The Age Of Odin aog-3

by James Lovegrove

  "Freya…"

  "Gid." She gripped my arm, tight. "You did your best. Never doubt that. No one could have done more." Her eyes sparkled like frost under lamplight.

  "But we — "

  "We tried. But it is Ragnarok. It isn't called the Doom of the Gods for nothing. Victory was never going to be easy."

  She was planning on saying more, but frost giants had found us. They approached from both sides along the battlements, much as had happened at Utgard. Freya and I checked how much ammunition we had left — enough for a last little burst of mischief — and then turned back to back.

  "Meet you in Gimle," she said over her shoulder.

  "Sure thing," I replied. "I'll be the one with the red carnation in my buttonhole and carrying a copy of the Times." Then to the frost giants I said, "All right, boys. Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

  They sneered, snarled, and charged.

  They were just metres away when clusters of brilliant little laser dots painted the battlements between them and us, swirling on the snow-capped stonework. Wisely, they halted. The laser dots then swept upwards to mark Freya and me.

  I braced myself, but no flechette rounds came. The message was clear. Don't move a muscle, or they'll be cleaning you up with a mop and bucket.

  As we stood there pinned in place, a fur-clad figure exited Nagelfar and strode towards the castle, passing briskly between the last few JOTUNs and SURTs, which backed away respectfully.

  "Well, howdy there," the figure called up, reaching the base of the castle wall. "And how're you two doing this fine day?"

  "Smashing," I said. "And you?"

  "Oh now, let me see. Almost all of the folks I hate the most are now dead. Me and my jotun buddies appear to have conquered Asgard. And Midgard's official biggest pain in the bee-hind is currently stuck with more laser sights trained on him than a sow's got teats."

  Mrs Keener beamed at me, happy as a bride on her wedding day.

  "All in all, I'd say I'm just peachy, wouldn't you?"

  Sixty-Six

  We stood huddled in the shadow of Nagelfar — everyone from our side who was still alive and not bedridden in the field hospital. Shockingly few of us. We looked bedraggled and downcast. Beaten. Hollowed by defeat and humiliated by surrender.

  Epic fail, as Cody might have said.

  It sickened me. Not just that we'd lost, but that we'd lost so thoroughly. I wanted to believe there was some way we could reverse the situation and still pull off a victory, but frankly that wasn't looking any too likely. We'd been disarmed, and frost giants surrounded us in throngs, and beyond them the tanksuits were loitering, along with Nagelfar's guns. Some kind of last-ditch comeback was just too tall an order.

  Mrs Keener was having a high old time. Strutting up and down in front of us, looking all preeny and disdainful.

  "So this is it, huh?" she said. "All done and dusted. To be honest I'd been expecting more of a challenge. All this time, knowing Odin, I was thinking I was gonna be in for some serious opposition. I went to a whole heap of trouble having these here heavy-duty vehicles built, and turns out I hardly needed 'em. Talk about disappointment. I feel as let down as a pussycat with an inflatable mouse."

  "All right, all right," I said testily. "We get it. You've won. No need to rub it in."

  She snapped round to look at me. "No need? Oh, there's every need, big guy. I've waited a long time for my revenge on the Aesir. Tucked away underground for ages — ages — suffering the torments of the damned, I dreamed of nothing else. This is my moment and I am determined to wring every last drop of enjoyment out of it I can."

  "Look, Mrs Keener… Loki?… No, I'm going to stick with Mrs Keener… Look, Mrs Keener, nobody here is in a position to do you any further harm. Let your prisoners go. There's no question that Asgard is yours. The decent thing to do now would be show some compassion."

  She seemed astonished. "Let them go? The very idea! Who do you take me for, sir?"

  "The men at least. The mortals. What else are you going to do with them? Mass execution?"

  "It had crossed my mind. Are you trying to plead for your own life?"

  "Not mine specifically. Everyone's."

  She stepped closer to me, and in spite of everything I couldn't help thinking how flat-out ravishing she was. Someone this beautiful and this bewitching, it was easy to see how she could have enslaved a world.

  "What if I offered you a deal… Gideon, is it? What if I agreed to what you're asking, but at a price?"

  "The price being…?" I said, suspecting.

  "What do you think?"

  "Just say it."

  "You." Almost a purr. "You've sure been a tick under my saddle and I'd like to make an example outta you. And it occurs to me you might try and get yourself killed tryin' to escape, or something like that. So you promise to come meekly, in exchange for the lives of all these other guys."

  "What by you mean by 'example'? Would this be a sex thing by any chance?"

  "Oh, you! You know full well it ain't. I mean you peacefully submit to a big old spectacular execution, and the rest go free, just like you want. You have my word on that."

  My throat was crackly-dry. My stomach felt like I was both constipated and about to pebbledash my Y-fronts at the same time. A voice in my head was screaming No!

  "Okay," I croaked.

  To my right there was a soft sigh. I didn't look round. That was where Freya was. There were also murmurs from the other prisoners — surprise, hope maybe.

  "But they live," I went on. "I want your guarantee on that. They live and they go home safe and sound."

  "You have it."

  "Gid, Loki is a trickster," Vidar croaked from amongst the crowd. "You cannot trust him."

  "Oh hush up, you," Mrs Keener said. "Don't you pay him no mind, Gid. Whatever anyone might say, I do possess a sense of honour. Shake on it?"

  We did. Her hand cold in mine, and slender, but strong. Then Bergelmir stepped up and grabbed me roughly by the collar. His issgeisl was raised and ready.

  "It will not be swift, human," he said in a voice thick with emotion. "A hundred cuts or more. By the end I will have you pleading to be put out of your misery."

  Mrs Keener caught his arm. "No, Bergelmir. Not now. Not like this. I reckon Gid deserves something a little more… exotic. And I have just the thing in mind."

  "He is mine," stated the frost giant leader, towering over her. "Mine by right. He killed my Leikn."

  She was not intimidated. "And you can officiate at his death, I promise. The job of executioner's yours. But I'd like it to be elaborate — ceremonial — and that's something we have to prepare for. It won't take long to built the apparatus we're gonna use. Once that's set up, he's all yours."

  Bergelmir considered this, finally nodding. "A pleasure deferred is a pleasure increased."

  "Attaboy. Now, haul his sorry carcass off to Nagelfar. Stick him in one of the troop cabins, and make sure he's well guarded. As for the rest of this crowd, back to the castle with them. And make sure they're well guarded too. I'm not anticipating any misbehaviour, but you can't be too careful."

  As Bergelmir frogmarched me past her, I said, "You'd better keep your promise, Loki. Or…"

  Mrs Keener arched one plucked-to-a-perfect-comma eyebrow. "Or…? You ain't got an 'or' to threaten me with, Gideon. You ain't got jack spit. But," she added, "when I make a deal with somebody, I always keep my end of it. Well, pretty much always."

  It was all the assurance I was going to get.

  It would have to do.

  Sixty-Seven

  The cabin was deep within Nagelfar's bowels. It had a hard bunk, no porthole, a dim lightbulb, a solid metal door. A snapshot of a toddler was Blu-Tacked to one wall. A pair of size 12 Converse trainers sat on the floor, waiting for an owner who was in all probability not returning.

  No less than four frost giants were posted outside. I paced. I was going nowhere; pacing was all I had. Back and forth, back and forth. Seven
steps one way, seven steps the other.

  More than once the phrase What the fuck have you done, Gid? jangled through my head. Sacrificing myself to save everyone else wasn't something that came naturally. One of the first rules of soldiering: never volunteer. A motto which surely applied to executions more than anything.

  The decision, however, had seemed logical at the time, and still did, just about. Nobody else could have struck the same deal, because nobody else had pissed off Mrs Keener quite like I had. In that sense, I hadn't had a choice. I hadn't been trying to be big and clever, I'd simply played the one measly bargaining chip I had left — myself.

  I racked my brains over and over. Not long from now, a few hours perhaps, maybe less, I was going to die. Horribly. There was no either-or about that, no debate. But was there possibly some way I could use it to turn things around? Was there still a chance of redeeming the situation to some small extent?

  After a while, when I'd paced enough and thought enough, I banged on the door. I demanded at the top of my voice to see Mrs Keener. The frost giant guards told me to go and perform some very uncomfortable acts. I persisted. Eventually they got tired of me making a nuisance of myself and one of them went off to fetch her.

  "What's going on?" Mrs Keener said as she entered the cabin. "There a problem with the accommodation?"

  "Not as such. The place smells like old jockstraps, but apart from that, no real complaints."

  "Well, I am just so sorry, Gideon. Soldiers ain't always that big on their hygiene. I'd've lent you the use of the stateroom, 'cept that's mine. 'Course, you'd have even more to complain about if this was the real Nagelfar. Sides and decks of that ship are covered with fingernails and toenails, like fish scales, and the crew's all ghosts."

  "I should count myself lucky, then, when you put it like that."

  "Me too. I didn't take a fancy to travelling about in something quite so ghoulish. Wouldn't suit the way I am now. Same way I wasn't keen on wrangling proper monsters like Fenrir and Jormungand to attack Asgard with. I'm a fine, upstanding Southern lady. Don't need to be consorting with low, savage beasts, not when I can have stylish vehicles made for me that do the exact same job but with far less of the fussing and griping and cajoling."

  "You actually believe you're Lois Keener, don't you?"

  "Most of the time, yes," she replied, with casual frankness. "I've been wearing her skin so long, she and me have become one. That's a figure of speech, by the way — wearing her skin. I ain't Ed Gein or that queer fella outta Silence of the Lambs. I've adopted her form and I'm so at home in it now that sometimes I can scarce recall how I used to look."

  "And she's dead, I suppose, the real Mrs Keener."

  "As a doornail. I killed her with my own two hands in her kitchen and buried the body in the woods out behind the yard before the kids came home from school. I'm not sure why I chose her outta all the people I could have. Other than her name, 'course. Couldn't resist that. I suppose the reason was 'cause she was so attractive and unassuming and I just liked the idea of taking some nobody from nowheresville and rocketing her up the ladder to the most powerful position in all Midgard. It appealed to my sense of irony, as well as presenting a challenge to my wits and my silver tongue. Could I do it? Could I make the biggest of all somethings outta nothing? Turned out I could, no sweat. The people of earth — so easy to manipulate, so malleable. Such sheep. All I had to do was give 'em a vision of integrity and steel willpower, wrapped up in a physically appealing package, and they just fell in line. Piece of cake."

  "And she never had a visitation from God, did she? You made that up after."

  "Well, from a god, yes. Me. Nice little twist of the facts, that. Cover story to explain any changes in personality folks might notice. This fella came to her door, pretending to be a preacher, newly arrived in town, all steeple-fingered and pious as you like. And Mrs Keener, so trusting, invited him right in. My smiling face was the last thing she ever saw."

  Mrs Keener said this with such a broad grin, I thought her head was going to split in two.

  "Anyhoo, much as I'd love to stay and chat, Gid, I am on a schedule here. Lots to oversee — mainly the nice little doohickey we're busy building to kill you on. So what can I do for you? Why'd you want to see me?"

  I tried not to imagine what the "doohickey" might be. Those kinds of thoughts were not helpful.

  "I have a favour to ask. Two, actually."

  "Really? You're haggling? You know you ain't in any position to do that. Not at this late stage in the game."

  "A condemned man is entitled to a last request or two, isn't he?"

  "Maybe in a Midgard prison, on death row. But we ain't in Midgard any more, Toto."

  "Still," I said. "You've got me all lined up for a spectacular, messy death. I'm going to be putting on a big show for you. Consider this my fee."

  "Your fee is the lives of those folks at the castle."

  "Then I'm after a small raise. Honest, it's not much. At least hear me out."

  She planted a fist on her hip and cocked her head. "All right then, I'll listen. I ain't guaranteeing I'll say yes, but I'll listen."

  I outlined what I wanted.

  The first thing I asked for brought a mildly puzzled frown and a cry of "Aww, cute."

  The second, a crooked, wicked smile.

  "Let me think about it," Mrs Keener said, turning to go.

  An hour later: "Visitor."

  The frost giants ushered Freya into the cabin. They hulked there with us, all four of them, heads bent under the ceiling. It was a hell of a squash. Freya and I had virtually no room to ourselves.

  "Little privacy maybe?" I said.

  "Orders," said one of them. "Neither of you is allowed out of our sight while you're together."

  "We can barely breathe. How about you back off outside? Leave the door wide open. You'll still be able to see."

  Eventually they agreed.

  Freya and I sat side by side on the bunk. The silence simmered between us.

  Finally she said, "You're an idiot."

  "Not quite the words of condolence I was hoping for."

  "How dare you do something so… so…"

  "Brave? Self-sacrificing?"

  "Selfish."

  I bristled. "Buying other people's lives with my own is selfish how, exactly?"

  She looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were brimming, and I felt bad for snarking at her.

  "Loki might have let everyone go free," she said.

  "I doubt it."

  "But he might have. If you'd just kept your peace, there's every chance…"

  "You know that's not true. Besides, hello? It's Gid you're talking to. I open my mouth and crap comes out before I can stop it. It's the curse of being me."

  "Why couldn't one of the others have done it, though? Why did it have to be you?"

  "I dunno," I said. "I suppose I've become the leader, by default. No, that's too grand. The spokesman. The mouthpiece. So it sort of had to be me. Tall poppy syndrome. You rise up, you have to expect to be cut down. But also…"

  I thought hard. I'd been doing little else but thinking hard since getting locked up in this cabin.

  "I should probably have died in that car crash. Or if not then, immediately afterwards, thanks to those wolves. I was damn lucky. I got a second shot. So everything since has been gravy, as far as I'm concerned. A bonus life. Which makes the idea of losing it that much easier to adjust to. I've had fun. These past few weeks have been baffling, painful, intense, sometimes fucking awful — but what a laugh! I've done shit I'd never in a million years have dreamt of doing, and I've been a warrior again, and fighting a fight worth fighting, what's more. Nothing questionable about working for Odin and defending Asgard. This wasn't some spurious war cooked up by civil servants and businessmen to keep the oil flowing and the rebuilding contracts flooding in. This had meaning. It was clear cut — like the Second World War and unlike any of the conflicts since, except possibly the Falklands. A definite
bad guy with nefarious ambitions, and us the last, best and maybe only hope against him. A soldier couldn't ask for more than that."

  "So at least you've got something out of it."

  "Don't be like that."

  "Like what?"

  "All bitter and twisted. I was going to go on to say something else. One of the most amazing things about this entire situation is that I've met… well, you. Bear with me here, because I'm hellish clumsy when it comes to this sort of stuff. But… I don't know what you think of me, Freya, but I think you are pretty incredible. And incredibly pretty. But mostly pretty incredible."

  I spotted the guards making stupid, leering faces through the doorway.

  "Oh fuck off, you," I snapped. "This is difficult enough as it is, without cockfaces like you getting involved."

  "Concentrate on me, Gid," Freya said, taking my hands. "Ignore them."

  I tried. "I'm a hard-shelled bastard, I know it. I come across like nothing bothers me, nothing gets to me. I love my son, but that's about it as far as finer feelings go. Otherwise, all front, no depth. That's the impression I give, and that's more or less how it is. But you, Freya… I can't get over the fact that you're you and you chose me. You could have anyone, you could go out with gods, but it was humble little mortal Gid Coxall who got the nod. I'm not pretending I don't realise that it's chiefly been about humping one another senseless. I get that. Any port in a storm, and so on. And I'm not against shaggery for shaggery's sake. Far from it. Bring it on, I say. But if there was more to us than that, if I've been more to you than just a convenient booty call, I have to know. You have to tell me."