“She said they were about Ragnarok—that they could help us defeat Woten.”
Cain leaned forward.
“She never believed in prophesy before. What made her change her mind?”
“I don’t know. She just said it was going to happen.” Every word came out in a gasp. Every gasp hurt like a new stab wound.
“And where are these files?” Cain asked.
“In the computer, next room over.”
Cain pointed toward the wall behind her.
“Over there?”
“Yes.”
He stood and walked past her line of sight. She couldn’t summon enough strength to turn her head.
There was a rumble and rocks falling to the ground. A moment later, Cain stepped back in front of her.
“This computer?” he asked.
She didn’t need to look, they only had one. A computer couldn’t give them light, water, food, or transportation, so it was an unnecessary luxury.
“Yes.”
Cain sat in the chair and rested the computer on his knees. He tapped away at the keyboard and stared at the screen.
“Ah, I see. Herodotus.”
Cain laughed.
“All these years. The answer was right here. I ignored it for the same reason Adrastia did—this man was an old fool with lousy research methods. But it appears I underestimated him.”
He snapped the laptop shut.
“Thank you,” he said. “See, things are so much easier when we’re honest with each other. I’m going to leave now. Once I’m gone, you feel free to heal yourself.”
He came closer to her face.
“What was your name?” he asked.
“Marie.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“I’ll remember that.”
Reality rippled around him and he disappeared from sight.
Marie tore into the Veil and gorged herself on its healing energies. When she felt safe enough to move, she reached for the tooth she’d spit out. Her hands started to shake as soon she saw the blood covering them. Not even her own blood. She couldn’t force herself to look at Richards.
She leaned against the wall, easing the flow from the Veil, but not yet healed enough to cut it off entirely.
The stone barrier Cain had blocked the entrance with rumbled and exploded into the room. Brandt charged in, his hands encased in his gauntlets. Caelum followed closely behind with his bow drawn.
“Shit,” Brandt said, surveying the room and the bodies of Davies and Richards.
Seeing Marie, he rushed to her side.
“Geezus, Marie. Are you ok?”
She nodded.
“I just need a few more minutes,” she said.
“Caelum, check her out.”
Caelum let his bow fade back to the Veil. He placed his hand gently against the side of her head—it felt soft and warm. After a minute, he moved his hand to her shoulder, and then her outer thigh.
“She’s fine,” he said. “But from what I’m sensing, she must’ve been pretty badly injured.”
“Where is the son of a bitch?” Brandt said. “I’ll kill him.”
“It was Cain,” Marie said.
Brandt’s bravado fell.
“Cain? Damn.”
“What was he doing here?” Caelum asked.
“He wanted to know why Adrastia paid us a visit. I told him. He took the computer and the USB stick.”
Brandt punched a hole in the wall.
“So unless Jason miraculously comes back with Takeda’s Solution, we’ve come out with shit.”
Marie smiled.
“I said he took the computer and USB stick. I never said anything about the hard copies I had made.”
20
Knitting Fates
A plump, fleshy hand, delivered a series of soft taps against Gwynn’s cheek.
“Hello?” a feminine voice said. “We know you’re still alive in there, child. How about you open your eyes a bit.”
Gwynn’s eyelids creaked open, as though fighting the glue of days worth of sleep.
“Who are you?”
How long had he been here? Where was Xanthe?
The woman who’d been tapping away at his face leaped off the shoulders of a much older woman. The two sat down at a table set several feet from the foot of the tree where Gwynn was pinned.
A third girl—because she was many years younger than the other two, perhaps in her early teens—sat at the table with knitting needles clicking away. The other two women joined her. The slappy one could’ve been the teen’s mother—full hips and bosom, a woman not overweight, but no stranger to taste-testing her concoctions in the kitchen. The third filled the role of grandmother—stooped forward with age, her hair thin and silver, hanging down, partly covering her face.
Gwynn tried to summon any moisture in his mouth to bring life back to his constricted throat.
“Who are you?” he said again, a little stronger.
“No one,” the young one said.
“Everyone,” the mother said.
“The only one who matters,” the grandmother added.
“I don’t understand,” Gwynn said.
The three laughed in unison, a chord of bell-like highs, deeper, fuller mids, and husky, raspy lows.
“You should’ve seen us first,” the oldest one said. “Young people today…you’re always trying to skip steps.”
“Now, now,” the mother said, “the boy just doesn’t know the way things were done before. Besides, just because he did things in that order doesn’t make it right. It just makes it his way of doing things. This boy, he’s going about things the way he wishes.”
“I doubt he wished to be stabbed through the chest and pinned to a tree,” the young one said.
The middle aged mother figure pursed her lips and studied Gwynn through scrunched up eyes.
“You’re probably right,” she said with a shrug. “But if we want to get somewhere, we have to follow the road, regardless of how bumpy.”
“I’d call that more of a pot hole,” the old one said, followed by a dry cackle that degenerated into a coughing fit.
“Do you ever just answer a question?”
“Sometimes,” the young one said, wearing a coy smile.
“Always, when it is pertinent,” the middle-aged one answered.
“Every single one, only people are too stupid to know when we have,” the old one sneered.
The young one put her needles down and started dancing about, her pale yellow skirt a twirling tornado around her.
“We have so many names, they’re unimportant. Stop asking the obvious question and ask the important ones.”
Gwynn’s body felt weightless, as though he’d lost all sensation below his neck. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been awake or aware of his body. Xanthe skewered him, pinning him to this tree. What had he done since then? Was he sleeping? Dreaming? Was this a dream? No, he wouldn’t ask them, they’d pass it off as unimportant. He couldn’t feel below his neck. Had Xanthe severed his spine? He ached to see Sophia and Allison one more time, to say goodbye. Because if he was paralyzed, they should leave him for Cain and run as far as they could. If Cain found Gwynn alone, they’d be safe. If he couldn’t protect them by being stronger, then he’d protect them through sacrifice.
“You’re not paralyzed,” the older woman said without lifting her eyes from her clicking needles.
“How did you…” Gwynn cut himself off—he figured it was another useless question.
The older one didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she smiled knowingly to herself.
“You’re human, it’s obvious you’d think those things,” she said. “Besides, we’re currently bouncing around your soul. There’re few things we don’t know about you, or what you’re thinking.”
“Which means…”
“Yes, there’s really no need for you to ask any questions. We’re just telling you the things we choose.” She laughed. “We’re bitches that
way. Fine, a few straight answers. We are sometimes called the Norns, or the Fates, or, yes, a number of other things. We weave, knit, carve runes, and whatever other imagery we pull from the mind of a person. Like everything in the Veil, our appearance is strictly your mind interpreting electrical impulses in your mind. Our true form is formless. Just like the dragon who swallowed you, or the very tree you’re pinned to, we exist and don’t exist all at the same time. As to why we’re here, well, you may not be aware, but you summoned us.”
The young one ceased her twirling dance and sat back at the table. The middle-aged one stood and paced at the base of the tree.
“Sometimes,” she said, “our heart knows and desires things our mind cannot fathom. Which is why your heart saw fit to sacrifice you on that particular tree. Another man hung there many years ago. He learned a great deal—much of it he has since put to disappointing use.” Her eyes unfocused from him and she shook her head remorsefully. “You came here seeking power to save your family. I’m afraid we’ve decided to interfere with your plans.”
“What do you mean? I have a wife and child I need to protect.”
“And you will,” she said. “For as long as this existence chokes on its final breaths. But how many other wives and children died on your day of chaos?”
“I was…”
“Used. Tricked. Deceived. We could go on, but you don’t really believe any of those words. It’s why you’re the one hanging on that tree and the other is running around doing whatever he pleases. You have been the one to suffer and take personal responsibility. The other has led a life of excess. You have things you love and want to protect, but I’m here warning you that in order to gain what you need, you will see the worlds for what they are. And when you’re done, you will realize there isn’t time to hide and live your life quietly. You will need to change reality with your own two hands.”
Gwynn laughed.
“I’m sorry. But your choice of words is sort of funny.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
Gwynn focused on lifting the stump of his right arm.
“I mean, two hands?”
The middle-aged woman nodded her head.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right—I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“That’s my job,” the young one said with a giggle. “You’re supposed to be concerned with the here and now.”
“It’s a turn of speech, you brat.”
“And now your speech is turned? Turned to what?”
The middle-aged woman waved the younger one off like a bad smell. The elderly one remained silent but wore a sly smile.
“Then let me get to the present,” the motherly one said. “You are not pinned to just any tree, but to Yggdrasil—the world tree. Which isn’t really a tree—as I’ve said, everything here is just in your head. But this is a very real source of great energy which connects everything to each other. In a place such as the Veil, inhabited by sentient bodies of energy, Yggdrasil stands as the silent rock we all lean on. I can’t say whether the tree has a mind of its own or whether it is just a silent life-sustaining creature like trees in your own world. You Anunnaki have passed through the Veil for centuries. The main way is to envelop yourself in the safety of your own soul. What you don’t realize is your soul is traveling along the branches of the tree. Yggdrasil is our path through this infinite space you call the Veil. Every happening, all the knowledge and functions of existence, are carried within its infinite branches. And right now, you’re as close as any of your kind can come to being a part of it.”
She returned to the table and began knitting. The grandmotherly one stood and hobbled to the foot of the tree.
“Only one other Anunnaki has hung upon Yggdrasil. You call him Woten, though he has more commonly been named Odin. Upon that tree, pierced through his chest, sacrificed to himself by his own hand, he remained for nine days. In that time, he learned the runes. The myths interpret those as the runes used by the Nordic people. And while that is partly true, more importantly, he learned about the runes carved upon the flesh of the Anunnaki. His knowledge made him powerful, heightened his understanding of how creation operates, and probably set us upon this course where he orchestrated the destruction of billions of worlds.”
She sighed so heavily, her whole body shook with it. She approached the tree, just beneath Gwynn. He couldn’t see her but heard her groaning with effort. He assumed she had sat on the ground by the tree’s roots.
“Your shadow, the one you associate with the name Cain, learned his mastery of the runes through more nefarious means—by feeding off the powers of other Anunnaki like one of your legendary vampires.”
Gwynn’s eyes widened.
“He what?”
She laughed without any joy.
“Horrible. Yes, I know. Such is the true power of the Catalyst.”
“You mean…I can…”
“Oh yes, you could do it too. Well, you have the ability, but I doubt very much you could actually do it. Your loss filled you with sorrow and longing—you blamed yourself for surviving. You would never willingly cause another to feel such loss. Cain, well, he became angry, bitter, and then reveled in the joy of no one to tell him no. He learned he held the power of creation in his palm, and he used it. And when he discovered he could become stronger, he took the opportunity.”
“But they were his children,” Gwynn said.
“Yes. Very true.” Her voice seemed more distant, drifting back to things she didn’t want to discuss, but had no choice. “Hence the stories of parental gods devouring their young. And why so many legends exist of those same offspring rising up against their father. It wasn’t rebellion, just self-preservation. Besides, not all were his children. Most were grandchildren or great grandchildren, or great, great, great, well, you understand. I wonder if he even knew he shared a blood connection with them. But it doesn’t excuse what he did. All that stolen energy came here. Even though you didn’t take it, you can still benefit from his evil. But will you?”
She groaned, coming back into Gwynn’s field of vision as she hobbled back to the table.
The young one rose to her feet again, twirling in the same skipping dance at the foot of the tree. She sang a wordless tune Gwynn recognized, but couldn’t place.
After a few minutes, she stopped and looked up at Gwynn with a wide smile.
“And now you need to decide what you’re going to do,” she said. “We didn’t bother Odin when he hung on the tree, I suppose it’s sort of a pain. But we didn’t want to waste too much time waiting for you to figure things out for yourself.”
“Should I thank you?”
She shrugged like she couldn’t care less.
“If we were doing this out of kindness, I suppose you should. But we have our own reasons for helping you.”
“You’re not going to tell me what those are, are you?”
She giggled.
“We don’t need to. You’ll find out soon enough. Actually, it’s probably for the best you find out yourself. You skin types seem to do better that way. But,” she elongated the uh sound playfully, “I will give you some hints about what you should do next. We like to be mysterious, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be helpful. You will need both hands to change the world. I mean, anyone, regardless of handicap, can change the world. But you’re going to need a way to defend yourself against Cain. It’ll be much easier with both hands.”
Gwynn closed his eyes and let his head hang forward.
“You know that’s sort of impossible, right?” Gwynn said. “I mean, it was chopped off seven years ago while it was inside the Bifrost.”
The young girl growled.
“He’s going to make me explain,” she said, turning to the other two women. “I don’t do the past. Uror, that’s your job. Get back over here and explain.”
The older woman tut-tutted behind her teeth.
“Veroandi is right, you’re acting like a brat, Skuld. You saw how I’m hobbling—just take care o
f it yourself.”
The young girl, Skuld, Hmphed, turned her back on the two women.
“Fine,” she said, her nose raised in the air. “Your arm was in the Bifrost. And what did the Bifrost travel through? Oh right,” she said abruptly, cutting off any hope Gwynn had of answering, “the Veil. And do you really think anything rots or dies here? Time is meaningless. You could hang on that tree for a thousand years and never grow older than a day. It’s part of the reason why you naturally born Anunnaki don’t age properly. So yeah, your arm is here, in the Veil. It’s spent all this time soaking up this place’s sweet energies. You all rely on weapons you shape from your hearts, but how powerful do you think your arm is now? The heart can be so fragile and fickle. But your hands can be strong and determined. You can depend on your own two hands more than your heart.”
Gwynn laughed incredulously. It hurt, but he didn’t care. He laughed more just to mock the absurdity.
“And where should I look? Or even better, what the hell am I going to do with the arm when I find it? The wound healed a long time ago.”
“Really?” Skuld said to the women, seeming to have forgotten they’d made her angry only a moment ago. “You think this one is going to help?”
She shook her head.
“Well, we happen to know exactly where your stupid arm is. And as to what to do about it, just touch it to where it belongs. The Veil never forgets anything. So long as they’re reunited here, your body and arm will remember they belong to each other. But first, you should finish communing with the tree.”
“Please explain that,” Gwynn said.
“Did you not understand the stories Veroandi and Uror told you?”
“In the stories,” Gwynn said, “Odin gave himself as a sacrifice in his own name. I’m not a god. I was pinned here by Xanthe, who apparently hates me.”
“Odin is no god,” Skuld said. “You should know that better than anyone else. And as for Xanthe, I think his actions were partly because he was compelled to, but also his anger at you leaving him behind.”
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