The task of finding Odin was temporarily delayed by two things. The first was the need to avoid the rising water. The second was that the heavens seemed to have opened. In the rain it was hard to find their own way, let alone locate anyone else.
They fought their way uphill. There was lightning about, but it all seemed to be to the east somewhere. "Papa," said Thrúd proudly. "Look at that!"
Sheets of lightning lit up the sky. "I feel almost sorry for the fire giants," she added, not sounding sorry at all.
The rain did seem to be slackening off by the time they got up the rise. They could see a short distance now, far enough to see that the Gjallar river had already filled its gorge and was spilling out onto the fenlands next to the wall.
"Well, at least I know where we are now," said Thrúd. "Odin's Valhöll lies over that ridge."
"He's not likely to be there, though," said Jörmungand, peering through the rain.
"Two of the life-sources from outside this Ur-world have penetrated your walls," said the Krim device. "And you need to intervene in the battle on the plain. It goes badly for Surt."
"I am Lord of Battles, Thing. Don't try to tell me what to do." Odin had long since banished the Krim persona and taken complete charge of himself. "Even if Surt falls, the walls of Asgard cannot be taken by frost or mountain giants. They are stuck outside."
"Except that two of your enemies are inside, I told you."
"Mortals?"
That was what Odin termed life-sources. "Yes."
Odin took Gungnir and stood up. "Thjalfi, bring those retainers of yours. You've got some of your own kind to deal with."
Odin-Krim did not seem to understand. What had been done so far, raising the old altars, reenacting the old myths with believers had reanimated this Mythworld. It would inevitably start to slowly fade without non-Ur-Mythworld believers importing energy into the system. Such a construct was energy expensive. It might be stable enough for a few hundred years, but real stability, the kind the Krim liked, took far more energy. A lot more belief and a lot more lives, both within and from outside.
Dripping wet, Marie led her Valkyrie troop into Bilskríner, Thor's home.
Nobody was at home, except for the stable thrall, Lodin. He swallowed hard at the sight of her.
"The master is away." Lodin rose hastily from in front of a fire he probably wasn't supposed to be sitting at, looked at her guiltily and put down a foaming horn. "It was so cold and wet, and with even the goats gone, and Ragnarok here I thought . . ."
Marie waved him to sit. "We've brought three hundred and eleven horses for you to look after. And I reckon you deserve a raise and some decent living quarters. And we're all starving. Any food in the place?" The truth was, she wasn't starving. But maybe food would help her with the light-headedness.
"Lots of smoked salmon. And some flattbrød."
"Excellent," said Marie, vaguely wondering what flattbrød was. "Let's get the horses in and eat. Brynhild will organize food and some more fires. Lodin, drink up and come and open the stables, and you can tell me where that husband of mine has got to."
The ravens were up, flying across a rain-drenched Asgard, and Odin was riding Sleipnir followed by a pack of Einherjar. Trailing behind them were Thjalfi-Harkness and Bott and Stephens, struggling to ride.
The sun broke through as they crested a ridge . . . and stopped. Relieved, Agent Bott managed to catch up, in time to see the entire group staring out across a lovely lake. It was a pretty sight, even if you could see the mirrored reflection of two dragons in it.
"Loki!" screamed Odin. "Curse you, trickster!" He turned on his Einherjar. "Get down there and unblock it!"
Bott looked at the lake, lapping against the wall. Must be some sort of drain that was blocked. It looked quite deep.
A raven dropped onto Jerry's shoulder. "Odin is looking for you," said Hugin. "Got any jelly beans?"
Jerry didn't. But Thrúd did. "Where is he?"
"Back along that trail," said the raven. "Good war going on down there. Plenty of fresh corpses. Waste of time to be flying around here."
"Why don't you go and fly there and tell Loki we're in and the Gjallar river is blocked and rising."
"Has he got more jelly beans?"
Thrúd nodded. "And lots of dead fire giants. I think you'll like them."
Hugin took flight and the party of four took the trail that the raven had pointed a wing at. It was narrow and steep, leading up a spur, and hard going for Jörmungand.
"I wonder if we wouldn't be wise to wait in ambush," said Jerry.
"Too late," said Sigyn.
Sure enough, there was Odin on the neck of the trail. He couldn't have chosen a better spot for self-defense either. There were a series of steep curving rock steps zigging into the little gully and then zagging out again, so that if they came up to attack him they could be neatly speared from above. It was also such a narrow gully that Jörmungand would have to skirt around rather than go up it.
Behind Odin were the traitorous Bott and Stephens and Thor's man Thjalfi. Odin started to lower his spear and then spotted Jörmungand. "Einherjar!" he bellowed.
Odin didn't have Thor's voice, but he obviously thought he had backup coming.
Jerry studied the situation, and didn't like what he saw. If the Einherjar came up behind them, they could attack Jörmungand before she could turn. And if she did turn, then Odin, on horseback and with a spear, would surely kill some of them. Sigyn had a knife and Jerry a sword he really didn't know how to use, and a net that he could see no way to use at all. Thrúd could certainly use her battle-axe, but one-eyed Odin was the lord of battles, for all his faults. He probably was the second most powerful warrior of all the Æsir, and he had cunning on his side.
Cunning that led him to turn to Thjalfi. "Go down."
Thjalfi paled, and turned to his foot-soldiers. "Get them."
Nervously, they began to advance.
Jörmungand spat venom at them. It fell short, but where it landed, it actually ate into the rock, hissing.
The two PSA agents stopped. Both began unlimbering what looked suspiciously like crossbows.
Jerry decided to try to beat Odin at his own game. He concentrated on speaking English. He had no idea if his words were being translated or not.
"Why are you doing this? I'm a fellow American!" he shouted.
"We've got a job to do. And we're as stuck here as you are!" That came from Stephens, putting a quarrel in the groove. He jerked his head at Thjalfi. "And we figure Mr. Harkness here is the boss, in this situation—and those are his orders."
"Think very carefully about what you are doing. We have found a way back. The sphinx and Bes and Cruz made it through. They've taken Ella and Ty and Tolly back. Cruz is coming with reenforcements and soon we should all be able to head home to America. That applies to you too, if you take that bastard down."
The agent stopped in the act of cocking the crossbow.
His fellow agent put a hand on Stephens' weapon, pushing it down. "We can go home," said Bott, with huge relief. "Stephens, we'll have succeeded in our mission. We've got Mister Harkness, after all." He, too, nodded at Thjalfi.
Suddenly, a lot of things made sense to Jerry. "Harkness is in his fifties and overweight and bald. I know. I was shown pictures at the debriefing. You must have seen pictures too. This guy is not Harkness. Anyway, I don't care who he is. Right now we have one Æsir against us. Help us, and we'll help you."
Stephens blinked. "But he knows all the codes . . ."
Bott blinked also. "He said he was magically disguised . . ."
"Apples of youth," snarled Thjalfi. "And I am telling you that it is in the national interest that you kill that man. He's anti-American."
"Do that and you lose all chance of going home," said Jerry with a confidence he didn't feel. "Odin—"
The wavering Bott turned, and at that moment, Thjalfi-Harkness cut him down from behind, with a vicious stroke through his spine and heart. Stephens, beginning to turn, realized that Odin's spear was leveled at him. His companion's body abruptly disappeared.
"You killed him," said Stephens incredulously.
"Shoot them," said Thjalfi-Harkness, his voice harsh. "I haven't got this far to be stopped by some longhaired university left-wing asshole. Get the dragon first."
Just then a bat-winged spiky shadow passed overhead.
"Down there! That's Jerry!" yelled Liz, looking at the scene.
"And that's our darling," said Bitar, almost throwing Liz off with his delighted wriggle. "Jörgy! Roses are red, and violets are blue, and they both stink compared to you!"
Lamont was also having to cling, desperately, as Smitar did an aerial dance for Jörmungand too. "My darling, how I hunger for your touch and your lunch, let's get a bunch to munch!" he caroled.
"Set us down before you drop us. And spare us any more Vogon poetry!" said Liz.
Hastily the dragons swooped down on the ridge, and Liz and Lamont bailed onto the rocks above the stand-off. It was a dangerous maneuver, but it beat more poetry.
Looking down, Liz could see Stephens raising his crossbow, and Jörmungand fluttering her eyelashes at her suitors.
"Stephens, I'll shove that thing up your ass sideways unless you drop it!" yelled Liz.
Lamont, ever practical, was lifting a large rock.
Jörmungand looked up at the aerial acrobatics. "Boys," she said, "I hear some knights coming to attack our rear. Could you . . . "
Marie had come out to get a bit of fresh air. The smell of food was appetizing, but maybe the cancer had advanced more rapidly than she'd expected or she'd been asleep longer than she realized. Lodin, poor thrall, had retreated from a house full of females too. He was about to run into the stables, when Marie looked up at the ridge. And screamed.
"What's wrong?"
"I know those two dragons! And I'll bet that's my husband! I can tell by the way he moves. Lodin, please—help me up onto one of these damn winged nags."
Marie Jackson had never ridden a horse on her own in her life before, let alone been in control of one with wings. But she wasn't going to let that stop her.
She nearly fell off as the horse reared aerially at the sound of a great roar . . . as the weight of the water burst through the wall of Asgard. But she kept her seat somehow, and forced the horse on to the drama unfolding below.
She heard yells behind her, and realized that the better part of her three-hundred-odd Valkyries were also following. They were much better riders. Her horse had gained more height than she'd intended—but that let her see Odin's Einherjar charging upward from the broken wall to answer their master's summons.
Somehow Marie had drawn the sword Gram without cutting herself or the horse. "Get them!" she yelled, pointing. And then, suddenly realizing that she could in fact talk to this stupid animal, she leaned forward. "Get me down there or I'll chop your head off."
Out on Vrigid plain, Loki felt an itch between his shoulder blades that said "Gungnir," and waited for the sally and the attack to his vulnerable rear. He and Fafnir and Hel's corpse-army had cut deep into Surt's demon-troops. The rain had dealt a severe blow to the fire giants, but their flames did not die. So Loki had found he could turn the flames against them. They burned hot and he made them hotter, until they burst, destroying themselves and those around them.
And then came . . . not the sound of Einherjar horns that he'd feared, but a far sweeter sound. A raven caw. It said, "Gjallar is blocked and rising."
"The Einherjar are trying to fix it," said Munin, joining his brother.
"Got any jelly beans?" they demanded in chorus.
It was a good thing that he was fond of the magical beans himself and had brought a few with him. He turned to Fenrir. "Howl! Let the others know that we must press forward hard now."
Fenrir howled. The wolves and Hel's dead took up the sound. It would echo across Asgard. Let Odin know fear, now. From close, far closer than he'd realized, came the answer of the Vanir horns, and then the deep-throated terrible song of Gjallarhorn.
And almost as a reply came the distant roar of water and stone.
"Charge!" shouted Loki. His wolf-steed son needed no urging. Surt's remaining fire giants fled. Thunder roared from the west. On the East, Frey's sword sang.
And then there was space. In front of them stood Surt the fire demon of the East, burning so hot that nothing could stand close. Loki dismounted from Fenrir, and walked forward. Fenrir followed. "Go back, son," said Loki. "Your fur will burn."
"And you?" asked Fenrir.
Loki laughed. "One cannot burn a flame." In the periphery of his vision he saw Thor fling a thunderbolt at Surt. It was ineffectual, as Loki knew it would be. Surt was a creature of flames himself.
Frey and Freyja had halted their chariots. They could come no closer.
So it was up to him.
Again.
He always got the Æsir into messes. This one too had its roots in his deeds and laughter, he knew. And in the end they always wanted him to get them out.
Again.
Well, he was one of the oldest. Not the greatest, but certainly the trickiest.
Surt stood like a tower of flame fifty feet high and as unstoppable as an inferno. The only point that was not flaming was the pyramid pendant around his vast neck. Loki knew that they could still lose here. Surt didn't really need an army.
Loki made him burn hotter.
Surt grew. And laughed, a sound like fire-splintering forest. "No use against me. I feed on that."
Loki smiled. "Then try this." He drew on his frost giant kin. He drew on the cold of Fimbulwinter. He drew the fire down.
Surt shrank visibly. He lashed out with a tongue of flame at Loki—but he might as well have beaten at a fire with a feather. Loki, at the core, was fire. He knew that briefly all those around the circle would see him as he truly was, no matter what form he took. That was unimportant now. He concentrated his will on Surt.
Surt shrank visibly. Now he was barely twenty feet high. Loki drew breath, preparing for the final destruction of the wild flame.
"Enough," said a voice, atonal and quite unlike that of Surt, though it seemed to issue from him. "I am Krim. Stop and I will make you powerful. I will make you the Lord of the Æsir. We should have offered the power of mastery of this Ur-universe to you rather than Odin. He has rebelled and stolen our device's powers. You can have power and mastery over all. We have the power to make you irresistible."
Loki laughed. "I may be quite wicked, but never evil. There is a difference, even if you don't understand it. And unlike Odin, I have no desire to rule. It would bore me to tears to have to be responsible."
"Power means that you are above responsibility," said the Krim.
Loki shook the flames that were his head. "Power without responsibility is evil," he said. He reached out his hands and drew the cold out of Fimbulwinter, the only cold that was strong enough to balance the heat of Surt. Norse myth was a place of balances. "Die, Surt—or Krim. This world doesn't need you."
Loki's exercise of his will drew him down too. But he had his hearth, Sigyn. Her love and that of his children. It gave him something that wildfire could never have.
There was an abrupt purple flash, and Surt fell into a pile of ash.
"Ah," said Odin, as the shadows of the Valkyries passed overhead. "A rescue."
And then a lot of things happened in such close succession that it was hard to tell what happened first.
A rock probably. A three pound rock flung by Lamont, which missed its target—Stephens—but knocked Thjalfi-Harkness off the trail and down onto the rocks below.
Thrúd's axe did not miss. And neither did the explosive detonation of ball-lightning with it.
Odin's eyes widened. So did the trail where Stephens had stood. All that was left of him was an ozone reek.
"Surt is destroyed and the Krim has fled," said the Krim device. "The wall of your fortress has been breached. Flee this world. I will take you to another Mythworld."
Odin clutched at the pendant around his neck. "No! You will do my bidding! I am Odin, the master."
Liz and Lamont spilled down onto the trail behind him.
He turned Sleipnir and lowered his spear. The Einherjar were being aerially harassed by dragons. He would deal with that. He still had Gungnir and his Æsir allies. Thor's daughter wielded a power he feared, but two mortals were no barrier.
Marie saw what was happening and screamed, "Dive!"
Flying horses do not do that well. But she did—right over its neck. She cannoned into Odin. He was kicking his horse into a gallop when he met her coming the other way—fast. Odin was a great horseman, and Sleipnir the greatest horse, but a hundred and forty pound human missile knocked him sideways off the horse.
If the sword in her hand had hit him he would have been a kebab.
Instead it hit the shaft of the spear Gungnir. She lost her hold on the sword but the deadly spear lost its head.
Marie and Odin lay sprawled against the wall, as Sleipnir thundered on, knocking Liz sideways off the trail, and Lamont into the wall.
Jerry had, to his amazement, beaten both Sigyn and Thrúd up the trail. Odin and a gasping Marie fought.
Odin grabbed the sword that Marie had dropped. Jerry knew that neither he nor Lamont was ever going to get there in time. So he threw what he had in his left hand.
Jerry could no more throw a net than he could toss a caber. But this was a magical net, using the same spells that had been used to hold the trickster, Loki. Nothing could escape it. Like Sigurd's magical sword, Gram, in Marie's hands, it took will for the deed, and spread and enveloped and entangled.
Unfortunately, the sword in Odin's hand was Gram, wrought with rune magic and all the skill of the dwarf Reginn. It could cut a shred of wool borne by the stream-flow. It could cut this net too. Not easily, but the net couldn't stop Odin's stroke from wounding Marie, even if it did stop Odin from killing her outright. And now he fought to cut his way free of the tangling mesh.
Marie felt the pain and the blood, and saw the red brightness of the sword. Saw Lamont running closer. Heard him scream.
Well, this bastard might have killed her—but she was dying anyway. He wasn't going to get her man too.
She took the thorn of sleep from her pocket, and pushed it deeply into Odin's butt.
Lamont held her to his chest, crying, as the others arrived. Liz, scratched and bruised, swung her handbag at Odin's head. Twice. He was down and staying that way. Thrúd made doubly sure. She had recovered her axe, and sat down on him.
"Guess it's the end, honey," said Marie weakly. "I love you so much. Take care of the kids."
"You can't die," said Lamont, as if his sheer fierce will could hold her back.
"Hold me, love."
And then Sigyn ran up, took one look and shouted up at the Valkyrie circling above: "Find Idun and bring her here!"
The Valkyrie blinked in surprise. "Idun? I came to ask what you want us to do with the rest of Einherjar."
"Idun. Now! Or I will curse you with a cold hearth for always and always."
The Valkyrie clapped her heels to her horse, as Jerry and Liz tried to staunch the blood from Marie's wound. They were successful in that, but it didn't look as if it was going to make any difference. She was slipping away.
And then, much sooner that they would have thought possible, the Valkyrie returned and dropped an angry Idun next to them.
"Sister, I will not help you," said the Lady of Spring, the rejuvenator, the custodian of the apples of youth. She sounded very cross. "Loki can die, for all I care. He got me kidnapped. And then he turned me into a nut."
Thrúd looked up from her seat on Odin before Sigyn had a chance to reply. "Idun, see who I am sitting on. And understand what this means. Thor is now Lord of the Æsir. If you don't help this woman he's not going to be just angry. We owe her more than we can repay."
"It's not for Loki?" asked Idun, startled.
"Loki has won on the plain," said Sigyn. "Ragnarok will not come. Look—already Fimbulwinter is past and the sun is shining. Your spring comes. Anyway, the flame does not ever need your apples. This woman does."
"She helped Thor to beat his drinking problem," said Thrúd. "And we need her to keep him that way."
Idun nodded. "That we do." She opened her golden casket and took out an apple.
Jerry used the first blade to hand—that was Gram—to cut a sliver off the apple, and insert it between Marie's lips. "Chew if you can. Even the juice helps."
She did, weakly.
Jerry, Liz and the rest of them watched. And then Idun shook her head. "It is not the wound. She must eat the entire apple now. There is much within that needs it. The wound is a slight thing. The other, well . . ."
She looked at Lamont, tears still wet on his cheeks, a look of incredulous hope on his face. "You are her husband?"
He nodded.
Smiling, she took out another apple. "Then you'd better eat this one. A young woman, as she will need to become to take her body back to before it was affected by this disease, would be too much for you otherwise. You'll need your stamina."