Chapter 8
I didn't bother asking how we were going to get to Asgard – whether we were going to retrofit his yacht and set it bombing along the sea until it slipped into inter-dimensional space.
Things were happening too quickly. The pace of the situation was arcing up like some great crackle of lightning as it darted its way down to Earth.
As the head god of two-and-a-half pantheons, Thor knew secrets I could never know. Maybe he was privy to the secret great-god bus timetable. Perhaps he had a jetpack tucked into his belt next to Mjollnir. Or maybe he was genuinely good at flying – good in the way that could get us from Earth, through space (though not in the literal sense), and to the home of the Nordic gods.
We didn't open a door in the seabed, or spin around in circles until the centrifugal pressure created caused a nice wormhole. No. Thor sung. I don't mean he cracked out Neil Diamond while under the ocean dressed in full Nordic-god garb. He didn't hum a catchy ad jingle.
He sung a single note. One resounding, ear-splitting, vibrating, oscillating, shuddering note. He hardly opened his mouth when he did it, too. It was only by the fixed look of concentration on his face that I knew he was the one producing the hum.
Mjollnir started to hum the note, too. Though, that wasn’t right. It wasn't that Mjollnir began to sing the same tune – the hammer was resonating with it. It was somewhat like striking a key on a piano in a room full of other pianos, and hearing them all begin to play the same note.
It was spreading. First Mjollnir, then the rocks around us, then the sand. My own body began to pick up and translate the vibration too. The water all around us shuddered with the same tone.
It all... shifted. The note was all it took. No jetpacks, no wormholes, no god-bridges. One consistently-sung, powerfully held note changed the location around us to Asgard.
One note.
I felt the depth of the tone move through me. It felt like I was being pushed backwards from every point in space. Except I wasn't moving anywhere. It also felt as if every single part of me – every single particle, every single detail – was all chiming into the same, primordial, powerful song.
Suddenly reality shifted, and the sea slipped away.
I noticed the glittering, great buildings before me. I noticed the ice-white path we stood on. I noticed the turquoise-blue sky above shot through with colors no mortal could see. I noticed the great tower before us – the one that twisted and spiraled like a double helix of DNA as it rose into the impossible sky.
I’d never been to Asgard. I wasn't a Nordic god.
The details... were divine.
The place was still and yet was shifting through space at the speed of light. That, or it was made of nothing more and nothing less than light itself. It wasn't the kind of light you could wave your hand through or use to illuminate your kitchen or the book you were reading. It was the light that formed objects. It was matter. Unlike the matter that made up Earth and most of the rest of the universe, it was matter that hadn’t forgotten its illuminated origins.
Whenever I shifted my head, I caught rainbows of color glinting off every building and window.
Thor began to stride forward towards the great twisting tower before us. “Come, Details,” he spoke, but the arrogance didn’t shift through his voice anymore. All it was, was loud.
I pushed forward, though the effort of doing so pulled me away from the details that were swirling around and through me. I didn't want to move, I didn't want to follow. I wanted to watch, I wanted to take in every feature there was.
“It will all be there when we are finished,” he intoned, “Trust me, it is forever.”
We walked along the path and up into the great tower, though through most of it I was lost in a daze. Here, here I could count the rays of the sun. The rays were trapped within each object. Each leaf of each plant, each side of each building, all was light.
Being a small-time goddess, I didn’t get to hang out much at the homes of the powerful divinities. Here I was, walking through Asgard of all places....
“Details,” Thor rumbled from my side, “Pay attention: you are about to walk into a pillar.”
I blinked up at the pillar Thor was indicating – the one I was about a centimeter from. I smiled back at it, a touch giddy.
Thor sighed heavily. “Why do you have to be the goddess of details?” he mumbled to himself. “Couldn't you be something manageable, like forests or knit wear?”
I didn't answer. I stared up at the great ceiling above us and counted the light.
As I did, I felt the divinity and power swell within me.
“Stop gorging yourself, Details.” Thor shook his head, beard glinting in the light, eyes shining. “While the pillar won't mind if you walk into it, step on father's beard, and we'll see how many details you can pull in before he stabs you with his spear.”
I laughed melodically.
I sounded like I was on drugs.
The doors before us – the gilded, arched, carved ones that depicted, in unimaginable detail, all the realms of the gods – opened. They didn’t grind, nor scratch against the floor. They flowed like breath on the breeze.
They revealed a simple room. A dark room. Black, save for a single throne in the center. On the throne sat Odin, one golden eye glinting out through the gloom.
The contrast from the room of light outside was startling.
The act of standing before a staring, hardly-amused, mostly furiously-annoyed looking Odin was sobering.
As the doors closed behind us and the light was cut off, I felt my pall of wonder close with it. I rapidly became aware of where I was and who I stood before.
I sucked in a breath though there wasn't technically air in Asgard.
Odin, sitting on his simple throne, was all I could see. He looked mad. Furious in that way that only a king of the gods can. His gaze promised some world-destroying fury and smashed-up frost giants.
“What have you done?” he asked, voice a slice through space.
I shivered and shook. My lips jutted forward, but I didn't speak a word.
Did Odin think this was all my fault? Did he think I’d somehow organized to be kidnapped by a range of sea monsters and evil gods? Did he think I’d brought it all on myself by centuries of working for the Immigration Office?
“Father,” Thor began, voice so sedate and softened I hardly recognized it.
“Thor, Zeus, Jupiter – what have you done? How did you let this happen?” Odin shifted forward in his chair, his single eye not directed anywhere in particular, but somehow directed everywhere at once.
I realized he wasn't talking to me. I slowly slid my eyes to the side to stare at Thor. His face was ashen, his gaze directed towards his feet.
“You let him escape. You had him, yet you let him go,” Odin's voice scythed through the paltry distance between us.
Loki. That's what he was talking about. Odin was admonishing Thor for letting his wayward former best buddy escape. Odin was genuinely annoyed at that. Loki had confirmed on more than one occasion that he was going to bring down Asgard – Odin included – at Ragnarok. For a god who had lived as long as Odin/Cronos/Saturn, I doubted the guy was too pleased at his impending doom.
Thor didn't answer.
“How did we let it come to this?” Odin rested one arm on the side of his throne, one on his knee, and stared down at Thor. “How have we let it come to this?” he repeated.
I had the distinct impression his words belied far more than I could imagine.
Thor lifted his chin. “I don't know,” he answered.
Odin let his own head dip, and when he brought it back up, his single eye stared fixedly my way. “Goddess Officina,” he intoned powerfully.
I nodded, but didn't answer.
He let the silence draw on for some time, enough time for me to grow powerfully uncomfortable.
“You are involved,” he said, “Beyond what I once thought.” He leaned back in his chair. “They seem to want you for
some other purpose.”
“Want me?” I found the courage to speak up. The topic was one of particular importance to me, after all.
“They have plans for you,” he clarified without clarifying the situation at all.
“Plans? What plans? Who are they?” I stopped myself from flapping my hands around in a frazzle, though the sentiment was there in my high-pitched tone. Being told by one of the oldest and greatest gods of Earth that 'they' had plans for me wasn't a comfortable, peachy experience.
“The ones who are rising,” Odin mumbled, hand still resting on his knee.
Oh, those guys...? Rather than point out to Odin that his definition wasn't illuminating, I let my eyes widen.
“You, I feel, are at the center of this. They require your power to fulfill their ends,” Odin continued, his single eye glinting and sparking.
Oh... that wasn't good. It did explain the unusual number of kidnappings in my recent past, though.
I took a small swallow.
“I should have foreseen this,” Odin appeared to admonish himself. His gaze shifted from his one outward-staring eye, disappearing behind his eye patch to stare at the world within. “I didn’t. We cannot, however, let them succeed. They threaten our existence.”
This had gone way beyond me being the mildly-disliked Immigration Officer. I was just the small-time goddess of details! I didn't have magical weapons, and it took a great deal for me to muster enough strength to fight off one measly sea monster. I was hardly likely to be the center of some evil plot to destroy the gods.... Not unless it was by systematically demoralizing them every time I rejected their visa applications to do inappropriate things on human beaches.
I stared up at Odin, not wanting to point out that he had the wrong goddess here. He meant Artemis or Freya or Venus – someone who stood for something greater than a couple of details and facts.
“We cannot let them win. They will take all.” Odin sat back in his chair, though slumped was a more accurate description. His body was heavy with a great visible weariness.
Whatever could make a powerful god weary was heavy. More than enough to squash me flat.
I looked over at Thor. He seemed caught up in something. A feeling, a notion, a possibility, a potential. Some imagined circumstance was playing across his face like light playing across the surface of the ocean.
My head started to hurt again.
I wasn't good with situations like this (not that many would be all that great when it came to being stuck in the middle of god-destroying plots, apart from German philosophers). I couldn't deal with the unsaid or mysterious. I needed facts, I needed details, I needed information. I couldn't hope for a vague impression. I couldn't stand back and try to form the whole picture from the wisps of mystery that lapped all around me.
“What is going on?” I found my voice again, pressing a hand to my forehead as I spoke. “Why me? I'm a small-time goddess of details. I don't have power—“ I began.
“All have power.” Odin stared straight ahead. “In all there is the same. Every divinity is divine. We are all equal – we are all gods.”
It was a strangely socialist statement for a king, and it was one that didn't ring true for me. Though I did know that, yes, technically all gods were god-like, I still knew I could never hope to have as much power as Thor, Odin, or Loki.
That's when Odin closed his one remaining eye. “A god does not make themselves, they are made. The belief of their followers endows them with meaning – with power. When the belief shifts, so too does the power.”
Was Odin suggesting that, all of a sudden, the people of Earth would start worshiping details like never before? Was he suggesting there would be a sudden and explosive proliferation of weather-watching nuts or maths-loving boffins? Would people everywhere start trawling through pages of computer code and staring at each pixel of every picture their computer screens offered? Would gallery-goers start counting how many brush strokes made up their favorite art works? Would bankers nip into their vaults to count every single note by hand?
I doubted it.
“I’m just details and facts,” I tried to reason with him.
“You are neither,” Odin replied sharply, “They simply empower you.”
I gave a frustrated sigh. “I... I don't have anything that anyone would want.” I looked around the ground by my bare and dirty feet. I was still in my wet, muddy, torn PJs. I still had dirty bedraggled hair. I felt like picking it up and pointing at it dramatically and asking Odin if he thought terrible destruction-loving gods would need my power. I knew it wasn't going to work. Odin was Odin – all-powerful, all-wise, and more than half beard. I couldn't argue with him.
I didn't understand. None of this made sense. I didn't have enough facts. I didn't have enough details—
Thor put a hand on my shoulder. “I will deal with it.” He looked up at his father. “I will solve it. I will stop it before it can begin.”
As this had already begun (unless a triple-attempted kidnapping was freshening up for the main event) Thor could hardly stop it before it had started.
Then again, he was Thor and Zeus and Jupiter. He had a yacht, a magical hammer, and a greasy black suit. He also had more wisdom and power than I would like to admit.
“You must.” Odin let his eye drift up until he stared at the zenith of the ceiling. “If you do not....”
Yep, that was end-of-the-world-Ragnarok talk, even if it was dramatically veiled.
“I will stop them,” Thor intoned powerfully. “I will stop him,” he added far more quietly.
“It will not be easy,” Odin warned.
As if saving the world/universe was easy – especially when the bad guys were gods.
“I will prevail. I will be victorious,” Thor's voice rang out.
Odin's good eye seemed to lose focus, and I knew that he was returning his gaze inwards.
I felt cold, confused, heavy, sick, overcome, and a lot like I wanted to mope into a corner and drape my arms over my head until it all went away.
Thor's grip slid down my shoulder. His fingers spread wider, felt more pronounced over the coarse, wet press of my clothes.
That detail broke through the heady mess of potential hysteria. That detail shone like a light through the darkness.
While I still didn't know what was going on, this new fact lodged itself in my mind with far greater primacy and importance.
The feel, the warmth, the expectation, the meaning of his touch.
Then Thor slapped me on the back. “Time to go save the universe, Details,” he said with a note of mirth. “We better get you to a weather station before you freak out, though.”
I turned slowly to stare at him. Though it appeared that Odin was deep within himself – and therefore unlikely to snap at us to stop play-fighting in his godly throne room – I wasn't comfortable with shouting at Thor in Asgard.
Still, I dipped my head down a touch and snorted. “I still don't see what this has to do with me,” I said, tone bitter, but voice quiet.
He snorted. “You think being kidnapped by two sea monsters and three gods is coincidental?” He crossed his arms and tried to grin.
Tried.
This was mostly an act, wasn't it? No one, even if they were an arrogant, rude, and stupid triple-god, could go from having a super serious conversation about saving reality with their all-powerful dad, to joking about it several minutes later.
I could see the press of concern crumpling the corners of his eyes. I could make out the slight pitch to the corners of his lips.
“Details,” he dipped his head, “Are you staring at my nose again?” He held my gaze.
I spluttered.
He grabbed my arm. “No more games. We must go save the gods.” He began to pull me towards the door and, apparently, towards my impending doom and Ragnarok.
As he pulled me from Odin's throne room, I began to realize things had escalated. The last time I'd left the one-eyed god, I'd been forced to join Thor in a m
ission to find out who had nicked Odin's monstrous underground-facility sea-pet. Things had gone up a notch. It was world-saving time.
I was still stuck with Thor/Zeus/Jupiter.
I didn't resist as Thor pulled me along on our mission – I couldn't.