by Alec Hutson
Silence. The wind strengthened, ruffling the fur of the apes’ bodies. Off the boat’s starboard side, the great turtle’s shell slowly sank without a sound, until it vanished from sight.
The man jumped as the girl came up beside him and laced her fingers with his own. He let the saber drop from his other hand and it clattered on the deck.
She turned to him. “Well done.”
“Please,” he said, “tell me what is happening.”
Her eyes were guileless. “We are going to the city on the island.”
He tamped down a surge of frustration and anger. “I know. Please, who are – no, what are you?”
“I am your guide in this place. My form is drawn from a fragment of your past.”
“What… what are you guiding me toward?”
“The city on the –”
“Yes! Yes, I know. What do we hope to find there?”
“A secret long hidden away.”
“What secret –”
The girl suddenly pulled him forward. “Look! Can you see it? We are there.”
They walked together to the boat’s prow. The dark shape of a great wall was emerging from deep within the mists, crooked towers looming beyond its jagged crenellations.
There was something else, something closer that extended out into the water toward them. A long pier of cracked black stone; in a few moments he would be able to lower himself down onto it.
“What secret are we searching for?” he repeated, gripping the girl’s hand fiercely.
She looked at him again. “The secret of how to save the world.”
“And those apes wanted to keep us from –” He trailed off as he turned to gesture toward the dead creatures on the deck. The bodies were gone, as if they had never been.
“They were fears that needed to be overcome. Now the way to the city and the secret is clear.”
Blinking, he turned around slowly, taking in the ancient steamship, the mist, and the rapidly swelling city of black stone.
“How did I get here?”
“The abbot of the order of the First Radiance put you in a trance so that you could find the thing you had once known but forgotten. The thing that will save the world from the new dark time.”
“This is all in my mind,” he said in wonder, reaching out to touch the boat’s cold metal railing, marveling at the slick of sea spray covering it.
“In a sense,” the girl said. “And in another sense your mind is all in here.”
The steamship glided up alongside the black pier. With a final long, lingering look at the girl, he swung himself over the side of the boat and dropped down.
He staggered slightly as his boots hit the stone, reaching down to steady himself, and as his fingers brushed the city’s pier, he suddenly remembered, in a blazing moment of clarity, who he was.
ARNE DREAMED of fire and blood.
He stood on the prow of his longboat, steadying himself with one hand upon the carven face of the All-Father as the hull slid hissing into the sand of the gray beach. Below him, men fought and died in the frothing surf, screaming battle chants, begging for Valhalla’s doors to swing wide for them if they fell this day.
On the hill above the stony beach, a town was silhouetted against the dawn, shadows picked out against a red sun, and one building loomed above the rest, a tapering spire crowned by a cross…
Small talons curled upon his shoulder. Feathers brushed his cheek as a raven dipped its beak to whisper in his ear. He listened, his stomach churning at what it said.
“Grandfather.”
A new voice. It came from far away, across the anvil-black ocean.
“Grandfather.”
Arne awoke. He lay under heavy furs in his longhouse; Eirik’s boy was there, gently shaking his arm. The air was cold, the fire in his hearth having long gone out. Dust glittered in the harsh midday light falling through the high windows.
Two birds were perched upon the back of a chair. They took flight in a rustle of dark wings, vanishing into the brightness above.
Arne swallowed. What had they told him? Huginn and Muninn did not idly visit Midgard. He must remember! But his thoughts were leaden, as heavy as his bones.
“It is time for food, Grandfather. I brought you fish and bread and ale.”
Arne threw back his bed furs and stood. Eirik’s boy – what was his name? Ah, Hakon – took a step back, his eyes round. How long had it been since he’d left this bed?
“Something is happening today, boy,” Arne rumbled, remembering the flutter of wings. “Tell me.”
The boy swallowed. “There’s… there’s to be a bonfire. In the field beside the river.”
“A bonfire? What is to be burned?” He glanced around his longhouse. His eyes alighted on his mail shirt hanging from the wall, its iron links scarred by rust.
“Get that down for me,” he said, and the boy hurried to obey. He took the mail from the child and slipped it over his head; it settled on his shoulders, heavier than he remembered. He picked up his sword from where it lay upon a table and brushed away a layer of dust.
“You didn’t answer me, boy. What are they burning?”
Hakon stared at him as if he were an aspect of Odin girding for war. “Old things, Grandfather,” he murmured, unable to look away from this wraith of a vanished age.
Old things.
“Come with me,” Arne commanded, pushing through his longhouse’s bearskin flap. Snow blanketed the village, mounded so high against wooden walls that some windows were nearly blocked; the dazzling whiteness burned his eyes, and he ducked his head, blinking back hot tears. The world tilted and he staggered, but before he could fall, small hands gripped his arm, steadying him.
“Careful, Grandfather.”
Arne roughly shook the boy away. “Let me be.”
The field beside the river. Fitting. They had burned the first one there, long ago, the first priest who had come brandishing that book and speaking of the son and the spirit.
Arne grimaced. What had the birds told him? Their message fluttered on feathered wings at the edges of his memory.
With some effort he pushed his way through the knee-high drifts, his breath ghosting the frigid air.
Past the longhouses he saw his people, clustered beside the frozen stream. The dark bulk of the wood lay beyond them, skeletal limbs clutching at the sky. He wondered what watched from the forest today.
“Faster,” he rasped, his heart hammering. How could walking tire him so? Where had his strength fled?
The crowd parted when Arne approached, whispering as they stared. He scowled at them. Rounded backs, bent by labor in the fields. Smooth, unscarred faces. Where were the reavers, the warriors? Who were these farmers and fishermen?
The villagers formed a crescent around a jumbled pile of dyed wood and metal. It took a moment for Arne to realize what it was. The carven prows of the longboats, hacked from the ships and carted here like frozen corpses ready for burial. There was mighty Thor, great Mjolnir raised to smite his enemies. The stormgod had cleaved the waves in front of his brother’s boat, and their father’s boat before him. Beside Thor was one-handed Tyr, his face already a splintered ruin. Baldr, Heimdallr, Vidar, Hodr, Magni – all the greatest warriors of Asgard, crumpled in the snow. And there was the All-Father himself, who had guided Arne’s own longboat across trackless seas, through storms and sorrows.
Arne stalked forward. “Who did this?” he bellowed at the villagers. Many shifted and looked away – they could not meet his blazing eyes.
“I did, Father.” It was a familiar voice. Arne whirled around.
Eirik’s brother, the sly one, stood there smirking. The only son of his whose blood had not stained some distant shore. The coward who had stayed behind with the womenfolk.
Arne scowled. “What is this, Gunnar? Who will bless our boats now when we go raiding?”
His son shook his head, long flaxen braids swinging. “We do not raid anymore, Father. We are people of the cross now.”
Arne spat in the snow. “I killed enough Christians that Hel itself is bursting with those vermin. They are men with milk in their veins. Their only purpose is to be thralls.”
Gunnar glanced to his side, and Arne noticed a stranger stood there, a man in long brown robes, his cowl thrown back to show his tonsured scalp. “Quiet, father,” admonished Gunnar. “Brother Adlard does not wish to hear of your bloody sins.”
The monk bowed his head, his soft brown eyes brimming with compassion. Arne wanted to pluck them from his skull.
“Brother? He is no brother to you. Your brother died putting one of his abbeys to the torch!”
“Silence, Father!” Gunnar snapped. “We are a different people now. Reborn into the eternal glory of Christ. Watch as we cleanse ourselves of the old taint.”
Brother Adlard passed Gunnar a cloth-wrapped length of wood sheathed with pitch. Arne started forward, but strong arms held him back. Flint struck stone and a flame kindled, dripping burning gobbets into the snow. Gunnar tossed the torch among the fallen gods.
“No!” Arne cried, struggling. “This is not our way!”
Black wings churned the air. A raven landed on the cracked shoulder of the All-Father, studying Arne with glittering eyes.
He remembered, then, what the bird had told him. Fingers of flame grasped the old gods, charring the wood as tendrils of smoke uncoiled skyward.
Arne turned to the monk. “I know who you are,” he hissed. With a great effort he broke free of those who held him.
He stalked toward the monk. “You are the son of the jotunn. The father of the Wolf.” Iron rasped as Arne drew his sword. “I name you Loki!”
The monk did not flinch. Then he laughed, high and piercing.
Arne realized with a start that Gunnar was not moving, his mouth slightly parted. He turned. The crowd watching them was frozen. Even the flames had been stilled, shimmering in the sunlight like carvings of gold.
The monk’s face twisted and changed. His chin grew pointed, his hair long and wild. Something ancient looked out from his eyes. “Old man, you are the last. I have wandered these lands for many years, welcoming our Norsemen into the light of a new god. Now my task is nearly done.”
“Why?” whispered Arne.
“It is my last trick, my last betrayal. The Aesir… long have they known the manner of their deaths. Fire and ice creeping over the world. A final battle to bring glory for our kind.”
“Ragnarok.”
Loki chuckled. “Yes. But I decided I did not want to die on some frozen battlefield with Heimdallr’s blade in my gut. So now we gods will simply fade away, the echo of a horn blown over a mist-shrouded sea.”
“You say when I die, so will my gods?”
Loki smirked. “That is our nature.”
The raven cocked its head and shrieked, and the world moved once again. Arne knew what he must do.
“You will find your fate in fire and ice, Trickster! The gods of the north deserve warriors’ deaths!”
He surged forward, wrapping his arms around the monk and sending them both tumbling into the flames. The god cried out, an unholy, piercing wail. Arne felt his body shift and change. He held a bear, a cat, a thrashing salmon, but he did not let go. The flames curled around them.
It was a good way to die.
FEI DIPPED HIS STYLUS in the ink stone and set the nub to paper. A downward slash, hooked at the end. Another angling upward, joining a sweeping arc. Again and again and again, until an army of characters marched across the pages of his exercise book.
Finally he pushed himself away. Lightning flickered outside, illuminating piled storm clouds. Rain lashed the window and drummed against the concrete walls.
The door banged open. Grandmother shuffled into the house, holding a freshly-wrung chicken by its neck. Her faded coat clung to her. She seemed so small and frail.
“Xiao Fei. Tonight is Qingming. The festival of the dead.”
Fei set down his stylus. “But it is raining, Grandmother.”
The old woman snorted. “And you think Grandfather cares, up there under the hill? With your parents in Shenzhen, there is no one else. Take the paper money and the incense. You can finish your work later.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
The way was treacherous, the path up the hill churned to mud. Fei’s cloth slippers were sodden, and his toes ached from the cold. The lantern Grandmother held guttered in the wind.
“Grandmother, why do we honor the dead on this day?”
She didn’t reply for a long moment, and Fei thought she must not have heard him. But then she spoke, and her voice carried the weight of story. “It is the day that, long ago, the great Duke Wen betrayed his most loyal servant, a man so loyal that he had cut meat from his own body to feed the duke in dark times. This man, Jie, fled to escape his master, and the duke burned the forest to drive him back. He died in the blaze, clutching his own mother, and in his sorrow the emperor named this day for him.”
Fei shivered. Branches like skeletal fingers tangled in his hair.
“This is the forest where Jie died long ago. Spirits linger here. I have seen them.”
The chill was in Fei’s heart now. Something shifted in the darkness, the shadow of a shadow. His slipper skidded in the mud – he thought he felt the slightest tug on his shirt and then he was falling backward, his arms flailing as he tried to grab a branch.
He crashed into the long grass, rolling down the hill. Stones stabbed him, and roots like iron bars slammed into his side. He cried out in pain. Finally he came to a stop. His arm hurt. There was utter blackness around him, and the wind howled, full of ghosts whose descendants had abandoned them on this day and left them to wander the night alone.
A ripple in the darkness. Two glimmering points of light appeared, red like the eternal flames, like Buddha’s Naraka. Fei moaned, scrabbling through the brush away from this thing. It swelled above him, filling the night. He smelled charred flesh and heard distant screams, a mother crying out for her dying son.
Then it was gone. A hand brushed his shoulder, calloused and strong. Another smell came to him, Grandfather’s pipe, rich and earthy.
The hand vanished. A crackling in the woods, and the buttery glow of Grandmother’s lantern appeared.
“Come, Fei. Let us find Grandfather’s grave. We must honor him.”
LIGHT IN THE darkness.
It begins as a tiny point, then swells in an instant to fill my optics. All of my sensors come online simultaneously, and I am again flooded with input; my silicon brain drinks of this data greedily, like a dying woman given water after days in the desert.
I am standing on a platform in the middle of the crèche on Deimos, a soaring chamber of metal and machinery. The opalescent egg I was sealed inside during my sleep has been retracted. Across the room from me, through the window of spun hyperdiamond that fills the far wall, the umber surface of Mars slowly rotates. I access my memories – yes, the smears of green staining the planet have expanded since last I was activated. This observation, coupled with my knowledge of how long the terraforming process was projected to take, allows me with some confidence to conclude that my sleep this time has lasted fifty-seven years.
A young woman in a lab coat watches me from below. Her slightly parted lips and dilated pupils tell me that she feels awe in my presence. “Silver angel, have mercy on my soul,” she breathes softly.
My footsteps ring hollowly on the steps as I descend to her. “I cannot access the overnet.”
She swallows and clutches her tablet tighter. “Yes. The crèche has been sealed off temporarily.”
“Why?”
“There are… . developments that we felt would best be explained by one voice, rather than the cacophony of the data stream.”
“Very well. What has happened?”
“A crisis.”
“Of course. You would not have awoken me otherwise. Is it another asteroid?”
The last three times I was summoned from my sl
umber I was called upon to destroy stray celestial detritus that threatened the habitat ring orbiting the ruin of Old Earth. A reasonable guess, but the young woman shakes her head.
“No. Your… . your husband approaches.”
Surprise is not one of the emotions I am programmed for, but still a small frisson of energy goes through me at this revelation. “That is impossible. Father decreed that Arcturus would remain among the outer planets, and I the inner.”
“We are very aware of the restrictions Dr. Nakajima put on your movements. This is why we are so troubled.”
“Have you tried to contact him?”
“He refuses our communication. We do not know why.” I detect a slight fluttering of her pulse as she speaks. She is not lying, but she is not telling the truth in its entirety.
“When will he arrive in Martian orbit?”
“Less than one hour, by our estimate. The remnants of the home fleet are marshalling to slow his progress.”
“The remnants?”
“He has already eliminated the rest.”
Father allowed for us to feel sadness, though I do not know why, and it fills me now. If my husband has destroyed ships with humans aboard then he has violated the first and most sacrosanct of the Laws, and he is well and truly lost. I had thought it impossible, but there must be some fundamental glitch in his programming. I will have to destroy him.
“Very well. Provide for me a means of egress into space so I might go out and challenge him. And return my access to the overnet, in case any clues to my husband’s condition might be found there.”
She nods and taps a code into her tablet. Immediately I am subsumed in a maelstrom of swirling data; the actions of my husband are dominating the news feeds, and I pluck a report at random from the raging tumult.
It is a video taken from the prow of a Hegemon-class attack cruiser. Vast, dark shapes that resemble gutted whales slowly tumble through space, trailing cables and metal like bits of viscera. Occasionally fire or explosions pock the surfaces of these starships and then an instant later are extinguished by the airless void. Floating through the carnage, my husband comes, glittering with power. A coruscating shield of radiant blue sheaths his perfect silvery body, and as I watch, some cannon that has escaped his wrath swivels from near the camera’s position and unleashes a bolt of green plasma. The energy envelops him, but when it dissipates he is unharmed, as I knew he would be. Arcturus gestures toward the cruiser, and the feed is consumed by white light.