by Matt Larkin
“Hel is gone. Someone must rule this place, yes? And I made an oath.”
Odin drew the man into an embrace, briefly. Then, he watched as Hermod plodded away, pitying him. Was it a mistake? Would he lose himself along the way?
Either way, it was not Odin’s choice to make.
As for the rest … Odin took in their faces and offered what he hoped was a comforting nod. Then he made his way back to the glacial wall, where a root of Yggdrasil poked free from the ice.
A root of the World Tree. It connected all the worlds of the cosmos, flowing through the Realms, through time.
“Place your hand upon the root,” he said, beckoning the first of the einherjar. “Touch the root and let go. Let go of everything and let yourself fall in. Your long struggle has ended.”
For now.
Most of them might come to this once more. Not this very place, of course, but to the struggle. Odin did not fool himself into thinking the eschaton cycle would break with Hel’s end. Only … that maybe he would have made things a little bit better for the next time. And that he would have restored something precious beyond words to Loki.
Tyr came first. Brave and, from the look of it, weary enough to welcome the reprieve. Odin clasped the man’s arm.
Then Tyr pulled away and placed his hand on the root. His etheric body shimmered a moment, then began to dissolve into flecks of light that seeped into the root with a faint hum, almost like music.
In the end, the last that was left of him was light and sound.
One by one, each of the einherjar vanished, giving up their ghostly reality for another chance at a living one.
Each became light.
The core of their souls.
Until, finally, only he and Freyja remained, clutching each other’s hands.
“I love you,” she said.
Odin placed his forehead against her own. “A love beyond words. Beyond time. Beyond fate.” Beyond life itself. A love of souls.
She squeezed his hand.
Then, fingers laced together, they placed their hands on Yggdrasil’s root. And Odin let go, like a pressure uncoiling from his chest. A relief poured from him, and everything was music, a hum, joining in with Freyja’s own sound to form a harmony, seeping into the root.
And in the end, he could breathe again.
Cleansed and … hopeful.
Because history, and fate, and life, and souls were but facets of a singular whole, the crux of reality, perceived as separate only when one drew too close. And if this was so, then maybe it did not matter that it had all come from darkness and that darkness sought ever to reclaim it.
For every soul was surely born of light, and surely, that meant a kernel of hope must always endure.
Epilogue
Billowing clouds of black smoke stretched out as far across the horizon as the eye could see, rumbling, and occasionally releasing showers of ash that swept across the world in a choking storm. In peaks and valleys where once greenery had struggled for survival, now one found only dying embers amid the ashes.
The cinders crunched under Loki’s bare feet. His boots were gone. His clothes hung in burned tatters. None of that mattered, for, even had he been given to modesty, there was no one left to observe his nudity.
Only unending miles of desolation.
No insects buzzed. No animals chittered and cried. Nor had he seen sign of a single living plant.
The only sound came from the howling wind, fiercer than any beast, angered, it seemed, by the desolation of this barren world.
Shivers wracked Loki, as he plodded through the ash, though not from the cold nor from the burns—those had already healed. No, rather, the isolation ate away at him already.
Perhaps, somewhere, some small pockets of life endured. If so, he supposed he would find them eventually, and, given the soul-crushing silence of the world, he almost longed for it.
Almost.
Between his hands, he cradled a seed the size of a human heart. Rough, textured, and almost seeming to pulse with life. Or the potential of it.
Loki moaned. Why should he not indulge in self pity, left alone again, in a vacant world?
He didn’t even know where he was headed.
He’d just been walking for so very long.
Walking, but it seemed little else was left to do.
This time had been worse than most of the others. The destruction even more complete. The devastation utter and, he almost wished to believe, irrevocable.
“Let me die …” His words, vanished into the storm winds.
No answer forthcoming.
And just opening his mouth had allowed choking ash inside, sending him into a fit of coughing that had him stumbling until he at last surrendered and sank to his knees.
Still cradling that precious, hateful, all powerful seed of the World Tree. Between his hands he held the future of humanity. The genesis of another era, another incarnation of human life to begin the cycle once more.
Only so it could come crumbling down again.
And if he crushed this seed between his palms? If he, instead of planting it as he was meant to do, destroyed the seed of creation? Would that break the cycle?
Breaths irregular, he held the pulsating seed up before his face. In his mind’s eye, he could see himself drawing a little pneuma. Smashing his hands together. Obliterating the beginning so that he would never again have to live through the end.
What would they do, if took such a tack? Would the whole world cease to exist as the timeline began to unravel? Would he, in a sense, actually unmake both reality and his merciless masters?
So … very … easy …
To let this fire be the last fire. To let all end. And in so doing, perhaps buy himself respite from this interminable agony.
Of course, Loki would not do so. Could not. And not only because of the implication, the fear of what a breaking of the cycle would mean, of what the dark powers would do.
No. He could not destroy the seed of life, because, as soul-crushing as it was, still, there was something in life that made it worthwhile. That it ended, must always end, did not invalidate the joys experienced along the way. That life came from the primordial darkness and to the darkness would return did not mean glimpsing the the light lost its meaning.
Because … because he would see them again.
All those who had gone would now have returned to the Wheel of Life.
Odin, Loki’s blood brother. No—not just blood brother. For they shared a deeper bond than blood, bound together in the web of souls. Along with Hel, his precious daughter, and Sigyn.
Oh, Sigyn …
If he shut his eyes, he could almost feel her fingertips tracing the line of his cheek. Whispering, without the need for words, the purity of love.
If souls were fragments of light existing in a world of darkness, then love, the love they shared, it was beams of that light, poking out through the cracks. A single reminder that this dark existence was not everything they were.
The howling wind whipped his hair about his face, but Loki hardly noticed anymore.
In creating the eschaton cycle, he had created unfathomable pain for himself, and for whose souls were drawn ever to his own. For Odin and his loved ones.
But he had done it with a reason, with a hope, that against all odds, a beam of light might shine through, unexpected, and catch off guard the forces that might have otherwise snuffed it out.
The hope of light, emerging through the sea of time, forged in the crucible of suffering.
Which meant, Loki needed to find a place to plant this seed, to shelter it and watch it grow, and allow the rise of another era.
The eschaton cycle must continue to play out, at least a little while longer, for after all, Loki’s last, greatest gambit had not yet played itself out.
Author’s Note
Almost no author should (or does) publish their first book. Probably not their first several. One of my earliest projects was a book I wrote and
rewrote. A historical fantasy hinging on a man delving through time, partly via prescience, in a series called Eschaton. A book I eventually planned to title, Sea of Time.
After writing it twice, I also realized, for this to be all I wanted it to be, I needed to further develop my craft. Like most author’s early books, it was a hot mess of set piece scenes, big ideas, and poorly arranged structure. So, knowing this, I began crafting other stories in the setting, mostly as prequels. Tales that, in many cases, Sea of Time had always presupposed as being ancient history.
Skipping over all the intervening projects, that eventually led me to the Gods of the Ragnarok Era series, in which I was able to explore the same concepts of cyclical history, fate, free will, and reincarnation that I still plan to when I finally come back to my original project. This series evolved into something of its own, something I’m proud of. Something truly epic. Something, where I could care about the characters, even if many of them were deeply flawed (or maybe because of that).
So it’s bittersweet, saying goodbye to them.
While Gods of the Ragnarok Era covers a four hundred year saga chronicling the rise and fall of the Ás dynasty, in its essence, the series is ultimately about the relationship between two best friends.
Loki said: ‘Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days we blended our blood together? You said you’d never imbibe beer unless it were brought to both of us.’
—Carolyne Larrington. The Poetic Edda (Oxford World's Classics)
Odin and Loki become blood brothers. Loki, as we see in later books, knows all along it won’t end well for them, but still cannot stop himself from loving Odin as a brother. Part of this is empathy, maybe even guilt at knowing what he’s putting the man through, and part of it is the natural reaction to Odin’s own fraternal sentiments.
Loki, as one of a handful of immortals from the dawn of time, finds himself called up to serve as a slave to history. Odin meets him as Prometheus, in an early era, and sees Loki’s development, his own feeling of powerlessness before urd, and finally gains sympathy for the man. Like the cycle of time, Odin’s feelings of kinship for Loki come full circle by the end, though of course it’s too late, at least in this iteration of the world.
The entire Ragnarok series of events ultimately unfolds as a conflict between Odin and his brother, and their two families—their wives and children. Their families tear each other apart, as Loki, on some level, always knew they would.
I want to touch briefly on why I left out or changed a few characters from their roots. Norse mythology is already massive, a huge collection of stories that don’t always fit well together chronologically. Factor into this meshing the whole of a mythology into the greater Eschaton Cycle framework, and the undertaking becomes massive enough to give Thor himself pause. More importantly, though, many of the changes I made here revolved around creating the more powerful family drama, and the more compelling arcs for the major characters.
Consequently, for example, instead of Tyr dying in his fight with Garm, I’ve reused Fenrir (who was possibly the same character anyway). This also necessitated the removal of the character Vidarr, a son of Odin supposed to avenge him by killing Fenrir. But, given the history Tyr has with the wolf, no other ending would have worked as well.
This conservation of characters is also why Thor, rather than Váli, avenges Baldr’s death by killing Hödr (and why Hödr is Loki’s son, rather than Odin’s). I didn’t make these changes lightly, but rather in the firm belief it would create the most powerful tale possible from the elements available.
Will I write more books set in the Ragnarok Era? Almost certainly, someday.
In the meantime, though, the Eschaton Cycle (which eventually became the name for the entire universe of retold myths, legends, fairytales, and history) compels me to explore the other eras. Time periods before (and in some cases after) the Ragnarok Era, which have been only touched upon in this series. And that’s both exciting and intimidating.
But this one, while far from my first work, certainly will always hold a special place in my heart.
Thanks to my wife for helping me bring this story to life. Also, special thanks to my cover designer and to my Arch Skalds (in no particular order): Al, Tanya, Jackie, Dale, Missy, Bill, Rachel, Kaye, Mike, Scott, Graham, Martha, Dawn, and Regina.
Thank you for reading,
Matt
P.S. Now that you’ve read The Fires of Muspelheim, I would really appreciate it if you’d leave a review! Reviews help new readers find my work, so they’re very helpful. Thank you in advance for helping me build and grow my author career!
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The Saga Continues …
Dear Reader,
Thanks for reading!
Decades have passed since Odin took Asgard.
Men and women across the North Realms worship him.
Including the shieldmaiden, Hervor, desperate for vengeance.
But is Odin only using her pain for his own ends?
Hervor tracks the man who murdered her family to a frozen island.
Can she overcome the terrors stalking the endless night and achieve her aim?
If you like Gods of the Ragnarok Era, don’t miss the tie-in series Runeblade Saga.
Get it now.
A new Saga begins in Days of Endless Night:
books2read.com/daysofendlessnightbook
Thanks,
Matt
THE RAGNAROK ERA: OMNIBUS THREE
Books 7-9
MATT LARKIN
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 Matt Larkin.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Published by Incandescent Phoenix Books
mattlarkinbooks.com