambering
behind him into the chariot.

Without asking why, he produces a knife and cuts
my bandage. In the shadow of the great Serpent's outspread wings, our
chariot begins to roll, pulled by horses who are glad to flee the
terrible beast. Heimdall crouches at the reins, Hel stares out the
chariot's open back while I fumble with Odinn's glove and my length
of bandage. The Serpent beats its wings and rises higher, exposing
some but not all of a sinuous, snake-like tail as long as the walls
that encircle Asgard. Seconds later, the wind from its wings hits us.
Buffeted, our chariot wobbles, tipping up on to one wheel before
crashing back down, thankfully with little speed lost. Pushing
skyward, the Serpent, its neck and tail writhing, opens  its
enormous jaws and looses a cry of freedom. It is shriek and bellow
and roar all in one, and its sharpness and sheer volume are like a
stiletto plunged deep into the ear. I want to cover mine, but my 
hands must keep working.

Our chariot gains speed, and Jormungand's cry
fades as he soars up and up, and I wonder if I will even  get
the chance to see my duty discharged. I have just finished securing
the glove to the end of the bandage when the Serpent stops ascending,
beats its wings and turns toward us. I extend my good left arm
overhead, holding in its hand the bandage's free end. Just as in the
days before Neolympus I would hunt by snaring the legs of a hind with
a weighted cord, I begin to spin the glove over my head. Round and
round it whirls on its tether. When I release it, it will sail much
farther than I could ever throw it unaided. But the time to release
is not now, not yet...

Screaming its ear-splitting scream, venom
streaming from its open mouth, Jormungand descends. There can be no
doubt but that it comes for us, whether drawn by the Gjallarhorn or
Odinn's glove or something else. Our chariot gathers speed with every
second, but it cannot hope to race the Serpent. If it wants us, it
will have us, unless—

I spin the glove and I wait... and wait... while
Hel's chariot speeds on and Jormungand gains, soaring on spread wings
that blot the sky. I wait until I can see the slits in its gleaming
yellow eyes, the house-sized drops of venom that cause the ground to
belch smoke where they land. I wait until its maw looks set to devour
us—and then release my grip. The glove sails up and out behind
us on course for the Serpent's mouth. I think that it will enter, and
Jormungand will taste the blood of the enemy who so long ago
imprisoned him—

—but I am not to learn, at least not now.
With a brilliant flash the chariot bursts into the gray void, the
horses and spoked wheels vanish, and we are safe.

I sink down beside Hel on the cramped floor of
her chariot. No one speaks, deepening the already profound silence of
this realm-between, or whatever it may be. Soon Hel's eyes fall shut,
and her head  slumps. I set my hand over hers to ensure her palm
stays firmly planted on the chariot wall, for I do not know what
would happen were the contact to break, and I have no wish to find
out. Her hand is chill. I have held it in place for some seconds when
her head jerks up. She blinks at me and uses her other, gloved hand
to push mine away.

Still, no one speaks. We speed through the void
and do not know what we will find upon exiting it. The  return
feels longer than did the outward journey, though surely I imagine
it. Finally, when I think I can take no more of staring at the inside
of a thundercloud, the flash comes, the horses reappear, and we burst
onto a landscape of green hills which I instantly recognize as
Vanaheim, not far from the chasm. When we have traveled by unmagical
means for but a few minutes, my ears alert me to a faint sound, just
audible over the thunder of hooves and clatter of wheels. The sound
evokes a feeling in me as if Hel's cold hand grips my heart.

It is the inhuman shriek of a Myriad swarm.

Hel falls fully unconscious, drained by the
battle and the journey, and Heimdall and I share a grave look,
knowing that our return will be a return to battle. At least we are
rested. Ahead of us, the horizon  glows pale green. Heimdall
halts the chariot and leaps down long before we come within sight of
the battlefield. He need not tell me why. Hel is defenseless, and to
lose her to the swarm would be a great blow to Asgard; we must
complete the voyage on foot.

Running, Heimdall bellows at the top of his
voice, "Odinn! The Serpent comes! The Serpent comes!"

I start to follow, but then have a thought and
race back to grab the Gjallarhorn. Chasing Heimdall, who continues to
shout, I call out, "Heimdall! Blow the horn again, and he will
know! Heimdall!"

He looks back, sees the twisted horn under my
arm, stops and races back to take it. He sets his lips to it and
blows. The resonant note cuts easily through the swarm's shriek,
filling the sky such that no one in this part of Vanaheim can fail to
hear it.

Warning delivered, Heimdall casts down the
Gjallarhorn, draws his sword and resumes his run. I run by his side,
wielding my own blade in left hand. We run for some minutes, then
crest some hills, and we behold the second battle of Ragnarok.

Medea's sorcerous wind must be weakening, for
the long stretch of land along the chasm lies swathed  in a
light green mist. It is not the thick cloak of fog inside which I
battled in Hades, but enough to make the battle appear to us as a
vast, greenish mass inside which insubstantial shadows on the ground,
some of them as tall as trees, clash with more amorphous shadows
flitting and swooping above. The sound that fills our ears is a
cacophony built upon the steady base of the Myriad's shriek but
containing also the screams and battle cries of men and women.

As we race for the nearest part of the cloud to
join the Host, the land over which we run becomes littered with the
corpses of both sides. We leap over them and press on, reaching the
outskirts of the mist, where tentacled Myriad fly at us singly or in
pairs. We slay them without stopping. When we come upon a band of
Einherjar fighting back-to-back in a ring, we know we have reached
the battle proper. They make way so that we may join them.

"Where is Odinn?" Heimdall shouts in
the ear of an Einheri.

"Near the edge!" the man returns.
"Seek the light!"

In the brief spaces between hacking left-handed
at bulging eyes and overlong appendages, I search the green mist in
what I think is the direction of the chasm. Before long, I see a
glimmer, then another,  and I know it is Baldr. I feel a strong
urge to go to him and resume the place I abandoned in the last
battle.