Bright Segment (44 page)

“Ay; I am fair game tonight!” cried Balder, and went to stand before his brother. “Here I am before thee; may fortune favor thy aim!” he said mockingly.

Then Hoder rose, and raised his arm. The woman was seen to turn him a little, better to face Balder squarely. Then Hoder hurled the sprig of mistletoe that he held, and it pierced Balder’s heart. Balder uttered one great cry, all astonishment and no fear, and he fell, and he died.

Dark Hela, ruler of the underworld Niflheim, took the murdered god hungrily, as one who had waited long aeons; and indeed she had. And when Balder’s second brother Hermod came there at Frigga’s bidding, to ransom Balder back, Hela yielded to this degree: that if every living thing would weep for him, she would surrender him, but if a single one would not mourn, then forever he would be Hela’s.

Back Hermod came with the word, and indeed it seemed a simple matter, for already all creation wept, the midges keened, and great splashes of color dripped from the rainbow bridge.

Yet in Jotunheim dwelt a Giantess, a strange, ageless creature steeped in sorcery and locked away from the world. All around her was weeping, even the Giants finding the death of this one enemy more than they could bear. Yet she would not weep for him nor anyone.

“Balder? Balder? Let the dead stay dead. Only dry tears will ye get from me. I had no good from this Balder, nor will I give him good.” And no other word would she say; and so was Balder’s death sealed.

And who killed him? Who killed the bright one who had no enemies, who had done no ill? Who was capable of an act so monstrous, so useless and cruel?

The heartsick Hoder testified that the mistletoe, which he examined afterward, smelt of Giant.

Who, being part Giant, had access to Gladsheim?

The woman who had given the mistletoe to Hoder and urged him to throw it had disappeared. Who was she? Or—was it a woman? Who was the greatest of all adepts at disguise; who had once fought a battle with the god Herindal in the shape of a seal?

The answer to all these questions was the same:
Loki, Loki Loki
.

And Loki was found outside, not impossibly far from the gate whence the mysterious woman-thing had fled, still sparkling with anger at having been asked to leave the hall. No one had seen him nor knew what he had done since he left.

So he was brought in, and chained. He said he was innocent and no more than that. Since the blood-brother of Odin could not be slain, he was lowered into a foul pit; and above him was suspended a frightful serpent in such wise that its venom dripped on him. And he was doomed to hang there until Ragnarok.

Then a pall settled over Asgard. Frigga, when she could, spun her golden threads and was silent. Great Odin brooded, Tyr and Thor, without guidance or orders, cast war and thunder about the earth as the casual spirit moved them.

Odin’s twin ravens, Hugin, who was Thought, and Munin, who was Memory, quarreled bitterly over the fact that Munin had taken unto himself the duty of reporting to Odin the events of that evil night, while Hugin felt it was his privilege.

They went their separate ways, and though they might have been recalled by a word from Odin, he had not the word, for he cared no longer what happened in the world of men, or indeed in his own house.

So indeed it seemed true that Balder was needed in Asgard, lest the mere shadow of Ragnarok settle over the Aesir and crush them before there could be a battle at all.

This is the story which was told and retold for more than seven thousand years, as men count time. This, for all that while, was the complexion of Asgard. There, for a million moments measured by drops of scalding venom, hung Loki. And this is the prelude to the prelude of Ragnarok.

III

Munin flew high, and higher, turning one bright eye and then the other to the frozen land below. He flew because he must seek, he sought because he could not forget: his name was Memory.

He remembered the days when he perched on Odin’s shoulder, waiting to be sent to the world of men, waiting for the long, companionable flight back during which he reported to his fellow all he had observed. He remembered the pleasant homecomings, the rasp of Hugin’s voice as the other raven told Odin of what they had seen.

And he remembered the night of Balder’s death, and Hugin’s infuriating silence, and his own croakings and bleatings as he reported what had happened in and around the fateful hall.

He remembered Hugin’s brilliant black stare as he spoke on and on, and the total anger of that insulted bird. He remembered the countless years of loneliness and idleness since, and he had had enough.

Between two crags he saw a dark fir, and in its lower branches he discerned a swaying lump just different enough in shape from a pine-cone to be what he was looking for.

He folded his wings and dropped closer. Ay: no pine-cone had moldy feathers aquiver in the wind, an ivory beak pressed to a moulted breast too sparse to hide it.

He fluttered to the branch, worked his claws about amongst the close-set needles until he found comfort, and settled.

“Hugin,” he said. “Hugin.”

Slowly the scaly eyelid on his side opened, just far enough to identify the speaker. It closed immediately.

“Parrot!” spat Hugin; it was his first word in seven thousand years, as men count time.

“Hugin, old comrade …” Munin paused to collect himself, to remind himself that he had come here to renew his partnership with Hugin, and that he must under no circumstance let Hugin make him angry. “What has thee been doing?”

“What thee sees,” said Hugin shortly, still not deigning to open his eyes.

“Ah, Hugin. Remember the times we’ve had, the—”

Hugin raised a warning claw.

“I remember nothing. I am not a foolscap, a storage shelf, a … a macaw like thee. I am Hugin and my name is Thought.”

“Ahh. And what has thee been thinking for seven thousand years, as men count time?”

“Of thine inexcusable perfidy, lovebird. What else?”

“But surely … thought thee not of the old days, of the great flights we—”

“I’ve no truck with memories, as thee should know. There were more important things with which to concern myself.”

“The death of Balder.”

“I told thee,” said Hugin in some irritation, and at last opening his eyes, “what it was I thought about.”

“About
me?
About what I did that night, when thee closed thine eyes and had nought to say, with the very world cracking about our heads?”

“I had to
think!
”

Munin recognized, slowly, that Thought without Memory had indeed done nothing but turn over and over that last insult. For the
first time he felt a great welling pity for his comrade.

“All those years … thinking about me,” he said. “Ah, Hugin!”

“It was a great evil thee did me, Munin,” said the other plaintively.

“Ay, it was,” said Munin with some hypocrisy, which he immediately compounded with “I am a simple soul, friend Hugin, and do not understand exactly what the evil was, though I grant thee it was enormous.”

“Thee conveyed those events … whatever they were … out of Memory, without Thought! This was never our way, Munin!”

“Ah, that I know. That I knew then, but never understood. Before that night, we had long hours of flight for your thinking. In the press of circumstance, when Balder died, there was time to speak only as things occurred. Tell me, Hugin, is not the relation of things exactly as seen—is that not speaking the truth? That is all I did.”

“Ay, it is the truth, just as a mound of bricks is a mansion. Truths must be arranged, Munin.”

“And arranged, they are a different thing?”

“They can be used for a different purpose.”

“I am a simple soul,” Munin said again. “Could thee demonstrate the point for me, in such a way that I will understand and not insult thee again?—for I miss thee sore, Hugin,” he added with a rush.

He saw Hugin softening visibly, and pressed his advantage. “I’ll tell thee exactly what I reported to Odin that night. If thought can make of these events a total different from what memory itself yields, I shall believe thee truly, and never insult thee again.”

“Agreed. And will thee then fly back with me to Odin and behave thyself properly, henceforth leaving the final reports to me?”

“Gladly.”

“Then tell me these events from the beginning. You understand that I have been without memory for some while now.”

“But never again!” said Munin heartily, and launched into an account of the events surrounding the death of Balder, from the god’s awakening with the strange fear, to the imprisonment of Loki. “Thus are the guilty found and justly punished!” he finished triumphantly. “What has Thought to say on this?”

“Only that Loki is not guilty.”

Munin stared at him in amazement. “I don’t see that!”

“Don’t see! Don’t see!” jeered Hugin. “Know, parakeet, that thy two eyes are petty instruments which, at their best, are purblind. I have in here,” he croaked loudly, overcoming Munin’s approaching interruption, “a third eye which sees what you do not.
That
is what thought is for!”

“It cannot make me see what it sees,” said Munin ruefully.

“It can in time,” said Hugin. He sounded alive and in inexplicably high humor. “Come!” and before the puzzled Munin knew what was happening, he flapped skyward.

“Where are we going?”

“To Jotunheim.”

“But Loki’s in Gladsheim—or under it.”

“Ay, but if he’s innocent, some Giant is guilty, and Jotunheim’s the place for Giants.”

“But-but-but … thee don’t
know
Loki’s not guilty!”

“The ways of thought,” said Hugin didactically, “are not those of observation and reporting. Thought is not limited to facts; facts are, thee will remember, but the bricks used to fill in a thinker’s design.”

And until they reached Jotunheim, he would say no more.

IV

As they sailed over the low, wide, forbidding city, Hugin asked, “The Giantess—she who refused to weep for Balder. Does thee know her name, and where she dwells?”

“Of course. She is Borga, a recluse and a small sorceress, and she dwells in yonder spire. But there is no connection, Hugin, between her and Balder or even Loki. I think—”

“
I
think,” said Hugin loftily, and led the way to the spire. They alighted on the roof, and Hugin said,” Ravens are great mimics, and among ravens, thee has special talent, no? Can thee imitate the voice of Loki?”

“That I can, to frighten Loki himself if I choose,” said Munin, most startlingly in Loki’s exact tone.

Hugin cocked his weather-beaten head to one side and said, also
in Loki’s voice, “This is but a poor imitation of thy talent, friend, but would it serve to baffle a Giant?”

“It baffles me,” said Munin, awed.

“I thank thee for the lesson, then,” said Hugin. His eyes sparkled in a way new to his fellow. “Now lead the way in some secret fashion which you, oh, Mimir among birds, surely know in this place, so that we may come upon the lady in her chamber unobserved.”

Speechless with astounded pleasure, Munin crept to the crooked eave and along it to an odorous smoke-hole. Cautiously he put his head inside, and finding the firebed cold, gestured to Hugin.

Hugin passed him, whispering
“Silence!”
and inched into the room.

It was an almost circular turret room, fitted out as a combination bedroom and alchemical laboratory. Around it ran shelves filled with an inconceivable clutter of bins, bottles and bags, boxes, books and basins.

On the bed lay Borga, and Hugin croaked—but silently—in surprise. For by human standards she was exquisite; even among the Aesir she would have passed as attractive. Nay, as wondrously fair.

She was hardly the withered crone Hugin had expected. Turning from her, he edged along the shelf to which he had hopped. Coming to a large, long-necked flask which lay on its side, empty, he considered it critically, shifted it slightly so that its open mouth and neck almost paralleled the smooth wall. Then he thrust his beak into the flask, finding that there was just room for his jaws to open comfortably.

To do this, he had to lie almost on his side. He gestured with one claw for Munin to do likewise. Then, with an effect that made Munin’s feathers all stand on end, he uttered a protracted and horrible groan, in an exact mimicry of Loki’s voice. The sound of it as it emerged from the flask was most extraordinary. The wall’s curvature made it seem to come from everywhere at once.

Borga left her bed in a way which challenged description. Levitation, the power of which she certainly possessed, seemed to play no part in it, but she came straight upward while still flat on her back. She rose in the air, fell back, bounced once, and landed cowering
at the far side of the chamber. Her head whipped from side to side, as if she were afraid to leave it facing in one direction for more than the smallest part of a second.

“Wh-who … wh-what’s that?” she quavered.

Hugin moaned again, and the Giantess seemed to shrink into herself.

Again she cast about wildly. “Where—Art here?”

“Nay; in Gladsheim,” Hugin intoned. He then made a spattering-hissing sound, which was like hot fat dropping into a fire, followed by an agonized gasp. “Ai-ee, it burns … 
it burns
 …”

“By what magic—”

“How do I speak to thee? Largely through the holes in thy conscience, little sorceress.
Very
little sorceress,” Hugin added scornfully. “I cannot come to thee; would that I could.”

From that she seemed to take great courage. She rose and composed herself, and said in a voice more clear, “I have heard of thy torment, Loki, and I am sorry it is so extensive. But thee cannot deny that thee led thyself into it.”

“But I am innocent!”

“To a degree,” said Borga, and Munin, his awe renewed, nodded at Hugin. “But considering thy manifold sins, and the many that went unpunished, thee cannot claim complete injustice. And no one will believe thee! Tell me, whose fault is that, friend liar?” Her tone became increasingly confident and mocking. “Thee has interrupted my rest, good Loki. Why?”