The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (34 page)

I take a few moments to absorb the discovery
that not just Ares but all the Chrysioi have been lying to me. To all
of my kind.

"Are you not worried that I will tell the
Atlanteans?" I ask Baldr.

His bright eyes give a sharp look. "Why
should I think that? You are my father's man now. Besides, the time
might come when we 
wish 
for the Atlanteans to know."

I nod and look away, but privately I seethe at
how easily Baldr talks of manipulating my people in whatever way best
suits the Aesir. Whichever masters we choose, it seems, we Atlanteans
are doomed  to be of a lesser class. Perhaps one day it will be
in our power to choose to have no masters.

It is well that Odinn cannot see into my heart.
He would think me disloyal. But I am not. Even as I dream of killing
Loki and protecting my folk from injustice, I will do my utmost not
to break the oath I have taken to him. Gaeira, after all, does not
break her vows, and I would not have her become even more assured of
her superiority to me than already she is.

At the foot of the mountain we reclaim our
horses, whom some Atlanteans were good enough to feed and water
during the night. Mounting them, we ride for Vanaheim to join the
Great Host of Asgard.

By day's end we reach Gaeira's home, from which
Afi and Dalla have stubbornly refused to remove themselves—a
decision in which, it turns out, they are joined by the bulk of the
Vanir. Although we come unannounced, scarcely an hour passes before
Dalla has laid a feast before our party which we eat with relish.
Gaeira's late father's room is assigned to Baldr, who is a prince,
after all, second only to Odinn in the degree to which his presence
honors those who receive him. I am ready to bed down on the benches
of the house's main hall,  along with the six Aesir warriors of
our party,  when Dalla approaches me,  looking irritated.

She drags me to one side and says in a low
voice, "I believe you're in the wrong room, Highness."

"I deserve separate quarters no more than
these other men," I argue. I should have learned by now not to
argue with Dalla.

She groans. "'Separate,' he says! Are you
not headed into battle? Possibly the 
last 
battle, if
ears do not deceive."

Understanding causes me embarrassment. "Yes..."
I manage to agree.

"Then get up there, you hapless idiot. Do I
need to tell you everything?"

I look at Dalla, but cannot maintain that, and
so I glance about at the Aesir settling to bed. At least two stare
back at me smirking, having overheard, or at least hazarding a good
guess as to what I am being told. I meet their looks and laugh. There
is no question of what choice to make. It is both my desire and what
any of them would do in my place.

"Thank you, Dalla," I mutter, and I
head for the stairs.

I knock on Gaeira's door and wait a moment for
the inevitable lack of answer before pushing it open. She stands
within, clad in a clean linen nightdress—an advantage of
overnighting in her own home—regarding me with none of the
affection some evidence would indicate that she feels for me. I could
cross the space between us in two long strides, take her in my arms
and let our mouths melt together,  as they have done before. I
could do what, presumably, Dalla had in mind, on what is perhaps our
final night together.

I could do those things, but my mouth, it seems,
has other plans.

"I will kill Loki," it blurts.

Gaeira regards me impassively for a moment. Then
it is she who crosses the space between us, calmly, to stand directly
in front of me. She draws back her right hand with palm open as if to
strike. It  hangs there briefly—and then she lets fly,
only to stop just short of my cheek.

I stand fast without flinching. Anger barely
registers in Gaeira's features, but it is clear enough to me. Yet I
do not think her ire stems from my intent to kill the blood-brother
of our lord so much as my having burdened her with knowledge of it.
By telling her, I force her to choose between her loyalty to Odinn,
whom she has served all her life, and her fondness for an Interloper
she dragged in from the wilderness mere days ago. That she cannot
tell Odinn herself, on account of her vow, only complicates her
position.

"I am sorry," I say. "I should
not have—"

She draws back again for a slap, and this time
it connects. My cheek stings. I have earned it.

I draw breath to begin explaining myself. "What
Loki did—"

She strikes me again on the same cheek. Now it
burns. I rub it. "Stop that!" I say. "I understand. I
will say no more."

Only rarely is there any call for words between
us. Now is not one of those times.

I step closer, erasing all but a whisper of the
space between us. I raise a hand and set it on her hip, over the warm
linen of her nightdress. She does not retreat as I lean in to kiss
her, rather angles her head to receive it. She takes me in her arms
and melts into me, and in silence, on this night before Ragnarok, we
do as Dalla intended.

When morning comes, we bid farewell to Afi and
Dalla and set off for the fissure from which the invasion is certain
to come. We are the first Asgardians to arrive. Thankfully, we see no
swarm. As the morning wears on, an army of Alvar begins to appear
across the chasm in Alfheim. Then, at last, as evening sets in, the
horizon behind us fills with warriors by the thousand, the arriving
Great Host blanketing hill and plain: Einherjar, Valkyriar, Vanir,
and others for whom I have no names as yet. Then come bands of
towering frost giants bearing hammers and axes the size of houses,
and their cousins the hill jotnar, the smallest of whom still dwarf
the largest of men.

Gaeira stares at the contingent of giants, and I
can feel her longing to make of them notches on the handle of her ax.
Four more 'frosties,' as a Vanir child called them, and three more
hill giants, just seven more kills out of ninety-nine, and her vow of
revenge, the most ambitious undertaken by any Vanir, would be
discharged.

Then I could hear her voice.

But those seven notches may as well be a
thousand, for all that they lie within reach. The jotnar are our
allies now in this time when every living creature of the eight
realms must stand shoulder to shoulder against an enemy which would
destroy us all. The All-Father has decreed it, and Gaeira will not
defy his will.

All stand together now, but if all do not fall
together, then maybe... I am not one to hope for war, but I hope that
Baldr is right. I hope, for Geaira's sake and my own, that one day
Aesir and jotnar will again be enemies.

But today... for today and tomorrow and as long
as it may take to ensure our mutual survival, we stand as one.

As the various contingents take their places, I
cannot help but go among the Valkyriar to seek out Ayessa. She is
with Sigrid, her lover, who glares acidly at me.

"Think of me what you will," I say
calmly to the one I once called my wellspring. "I don't believe
I was a monster in the last world, but I know I made you a poor
husband. I bear the shame of that. Yet our past lives, our past
selves, are gone now. We are not those beings. We are whatever this
new world makes of us. I wish you well, the both of you, in this life
and whatever may come after."

I do await reply, whether venomous or
conciliatory, but only turn and leave them. Should we meet our ends
here, those will serve well enough as the final words between us.

Night falls. The next day breaks, and the Great
Host grows greater. A caravan of dvergar arrives from the caverns of
Nidavellir, bringing wagon-loads of fine weaponry and great war
engines capable of hurling stones and other missiles over great
distances. Hel comes with what is left of her legions of thralls,
souls like mine raised to fill empty shells of flesh. Next, and last,
comes the contingent from Neolympus, led by the false Ares, whose
face I cannot bear to look upon.

I quickly find Crow and seize him by the arm. As
with Ayessa, I feel the need to set things right with him before
Ragnarok comes.

"There is something I must tell you,
brother," I say to him. "Better yet, I will show you,
before you discover it yourself. I hope that once you have seen, you
will wish to remain my brother."

I lead him through the ranks of the Great Host
to the Valkyriar contingent, where yet again I seek out Ayessa. I say
nothing, only lead Crow near to her and wait until he sees.

For a moment, he stares. He lets out a sharp
laugh. "Ayessa? Can it really be you?"

Ayessa stares back at him, eyes narrowing. It is
an odd look—and I know what it signifies, for days ago I gave
Crow a similar one.

"You..." she says. "You—You
are...you 
were
..."

"Yes, yes," Crow says. "I was
this Ozy... Ozy-something."

"Ozymondros," I remind him.

"So you've drunk from this magic water,
too?" Crow asks Ayessa. "I suppose I was your enemy, as I
was Thamoth's."

Slowly, thoughtfully, Ayessa shakes her head.
"No, Crow. You rid our city of a tyrant." She flicks the
quickest of glances in my direction. "His father. But then... it
could be that you were also a tyrant." She spares me a longer
look now, and it is one filled with doubt. She admits, "According
to my vision, anyway. I am unsure of what to believe."

Her doubt heartens me, for I know that she
speaks not only of Ozymondros.

"Well, if I am no enemy, why the delay?"
Crow says. "Come, embrace me!"

Ayessa's mouth cracks in the faintest of smiles
as she grants his request. Crow laughs aloud and is still 
smiling when he releases all but her hand and turns to me.

"Why should such a happy sight cause me to
reject you, Thamoth?"

"Because I lied to you when I visited
Neolympus," I confess. "I had seen her and spoken to her,
but could not tell you."

Crow lifts a brow, frowns... and scoffs. "You
have told me now. I trust there will be other things you must keep
from me, now that you are Odinn's man. That is as it must be. It need
not come between us."

He extends his arm and I clasp it. Yet, as
grateful as I am for his forgiveness, I cannot feel relief. I do keep
other secrets from him, the greatest of which—that Ares is
Loki—gnaws at me from within, nearly rendering me unable to
look him in the eye.

"Will we three fight side-by-side?" he
asks. "As once we did?"

I smile, glad for the change of subject. "Alas,
no. Ayessa... She goes by 
Essa 
now... fights with
the Valkyriar, you with the Neolympians. And I shall be among Baldr's
guard."

"A shame," Crow sighs.

"We will meet again for that drink when it
is over," I assure him. He nods, although we both know that no
one can or will hold me to that promise.

With the Great Host of Asgard I stand, ready for
battle. To my left and right are peerless Einherjar, mighty
Valkyriar, and every man and woman of the Aesir and Vanir capable of
wielding ax, spear, or sword. Leading us is Tyr, son of the
All-Father Odinn. Beside him are two of his brothers, shining Baldr
and blind Hodr, who insists he is able to fight thanks to enchanted
sight bestowed upon him by his lover, Hel. A fourth Odinnson, the
mightiest of them, Thor, has fallen, mourned by the sky itself. The
All-Father himself has gone in search of answers, and presently lies
entranced by Mimir's Well, deep within the tangled roots of
Yggdrasil.

Swelling our ranks are forces more accustomed to
challenging Odinn's rule than heeding it: towering frost giants and
the undead thralls of Hel. My own folk stand with the Host, too,
reborn souls doomed to wander between worlds. They are unaware that
they are led by an impostor wearing the face of their rightful
leader. Of all who were summoned this day, only the fighters of
Svartalfheim declined to take the field. The sons of Odinn have sworn
that once the threat is past, they shall be made to pay for 
their refusal.

If
 the threat passes, and if any
sons of Odinn survive it. If Odinn himself survives. Those things are
hardly certain. I have drunk of the Well of Mimir, and its waters
granted me four visions of the future. One thus far has come to pass.
Three remain, the worst of them.

Two lives have I lived, in two worlds. The
second brings me here, to a battle which may be the last this 
world ever knows.

Early on the third day after the assembly of the
Great Host, a wretched shrieking fills our ears. A green mist issues
from the chasm before us—and then is quickly dispelled by a
steady wind conjured by Medea. Next come a few of the vile creatures
which are named the Myriad because they are endless in  number
and form. They hover and watch, staying out of our weapons' reach.

And then, behind them, comes the swarm, rising
from below like a great wall of writhing, multicolored flesh. The
second of my four visions becomes real. Ragnarok is upon us.

***

When this day began, I did not possess a clear
sense-impression of how I, Thamoth, wearing other flesh, felt on
first looking seaward from a palace roof and seeing the sky eclipsed
by a great wave coming to engulf me. That memory was impressed upon
me by Mimir's Well and thus feels as a dream, once removed from true
experience.

Now, gazing up at another great wave made not of
water but of monsters, I recall the terror, the helplessness, the
despair, the sense of inexorable doom, for I feel it afresh.

One cannot battle the sea and win. One cannot
even try. It is just as possible that one cannot battle the Myriad
and win.

But we will try.

For a few moments, looking at the swarm, its
shriek filling my ears, I stand paralyzed, I and every other man and
woman of the Great Host. The last time I faced this enemy, it came
cloaked in green mist. Now, thanks to Medea's gale, it stands
exposed, a nightmare deluge of a thousand colors, a million eyes, a
million mouths and ten times a million limbs and teeth.