Ragnarok 03 - Resonance (8 page)

It was inevitable.

FIFTEEN

EARTH, 789 AD

A dozen years had passed since the death of Jarl at Fenrisulfr's hand, in the days when he was simply Ulfr. The five most recent years were the emptiest, since courageous Brandr died in battle, the war-hound licking his master's face even as the blood pumped through Fenrisulfr's fingers, desperate to hold closed the wound while the heartless trio that was the Norns, in their desolate other-world, cackled and wove the threads of Fate so that dark-brown, loving eyes grew clouded with the opacity of death. The best of all creatures to walk the Middle World was gone.

Were it possible to go back and avoid that day, to let the rich travellers pass by unmolested, he would do it without hesitation. But the Norns set the rules, and the only way to dim the memory was with unremitting violence, to force his pain back upon everybody else.

Ah, the screams and blood he had waded in since then.

Twice in that time, lieutenants in his reaver band had left to form groups of their own, needing independence and far too wise to fight Fenrisulfr for leadership. It was a form of success and maturity that sometimes caused Fenrisulfr to think he might be a good man; but as he nodded now, signalling Brökkr the Cloven to commence the attack, the imminence of violence revealed the lie.

We fight because we can
.

It was a shingle beach they streamed onto, his fighters, his lovely warriors; and then they were into the mêlée, cut and smash and rip amid the spurting blood, the confused stumbling of victims who could not summon their warrior's spirit
in time; then the reavers' stomach-dropping disappointment that it was over too soon, the opposition too shallow; and the need to rein in the madness because the fight was done.

The surviving travellers were on their knees, some with arms behind them already lashed in place, heads bowed, awaiting whatever Fenrisulfr's band decided: fast death or playful torture. The reavers took whatever pleasure they desired, made sweeter by struggles and screams, later selling their victims into thraldom, or – if they could not be bothered – perhaps letting the survivors go free, more than likely hobbled by tendon-cuts.

‘What of the boat, Chief?' Brökkr gestured with his axe towards their victims' beached vessel. ‘Burn it?'

After stripping it of valuables, that was understood. Then they turned, hearing an angry voice.

‘Enough of the evil eye, woman.' One of their warriors, dread Ivarr, was pulling out his dagger. ‘In fact, I think I'll have that eyeball.'

Lithe and unflinching, she stared up at him from her kneeling position, a woman of Fenrisulfr's age, showing no fear.

Not you. Not here
.

Memories tumbled. ‘Stop, good Ivarr. Not this one.'

‘Chief.'

Fenrisulfr went down on one knee before the woman.

‘Heithrún,' he muttered. ‘No
volva
should suffer this.'

So many years.

‘They call you Fenrisulfr as well as Chief. I heard them.' Her features were older, strong more than pretty. ‘You are ill-named, my lover, but it suits you.'

He called young Thollákr to fetch the crystal-headed spear.

‘I still bear your gift to me,' said Fenrisulfr. ‘It served me a second time against troll-spirits. I've wondered, from time to time, how you might have possessed such a thing.'

The rest of the Middle World faded, the prisoners and his reavers, the beached boat and inland hills and the grey, cold waters: it was just him and Heithrún, seeress and priestess
and so very briefly his lover. She was dangerous – any
volva
was – but by clasping his cloak's brooch-pin, feeling its sharpness, Fenrisulfr believed he might prevent her from leading his spirit into dreamworld.

‘It came from the eastern ice wastes,' said Heithrún, meaning the crystal that had once adorned her walking-staff. ‘Chief Gulbrandr journeyed far when he was young, and that was one of many gifts he brought back. They say it came from a sky-ship that was crushed by Thórr's hammer, for thunder filled the air. Or perhaps by trolls, for they were around the smashed ship. So they told Gulbrandr, and he told Eydís.'

Her mentor, he remembered now.

‘And how did you know it would hurt that troll?'

So long ago, the day the two travelling parties met, hers and his, and it seemed that a troll reared from the earth to attack them, though later he would wonder whether its target had been the dark poet Stígr, journeying with Chief Gulbrandr's party, his nature not yet obvious even to a
volva
like Heithrún.

‘Because of the rune that glowed within,' she said. ‘Or you could say I guessed.'

‘And Chief Gulbrandr gave it to you as a gift?'

‘To Eydís, when she saved his wife's life during labour, and delivered the child.'

Thollákr was keeping his distance, looking fascinated. Beyond him, stocky Ivarr was making a better pretence of disinterest, but listening anyway. None of the band knew much about Fenrisulfr's life before he became their chief, rearing out of nowhere to slay Magnús.

‘As for your old clan,' said Heithrún, ‘I have visited from time to time, and Folkvar still rules. These days it is Vermundr and Steinn who are his strength, along with . . . Ormr, is it?'

‘Ormr or Kormr?'

Faces and names came tumbling back across the years.

‘I'm not sure, Ulfr. I'm sorry.'

Of course she would call him by his old name.

So what will I do about her?

He looked out across the waves, at the greyness of dusk descending, then stood up, centring as if preparing to fight.

‘Guard them all,' he commanded Ivarr and Thollákr. ‘In the morning I will decide.'

‘Chief.'

Pulling his cloak around him, he walked away alone.

So many years.

Such oceans of blood.

During his mist-cloaked sleep in the damp, uncomforting night, he conversed with crystalline figures who called him brother and begged him to return, to fight on their side in the twilight days to come, when the armies of dread would hear the call to
Ragnarökkr
and fall upon the Middle World, destroying everything unless they could – at some awful cost – be driven back. Of course he refused yet again.

That night he dreamed of making love to Heithrún as he had long ago. It seemed so very real, though it happened in dreamworld and he did not waken.

My wolf
, she said as he slipped out of her, and then she was gone and simple restfulness remained.

In the morning, Njörthr was humping a dead woman in the bushes – Fenrisulfr pretended not to see – while down at the beach, beside the abandoned boat, Ivarr and Thollákr stood with hands on weapon-hilts as though alert, in contrast to their unfocused eyes. There was bare shingle next to the wooden hull where there should have been a group of prisoners, tied up and waiting to learn what Fenrisulfr had decided to do with them.

She did not ensorcel me
.

He was sure of that, convincing himself that he had known before he slept how this would turn out.

Should have cut her tongue out
.

To push away that thought, he slapped both Ivarr and Thollákr. They staggered, then cried out, panicking.

‘I can't see!'

‘Blinded, I'm blinded . . .'

Fenrisulfr thumped them and told them to shut up. ‘It'll wear off,' he promised. ‘Before night falls again.'

At least that was likely: he did not know Heithrún's abilities for sure, but he remembered how his beloved Eira had been, the punishments she had wrought within the clan, and the harsher spells that Eira's teacher Nessa cast in her time.

Brökkr came forward, leading a big man bound with leather ropes. ‘I had this one prisoner at the forest's edge, where the witch didn't see him.' Behind the prisoner walked Ári and Davith with swords unsheathed. ‘A real fighter, and I didn't let him get away.'

Brökkr was called Brökkr the Cloven, although not to his wounded face, because of the old purple-and-white axe wound that rippled down his features. It had cut into cheekbone and forehead, and distorted the shape of his lips so that it was not always possible to tell when he was being sarcastic.

Or challenging.

You want to fight me, is that it?

So much for the nurturing of his lieutenants. The previous two, forming their own bands, remained potential allies should there ever be advantage in combining into a larger fighting force; but while Brökkr had many of the same attributes, he liked taking shortcuts. Perhaps he thought that taking over a ready-formed reaver band would be easier than creating his own.

It's what I did
.

But that was irrelevant. Fenrisulfr pushed aside Ári and Davith's blades, and used his own dagger to cut through the prisoner's bonds. Then he waited while the big man's blood slowly returned to his hands and feet. The man stamped with the pain but made no other sound, then loosened his shoulders and jogged on the spot, getting ready to accept the invitation which must be showing in Fenrisulfr's eyes. No one had spoken, but everyone knew what was happening.

The prisoner was a fighter, knocked out by chance during
the confrontation – everyone knew that skill and ferocity could still be overcome by the Norns' contingencies – needing this to redeem himself.

When he was ready, he grunted and nodded, too far into warrior state for ordinary speech, and he snarled as Fenrisulfr laid his own dagger and sword on the shingles, then walked backwards, nine short paces.

‘Let him walk free if he beats me,' Fenrisulfr commanded.

‘We'll do that,' said Brökkr, his cloven lips curling. ‘By Freya's perfect buttocks, not to mention the sweetness of her golden cup, I swear it.'

There were smiles and frowns as the other reavers drew near enough to watch – first Sveinn and Nörthr, then Logmar followed by Torleik and the rest – but not too close, because anyone could get hurt when violence exploded.

Like now.

Stones flew at Fenrisulfr's face as the fighter used the environment, kicking shingle as weapon and distraction, but his objective was obvious – sword and dagger – so Fenrisulfr whipped forwards, two long thrusting paces to cover the distance of nine short ones, hand and forearm deflecting the stones and then he was slamming the man's left wrist across the body –
knife
– and the heel of Fenrisulfr's right hand smashed the jaw around, then he clawed back, trying for the eyes, while his left arm wrapped the bastard's knife hand close, and he pumped his knee twice into the spleen –
again
– then lower ribs, and spun him – knee deep into kidney – then slammed his right elbow into the back of the man's neck –
good
– and ripped the dagger free from the weakened left hand before slamming it point first with a crunch exactly where the elbow strike had hit, severing the spine at the base of the brain.

It dropped, the dead thing.

The body lay atop Fenrisulfr's sword, which the dead man had picked up but never had the opportunity to use, because Fenrisulfr had not let him.

Fuck you, Urd, Skuld and Verthandi!

His men gasped, some raising a fist in the shape of Thórr's hammer or thumb-and-finger as the All Father's eye, several stepping back, and he realised he must have uttered the curse aloud. His reavers would face vicious, bloody enemies as a matter of course; but to curse the Norns by name was a dangerous thing: they would not dream of it.

Brökkr the Cloven looked away, understanding the lesson here.

Good
.

Fenrisulfr would not have to kill his lieutenant.

Not today.

SIXTEEN

LABYRINTH, MU-SPACE, 2604 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

After a long sleep, Roger felt full of energy and cheerful optimism, bouncing right back from the surveillance-and-tracking exercise whose main difficulty had been the prior seventy standard hours of wakefulness, sleep deprivation forming the backbone of the test. He and Corinne, too tired to debrief in their favourite fashion, had gone to their separate rooms.

=The Logos Library.=

He nearly lost bladder control as Labyrinth's words resonated in his brain.

‘What about it?'

But no elaboration followed, no indication that he had not just imagined the message – which here in Tangleknot Core was the only way of delivering information that could not be eavesdropped on and recorded.

A tiny non-urgent holo, hovering by his bedside, unfurled at his gesture. He had been assigned a free day – today – with leave to exit Tangleknot and go anywhere he liked within Labyrinth. As he used the ablution facilities, he wondered if this was another exercise or test, or whether it was a day off that he could spend with Corinne, in which case going to a library, even one that perhaps possessed an infinite knowledge store, was a long way down his list of possible activities.

But there was no reply from his attempted signal, and when he went along the dorm corridor to check first Corinne's room and then his other classmates', everyone had gone.

‘Rotation,' said the first instructor he found, a hard-faced woman called Medina. ‘Only one or two people out of the group get R & R at any one time. Today, it's you.'

If there was subterfuge, Medina's skills were too advanced for him to read it.

Alone, Roger tuned his clothing to dark colours and went out to explore Cantor Circus and Hamilton Helix, where myriad Pilots went about their busy lives, here in the heart of Labyrinth. He poked around, found a café near the most elegant stretch of Legendre Level, and went inside.

Over daistral, he caught up on the news – in Tangleknot they were isolated – and saw that the legendary Dirk McNamara had been sighted once more in Labyrinth. Commentators made bets they would never pay out on regarding the duration of McNamara's stay.

It would have been an interesting oddity and no more, had Roger not twice met Dirk McNamara's mother, an even more shadowy figure from the past, among the study-carrels in the Logos Library. At the time, he had not appreciated just how unusual and striking those fleeting meetings were.

And how likely was it that the city-world's mention of the Logos Library, the instant he woke up, had been a coincidence?

He finished his daistral, placed the empty goblet on the tabletop before him, and watched the goblet dissolve. When he stood, chair and table melted into the floor, and he spent a moment visualising coordinates and least-action geodesics before summoning a fastpath rotation.

It deposited him in the Logos Library.

There was no sign of Ro McNamara as Roger walked the infinite balconies and halls. Crystals were racked everywhere, indexed contents searchable via search engines not subject to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem or Turing undecidability. A primitive human might have thought that Labyrinth and the Logos Library were in themselves gods.

There were Pilots here, many Pilots, but in the vastness they seemed few. Roger enjoyed his long stroll and occasional topological shortcuts within the endless structure and all its beautiful decorations. But finally he had seen enough, and
summoned a study-carrel into existence from one of the microscopic spacetime knots floating ready.

A random choice. It was impossible – or should have been – that she could be waiting inside this particular carrel.

‘Hello, Roger,' said Ro, mischief on her triangular features.

She was cross-legged on a high-backed chair.

‘Ma'am.'

‘Oh, please. That was my mother. Sit down, won't you?'

Another chair was extruded, and he sat.

‘You're not unique,' she added. ‘You'll be glad to know.'

‘Excuse me?'

‘No one's going to tell you, but there's a possible source of other individuals – many, many individuals, not human – who can sense the same thing you do. And there's something else: every renegade was turned while spending time in realspace. The investigators are close to one hundred per cent certain.'

Tangleknot training made Roger fast on the uptake.

‘You mean it can't reach into mu-space, the darkness.'

Plus there might be an entire species that could sense what he could: no need for the Admiralty to take his word for it.

‘Some of its subjects, like Schenck, show exceptional charisma. But of course, they're not the only ones. My son Dirk, for instance, would make an equally fine figurehead for a radical political movement.'

‘Er . . .'

Max Gould and Pavel Karelin had spent years building up a counter-conspiracy against Schenck's thousand-strong group of committed supporters, and that was just one hidden aspect within the immensities of Labyrinthine politics that Roger knew so little of. Isolationist versus pro-humanity was just one among a multitude of political axes whose combination produced the background for the so called Stochastic Schism, the widening separation of views that had been temporarily halted by the revelation of Schenck's true nature.

Within that, there was clearly room for using an historical, romantic figure like the dashing Dirk McNamara as a popular icon; but exactly which movement or individuals, Roger did not know.

‘It would be nice,' Ro went on, ‘if Dirk had a friend without an agenda. At least someone who knew what really happened in the past.' Ro gestured toward the carrel walls. ‘Infinite knowledge all around is very nice, but getting it inside your head is the real trick, isn't it?' She stood up. ‘You are interested in history, aren't you, Roger?'

‘Yes, but—'

He was talking to an empty carrel.

That's one hundred per cent impossible
.

With no hint of summoning a rotation – which you could not do inside an unfolded carrel anyway – she was gone. But she had been real, not holo: both his tu-ring and his own senses could detect the difference.

Where she had been sitting, a small infocrystal sparkled.

‘History,' he muttered. ‘What if I said it bored me rigid?'

But the past could fascinate as much as the future; and how could he refuse an invitation from Ro McNamara, the first of all true Pilots?

Much of the content was episodic, rendered with unexpected impact and detail as he immersed himself in scene after scene, checking metadata when required, following a theme.

Explosions cause the building to shudder. Sirens vibrate the air. In a large room furnished with archaic laboratory devices, a Zajinet lattice-form, glowing softly, is curled in upon itself
.

‘Sir?' shouts a capable-looking woman
.

[metatext person.id = ‘Zoë Gould, UNSA intelligence officer'; context.desc = ‘XenoMir facility, Moscow (
mask-VAH
), Earth, 11/10/2143']

She's addressing a glowing Zajinet, and not getting the reply she needs. ‘It's your former colleague, isn't it? We need your advice.'

The Zajinet pulls itself tighter, and responds:

<< . . .danger . . .>>

<< . . .yes . . .>>

<< . . .yes . . .>>

<< . . .it comes . . .>>

A metal door crumples, torn down by a blocky, three-fingered hand. A slender female Pilot draws back – a young-looking Ro McNamara, cursing: ‘Jesus.'

The other woman, Zoë, draws a handheld weapon
[metatext weapon.desc = ‘pocket lineac derringer'; narrative.significance = ‘abandoning pretence of being a civilian']
and snaps on its laser sight, aiming at the squat, brown, cuboid invader tearing its way inside: one of the Veralik delegation
.

‘THE FEMALE,' emanates from a device on the Veralik's chest as it waves a stubby pseudoarm in Ro's direction: ‘HOLD HER.'

Zoë says, ‘Why are you—?'

A man's voice sounds from the corridor outside
.

[metatext person.id = ‘Piotr Yavorski, senior xenobiologist']

‘The centrifuge hab . . . fail . . . Energy drain . . .'

‘HOLD THE FEMALE,' says the Veralik. ‘IT WILL ATTEMPT TO TAKE HER.'

Ro circles away from the Veralik
[metatext biography.threads. concepts = ‘aikido footwork; tai sabaki; mind-body integration; combat skills'],
avoiding it
.

‘ZAJINET, THE RENEGADE. IT STOPPED ROTATION. ENERGY—'

Ro swivels away once more, then halts. Strange energies whirl and flicker, an electric sapphire blue predominating, surrounding her
.

‘STOP HER.'

‘Ro!' shouts Zoë, her friend. ‘What's happening?'

The air is curling, twisting, folding up around Ro McNamara, enveloping her. Zoë, hand covering her eyes for protection, tries to reach inside the disturbance
.

‘Ro, take my hand!'

But Ro is no longer there
.

*

It was a very different kind of unexpected disappearance. Roger had read about Ro being kidnapped by Zajinets from a xeno facility on twenty-second-century Earth; but most of this was new to him.

He resumed the narrative.

When Ro wakes up, her disorientation is immediate and obvious. She is in a tubular, bluish glass-like corridor, and a woman with cropped blue hair
[metatext person.id = ‘Lila O'Brien, assigned to Beta Draconis III research station']
is kneeling beside her. A man stands behind Lila
.

‘You're awake,' says Lila. ‘Jared, call Lee. Our visitor's waking up.'

‘Ugh—' Ro's face clenches with pain as she sits up
.

‘You'll be all right, I think.'

‘Where—?'

From around a bend, two men hurry into view
.

‘She needs the doc.'

‘No way, Lila.' One of the men stops. ‘Not till we— Just where the devil have you been hiding, young woman?'

‘I don't—'

‘For God's sake, Josef. Look at the state of her.'

‘Until we find out what's going—'

A large hand grabs her wrist, and Ro reacts: rising to her knees and twisting, as the big man whips head over heels, smacking heavily onto the floor
.

Then Ro is on her feet and backing away
.

‘Who the hell are you people? How did I get here?'

Roger paused the narrative once more. The metatext had already revealed that Ro was on Beta Draconis III: a strange planet with a tiny human settlement, half diplomatic consulate, half xenoanthropological research station, initially considered the Zajinet homeworld, but actually no more than a colony that was later evacuated, leaving humanity ignorant of the Zajinets' origins.

He skipped to the next chapter.

After trekking beneath purple-with-turquoise skies, twenty two humans find themselves at a Zajinet event that might be a criminal trial, a political debate, or some form of interaction without a human analogue. Flickering, overlapping occurrences of glowing Zajinets fill the dome-shaped hall.

Watching from a stable dais where reality is not shifting, the humans witness two Zajinets (one scarlet, one blue) in their fiery trace form, while the audience/witnesses/congregation are clothed in sculpture forms, using everything from naked rock to decorated ceramic spheres.

<< . . .preserve . . .>>

<< . . .in finding, hold onto . . .>>

<< . . .converse manifests . . .>>

<< . . .obliterate . . .>>

<< . . .a focus . . .>>

The first Zajinet's legal adversary – or whatever it is – blasts a reply:

<< . . .single thread! . . .>>

<< . . .single thread! . . .>>

<< . . .saved softly in confusing dark . . .>>

<< . . .their only hope . . .>>

Lila, her hair a shining violet today, examines a small disc embedded in her glove
.

‘One of them' – Lila points – ‘we've dealt with before. The other Zajinet's a stranger.'

A wave pattern shimmers in the air between the Zajinets, linking the scarlet and the blue; then it fades. Each Zajinet twists, shrinks to a point, and is gone.

As the other Zajinets flicker out, the humans wonder what the hell they have just witnessed.

Aware that he had to return to Tangleknot, Roger transferred to the narrative outline level and jumped far ahead, to an UNSA base in Arizona, Earth, on the day that Ro's twin sons,
Dirk and Kian, were to attempt their first flights into mu-space, knowing nothing of the bombs planted in their ships.

Three viewpoints were tagged with high priorities. Roger opened them all.

Up in the control tower, Deirdre Dullaghan, the twins' closest friend, stands next to Chief Controller Bratko. From here, through blue-tinted windows, the poised ship appears to be dark metal banded with black, though her true colours are bronze and dark turquoise.

‘—clearing you to go,' says one of the controllers.

Pale flames expand into brightness at the rear. The vessel rocks, straining against the brakes.

‘My God,' says Deirdre. ‘Will you look at that.'

‘Makes my heart thud,' says Bratko. ‘Every single time.'

Then he is leaning forward. Two of the controllers rise from their seats.

A lone man is sprinting towards the runway.

‘Who the hell is—?'

‘Dirk.' Deirdre is unnaturally calm. ‘Something's wrong.'