Or - how about this? - what if it had been a combination of the two? On some level I'd been aware that I was dying, or near death at any rate, and come up with a lucid, fictional way of visualising my struggle not to give in, my fight to live. It would explain why the Norns' videotape of my life stopped at the car crash. It also would account for Odin's comment about every death being "an apocalypse on a personal scale," for each of us our "very own Ragnarök." My characters making subtle, sidelong hints at my true predicament.
The bloke in the bed next to me moaned in his sleep and asked someone called Sonia if she'd remembered to put the cat out.
The night wore on. I longed for some kind of definitive answer to my musings. I wished I could know for sure, one way or the other, whether I'd genuinely fought alongside gods at the Viking end-of-all-that-is or simply been an accident victim having a bit of a funny turn.
Whichever way I looked at it, I did have one major regret. I hadn't had the chance to say a proper goodbye to Freya. I'd met my ideal woman, had had to abandon her, and had no way of getting back in touch with her. It was a terrific shame. If I thought about it too hard, I began to feel an ache inside, a yawning sorrow. So I tried to put it out of my mind.
If anything good was to come from the whole episode, it was the realisation that I should try harder with Cody. Face it, who had I been thinking of - the only person I'd been thinking of - when I was about to be blood eagled? He and I were estranged, but we needn't be strangers. I resolved to make an effort, try and see him more often, not just leave the raising of him to Gen and Roz. It wasn't too late to re-establish myself in his life. I'd have to be patient, take it one step at a time, but if he was willing, I'd gladly meet him more than halfway. I wasn't the All-Father but I could still be a father.
Next Bed Man was now muttering about whose turn it was to do the dishes. Such prosaic dreams the man was having. I should be so lucky.
In the crack in the curtains the night sky began to lighten, turning oyster grey. I could hear the hospital stirring and waking up - hushed voices, squeaky footfalls in corridors, things being placed clatteringly on trays. Soon, daylight was silvering the snow-laced branches of the tree immediately outside the ward window - some species of evergreen. The zigzag redbrick horizons of a northern city stretched beyond.
At about half past seven, as breakfast was being brought round, Abortion came skidding into the ward, all flushed and excited.
"Gid! Gid! You're awake. Good. You've got to see this."
"'How are you doing, Gid?' 'Oh, fine, mate, thanks for asking. Not too badly injured in the crash you caused.' 'Yeah, sorry about that. A thousand pardons.' 'That's all right. You came out of it unscathed, that's all that matters.' 'Yeah, that was pretty lucky, I thought.'"
"Later," Abortion said blithely. "You can have a go at me later, any time. Right now, you have to see the news. I was watching in the waiting lounge, where I've been all night, incidentally, sitting up while you've been all cosy in bed."
"You can't guilt me, so don't even try."
He grabbed the bedside TV set, swung it round on its arm, and switched it on.
"Whoa, steady," I said. "They charge a fortune for that."
"I know, but this is big."
And it was big. Every channel was carrying the story. All other programming had been suspended.
"...and once again, our breaking news this morning," said a sombre newscaster. "Lois Keener, President of the United States of America, has suddenly and unexpectedly died. Mrs Keener was at work in the Oval Office when she suffered what appears to have been a massive stroke. In a statement, Vice-President Bennewitz - now acting president - has confirmed that this was the probable cause of death, pending an official autopsy report. Beyond that, few details are known."
I watched with widening eyes... and a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach.
"Mrs Keener, a colourful and controversial figure on the world stage, had shown no previous signs of ill health. In fact, at the age of forty-two, she appeared to be in the prime of life, making her death all the more surprising. We can cross over now to our Washington correspondent for the latest."
"America is in shock and mourning," said the Washington correspondent. "It's the early hours of the morning here, but nobody has gone to bed. People are up and about. Many are glued to their TV sets. Nobody can quite believe it. I've seen strangers hugging one another in the street. Grown men weeping. There's a sense of... numbness, I suppose you could say. It's surreal. Comparisons could be drawn with the shooting of John F. Kennedy."
"What do we know about the circumstances of Mrs Keener's death?"
"Very little so far, beyond what the vice-president revealed in his statement earlier. Yesterday afternoon, at approximately three p.m., Mrs Keener was in discussions with military advisors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff when all of a sudden she slumped in her chair and collapsed to the floor. Paramedics were on the scene within minutes and applied emergency resuscitation methods, but without success. She was pronounced dead on arrival at George Washington University Hospital thirty-five minutes later. The cause of death is reported as 'catastrophic intracranial haemorrhage': in effect, a blood vessel in her brain ruptured, resulting in a build-up of fluid that ravaged vital brain tissue. Messages of support and sympathy for her family have been coming in from other world leaders, including our own Prime Minister Clasen. However, there have also been jubilant public celebrations in certain countries, people taking to the streets to express their joy that someone they regard as a national enemy, an oppressor, is no more."
"Fuck," I breathed.
"I know!" said Abortion. "Who saw that coming?"
"Not her, that's for sure," I said.
And a thought flashed into my head.
Heimdall's bullet.
Could it have been...? Was it conceivable...?
The newscaster droned on - a moment in history, a terrible tragedy for Mrs Keener's husband, son and daughter, an abrupt end to the remarkable rise to power of the self-professed "soccer mom from Wonder Springs," blah blah blah. Abortion plumped himself down on the end of my bed and helped himself to my breakfast, starting with the carton of orange juice. I turned away from the TV and stared out of the window.
She'd died at almost the exact same time I was tangled up in the car.
Coincidence, surely. That was all. A case of life imitating "art." To read anything more into it than that would be a great mistake. That way madness lay.
The tree outside, I noticed, had honeycomb-like bark. An ash.
Coincidence too, of course.
I was about to turn back to the TV and rescue my breakfast from Abortion's clutches when, all at once, a grey squirrel popped out from amongst the tree's foliage. It scampered to the very tip of a branch, until it was level with the window ledge. It stopped there, peeping around inquisitively, then swivelled its head and looked straight at me through the glass. Beady black little rodent eyes met my gaze, held it for several heartbeats. A brush of a tail twitched and fluffed. A nose quivered.
And then - swear to God - the squirrel raised one ratty-clawed forepaw in the air, level with its ear.
The fucking thing saluted me.
And then it was gone, dashing back into the snowy darkness of the tree's heart.
In that moment, I knew.
Not a sliver of doubt in my mind any more.
I knew.
And, knowing, wise at last, I smiled.
Acknowledgements
Huge gratitude is due to David Moore for nursing my Norsery and Gary Main for checking my Chinookery.
Also from Solaris Books, The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove...
The Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated all the other pantheons and divided the Earth into warring factions. Lt. David Westwynter, a British soldier, stumbles into Freegypt, the only place to have remained independent of the gods, and encounters the followers of a humanist freedom-fighter known as the Lightbringer. As the world heads towards an apocalyptic b
attle, there is far more to this leader than it seems...
"The kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write."
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Also from Solaris Books, The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove...
The Olympians appeared a decade ago, living incarnations of the Ancient Greek gods, offering order and stability at the cost of placing humanity under the jackboot of divine oppression. Until former London police officer Sam Akehurst receives an invitation to join the Titans, the small band of battlesuited high-tech guerillas squaring off against the Olympians and their mythological monsters in a war they cannot all survive...
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Read the first novel in The Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin, the bestselling fantasy series from Rowena Cory Daniells and Solaris Books!
Only seven minutes younger than Rolencia’s heir, Byren has never hungered for the throne. He laughs when a seer predicts that he will kill his twin. But the royal heir resents Byren’s growing popularity. Across the land the untamed magic of the gods wells up out of the earth’s heart. It sends exotic creatures to stalk the wintry nights and it twists men’s minds, granting them terrible visions. Those so touched are sent to the Abbey to control their gift, or die. At King Rolen’s court enemies plot to take his throne, even as secrets within his own household threaten to tear his family apart. Political intrigue and magic combine in this explosive first book in an exciting new fantasy trilogy.
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Read the second novel in The Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin, the bestselling fantasy series from Rowena Cory Daniells and Solaris Books!
Thirteen year old Piro watches powerless as her father's enemies march on the castle, while a traitor whispers poison in the King's ear, undermining his trust in her brother, Byren. Determined to prove his loyalty, Byren races to the Abbey; somehow, he must convince the Abbot to send his warriors to defend the castle. And Fyn, the youngest of King Rolen's sons, has barely begun his training as a mystic, but wakes in a cold sweat, haunted by dreams of betrayal...
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Read the final novel in The Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin, the bestselling fantasy series from Rowena Cory Daniells and Solaris Books!
Now a slave, Piro finds herself in the royal palace of Merofynia, serving her parents' murderer. She must watch every step, for if her real identity is discovered, she will be executed. Fyn is desperate to help his brother, now the uncrowned king of Rolencia. Byren never sought power, but finds himself at the centre of a growing resistance movement as people flee Palatyne's vicious soldiers. Can he hope to repel the invasion with a following of women, children and old men?
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Also by James Lovegrove
Indicia
Titles
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Acknowledgements
'The Age of Ra' by James Lovegrove
'The Age of Zeus' by James Lovegrove
'The King's Bastard' by Rowena Cory Daniells
'The Uncrowned King' by Rowena Cory Daniells
'The Usurper' by Rowena Cory Daniells
Age of Odin Page 40