Anguish tore denial from Larson's throat. "No! No!" He ripped Helblindi free and cast it aside in wild sorrow. Blood splashed as the blade tumbled awkwardly to the ground, and Larson fell with it. Grief-mad, he howled like a wounded animal and crawled to Silme's prone form. She lay like a marble carving beside the blade which imprisoned her god. Larson dropped to her side. She was cold as ice and every bit as still. Tears burned his eyes like poison, cleaning tracks through the blood which stained his chin. His gaze fell upon the motionless Kensei, and he howled anguished curses at the swordmaster who had drilled him until the sword figure which killed Silme became reflex.
Larson's sanity crumbled to a muddle of thought.
His fist struck the ground with a force which jarred his arm to the shoulder. His second blow landed against Valvitnir's blade; its sharpened edge slit the side of his hand. Oblivious to physical pain, Larson caught the sword by its hilt. Vidarr filled his mind with warning. Allerum, behind you!
Chapter 7
Godslayer
"Death closes all: but something ere the end, some work of noble note, may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with gods."
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
Larson whirled. Light lanced toward him from the direction of the valleys. He cringed defensively. The magics struck Valvitnir and broke to streamers vivid as rockets. "Yow!" Larson dropped flat to the ground. The valleys seemed to mock him, black as moonless night, yet somewhere in the gloom stalked a sorcerer more dangerous than any sniper. /5 it Loki?
Yes, Vidarr confirmed. Look up. And lift your sword, or I won't be able to shield you from his spells
Pressed tight to the dirt out of habit, Larson raised his eyes. Reddish light hovered on a crag above Sylg's valley. In its center, Loki gestured, menacing as a demon in a fire pit. His sorceries streaked toward Larson with a roar like thunder. Larson rolled aside. Enchantments swirled into a fizzling whirlwind and funneled into Valvitnir's blade. How?
Vidarr's presence seemed weak in Larson's mind. Not certain. Some aspect of Loki's imprisonment spell renders me capable of negating his other magics. Vidarr's reply came, labored as a winded asthmatic. But it requires concentration…
Larson rose to a crouch, seeking cover. On the cliff face, light flared around Loki, brief and glorious as a dying star. Larson squinted against its brilliance. Red and green shadows winked on the inside of his eyelids. When he recovered his vision, Loki was gone.
Where is he? Dammit, where is he? Larson spun like a dancer, sword pressed to his chest in a position more appropriate for a gun.
Be still! Vidarr chastised, but his tone betrayed fear.
Between Sylg's valley and Larson, sorceries blazed. He raised Valvitnir offensively, shielding his eyes as light billowed to agonizing intensity, a mocking column of white flame. The enchantments broke suddenly to traces. Ahead, Loki appeared, sword readied, beneath his fading magics.
Larson felt Vidarr poised to fight enchantments. Loki lunged forward. Larson blocked. The blades met in a shower of glittering sparks. Impact jarred Larson to the elbow. He staggered backward, recovering just in time to block a second strike. The force of Loki's blow drove Larson nearly to his knees.
Loki's assault seemed ceaseless. His strokes came fast and were rhythmically competent. They left Larson no opening for anything but awkward blocks and retreat. The god's face pinched in concentration. Yet, despite Larson's obvious inexperience,
Loki treated his opponent like a worthy threat. He displayed none of Bramin's assuredness. Loki knew overconfidence contrives incompetence.
Larson defended as well as he could, but his efforts seemed woefully inadequate. Loki's sword bit rents in his tunic and skin. Any one of the god's maneuvers could easily have taken Larson's life. But Loki's strategy soon became obvious. He would drive wielder and godsword into the Helspring together, obviating the need to handle Valvitnir himself. And Larson was helpless to prevent him.
Loki's sword wove a wall of steel, herding Larson toward Hvergelmir as a shepherd does an errant sheep. The sharp nicks of his enemy's blade reawakened the throbbing pains left from Larson's fight with Bramin. Tortured sinews screamed with every movement. His face felt as if it were on fire. He tried to stand firm against Loki's hammering blows, but his body could no longer obey.
Blow after blow rang against Valvitnir. Larson's ears buzzed, then roared. Ice shards prickled the back of his neck. The cold made him realize, with sudden terror, that the noises in his head did not come from within; Loki had driven him to the verge of Hvergelmir's pit.
"Christ!" Larson dredged deep for reserves of energy. Strength flowed back,into his limbs. But the effort of blocking Loki's strokes drained his second wind almost instantly. Fatigue obscured Larson's vision to a blur. Sweat stung the many scratches inflicted by Loki. Scarcely able to lift his arms, Larson could only retreat and let Valvitnir tend defense.
Loki bore in. Larson recoiled. The ground fell out beneath his heel. Near panic, he staggered away from the ledge and nearly impaled himself on Loki's blade. Hope shattered beneath a wild explosion of despair. What the hell am I fighting for anyway?
Vidarr's reply seemed weak, as if the efforts of defense cost him as much as Larson. Loved ones, Allerum. The future, my freedom…
And liberty and justice for all…
Loki's eyes glittered, violet-blue as gemstones. He drew back his arm for the final lunge.
Loved ones, Vidarr? Larson's thoughts grew bitter. Silme's dead. She's dead by my own hand. Silme is DEAD! Whose cause…
Vidarr jerked upward to block. Her cause! And the cause of all men in the future.
Larson stood, ready to accept the death prom-• ised by Loki's descending sword. The Fate giantess, Skuld, claimed freeing you would doom my people.
Vidarr's mental presence went oddly silent. Loki lanced forward.
Larson demanded an answer. Vidarr!
Gaelinar! Vidarr's cry echoed through Larson's consciousness. Hope displaced futility in a corner of his mind. A shuriken skimmed through the air, visible only as a glint from a sun ray. It embedded in Loki's sword hand with a nearly inaudible thunk.
Loki uttered a startled oath. Rather than drop his sword, he pulled his thrust. Holding his blade between Larson and himself, Loki twisted toward his new antagonist. Magics crackled from his outstretched left hand and sheeted toward Kensei Gaelinar.
"No!" Concerned for Gaelinar's life, Larson struck. His upstroke crashed into Loki's armpit, and bit through muscle. Loki screamed. The shuriken dislodged from his hand, flicking blood across Larson's foot. Of itself, Valvitnir jerked downward, severing the tendon behind Loki's knee.
Loki fell. Unable to use his right arm to catch himself, he dropped, face first, to the mud. Larson pressed Valvitnir's point to the back of his neck. The Trickster howled his frustration.
"Wait!" Loki's high-pitched voice betrayed fear.
Hatred, exhaustion, and grief warred within Larson, warping intellect in a gray haze of confusion. Despite its frightened quality, Loki's command held an inviolate authority. Larson paused.
Loki continued quickly. "If you kill me, you destroy your own world."
Loki's voice inspired violent hatred in Larson for this god who had twisted Silme's half brother into a vindictive demon and designed the ruin of gods and men. Abhorrence flared toward the god whose ugly daughter possessed Silme's soul. "Die, you scum!" He arched Valvitnir to gain momentum. The blade leaped hungrily for Loki's neck.
Loki loosed a cry, half sob and half scream. "Your mother's blood is on your hands!"
Inches from Loki, Larson pulled his blow. The accusation seared like a hot knife, but he dared not display weakness before the Trickster. "Explain," was all he trusted himself to say.
Vidarr's presence intervened, weaker than a whisper. Caution, Allerum. He'll trap you, too.
Larson pressed Valvitnir tighter to Loki's neck. Though the sword fought Larson's restraint, he forced it steady. A second mental being poked gently
into Larson's mind, more powerful than the first and as beautiful as the god at his mercy. If you slay me, no one will contest Odin. The Norse pantheon will endure, supreme through eternity. Christianity can never reign. Al Larson, if you kill me, your world, your family, and the people you loved will never exist!
Never exist… never exist… The last phrase reverberated through Larson's mind and no original thought replaced it. Loki's mental essence reached for a memory.
No! Vidarr blocked Loki like a physical entity. You can't…
Stop me! Loki's far stronger presence thrust Vidarr aside effortlessly. Larson remained motionless, his eyes fixed on Gaelinar, who struggled to his feet, still dazed by Loki's magics.
The sky seemed to open. Sunlight streamed through the clouds, accompanied by the moist heat of a New Hampshire summer. Hvergelmir's roar became the crackle of a campfire. The mingled reek of mold and death transformed to the lighter aroma of pine. Larson watched himself with the detachment of a movie. He was twelve years old.
"Al!" The familiar voice of his father rose over the rustle of grasses in the wind. "Let your sister tend the fire. You've got more important things to do. I promised you'd teach your brother to fly his kite."
Larson felt his heart quicken at the sound of his father's voice. He watched himself trot across a plain of weeds to where his father stood beside his little brother, Timmy. Spectator to his own memory, Larson examined his father with a stranger's eye. Carl Larson was a large man, powerful yet gentle. His close-cropped, blond hair had a tendency to stand on end, giving him an air of harshness. But his soft, blue eyes betrayed him.
The vivid vision of the dead father he loved brought te'ars to Larson's eyes. Instantly, the scene changed. Larson saw his mother kneeling beside the dented fender of his father's brand new Plymouth. Tears blurred her pale eyes and drew crooked lines through the blush on her cheeks. It took Larson several seconds to recognize the child at her side, himself at age five, torn by his mother's sorrow.
He remembered the scene well. Planning to take the Plymouth for its first test drive, Cindy Larson had backed the car into the garage wall. "Tell him I did it," Al Larson told his frightened mother. The ridiculousness of his suggestion made her laugh through her tears. She hugged him to her chest, and Larson reveled in the memory of her warmth and the touch of her lips against his forehead.
"Mom!" Images dimmed, crumbled, and reformed in a different sequence. He heard his father's cheers, mixed with the goading cries of other parents. A soccer ball whuffed toward Larson's knee. Twisting sideways, he stopped the ball's momentum with, his calf, dribbled several paces forward, and kicked a pass to the right wing. A crowd of players overran Larson's position at fullback. As the ball reversed direction, they turned and raced after it.
The shrill of a whistle called the first half to its conclusion. Larson took his turn at the water bottle and sat on the bench. His closest friend, soccer hero Tom Jeffers, dropped to the seat at his side. "Nice block, Larson."
Larson combed hair from his eyes with his fingers. "Thanks, T.J. You're doing pretty good yourself. Think we'll catch them in the second half?"
"Think?" Jeffers winked at a girl on the side-lines. "I know it, man. I'll put in a couple shots. You just keep them scoreless."
Larson watched the girl blush and turn away, slightly jealous of his friend's rugged good looks. "Talk to the goalie. I can't make a promise like that."
Jeffers met Larson's stare, and the center forward's face waxed pensive. "I got a promise for you. Keep them scoreless next half, and I'll get you a date for the prom with my sister."
"Terry?" Larson's voice rose in surprise and excitement. He cleared his throat and continued at his normal octave. "You serious?"
Jeffers laughed. "Yeah. Sure. Just play that defense. I want to win this one."
"Yeah. Sure." Larson's mind turned from the game to a picture of Terry Jeffers. Long-legged, dark-haired, blue-eyed, Terry Jeffers could find her own share of dates. And he never possessed the courage to ask her.
Jeffer's voice and his heavy hand clamped to Larson's shoulder pulled the fullback from his reverie. "So what are you doing after graduation?"
"I don't know. College, I think. What about you?"
Jeffer's started toward center field. "I'm joining the army. Going to Vietnam to become a war hero …"
Larson's memory broke with jarring abruptness. He felt his consciousness jolted to the path of a different recollection. It was the summer after his high school graduation. Seeking spending money for college, he found a job working as a day camp counselor. The pay was comparatively high for employment of its type, and the benefits undeniable. Camp Collinswood had two pools, four athletic fields, sixteen tennis courts, and fifty wooded acres. Yet despite the many facilities, the boys in Larson's group preferred a game which required no special equipment.
Standing with his assistant before a dozen rowdy seven- and eight-year-old boys, Larson heard himself ask. "What do you guys want to do now?"
"Kill the counselor!" they chanted, nearly in unison. A wave of small bodies converged on Larson and his assistant. Resigned to the punches and prods of children too young to inflict significant pain, Larson alternated between feigned defense-lessness and throws which sprawled the campers in giggling heaps. He passed off wrestling moves as karate throws, or tricks from his days of "alligator tussling" and "dinosaur hunting."
"Al's got a girlfriend. Al's got a girlfriend," one of the youngsters chanted teasingly. Larson rose, dumping two boys from his back. Terry Jeffers stood several feet from the game. Her drab-colored dress was rumpled, and her hands knotted together at her waist. As he drew closer, Larson noticed her eyes, red and swollen, hollowed by anguish.
"Terry… ?" he started uncertainly.
"Al." Her voice was a tenuous quaver. "It's…"
The scene shattered with Loki's muttered curse. Larson's thoughts jumped to his prom with the disquieting transition of a scratched record.
Terry wore a gown of blue satin. Dark hair haloed her face in burnished waves. Eye shadow and mascara focused attention on the sapphire depths of her eyes. Breathless, Larson stared. But his thoughts drifted back toward the unfinished sentence of his previous memory. Somehow, Larson knew Terry's message was extremely important.
Loki's presence nudged Larson back toward his vision of Terry Jeffers before the prom. Each line in the petals of her corsage blossomed into vivid focus. Satin swirled about her slender hips…
Damn you, Trickster! Vidarr shoved Larson's memories askew as the gods circled the flawed and tangled circuitry of his mind with the caution of dancers on a bed of needles.
… Terry's dress went black as death; her head buried in her hands.
Loki snarled. Larson felt sanity slide beneath a wash of terror.
… He danced to a slow ballad. Terry's head rested against his shoulder. His sweating palms left marks in the fine, blue satin of her dress…
… But the feeling was all wrong. The music muted to the heavy toll of bells, chilling harmony to the anguished sobs of Mrs. Jeffers. Terry stared at a closed coffin. And Larson remembered. T.J. died in Vietnam!
Rationality broke beyond control of the sparring gods. Thoughts merged in a disharmonic orchestra of memory. Lights flashed as one: the cold yellow of porchlight, the glaring red-orange of mortars, the multi-hued explosions of sorceries. Larson felt alternately hot as fire and cold as death. Grief and hatred, sorrow and vengeance, self-pity and empathy swirled to a numbing, incomprehensible mix of emotion which tore screams from his throat.
Larson froze, listening to the echoes of his own pained cries. Gradually, sanity drew his crumbled thoughts together like pieces of a puzzle. It was all a lie, a world of men who sought honesty in falsehoods and war in the name of peace. They preached "turn the other cheek" and practiced "kill or be killed." We believed in death for freedom, and honor, yet dismembered the dead without respect. I've seen too much fear and not enough glory, a single God who promised forgiveness and
banished his children to hellish tortures for their doubts and uncertainties. My country trained its babies to kill, then condemned them as murderers.
"Larson!" Loki's plea jerked Larson back to the present. Gaelinar stood watching, his eyes dark with concern. Again, Larson raised Valvitnir, its steel a dull, gray shadow in the mist. His arm rose and fell. The blade sheared through Loki's back, the god's death justified by the lives of the innocent, the unborn casualties of future wars. And Larson wept for the other casualties, men and women whose existence became nothing more substantial than his memories of them. His own existence became a paradox, a life from a future which was no longer reality.
Vidarr's mental presence whispered softer than wind. I'm sorry.
The words struck Larson like a physical blow. He stared at the sword in his fist; fresh blood trickled from its haft to stain his fingers scarlet. It was all another lie. Despite the utter destruction Larson wreaked upon his own world, Vidarr remained imprisoned in the sword.
"Damn your evil heart!" Larson jumped to his feet and hurled Valvitnir. The sword flipped end over end, glittering as it passed beneath tears in the clouds. "Damn all gods and men! You forced my hand against everyone I loved in both worlds." Turning his back on the sword which had served as his companion for weeks in a strange land, Larson staggered several paces. He collapsed at Silme's side. Her flesh was cold to his touch. Her lids remained closed, as if in sleep. Tears poured from Larson's eyes like a miniature replica of Hvergelmir's falls.
Larson watched Gaelinar move through a grief-inspired haze which gave all reality the consistency of dream. Respectfully, the Kensei averted his eyes from Larson's tears. He trotted forward and seized the blooded Helsword which still lay beside Bra-min's soulless body.
"You stand for everything I despise and against everything I believe." Gaelinar's voice sounded strangely solid in the lingering silence which followed Larson's mental battle. Several seconds passed before Larson realized his teacher addressed the sword.
Godslayer Page 17