Conor had gone white. He was pretending it was anger, although it was really fear. ‘This is your creature,’ he said to Val in a flat voice. Then he turned to Signy and said, ‘So was it a trick all the time? Even you?’
‘It wasn’t! It’s not… I’m not…’ began Signy.
Val said, ‘It’s nothing to do with me, man. Don’t you see? It’s the gods – the old gods coming back among us. You’re seeing nothing less than Odin himself.’
The dead man began to lower himself down the lift shaft. He didn’t climb, he used his hands, like a huge, dark bat with his long cloak hanging around him. It was a dangerous situation. The bodyguards of both sides were twitching. Someone was going to fire and then the most powerful people of the two nations would be wiped out.
Conor licked his lips and said, ‘I don’t know if I believe in these gods.’
But Val laughed and said, ‘Who else? Who else could do this but the masters of life and death? Ask your halfman. Look!’
At his place behind Conor’s chair the halfman had sunk to one knee and bowed his head to the uninvited guest. Around the hall, a hubbub of noise rose as people argued over Val’s words.
Ben was already convinced. ‘He’s right – look! He has one eye just like in the stories.’
Siggy was about to reply, ‘Balls,’ but as he opened his mouth the man slipped and fell ten metres or more, tumbling and crashing among the cables and bodies beneath him. He landed with a great thud on the mound of bones and broken pieces of machinery at the bottom. They could hear the breath gasp out of him. Once again, he should have been dead, but instead he got slowly to his feet. To one side of him was a gap in the lift shaft where the doorway used to be. Out of this he stepped in among the company in the hall, and as he emerged, every voice in the place fell still.
Now the hall was frozen. Men who wanted to rush forward and seize the intruder found their muscles stilled. Those who wished to run from the hall for fear of the dead man found themselves rooted to their seats. There was only the soft sound of his feet on the floor. He paused for a moment and looked around the hall as if he recognised every single face there. Then, he reached to his belt and took out a knife, which he held up in the air above his head. It was an old, crude, ugly thing, with a stubby, crinkled blade. Those close enough could see that it wasn’t even made of metal. It was stone, chipped stone – something a caveman might have used fifty thousand years before.
The dead man turned to the lift shaft and with a sudden stab, he plunged the blade into the lift shaft. A sound like a tuning fork rang out, and the knife hung in the polished glass as if in air. The dead man turned and smiled, proud and grim, down at the captive audience, who stared transfixed at this second miracle of the day. Nothing could cut that stuff. A hundred-tonne girder swung through space couldn’t even dent it. But here it was, pierced by a chipped stone knife.
Only the halfman seemed to have the power of movement. He took a few steps forward from his place behind Conor’s chair, fell face first to the ground, and they heard for the first time his voice, half dog, half man.
‘Lord,’ said the halfman.
The dead man bent and laid a hand briefly on the dogman’s shoulder, then pushed his way in between the bodyguards until he came to stand behind Signy’s chair. She sat twisted round staring up at him. Val, too, twisted round in his chair, panting, to look at this guest, who had taken every scrap of power from him just by being there. Only Conor couldn’t look at him, but turned to glare at the bodyguards as if it was their fault that the dead man was within striking distance of him.
The dead man leaned forward. Conor cringed, like he was waiting for a cuff round the ear. But it never came. Instead, the man lifted Val’s cup from the table and held it high in the air. He raised his cup to all sides of the hall, and drank a silent toast. Then he put the cup down with a thud and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He turned and waved a hand at the knife in the lift shaft.
‘If you can take it out, it’s yours. Any of you. It’s yours,’ he said. He spread his arms wide. ‘People of London,’ he cried, in his gravelly voice.
He waited a second before letting his hands fall to his sides. Then he looked down to where Signy sat, her white face half turned towards his. He bent, put his hand on her shoulder, and in a sudden involuntary movement, Signy spun round and embraced him. She never knew what made her do that. She stood there, holding him tightly about the waist while he rested his arms on her shoulders. Then he pushed her lightly away and began to pace slowly around the top table – past Conor, past Val, until he came to where the three Volson brothers sat. He smiled that familiar smile again, and laid his hand on Siggy’s shoulder.
Siggy twisted right round to stare into his face. He felt in his heart that he knew who this was, but he knew he had never seen him before in his life. Under the shadows of the wide-brimmed hat the face was dark and bloody. All Siggy could see was that one eye.
The dead man didn’t speak. He just nodded familiarly and then continued his slow steps around the table. He walked off the platform where the families sat and down among the crowd and then made his way down the length of the hall. Heads turned to follow his progress. It took him maybe ten minutes to reach the main door, ten minutes in which it seemed that all life was frozen around him. He opened the door and walked out…
As the big swing door clattered behind him, the spell broke. There was an instant pandemonium of voices. Conor and Val were on their feet at the same moment.
‘Bring me that man…!’ screamed Conor.
‘… back here!’ yelled Val.
The guards by the door leaped out after the dead man as if they’d been scalded out of sleep. Conor turned to Val, a vicious look. ‘This is some trick of yours,’ he hissed. His lips were white with fear.
12
Siggy
It was a machine. No living thing comes back from the dead. A machine, yes. Only a machine can be restarted. But then maybe the gods aren’t alive either…
And what’s the difference between a man and a machine anyway, when they can brew something out of flesh and blood and give it a mechanical brain? It was a made thing all right and I was pretty sure what it was there for too. Conor was at Val’s throat. Every man of his was glaring at every man of ours; every man of ours was glaring at every man of theirs – all thinking it was some trick being played by the other side. We’d been fighting each other for a hundred years. How could anyone believe it could be stopped?
That thing was here to put a stop to any treaty. Could it be they were afraid of us out there?
Val was still trying to talk Conor round. He had him by the arm. ‘Odin hung for nine days and nights, he died and came back to life. You see? You see?’
You could see Val convincing himself. Funny thing, he was so suspicious he wouldn’t believe what he told himself unless he had a witness; but he was as superstitious as an old woman. He’d been wanting to believe in those old gods for a long time. He wanted to have them on his side. Handy thing if you want to get things done.
People were shouting. The bodyguards were looking nervous, glancing from side to side. You could feel the trust melting all around. Then Val turned round to face the hall and he started to yell. It was so noisy you couldn’t hear him at first, but as people saw his mouth going they began to shut up. Even so it was five minutes before he had the hall quiet and you could hear what he was saying everywhere.
‘Odin!’ he was shouting, over and over. ‘Odin! Odin! Odin!’ He was squeezing his hands as if he could force the air itself to accept his version of it. Yeah, and maybe he could have done even that. Gradually everyone fell silent. Val was stamping his foot. If it had been anyone else you’d’ve said: tantrum. But the tantrums of kings are truths. I’d seen him do it before. You could see it on people’s faces. First they were embarrassed at the way he was carrying on. Then they believed everything he wanted them to believe.
By the time he’d stopped shouting the hall was waiting for h
im to go on. Oh, you had to be impressed by my father. There was just his ragged breathing; he was out of breath with all that shouting and stamping. Then he put out his arm and he said, ‘Odin’s gift! What about that?’
And we all turned to look at the knife.
It was a miracle all right – not hard to believe that it was the work of the gods. The knife was sunk up to its hilt.
To give you some idea, I say glass when I talk about the lift shaft, but of course it wasn’t. Some people said it was a single perfect diamond half a mile long that had been grown from charcoal. Others reckoned diamond was too soft. That little knife stuck out of it as if it were made of balsa wood. So what was it made of? What was it doing there? What was it for?
The thought that flashed through my mind – I’m a realist, you see – was that it was the key to our destruction. A trick. As soon as it was removed the glass would come down, and there would be an end to everything – to me, to my brothers, to Signy, to Conor and Val and all our people. Just what Ragnor would like to see…
But Val was already on his feet. I knew exactly what he was going to say. I just sat back down and sighed. What can you do?
‘A present from Odin himself!’ he cried. ‘A knife like no other on earth!’ His voice echoed around the hall. Everyone stilled themselves. I was watching Conor. He didn’t know what was going on any more than the rest of us, but he knew one thing all right. He wanted that knife. I know greed when I see it and Conor had plenty of that. Well, but you couldn’t blame him for wanting the knife. Whether it came from the gods or from Ragnor, that knife was something worth having.
My dear brother-in-law was nibbling anxiously at the corner of his finger. Behind him, the halfman guard was still on its knees, trembling. Conor noticed him out of the corner of his eye.
‘Was that the god?’ Conor demanded.
‘The god – Odin – yes, my lord.’ The dogman barked and trembled.
Conor stood up. He looked around him and blushed, to give him about the only credit I can. ‘I claim first go,’ he said.
I saw Ben look pleadingly at Val. He was the eldest son, he wanted first go. But Val said, ‘Let the guests go first.’ Ben stamped in frustration, but he did as he was told. Everyone looked at Conor.
Oh, it was a treat to watch. Conor had about twenty different expressions flying across his face. He must have known he was gonna make a fool of himself. All those people looking – he hated to fail in public. But he knew if he didn’t have a go someone else would. He rubbed his face, nodded at Val, stood up and made his way round the table to the lift shaft.
It was a laugh. Poor Conor! Every eye was on him, but I bet he wished he was all on his ownsome. His face was as red as a tomato, so that was one thing Signy said about him that was true – he got embarrassed easily. As for her, she was all fluttery, face as white as a sheet, staring at him and I could see that she was willing him to do it, every fibre of her. That made me mad. Oh, he had her fooled good and proper. She was in love, all right, in love with a mask.
He got himself in front of the knife with his back to us so no one could watch him, took the knife by the haft and pulled gently.
Nothing moved. Conor pulled a bit harder. Then he glanced over his shoulder and gave a little smile, feeling a bit foolish, not wanting to make a prat of himself by pulling too hard and failing. Then he tried again, harder. Then at last he went for it. He put one boot on the glass and really heaved.
Three-quarters of him was straining for dear life and the other quarter was trying to look as if he wasn’t bothered. But wanting or not, he couldn’t budge it, not by a millimetre.
‘It’s impossible!’ he gasped at last. He let go, and glared at it like it just peed on his shoes. He came back, trying to pretend not to be out of breath. Signy put her hand on his arm, all disappointed for him, but he shook her off with a little gesture. He was steaming.
Then everyone else had a go. I was trembling. I was expecting the whole lift shaft to come down on our heads. Had hissed, ‘Don’t look so sodding scared!’
And I hissed, ‘Are you really too stupid to be scared?’ But I could see Val staring at me as well, so I put on the princely nothing-scares-me look he likes his sons to wear.
Up they all came. First Conor’s family, his uncles and cousins and all the rest. Then his top people – the generals and the traders and so on. They all failed. Then it was our turn.
Val himself had a go, and I’ll say this for him, he wasn’t bothered about making a fool of himself. But then, of course, he had the gift of making it look great. He strode up to the shaft, wrapped his hands round the knife and went at it like an engine. The cords in his heck were sticking out like flanges. He looked like something out of a sci-fi film. I was scared silly the knife’d come out. He’d have gone flying backwards, but I needn’t have worried, nothing moved. He turned round, flung his hands up to the ceiling and made his way back down.
‘It’ll be for a younger man,’ he said.
Then Ben, then Had. Nothing. So then of course they had to make me have a go…
And I thought, shite.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t worried about looking like a twat, I can do that all on my own. It was…
The dead man smiled at me. Remember – before we killed him? And then when he came round the table he’d touched me. But even without all that I knew. All the time people were going to and fro having their goes I wasn’t just biting my lips and wincing because I was scared the roof was going to come down.
That knife was mine. I knew the knife was mine. He promised it to me. No, he didn’t say anything. He gave it to me with his smile and with his touch. I knew that was what it was all about as soon as he stuck it in the lift shaft. The touch on the shoulder confirmed it. And so did the way the halfman was staring at me and wagging his little tail, ever since Odin left the building.
If anyone had pulled it out, well, I’d have smiled and made as good a deal of it as I could but I’d’ve known in my heart that I’d been cheated. I knew: the knife was mine.
And I didn’t want it.
Oh yeah, I wanted the knife part of it. I lusted after the knife. I could feel the way it would fit in my hand. I knew every chip on the rough stone blade even before I’d had a good look at it. The thing was a part of me, the way my bones are mine, the way my lips and my hand are mine. But, see, there’s another part to owning a knife like that – a gift from the gods. Not that I believed in the gods, you understand, but even so… A present like that is wrapped up in a story that’s not your own. I didn’t want someone else to turn my life into an epic, even if they were a god.
All the time people were trying to get it out I was thinking, yeah, let Had get it. He’s the one who wants to be the leader of men! Or Ben – he’d die to own something like that! But at the same time I knew it wasn’t going to be them. It was gonna be me, whether I wanted it or not.
I couldn’t get out of it – no way. They wouldn’t have let me, but even if they had, I wanted that knife by my side so bad I was willing to put up with any amount of that destiny crap if I had to. I walked up to it thinking, I’ll be as gentle as I can, I’ll just pretend I’m pulling. But the fact was I knew exactly what was going to happen. I could practically see the sodding thing winking at me.
I put out my hand and touched it oh so gently. It was none of my doing. I felt my elbow shoot back like the recoil from a gun. The knife and my hand together jumped back and I held it high above my head, and I let out a great shout. It was surprise, and I looked up to see if the roof was coming down, but the whole hall took it for triumph and they rose to their feet in one leap, all two thousand of them, and yelled with me.
13
Then it was a roaring of voices, people crowding round the boy wanting to touch him. They all wanted to be a part of this. Siggy stared at the thing in his hand and he felt…
But this is not a feeling to be known. Who else will ever be given such a gift? Just to say, it was in the first place as if
he had suddenly become a whole. Before he had been a piece, a fragment. He was himself for the first time.
And there was fear. Although Siggy had made up his mind long ago not to believe in such things as gods, although he told himself that the dead man came from Outside, that he was a creation of Ragnor or maybe from a city abroad, his heart told him that he had been in the presence of a god. He said to himself that this feeling of awe was itself manufactured by the technicians from Ragnor, who could make feelings as easily as they could a tin-opener. But tell himself what he would, his heart was certain that what he had seen was not mortal, and that what he held in his hand was not of this world.
He stood a long while staring at his gift. The rough stone blade was cleverly chipped to a sharp edge, but who would guess that it was the hardest thing on this earth? And who had so easily chipped it into shape? Then after a while Siggy became aware that the crowd was gone, and that only Conor stood by his side. He was leaning close and saying something in a quiet voice.
‘What? What did you say?’
Conor smiled tolerantly, as a parent might. ‘The knife, the knife,’ he said. ‘I have a favour to ask, a treaty favour.’ He smiled, waiting. It was obvious. He waited for Siggy to make the offer. This was only a boy he was talking to. Siggy knew at once what he was going to ask.
Conor sighed. The boy’s manners were not good.
‘The knife,’ he said again. ‘As your kinsman… This is my wedding feast. I am the chief guest. The knife should be mine.’
Siggy said, ‘You couldn’t take it.’
‘Oh, don’t tell me you believe that sort of thing, boy. It means nothing. It was loosened by the time you got there, that’s all. You did very well to take it out. But it should be mine. I ask this favour: give me the knife. As your brother-in-law. As your father’s treaty-partner.’