The All Father Paradox

by Ian Stuart Sharpe

  Both Jötnar were crumpled and dying. The way they were splayed out on the chair reminded him of the good old days, one of the ancient níðstang, the curse poles he used to set, but there wasn’t time to dignify them with a curse or reminisce further.

  He turned around slowly, dreading what might appear on the next broadcasts. The Roarer was there, on all the screens at once, each slightly out of sync. His old friend was laughing, the crazed belly laugh of a clown, albeit hauntingly silent. Like a side-splitting routine in talkies, a golden oldie from the Wizards of Midvaten. The slight delay between monitors made his face flicker, as if each signal had a poor frame rate. The “again-walkers” gave themselves away, wreathed in foxfire. Gest had seen that halo on all the broadcasts. That was why he re-enlisted. It was there now, in the static.

  The senior Skuld, Niði Bohr, was on the central screen, surrounded by a ring of ruin. The monitors looked like a chess board, with Bohr the surrounded king. He was going to fire HEIMDAL, he said, even if the blast would destroy them all. It was best to lose all that knowledge, better than giving it to the enemy. Or something like that—Gest was doing his best to lip read. He remembered he’d served with his grandfather, or maybe his great-grandfather, on HMS Hǫttr. He had every faith in the lector to go down all guns blazing.

  The screen went dead, leaving Gest alone with his ghosts. He had to run if he was to save his skin.

  “Then the gods took the sparks and burning embers that were flying about after they had been blown out of Muspellheimr, and placed them in the midst of the firmament both above and below to give light to heaven and earth. They gave their stations to all the fires, some fixed in the sky, some moved in a wandering course beneath the sky, but they appointed them places and ordained their courses.”

  —Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda, “Gylfaginning”

  THE NEAREST HANGAR WAS A wide-open wound, ripped apart by an unimaginable force. Some of the great Skuld missiles were still pirouetting above the fracture, globules of fire smouldering where they had struck home. He snatched an oxygen mask and hurled himself across the emptiness, through ruptured suits and desiccated Einherjar bodies, aiming for one of the shuttle craft on the far side. A mottled Hrimthurssar, partly roasted by the explosions, hooted at him from a loading bay as it drifted slowly out of sight, spinning in the fluctuating gravity.

  As a boy, Gest used to lie under the stars, naming the constellations. Óðinn’s Vagn was always there—the All Father, who, stepping into his chariot, held seven stars in his hand, showing his people the way. Gest would watch the leidang and dream of raiding foreign shores, knowing the warriors were guided by the leiðarstjarna, augu Þjaza, or Friggjarrokkr. He remembered it being bitterly cold as the boats drifted out of the bay, covering the horizon with a thousand painted sails.

  It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen those stars for hundreds of years, but still, those days seemed more real to him than the alien skies outside the Ring. A perpetual red-blood evening, a gown pierced with diamond studs. He reached the door, prised it open, and flung himself inside. He was operating on instinct. At his age, he was surprised to find self-preservation was such a driving force. Perhaps it was because he was the keeper of his own demise—the candle was his to light, and his alone. He certainly wasn’t going to give the Roarer that satisfaction.

  The shuttle was already spooled up. There were two gapmenn splashed in the drive seats, unconscious but breathing.

  “They were like that when I found them,” rasped a familiar voice from behind him.

  Niði Bohr. Alive and kicking.

  “I suspect they tried to fire up the shuttle’s drive for a quick escape. Didn’t engage the magnetic field properly.”

  “Will they be okay?” the old Viking asked.

  He turned to face Bohr, cooped up in the rear of the shuttle, like a brooding hen. His visor was dark, as if he had been ready to use the drive himself. The lector appeared unarmed and didn’t seem threatened or surprised by Gest’s sudden arrival.

  “A bad case of neuralgia. Damaged nerves, headaches. That kind of thing. Or maybe, just a bad case of nostalgia. Looks like there is going to be a lot to miss,” Bohr said, looking out the rear hollow at the burning deck. “You’re looking a little more… perky than when we last met. Glad to see you up and about. MIM was right. I’m not sure why I am surprised. Infinity does rather cover all eventualities.”

  “I thought you were going to blow the Ring. Make like lightning and bolt,” Gest said.

  “No hurry. We’ve got time on our side. Well, you do. How much of this ‘situation’ do you understand?” The Skuld carried on looking out, scanning for signs of attack.

  “It’s hard to misunderstand the end of the world. I’ve heard it described plenty of times. Have you ever visited Aztland? Hot and humid place, full of lakes and mountain springs, a week’s sail north of Rauðstréland. I travelled there once, met the wisest man I ever knew. Fasting Coyote was his name. I told him about our empire that stretched across the seas and the skies. I warned him that it was soon to swallow his cities too. You know what he said?”

  “Enlighten me,” said Bohr.

  “The caverns of Earth are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sat upon thrones, deciding causes, possessing treasures, governing armies, conquering provinces, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise, and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of volcanoes, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they are written.”

  “You’ve a good memory.” The Skuld seemed genuinely impressed.

  Gest shrugged. “Easy to remember. The empress called me a walking history book. This rude skin is all I have of value. Besides, Ragnarok isn’t rocket science.”

  “No, but it is quantum mechanics. Do you know what that is?” said Bohr.

  “From the Latin quantus, meaning how great?”

  “You know Latin?” He seemed even more impressed, excited even, if the wobbling of his chins was anything to go by.

  “I knew someone once who did,” Gest said.

  “I can only imagine. Clearly, the world we knew is ending. We might be the only four people left alive.” The Skuld sighed heavily and returned his gaze to the window, evidently hopeful that some of his colleagues might also make it to the hangar.

  Gest looked down at the lifers. On closer inspection, one of them was female.

  “Even if she’ll have us, I’m too old for children, and no offence, you might be too fat. It’s a moot point—what kind of a world would they be brought into?”

  “No offence taken. I’ve no interest in children of my own. But, my dear fellow, Ragnarok isn’t an ending. It’s a chance to try again,” he said, matter-of-factly, looking down at the unconscious crew.

  An explosion rocked the whole Ring, and both men were forced to steady themselves on whatever they could hold onto.

  “Shouldn’t we be leaving?” said Gest.

  “Like I said, no hurry. If I am right, all of this…” Bohr gestured widely. “…has to wait for you.”

  “Very polite, but I’m no one special. I’m not much more than a farmer that Odin forgot to take into Valhöll.” Gest laughed, joylessly.

  The Skuld grew serious and pointed a finger straight at Gest. His voice trembled with accusation.

  “Once a candleman, always a candleman, the apprentice holding a light for his master to work. You, sir, are much more than that. Do you really think you stayed alive because of a fucking candle not being lit?”

  “You don’t believe in prophecies?” Gest recalled the interrogation quite clearly, despite the drugs. He knew the lector had heard as much of his life story as anyone.

  “I believe only in the world at my fingertips. A prophecy isn’t magic. It is best explained as a form of entangled history. Two parts of time that have become inextricably and intimately linked. One in the past, one in the future. One forwards,
one backwards. Now, you are a quirk of fate, in the sense that you are anchored between alternate realities as well. Sideways, in a sense. I think you have been caught up in something we barely have the words for.”

  Gest tried to laugh, but his attempt just made a hollow sound. His throat had gone dry.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. I’m not sure I do, and I am one of the smartest men who ever lived. You know what an expert really is? A person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. What I am trying to tell you is this: you shouldn’t be here, a thousand years after you were born. You know that, deep down. And in some senses, you aren’t here. I checked with MIM, after our little chat earlier with the admiral. Nornagest is born, lives a long and eventful life, but dies in the reign of Olaf Tryggvason.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “No, in fairness, neither had I. King of Norway, 995 to 1000 AD apparently. Converted the North to Christianity. MIM pulled it out of a text called the Flateyjarbók.”

  “Never heard of that, either.”

  “Quite. The history of Tryggvason and the Flateyjarbók doesn’t exist for us. In our reality, Christianity has collapsed to the Fringes, and places like Mímisbrunnr. Places where only outcasts and misfits survive.”

  “I know that too. I speared the Patriarch of Rome. If I close my eyes, I can still hear his prayers. So, what? I am in two places at once? I have a twin I never met?”

  “In the reality MIM found, Christianity is the dominant religion. You were a living relic, the last remaining survivor of the Age of Heroes. You were baptised and freed from the protection of the Norns. King Olaf lit your candle himself. Did you know this? Nornagest, from the Old Norse, means ‘guest of the Norns.’”

  “Him I know. Them I’ve met, although I was a babe-in-arms.”

  “Names have power. Yggdrasil whispers them to us throughout eternity. They are patterns to be traced and recognised, clues waiting to be deciphered.”

  Gest might have been shocked by some of this, had he not woken up a few dozen times, healed of a wound that would have felled an ox. It was actually a relief to find someone to talk about it with at long last.

  “So, what are you suggesting? You understand why I have lived so long? It’s more than a prophecy, or what the Norns decreed?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t had time to sit down and work through the implications. MIM had no sooner dredged up your details than Miklagard imploded and all this began. I have a working theory. There are all kinds of forces of attraction in the universe, gravity, magnetism, electricity and so on. We haven’t discovered them all. When we calculated why the universe is structured the way it is, we found there simply isn’t enough of it to keep it all neat and tidy. There must be something that keeps the stars clustered. Keeps it all working. Something that breathes life into the Nine Worlds. A Cosmological Constant, my friend Einnsteinen called it. Perhaps the Norns are that constant.”

  “You people with the seiðr, the Orders, you can’t see all these links? Not even using your mathematics?”

  “Everything we experience is only a tiny fraction of reality. As to the rest, we are in the dark. I have an analogue in the other thread too, Niels Henrik David Bohr, according to MIM. Other than that, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

  “I’m sorry. This isn’t a world I am familiar with. Did I mention, I retired from all this? I wanted some peace and quiet, lived with the Skræling. Carry on far enough, beyond the Grjótbjǫrg there is a coast, with countless islands, like crumbs swept from a banquet table. Good for fishing,” Gest said, happily sailing on the parts of the Peaceful Ocean that still lapped at the corners of his mind.

  “But you came back,” said Bohr. “That speaks volumes. You were pulled back by this unseen force.”

  “I only came out of the West when I heard the broadcasts. I came to deal with it, put an end to the mischief of the barrow-fiend.” The thought capsized his mental boat, almost as violently as it had the first time.

  “I know why you came back. If I were to bet, whatever you are, you aren’t alone. Interesting you can’t mention its name.” The Skuld tapped his finger on the side of his nose.

  “The draugr? His name was Olaf.”

  “And you two have a shared history?”

  “We go way back. I can’t remember the first time I met him, but I was already old. Remember, I was in my prime when the Gotar sailed for Reidgotaland and Sigurd the Völsung went to war, when Rome fell to fire and sword—somewhere at the turn of the first millennium.”

  Bohr clapped his hands in delight.

  “About the time your candle was lit. If we follow the Christian thread. That’s not a coincidence. The Universe doesn’t like inconsistencies.”

  “The last time I saw him, before Jötunheim that is, was his funeral near Jorvik. He shouldn’t be alive. You think the mound-dweller has a Norn’s blessing too? A talisman of his own?”

  Nothing surprised him anymore, not even seeing an old comrade returned as a draugr. He was certain the body had been burnt and sent out to sea with all the reverence due a great Viking hero, but there had been so many men slain in those days, so many honours for the fallen.

  Bohr shook his head.

  “Probably not a literal candle. More of a shadow, a halo. Did you ever stop to wonder if you were a draugr too, returned from the grave?”

  “What? No,” said Gest. “The draugr owns all kinds of deceits and masks that—”

  “Odin was as much a trickster as Loki. Don’t worry, I am not accusing you of being a beast from beyond. But I am saying, you share a common bond.”

  Gest remembered the camaraderie of the Viking Age. The hirdsmenn had always been joined at the hip. The Skuld was making a spooky kind of sense.

  “Blood-brothers, then, like Loki is to Odin. And if I am an anomaly from our thread of history then—”

  “He is probably a glitch too,” said Bohr. “From the other side of whatever coin is currently spinning. A Christian warrior, a warden like Heimdallr. Come to collect his debts. This Olaf is likely a cipher for you. He wiped his fingerprints from MIM’s memory, so I can’t tell you more. But he shouldn’t be here any more than you should.”

  Bohr looked very pleased with himself and leaned back against the window. All manner of memories were bubbling to the surface now, and Gest found he was suddenly able to solve his own puzzles.

  “Well, that explains something. That’s why the Witch Queen only saw three witnesses in her dream. I could never understand that. So, what happens next? The shade has been denied his rightful thread, so he has brought about our doom. But you were saying he can’t proceed without me?”

  “My conjecture is that the Thought and Memory Drive has unravelled reality. Creation is like a knot, full of tangled threads. Separate, yes, but intimately linked. Now those threads are teasing apart. We’ve inadvertently broken a bond without knowing it. One of those forces of attraction I was talking about.”

  “We’ve killed the Norns?” Gest groaned.

  “If you like. You said Ellisif spoke of one who would rock Yggdrasil to its roots. The World Tree is the best-known example of entanglement.”

  “A wave is a ring. There is seldom a single wave. This doom or the next,” Gest intoned, lost in thought.

  “What do you mean?” Bohr’s mind was certainly more agile than his body, but the old warrior was going places he couldn’t follow.

  “Another thing Ellisif once said,” Gest said. “This kind of thing happens over and over, does it?”

  “You do have a good memory. The passage of time isn’t a corridor from point A to point B, it’s a great boundless sea. And you and your friend are making waves. I wonder where they go.”

  Gest didn’t know what else to say. He thought about how Harald would have dealt with the conundrum, but resisted the temptation to swear repeatedly. There were another series of explosions outside that shook the floor. No one els
e was coming.

  “Shall we leave the sermon for later? I doubt our Loki has quite finished with us yet. Will this thing work?” he said, jutting his chin in the direction of the lifers slumped over the control panel.

  “I’ve no doubt that I can fire it up,” Bohr said.

  “Where do we go? Can we escape Ragnarok? Even Odin was inevitably swallowed by the wolf,” Gest said.

  He made room for the lector to squeeze past him and slump into the pilot seat. Bohr began running through the systems, sifting over the interface on his visor.

  “Did you see the body? Never assume someone is dead unless you see the body,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, this is my first Ragnarok,” Gest said, mustering all the sarcasm the end of the world warranted.

  “I’m saying that an old conjurer like Odin could escape his fate. He’d worked with the Norns long enough. In all the invisible places we’ve discussed, you don’t think he carved a back door? Made a hide-away? Oh, heavens…”

  Bohr suddenly stopped, lost momentarily in thought. He whistled, then turned to look straight at Gest, a whole new level of excitement trembling through him.

  “Even Trumba guessed it, intuited it, with her limited grasp of seiðr. A circular argument, she called it. Yggdrasil hasn’t been whispering. She is an echo chamber. She’s been warning us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the sagas, who is Odin’s father?”

  Gest was back on familiar territory. Campfire songs and legendary sagas were his meat and drink.

  “Borr. Son of Búri,” he answered, without hesitation.

  “Borr, yes. Sound familiar?”

  Gest had thought he’d seen it all. He’d seen fylkirs and emperors crowned and killed and stared disbelieving as Karl Lind vanished before his eyes, but he’d never witnessed anything as bold as this.