by Eric Flint
Gladsheim looked, much as a lot of Scandinavia does, like the architect had been given a budget for nothing but concrete and light pine wood and told to knock himself out. And, indeed, concussion would probably have produced something less account for the breathtaking display of anodyne. Inside was another matter. All was dark. Bright lights illuminated a great hall with audience seating. A spotlight picked out Odin himself, at a desk. It also picked out a chair clearly meant for whoever was there for an audience with the chief of the Aesir himself. A black, leather-and-chrome, swivel chair.
I looked from the chair to Odin. If this was Nordic influence, the old boy was taking it a bit too far, I thought.
"Your name is Thor, your occupation is Aesir Section Chief, and your specialist subject . . ." Odin began.
"You!" I cried in astonished recognition.
"It makes perfect sense!" Sheila cried in glee.
"Dad, do we have to go through this crap?" Thor asked, wearily.
"I've started so I'll finish," Odin went on, in a style familiar to British TV viewers for twenty-five years.
I should explain. Wherever connoisseurs of TV quiz shows—not their boorish cousins, the game shows, mind, I'm talking about the serious stuff here—foregather, the recognised leader, the doyenne, the heavyweight, is the BBC's "Mastermind." Two minutes of questions on a chosen specialist subject—and no cop-outs were accepted in those days, there was one poltroon on last year's series answering questions on comic-books, showing how far downhill it's gone—and two minutes on general knowledge. The show's format was based on Nazi POW interrogation techniques, the questions were fiendish and there were no cash prizes. Contestants competed to get on and win purely for the honour. It was hosted for twenty-five years by a piercing-eyed Icelander, name of Magnus Magnusson, who was the very antithesis of the charming, smooth game-show host. Brusque, no-nonsense and, apparently, avatar of a major Norse deity. Odin, minus the eye-patch, was the living spit of the Deadliest Quizmaster Who Ever Lived.
Or actually a Norse deity. "It all fits!" Sheila exclaimed. "All that knowledge, constantly testing the wits of mankind. I watch every show!" It was still on back then, and Odin hadn't left the world under cover of a tragically early death.
Please, I silently prayed, not at the time wondering about the irony of offering up prayers in another religion's notion of heaven, let her not ask for Odin's autograph.
"Can I have—"
Me and my big mouth—
"I said," Odin said, apparently growing testy in ways one does not want to see in a deity at close quarters, "I've started so I'll finish. Two minutes on what in Asgard do you want this time, Thor?"
"The serpent is active again," Thor said, easing himself into the contestants' hot-seat with an air of reluctance.
"Where?"
"Los Angeles."
"What provoked it to rise?"
"I don't know—"
Odin cut Thor off with a glare.
Thor sighed. "Pass, but—"
"Were any of the whales involved?"
"Yes—" The familiar end-of-round beeper sounded. A little early, I thought, but perhaps time ran differently here.
"At the end of that round, Thor, you scored three points with one pass." Odin laid down his question-cards.
Thor rolled his eyes. "Perhaps we could do this without the TV rigmarole?"
"Humour your father, eh?" Odin said, with the avuncular twinkle with which he addressed contestants between rounds. "You know it's the only interaction I get with Midgard these days. Disguise was so much easier when I wasn't a television personality. Autograph hunters are murder." This last with a hairy eyeball of understandably godlike proportions in Sheila's direction.
Thor muttered something.
"I heard that," Odin barked, suddenly all quizmaster again, "and you know I can't be gallivanting about doing fieldwork any more. It's this ineffability business, it's all the rage in theology this last millennium. A bloody nuisance, but if was pure gravy being a god everyone would want in."
Well, I was a bit shell-shocked what with discovering that a major figure in my homeland's mythology was also a Norse god, but I couldn't let that one lie. "Isn't that the wrong theology?" I asked, "I mean, the Christian god's supposed to be ineffable, but you've got all manner of myths about you, and ineffability's supposed to mean—"
I've been given quelling looks by all manner of folks, being as I am a forthright and outspoken sort, and the one I was getting from both of the deities present was a classic of the "shut up now" genre. Definitely more withering than the ones you get from High Court judges—and the wig gives them a certain presence in this regard, so this is no mean feat—and approaching the ones my mother dishes out. Not that I'm suggesting my mother is out of the ordinary in this regard, it's all mothers. Prenatal classes aren't all about how to breathe while giving birth. Apparently it takes weeks to learn how to clean a child's face with spit and a hankie in the most embarrassing way possible.
I digress. "The correct answer," Odin went on, "is that our shapes, identities, and what we can do in the real world is constrained by human belief and culture, and we are tied to the cultures we were first adopted by, however they grow and adapt. Which is why the boy here—" He gestured at Thor, who scowled as any grown man will. "—has to go incognito as a carpenter from the Northern Tier and I raise the standard of television when in Midgard. It makes our sponsorship of the Brotherhood difficult. I'm not going to mention what my grandsons get up to—"
"What's Loki doing?" I had to ask.
"Writing assembly instruction leaflets for IKEA," Sheila said.
"Correct," Odin said.
"How did you know?" Thor asked.
"Logic," Sheila said, "I could probably make some guesses about the rest of the Aesir and Vanir."
"Keep them to yourself," Thor admonished, and whatever his other divine powers, I could tell he would make an abysmal poker player. His feelings on the subject—clearly miffed—were written all over his divine countenance. I could take his point. If he'd been shaped by a culture that gave the world the Vikings, having to make do with the memes of a culture that gave the world Bjork and the Volvo would almost certainly be a let-down.
"What about Jehovah?" I asked, willing to risk another quelling look.
"Sad case," both divinities averred, in unison, exchanging a Significant Look.
"About which nothing further," Odin added.
I could, regrettably, guess. I averred as much, and was about to offer some speculations, when Sheila elbowed me in the ribs. Quite lightly, for her, so I was only wheezing and watching flashing lights dance across my vision for five minutes or so.
"Shut up and pay attention," Sheila said. "We're here to learn."
"We're here because a mythical sea-serpent chased us here," I countered, realising as I said so that I had just uttered sentence that in any other context would lead my listeners to assume I'd been turning the inside of my head funny colours again. "Anything further is a bonus, and I'm not about to rule out having been hit over the head. We're here with two Norse gods, one of whom turns out to be a TV personality. What about the eye, by the way?"
"Prosthesis," Odin said.
"Glass eye," Thor clarified.
There was a sudden and overpowering smell of nuts. And cheap tobacco.
"Ah, assistance comes upon us," Odin said.
We'd left Watters in the care of Spivey in the goat-drawn cart, outside Gladsheim. Now Watters, still unconscious, was being brought in, borne between Spivey and—I rubbed my eyes.
It was still there. "How hard did you hit me?" I stage-whispered at Sheila.
"Ratatosk," Sheila said.
"'S me name. Don't wear it aht, darlin'," the squirrel said around the soggy end of a hand-rolled cigarette. That's right, squirrel. A seven-foot-tall squirrel in a helmet. At that time I didn't know about the squirrel who carried messages up and down the tree of Yggdrasil. This squirrel looked the part, with a leather cycle courier's helmet
, goggles pushed up on to his forehead. Apart from the deformed handmade coffin-nail he looked like—
"Don't say it," Thor bellowed, as soon as I opened my mouth.
The squirrel lowered his end of Watter's snoozing form and sighed. "Firs' fing any of the new bugs say, innit? Gerrit aht o' your system." At first I thought it was the effect of the rodent teeth that mad him speak so, but then I realised I was hearing as pure an Estuary English accent as ever I had heard. East End of London to be precise, and indeed that part of the world had been colonised by Saxons. Essex, the historic county of the East End in the times before Greater London was invented, meant "county of the East Saxons," Norse-god worshipers all. And since he was a messenger, that meant the City of London. A cockney Ratatosk. Got up uncannily like Rocky The Flying Squirrel. I began to giggle. "I think I'll have that drink now."
All faces present immediately grew grim.
Except for the Squirrel, who sucked air through his front teeth in the dreaded reverse whistle invariably followed by "that'll cost you" and other phrases of fell import. "You shouldn't ort to've arsked that, squire," Ratatosk said, "Gonna cost yer."
Sheila moaned. "I should've remembered. Scandinavia. Dearest drinks in the world. Beer at a fiver a pint."
I shuddered. This was getting grim. I was one potty-break from sobriety. I resolved to hold it in. If we were in drought conditions, I had to try and conserve alcohol.
Ratatosk dropped his end of Watters, and after a moment Spivey shrugged and let the rest of the insensate barman fall to the floor. "Wotcha want doin' wiv this 'un, chief?" the squirrel asked.
"I'll drop him off at his own bar later," Thor said. "The important thing is what we do about the Serpent. The Brotherhood will have to be mobilised. I think it's codeword Bloodworm time."
"Not that!" Spivey gasped.
"What?" Sheila and I both demanded, "Bloodworm?" I went on. I didn't like the sounds of this. The point about bloodworm—genus Glycera, a polychaete or bristle worm sold by the pint as fishing bait—is that it is utterly and totally banned at many commercial sport fisheries. It is a scarily effective bait, many species of coarse fish absolutely loving the stuff, and it is a rare angling match that permits the things to be used. They are also, in some species, capable of inflicting a painful bite on the user.
Now, if the operation that Thor was talking about was named after Glycera for a reason, I think we had reason to worry. Effective, but unlawful and likely to bite the angler? That sounded like a strategy to view from the safety of as rear an area as could be found.
I could see that Ratatosk was looking as worried as a man-size squirrel could, rolling a new cigarette with shaking paws, concentrating furiously on his plastic pouch of malodorous tobacco and glaring at the cigarette paper. Spivey had assumed a deathly pallor. Sheila wasn't as clued in on the implications of the code-name, but was taking her cue from the other two conscious mortals present.
"No." Odin's word was soft yet commanding. "The Brotherhood is entirely agreed on this, your get-a-bigger-hammer leanings notwithstanding. Bloodworm is only to be unleashed for Case Nightmare Green, and that is not even going to start until 2012 if that boffin in Edinburgh has got his sums right. We do not employ bloodworm until then, and until then that bait is banned."
"Aw, come on, Pop," Thor said, an unmistakable filial whine in his voice, "that guy's first career was as a drug dealer—"
"Enough!" Odin said, quietly and firmly and as good as roaring and slamming his fist on his desk for the effect it had on Thor.
"Then what do you think we should do?" Spivey asked, relief flooding his features. He was mopping his brow with the tail-end of his still-disarrayed turban. Why he bothered with the thing I still don't know. I'm not even sure he knew any better than I did how to tie it properly.
"We have two new recruits, and we can provide assistance. The Serpent can be subdued, and raw recruits might succeed where more experienced operators might fail." Odin's manner was getting more and more didactic, and I found myself reliving every moment I'd ever spent called on the carpet in the headmaster's office. More than a few, I having been an inventively malicious youth with a taste for practical jokes and the kind of public tomfoolery that earns a spirited lad a three-way bollocking by his father, his headmaster, and a uniformed police officer. With the rank of Chief Inspector, as the high point of my juvenile offending.
"You're relying on beginner's luck?" Sheila asked, incredulous. Awe at being in the presence of the Aesir was clearly beginning to fade from the mind of South London's famous tattooed Valkyrie.
"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid," Thor said, quoting the eminent sage.
"On the whole I'd rather not be part of a reverse Murphy stunt," I averred. I'd played minor ones, of course. Going for a tea break to cause the overdue client to arrive for his meeting, taking along a spare so the primary machine doesn't break down, that sort of thing. Relying on the phenomenon whereby the unskilled neophyte causes experts to gnash their teeth in frustration was something I'd rather not be doing when the consequences included my own personal digestion by a giant snake.
"Nonsense,"Odin said. "Can't fail. Besides, you're on a mission from a god, now."
"But it's broad daylight and I don't even own a pair of sunglasses." I was looking for any excuse, and continuing a pattern that has become only too wearisome over the years, I added, "and besides, Sheila's a girl."
Doomed. Utterly, utterly doomed. Say what you will about the relative capabilities of the two genders of the human race, there are always and everywhere exceptions to every generalisation and far ends to every distribution curve. Sheila was the exception to the far end of the curve, and while my memory of the ensuing spittle-spewing profanity-laced rant is sketchy—sufficiently potent swearing can cause disruption of vital regions of the brain at ground zero, among its many effects in smoothing the proper operation of machinery, alleviating pain and making traffic signals change from red to green the faster—I do recall it ended with me agreeing, on pain of pain, that not only was Sheila entirely not disqualified by reason of her gender, she was probably better qualified than anyone present, deities included, and furthermore was entirely justified in taking on the mission proposed to prove this to the entire satisfaction of the universe at large and me in particular.
I'm not proud. I caved in entirely. A man may face terrible, terrible risks in the interests of country, faith, pride or beer-sodden machismo. It is a rare soul, not to say a stone-cold psychopath, who can maintain stiffness of the upper lip in the face of the absolute certainty of total obliteration. I account myself a man of my hands in the specific arena of the drunken brawl, indeed my reputation as a taproom duelist passes large among the clientele of several hostelries and the annals of the Police National Computer, but I had seen Sheila take a full-force blow with a barstool and not even flinch.
Astute and gentlemanly readers may note here that perhaps I am alluding to nights spent in the lowest of the low dives if they are the kind of place where the patrons might actually stoop to strike a lady. I am indeed, but I can assure you that anyone who, in the course of a bar fight, shows Sheila the consideration otherwise due the fairer sex is only making things worse for himself. She'll give as good as she gets unless and until you make the mistake of waking the Feminist Militant that slumbers beneath her easygoing exterior, at which point she gives considerably better, right where it hurts. And when she's wearing heels, that's no laughing matter.
My capitulations and concessions only ended the tirade when I was backed against the wall of Gladsheim attempting to hide in the cracks in the panelling.
"Berserkergang," Odin remarked, in his dispassionate way.
"All right," Thor breathed in apparent wonder. "There's life left in Midgard yet, eh, Pop?"
"Indeed," Odin smiled. "It only remains to give them assistance commensurate with their talents. Next contestant, please."
Sheila turned, panting after her exertions. Whatever demonic energy came ove
r her drained away in an instant when we saw who was to assist us.
"We're fucked," I moaned.
"Magni and Modi," Sheila said, in almost the same tone of voice.
"ROCK!" those two worthies cried, waving heavy-metal devil-horn signs in the air, their long and greasy hairdos bobbing as they headbanged their way into the room. They both struck guitar-hero poses and air-guitared briefly. I could all but hear the Wild Stallions solos. Bill and Ted, Aesir death-metal style, without the intelligence and social graces.