by Rick Riordan
I met Sam’s eyes, and I realized why she was so worried. By explaining her life to Amir, she was doing more than just being honest. She was literally trying to reconfigure her boyfriend’s mind. If she succeeded, she might open up his perception. He would see the Nine Worlds as we did. If she failed…best case, Amir might eventually forget it all. His mind would gloss over everything that had happened. Worst-case scenario, the experience would leave permanent scars. He might never fully recover. Either way, how could he look at Samirah in the same way again? He would always have a nagging doubt that something was off, not quite right.
“Okay,” I said, “so why did you bring him here?”
“Because,” Sam started, like she’d already explained this twenty times tonight, “the easiest supernatural thing for mortals to see is the Bifrost Bridge. We need to find Heimdall anyway, right? I thought if I could teach Amir to see the Bifrost, that might permanently expand his senses.”
“The Bifrost,” I said. “The Rainbow Bridge to Asgard.”
“Yes.”
I looked up at the Citgo sign, New England’s largest illuminated billboard, which had been advertising gasoline over Kenmore Square for about a century. “You’re telling me—”
“It is the brightest stationary point in Boston,” Sam said. “The Rainbow Bridge doesn’t always anchor here, but most of the time—”
“Guys,” Amir interrupted. “Really, you don’t have to prove anything to me. I’ll just…I’ll take your word for it!” He let out a nervous laugh. “I love you, Sam. I believe you. I may be having a nervous breakdown, but that’s fine! That’s fine. Let’s go do something else!”
I understood why Amir wanted to walk away. I’d seen some crazy stuff—talking swords, knitting zombies, the world’s wealthiest freshwater grouper. But even I had trouble believing that the Citgo sign was the gateway to Asgard.
“Listen, man.” I grabbed his shoulders. I figured physical contact was my biggest advantage. Samirah was prohibited from touching him until they were married, but there was nothing quite as convincing as shaking some sense into a friend. “You have to try, okay? I know you’re a Muslim and you don’t believe in a bunch of gods.”
“They’re not gods,” Sam volunteered. “They’re just powerful entities.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Dude, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in anything. And yet…this stuff is real. It’s some messed-up stuff, but it’s real.”
Amir bit his lip. “I—I don’t know, Magnus. This makes me very uncomfortable.”
“I know, man.” I could tell he was trying to listen, but I felt like I was yelling at him while he was wearing noise-canceling headphones. “It makes me uncomfortable, too. Some of the stuff I’ve learned…” I stopped. I decided this wasn’t the time to bring up my cousin Annabeth and the Greek gods. I didn’t want to give Amir an aneurysm.
“Focus on me,” I ordered. “Look in my eyes. Can you do that?”
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. With the effort of somebody lifting three hundred pounds, he managed to meet my gaze.
“Okay, now listen,” I said. “Repeat after me: We are going to look up together.”
“We are g-going to look up together.”
“We are going to see a Rainbow Bridge,” I said.
“We are going to”—his voice cracked—“see a Rainbow Bridge.”
“And our brains will not explode.”
“…not explode.”
“One, two, three.”
We looked.
And crud…there it was.
The perspective of the world seemed to shift, so we were looking at the Citgo sign from a forty-five-degree angle rather than a perpendicular one. From the top of the sign, a burning sheet of colors arced into the night sky.
“Amir,” I said, “are you seeing this?”
“I don’t believe it,” he muttered, in a tone that made it clear he saw.
“Thank Allah,” Sam said, smiling brighter than I’d ever seen, “most merciful, most compassionate.”
Then from the heavens spoke a voice both squeaky and un-divine: “HEY, GUYS! COME ON UP!”
Heimdall Takes a Selfie with Literally Everyone
AMIR ALMOST pulled an einherji move. He would’ve jumped sixty feet if I hadn’t been holding on to him.
“What was that?” he demanded.
Samirah beamed. “You heard him? That’s fantastic! It’s just Heimdall inviting us up.”
“Up, like—up?” Amir inched away from the Citgo sign. “How is that fantastic?”
Halfborn and Alex strolled over to join us.
“Will you look at that.” Alex didn’t sound particularly impressed by the cosmic bridge arcing into the sky. “Is it safe?”
Halfborn tilted his head. “Probably, if Heimdall invited them. Otherwise they’ll burn to ash as soon as they set foot on the rainbow.”
“What?” Amir yelped.
“We’re not going to burn.” Sam glared at Halfborn. “We’ll be just fine.”
“I’m in,” Alex announced. “You two crazy kids still need an escort so you don’t do anything irresponsible.”
“Irresponsible?” Amir’s voice went up another half octave. “Like climbing into the sky on a burning rainbow?”
“It’s okay, man,” I said, though I realized my definition of okay had become flexible over the last few months.
Halfborn crossed his arms. “You all have fun. I’m staying right here.”
“Why?” Alex asked. “Scared?”
The berserker laughed. “I’ve met Heimdall before. It’s an honor I only need once.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Why? What’s he like?”
“You’ll see.” Halfborn smirked. “I’ll meet you back in Valhalla. Have fun exploring inter-dimensional space!”
Sam grinned. “Amir, I can’t wait to show you. Come on!”
She stepped toward the Citgo sign and vaporized in a smear of multicolored light.
“Sam?” Amir yelled.
“Oh, cool!” Alex leaped forward and also disappeared.
I clapped Amir’s shoulder. “They’re fine. Stay strong, man. Now I get to pay you back for all those falafel plates you spotted me when I was homeless. I get to show you the Nine Worlds!”
Amir took a deep breath. To his credit, he didn’t collapse, curl into a ball, or cry, all of which would have been perfectly acceptable responses to finding out there were squeaky-voiced beings in the sky who would invite you up their rainbow.
“Magnus?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Remind me not to give you any more falafel.”
Together we stepped into the orange glow.
Nothing to see here. Just four teenagers hiking up a nuclear rainbow.
Radiance surrounded us, fuzzy and hot. Rather than walking across a slick, solid surface, I felt like we were wading through a waist-high field of wheat…if that wheat were made of highly radioactive light.
Somehow, I’d lost my sunglasses from Alfheim. I doubted they would’ve helped, though. This light was intense in a different way. The colors made my eyes throb like twin hearts. The heat seemed to swirl a millimeter from my skin. Under our feet, the bridge made a low-pitched rumble like the recording of an explosion played on a loop. I supposed Halfborn Gunderson was right: without Heimdall’s blessing, we would have been vaporized the moment we set foot on the Bifrost.
Behind us, the cityscape of Boston became an indistinct blur. The sky turned black and full of stars like I used to see on my old hiking trips with my mom. The memory caught in my throat. I thought about the smell of campfires and toasting marshmallows, Mom and I telling each other stories, making up new constellations like the Twinkie and the Wombat and laughing ourselves silly.
We walked for so long, I began to wonder if there was anything at the other end of the rainbow. Forget pots of gold and leprechauns. Forget Asgard. Maybe this was a practical joke. Heimdall might just cause the Bifrost to disappe
ar and leave us floating in the void. YOU’RE RIGHT, his squeaky voice would announce. WE DON’T EXIST. LOL!
Gradually the darkness grayed. On the horizon rose the skyline of another city: gleaming walls, golden gates, and behind them, the spires and domes of the gods’ palaces. I’d only seen Asgard once before, from the inside, looking out a window in Valhalla. From a distance, it was even more impressive. I imagined charging up this bridge with an invading army of giants. I was pretty sure I’d lose hope when I saw that vast fortress.
And standing on the bridge in front of us, his legs planted wide, was a tall warrior with a huge sword.
I’d imagined a god who was suave and cool—a movie-star type. Real-life Heimdall was kind of a disappointment. He wore a padded cloth tunic and woolly leggings, all beige so he picked up the colors of the Bifrost. It was camouflage, I realized—the perfect way to blend into a rainbow. His hair was white-blond and fuzzy like ram’s wool. His grinning face was darkly tanned, which might have been the result of standing on a radioactive bridge for thousands of years. I hoped he didn’t plan on having kids someday.
In general, he looked like that goofy guy you didn’t want to sit next to on the school bus, except for two things: his unsheathed sword, which was almost as tall as he was, and the huge curled ram’s horn slung over his left shoulder. The horn and sword looked imposing, though they were both so large they kept knocking into one another. I got the feeling that if Heimdall killed you, it would only be because he got clumsy and tripped.
As we approached, he waved enthusiastically, making his sword and horn bang into one another: clink, donk, clink, donk. “What’s up, guys?”
The four of us stopped. Sam bowed. “Lord Heimdall.”
Alex looked at her like, Lord?
Next to me, Amir pinched the bridge of his nose. “I cannot believe what I’m seeing.”
Heimdall arched his fluffy eyebrows. His irises were rings of pure alabaster. “Ooh, what are you seeing?” He gazed past us into the void. “You mean the guy in Cincinnati with the gun? No, he’s okay. He’s just going to the firing range. Or do you mean that fire giant in Muspellheim? He is coming this way…No, hold on. He tripped! That was hilarious! I wish I’d Vined that.”
I tried to follow Heimdall’s gaze, but I saw nothing but empty space and stars. “What are you—?”
“My eyesight is really good,” explained the god. “I can see into all of the Nine Worlds. And my hearing! I was listening to you guys argue on that rooftop from all the way up here. That’s why I decided to throw you a rainbow.”
Samirah gulped. “You, ah, heard us arguing?”
Heimdall smiled. “The whole thing. You two are just too cute. In fact, could I get a selfie with you before we talk business?”
Amir said, “Uh—”
“Great!” Heimdall fumbled with his horn and his sword.
“Do you need some help?” I asked.
“No, no, I got it.”
Alex Fierro sidled up next to me. “Besides, that wouldn’t be nearly as funny.”
“I can hear you, Alex,” the god warned. “I can hear corn growing five hundred miles away. I can hear frost giants belching in their castles in Jotunheim. I can definitely hear you. But not to worry, I take selfies all the time. Now let’s see…”
He fiddled with his massive ram’s horn as if looking for a button. Meanwhile, his sword rested at a precarious angle in the crook of his arm, the six-foot-long blade leaning toward us. I wondered what Jack would think of that sword, whether it was a hot lady or a professional linebacker or maybe both.
“Aha!” Heimdall must have found the right button. His horn shrank into the largest smartphone I’d ever seen, its screen the size of a Sicilian pizza square, its case made of shiny ram’s horn.
“Your horn is a phone?” Amir asked.
“I think technically it’s a phablet,” Heimdall said. “But yes, this is Gjallar, the Horn and/or Phablet of Doomsday! I blow this baby once, the gods know there’s trouble in Asgard and they come running. I blow it twice, then it’s Ragnarok, baby!” He seemed delighted by the idea that he could signal the start of the final battle that destroyed the Nine Worlds. “Most of the time, I just use it for photos and texting and whatnot.”
“That’s not scary at all,” Alex said.
Heimdall laughed. “You have no idea. Once, I butt-dialed the apocalypse? So embarrassing. I had to text everybody on my contacts list, like, False alarm! A lot of gods came running anyway. I made this GIF of them charging up the Bifrost and then realizing there was no battle. Priceless.”
Amir blinked repeatedly, perhaps because Heimdall was a moist talker. “You are in charge of Doomsday. You’re really a—a—”
“An Aesir?” Heimdall said. “Yep, I’m one of Odin’s sons! But between us, Amir, I think Samirah is right.” He leaned in so the people in the cornfields five hundred miles away couldn’t hear him. “Frankly, I don’t think of us as gods, either. I mean, once you’ve seen Thor passed out on the floor, or Odin in his bathrobe, yelling at Frigg because she used his toothbrush…it’s hard to see much divinity in my family. Like my moms used to say—”
“Moms, plural?” Amir asked.
“Yeah. I was born of nine mothers.”
“How—?”
“Don’t ask. It’s a pain on Mother’s Day. Nine different phone calls. Nine flower bouquets. When I was a kid, trying to cook nine breakfasts-in-beds…oh, man! Anyway, let’s get this picture.”
He corralled Sam and Amir, who looked stunned to have the grinning face of a god wedged between them. Heimdall held out his phablet, but his arm wasn’t long enough.
I cleared my throat. “You sure you don’t want me to—?”
“No, no! No one can hold the mighty phablet Gjallar except me. But it’s fine! Time-out for a second, guys.” Heimdall stepped back and fumbled with his phone and sword some more, apparently trying to attach them to each other. After a bit of awkward maneuvering (and probably several butt calls to the apocalypse), he held out the sword in triumph, the phablet now hooked on the point. “Ta-da! My best invention yet!”
“You invented the selfie stick,” Alex said. “I was wondering who to blame for that.”
“It’s a selfie sword, actually.” Heimdall wedged his face between Sam and Amir. “Say gamalost!” Gjallar flashed.
More fumbling as Heimdall retrieved his phone from the tip of his sword and inspected the picture. “Perfect!”
He proudly showed us the shot, as if we hadn’t been there when it was taken three seconds ago.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re crazy?” Alex asked.
“Crazy fun!” Heimdall said. “Come on, check out some of these other shots.”
He gathered the four of us around his phablet and started flipping through his photo stream, though I was pretty distracted by how much Heimdall smelled like wet sheep.
He showed us a majestic picture of the Taj Mahal with Heimdall’s face looming large in the foreground. Then Valhalla’s dining hall, fuzzy and indistinct, with Heimdall’s total eclipse of a nose in perfect focus. Then the president of the United States giving a State of the Union address with Heimdall photo-bombing.
Pictures of all the Nine Worlds, all selfies.
“Wow,” I said. “Those are…consistent.”
“I don’t like my shirt in this picture.” He showed us a shot of elfish police beating a hulder with nightsticks, Heimdall grinning in front, wearing a blue striped polo. “But, oh, somewhere in here I’ve got this amazing photo of Asgard, with me making this angry face and pretending to eat Odin’s palace!”
“Heimdall,” Samirah interrupted, “those are really interesting, but we were hoping for your help.”
“Hmm? Oh, you want a picture with all five of us? Maybe with Asgard in the background? Sure!”
“Actually,” Sam said, “we’re looking for Thor’s hammer.”
All the excitement went out of Heimdall’s alabaster eyes. “Oh, not that again. I told Thor I cou
ldn’t see anything. Every day he calls me, texts me, sends me unsolicited pictures of his goats. ‘Look harder! Look harder!’ I’m telling you, it’s nowhere. See for yourself.”
He flipped through more shots. “No hammer. No hammer. There’s me with Beyoncé, but no hammer. Hmm, I should probably make that my profile picture.”
“You know what?” Alex stretched. “I’m just going to lie down over here and not kill anybody annoying, okay?” He lay on his back on the Bifrost, stuck out his arms, and leisurely waved them through the light, making rainbow angels.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Heimdall, I know it’s a drag, but do you think you could take another look for us? We think Mjolnir is hidden underground, so—”
“Well, that would explain it! I can only see through solid rock for, like, a mile at most. If it’s deeper than that—”
“Right,” Sam jumped in. “The thing is, we kind of know who took it. A giant named Thrym.”
“Thrym!” Heimdall looked offended, as if that was someone he would never deign to take a selfie with. “That horrid, ugly—”
“He wants to marry Sam,” Amir said.
“But he won’t,” Sam said.
Heimdall leaned on his sword. “Well, now. That’s a dilemma. I can tell you where Thrym is easy enough. But he wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep the hammer in his fortress.”
“We know.” I figured we were close to the end of Heimdall’s attention span, but I told him about Loki’s nefarious wedding plans, the Skofnung Sword and Stone, the deadline of three more days, and Goat-Killer, who might or might not be on our side, telling us to find Heimdall and ask for directions. Every so often I randomly tossed in the word selfie to keep the god’s interest.
“Hmm,” said Heimdall. “In that case, I’d be happy to scan the Nine Worlds again and find this Goat-Killer person. Let me set up my selfie sword again.”
“Perhaps,” Amir suggested, “if you simply looked without using your phone?”
Heimdall stared at our mortal friend. Amir had said what we’d all been thinking, which was a pretty brave thing to do his first time in Norse outer space, but I was afraid Heimdall might decide to use his sword for something other than wide-angle shots.