Hammered [3] (25 page)

Their words—their lies—have made me little fish. But
I am still fish with sharp teeth. They owe me blood. My axe will take it. Is all I have to say.

The lightning flash in Perun’s eyes was not so friendly by the time he finished his tale. I thought his self-assessment was remarkable for a god. I could not imagine the Morrigan, for example, frankly asserting that she was a little fish. Flidais would never contemplate the possibility that she might be prey; she was always the predator. Perun’s ability to do so spoke of a certain realism spawned by many painful hours of reflection. His seeming good humor most likely masked a terrible rage.

I checked the magical spectrum to see if the stories were doing the trick, and it appeared they were. There were bonds forming between the men who had told their tales, gossamer threads of camaraderie twining between their auras. To those who hadn’t spoken yet, the bonds flowed only one way. Weakest of all, however, was my own bond to them. Thor had never done anything to me personally, so I couldn’t relate to them in this way. I’d bond to them later through different tales, some other shared experience that would make us brothers.

There were two left. Everyone looked at Leif, but he stared at Zhang Guo Lao and nodded at him, indicating that the alchemist should go next. The ancient immortal returned the nod, acquiescing, and cleared his throat delicately.

“If leisure serves, I will offer my experience now,” he said.

There were replies of “Aye, Master Zhang,” and “Please, sir,” and “Excellent.” The immortal Zhang Guo Lao rose and bowed to us, then began his tale.

Begging your forgiveness for this poor, simple tale; it is a trifling matter only and not weighted with portent and substance like the adventures you have shared with me.

In elder days I walked the earth as a simple man, learning the mystery of the Tao. Through study and application I conceived the Elixir of Immortality; through battle and experiment I won reputation; through legend and worship I acquired godlike power. Wisdom eludes me yet, but foolishness I captured long ago and to this day it is my constant companion, though many people consider me wise.

Throughout China I am known for riding upon a white donkey. My portrait, sketched many times, always shows me astride my companion. This ass was a singular creature; he brought me much fame. He carried me for thousands of
li
every day, and when I arrived at my destination, I folded him up like a work of origami and put him in my cap box. When I was ready to travel again, I would squirt water from my mouth upon the paper donkey and it would expand and grow to its normal size.

It was in this very part of the earth where I met Thor seven hundred thirty years ago. I was making camp for the night, about to fold up my donkey for the night,
when he descended from the sky in his chariot pulled by two goats. Though the night was chill, he wore a fur wrapped around his hips, secured by a belt, and nothing else save a pair of fur boots laced up with rawhide.

We exchanged greetings. He did not speak Mandarin and I did not speak Old Norse, but we both knew a third language, Russian, and we communicated brokenly in that, happy to have the practice. He smiled and was very charming. I invited him to join me for a humble dinner of fish broth and vegetables.

“Why content ourselves with meager fish when we can feast on our animals?” the god asked.

“I cannot eat my own ass,” I said, though I thought it should be obvious to him. “He carries me wheresoever I wish.”

Thor shrugged. “I need my goats to pull my chariot. That doesn’t stop me from eating them whenever I get hungry.”

“You must have a very large herd of goats to indulge in such wanton consumption,” I said.

“Not at all. There are only these two.”

“Will you not be stranded if you eat them, then?”

He brandished his hammer. “No. I simply touch them with this, and they are resurrected from their bones.”

“Surely you jest.”

“Nay, I am in earnest. See for yourself.” He slew his goats with two quick strikes of his hammer, and then he gutted them and cooked large pieces of them over my fire. We ate until we were full, but I kept looking at the sad remains of their bodies lying on the ground. When we had finished, Thor stood over the carcasses of his goats and softly, even tenderly, touched them with his hammer. Immediately they sprang back to life, healthy as when they’d arrived, formed out of nothing more than skin and bones. They seemed content to graze nearby for the rest of the night.

“Remarkable,” I told him. “I have never seen such doings.”

“Efficiency,” Thor said. “It makes traveling much simpler. Where are you bound?”

We spoke of our travels and traded tales of faraway cities. He was affable and polite, and for that evening I enjoyed his company. When I folded up my donkey for the evening, he looked like a fish gasping for air.

“I am truly astonished, Master Zhang!” Thor said, his eyes following me as I carefully stored my donkey in my cap box. “What a novel way to stable your beast! But does that not make it easier to steal?”

“This box never leaves my possession during the night. It is very secure. And, besides, stealing it would prove no advantage. To everyone else save me, it is nothing more than a worthless piece of folded paper.”

He stayed the night with me on the other side of the fire, and in the morning he asked if he might travel with me some distance, since my company was so refreshing. I agreed, for to have a well-traveled companion is no small comfort on a long journey. We spoke of novelties to be found in various corners of the earth, each cataloging future adventures to seek, courtesy of the other’s advice.

When it came time to camp again and think about cooking dinner, Thor suggested we try something different. “I have been eating goat for far too long. I’m in the mood for something new. Why do we not eat your donkey? I will resurrect him tomorrow.”

“Oh, no, I could never do that to him,” I said, holding my hands up in protest.

“He won’t remember a thing,” the thunder god assured me. “Look you, my goats show no fear of men or gods, though I kill them every day when I travel. They are every bit as strong as the day they first became mine. The entire process will be painless. Please reconsider as a favor to me, your guest.”

We were not at my home; we were merely traveling together. I did not think the customs of hospitality applied in this case. Still, I did not wish to be rude or give the impression of stubborn selfishness, and soon I had granted him permission.

He swung his hammer down onto my dear donkey’s skull, and the animal was dead before he hit the ground. We ate—but I will not relive that for you.

After we finished eating, I requested that he resurrect my donkey as promised.

“Of course, I will do that shortly,” Thor said, wiping his greasy hands on the furs he had wrapped about his loins. “But if you will be patient a moment longer, I urgently need to relieve myself.” He gestured toward the woods and walked off behind some underbrush to answer the call of nature. I, too, felt the call, so I walked in the opposite direction and found some privacy of my own.

Imagine my surprise and horror when I came back to the campfire, only to see the thunder god rising into the air in his chariot, his cold laughter falling down on me like stinging sleet. “Thanks for the meal, fool!” he called, and I knew then that I had been gulled. He left me there, stranded in Siberia with the bloody remains of my donkey, a victim of my own good manners.

I have never known such humiliation. To be tricked and preyed upon by a lout such as he—the impossibility of it beggars my imagination, while the reality of it galls my conscience. My shame feeds my rage, and my inner peace has left me, seeking shelter elsewhere until my turmoil is spent. Even now, sharing this with you, I tremble with anger. Ever since that time, I age quickly and must drink ever more elixir to keep myself alive. I would have respite from these feelings. I would have a reckoning. I have imagined our confrontation almost daily for hundreds of years, and my chest aches with the need to pay
him for the injury he dealt me. I am not afraid of his hammer. He will never be able to touch me with it, and he will find that he cannot use it to effect his own resurrection.

Leif made some throat-clearing noises. Vampires were not afflicted with an excess of mucus in their esophagi, so this was purely an effort to politely call our attention.

“If there be no objections,” he said, “I would like to begin my tale presently. The earth still spins on its axis and dawn approaches. I would like to finish prior to that with some time to spare.”

We were all immediately attentive and deferential. It was Leif who had pushed most strongly for our expedition, and, as far as I could tell, he’d been longing for it for a thousand years. The bone he had to pick with Thor must be the size of a whale rib, and I’d never before heard precisely what it was.

I met Thor once a thousand years ago, when I was still human. Since that meeting, my every action has been calculated to bring me closer to meeting him again.

I was a colonist of Iceland in early times. A proud Viking man, carving out sustenance from the raw earth, and faithful to my family and my gods. Though it galls me to say it now, when I was human I gave to Thor all honor and obeisance. I wore this hammer necklace every day. I praised him, and Odin, Freyja, and Freyr—all of the Norse. And I hoped one day I would feast in Valhalla and be served mead by the Valkyries, take my place among the Einherjar, and fight in Ragnarok, at the end of all things, against the children of Muspell. All that was in another age, but there I must return if you are to know how I come to be here today.

My wife was named Ingibjörg. Together we had two sons, Sveinn and Ólaf. I fished, kept some sheep, and even turned the earth with my hands.

I was considered a candidate for the Althing. I had seen the New World with Leif Eriksson and returned. I might have extended my acquaintance with the famous explorer, except that he converted to Christianity and insisted that all his men do the same. Nevertheless, I was
well traveled and my sword had sent seven and twenty men to Valhalla. Every new accomplishment swelled my ego, increased my fame, and added to the stories I could tell over a tankard of ale in a tavern. I am sure you know how drunken conversations can turn bawdy and even bizarre in the space of a few seconds. Someone will crack a joke, someone else will riff on it, and before you know it you are talking about ridiculous things you would never consider when sober, such as the possibility of breeding blue cows or making weapons out of puffin bills.

One such conversation set me on the path that brought me here.

I was drinking mead on a chilly spring evening with two friends and two strangers. Strangers were common enough near Reykjavík; someone was always sailing in from somewhere. These particular two were big, hulking men, even larger than me, blond and blue-eyed and fresh from raiding and pillaging the coast of Ireland. All of us had been raiders at some point, and to many people we were the scariest things in the world. Naturally, we were scared of something else, and that night we were trying to frighten one another. I mined the stories told on dragon ships, mutterings in the dark that hardened, seasoned men found terrifying. Some were about men who turned into wolves on the full moon. Others were about degenerate creatures that ate the flesh of the dead and took on the form of the one they last consumed. And some that I had heard, more than once, concerned beings who drank blood and lived for centuries. They had inhuman strength and speed and could tear a berserker apart in seconds without shield or sword. But, more than this, they possessed a cold intelligence. They were the power behind the Romans, the tales said. They were slowly moving north and would eventually come to Viking lands; judging by a few mysterious deaths, a
powerful one had supposedly established itself in Prague, the capital of Bohemia. The term today is
vampire
, but that is a modern word applied in the last few centuries. There were different names used back then:
revenant
or
diable
, in French;
blutsauger
in Germany; in Bohemia we were
chodící mrtvola
, a walking corpse. Every so often, the legends said, these creatures made others like them, damning men’s souls forever with evil so foul that they could not stand the kiss of sunlight on their skin.