Relic: Spear

by Ben Zackheim

  Ronin broke the silence in the room. “Wait. He died?”

  Freya nodded.

  “He died but he came back to life?” I asked.

  “No.”

  Ronin and I looked at one another, hoping the other one could explain what that meant, exactly.

  “I’ve met him, Freya,” I said. “Are you telling me that’s not Odin?”

  “That is what I’m telling you, Kane.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “He’s the man who gave up everything to read the runes. He’s the man who gathered the power of the gods, of life and death, of magic into his bones and bore the burden.”

  “Did this man have a name before he became Odin?”

  “Yes, his name was Odin.”

  Chapter 38

  Ronin threw her arms up in the air which, frankly, is what I would have done if she hadn’t beat me to it.

  “I give up!” she said, finally unable to control her temper.

  “Can you be any clearer, Freya?” I asked.

  “How can I explain the color blue, Kane? It is what it is, and it’s accepted.”

  “Unless yer color blind,” Alix said.

  “Was Odin reincarnated?” I asked, hoping she’d use language us mere mortals could wrap our heads around.

  “Ah, I see where your confusion is. I am sorry. Odin read the runes, Kane. In doing so, he comprehended life, death and everything in between. His knowledge became absolute.”

  “So you’re saying he couldn’t handle it,” I asked while trying to make it a comment.

  “No one can contain it. But no one need be one. Not with that kind of power.”

  No one need be one.

  Not with that kind of power.

  I thought on that for a moment. I glanced at Alix and realized that he was smirking. He wasn’t joining us in our confusion. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying it. Finally, it occurred to me what Freya was saying so cryptically.

  “He split himself up?”

  Freya had to think about my statement. Ronin and I waited. A god splitting himself up. I could get behind that. That was the stuff of myth.

  Finally, the goddess nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’d say that’s a good way to say it. Alix?”

  The dwarf didn’t say a word. He just kept the smile on his face and bowed low to her.

  “Why are you telling us this?” I asked.

  “Because you wanted me to explain why I know the spear is not in Merlin’s hands.”

  Our blank stares made Freya sigh.

  “The spear’s power is absolute. Its force runs through us. Mortals cannot feel it. At least most of you cannot. But for the spear to be in the hands of a fool would feel like a limb torn from the body.”

  “Maybe my fool sister doesn’t have the spear then,” Ronin muttered.

  “Whoever does possess it is powerful and can use it if they wish. Mind you, we may not want them to use it. There are worthy wielders of all intentions, good and evil.”

  “Can you help us get the spear, Freya?” I asked. “Join me one last time. It’ll be fun. I’ll leave you alone after.”

  Freya’s smile reminded me of the seductress she’d been when we’d first met. “Why would I want you to leave me alone? No, Kane, you don’t need me to get the spear.”

  “We do,” I said. “Even if Rebel does have it like Ronin thinks, we don’t know enough about it. And if Rebel doesn’t, then we’re back to square one.” Freya’s smirk faded and she appeared thoughtful again. I thought I was getting through to her. “We don’t have time to go back to square one.”

  “Kane,” she said in a tone I was getting far too familiar with. She was about to school me with a damn riddle. “Do you recall the origins of the spear’s elements?”

  “Like I said, Freya. It was made from the tree of life.”

  “The staff of the spear was, yes. But what of the tip?”

  I searched my memory. I didn’t know. But I recalled just enough to remember that almost every Nordic myth had a certain kind of blacksmith.

  A dwarf.

  I turned to Alix. His smile spread wide. His arms spread wider. “Dvalinn at yer service, boy.”

  “You’re the master blacksmith to the gods?” I asked.

  “Who-what?” Ronin asked, dimly.

  I remembered enough to explain, “Dvallin guided the creation of Mjölnir and the spear of Odin.”

  “Among other things, yeah. Though the spear is me favorite. Took the most outta me and me team.” In the stunned silence of the moment, Alix smiled again. “Mind yeh, call me Alix. I don’t use Dvallin anymore.” He clapped his hands together. “So whatta yeh say we go find me baby spear.”

  Freya turned and slowly walked out of the dining hall.

  “Wait!” I called after her. “I still have a question for you.” She’d just revealed so much. Maybe she’d open up a little more. I wanted to ask her what she knew of my past.

  But the goddess just smiled weakly and faded into the shadows of the next room.

  “Gods don’t answer questions, Kane. Gods make questions.”

  Chapter 39

  Two humans, a dwarf, and a dog deity in a god’s dining hall.

  Anything could have happened.

  The silence was too ripe for a stupid idea from Ronin, so I jumped in with, “What do we do now, Alix?”

  The dwarf climbed up into a chair and took a load off. “Now we get the spear back.”

  “How are you going to help us get it back?” Ronin asked. “Do you have any idea how powerful Merlin is?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t matter. Take me to the spear and it’ll be yers.”

  “Ours?” Ronin asked. “Or yours?”

  Alix shot her a side-eye, and then smiled. “Beautiful and smart.” He nodded and hopped off the chair. We all watched him walk past the pup, booping him on the nose tenderly. He circled past Ronin, snagged another rose from the air, this one purple and red, and handed it to her. Ronin tossed it over her shoulder and Alix sighed. “Maybe a few years ago I would have conspired to keep it, Kane. ‘Tis mine, after all. Me and me boys made it with our paws.” He held up his calloused hands and the mutt went running to his side to get more pets. The dwarf happily obliged. “But I’m past the power games now. I enjoy my little lair up there. May not be long fer the world, but I’ll take from it what I can. That’s considerable more’n what the spear would give me.”

  “Which is what?” I asked.

  “An unholy hemorrhoid, that’s what!”

  Ronin squinted. “Ew.”

  “Not of the ass variety, mind yeh. A hemorrhoid of the spirit. When it’s in yer hands, it attaches to yeh. You don’t notice it much. Not at first.” His eyes were on me, but he wasn’t seeing me. He was grappling with a memory. “Over time, though. Over time’s a different matter. The spear can…”

  “What?”

  He blinked and came out of his trance. “Sorry?”

  “What can the spear do?” Ronin asked through clenched teeth.

  “Ah, yeah. Powerful relics tend to give the wielder great power. Always at a great cost, but some folks don’t mind that bit. The spear, though. When it’s in yer hands, and if yer not Odin, it’ll spread that cost over you, yer friends, yer family, everything. Slowly. It’ll take everything from yeh, including yerself.”

  That made my ears perk up.

  “What do you mean? Like it possesses you?” I thought of Excalibur’s effect on me when I held it. The fury it injected into me was strong. Dangerous.

  He laughed. “Nothing close, boy. No, the spear doesn’t possess you. It becomes you. You become it. It’s the only outcome if you hold it too long.”

  “Where is it?” Ronin asked, her face reddening. “Where’s the spear, dwarf?”

  “The scent ain’t strong here, tell yeh that. But I can point us in the right direction. West.”

  “America?” I asked.

  He gave it some thought. “Maybe. United Kingdom may be a better place to start.”

&
nbsp; “I’ll get Lucas,” I said. “You guys gather yourselves and wait for us here. Don’t wander. This place has surprises hidden everywhere. I don’t want you stepping into another realm or some shit.”

  “Maybe we could find a portal to London,” Alix said with a heaping pile of sarcasm.

  “We have him,” Ronin said, thumbing in my direction, dismissively.

  Alix looked at her and then at me. “Meaning what, exactly, lovely lady?”

  “Meaning, he’s got the Swap Portal.”

  Alix’s eyes saucered up. I could see his irises shaking like his head was about to explode.

  “Yer Kane Arkwright?” The dwarf’s voice trembled.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. I didn’t like the way he was examining me.

  “Yeh didn’t tell me yeh were Kane Arkwright!”

  “Why would I? You didn’t tell me you were Dvallin, so I guess we’re even.”

  That little bit of conversation seemed to ground him. He blinked, wiped his face with both hands, and pulled at his beard thoughtfully. “But you…” He stopped himself.

  “What? Finish your sentence.”

  I felt a new presence in the room. The dog sniffed at the air, so he sensed it too.

  I looked around for Tabitha.

  It felt like she was there — like Fate was watching over us with anticipation.

  Alix blinked a few times. “But you act as if you don’t know what to do next.”

  “That’s because I don’t know what to do next.”

  Alix backed up to a chair and sat down.

  “So you’ve forgotten,” he said, almost to himself.

  “I’ve been forgetting a lot, yeah. I’ve been…” I realized Ronin was in the room. She didn’t know about my episodes. She suspected something was wrong with me after I shot her sister, but I’d kept the details between me and Lucas.

  Her frown told me she was not happy about my revelation. I couldn’t blame her.

  “Freya!” the dwarf yelled at the ceiling. “Now’s the time to speak up, m’lady! Do yeh want me to do this?”

  We all looked around the room. After a few seconds of silence, I asked Alix, “What’s going on?”

  He rubbed his face with both hands again. “Please, Kane,” Alix said. “Sit.” He gestured to the table. The dog sat like a good boy. Ronin stayed standing. She crossed her arms and kept her eyes on me, as if I was a flight risk.

  I sat across from Alix and waited for him to gather his thoughts. His nose was barely visible over the top of the table.

  “You’re freaking me out, dwarf,” I said.

  “Apologies, Kane. Please lemme take this at me own pace. I don’t wanna say too much lest the gods decide I’m a bad choice for this task. And, frankly, I don’t want to learn too much either.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t like the sound of that. If we’re going to work together then we need to trust each other. I’m not following you around the world if I can’t rely on your commitment.”

  That made Ronin turn her glare on Alix.

  The wait went on too long.

  I was about to tell him he could stay in Paris with his secrets when he finally said, “Commitment to what? What do you need me to commit to?”

  “I need you to commit to bringing some stability back to the world.”

  “That could mean anything, boy. Kane, I mean, Kane.” Was he scared of me? It sure looked like it. “Stability for who?”

  “For everyone,” I said, knowing that the idealism of the statement was out of place, all things considered.

  “So yeh’d have the demons holding hands with Thor. And trolls breaking bread with Set?”

  “Maybe. If that meant humans could have the opportunity to kill each other again, instead of getting slaughtered by the whims of the gods.”

  Alix sat back in his chair so fast that the furniture cracked.

  I was out of patience. “What the fuck is going on, Alix? What’s freaking you out?”

  “You are, Kane. Yeh don’t know who yeh are.”

  Again, I felt Tabitha in the room. I felt there was an invisible and powerful audience to this moment. The air got heavy.

  Not a single one of us took a breath in, or exhaled out.

  Alix stood in his chair and leaned forward on the table. “Yer Odin,” the dwarf said.

  Chapter 40

  “And I’m Elvis,” Ronin said.

  Funny. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood to laugh.

  The dwarf didn’t break our eye contact. And vice-versa. I waited for him to let out a jolly belly laugh at his own joke.

  It never came.

  I turned my attention to the room and took a deep breath. Ever since I’d learned I wasn’t who I thought I was, I had a clear picture in my head of how I’d discover the truth. The answer was supposed to reveal itself in some perfect way. I’d have an ah-ha moment and everything would made sense.

  This did not make any sense.

  “Explain,” I said, simply.

  “Oh, I don’t think I’m the right…”

  “Explain,” I repeated. There was no chance I’d let him squirm out of laying the truth out. “Now.”

  He glanced around the room. It took me a second to realize he was probably checking for a sign from Freya. “Fine. But yeh need to know that I’m not sure what’s goin’ on here. I may be wrong, but…”

  Ronin took a seat, and kicked her feet up on the table. “Okay, you covered your ass. Get on with it.”

  “The spear’s runes were not cast by me. They were the creation of the Norns.”

  “The maidens who live with the Tree of Life,” I said.

  Alix nodded once. “They watched his display of sacrifice. Odin hung upside down from the tree. He removed his own eye. He pierced himself with the spear. He floated in a place between life and death. Finally, when he died, the Norns decided he was worthy of the runes and granted it to him.”

  “I think I remember this part,” I said, excited about the memory. “He found himself with the power of many gods. He could negate the power of his enemy’s weapons, he could create love where there was hate. He could even raise the dead.”

  “Yeah, even that,” Alix muttered. “He made the ultimate sacrifice. He sacrificed himself to himself and it gave him more power than any being had ever possessed.”

  “But he was dead,” Ronin said. “Did he bring himself back to life?”

  “Yes and no,” Alix said, glancing at me nervously.

  “Damn it!” Ronin yelled. She didn’t see where Alix was going with this.

  I did.

  “What Alix is saying is that Odin’s spirit broke into pieces so that he could contain the power.”

  Alix nodded. “Odin’s Shards they’re called. He needed to maintain some kind of control ‘n that’s how he did it.”

  “How many pieces?” I asked.

  “That I don’t know. At least one other.”

  “You mean me.”

  Alix nodded. “Everyone in Asgard knows of Kane Arkwright. Yer likeness is everywhere. Even some of the people possess your face as a tribute to you. It’s a costly sacrifice for them, but Odin grants it for the right gesture.” That would explain my run-in with the man in the pink hat in Asgard. The jerk was my twin, but he escaped before I could find out more about him. “Of course, it’s not exactly a tribute to you, I suppose. That’s not the right word.”

  “What’s the right word then?”

  “Fear? Yes. Fear. Asgard fears you.”

  “Is it his breath?” Ronin asked. “I fear his breath.”

  I ignored her. “Why are they afraid of me?”

  “You and yers are the End of Times, Kane. And yeh carry the most critical piece of Odin.”

  “I have no powers, though. I inherited the Solo Spells but that was from my work at Spirit.”

  “Exactly, Kane. You have no powers at all. You couldn’t cast a spell to save your life.” Ronin thought that was funny enough to release something resembling a laugh. “
You, my friend, are Odin’s humanity.” He saw my confusion. His expression went from a smile, to pity. “You’ve traveled through the ages, keeping the collective Odin alive. You’ve taken the same form over and over again. Or so the stories say. The sons of Odin, birthed from mortal women for thousands of years, have accepted your spirit into them. And in so doing, you have lived a thousand lives.”

  I felt dizzy.

  I was a fucking tool to keep a god alive? I was a bloodline marker? I was a spirit thrown into the spawn of Odin?

  My fury must have been obvious, because Alix sat back down and cowered under the edge of the table. His little beady eyes watched me. He was ready to bolt.

  “I’ve said too much,” he whimpered. “I am sorry, Kane. But yeh asked.”

  “Settle down, Arkwright,” Ronin said with her typical bluster. One look from me and she lost that bluster fast. “We’ll figure this out, Kane,” she said gently.

  I’m not sure how long it took me to calm down. I tried to focus on a single thought, but I may as well have been trying to catch a ghost with my hands.

  The boy whose body I’d stolen was a son of Odin. He was born so my wandering-ass spirit could be him.

  My resemblance to my “father” was bullshit. The picture of him in the 1930s with the mobsters wasn’t my dad. It was me.

  The man in the pink hat. He was a citizen of Asgard whose parents probably gave up way too much so he could wear my face around town.

  “So I get to die over and over again so that the other Odins can live forever.”

  Alix sighed. “That’s exactly where my knowledge ends. I can’t be sure, but I’m pretty positive that’s where everyone’s knowledge ends except the Odins themselves.”