"Uh," said Thor.
"A bit immature and uncultured, though," put in Liz, seeing him waver. "You could have a tea house. For the more sophisticated corpse."
"And a chess room," said Thrúd.
"Chess is a battle game," agreed Thor. "And I would like to see the appreciation of fine teas spread. I could see that happening. And there'd be less fuss in Valhöll among the Einherjar that way."
"I think we could just have a deal," said Loki, looking at his youngest daughter.
Hel looked thoughtful. "Maybe."
"Come on, girl, it's better than Baldr would have offered. And more than that, you can be sure of old Thor."
Hel looked at the big red-beard. "I see that you have Mjöllnir back."
"Its twin, anyway. And I'm not letting it out of my sight again. I've taken a few hard knocks but thanks to the twelve-point plan I am my own Æsir again. We'll have to start a chapter of AA for your subjects too."
"Baldr is not going to be pleased," said Hel. "I can live with that."
She now looked at Jörmungand and Fenrir. "Neither of them are full grown this time . . ." She paused, and then stamped her foot angrily. "Now I remember last time too. Thor, you have a deal. Except that Baldr stays here. When do you want my subjects to march, Papa-Loki?"
"Soon, girl. I have some ideas to work out with my new artificer, a fellow called Lamont, and this mortal here. He's a trickster too. I owe him for freeing Sigyn and me. Now . . . two things. Can we see Narfi?"
Hel shook her head. "No. You know the rules, Papa. No visiting times."
"Oh." He sounded utterly crestfallen.
"But I will tell him that you came. And he will march with the dead . . . and hopefully face Forseti's judgment." By the smile on her face she had figured out that that would keep her father and stepmother watching over Thor. "And what is the second question?"
Loki looked at Thor, Jerry and Liz. Lamont and the children were back in Ran's watery cliff-castle. "I need to know if a soul called Marie Jackson has entered through Nágrind. If she has, I am honor-bound to tell her husband."
The wait seemed interminable.
Then Hel held up her hands. "She sits on the threshold, Papa. Only the thorn of sleep holds her from time." She paused. "She is a strong and valiant spirit. Lesser ones would have passed through."
"Stronger than a god," said Thor quietly.
Chapter 32
It was a relatively silent trip back. No one felt much like talking, not after the last revelations about Marie. "I feel," Liz said quietly to Jerry, "like we won a battle but are losing a war."
Jerry sighed. "It feels a bit like that. We're no closer to a way out of here. I still haven't solved the problem of how to attack Odin and prevent Ragnarok. Lamont says my balloon probably won't work—because of a lack of fine-weave materials that I can make airtight. I thought sail cloth . . ." He made a face. "Do you know what the sails are made of here? Wool."
Liz shook her head. "That's not possible."
"Apparently, they're made from the fleeces of special sheep. The creatures look rather different from the sheep I've seen pictures of."
"I'll look into it," promised Liz. "If necessary I'll get Thrúd to weave it. It's more useful than making me feel inferior with that purposeless embroidery of hers. That thread she uses is quite fine."
"And I'll go and talk to those two agents, Bott and Stephens. This should be their field of expertise."
"Should be. I'll come along."
They arrived back rather quietly. Without any fanfare, Liz, Jerry and Thrúd set off straightaway to the room that Ran had made available to the two agents.
Liz knocked and pushed the door open. And there were the two of them, in the act of affixing something to a raven's leg.
Startled, the first reaction of the agents was to try to hide the raven. But they must have been a bit rough about it because there was an angry squawk. Then, with Bott's hand leaking blood, a raven suddenly appeared and flew for the window. Thrúd brought the bird down with a well thrown tambour frame.
"What in the hell is going on here?" demanded Liz.
Things turned nasty, very quickly. Jerry and Liz were no match for two men trained in unarmed combat.
Thrúd was a different matter. She had her father's Ás strength, and she'd played roughhouse with her combat-trained brothers—and beaten them—for years. She also had very powerful lungs. Shrieking blue murder, she flung Stephens back against the wall, making him lose his grip on Liz. Liz knew absolutely nothing about the science of unarmed combat but she managed to grab the strap of her shoulder bag and swing it metal corner first into her attacker's cheek. Meanwhile Thrúd had advanced on Bott, who was holding Jerry. "Keep off or I'll kill him," threatened the agent.
"Do that and I'll disembowel you, attach your entrails to a horse and whip it into a gallop," said Thrúd in a matter-of-fact voice, catching the bleeding-faced Stephens as he tried to attack her from behind, and hurling him backward, crashing him into the table. Liz had taken over yelling bloody blue murder. Then the raven—perhaps because Thrúd was between it and the window—flapped off out the door and into Ran's castle. It disobeyed the first rule of flying safety and looked back as it fled—which was why it flapped into Emmitt as he ran around the corner. He fell. Thor, panting up behind him, tripped trying to avoid him and crashed into the wall just short of the agents' doorway.
Bott, hearing the commotion, threw Jerry at Thrúd, and ran for the door, hauling Stephens to his feet. He saw Thor trying to stand up, and ran the other way.
Thor bellowed, "Alarums! Seal the windows and portals. To arms! To arms!" He staggered to his feet, and then was knocked over again by Thrúd running out after them.
Thereafter followed a very confusing half hour. Thor had alerted the castle to danger, but he hadn't told the defenders what it was they were presumably being attacked by. So Lamont actually saw Bott and Stephens, and told them to get up to the ramparts. They didn't listen to him, but that didn't stop him taking his own advice. The two agents had a close brush with Fenrir who was being petted by a frightened Ella. And that was the last anyone saw of them.
The hero of the hour proved to be Emmitt. He'd landed on the raven, and had the common sense to stay lying on it, until Thor got back to him. The raven was stunned and had a broken leg.
So they had a raven . . . and two missing agents, who were going to be dead if either Liz or Thrúd caught up with them. Jerry had a bump on his head and a bloody nose.
Having seen to his nose and done her best to examine his head, Liz was now reading the English note from the raven's leg. "We had traitors," she said grimly, looking at the bird wrapped in a shirt, with only its legs protruding.
"They're bleeding," said Fenrir. "Open the portals and I'll go a-hunting." He looked at Liz. "I promise I won't just eat their livers."
Thor nodded. "Hunt them down. Hamstring them, Fenrir. I want them able to talk."
The great wolf nodded. Liz almost felt sorry for the two agents.
She turned her attention back to the raven. "I'm going to splint this leg. And then I want some cord—thong, perhaps—to attach the other leg to this chair. We need to know what this little bird has been carrying to-and-fro. And it is going to tell us. And it better not prove to be Hugin or he'll never see a jelly bean again."
It proved instead to be Munin. "Odin will be very angry!" said the raven.
"Good," said Loki. "I must see if Ran has a cage somewhere. I always wanted something to make Odin angry with."
Fenrir returned with two small boys in tow. "I had a choice," he growled. "I promised to let the men go in exchange for these smelly objects. And hugging," he said, "is beneath my dignity."
"We'll catch up with them," said Liz, as Lamont looked in grave danger of exploding.
"They're dead men walking," said Lamont. "What the hell happened? How did they get you two?" He hugged the boys fiercely, and then, despite what Fenrir had said, hugged the wolf. "I owe you," he said thickly
. "If I can do it, I will. You only have to ask."
"We were just outside the beach gate. You said we were allowed to go there," said a subdued Ty. "Doing some stuff on the sand, and they came out."
"They grabbed us. They told us you'd said that they must take us to safety."
"They were waiting for a boat. They made a signal-fire."
"And then Fenrir came."
Ty started to cry. "Bott held a knife against my neck."
"Fenrir agreed to let them go, if they let us go," said Tolly. "If my new dad catches those guys . . ."
Cruz was a long way off. But as a choice of someone's kids to take hostage, Liz would have thought that it would have been wiser for the agents to have picked on a troll. There were lots of trolls here in Jötunheim. They were less dangerous than Cruz would be.
"It's not as bad as it seems at first glance," Jerry said squeezing Liz's hand. "Look, first off, the airborne assault just wasn't practical. Second, we're better off discovering the leak now than later. And we have Munin."
"Already addicted to rakfisk jelly beans." Liz gently pushed the hair away from the large lump on his forehead.
"Good. We'll have to let him go soon, or Odin will be suspicious when he returns."
Liz snorted. "That won't delight Loki."
"Tell him to use Munin to feed disinformation to Odin. He'll like that idea."
Agents Bott and Stephens sat in conference with the man they'd been sent to rescue or kill, enjoying some of his homemade whiskey. It wasn't very good whiskey, but after their close calls and the trip in a leaky Viking boat, any whiskey was welcome. As welcome and cozy as the respect they felt they'd finally found. This was a man who knew what they did, and valued them.
The initial moments of their meeting with Harkness had been disconcerting, since he didn't look in the least like the photograph of Harkness they'd been shown by Agent Supervisor Megane. But Bott and Stephens relaxed after he explained he'd had his appearance altered by Odin's magic. By now, after all they'd seen, the two PSA agents were willing to believe that readily enough. There wasn't any question this fellow was actually Harkness, since he knew details concerning his life and position in the NSA that no scruffy Norseman could possibly have known.
"Well, sir, it's like this," Stephens explained, "we were sent on this mission to rescue you from the Krim pyramid. Unfortunately we lost most of our team members, we were betrayed by the other people with us—and we've been having severe equipment problems. But we're still here."
Harkness tugged his little beard. "Equally unfortunately, we can't get back."
"They'll send a back-up squad through," said Stephens confidently.
"Well, maybe," said Harkness. "As you must have figured out by now, that's harder than it sounds. But, in the meanwhile, well, I've established myself in a position of influence and power here. I could use some good, reliable American help. Are you boys with me?"
"Yes, sir!" they said together, glad to be back in harness.
"Good. It's a pity your cover got blown, but make some other kind of plan. Our ally here figures he can win this Ragnarok. He's gone hunting some allies of his own, after the last bit of news you sent about Surt."
The Krim hierarchies were expressed in terms which even the Krim device found confusing. Nonetheless, they knew who among them had ascendancy. Once there had been billions of Krim. Now . . . things were different. The Krim did not die, of course. Not in the conventional sense, as they had long since abandoned bodies. They . . . simply seemed to fade away.
They'd been unprepared for what they had lost with those bodies. This was what had driven them to explore millions of systems across the galaxy. The feelings and emotions were like fine wine to them, rich and rejuvenating wine. The flood of pain and rage energies in an event like Ragnarok would sustain the Krim for a long while. Long enough—if they could gather the life energies to sacrifice—to do it again. And again. There were few of the Krim left now. This planet and its Ur-worlds could sustain them until another probe found more life.
And now there was a threat against that great feast! The Krim hierarchy shifted.
Leadership came to rest instead on one who possessed a body of flames. A creature not unlike the Krim themselves, in that energy and flames have something in common.
It would happen. Ragnarok would come, no matter how myth was twisted. After all, to the inhabitants of Midgard it would make little difference as to why Surt marched on Asgard.
Chapter 33
"There is someone on the beach to see you, Loki." Ran had amusement written on her normally austere face. "He is very uncomfortable coming here, to my castle."
That was just about the most words Liz had ever heard her use. Loki got up and walked down, and Liz followed out of curiosity.
The man on the beach had fishing tackle with him. For Liz that was always a good sign. "Who is he?" she whispered to Ran.
"Njörd. A Vanir sea and wind god. The husband of Skadi."
That didn't sound promising.
"Njörd," said Loki. His tone was not overly friendly. "Giantesses use your mouth for a piss-pot."
The Vanir shook his head. "You always did have a foul mouth, Loki. I was angry about that. It took me a long while to work out the kenning."
Loki shrugged. "If I had left you out, the Æsir would have thought you were a friend of mine."
"If you'd left it well enough alone, it wouldn't have happened at all," said Njörd.
"Yes. Maybe. It's a bit late for wisdom now. So why are you here, sea-god?"
"The Vanir want no part in this war that Odin drags us toward, not now that Öku-Thor is gone. And Frey and Freyja sent me to talk to you."
Loki raised his eyebrows. "Madam Cat-house, and your son who has swapped his good sword for a giant girlfriend."
"You're one of the giants yourself, Loki."
"I know. Most of the Ás are either giants or half-bloods. What I wanted to know was whether Frey still thought he was going to war with a stag's antler or not."
Njörd shook his head. "No. Skírnir still has it."
"And Skírnir is still trotting on errands for Odin, is he? Dangerous paths, those to the dwarves and dark elves." Loki pursed his lips. "And how is Skadi?"
"Still in the pit. Odin has been unable, or unwilling, to remove the spell of binding from her." Njörd did not seem too upset about his wife's situation, though.
Loki snorted with laughter. He clapped Njörd on the shoulder. "I'll explain that sometime. In the meanwhile . . . I need to know that I can trust you, Vanir. You've a reputation for executing hostages, if you don't mind my reminding you."
"Of course I mind," Njörd said. "But it wasn't my stupid idea to chop off Mirmir's head. I'd have chopped off Hœnir's."
"Hœnir was always too long-legged to be caught," said Loki, with a nasty grin. "Mirmir would stop to think about running or try reason."
"Sometimes running is a better option," admitted Njörd.
"Yes, it is. Let's work out how we can make you a nasty surprise for Odin."
"Oh no," said Njörd. "No, no, no. Forget your crazy schemes, Loki. Frey, Freyja and my Vanir cousins made it clear to me. They won't take up arms against Odin and the other Æsir."
"Not much good as allies, are you?" said Loki dryly.
"Maybe not. But we will fight against our hereditary enemies. Surt and the sons of Muspell are our meat."